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Probably not much, if anything. Right?!
Anyone who is on the outside looking in will invariably have more questions than answers about this super-secret group comprised of some of the
Today we’re going to dig as deep as we can to tell you the true story of the Bilderberg Group, but first, let’s get a general idea of what this group is all about.
The Bilderberg Group is the unofficial name of the Bilderberg meetings.
It’s also referred to as the Bilderberg conference or Bilderberg Club.
The Bilderberg Group convenes in a three-day forum once a year
to address issues of common interest among representatives from the United States and European nations.
Whatsmore, the Bilderberg Group has been the source of a number of conspiracy theories and rumors
due to the secretive nature of the meetings and the number of high-power people who attend them.
The Bilderberg Meeting has been held for 65 years straight with the exception of 1976,
when the meeting was canceled due to a scandal involving the leader, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.
Meetings have been held in various locations in the participating countries, including the United States, Turkey, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland,
and are usually held in luxury hotels.
Participants spend three days discussing some of the major issues such as climate change, artificial intelligence, free trade, and the future of work.
Let’s take a look back now and see where the Bilderberg Group got its start.
The origin of the Bilderberg Group can be traced to Polish politician Jozef Retinger.
He advocated for an international conference to be held in order to promote better cooperation between European countries and the United States.
He envisioned the U.S. and Europe working closely together on economic, political, and defense issues that affected both regions.
Retinger took this idea to Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who ran with it.
He contacted the head of the CIA, Walter Bedell Smith, who passed the suggestion on to Eisenhower adviser Charles Douglas Jackson.
Jackson and Bernhard worked out the particulars, agreeing that two people from each participating nation,
one liberal and one conservative would be invited to attend the conference.
Ultimately, 11 Americans and fifty delegates representing 11 countries in Western Europe agreed to attend.
The attendees represented the economic, social, political, and cultural sectors of their respective countries.
The first conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands.
It lasted from May 29th to 31st in 1954.
The Bilderberg website states
The initial stated goal of the group was to promote Atlanticism, or the strong relationship between the US and Europe, and prevent another world war.
However, that goal has evolved over the years.
Denis Healry, one of the founding members and a 30-year participant, stated:
"To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair.
But how exactly do they go about achieving this goal?
The meetings follow the Chatham House Rules, a system that has been used since 1927 for debating controversial topics.
Under these rules, any information or opinions presented in discussions could be taken from the meeting and used however the participants saw fit,
but it could never be disclosed who said what or who was part of a particular discussion.
This rule is supposed to foster open debate.
It is an attractive environment to speak freely and candidly without the fear of a controversial soundbite being played to death in the media or torn apart on social media.
At the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, there are no formal action plans, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.
Any reporters that get anywhere near the conference are typically immediately arrested.
The whole conference is shrouded in secrecy, and the privacy of those who attend is a very high priority, but what kind of people are on the guestlist?
A steering committee comprised of two members from 18 participating nations meets twice a year to discuss the participant list and to plan out programs.
Between 120 and 150 people attend the meeting each year, and about one-third of the participants are from America with the other two-thirds coming from Europe.
Roughly, 1/3 participants are politicians or government officials, and the others come from a wide range of sectors, including finance, the media, academia, and industry.
But, of course, these people aren’t just random but are often the most successful in their fields.
A list of participants for every meeting since 1954 is listed on the Bilderberg website in a rare move of transparency.
However, one source connected to the group stated that others whose names are not listed tend to drop by to participate just for a day or two of the forum.
Past participants have included
are all other well-known participants.
Although they claim to have “diverse” representation, less than 25 percent of the participants are women and, as mentioned in a 2017 article in The Guardian,
there were more senior executives of Goldman Sachs in attendance than people of color.
But, let’s look specifically now at the most recent meeting.
According to the available information, the 2019 meeting was held in Montreux, Switzerland, at the Hotel Montreux Palace from May 30 to June 2.
Notable participants included Audrey Azoulay, the director general of UNESCO; Jose Barroso, the chairman of Goldman Sachs International;
Jared Cohen, the CEO of Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.; Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn;
Jared Kushner, son-in-law and senior advisor to President Trump, who was recently impeached;
Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft; and the King of the Netherlands.
The agenda of each meeting dating back to 1954 is also included on the Bilderberg website.
Items on the 2019 agenda included a stable strategic order, what’s next for Europe, climate change, China, Russia, Brexit, the future of capitalism,
the ethics of artificial intelligence, the weaponization of social media, the importance of space, and cyber threats.
The current chairman presiding over the group is Henri de Castries, a French businessman.
And, that’s just about all of the public information that is known about this meeting,
and of course the lack of information has led to plenty of rumors and speculations about the group.
Due to the secretive nature of the group, conspiracy theories have always been associated with Bilderberg since its founding.
Most of these center on the intentions of the group; those on the left side of the political spectrum accuse the group of working to impose capitalist domination,
while those on the right side suspect the group of conspiring to impose a world government and a planned economy.
The former chairman, Etienne Davignon, addressed this by saying,
In addition to the more extreme conspiracy theories, there are many concerns connected with the geopolitical influence of such a powerful group
While an altruistic view is that the group is working for the greater good, it is hardly conceivable that all these influential leaders in their fields
aren’t considering their own interests in this setting.
Lobbying is a major concern as a number of the attendees are senior members of powerful lobbying groups.
While the Bilderberg Group’s official stance is that the conference has no desired outcome,
you can bet that many of the participants have their own agendas of what they’d like to accomplish
at this convergence of what many consider to be the transnational elite.
An article in The Guardian about Bilderberg put it like this:
The Bilderberg Group is a well-established institution that only seems to be gaining in influence and significance.
While the group continues to go to great lengths to maintain the secrecy of the conference, including spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on security,
more and more people are demanding to know just what is going on behind closed doors with all of those powerful people.
For now, it will largely remain a mystery.
It seems we’ll know when they want us to know, when they want us to know it, which doesn’t look to be any time soon.
And Aluxers, for a comprehensive account of the history and practices of the Bilderberg Group,
check out The True Story of the Bilderberg Group.
Author Daniel Estulin has worked relentlessly over the years to find out what goes on behind the closed door of the conference,
and what he divulges in this book is nothing short of fascinating.
You can save $25 on this book by going to alux.com/freebook.
If it's your first time signing up you'll get the audiobook version for free thanks to our partnership with Audible!
Now that we’re wrapping up this story, we’d like to know Aluxers:
Let us know what you think in the comments.
And, of course, for sticking with us until the end, here's your
Prince Bernhard was implicated in the Lockheed Bribery Scandal and admitted to accepting a $1.1 million bribe from the US aerospace company
so that the Dutch government would buy their planes.
The 1973 Bilderberg meeting was supposed to be held in the United States,
but it was canceled because of his involvement in the scandal, and he was removed as chairman.
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