The world has been watching the Dutch government handle the embarrassing case of a very high official who engaged in improper actions.
When allegations were made six months ago that Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands might have accepted more than a million dollars in bribes from Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, the Dutch government set up a quiet commission of inquiry. There were no months of public Watergate-type hearings with sensational daily exposés.
The recently released final report was firm in its conclusions about the Prince’s “unacceptable” relationship with Lockheed, and it stripped him of all his military and business positions. At the same time, however, the government accepted his statement of apology and regret and announced there was “no possibility” of criminal prosecution.
One of the most attractive and charming speakers with whom I have ever shared the platform, Prince Bernhard speaks English like an American. Among the some 300 organizations to which he has lent his name and patronage are the World Wildlife Foundation and the Bilderbergers, an annual conclave of the most powerful men in the Western world which he hosts every spring.
The Bilderbergers take their name from the hotel in Holland where they held their first meeting in 1954. They have met 24 times in remote and exclusive resorts carefully chosen to combine
the ultimate in luxury with the maximum of security, such as Lake Como in Italy, Knokke in Belgium, Saltsjöbaden in Sweden, Megeve in France, and Cesme in Turkey.
These meetings are redundantly policed by security forces that outnumber the guests, the lakeside of the hotel is guarded by naval vessels, the land side by government troops, and often by the canine corps.
The 80 to 100 Bilderbergers who attend each year come from three different classes. First there are the financial giants of the Western world, such as David and Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Ford II, Baron Rothschild of France, Baron Lambert of Belgium, Giovanni Agnelli of Italy, owner of Fiat, and Baron Wallenberg of Sweden, and Robert S. McNamara of the World Bank.
Second, there are a few influential newsmen who can be relied upon never to report wiat was said in the secret sessions. Over the years, these have included representatives from the NEW YORK TIMES, TIME Magazine, NEWSWEEK, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, HARPER’S, and the NEW YORKER.
Third, the Bilderbergers include those specially chosen to advance to high office. At the 1957 conference at Sea Island, Georgia, the participants included the then-unknown names of MeGeorge Bundy, Dean Rusk, and Henry Kissinger, who later rose to become the principal foreign policy advisers, respectively, to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford.
Later meetings were attended by Congressman Gerald 2. Ford and by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is Jimmy Carter’s “Henry Kissinger.”
Although the Bilderbergers are considered the most powerful and secretive group in the Free World, no reporter ever asks them what was decided at their meetings and no Congressional committee ever invites them to explain their decisions.
