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Bilderberg
conference 2004 - Stresa, Italy 3-6 June 2004 - 50th anniversary conference
Latest
Bilderbergers' news
Bilderberg 2004 -
American Free
Press coverage - issue 26/04
An encounter with Italian police on the way to Bilderberg 2004
By Daniel Estulin
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/062505Estulin/062505estulin.html
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Editor's Note: Daniel Estulin and his family were expelled from the Soviet Union on March 23, 1980, for anti-Soviet activity. His father, a prominent scientist and a dissident, spent 3½ years in prison for seeking freedom of speech for his fellow citizens. Fearing for his life for his daring exposes of corruption, manipulation and power grabbing, Estulin has voluntarily exiled himself to Spain. His dramatic personal stories are a rare look behind the scenes at how the most powerful secret society in the world has tried to stop one of the most determined men in the world from discovering its secrets
June 25, 2005-For the longest time, the Club and I have been seeking each other's company, for the mutual disbenefit of our detractors. Although I conduct my investigation in the strictest of privacy, once per year, I come out of my shell to confront Bilderbergers on their terrain-a five star luxury hotel, the site of the annual secret gathering. In the summer 2004, I was off to Stresa, Italy.
To get to this sleepy resort town that lives at the expense of globs of sun burned elderly German tourists who cohabitate with linguistically impaired Britons, Scots and Irishmen, one must fly to Milan's Malpensa International Airport.
I am fond of Milan; I imagine in the hollow of the vowel that splits the M and the L, a miniature replica of the famed Cathedral, the dampness of its spring sunsets, and the echoes of the feet marking a staccato-like rhythm on its cobbled squares.
So I was happy to be there again, to trudge in the opposite direction of the departing tourists, unaware of the city's elegance and hidden splendours.
As I made my way through the airport terminal, my mind dreamily wondered to something I had read in the usually soiled and leafed through in-flight magazine-a peripheral article on the Novodevichy, or "New Maidens Convent" in English, the most revered cemetery in Moscow. The article shared the page space with a scantily dressed woman in a red dress, and a helpful list of addresses to not-to-be-missed sights from the Russian tourist board to such holy shrines as Lenin's mausoleum, the KGB headquarters at Lublianka, and GUM "the world's biggest shopping centre!"
Novodevichy! Some of Russia's most venerated writers and poets are buried there. Chekhov was one of the first to be buried in the cemetery in 1904 and Googol's remains were re-interred here from Danilov Monastery not long after. The 20th century writers Mayakovsky and Bulgakov are buried here, as are the much-celebrated theatrical directors and founders of the Moscow Art Theatre, Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavsky.
I thought of the utter unpredictability of the future and the past as not a rigid succession but a storehouse of remembered images and concealed patterns that contain the key to the mysterious designs of our lives.
In my imagination, I hovered over Googol's tomb that is symbolically linked with that of another famous writer, Bulgakov, author of "The Master and Margarita." When moved to Novodevichy, Googol's tomb was changed. A part of the original tomb was used in the new tomb. The remaining original stone was stored for years until Bulgakov's wife saw it and chose to incorporate it into her husband's tomb, only later discovering that it was part of Googol's first tomb.
Beauty and lightness on the one hand; philosophical meditation on the other . . .
"Buonasera. Would you please come with us, sir?" A sharp, piercing voice quickly dispersed those meretricious musings that had meandered so aimlessly, yet blissfully within the confines of my imagination.
I looked up.
He was coming towards me, garbed in a raincoat, which struck me as rather odd considering the sky was Mediterranean blue, a shiny automatic weapon slung across his shoulders.
Like a host of a freak show who surrounds himself with hunchbacks, dwarfs and singing 2m tall albinos, this insignificant man, who might well have fitted terrifically into a masquerade ball, came into my personal space, clicked his heels, put his index and middle fingers to his temple and presented himself.
"I am Detective so and o," he announced in a perfect iambic tetrameter. "Would you please come with us?"
The feeling of prearranged tragedy, or more precisely, the shadow, tragically imposed in my contra reminded me of the perilous ways in which I chose to make my living.
Detective and I, flanked by two local guards and a narcotics officer with a Doberman passed into a tiny detention room where small time hoodlums and big time criminals are whisked to by burly security guards and custom's officers in hopes of marvelous retribution from the arch-rival Nemesis; it could scarcely accommodate a rather absurdly wide desk, and next to it a little low table bearing a lamp.
Everything seemed uncannily quiet. One heard the wind against the glass, the machine-gun bursting sounds of weeping next door followed by rhythmic whimpering, the heavy footsteps across the hallway.
"You may take off your coat," said one of the guards jerking his head in the direction of a coat rack. I mechanically unzipped my windbreaker.
Looking back at what transpired, I am ashamed to recall the way I let them corner me, box me in, intimidate me initially, the anxiety I felt.
Straining to reach up, I hung my windbreaker, but it broke loose, taking down two other coats and a plaid jacket with it. The four objects hit the floor with an awkward thud.
"Lei come si chiama? [What is your name?]" I gave him my name. "What is your nationality?" I told him. Di che parte di Canada é lei? [What part of Canada are you from?] Lei dove abita? [Where do you live?] Qual é il suo numero di telefono? [What is your telephone number?] "Where are you flying from?" Éla prima volta che viene in Italia? [Is this your first visit to Italy?] Over the years of covering Bilderbergers, I learned how to nimbly avoid unnecessary confrontation with bullish border guards and trigger-happy policemen. I knew of several journalists turned back at the border for poking their fingers in the eye of the authority.
"We would like to examine your suitcase. We have reason to believe you may be transporting drugs," said the detective.
"If you have drugs, you better tell us before we open up your bag," joined in a narcotics officer.
I wasn't so much worried about the drugs, as I don't do drugs, don't smoke them, and much less transport them internationally in a suitcase.
