The Bilderbergers are a group of political, industrial, financial, and media leaders from around the world who began meeting in 1954 and have continued to meet privately at an annual meeting at a new location every year. The group’s name is derived from the host site of the first meeting, the Bilderberger Hotel located in Oosterbeek, a village in the Netherlands. Bilderberg meetings were initiated to encourage cooperation between European and North American political and business leaders, but have since become the subject of conspiracy-type speculation about their motives and their degree of influence over world affairs.
The conferences are private events and attendance to the meetings is by invitation only. All attendees agree that the meetings are off the record and therefore are designed to encourage the free flow of ideas and informal discussion about contemporary issues. Participants in the annual meetings number in the range of 120–150 and are normally divided between politicians, policymakers, and business elites. Notable attendees have included European aristocrats, American politicians (including Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford), and wealthy business leaders and financiers (such as Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, and David Rockefeller, a former executive of the Chase Manhattan Corporation). The closed-door meetings and secrecy surrounding the proceedings have led to intense speculation about the nature of the organization. Some critics argue that the secrecy and privacy associated with the Bilderberg meetings undermines transparency and accountability for the public officials involved. More extreme critics have charged that Bilderbergers have secretly laid the foundation for the modern global order and that attendees are involved in an elaborate conspiracy to control the world financial system.
Conspiratorial interpretations of the Bilderberger group developed almost as soon as the first meeting ended. In the United States, the chief critics of the meetings have generally come from the right end of the political spectrum. During the 1960s concerns about a Communist attempt to infiltrate the United States led to the development of many elaborate theories that purported to uncover such a conspiracy. One of the major critics of the Bilderberger meetings was Robert Welch, a candy manufacturer and founder of the John Birch Society (JBS). The JBS, itself a secretive group with a private membership list made up of prominent U.S. business leaders and politicians, published books and newsletters throughout the 1960s purporting to uncover a massive Communist conspiracy. The Bilderberger meetings came to play a prominent role in JBS-style theories because of their association with world commerce and the global banking system. Along with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers were alleged to be part of a conspiracy to establish a “new world order” of global socialism that would erode U.S. sovereignty (Allen 1971). Similarly, conservative Republican activist Phyllis Schlafly argued that Republican leaders who had attended Bilderberger meetings were conspiring to control the party and thwart Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign for the presidency (Schlafly 1964; Berlet and Lyons 2000).
Even though Cold War–era concerns over international communism have diminished, conspiratorial theories related to the Bilderbergers have not. Popular works such as Jim Marrs’s Rule by Secrecy (2001) have kept Bilderberger speculation in the best-seller lists. Texas-based Internet and talk radio personality Alex Jones has made a career of antagonizing the group, going so far as trying and failing to sneak into a Bilderberger meeting in Ottawa, Canada, in 2006 before being detained by Canadian officials. Jones also helped popularize the research of Jim Tucker, a freelance journalist who spent nearly three decades trying to infiltrate Bilderberger meetings (Ronson 2002; Tucker 2005). Many of the contemporary theories currently associated with the Bilderbergers recycle Cold War concerns about the group’s role in organizing a one-world government but were recast in light of the near-failure of the global banking system in 2008 (Marrs 2010).
Michael J. McVicar
See also Area 51; Conspiracy Theories; Montauk Project; New World Order; September 11 (2001) Conspiracy Theories
Further Reading
Allen, Gary. 1971. None Dare Call It Conspiracy. Rossmoor, CA: Concord Press.
Berlet, Chip, and Matthew N. Lyons. 2000. Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort. Critical Perspectives. New York: Guilford Press.
Marrs, Jim. 2001. Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids. New York: Harper.
Marrs, Jim. 2010. The Trillion-dollar Conspiracy: How the New World Order, Man-made Diseases, and Zombie Banks Are Destroying America. New York: William Morrow.
Ronson, Jon. 2002. Them: Adventures with Extremists. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Schlafly, Phyllis. 1964. A Choice Not an Echo. 4th ed. Alton, IL: Pere Marquette Press.
Tucker, James P. 2005. Jim Tucker’s Bilderberg Diary: One Reporter’s 25-year Battle to Shine the Light on the World Shadow Government. Washington, DC: American Free Press.
