The Bilderberg Meeting (also known as the "Bilderberg Group", "Bilderberg Conference" or "Bilderberg Club") is an annual off-the-record forum established in 1954 to foster dialogue between
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
and
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
. The group's agenda, originally to prevent another
world war
A world war is an international War, conflict that involves most or all of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World War I ...
, is now defined as bolstering a consensus around
free market
In economics, a free market is an economic market (economics), system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of ...
Western
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
and its interests around the globe. Participants include
political leaders,
experts
An expert is somebody who has a broad and deep understanding and competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field or area of study. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognize ...
, captains of
industry
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial sector ...
,
finance
Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...
,
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
, numbering between 120 and 150. Attendees are entitled to use information gained at meetings, but not attribute it to a named speaker (known as the
Chatham House Rule
Under the Chatham House Rule, anyone who comes to a meeting is free to use information from the discussion, but is not allowed to reveal who made any particular comment. It is designed to increase openness of discussion. The rule is a system for ...
). The group states that the purpose of this is to encourage candid debate while at the same time maintaining privacy, but critics from a wide range of viewpoints have called it into question, and it has provoked
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
...
from both the
left
Left may refer to:
Music
* ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006
* ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016
* ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023
* "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996
Direction
* Left (direction), the relativ ...
and
right
Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of freedom or Entitlement (fair division), entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal sy ...
.
Meetings were chaired by
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands until 1975. The current Chairman is French businessman
Henri de Castries. Since 1954, the meeting has taken place every year except in 1976, when it was cancelled due to the
Lockheed bribery scandals
The Lockheed bribery scandals encompassed bribes and contributions made by officials of U.S. aerospace company Lockheed from the late 1950s to the 1970s in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft. The scandal caused considerable pol ...
involving Prince Bernhard, and in 2020 and 2021 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
.
The 70th Bilderberg Meeting took place from May 30th to June 2nd 2024 in
Madrid
Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
,
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
.
Origin
The first conference holds its name from the location where it was first held from the 29th to the 31st of May 1954; the Bilderberg Hotel (Hotel De Bilderberg) in
Oosterbeek
Oosterbeek is a village in the eastern part of Netherlands. It is located in the municipality of Renkum in the province of Gelderland, about west of Arnhem.
The oldest part of Oosterbeek is the Benedendorp (Lower Village), on the northern bank ...
,
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
.
[''Atlas Obscura'',]
Hotel de Bilderberg
The hotel also gave its name to the attendees of the conference, the "Bilderbergers". The hotel is situated in a quiet location, approximately 7 kilometers west of the city of
Arnhem
Arnhem ( ; ; Central Dutch dialects, Ernems: ''Èrnem'') is a Cities of the Netherlands, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands, near the German border. It is the capita ...
.
[Gijswijt, Thomas, W.,
]
Informal Alliance: The Bilderberg Group and Transatlantic Relations during the Cold War, 1952–1968
' (2018), Routledge. "The Hotel de Bilderberg was a medium-sized family-run hotel, chosen mainly for its quiet and remote location in the forests of the eastern Netherlands. It was not a particularly fancy hotel...but security was relatively easy to maintain since there was only one access road." It is owned and operated by the Bilderberg hotel chain, which runs 12 hotels and an event location in the Netherlands and one hotel in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
. At the time of the 1954 conference, it was a medium-sized family-run hotel.
The conference was initiated by several people, including
Polish politician-in-exile
Józef Retinger who, concerned about the growth of
anti-Americanism
Anti-Americanism (also called anti-American sentiment and Americanophobia) is a term that can describe several sentiments and po ...
in Western Europe, proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting
Atlanticism
Atlanticism, also known as Transatlanticism or North Atlanticism, is the ideology which advocates a close alliance between nations in Northern America (the United States and Canada) and in Europe on political, economic, and defense issues. The te ...
—better understanding between the cultures of the United States and
Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...
to foster cooperation on political, economic, and defense issues.
Retinger approached
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands who agreed to promote the idea, together with former
Belgian prime minister
The prime minister of Belgium (; ; ) or the premier of Belgium is the head of the federal government of Belgium, and the most powerful person in Belgian politics.
The first head of government in Belgian history was Henri van der Noot in 179 ...
Paul van Zeeland
Paul Guillaume, Viscount van Zeeland (11 November 1893 – 22 September 1973) was a Belgian lawyer, economist, Catholic politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Belgium from 1935 to 1937.
Biography
van Zeeland was born in Soi ...
, and the then head of
Unilever
Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...
,
Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted
Walter Bedell Smith
General (United States), General Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith (5 October 1895 – 9 August 1961) was a senior officer (armed forces), officer of the United States Army who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff at Allied Forc ...
