The world behind closed doors

Abhinav Kumar

Our tale begins on May 29, 1954, at the Hotel de Bilderberg near the city of Arnhem in the Netherlands. Joseph Retinger, the founder of the European Movement, brought together international leaders from the Western world to work for and promote a better understanding of cultures between America and Europe.

The success of this gathering led to many more conferences in order to create and maintain a network of powerful individuals to strengthen the ties between the two powers in their efforts to retaliate against the USSR and the emerging communist threat.

Nearly 50 years have passed since this first international get-together, and even though the rampant danger of communism is long gone, these world leaders continue to meet in secret.

According to a History Channel special, the Bilderbergers, as they are known, meet once every year at a clandestine location by invitation only. Conferences include 115 of the world’s most powerful businessmen, prominent political leaders, up-and-coming politicians and wealthy industrialists who come together to compare notes, and some say even set agendas.

The press is barred from these meetings, as are citizens of the nations whose leaders have been invited to attend, and there is extreme security.

Previous media-related attendees have included Paul Gigot, editorial page editor for The Wall Street Journal; Donald Graham, chair-man for The Washington Post and Jim Hoagland, associate editor for The Washington Post. But even though these medial moguls have been granted the privilege and invitation of attending the mysterious Bilderberg Conferences, their respective media outlets had nothing to report concerning this newsworthy event.

This year’s Bilderberg Confer-ence was held from June 8 to 11 in Ottowa, Canada. While many of those present were international icons, some attendees came from our own backyard. According to the American Free Press, among those who attended were George Pataki, governor of New York; David Rockefeller, banker and philanthropist; Robert Zoellick, former deputy secretary of state under Condoleezza Rice and Timothy Geithner, the ninth president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Even the University’s Dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs, James Steinberg, attended this year’s conference, according to the American Free Press.

According to a CNN report on the annual conference, the Bilderbergers are “powerful people meeting in secret to influence world events.” The television report described Bilderbergers as globalist centrists who are “into the idea of a world government, a new world order.”

Another popular controversy surrounding the Bilderberg Conference is that the attendees often rise to power after the meeting. For example, Bill Clinton attended the 1991 conference in Germany, two years before he became president of the United States. According to the BBC, Tony Blair also attended a Bilderberg meeting before he became prime minister, along with every recent European Commission president, before they were appointed.

Previous political attendees include Christopher J. Dodd, Democratic senator from Connecticut; Bill Richardson, former secretary of energy and Governor of New Mexico; Chuck Hagel, Republican senator from Nebraska and Evan Bayh, Democratic senator from Indiana, who is seriously considering a bid for the 2008 presidential election.

The press departments from Sens. Bayh’s and Dodd’s offices had no idea what the Bilderberg Conferences were, even though their bosses had attended.

Let’s put aside for a moment the secrecy and questionable legitimacy of these meetings. It is arguable that politicians have a right to be at these conferences, and I understand that. However, politicians are not the only Bilderber guests.

Other powerful attendees include Paul Allaire, chairman of Xerox; James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank and John Thornton, former president and co-COO of the Goldman Sachs Group. Why would the chairman of Xerox need to attend an international conference in such secrecy, especially when an average American citizen isn’t even allowed to attend?

A September 2005 BBC interview with Bilderberg Group chairman Etienne Davignon shed some ambiguous light on this organization. Davignon merely described the group as “people who have influence interested to speak to other people who have influence.” When confronted with controversial idea that Bilderberg filters out leaders to be successful in supposedly democratic elections, Davignon replied that he and his committee are simply excellent talent spotters.

While many of these names and dates are openly available for public viewing on Bilderberg.org, what these people discuss is absolutely not. I would like to question why such secretive, exclusive and influential meetings continue to exist while we are trying to promote and function as a free, democratic society.

I encourage those of you who are interested to research this topic and to ask your elected officials what goes on in these conferences. The next Bilderberg Conference, according to Wikipedia, is speculated to be held sometime in May 2007 in Istanbul, Turkey.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for our mainstream media, business leaders and elected officials to report nothing on this event.