However, I was covering Bilderberg´s annual meeting, my name was known internationally by all divisions of the secret service, from Mossad to the KGB, MI6 and the CIA. Each reporter covering these annual secret meetings is photographed, his personal details taken and the information passed through the Rockefeller-controlled Interpol to all international protection agencies.
It wouldn't be the first time that someone tried to compromise my security. In Toronto, in 1996, an undercover agent tried to sell me a stolen gun. During the 1999 meeting in Sintra, someone had sent a woman up to my hotel room, programmed through hypnosis and brainwashing techniques to undress herself in my room and to throw herself out the window, after receiving a certain telephone call, hoping to entrap me into a first degree murder conviction. Luckily for all, I refused her come ons. Don't ask me how I knew. One of the tools of the trade you develop in following Bilderbergers around is the sixth sense. Strange car sounds, repetitive noises, people's faces that somehow look familiar, friendly nobodies offering a helping hand . . . you just learn to be overly careful. There was something out of the ordinary in that woman's behaviour. Too eager, too forced. Body language that didn't coincide with the verbal language. I think that's it! What caught my attention was an apparent lack of co-ordination between her body and her speech. When I heard the knock on the door, I thought it was room service bringing up my order of chicken with cashews and apple strudel that I had ordered for dinner. Imagine my surprise, when upon opening the door I found myself standing in front of a scantly clad woman with
a perfectly sculptured body, long black curly hair and green eyes.
Could someone have snuck drugs into my suitcase? When covering Bilderberg, I take all the necessary precautions. No check ins. Only carry-on luggage. The bag never leaves my sight. Flying back from Scotland in 1998, [Translation: one of my more successful Bilderberg penetration efforts. Jim Tucker of the American Free Press and I broke the story of Bilderberg´s plans for war in Kosovo by way of first, creating hostilities between Greece and Turkey on Cyprus which they could then push back into the Balkans.] I got a nagging feeling that someone might have handled my bag. I left it at the airport with all my clothes and momentos from the Turnberry conference.
Moving over to one side of the room, I found myself at a shade end of the long desk.
The next moment, the detective who sat quite still on the edge of the bench, keenly observing my every move, his hands resting on the barrel of his gun, stood up and with the point of his boot turned back a corner of the thick doormat that was ruffled by a Doberman.
One of the guards disappeared into my bag. All I could see were the sharp angles of his elbows moving to and fro.
My heart was heavy. No matter how much I rummaged within myself, I failed to find one crumb of joy. The best I hoped for was to be put back on the plane and sent packing. "Bilderberg paradise lost" was to be the headline in P.´s next issue.
Suddenly the guard looked up, gave a cry, half turned toward me in incertitude mixed with curiosity, and pulled a thin and well-worn volume of Fet [great Russian author of the XIX century] in Russian out of the bag.
As if on queue, everybody started talking at once.
A youngish bespectacled guard, who fetched my Fet, immediately announced that he had been to Russia and knew some Russian, for instance, borsch (beet soup), raduga (rainbow) and privet (hello). At least, the guard's attitude towards me had changed dramatically.
Out of the deepest recesses of his memory, he tried (in vain) to attach the proverbial unattachable limbs into a coherent sentence. I found it impossible to understand what he was talking about. I listened dutifully, with half-opened mouth: his knowledge of Russian reminded one of the vastnesses of Russian stepa, a word, a home, that island of hope amongst the enormity of emptiness. The sheer process of trying to understand my docile language caused me pain.
The detective, having approached the guard, sat down close to me (I was still standing, leaning forlornly against a wall) that I felt his disagreeable warmth, put a peppermint into his mouth and took the book out of the guard's hands.
He passed his fingers across the spine of my book. The man opened a little volume of Fet and began to rummage through the pages. Like most people who read little, his head moved in rhythm with his lips across the page.
Taking advantage of the lull in the conversation, I made a detailed study of the man: corpulent, swarthy, none too young, sharp-tipped nose, sleekly parted hair, jutting eyelids and badly bitten fingernails.
In the next room, someone was roaring with laughter. A chair violently slid across the floor in the room across the hall. The man (with the Doberman) clad in tight, narrow trousers on his spindly legs was motioning to the guard, but the words were drowned out by the combined roar of mingling voices.
The door, whose existence I totally neglected, suddenly thrust open. A plaincloths man (with a gun) stepped in. He saw him first, uttered a cry, his hands up, all 10 fingers dancing. He and the detective (who by now got tired of leafing through my volume of Fet. It had no pictures) greeted each other lustily, trying to crowd into a handshake and backslap as much fervour as was possible.
A brief conversation ensued. By now, a detective and a plaincloths man were huddled with the two guards and an overly passive narcotics officer. The Doberman was asleep on the mat.
Out of the conversation, conducted in a hushed tone, itself a monumental success for any Italian, I could make out isolated bits of phrases: Cosa vuol dire . . . ? [¿Qué quiere decir . . . ?], Non capisco nulla. [No entiendo nada!], Che cerca [A quién busca?].
After a brief exchange, everybody got comfortable. The detective put himself in front of me, the guards took their place at the door and the narcotics cop sat himself on the desk. The plaincloths man leaned against the wall.
"Let me see, where do I know you from?" he began. The detective's velvety tone added a sense of drama to a play whose badly sketched out characters have long outlived their possible usefulness.
Dove siete alloggiati? [Where are you staying?] He asked me for my plane tickets and a hotel reservation. I produced both, crumpled beyond recognition by a habitual chaos of my handbag.
"What possible reason would you have to come to Stresa at this time of the year?" He weighed every word on the scales of the most exact common sense. I said nothing. By now, my nerves were unusually receptive after a restless hour of interrogation.