, the then head of the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
, who asked
Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
adviser
Charles Douglas Jackson
Charles Douglas (C. D.) Jackson (March 16, 1902 – September 18, 1964) was a United States government psychological warfare advisor and senior executive of Time Inc. As an expert on psychological warfare he served in the Office of War Information ...
to deal with the suggestion.
The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent "conservative" and "liberal" points of view.
Fifty delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe attended the first conference, along with 11 Americans.
The success of the meeting led the organizers to arrange an annual conference. A permanent steering committee was established with Retinger appointed as permanent secretary. As well as organizing the conference, the steering committee also maintained a register of attendee names and contact details with the aim of creating an informal network of individuals who could call upon one another in a private capacity.
Conferences were held in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, Germany, and
Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
over the following three years. In 1957, the first U.S. conference was held on
St. Simons Island, Georgia, with $30,000 from the
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...
. The foundation also supplied funding for the 1959 and 1963 conferences.
Participants
The participants are between 120 and 150 people, including
political leaders, experts from
industry
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial sector ...
,
finance
Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...
,
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
,
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
and the
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Means of communication, tools and channels used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Interactive media, media that is inter ...
.
About two thirds of the participants come from Europe and the rest from North America; one third from
politics
Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
and
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...
and the rest from other fields.
Historically, attendee lists have been weighted toward bankers, politicians, directors of large businesses
and board members from large publicly traded corporations, including
Wallenberg-owned conglomerate holding company
Investor AB
Investor AB is a Swedish investment and holding company, often considered a ''de facto'' conglomerate. One of Sweden's largest companies, Investor AB serves as the investment arm of the prominent Swedish Wallenberg family; the family's compani ...
and other Wallenberg-owned multinationals such as
Ericsson
(), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...
and
ABB,
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
,
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...
,
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company, headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...
,
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...
and
Daimler.
Heads of state, including former
King
King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...
Juan Carlos I of Spain
Juan Carlos I (; Juan Carlos Alfonso VÃctor MarÃa de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias, born 5 January 1938) is a member of the Spanish royal family who reigned as King of Spain from 22 November 1975 until Abdication of Juan Carlos I, his abdic ...
and former
Queen
Queen most commonly refers to:
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen (band), a British rock band
Queen or QUEEN may also refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Q ...
Beatrix of the Netherlands
Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as List of monarchs of the Netherlands, Queen of the Netherlands from 30 April 1980 until her abdication in 2013.
Beatrix was born ...
, have attended meetings.
A source connected to the group told ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'' in 2013 that others, whose names are not publicly issued, sometimes turn up "just for the day" at the group's meetings.
The Swedish banker and industrialist
Marcus Wallenberg Jr. was a member of the steering committee and attended the meeting twenty-two times from the 1950s to 1981, a year prior to his death. His grandson
Marcus Wallenberg has attended it eight times and his other grandson,
Jacob Wallenberg, seventeen times.
Meetings
Activities and goals
The group's original goal of promoting
Atlanticism
Atlanticism, also known as Transatlanticism or North Atlanticism, is the ideology which advocates a close alliance between nations in Northern America (the United States and Canada) and in Europe on political, economic, and defense issues. The te ...
, strengthening US-European relations, and preventing another world war has grown. According to Andrew Kakabadse, the Bilderberg Group's theme is to "bolster a consensus around
free-market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe".
In 2001,
Denis Healey
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey (30 August 1917 – 3 October 2015) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970; he remains the lo ...
, a Bilderberg group founder and a steering committee member for 30 years, said, "To say we were striving for a
one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."
According to the web page of the group, the meetings are conducted under the
Chatham House Rule
Under the Chatham House Rule, anyone who comes to a meeting is free to use information from the discussion, but is not allowed to reveal who made any particular comment. It is designed to increase openness of discussion. The rule is a system for ...
, allowing the participants to use any information they gained during the meeting, but not to disclose the names of the speakers or any other participants. According to former chairman
Étienne Davignon
Étienne, Count Davignon (; born 4 October 1932) is a Belgium, Belgian former diplomat, top civil servant, businessman, and former vice-president of the European Commission, also known as an active participant in organization of the murder of P ...
in 2011, a major attraction of Bilderberg group meetings is that they provide an opportunity for participants to speak and debate candidly and to find out what major figures really think, without the risk of off-the-cuff comments becoming fodder for controversy in the media.
A 2008 press release from the "American Friends of Bilderberg" stated that "Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference and that at the meetings, no resolutions were proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued."
However, in November 2009, the group hosted a dinner meeting at the
Château of Val-Duchesse
The Château of Val-Duchesse ( ; ) is a château and estate in the municipality of Auderghem in Brussels, Belgium. The château, which occupies the site of a former priory, is owned by the Belgian Royal Trust.