Bilderbergers—Primary Document
Speech at the Anti-Masonic State Convention of Massachusetts (1829)
The current Bilderberger and New World Order myths grew out of centuries-old hostilities toward the Freemasons, which were perceived by many egalitarian politicians as elitist, exclusive, and conspiratorial. In speeches, books, and newspaper articles like this speech by a “Mr. Churchill,” Freemasons were publicly criticized for allegedly seeking to monopolize politics, control the nation’s economy, and avoid penalties for criminal behavior. Anti-Masonic campaigns produced the first third-party movement in the United States, but the Anti-Mason Party fizzled out in 1838 after only a decade of conventions and electioneering.
Mr. Churchill, of Milton addressed the Convention on the character and tendency of the Masonic Institution. He said the short address which the limits of our time and his state of indisposition permitted him to make, would be devoted principally to that trait in the masonic character, designated by the Oath of the Royal Arch Mason. Passing over its affronting attacks on the Christian religion, and its implied disregard of private rights, we approach that daring vaunting of crime and injustice contained in the two following obligations, viz.—‘In the presence of Almighty God and this Chapter of Royal Arch Masons erected to God and dedicated to the holy order of Saint John, I do most solemnly and sincerely swear, in addition to my former obligations, &c., that I will aid and assist a Companion Royal Arch Mason whenever I shall see him engaged in any difficulty, so far as to extricate him from the same, whether he be right or wrong.’ ‘Furthermore, do I promise and swear, that a Companion Royal Arch Mason’s secrets, given me in charge as such, shall remain as secure and inviolable in my breast as in his own, when communicated to me, murder and treason not excepted.’
The lesson is short, Mr President, and this is all that need be learned of Masonry to blast its reputation with every honest man. Casual difficulties, the effect of accident, are not alone the objects of this obligation; but they are more aberrations, difficulties in which a perverse mind many have entangled the guilty; for the sequel would else be without import, namely, whether he be right or wrong.
Again, what are the secrets thus inviolably to be guarded? Are they the unguarded expressions, the hasty actions, which are no sooner uttered or executed than repented of? No, they are the first volitions, the maturing process, and the heart rending execution of crime; of crime in all its numerous gradations; of crime against property and reputation; of crime against the peace of families; of crime against that human life which has become so obnoxious to masonry or any masonic character, amongst whom no offense is so great as speaking the truth.
Acting under the above obligations, the first duty of such a mason who knows his confederate to have stained his hands with unmasonic blood, is to hide the perpetrator from public suspicion. This is done by extravagant eulogiums and high toned recommendations of his purity and integrity. This failing, he must be enabled to elude the research of the officer, if, indeed, the officer is not previously indisposed to making any search. Or if brought to trial, the witnesses must remember their masonic obligations are paramount to those imposed in court. The jury must listen to the cry of guilty distress.
But if all this should fail, there is fortunately in this commonwealth, no other resource for masonic influence, but to besiege the throne with universal petition for mercy; or to break the prison bolts and let the blood stained prisoner go free. It is believed that in the process of premeditated crime there is a period, at which the perpetrator is hesitating; how then are his purposes emboldened by knowing, that every mason will support him, and every such house is a sanctuary into which he may flee and find protection.
The above gradations are founded on criminal process; but the same principles apply to controversy between individuals suitably arranged.
Masonry has the arrogance to claim unbounded antiquity, and many worthy characters borne on its catalogue. Its claim, however, to those characters, has been before confuted. See an address at the first County Convention held in this state at Dedham. With respect to its antiquity, could we once condescend to trifle with truth, we would admit their claim, and then say what has your ancient institution to boast? Is antiquity of folly, of crime, and of punishment too, the shame you glory in? Has Masonry ever hushed to silence the discord of jarring nations? Has the rotundity and diurnal revolutions of the earth been developed by Masonry? Was the trembling needle, which, like the trembling conscience, is ever restless till it has gained its point, directed by masonic science? Did her fallacious light show to us the astonishing powers of gravitation, or unfold the principles on which eclipses are calculated?
In fine, it is believed that no one discovery, that ever blest the human family, was effected or aided by the light of Masonry; for of all the before mentioned improvements, and indeed of all others, except sensual gratification, and that adoration which nature inspires, the Great Grand Royal Arch High Priest and Grand King, Solomon, was most profoundly ignorant.
Source: A Brief Report of the Debates in the Anti-Masonic State Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Boston: John Marsh, 1830.