Mechanically, I reached for my Fet, presently, my only source of warmth and reassurance. I was immediately requested (by the detective) to put the book aside and to pay close attention.
The detective produced a photograph out of the red folder he was now holding in his right hand. I could hardly believe it. Staring at me was a copy of my own hideous black-and-white Spanish national identity photograph.
"What business do you have to attend to in Stresa," he repeated in perfect English. I was found out. There could be no mistake about it. Someone in the Spanish Ministry of the Interior had provided the Italian security forces with my photo. The Italians knew why I was coming and were waiting for me. What's worse, the Spanish Ministry of the Interior was cooperating with the Bilderbergers to stop my investigation. Who might it have been? How did they know where to expect me? Did the airline voluntarily offer my confidential information to the Italians? At whose request? What did they get in return?
I stared intensely at a piece of tinfoil that sparkled on the floor.
Suddenly, I understood something I had been seeing without understanding-why they stopped me, why they questioned me, why they made me lose time. They couldn't retain me, for I had done nothing. Nor could they let me go, for they were told to keep me at bay. The border guard, unwittingly, formed part of the Bilderberg invisible machinery.
I stood up. "Gentlemen, I said, "you have two choices. Either you arrest me and charge me with a crime or you let me go. The masquerade is over. You know why I am here and I know that you know that I know your game plan."
I looked at the configuration left by a shadow of a piece of tinfoil that sparkled on the floor. Sick of it all, angry at them, at me, at the world, for not knowing, not wanting to know and not caring, I tried to squeeze this entirely insignificant object into the orderly existence of the moment.
Another brief consultation followed amongst the five. But now, I knew, that within a few minutes, I'd be driven by a waiting car to the shores of Lake Maggiori, to Stresa and to Bilderberg´s annual conference; to a reunion with a group of fearless hound dogs, my friends, all of whom, against all odds had made their way to this sleepy little town, people who have put up with unimaginable hardships to expose Bilderberg´s master plan for Global Government and One World Order.
"You are free to go, Mr Estulin," said the detective. "But do remember, we know where to find you. You are in Italy. Should you get into any trouble, you will be jailed. That I promise you."
I picked up my bag. Stuffed my Fet into one of the side pockets. "Da svidania, daragoy." [Good bye, friend] The guard's face lit up momentarily. He looked askance at the detective. But I didn't see him. At last, I was free.
As I made my way through the airport terminal, I thought of the fickleness of chance and the demands of a friendship. Again and again, danger and death appeared in the margins of my life without influencing in the bit the main lines of the text.
A lanky blond young man in oriental garb with a bandaged up nose entered a café. Nearby, a waiter was wiping the slabs of tables with a wet cloth.
In a souvenir shop window, a dejected poster announced a premier of a visiting circus, one corner of its ruffled paper torn off, a dead fly on the window sill.
I stepped out on to the street. The windless air was warm, laden with a faint tang of gasoline.
A man with a local newspaper sat down on the bench in front of me. For some inexplicable reason, he took off his shoes and his socks.
Qual é il prezzo a Stresa? [How much does it cost to get to Stresa?] Possono portarmi il bagaglio? [¿Puede Ud. llevar mi maleta?]
The cab driver with a massive, strong nose obliged. He briefly rose to remove his own squashed hat from under him and loaded up my belongings into the Mercedes Benz.
I love the process of settling into viatic quarters-the comfortable leather seat, the anticipation of new discoveries, and the slow passage of the airport's receding lights.
The cab driver with a deadish little face, who as I privately noted, judging by the shape of his nose, was never one to turn down a drink, struck up a conversation. He told me about his son-in-law who had a job with some overly optimistic insurance firm in Rome. On the dashboard, I saw a soiled photograph of a corpulent, elderly woman with short red-hair, half reclined with closed eyes. The cab driver's wife. He complained of being poor, having to work too many hours and not seeing enough of his family.
This was the pattern of his life-a life that made little sense-the meagre, vapid existence of a third generation Napolitano émigré.
In some unknown compartment of my being, I could hear rambling sounds of his musings, but I, having suddenly forgotten about him, passed into another world, my private world of all that is dear to me . . .
To write, someone said, is not to be absent but to become absent; to be someone and then go away, leaving traces.
C., my love and my life. You are my heaven and hell, you could only be both. You are my happiness, my whole life, but also the clash of languages, because language, even the most brilliant language is a kind of shortfall of reason, the moan which awaits even the most perfect bliss, not because our happiness is doomed, or because fate is unkind, but because happiness is intelligible only under threat; intelligible only as its own threat.
I tried to concentrate on what was awaiting me in Stresa. Twenty-two hour working days, phone calls to check information from sources, being continuously followed by the secret service, threats, unauthorised searches, meetings and more meetings with those few valiant souls, braving the threats of Bilderbergers to give us precious details of their diabolical plans. But I simply couldn't get my mind around it. Incoherent images of moral horror ghost-danced in my head. Total Enslavement. Men-made famines that swept millions to their grave. Suffering, more suffering. Unspeakable, inhuman sacrifice. Why? Why? Is it really possible that someone might want to inflict so much pain on the world for personal gain? As I struggled to hold back tears, I kept reminding myself that my quest for the truth was a revendication of decency at the expense of cruelty.
I kept thinking of a happy ending to the yet-to-be-written tale about paradise lost-our damage-strewn world. What would it mean to lose happiness forever? Paradise and its loss are integral to each other. Not only that the true paradises are lost paradises but that there is no paradise without loss, it isn't paradise if you can't lose it.
Bilderberg, of course, is a metaphor for fear, an image of the insanity of it all. Beneath it all, there is an understanding, of course, that time and space, like love and like death, alters us and affirms us, clings to us and explores us; that it involves the irrevocable, and makes us who we are.
