The Bilderberg Group: Facts & Fiction Read online

  Introduction

  Every Spring since 1954 an elite group of around one hundred of the world’s most powerful politicians, businessmen, bankers, media executives, and international royalty have been quietly gathering for a secret meeting in an evacuated five-star hotel while being protected by armed guards who stand watch. Inside, for three days, the attendees engage in lengthy off-the-record talks about the top issues facing the world. They’re called the Bilderberg Group, or often just “Bilderberg” for short, and for over a half century there wasn’t much more than a peep about the meeting in the American mainstream media.

  For decades, many people believed this meeting was an urban legend, but as you will soon see, it is very real and very well documented. Rumors about the Bilderberg Group do seem like something out of a Hollywood movie with the cliché claims of a “secret meeting” of a group of wealthy men trying to “take over the world,” but “as crazy as it sounds,” in recent years a lot of allegations about the Bilderberg Group that had floated around on the Internet began to surface in some mainstream publications. To many people’s surprise, such a meeting exists, and the “rumors” were true.

  Between 100 to 120 of the world’s top politicians, businessmen, financial fat cats, military leaders, heads of intelligence agencies, reporters, and executives from major media outlets fly half way around the world to gather once a year in the end of May or early June in a closed down fancy hotel for three days and are protected by private security contractors and local police who stand watch outside to prevent any uninvited guests from dropping by. Temporary security fences are even set up to prevent anyone from stepping foot on the property, and attempt to block the view from any onlookers who are watching from across the street to see who shows up.

  The attendees arrive one after the other in tinted Lincoln Town Cars driven by professional drivers. Independent journalists and photographers have been able to discover the time and place for many of these meetings in recent years and have gotten clear photographs of some of the men and women who have attended, but most still refuse to even acknowledge they know anything about it.

  Some people refer to them as “the 1%” but this label is far from accurate if you do the math. One percent of the earth’s seven billion people is 70 million people! Bilderberg is more like the .00001% which is approximately 700 people, a figure that accounts for the steering committee and the regular attendees over the past few decades.

  The meeting is named after the Bilderberg Hotel located in Oosterbeck, Holland, which was the site of their first gathering organized by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands in 1954. Then, and still today, attendees agree not to discuss publicly who was in attendance or what specifically was discussed, and (until recently at least) most of them have denied any knowledge of the Bilderberg Group at all when—on the rare occasion—someone asked them about it—usually a citizen journalist or YouTuber.

  For decades, news of the shadowy Bilderberg Group spread in so-called “anti-government” Patriot circles, in underground newsletters, and “conspiracy” websites, until the advent of YouTube and social media finally forced some major mainstream media outlets to admit that Bilderberg is real and some very powerful people attend. After these decades of news blackouts, with the rise of social media and video sharing sites like YouTube, slowly more and more major news outlets have begun to at least mention the Bilderberg Group, albeit ever so briefly, and usually including the caveat that “conspiracy theorists” are upset or “paranoid” about them. Through the increase in popularity of alternative news websites and the emergence of social media, more and more people began learning about this strange and secretive meeting, and it got to a point where mainstream outlets basically had to at least mention it was happening in attempts to avoid looking like they were covering it up by purposefully avoiding the issue.1

  For years, if anyone called into any of the major syndicated talk radio shows like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and others, and told the call screener they wanted to ask about the Bilderberg Group, that person’s call would never be put through. “We’re not taking calls on that right now, sorry. Click.” If the person calling gave the call screener a bogus question and happened to be put on air and then asked the host about the Bilderbergers, they would be ridiculed and the call would be dropped immediately (something that’s happened to me many times).2

  Why not take it seriously? Why pretend for so many years they don’t exist? Are these radio talk show hosts and other major news editors and reporters “in on it?” Has there been a “conspiracy” to keep the meeting out of the press? It’s foolish to deny that there hasn’t been an arrangement between the Bilderberg Group and the American mainstream media to keep them out of the news and to have the top political analysts and talk show hosts pretend like they don’t know anything about them all these years. When 100 of the world’s most influential politicians, media owners, banking executives, and business elite fly half way around the world to meet for three days in a closed down luxury hotel that’s fenced off and surrounded by armed guards, nobody can say that’s not a newsworthy or interesting event!

  Critics see this small, tightly knit group as an Aristocracy or an Oligarchy, comprised of men (and some women) who see themselves as having the right to rule because of their wealth and “superior intelligence” who put their own interests above anyone else’s—with little to no regard for the consequences. Without the proper checks and balances put in place, which was the intention of the Founding Fathers when they split the government into three different branches (Executive, Judicial, and Legislative) in what’s called the separation of powers, a government can become so powerful it is difficult to oppose them when their actions are unfair or illegal. And when their discussions aren’t open to public scrutiny it makes keeping them in check even more difficult.

