Title: 'Bilderberg': Secret Minutes Revealed for the first time in 50 years

Date: 15 NOV '99
Author: Gibby Zobel
Source: The Big Issue, London

For nearly 50 years an elite group of the West's most powerful men and women, including Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, has met in secret. Today The Big Issue can reveal for the first time the confidential minutes The Bilderberg Papers of what some commentators have called a shadow world government.

The clandestine meetings do not make policy, yet directly inform the thinking of world leaders. This years meeting took place in June under armed guard at the exclusive Caesar Park Hotel, Penha Longa, Portugal. Northern Ireland secretary of state Peter Mandelson, Conservative MP Kenneth Clarke, and environmentalist Jonathon Porritt attended and mixed with presidents, chairmen of multinational companies, world bankers, Nato chiefs and defence ministers.

The 64-page leaked document reveals the group was advised that after Kosovo, Russia now has carte blanche to intervene in Chechnya. Nato will not bomb Moscow if Russia invades Chechnya. Two hundred thousand Chechens have been forced to flee their homes since Russia began bombing last month. Last week the Clinton administration accused Russia of breaking international law. But the minutes make clear that world leaders are operating in an environment where international law has become obsolete and where Nato is in danger of effectively becoming a colonial power.

In another debate, How Durable is the Current Rosy Complexion of European Politics?, Britain's cuts in welfare were put into sharp context. The new Left, argued one Briton, was consolidating the victories of the Right. The electoral failures of the Right had largely been self-inflicted, and the Left may well prove to be better at reforming the welfare state. With 17 million unemployed, it might be easier for somebody who claimed to be a socialist to impose change. Welfare, one panellist thought, would be the Red man's burden. Governments had to think like business people. But not every socialist government in Europe has bitten the bullet the group talked of Germany, France and Italy's lack of guts for welfare cuts.

(THE CREATION OF THE "WELFARE STATE" TO CREATE DEPENDENCY AND THEN THE DESTRUCTION OF THAT WELFARE STRUCTURE TO LEAVE PEOPLE HELPLESS AND FORCED TO DO WHATEVER THEY ARE TOLD TO SURVIVE HAS BEEN ONE OF THE KEY PLANS OF THE ILLUMINATI IN THE 2OTH CENTURY. TONY BLAIR, THE BRITISH PRIME MINISTER AND BILDERBERG PUPPET, HAS BEEN PUT IN THERE TO DO JUST THAT.

IT IS ALSO A WELL TESTED TECHNIQUE TO USE "SOCIALIST" PARTIES WITH AN IMAGE OF "CARING FOR THE DOWNTRODDEN" TO INTRODUCE THESE CHANGES WHICH RIGHT-LEANING PARTIES WITH AN IMAGE FOR NOT CARING FOR THE DOWNTRODDEN, WOULD NOT GET AWAY WITH.)

Governments fear of social unrest was the major reason for lack of action. As a British panellist noted: Things would only change when the cost of not doing anything really did seem larger than that of doing something. Most of the group thought the new European Left was just a genetically modified version of the old one. It is simply a rotation of power, said one German. In many cases the real power lies with central banks. This idea was given greater emphasis by discussions about the introduction of dollarisation.

The Bilderberg papers reveal:

- Nato has given Russia carte blanche to intervene in Chechnya
- After the euro, a global currency dollarisation may be the next step
- Post-Kosovo, Nato is in danger of mimicking a colonial empire
- Its easier to cut welfare benefits if you call yourself a socialist

HIDDEN AGENDA - FEATURE

In the first of a two-part series, Gibby Zobel uncovers how the global power elite decides our future at the shadowy Bilderberg Summit each year. Documents from the secret summit - leaked to The Big Issue - reveal what they said about money and war.

For nearly 50 years an elite group of the West's most powerful men and women, a shadow world government, have met in secret. Tony Blair is in the club. Every US president since Ike Eisenhower has been too. So are top members of the British Government. So are the people who control what you watch and read the media barons. Which is why you may never have heard of Bilderberg.

Lines of black limousines, unmarked except for a OB on the windscreen, swept in, sometimes accompanied by police escorts, sometimes not, says an eyewitness of this years meeting in Portugal. A helicopter was overhead, and other security officers were prudently patrolling the hillsides. The policy on duty at the gates made it crystal clear that they were only the tip of the security iceberg.

For two-and-a-half days, relaxing in exclusive luxury amid vast armed security, the powerful leaders discussed past and future wars, a European superstate, a global currency, genetics, and the dismantling of the welfare state. Unaccountable, untroubled and unreported, the Bilderberg meetings have formed the basis of international policy for decades.

Last year freelance journalist Campbell Thomas was arrested just for knocking on doors near the clandestine gathering in Turnberry, Scotland. He remained in custody for eight hours. Other journalists were told that even the Bilderberg menu was confidential (a move they named Kippergate). A serving police officer told The Big Issue: Special Branch and CIA were everywhere they were calling the shots.

Never in its 47-year history has the content of these discussions been made public. Until now. The Big Issue has uncovered the Bilderberg Papers the secret minutes of this years meeting in Portugal. Some of it is banal, some of it sensational. It blows the lid off the thoughts of presidents, chairmen of multinational companies, world bankers, Nato chiefs and defence ministers.

The meetings are shrouded in such secrecy that Prime Minister Tony Blair, when asked last year in the House of Commons, failed to disclosed his own attendance at Bilderberg in Athens in 1993. So, what have they been hiding?

Although 14 media chiefs and journalists from across eight countries attended this year, none of them chose to tell their readers of the meeting. It would not serve their interests to be cut out of the elite loop.

