An extract translated from the newspaper Politiken, Denmark 19/03/00

An extract translated from the newspaper
Politiken, Denmark 19/03/00

Bilderberg

By Jens Kerte

The Bilderberg Group was established on initiative of the "grey eminences of the After War policy in Europe", and the founder of the European Movement, the British exile Pole dr. Joseph H. Retinger, with help from his friend Prince Bernhard of Holland, who became the first Chairman.

The group and the yearly meetings has its name from Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek in Holland, where the first of until now 47 confidential conferences took place May 29th - 31^st

1954. From USA was the American Secret Service the then President of CIA, General Walter Bedell Smith and the Rocke-feller family present from the beginning.

The conservative, Danish Minister Of Foreign Affairs from 1950 to 1953, Ole Bjoern Kraft, was in the inner circle of half a score of figures already at the later first preparatory meeting of the Bilderberg Group in a private flat in Paris September 25th 1952.

The philosophy behind the transatlantic grouping centered round the NATO-countries was in the Cold War to create a discrete forum where a picked circle of the leaders of the West within policy, economy, industry and the press peacefully and without knowledge of the public could discuss strategies to protect the values of the democratic world against the rising threat from Sovjet Union and Communism. The idea was also to strengthen Europe internally, and to tie close connections to USA. After the fall of the socialism east of the former Iron Curtain, the agenda on the still confidential meetings another with more general issues within e.g. global policy, economy, defence and environment besides the topical events to discus-sion.

The Inner Circle in Bilderberg consists of a self-supplementary Steering Committee of about 30 figures from USA and Europe, which invite about 90 international power brokers more inclu-ded several repeats to the yearly, closed conference. In the latest years also with participation of top politicians from the former East Block.

Prince Bernhard was the Chairman of Bilderberg for 22 years until 1976, when he resigned in connection with his involvement in the corruption affair of the aeroplane factory Lockheed. For the same reason the Bilderberg Meeting was cancelled that year. The later chairmen is the former Prime

Minister Lord Home, former Kanzler Walther Scheel, Lord Roll, President of the banking firm Warburg Group, the former General Secretary Of NATO, Lord Carrington and Etienne Davignon, former Vice Chairman of the European

Commission.

The financing of of the yearly Bilderberg Meetings is in charge of private fund-raising of the members of the Steerings Committee in the host country, while the participants take care of the transportation forth and back. The security of the participants is taken care of by the police force of country in question. The secretariat in Holland consists of an office and a

couple secretaries. Who pays for this and the printing of the yearly, internal report from the conference, is confidential. As are the names of the contributors to the bill of hotel and consumption.

According to the expert on private, international power groupings, professor on Political Science Stephen Gill, York University, Toronto, the first Bilderberg Meeting was financed by CIA. He refers to official American documents in his textbook "American Hegemony And the The Trilateral Commission.

By Jens Kerte, Politiken, Denmark
The Bilderberg Group is its name. Discretion, confidence and secrecy are the code words. But now the secretiveness in the closed society of international power brokers is bursting. For nearly fifty years an elite of politicians, bankers and magnats broad order into the matters of the world on private, yearly meetings to let nearly nothing slip out to the outside world from this closed club of discussion. No press meetings, no public statements, and absolutely no admittage allowed
to other than members of the Bilderberg Steering Committee, and their hand-picked guests.
However questions from the critics in the European Parlament have lately forced the members of the European Commission to admit their hidden engagement in the Bilderberg Group, and in this country (Denmark) the Party List Of Unity in Folketinget (the Danish Parlament) has asked questions to the Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (Socialdemocratic Party) about the until now unknown participation of former ministers in the confidential discussions of the Bilderberg.
When we other put the matters of the world on the agenda in the hairdresser's saloon it is informal rubbish without consequences.
Just like this does power elite of the Bilderberg look at its two yearly meetings. One for the inner-circle of about thirty members of the Steering
Commitee, and another where they separately invites a couple of other top figures from the established, international power circles. All in all about one hundred globale heavyweights participate in the yearly symposium behind closed doors to exchange topical views of war and peace, money and politics, environment, and everything connected. Just surrounded by security staff, nothing is allowed to get out.
Bilderberg critics are of the opinion that it at best is a disdain and in the worst-cast a circumvention of the democracy that a private organized circle of leading parlamentarians, ministers, EU-commisioners, US-senators, bank presidents, magnats a.s.o.
in secrecy almost set the agenda for the future, and for the international community coping up the established governments and world organisation. They do take the final decision but influenced by a force no one outside the closed circle knows the extent of.