History
The priory for women ...
in Brussels outside its annual conference to promote the candidacy of
Herman Van Rompuy for
President of the European Council
The president of the European Council is the person presiding over and driving forward the work of the European Council on the world stage. This Institutions of the European Union, institution comprises the college of heads of state or governme ...
.
Organizational structure
Meetings are organized by a steering committee with two members from each of approximately 18 nations.
Official posts include a chairman and an Honorary Secretary General.
The group's rules do not contain a membership category but former participants receive the annual conference reports. The only category that exists is "member of the steering committee". Besides the committee, there is a separate advisory group with overlapping membership.
[Entry for ]Conrad Black
Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour (born 25 August 1944), is a Canadian-British writer and former politician, Publishing, newspaper publisher, Investor, financier, and Fraudster, convicted fraudster.
Black's father was businessma ...
,
Dutch economist
Ernst van der Beugel became permanent secretary in 1960, upon Retinger's death. Prince Bernhard continued to serve as the meeting's chairman until 1976, the year of his involvement in the
Lockheed affair. The position of Honorary American Secretary General has been held successively by
Joseph E. Johnson of the
Carnegie Endowment
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., with operations in Europe, South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the United States. Founde ...
;
William Bundy of
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
;
Theodore L. Eliot Jr., former
U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan; and
Casimir A. Yost of
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...
's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
According to James A. Bill, the "steering committee usually met twice a year to plan programs and to discuss the participant list".
In 2002, in ''
Them: Adventures with Extremists'', author
Jon Ronson
Jon Ronson (born 10 May 1967) is a British-American journalist, author, and filmmaker. He is known for works such as '' Them: Adventures with Extremists'' (2001), '' The Men Who Stare at Goats'' (2004), and '' The Psychopath Test'' (2011).
H ...
wrote that the group has a small central office in Holland which each year decides what country will host the forthcoming meeting. The host country then has to book an entire hotel for four days, plus arrange catering, transport and security. To fund this, the host solicits donations from sympathetic corporations such as
Barclays
Barclays PLC (, occasionally ) is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services ...
,
Fiat Automobiles
Fiat Automobiles S.p.A., commonly known as simply Fiat ( , ; ), is an Italian automobile manufacturer. It became a part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2014 and, in 2021, became a subsidiary of Stellantis through its Italian division, Stellant ...
,
GlaxoSmithKline
GSK plc (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with headquarters in London. It was established in 2000 by a Mergers an ...
,
Heinz
The Kraft Heinz Foods Company, formerly the H. J. Heinz Company and commonly known as Heinz (), is an American food processing company headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Henry J. Heinz in 1869. ...
,
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...
and
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...
.
Chairmen of the Steering Committee
Criticism
There have been long standing concerns about
lobbying
Lobbying is a form of advocacy, which lawfully attempts to directly influence legislators or government officials, such as regulatory agency, regulatory agencies or judiciary. Lobbying involves direct, face-to-face contact and is carried out by va ...
, since senior policymakers meet with corporate lobbyists, and in the case of the 2015 meeting even with senior figures at
Transparency International
Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil s ...
.
Partly because of its working methods to ensure strict privacy and secrecy, the Bilderberg Group has been criticised for its lack of transparency and accountability.
Ian Richardson sees Bilderberg as the transnational
power elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (, from , to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful or wealthy people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. Defined by the ...
, "an integral, and to some extent critical, part of the existing system of
global governance
Global governance (or world governance) refers to institutions that coordinate the behavior of transnationality, transnational actors, facilitate cooperation, resolve disputes, and alleviate collective action problems. Global governance broadly ...
", that is "not acting in the interests of the whole". Many of these critics have emphasized that they do not accept or do not believe that there is enough evidence to support the diversity of conspiracy theories that have arisen in regard to the group and that they disapprove of what they regard as their unpleasant associations and connotations.
For example, an article by the English commentator Charlie Skelton in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' in June 2017 criticized the world view expressed in an agenda published by the Bilderberg group without engaging in speculation about conspiratorial activities.
Conspiracy theories
The secrecy of the proceedings has led not only to varied criticism of the group and its activities from across the political spectrum but also to a number of
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
...
,
which have grown especially popular within certain political movements, although the different factions of theorists often disagree about the exact nature of the group's intentions and use different sources and levels of evidentiary rigor to back up their conjectures. Some on the left, or of less specific political affiliations, accuse the Bilderberg group either of covertly imposing or generally propping up capitalist domination and corporate power,
while some on the right have accused the group of imposing or helping to prepare the way for a
world government
World government is the concept of a single political authority governing all of Earth and humanity. It is conceived in a variety of forms, from tyrannical to democratic, which reflects its wide array of proponents and detractors.