What is Time, if not a brutal passage and decay, and a form of awareness, a birth of consciousness that knows itself to be temporal. And still less do I understand what is the purpose of fate bringing Bilderbergers and me constantly together.
Daniel Estulin is an award-winning investigative journalist who has been researching the Bilderbergers for over 13 years. Estulin was one of only two journalists in the world who witnessed and reported (from beyond the heavily guarded perimeter) the super secret meeting at the Dorint Sofitel Seehotel in Rottach-Egern, Munich, Bavaria, Germany, on May 5–8, 2005. He can be reached at d.estulin@ctconsultoria.com.
Investigation
Reveals: Bilderbergers Want Taxes Up, War in Iraq Over
By James P. Tucker Jr.
Stresa, Italy-At this year's secret Bilderberg meeting, some of the world's most powerful elite focused on U.S. taxes and foreign giveaways, as well as the increasingly violent Iraq occupation and the role the United Nations should play in all future similar outbreaks of violence.
Prior to the meeting, a Bilderberg memo promised that its members would deal mainly with European-American relations and in that context, with U.S politics, Iraq, the Middle East, European geopolitics, NATO, China, energy and economic problems.
During the conference, Britain came in for harsh criticism for supporting the invasion of Iraq. It was also lambasted for failing to embrace the euro, despite Prime Minister Tony Blair's promise to do so at a Bilderberg meeting some years ago in the Scottish resort of Turnberry.
Bilderberg members also expressed frustration with the rising clamor in Britain to quit the European Union.
As expected, the United States was heavily criticized for the fact that its foreign aid was a smaller percentage of gross domestic product than that of other nations. That marked the third straight meeting at which Bilderbergers' decades of almost total congeniality was marred by hostility among the Americans, Britons and continental Europeans.
The first evidence of division in the ranks was apparent in 2002 when Bilderbergers met at Chantilly, Va., near Washington. Then, Europeans were angry that the United Sates was preparing for an invasion of Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tried to placate them with a promise not to invade "this year." Instead, the war began in March 2003.
Bilderbergers, however, remain united in their long-term goal to strengthen the role the UN plays in regulating global relations. Aside from that objective, other matters on this year's conference agenda included the following:
• British elites are to press on with membership in the European Union despite growing domestic opposition.
• The Free Trade Area of the Americas should be enacted and include the entire Western Hemisphere except for Cuba until Fidel Castro is gone. It should then evolve into the "American Union" as a carbon copy of the European Union.
• An "Asian-Pacific Union" is to emerge as the third great superstate, neatly dividing the world into three great regions for the administrative convenience of banking and corporate elites. The United States and other international financial institutions should facilitate and administrate these global trade pacts.
Bilderbergers have, for some time, argued for three global currencies-the euro for Europe, the dollar for the American Union and another for the "Asian-Pacific Union."
One Bilderberger, Kenneth Clarke, a former chancellor of the British exchequer, saw the consolidation of currencies as an ideal strategy when he spoke to this reporter several years ago in Portugal. At that time, Clarke told me that "dollarization" would dominate the globe and "our children will laugh at all the petty currencies we have now."
Another much-discussed subject at this year's conference was the concept of imposing a direct UN tax on people worldwide. In order to achieve it, some Bilderbergers presented two proposals: a tax on oil at the wellhead and a tax on international financial transactions.
Bilderberg leaders tilted strongly toward the oil tax because everyone who drives a car, rides public transportation or flies in a plane will end up paying the tax. That will represent more people than those engaged in international financial transactions across the globe.
On the issue of Iraq, European Bilderbergers were more upset that the United States invaded without the UN's blessing than the fact that over 800 American soldiers have died and thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens have been killed.
Word reached the conference from Rumsfeld, who was unable to attend this year's meeting, that the U.S. military would assume a more defensive stance in Iraq, rather than the more provocative operations of door-to-door searches and widespread detention.
Rumsfeld was, however, represented
in Stresa by Douglas Feith, his undersecretary for policy, and William Luti,
deputy undersecretary for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. Former Pentagon
advisor Richard Perle, one of the major architects of the war in Iraq, was
also present. It had been Perle, Feith and Paul Wolfowitz who, from the mid
1990s, had fashioned the Middle East policy later adopted by Bush, Cheney
and Rumsfeld.
European Bilderbergers also protested the fact that the Pentagon was considering reducing troop levels in Germany and tried hard to convince their American counterparts to resist the move. They argued it would "undermine unity" and, irrespective of the military implications, the German economy benefited annually from the millions of dollars spent by U.S. servicemen there.
Resistance in Britain to the euro, and to membership in the European Union, caused much concern and was deemed an obstacle to the solidification of the superstate.
It was noted that many Europeans were unaware of the European Parliament elections scheduled for June 10 and should there be a low turnout, it could be attributed to a protest boycott of the elections by EU opposition groups.
Four former Conservative members of Parliament have endorsed the United Kingdom Independence Party, which demands British withdrawal from the European Union. And, if allowed to vote in a referendum, it has been reported that Britons would reject membership in the European Union by strong proportions. A YouGov survey, taken at the end of May, showed 48 percent would vote to get out of the European Union and 36 percent would vote to stay in.
As it stands, Europeans can only select members for the European Parliament but not the EU Commission, the bureaucratic powerhouse of the union.
Bilderberg participants ended their secret sessions on an upbeat note with a ferry ride to a luxury island on Lake Maggiore, where John Elkman, the latest vice president of the Fiat motor company, will marry his new bride in September.
AFP's
Jim Tucker Assessed as Security Threat
By the Staff of American Free Press
On Monday, May 31, AFP correspondent James P. Tucker Jr. was arrested by Italian plainclothes policemen on his first day in Stresa, Italy, to cover this year's secret Bilderberg conference.