Since 1954 the Bilderberg members have shaken hands on that it do not concern the public what they exactly have been talking about, and who said what in the two-three days long meeting some place in North America or Europe. The minutes of the group exclude for the same reason the names of the discussion participants, and describe them only by their nationality. You have to be apple to speake your mind without being taken at their word or held responsible from the outside world for your views and attitudes expressed under the auspices of Bilderberg. However the names of the various first speakers in the discussions, and of the chairmen are mentioned in the internal papers.
Following an "highly confidential" minutes of the first meeting of this exclusive circle of power at Hotel Bilderberg near Arnhem in Holland, it was established and decided to:
"Until now there has been inadequate attention to the long term planning of an international agenda, which goes father than the day to day crises. When time is ripe our idea of the world matters must be revealed for the whole world".
The quotation comes from Robert Eringer's book "The Global Manipulators - The bilderberg Group/The trilateral Commission", 1980, that like other veldocumented books on the issue maintains that the group from the beginning in 1954 among other things just has had a united Europe on the agenda.
The first chairman of Bilderberg, the Dutch Prince Bernhard noticed at this time following his authorised biography from 1962: "If all us reach an agreement it will without doubt result in, not an Utopia, but a extremely strong and sound Europe".
Today diffused conspiracy fanatics and -theorists have taken care of hundreds of pages and links with anti-propaganda, but also with factual information about the Bilderberg Meetings on the Internet.
When 111 heavy boys included seven women met at the Bilderberg discussions in Portugal last year the ten points of the agenda dealt with Kosovo, the political situation in USA, the new genetics, restructuring of the international world of finances, the social and the political consequences of the latest economic development, the future of NATO, the information technology and the economic policy, the Foreign Policy of Russia, the validity of the European pink governments, and topical events.
For the first time ever the secret internal minutes of the discussions on the Bilderberg Meeting has leaked to the public. So now all interested can read all the 64 quotations from meeting in 1999 on the Internet among others on http://www.schnews.org.uk . From the discussion about the NATO war in Kosovo it is reported in the introduction: "A Dane (read: the editor-in-chief of Politiken Toeger Seidenfaden, as the only Danish Bilderberg participant this year, according to the Editor) emphasized that the operation had been a gigantic success seen from the criteria of the Alliance, and that it also was subject of a broad understanding in the eyes of the public.
It was an perverted objection that not enough of its own soldiers were killed. A British politician also meant that it was worth to celebrate the victory. It was in perfectly good order to go for figures like Sadam Hussein and Milosovic to deter somebody else. Kosovo involved considerations of both national and humanitarian interests. And he underlined that one of the clear objectives should be to get rid of Milosovic".
The chairman, the former American Minister Of Foreign Affairs Henry Kissinger, meant about the situation on Balkan that "NATO is in danger of replacing the empires of Ottoman and the Habsburgers in the row of permanent protectors".
Among the first speakers and the chairmen of the discussions last year were besides Henry Kissinger, US UN-Ambassador, Richards C. Holbrooke, President of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, President of the International Monetary Foundation, Stanley Fisher, the American Minister Of Energy, Bill Richardson, the British members of the House Of
Commons Kenneth Clarke and Prime Minister Tony Blair's close staff member Peter Mandelsohn, the American Senators Evan Bayh, Christopher J. Dodd and Chuck Hagel, the former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, and others and the Danish leader of the American pharmaceutical company SmidthKline Beecham, Jan Leschly, as a guest from USA. The only representative of Denmark on the Bilderberg Meeting
1999 was Toeger Seidenfaden. He is a member of the inner circle of the group, the Steering Committee.
Several of the passages on the war of NATO in Kosovo in the minutes marked "must not be quoted" have been interpreted by the critics of the group as the accept of clique of power of the intervention of Russia in Tjetjenia. Several Jugoslavian newspapers as Politika and Vojska maintain directly, but
undocumented that the engagement of NATO on Balkan originally was decided in the Bilderberg circle.
Other names from the top than the mentioned already on the confidential list of participants from the meeting on Hotel Park Penha Longa in Sintra last year in alphabetical order by country: the Viceminister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Yannos Kranidiotis, Queen Beatrix and Minister of Defence Frank H. G. Grave, Holland, Prime Minister David Oddson, Island, President Jorge Sampaio, Minister Of Education Eduado C. Marcal, Minister Of Traffic Joao Cardona G. Cravinho and member of the Parlament Joaquim Freitas do Amaral, Portugal, President of the Senat, Esperanza Aguirre y Gil de Biedma
and member of the Parlament Pedro Solbes Mira, Spain, Minister Of Industry Björn Rosengren, Sweden, President Bill Clinton's personal advicer, Lawyer Vernon E. Jordan and the Bank Mogul David Rockefeller, USA, former Kanzler Franz Vranitzky, Austria, and a number of 'international' participants, Otmar Issing and Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa from the European Central Bank and the EU-Commisioners Erkki Liikanen and Maio Monti. Among the twenty new members of the EU-Commission from last year seven of the commissioners have participated in one or more Bilderberg Meetings.