There has ...
and a global
planned economy
A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, ...
. The right-wing theorists tend to treat the group as the central directorate or planning arm of the conspiracy or at least attribute considerable importance to its role, whereas most of the left-wing and more loosely-affiliated or apolitical theorists treat it as just one of a set of institutions that help to advance international corporate interests and ideology.
In 2005, Davignon discussed accusations of the group striving for a one-world government with the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
: "It is unavoidable and it doesn't matter. There will always be people who believe in conspiracies but things happen in a much more incoherent fashion. ... When people say this is a secret government of the world I say that if we were a secret government of the world we should be bloody ashamed of ourselves."
In a 1994 report, ''Right Woos Left'', published by the
Political Research Associates, investigative journalist
Chip Berlet
John Foster "Chip" Berlet (; born November 22, 1949) is an American investigative journalist, research analyst, photojournalist, scholar, and activist specializing in the study of extreme right-wing movements in the United States. He also studie ...
argued that
right-wing populist
Right-wing populism, also called national populism and right populism, is a political ideology that combines right-wing politics with populist rhetoric and themes. Its rhetoric employs anti- elitist sentiments, opposition to the Establishm ...
conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg group date back to as early as 1964 and can be found in
Phyllis Schlafly's self-published book ''A Choice, Not an Echo'', which promoted a
conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
* ...
in which the
Republican Party was secretly controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberg group, whose
internationalist policies would pave the way for
world communism
World communism, also known as global communism or international communism, is a form of communism placing emphasis on an international scope rather than being individual communist states. The long-term goal of world communism is an unlimited ...
.
In August 2010, former Cuban president
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...
wrote an article for the
Cuban Communist Party newspaper ''
Granma'' in which he cited
Daniel Estulin's 2006 book ''The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club'', which, as quoted by Castro, describes "sinister cliques and the Bilderberg lobbyists" manipulating the public "to install a world government that knows no borders and is not accountable to anyone but its own self."
Proponents of Bilderberg conspiracy theories in the United States include such groups and individuals such as the
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society (JBS) is an American right-wing political advocacy group. Founded in 1958, it is anti-communist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, right-wing populist, and ...
,
political activist Phyllis Schlafly,
writer
Jim Tucker,
political activist
Lyndon LaRouche
Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche Jr. (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2019) was an American political activist who founded the LaRouche movement and its main organization, the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). He was a prominent conspiracy ...
,
conspiracy theorist
Alex Jones
Alexander Emerick Jones (born February 11, 1974) is an American Far-right politics, far-right radio host, radio show host and prominent conspiracy theorist. He hosts ''The Alex Jones Show'' from Austin, Texas. ''The Alex Jones Show'' is the lo ...
,
and politician
Jesse Ventura
Jesse Ventura (born James George Janos; July 15, 1951) is an American politician, political commentator, actor, media personality, and retired professional wrestler. After achieving fame in the WWE, World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), he ...
, who made the Bilderberg group a topic of a 2009 episode of his
TruTV
TruTV (stylized as truTV) is an American basic cable Television channel, channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel primarily broadcasts reruns of Television comedy, comedy, Reality television, docusoaps and reality shows, with a rec ...
series ''
Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura''. Although conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg Group have gained the most widespread credence by far in the United States, some high-profile non-American proponents have raised them as well, including Moldovan-Italian writer
Nicolai Lilin, Lithuanian writer
Daniel Estulin and British politician
Nigel Farage
Nigel Paul Farage ( ; born 3 April 1964) is a British politician and broadcaster who has been Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Clacton (UK Parliament constituency), Clacton and Leader of Reform UK since 20 ...
.
See also
*
Bohemian Club
*
Le Cercle
Le Cercle is a invitation-only foreign policy forum. Initially its focus was opposing communism and, in the 1970s and 1980s, supporting apartheid when the group had intimate ties with and funding from South Africa. The group was described by Briti ...
*
Transnational capitalist class
*
Trilateral Commission
The Trilateral Commission is a nongovernmental international organization aimed at fostering closer cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America. It was founded in July 1973, principally by American banker and philanthropist David ...
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Valdai Discussion Club
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World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...
References
Further reading
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* – A short essay on the origins of the group
External links
Official websiteof the Bilderberg conference (since 2010)
Hotel Website – English VersionBilderberg: The Ultimate Conspiracy Theory*
{{Authority control
1954 establishments in the Netherlands
Conspiracy theories
Organizations established in 1954
Transnationalism
Conspiracy theories in the Netherlands
Recurring events established in 1954