His crime? He did what any good journalist would do. He went to the five-star Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees, where the conference was to be held, hoping to pry information from hotel staff. On his way out of the hotel, three plainclothes cops blocked his path, seized his passport and led him to an unmarked car.
"The officer in charge, Antonio Bacinelli, told me they were taking me for a five-minute ride because their commander wanted to talk to me," says Tucker, "but it was more like 40 minutes as the car whizzed through small towns to police headquarters."
At police HQ, he was led from the car and placed in an interrogation room.
"I told the cops that I was sure the State Department wasn't happy about me covering Bilderberg, but they were unlikely to approve of Italian police putting me in jail for doing my job," adds Tucker, who remembers his interrogator as a craggy-faced officer in his 60s, dressed in a business suit.
"He interviewed me through translators, including Bacinelli and a young woman, and asked me if I had any particular reason for being in Stresa. I replied: 'You know exactly who I am, but I will tell you anyway. I'm here to cover Bilderberg for the American newspaper, American Free Press'."
Tucker then handed over his American press credentials, which they examined.
The female officer read aloud, in English, what was printed on the back of Tucker's plastic-sealed press card. The wording contained the following: "The holder hereof agrees to assume all risks incident to use of this pass" but "members of the police force shall be courteous and cooperative on all occasions to the bearer of this pass."
According to Tucker, there was then "a burst of Italian chatter in which the word 'journalist' was heard several times, before the female officer smiled, returned his passport and press card and told him he would face no further harassment from the police.
"To my surprise, Bacinelli and the commander
drove me back to the hotel," smiles Tucker, remembering every minute of his
three hours in custody. "They even followed me into the hotel and sat in
the lobby while I went into a lounge area where I could keep my eyes on them.
I had said to them: "If you chaps are so interested in Bilderberg, you are
invited to join me again in the days ahead. I will be happy to tell you what
the Bilderberg boys are doing."
They had replied: "Oh no. We're regulars at this hotel."
Later, a hotel employee, who agreed to talk anonymously, told Tucker the police were not regulars.
"I think the police had been tipped off to the fact that I was going to be there. In past years of covering Bilderberg, security and police had been supplied with photographs of me and were always alerted to my arrival on the conference scene. I think they were expecting me again this time," said Tucker, wondering what will be in store for him next year.
Pro-Israel Neo-Cons Prominent at 2004 Bilderberg Meeting
By Michael Collins Piper
This year's American delegation-some 33 members strong-among the 127 acknowledged attendees at the 2004 Bilderberg meeting was populated by a heavy contingent of individuals known for their intimate ties to the powerful Israeli lobby in the United States. In full force was that faction known as the so-called "neo-conservatives"-those who have determined that Israel's security should be central to all U.S. foreign policy decisions, even those policies that focus on other parts of the world, outside the realm of U.S.-Middle East relations.
Most notable among this group is the now-infamous Richard Perle, who has attended several past Bilderberg meetings, when Republican administrations have been ensconced in Washington.
A former member and chairman of the "Dubya" Bush-administrated created Defense Policy Board (DPB), Perle was once a lobbyist for an Israeli arms manufacturer and, in the 1970s-while serving as a top aide to then-Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.)-was investigated by the FBI for espionage on behalf of Israel. After a stint as an undersecretary of defense in the Reagan administration, Perle went on to become a major player in the burgeoning neo-conservative network that played the critical role in pushing the United States into the war against Iraq.
Considering the fact that Perle was forced to resign from the DPB after it was learned that he had been advising Goldman Sachs International on how it might profit from the war in Iraq, it is not surprising that Goldman Sachs has long been represented at the Bilderberg meetings and now boasts its "international advisor" Martin Taylor as Bilderberg's honorary secretary general.
Joining Perle were two other Bush administration neo-conservative heavyweights generally known to have been major forces behind the push for war in Iraq: Douglas Feith, deputy undersecretary of defense for policy-the top lieutenant of neoconservative stalwart and longtime Perle associate, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz-and his colleague, William J. Luti, deputy undersecretary of defense for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.
The neo-conservatives were also represented at Bilderberg by Max Boot, a top editor for The Wall Street Journal, who has been known for his advocacy of American imperialism in the pages of both the Journal and in The Weekly Standard, which is published by European-based Rothschild family satellite Rupert Murdoch and edited by neoconservative theoretician William Kristol.
Also in attendance at this year's Bilderberg was Kristol's close colleague, Robert Kagan-a contributing editor of The Weekly Standard and a director of Kristol's Project for the New American Century, which once declared that "a new Pearl Harbor" was necessary in order for the United States to begin waging imperial ventures around the globe.
The neo-conservative Hudson Institute was represented at Bilderberg by Marie Josee Kravis, who is both the wife of billionaire Henry Kravis (also in attendance, representing his financial empire) and a business colleague of Perle, having served with Perle as a director of the neo-conservative (and Rothschild family affiliated) Hollinger publishing empire, which includes The Jerusalem Post among its holdings.
Another neo-conservative figure on hand was Bruce Kovner, one of America's richest men, who has helped finance The New York Sun newspaper, a small circulation-but highly influential-neo-conservative journal. Kovner also serves as chairman of the American Enterprise Institute, with which the aforementioned Perle has long been associated.
These neo-conservatives were also joined this year at Bilderberg by a handful of other top former Washington policy makers and publicists known for their sympathies for Israel, including Dennis Ross of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, effectively an offshoot of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, former State Department official Richard N. Haas, president of the CFR, and former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke.
Call 1-888-699-NEWS (6397) toll free and charge a subscription to Visa or MasterCard or write: American Free Press, 645 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Suite 100, Washington, D.C. 20003.
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Participants 2004
The 52nd Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Stresa, Italy, 3-6 June 2004. The Conference will deal mainly with European American relations and in this context US Politics, Iraq, The Middle East., European Geopolitics, NATO, China, Economoic Problems and Energy......