  Many people believe that this meeting is possibly a violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments, a law that was implemented to prevent people from interfering with international relations between the United States and other countries. It specifically states, “Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

  Is the Bilderberg Group negotiating foreign policy? Is this where the ruling elite come to a consensus to guide the direction of the world in their favor? Or is it simply “just another conference?” Or, are the “conspiracy theorists” right? What is the evidence? How were they first discovered? What are they doing? And should the public be concerned? Do they choose who the next president of the United States will be? Do they covertly coordinate economic booms and busts?

  Do they manipulate foreign policy and decide which wars will be launched and when from behind these closed doors? Is this annual meeting of the power elite really just not interesting or newsworthy? Has there been a cover-up or a conspiracy to keep them out of the headlines? Why the secrecy and the denials for so many years? Is this the “shadow government?” Those questions and more will be answered in The Bilderberg Group: Facts & Fiction.

  The Marriott hotel in Chantilly, Virginia protected by a temporary privacy and security fence set up for the 2012 meeting.

  protesters trying to identify the attendees as they arrive for
the 2012 meeting in Chantilly, Virginia.

  The Attendees

  Each year the list of attendees reads like a who’s who of the ruling class. Just a small sample of some of the people who attend are: David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, who have both been regular attendees for decades (and helped finance the group as is shown on their tax returns); banking bigwigs like the CEOs or chairmen from Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, American Express, etc; not to mention the head and former head of the Federal Reserve Bank like Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan, as well as U.S. Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and other international financial fat cats like the head of the World Bank and the IMF.3

  In the tech world we’ve seen Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt;4 Jeff Bezos CEO of Amazon.com (just before buying the Washington Post in 2013);5 Louis Gerstner the CEO of IBM; Peter Thiel, founder of Pay Pal and major investor in Facebook; as well as Chris Hughes, the co-founder of Facebook and other tech titans all attend.

  Over the years leading media figures such as the publisher of the Washington Post, as well as the chief editors of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, and other major newspapers and magazines have all attended or regularly attend. Executives from the top television networks like News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch and representatives from ABC, NBC, and CBS are also key fixtures, as well as popular political commentators and reporters.

  Top military brass and U.S. intelligence figures like David Petraeus (former head of the CIA), General Michael Haden (former NSA chief), General Keith Alexander (current head of the NSA);6 Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense and one of the architects of the Iraq War; General Colin Powell; NATO’s Secretary General, the head of Britain’s Secret Service; and others are also regular attendees.

  Top American politicians like Secretary of State John Kerry, Senators John Edwards, Tom Daschele, Chuck Hagel, Hillary Clinton have all attended; as well as members of British Parliament and European royalty. Even Presidents Clinton and Ford (before they were elected). No seated president ever attends because their schedule and whereabouts is so closely monitored they couldn’t risk brining so much attention to the event.

  Could all these globalist movers and shakers be getting together just to have coffee and hang out? Or, as many believe, could this think tank be a place where an elite consensus is arrived about how to best maintain and expand their power and influence?

  The British newspaper The Observer (sister paper to The Guardian) surprisingly ran an article back in 1963 that remarked, “These people [Bilderbergers] maintain that the future belongs to technocrats, because the rumor among them is that the grave questions of international affairs are too delicate to be left in the hands of diplomats. However, the ‘clandestiny’ of their debates shows that they only seek one thing: effective domination over the peoples of the world, but by dissimulating [concealing] themselves and by leaving the responsibility of the governments in the hands of petty politicians.”7

  Protesters trying to get a photo of who is arriving in the back of this tinted lincoln town car at 2012 bilderberg meeting.

  Recent Meetings

  The conference is held in various countries throughout Europe at luxury hotels and usually every fourth year it returns to the United States—on election years, which is no coincidence—often meeting in Chantilly, Virginia which is just a short drive outside Washington D.C. This makes it convenient for politicians and the Eastern Establishment in New York City to attend without drawing too much suspicion since they don’t have to leave the country and create a cover story for their prolonged absence.

  The entire hotel is cleared out around noon the day before the meeting and no reservations are accepted during this time so only Bilderberg members and guests are allowed in the hotel. Actually—to be more specific—only members and guests are allowed on the property since barricades and temporary fences are set up and local police and private security teams patrol the perimeter and guard the entrances.

  The hotels which are chosen are secluded on large plots of land, and never downtown in a major city. This makes it easier for members and guests to arrive without being identified. If the meeting were held at a hotel in downtown Manhattan for example, onlookers could easily hang out on the side walk or across the street to catch a glimpse (or take photos or video) of the attendees coming or going. It is for this reason the location is always at a resort-style hotel with plenty of land, hidden away from nearby streets and neighboring buildings.

  The hotel staff is also sworn to secrecy and may likely be coerced into signing non-disclosure agreements to prevent them from talking to the press (and the protesters). When I was at the Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia the day before it was cleared out for the 2012 Bilderberg meeting, I asked the bar tender if he knew what was about to happen over the next few days and he said he couldn’t talk about it.

