Bilderberg Meeting

The Bilderberg Meeting is an annual conference established in 1954 to foster dialogue between Europe and North America. The group’s agenda, originally to prevent another world war, is now defined as bolstering a consensus around free market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe. Participants include political leaders, experts from industry, finance, academia, and the media, numbering between 120 and 150. Attendees are entitled to use information gained at meetings, but not attribute it to a named speaker. This is to encourage candid debate, while maintaining privacy - a provision that has fed conspiracy theories from both left and right.

Meetings were chaired by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands until 1976. The current Chairman is Henri de Castries.

The first conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands, from 29 to 31 May 1954.[1] It was initiated by several people, including Polish politician-in-exile Józef Retinger who, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting Atlanticism—better understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe to foster cooperation on political, economic, and defense issues.[2][3]

Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands[4] who agreed to promote the idea, together with former Belgian prime minister Paul van Zeeland, and the then-head of Unilever, Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, the then-head of the CIA, who asked Eisenhower adviser Charles Douglas Jackson to deal with the suggestion.[5] The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent "conservative" and "liberal" points of view.[3] Fifty delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe attended the first conference, along with 11 Americans.[6]

The success of the meeting led the organizers to arrange an annual conference. A permanent steering committee was established with Retinger appointed as permanent secretary. As well as organizing the conference, the steering committee also maintained a register of attendee names and contact details with the aim of creating an informal network of individuals who could call upon one another in a private capacity.[7] Conferences were held in France, Germany, and Denmark over the following three years. In 1957, the first U.S. conference was held on St. Simons Island, Georgia, with $30,000 from the Ford Foundation. The foundation also supplied funding for the 1959 and 1963 conferences.[5]

The participants are between 120 and 150 people, including political leaders, experts from industry, finance, academia and the media.[2] About two thirds of the participants come from Europe and the rest from North America; one third from politics and government and the rest from other fields.[2][1] Historically, attendee lists have been weighted toward bankers, politicians, directors of large businesses[8] and board members from large publicly traded corporations, including IBM, Xerox, Royal Dutch Shell, Nokia and Daimler.[9] Heads of state, including former King Juan Carlos I of Spain and former Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, have attended meetings.[9][10] A source connected to the group told The Daily Telegraph in 2013 that other individuals, whose names are not publicly issued, sometimes turn up "just for the day" at the group's meetings.[11]

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Meeting

So, this begs the question, are these people setting our governments policies? Are they attending in either an official or unofficial capacity? Seems to me that it might be a breach of the Hatch Act.