Honorary Chairman - Davignon, Etienne - Vice-Chairman, Suez-Tractebel
Honorary Secretary General - Taylor, Martin - International Adviser, Goldman Sachs International
N - Auser, Svein - CEO, DnB NOR ASA
D - Ackermann, Josef - Chairman, Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank AG; Member of supervisory boards Siemens AG. & Bayer AG; Director, World Trade Center Memorial Foundation (court case against - see below) - [actually Ackermann is Swiss so why is he listed here as German?]
I - Ambrosetti, Alfredo - Chairman, Abbrosetti Group
TR - Babacan, Ali - Minister of Economic Affairs
P - Balsemao, Francisco Pinto - Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, SGPS, Former Prime Minister
ISR - Barnavie, Elie - Department of General History, Tel-Aviv University
I - Benedetti, Rodolfo De - CEO, CIR
I - Bernabe, Franco - Vice Chairman, Rothschild Europe
F - Beytout, Nicolas - Editor In Chief, Les Echos
INT - Bolkestein, Frits - Commissioner for the Internal Market, European Commission, former leader of Dutch right wing Liberal Party VVD.
USA - Boot, Max - Neoconservative, Council on foreign Relations, Features Editor, Wall Street Journal
CH - Borel, Daniel - Chairman, Logitech International S.A.
I - Bortoli, Ferrucio de - CEO, RCS Libri
S - Brock, Gunnar - CEO, Atlas Copco AB
GB - Browne, John - Group Chief Executive, BP plc
NL - Burgmans, Antony - Chairman, Unilever NV
F - Camus, Phillipe - CEO, European Aeronautic Defence and Space NV
I - Caracciolo, Lucio - Director, Limes Geopolitical Review
F - Castries, Henri de - Chairman, AXA Insurance
E - Cebrian, Juan Luis - CEO, PRISA (Spanish language media company), former Chairman, International Press Institute
TR - Cemal, Hasan - Senior Columnist, Milliyet Newspaper
GB - Clarke, Kenneth - Member of Parliament (Con.), Deputy Chairman, British American Tobacco
USA - Collins, Timothy C - MD and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings LLC, Yale School of Management, Trilateral Commission
USA - Corzine, Jon S. - Senator (D, New Jersey), Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs
CH - Couchepin, Pascal - Former Swiss President, Head of Home affairs Dept.
GR - David, George A. - Chairman, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company SA
B - Dehaene, Jean-Luc - Former Prime Minister, Mayor of Vilvoorde
TR - Dervis, Kemal - Member of Parliament, former senior World bank official
GR - Diamantopoulou, Anna - Member of Parliament, former European Commissioner for Social Affairs
USA - Donilon, Thomas L - Vice-President, Fannie Mae, Council on Foreign Relations
I - Draghi, Mario - Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
USA - Edwards, John - Senator (D. North Carolina), Democratic Presidential Candidate
DK - Eldrup, Anders - Chairman, DONG gas company (becoming privatised) A/S
DK - Federspiel, Ulrik - Ambassador to the USA
USA - Feith, Douglas J. - Undersecretary for Policy, Department of Defense
I - Galateri, Gabriele - Chairman, Mediobanca
USA - Gates, Melinda F. - Co-Founder, Gates Foundation, wife of Bill Gates
USA - Geithner, Timothy F. - President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
I - Giavazzi, Francesco - Professor of Economics, Bocconi University; adviser, world bank and European Central bank
IRL - Gleeson, Dermot - Chairman Allied Irish Bank Group (currently being investigated for personal and corporate tax evasion)
USA - Graham, Donald E. - Chairman and CEO, Washington Post Company
USA - Haas, Richard N. - President, Council on Foreign Relations, former Director of Policy and Planning staff, State Department
NL - Halberstadt, Victor - Professor of Economics, Leiden University
B - Hansen, Jean-Pierre - Chairman, Suez Tractabel SA
S - Heikensten, Lars - Governor, Swedish Central Bank
USA - Holbrooke, Richard C - Vice Chairman, Perseus, former Director, Council on Foreign Relations, former Assistant Secretary of State
USA - Hubbard, Allen B - President E&A Industries
USA - Issacson, Walter - President and CEO, Aspen Institute
USA - Janow, Merit L. - Professor, International Economic Law and International Affairs, Columbia University, member of apellate body, WTO
USA - Jordan, Vernon E. Senior Managing Director, Lazard Freres & Co LLC
USA - Kagan, Robert - Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
GB - Kerr, John - Director, Shell, Rio Tinto and Scottish American Investment Trust, former secretary of European Constitution Commission
USA - Kissinger Henry A. - Chairman, Kissinger Associates Inc.
TR - Koc, Mustafa V. - Chairman, Koc Holdings AS
NL - Koenders, Bert (AG) - Member of Parliament, president, Parliamentary Network of the World Bank
USA - Kovner, Bruce - Chairman Caxton Associates LLC, Chairman, American Enterprise Institute
USA - Kravis, Henry R. - Founding Partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., acquisitions financier
USA - Kravis, Marie Josee - Senoir Fellow, Hudson Institute Inc.