A few as members of the Steering Committee. Besides the two mentioned above it is Chairman Romani Prodi, Fritz Bolkestein, Pedro Solbes Mira, Günter Verheugen and Antonio Vitorino. The former Danish EU-Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard (Socialdemocratic Party), has also been present on the Bilderberg Meeting. It was in 1995. Former EU-Commissioner and former Minister Of Foreign Affaires Henning Christophersen has been present as well.
Especially the members of the Greens in the European Parlament have expressed discontent with the connections to Bilderberg of the Commissioners, and the Irish representative of the group of the Greens Patricia Mckenna state to Politiken:
" It is unacceptable in this time of openness in the Commission that the commissioners participate i these Bilderberg Meetings, where it is not just the security of the participants, but also secret discussions that are protected by a fully apparatus of state security. These discussions are perfectly clear of essential political importance, and still none of the participating Commissioners will tell anything about, what has been said, or about what has been agreed upon on meetings".
In return the commissioners have now been forced to inform about their relation to Bilderberg, if they did not voluntarily give this information, when they were appointed.
On the background of the topical exposure of the Bilderberg in EU, and in focus of Politiken on the phenomenon the Danish member of the Folketinget (the Danish Parlament) Frank Aaen, the Party List Of Unity, has just in writing asked Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen questions.
Frank Aaen demands disclosure of the Danish ministers who have been participated in the Bilderberg Meetings since 1954. He also wants to know, if the Prime Minister finds, that "it is reassuring that ministers participate in a private organisation of a type like the Bilderberg Meetings?". Furthermore he asks, if the Tribunal Of Foreign Affaires and Folketinget have been informed about the participation of Danish ministers in Bilderberg.
The reason of the quetions from the Party List Of Unity goes: "Since 1954 a long range of prominent people of press, managing businessmen and politicians have met at the so-called Bilderberg Meetings, the contents, and the sequence of which have been held secret to the public".
Professor on Political Science, Ove Kaj Pedersen, University of Copenhagen, has researched in "networks", and it his opinion that a group like Bilderberg of which he has no special knowledge, is "in priciple an expression of the vitality of the democracy". "It is certainly positive, that you are apple to gather so many international figures of the top from different places in the society for discussing of the issues of the time.
But the secretiveness is of course open to criticism, event though it in itself does not give the participants of the meetings power. Because they cannot do anything, and get round the democratic organs, when they come home", says Ove Kaj
Pedersen.
Both Bill Cliton and Tony Blair have participated on the Bilderberg Meetings earlier, and Henry Kissinger has been present nearly all the times since the exclusive group was formed in 1954 on the initiative of the "grey eminence of the
after war policy of Europe", the English exile Pole Joesph H. Retinger, and the Dutch Prince Bernhard as the unofficial Think Tank for the power bokers of NATO-countries. The most important issues of discussion was originally a closer and more USA-friendly European co-operation, and strategies
against the expanding international socialism. The first meeting took place as mentioned on Hotel de Bilderberg. Of this the name of the group, you see. After the fall of the Sovjet Union representatives of former communist regimes of Europe have been invited to the closed circle.
In 1956 and 1959 Denmark hosted the yearly Bilderberg Top Meeting. It took place respectively on Hotel Store Kro in Fredensborg, and on Hotel Marienlyst of Helsingør. At the first meeting was the Danish participants Prince Axel ÖK-President Hakon Christensen, the conservative Ole Bjoern Kraft and Terkel M. Terkelsen, Berlingske Tidende (Danish Newspaper)
The second meeting included the Danes Prince Henrik, President Johannes Green, the Private Bank, Poul Hartling (the Pary Liberal Left), Jens Otto Krag and Jens Kampmann (both the Socialdemocratic Party) (the Party Liberal Left), Maersk McKinney-Moeller, President Svend O. Sørensen, the Danish Bank.
Other prominent, Danish participant of Bilderberg through the years besides the mentioned above are Minister Of Finance Thorkil Kristensen (Liberal Left) Minister Of Foreign Affairs Per Haekkerup, Minister Of Economy Ivar Noerregaard
(Socialdemocratic Party (S)), Minister Of Culture Niels Matthiasen (S), Joergen Schleimann, President Of TV 2, Minister Of Foreign Affairs K. B. Andersen (S), President Of Danmark's National Bank Erik Hoffmeyer, Minister Of Industry Niels Wilhjelm (Conservative Party (K)), the present President of Danmark's National Bank Bodil Nyboe Andersen.
With Chairman of the Party Liberal Left, Anders Fog Rasmussen she is invited by member of the Steering Committee Toeger Seidenfaden to the coming Bilderberg Meeting in Switzerland in June as the Danish participants of this year.
Originally the meeting had been planned to be held in Austria, but caused by the political situation in the country with following comprehensive international boycot it has been moved. Ther organizers feared too many cancellations.
In 1977 the British newspaper The Times described the Bilderberg Meeting with the words: "...a clique of the richest, the economical and political most powerful and influential figures in the West meeting secretely to plan events that later on just happens by chance". In Financial Times the column writer Lombard noticed: "If the Bilderberg Group is not a conspira-tion of some kind it acts as a exceptional good imitation of one".
Several international, leading people of the press have through the years been taken in to dinner and participated in discussions in Bilderberg, but cause by their silence and the conspicuous secretiveness in general about the meetings, it is limited what has been written earlier in the Danish, and the international media about this special forum of power.
This was the principal content of a couple of notes in Helsingør Dagblad (Danish newspaper) May 1969, when the world elite of Bilderberg held a conference just around the corner on Hotel Marienlyst:

"On Hotel "Marienlyst" the Bilderberg circle held a two-days meeting, which ended Sunday, however nothing of the negociations has been published. This for reasons of the free exchange of opinions ".