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>> PIPES: These are groups
>> NARRATOR: But the specter of
a secret agenda is raised by the
fact that although these groups
publish membership lists, agenda
notes and have their own
magazines or papers, meetings
are officially off the record.
>> ICKE: To do it openly would
get a big backlash from people:
"Hey, this is a global fascist
state!
We're not having this!" so it
has to be done quietly, behind
the scenes and brought about in
stepping stones.
>> PIPES: There's a distinction
between in
And, unfortunately, the
conspiracy theorists don't see
that distinction.
>> NARRATOR: To become a member
of the Council on Foreign
Relations, you must be nominated
in writing by one member,
seconded by two other
individuals, and approved by
the membership committee and
Board of Directors.
Pipes, as one of the 3,800
members of the Council on
Foreign Relations, says he
speaks from experience.
>> PIPES: There are sometimes
petty conspira
>> MARRS: The majority of their
membership are-- or very well
could be-- honest, well-
intentioned people, okay?
But I don't think that they're
truly aware of what the inner
motivation and agenda really is
and that's where the true
secrecy comes in.
>> NARRATOR: But the evidence,
say conspiracy theorists, is in
the fact that the agenda set by
these groups becomes reality.
>> JIM TUCKER: I remember
covering a Trilateral Commission
meeting some years ago in which
they advocated a ten-cent a
gallon federal tax increase on
gasoline in the United States.
That meeting ended with their
farewell-- Monday morning
farewell, as usual.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post
came out in favor of-- you
guessed it.
>> ICKE: When you've got, uh...
organizations which bring
together the most influential
people in power from around the
world, who meet in secret, who
try as much as they can to keep
knowledge of the event quiet,
and then their policies become
policy in fact in the world,
then you start to, surely, ask
very serious questions.
>> NARRATOR: And the one group
with the best track record for
implementing the policies of
this secret elite, according
to conspiracists, is also the
world's most secret secret
society.
It is called the Bilderberg
Group.
>> MARRS: The Bilderbergers are
the ruling elite of the other
secret societies.
That's where the real
controllers meet to decide the
policies that they then take
back to the other secret
societies.
>> NARRATOR: In 1954, Prince
Bernhard of the Netherlands
invites a group of Western
European and North American
leaders to a weekend conference
at the Hotel Bilderberg in
Oosterbeek, Holland.
The meeting is held in secret
and they decide to make the
conference an annual private
retreat, which continues to
this day.
>> MARRS: The Bilderbergers are
the most secretive of the modern
secret societies.
They're so secretive they don't
even have a name, much less
publish a membership list or
anything like that.
Now, some of the members are
known because they've been
observed at their meetings, and
some of the members have talked
and mentioned some people, so we
do have an idea of who attends
the Bilderberger meetings--
which are heavily under guard,
heavily secret.
>> NARRATOR: Attendees are
believed to include Henry
Kissinger, Bill Clinton, David
Rockefeller, Tony Blair, Peter
Jennings and an endless list of
princes, chancellors,
ambassadors and media magnates.
>> RENATA ADLER: If you tried to
imagine who went, that's who
did go.
>> NARRATOR: The annual
gathering of about 115 elite
leaders is informally known
as the Bilderberg, or the
Bilderbergers, after the hotel
where it first met.
>> ADLER: They take place one
weekend a year, um... they
usually take place in some
Western European country.
Every four years, they take
place in the United States.
They're nearly always at
resorts.
>> NARRATOR: Security for these
meetings is extremely tight.
>> TUCKER: In my experience,
especially in Europe, quite
frequently the military itself
is deployed.
Then there's a large number of
uniformed armed cops.
>> NARRATOR: Jim Tucker is
a self-appointed Bilderberg
watchdog.
At the 1999 conference in
Portugal, Tucker tries to get
close to the hotel where the
meeting is taking place.
>> TUCKER: The cop bragged, "We
have snipers on top of those
boulders up there, and if
anybody is going over that
fence, day or night, they're
going to stay over that
fence."
So apparently they take security
rather seriously.
>> NARRATOR: The reason for all
the security, say the conspiracy
advocates, is obvious.
>> TUCKER: I don't think a 120
of the world's most powerful men
get together to play pinochle.
>> MARRS: This is where the
ruling elite within these secret
societies go and gather and
compare notes and apparently set
agendas.
One of the members of the
Bilderbergers years ago said
that they talked about opening
up China, and within months,
President Nixon had gone and
opened up China to the West.
>> ICKE: They met in the early
'70s at an island off Sweden,
and they decided that they were
going to hike the price of oil
massively.
They then went to the Arab oil
countries, which they also
interconnect with, and they
said, "Look, we're going to hike
the price of oil massively.
You'll make vast amounts of
extra income, but we want you to
put it in specific bank accounts
that we tell you about."
"Okay."
They then needed an excuse to
hike the price of oil, so what
they did was created the, um...
Arab-Israeli War.
>> NARRATOR: The conspiracists'
view of the world is that
control is exerted through
the control of money.
>> MARRS: In this country, we
operate under the golden rule:
Whoever has the gold makes
the rules.
>> NARRATOR: Whether or not this
type of nefarious global control
exists, it is true that the
Bilderbergers have been
successful in at least
controlling media coverage
of their meetings.
Leading media moguls are always
invited to Bilderberg
conferences, but only under the
strict understanding that they
will not report on what they
hear.
>> ICKE: So, for instance,
Katherine Graham of the
Washington Post has been
to many Bilderberg meetings.
One of the inner core of
Bilderberg members is Conrad
Black, who owns 68% of the
newspapers in Canada, Telegraph
newspapers in Britain, the
Jerusalem Post and a stream of
papers worldwide, and not one
word has appeared in his
newspapers about the Bilderberg
Group.
>> ADLER: The steering
committees and the bureaucracies
and the meetings themselves have
their own concern-- rather
intense concern-- with not being
mentioned in the press, and had
this brilliant idea of co-opting
whatever press they did invite
and then going higher and higher
in the press as they invited it.
But it's quite something to have
more than 100 people attend a
meeting one weekend a year--
all of them at least of some
importance-- and have nothing in
the mainstream press about them.
That's quite remarkable.
In a way, maybe the most
remarkable thing about them.
>> ICKE: If you-- and I have
done many times-- said to
journalists, let alone the
general population: "Tell me
about the Bilderberg Group,"
this glassy-eyed look comes
across: "What? The what?"
And yet, the major people-- they
are reporting every day on
members of an organization
together-- different political
parties, different countries,
everything-- and they've never
heard of it.
And a few people can't control
the world?
Well, obviously they can and get
away with it.
>> NARRATOR: But just how
obvious this version of the
world is depends on the eyes
you see it with-- and in the
history of secret societies,
perspective is everything.
>> ICKE: In the next five to ten
years, we are all going to live
in a global version of Nazi
Germany.
>> ROSENBAUM: If it's a
conspiracy, it's not so much
>> PIPES: Basically, all the
conspiracy theories about secret
societies wanting to take over
the world are wrong.
Very rarely does a conspiracy
actually succeed.
Much more often they fail, and
much more often than that, they
don't even exist.
>> KENT: The Bilderberg
Conference usually includes
high-ranking American officials.
Former Treasury Secretary
Lloyd Bentsen was a regular for
many years.
Taxpayers allegedly pick up the
tab, but their public servants
aren't allowed to reveal
anything about the proceedings.
In recent years, the secrecy
surrounding the conference has
grown even tighter, ever since
protesters disrupted a World
Trade Organization meeting
in Seattle.
Bilderbergers want to avoid any
similar demonstration that would
bring even more attention
to their famous and famously
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