With an invite-only guest-list, covert operations and such deafening silence, it is little surprise that conspiracy theories have thrived, from the anti-semites who believe in a Jewish global elite, to the paranoid delusions of the radical left. The effect has been to leave the importance of the meetings tainted by association. It suits the Bilderbergers perfectly.

(WHY OH WHY DO PEOPLE WHO PRESENT EVIDENCE OF A CONSPIRACY STILL DISMISS SO CONTEMPTUOUSLY THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN INVESTIGATING FOR DECADES THE VERY COVERT MANIPULATION WHICH THE BIG ISSUE HAS AT LAST TURNED ITS ATTENTION TO?

I HAVE BEEN RIDICULED IN BRITAIN FOR YEARS FOR SAYING THE VERY THINGS THAT THE BIG ISSUE IS NOW CONFIRMING IN THIS ARTICLE. WHAT THEY DO NOT SEEM TO APPRECIATE YET IS THAT THE BILDERBERG GROUP IS ACTUALLY ONLY ONE STRAND IN A GIGANTIC WEB - A WEB THAT IS CREATING THE VERY UMEMPLYMENT AND LACK OF OPPORTUNITY THAT THE BIG ISSUE IS SEEKING TO ADDRESS.)

The Bilderberg meetings began in a Dutch hotel on May 29 1954, from where it gets its name. The Economist, in a rare reference to it in 1987, said that the importance of the meetings was overplayed but admitted: When you have scaled the Bilderberg, you have arrived.

At last years meeting, former defence minister George Robertson, who is now Nato secretary-general, planned strategies with the Bilderberg chair and ex-Nato chief Lord Carrington.

Observer editor-in-chief Will Hutton attended Bilderberg in 1997. He believes that it is the home of the high priests of globalisation. No policy is made here, he says, it is all talk. But the consensus established is the backdrop against which policy is made worldwide.

The 64-page leaked document The Bilderberg Papers is dated August 1999. The powerful transatlantic clique at the private hideaway included new Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson MP, environmentalist Jonathon Porritt, Kenneth Clarke MP, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, billionaire oil and banking tycoon David Rockefeller, Monsanto chief Robert B Shapiro, and the head of the World Bank, James D Wolfensohn.

Although Asian and African politics and economics were discussed the continents countries had no seats at this summit. The official eight-strong UK delegation included bankers Martin Taylor, former chief executive of Barclays and Eric Roll, a banker for Warburgs. They were joined by Martin Wolf of The Financial Times and two journalists from The Economist, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, who, the minutes indicate, prepared this document.

The papers are marked Not for Quotation. It states: There were 111 participants from 24 countries. All participants spoke in their personal capacity, not as representatives of their national governments or employers. As is usual at Bilderberg meetings, in order to permit frank and open discussion, no public reporting of the conference took place.

None of the quotes in each of the 10 sections are directly attributable to any named individual, but the moderator and panellists in each discussion are listed. It is made perfectly clear, however, who is saying what. It is not known who else is in the audience, but their comments are identified by their country and profession.

Over two weeks, we report on the central themes of this years meeting. This week: money and war. Next week: genetics what the head of Monsanto and a leading British environmentalist discussed behind closed doors. What they said about money. Giants of the global banking world, in a debate titled Redesigning the International Financial Architecture, discussed the concept of dollarisation which is sure to send euro-sceptics into a frenzy.

Around the table were Kenneth Clarke MP, Martin S Feldstein, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Stanley Fisher, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ottmar Issing, board member of the European Central Bank and Jean Claude Trichet, governor of the Bank of France.

Bilderberg is understood to have been the birthplace of the single european currency. The deputy director of the IMF opens by remarking: It is worth noting that this is the first Bilderberg meeting where the euro is fact rather than a topic for discussion. During the discussion, One of the panellists was sure that if the euro worked, more regional currencies would emerge. Others raised the question of dollarisation as a possible cure.

There is a dissenting voice: The only possible reason for surrendering control of your monetary policy to Washington (where nobody would make decisions on the basis of what mattered in Buenos Aires [or London]) is the fairly rotten financial records of the governments concerned.

What they said about war:

Despite Tony Blair's presidential stance over Kosovo, Natos historic war was pilloried at Bilderberg. The mood at the meeting was surprisingly subdued most of the speakers concentrated on the downside of the conflict, begins the discussion on Kosovo.

Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state, weighs in, saying Kosovo could be this generation's Vietnam. Nato is in danger of replacing the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires in a series of permanent protectorates, he said.

(EXACTLY WHAT HE AND THE ILLUMINATI WANT!)

Another panelist warned that troops could be there for 25 years.

Kissinger felt that this left Nato open to accusations of colonialism. How did one persuade countries like China, Russia and India that Natos new mandate was not just a new version of the white mans burden colonialism? asked Kissinger.

Charles D Boyd, executive director of the US National Study Group, said Kosovo is now a wasteland, a humanitarian disaster comparable with Cambodia. Nato used force as a substitute for diplomacy rather than as a support for it used force in a way that minimised danger to itself but maximised danger to the people it was trying to protect.

An unnamed British politician wondered whether the [Nato] alliance could hang together after the end of the war. He warned that there would be little popular enthusiasm for putting lots of resources into solving the regions gigantic problems.

Peter Mandelson told the group that two roads stretch in front of Nato. One leads to a new division of Europe, where the continent returns to its ethnocentric ways. Under this scenario, the UN is fairly powerless, Russia and China are excluded, and Nato is little more than an enforcer. The second road is a little closer to the nineteenth century Europe, with all the great powers not just America and the EU, but Russia, China and Japan co-operating.

David Icke