FIN - Lehtomaki, Paula - Minister of Foreigh Trade and Development
FIN - Lipponen, Paavo - Speaker of Parliament; former Prime Minister
CHN - Long, Yongtu - Secretary General, Boao forum for Asia - [actually his name shouiuld read "Tu, Yonglong" the Bilderberg secretariat mistyped it]
P - Lopes, Pedro M. Santana - Mayor of Lisbon
USA - Luti, William J. - Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs
CDN - Lynch, Kevin G. - Deputy Minister, Department of Finance
USA - Mathews, Jessica T. - President, Carnegie Endowment for International
War Peace
USA - McDonough, William J. - Cahirman and CEO, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, former president, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
CDN - McKenna, Frank - Counsel, McInnes Cooper, former premier of New Brunswick
I - Merlini, Cesare - Executive Vice Chairman, Council for the United States and Italy, Council on Foreign Relations, former director, Italian Institute for International Affairs
F - Montbrial, Thierry de - President, French Institute of International Relations
INT - Monti, Mario - Competition/Antitrust Commissioner, European Commission
USA - Mundie, Craig J. - Chief Technical Officer, Advanced Strategies and Policies, Microsoft Corporation
N - Myklebust, Egil - Chairman, Scandinavian Airline System (SAS)
D - Naas, Matthias - Deputy Editor, Die Zeit
NL - Netherlands, Beatrix HM Queen of The - Lady Shell, nuff said
GB - Neville-Jones, Pauline - Chairman, QuinetiQ (UK privatised military research/services company), governor of the BBC, Chairman Information Assurance Advisory Council, formar Chairman Joint Intelligence Committee, former Managing Director NatWest Markets
USA - Nooyi, Indra K. - President and CEO, PepsiCo Inc.
PL - Olechowski, Andrzej - Leader, Civic Platform
FIN - Ollila, Jorma - Chairman, Nokia Corporation
INT - Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso - Director, European Central Bank
CY - Pantelides, Leonidas - Ambassoador to Greece
I - Passera, Corrado - CEO, Banca Intesa SpA
USA - Perle, Richard N. - Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, former Likud policy adviser, former chair Defence Policy Board, former co-chairman, Hollinger Digital
B - Phillipe, HRH Prince
USA - Reed, Ralph E. - President, Century Strategies
CDN - Reisman, Heather - President and CEO, Indigo Books and Music Inc.
I - Riotta, Gianni - Editorialist, Corriere della Serra
USA - Rockefeller, David - Member JP Morgan International Council, Chairman, Council of the Americas
E - Riodriguez Inearte, Matias - Vice Chairman, Grupo Santander
USA - Ross, Dennis B - Director, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
D - Sandschneider, Eberhard - Director, Research Institute, German Society for Foreign Policy
I - Scaroni, Paolo - CEO, Enel SpA
D - Schilly, Otto - Minister of the Interior
USA - Schnabel, Rockwell A. - Ambassador to the EU
A - Scholten, Rudolf - Director, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG
D - Schrempp, Jurgen E. - Chairman, DaimlerChrysler AG
E - Serra Rexach, Eduardo - Head, Real Institute Elcano
RUS - Shevtsova, Lilia - Senior Associate. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
PL - Sikora, Slawomir - President and CEO, Citibank Handlowy
I - Siniscalo, Domenico - Director General Ministry of the Economy
P - Socrates, Jose - Member of Parliament
USA - Strmecki, Marin J. - Smith Richardson Foundation
B - Struye de Swielande, Dominique - Permanant repressentative of Belguim, NATO
IRL - Sutherland, Peter D. - Chairman, Goldman Sachs International, Chairman, BP plc
USA - Thornton, John L. - Chairman, Brookings Institution, Professor, Tsinghua University
I - Tremonti, Giulio - Minister of Economy and Finance
INT - Trichet, Jean-Claude - President, European Central Bank
I - Tronchetti Provera, Marco - Chairman and CEO, Pirelli SpA
N - Underdal, Arild - Rector, University of Oslo
CH - Vasella, Daniel L. - Chairman and CEO, Novartis AG
NL - Veer, Jeroen van der - Chairman, Committee of Managing Directors, Royal Dutch/Shell
GB - Verwaayen, Ben J. M. - CEO, British Telecom; former director, Lucent Technologies
I - Visco, Ignazio - Foriegn Affairs Manager, Banca D'Italia
INT - Vitorino, Antonio M. - Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner, European Union
INT - Vries, Gijs M. de - EU Counter Terrorism Co-ordinator
S - Wallenberg, Jacob - Chairman, SEB investments (including biotech); Chairman, W Capital Management AB
D - Weber, Jurgen - Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutche Lufthansa AG
GB/USA - Weinberg, Peter - CEO, Goldman Sachs International
NL - Wijers, Hans - Chairman, AkzoNobel NV
D - Wissmann, Matthias - Member of Parliament
GB - Wolf, Martin H. - Associate Editor/Economic Commentator, The Financial Times
INT/USA - Wolfenson, James D. - President, The World Bank
RUS - Yavlinsky, Grigory A. - Member of Parliament
USA - Yergin, Daniel - Chairman, Cambridge Energy Research Associates
D - Zumwinkel, Klaus - Chairman, Deutche Post Worldnet AG; Chairman, Deutche Telekom
GB - Rachman, Gideon - Brussels Correspondent, The Economist
GB - Wooldridge, Adrian D. - Foreign Correspondant, The Economist
Thanks to Michael Haupt - www.threeworldwars.com - for that
Where
is this year's Bilderberg meeting taking place?
Hotel des Iles Borromees - Corso Umberto I, 67 - 28838 Stresa - ITALY
tel. +39 0323 938 938 / fax. +39 0323 324 05
e-mail: borromees@borromees.it
The Borromeo Islands are 'verdant jewels' floating 'idyllically' in Lake Maggiore, and the finest place from which to observe their beauty is the equally stunning Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees, located on the lakefront in Stresa. The hotel's beautiful Belle Epoque architecture has been faithfully preserved both outside and inside. Lavish decor faultlessly recreates a grand era of days gone by, while recent refurbishments ensure the ultimate in comfort for the most modern of travellers. Built in 1861, the hotel has been host to many prominent guests, including Hemingway, Mussolini, Rothschild and Clark Gable. Today, its guests still enjoy the unrivalled beauty, unprecedented luxury and world- class facilities for which the Grand Hotel is famed.
