Bilderbergers The ultimate conspiracy theory*

By Jonathan Duffy
BBC News Online Magazine

The Bilderberg group, an elite coterie of Western thinkers and
power-brokers, has been accused of fixing the fate of the world behind
closed doors. As the organisation marks its 50th anniversary, rumours
are more rife than ever.

Given its reputation as perhaps the most powerful organisation in the
world, the Bilderberg group doesn't go a bundle on its switchboard
operations.

Telephone inquiries are met with an impersonal female voice - the Dutch
equivalent of the BT Callminder woman - reciting back the number and
inviting callers to "leave a message after the tone".

Anyone who accidentally dialled the number would probably think they had
stumbled on just another residential answer machine.

Leiden
Leiden in Holland, the inauspicious base of the Bilderberg group

But behind this ultra-modest façade lies one of the most controversial
and hotly-debated alliances of our times.

On Thursday the Bilderberg group marks its 50th anniversary with the
start of its yearly meeting.

For four days some of the West's chief political movers, business
leaders, bankers, industrialists and strategic thinkers will hunker down
in a five-star hotel in northern Italy to talk about global issues.

What sets Bilderberg apart from other high-powered get-togethers, such
as the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), is its mystique.

Not a word of what is said at Bilderberg meetings can be breathed
outside. No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of
meetings are taken, names are not noted.

The shadowy aura extends further - the anonymous answerphone message,
for example; the fact that conference venues are kept secret. The group,
which includes luminaries such as Henry Kissinger and former UK
chancellor Kenneth Clarke, does not even have a website.

DISCREET AND ELITE

This year Bilderberg has announced a list of attendees

They include BP chief John Browne, US Senator John Edwards, World Bank
president James Wolfensohn and Mrs Bill Gates

In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy
theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world
is largely decided by Bilderberg.

In Yugoslavia, leading Serbs have blamed Bilderberg for triggering the
war which led to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic. The Oklahoma City
bomber Timothy McVeigh, the London nail-bomber David Copeland and Osama
Bin Laden are all said to have bought into the theory that Bilderberg
pulls the strings with which national governments dance.

And while hardline right-wingers and libertarians accuse Bilderberg of
being a liberal Zionist plot, leftists such as activist Tony Gosling are
equally critical.

A former journalist, Mr Gosling runs a campaign against the group from
his home in Bristol, UK.

"My main problem is the secrecy. When so many people with so much power
get together in one place I think we are owed an explanation of what is
going on.

Mr Gosling seizes on a quote from Will Hutton, the British economist and
a former Bilderberg delegate, who likened it to the annual WEF gathering
where "the consensus established is the backdrop against which policy is
made worldwide".

"One of the first places I heard about the determination of US forces to
attack Iraq was from leaks that came out of the 2002 Bilderberg
meeting," says Mr Gosling.

But "privacy, rather than secrecy", is key to such a meeting says
Financial Times journalist Martin Wolf, who has been invited several
times in a non-reporting role.

"The idea that such meetings cannot be held in private is fundamentally
totalitarian," he says. "It's not an executive body; no decisions are
taken there."

As an up-and-coming statesmen in the 1950s, Denis Healey, who went on to
become a Labour chancellor, was one of the four founding members of
Bilderberg (which was named after the hotel in Holland where the first
meeting was held in 1954).

His response to claims that Bilderberg exerts a shadowy hand on the
global tiller is met with characteristic bluntness. "Crap!"

"There's absolutely nothing in it. We never sought to reach a consensus
on the big issues at Bilderberg. It's simply a place for discussion,"
says Lord Healey.

Formed in the spirit of post-war trans-Atlantic co-operation, the idea
behind Bilderberg was that future wars could be prevented by bringing
power-brokers together in an informal setting away from prying eyes.

"Bilderberg is the most useful international group I ever attended. The
confidentiality enabled people to speak honestly without fear of
repercussions.

"In my experience the most useful meetings are those when one is free to
speak openly and honestly. It's not unusual at all. Cabinet meetings in
all countries are held behind closed doors and the minutes are not
published."

That activists have seized on Bilderberg is no surprise to Alasdair
Spark, an expert in conspiracy theories.

"The idea that a shadowy clique is running the world is nothing new. For
hundreds of years people have believed the world is governed by a cabal
of Jews.

"Shouldn't we expect that the rich and powerful organise things in their
own interests. It's called capitalism."