  There is a core group of regulars, many of whom have been involved for decades. A steering committee decides who is invited and what topics will be disguised. Each day’s meeting is broken up into two sessions in the morning and two sessions in the afternoon, except the final day which only has the two morning sessions. A different topic is discussed during each session. Some recent meeting locations and dates are as follows:

  •2015 Telfs, Austria (May 29th - June 3rd) at the Interalpen hotel.

  •2014 Copenhagen, Denmark (May 29th - June 3rd) at the Marriott hotel.

  •2013 Watford, United Kingdom (June 8th - 9th) at the Grove Hotel.

  •2012 Chantilly, Virginia, USA (May 31st - June 3rd) at Westfields Marriott hotel.

  •2011 St. Moritz, Switzerland (June 9th - 12th) at the Suvretta House.

  •2010 Sitges, Spain (June 3rd - 7th) at the Hotel Dolce.

  •2009 Vouliagmeni, Greece (May 14th - 17th) at the Astir Palace resort.

  •2008 Chantilly, Virginia, USA (June 5th - 8th) at the Westfields Marriott.

  •2007 Istanbul, Turkey (May 31st - June 3rd) at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Sisli.

  •2006 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (June 8th - 11th) at the Brookstreet Hotel in Kanata.

  •2005 Rottach-Egern, Germany (May 5th - 8th ) at the Dorint Sofitel Seehotel Überfahrt.

  a few hundred protesters show their disapproval of bilderberg 2012

  How Were They First Discovered?

  In 1957 a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist named Westbrook Pegler who wrote for Scripps Howard News Service, the Chicago Tribune, and other papers, published the first article on the Bilderberg Group—although he didn’t know their name at the time—his report marked the beginning of the unraveling of one of the most interesting “conspiracy theories” of all time.

  Pegler wrote, “Something very mysterious is going on when a strange assortment of 67 self-qualified, polyglot [bilingual] designers and arbiters of the economic and political fate of our western world go into a secret huddle on an island of Brunswick, GA and not a word gets into the popular press beyond a little routine AP story. These gumshoe super state architects and monetary schemers were drawn from all NATO countries. The fact of this weird conclave as spooky as any midnight meeting of the Ku Klux Klan in a piney woods, was bound to get known to the world eventually.”8

  He continued to explain how he first learned of this meeting, saying, “I got my first word of it from a reader who happened onto St. Simon Island, Brunswick, [Georgia] on her way to West Palm Beach. She wrote that the hotel on St. Simon was almost deserted, but that when she commented on this, the clerk said the place had been alive with mysterious characters a few days earlier and with Secret Service and FBI too.”

  While not yet knowing their name, Westbrook did see similarities between this meeting and the secret Jekyll Island meeting that was held in 1910 by a small group of America’s elite where they discussed and drew up plans for the Federal Reserve Banking System. He said, “Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island, called this one into being. He was the father
of Winthrop Aldrich. There have been many excited versions of that ancient hoe-down on Jekyll Island, but relatively few have ever heard of it all.”

  After he began criticizing executives of the powerful Hearst Corporation, which owned and controlled almost 30 different newspapers in America at the time, he was fired. Hearst newspapers literally created “yellow journalism” which refers to sensationalistic headlines and careless reporting with a disregard for the facts in order to sell more newspapers, something that has pretty much become standard practice in American mainstream media.

  A man named Willis Carto read Westbrook Pegler’s article about this intriguing meeting and it inspired him to begin investigating the issue himself. A year after Westbrook Pegler’s article came out, Willis Carto began publishing a newsletter called Liberty Lowdown and would later begin publishing a newspaper called The Spotlight which was largely dedicated to tracking and exposing this elusive group.

  Over two decades later, a reporter named Jim Ticker would learn of the Bilderberg Group when going to work for The Spotlight. Tucker immediately became obsessed with them, and would later become the world’s foremost expert on the meeting. Tucker explained, “Had it not been for Willis A. Cato, who hired me as editor of The Spotlight and then put me on the tack of Bilderberg, I would probably—almost assuredly—never heard of the word ‘Bilderberg.’ Having had the opportunity, through Carto’s good offices as founder of Liberty Lobby, publisher of The Spotlight, to begin what ultimately proved to be a generation of world-wide Bilderberg-hunting, I was able to bring news about Bilderberg to literally millions of folks who would like myself have otherwise remained in the dark about these globalist schemers.”9

  Tucker had somehow gained the support of an insider who would leak information to him every year about the location and date of the meeting, as well as attendee lists and other details. Tucker obsessively tracked the Bilderberg Group from 1975 until his death in 2013 at the age of 78. His book, titled Jim Tucker’s Bilderberg Diary contains decades of information about where the Bilderbergers met, who was in attendance, and what was discussed.10