174 stunning rooms faithfully recreate the Belle Epoque era; Impero or Maggiolini style, lavish drapes, warm, rich colours, fabrics and Murano chandeliers enhance the authenticity. Most lake-facing rooms enjoy a private balcony, and all bathrooms are tiled in Italian marble and have a whirlpool. Suites are magnificent, boasting fine art, inlaid ceilings, statues, vast whirlpool baths and separate showers in imperial suites.
http://www.borromees.it/inglese/index2.html - flashy flash site
Latest Bilderberg news
NATO’s secret armies linked to terrorism
Nato=Nazi trail - link one - click for next
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/GAN412A.html
by Daniele Ganser
ISN Security Watch, 15 December 2004
www.globalresearch.ca 17 December 2004
NATO’s secret armies linked to terrorism
click here for more on Operation Gladio
by Daniele Ganser
In Italy, on 3 August 1990, then-prime minister Giulio Andreotti confirmed the existence of a secret army code-named “Gladio” - the Latin word for “sword” - within the state. His testimony before the Senate subcommittee investigating terrorism in Italy sent shockwaves through the Italian parliament and the public, as speculation arose that the secret army had possibly manipulated Italian politics through acts of terrorism.
Andreotti revealed that the secret Gladio army had been hidden within the Defense Ministry as a subsection of the military secret service, SISMI. General Vito Miceli, a former director of the Italian military secret service, could hardly believe that Andreotti had lifted the secret, and protested:
"I have gone to prison because I did not want to reveal the existence of this super secret organization. And now Andreotti comes along and tells it to parliament!"
According to a document compiled by the Italian military secret service in 1959, the secret armies had a two-fold strategic purpose: firstly, to operate as a so-called “stay-behind” group in the case of a Soviet invasion and to carry out a guerrilla war in occupied territories; secondly, to carry out domestic operations in case of “emergency situations”.
The military secret services’ perceptions of what constituted an “emergency” was well defined in Cold War Italy and focused on the increasing strength of the Italian Communist and the Socialist parties, both of which were tasked with weakening NATO “from within”. Felice Casson, an Italian judge who during his investigations into right-wing terrorism had first discovered the secret Gladio army and had forced Andreotti to take a stand, found that the secret army had linked up with right-wing terrorists in order to confront “emergency situations”. The terrorists, supplied by the secret army, carried out bomb attacks in public places, blamed them on the Italian left, and were thereafter protected from prosecution by the military secret service. "You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game,” right-wing terrorist Vincezo Vinciguerra explained the so-called “strategy of tension” to Casson.
“The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened."
How strongly NATO and US intelligence backed and supported the use of terror in Italy in order to discredit the political left during the Cold War remains subject of ongoing research. General Gerardo Serravalle, who had commanded the Italian Gladio secret army from 1971 to 1974, confirmed that the secret army “could pass from a defensive, post-invasion logic, to one of attack, of civil war”.
The Italian Senate chose to be more explicit and concluded in its investigation in 2000: "Those massacres, those bombs, those military actions had been organized or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions and, as has been discovered more recently, by men linked to the structures of United States intelligence." Ever since the discovery of the secret NATO armies in 1990, research into stay-behind armies has progressed only very slowly, due to very limited access to primary documents and the refusal of both NATO and the CIA to comment. On 5 November 1990, a NATO spokesman told an inquisitive press: "NATO has never contemplated guerrilla war or clandestine operations”.
The next day, NATO officials admitted that the previous day’s denial had been false, adding that the alliance would not comment on matters of military secrecy. On 7 November, NATO’s highest military official in Europe, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) US General John Galvin, together with NATO’s highest civilian official, Secretary-General Manfred Wörner, briefed NATO ambassadors behind closed doors.
"Since this is a secret organization, I wouldn't expect too many questions to be answered,” reasoned a senior NATO diplomat, who wished to remain unnamed. “If there were any links to terrorist organizations, that sort of information would be buried very deep indeed.” Former CIA director William Colby confirmed in his memoirs that setting up the secret armies in Western Europe had been “a major program” for the CIA. The project started after World War II in total secrecy, and access to information was limited “to the smallest possible coterie of the most reliable people, in Washington, in NATO” and in the countries concerned.
Yet when in Italy in 1990 former CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner was questioned on television on Gladio, he strictly refused to answer any questions on the sensitive issue, and as the interviewer insisted with respect for the terror victims, Stansfield angrily ripped off his microphone and shouted: "I said, no questions about Gladio!", whereafter the interview was over.
If there had been a Soviet invasion, the secret anti-communist soldiers would have operated behind enemy lines, strengthening and setting up local resistance movements in enemy-held territory, evacuating shot down pilots, and sabotaging the supply lines and production centers of occupation forces. Upon discovery of the secret armies, the European Parliament responded with harsh criticism, suspecting it to have been involved in manipulation and terror operations. “This Europe will have no future,” Italian representative Falqui opened the debate, “if it is not founded on truth, on the full transparency of its institutions in regard to the dark plots against democracy that have turned upside down the history, even in recent times, of many European states.” Falqui insisted that “there will be no future, ladies and gentlemen, if we do not remove the idea of having lived in a kind of double state - one open and democratic, the other clandestine and reactionary. That is why we want to know what and how many "Gladio" networks there have been in recent years in the Member States of the European Community." The majority of EU parliamentarians followed Falqui, and in a special resolution on 22 November 1990 made it clear that the EU “protests vigorously at the assumption by certain US military personnel at SHAPE and in NATO of the right to encourage the establishment in Europe of a clandestine intelligence and operation network”, calling for a “a full investigation into the nature, structure, aims, and all other aspects of these clandestine organizations or any splinter groups, their use for illegal interference in the internal political affairs of the countries concerned, and the problem of terrorism in Europe”.
Only the parliaments in Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium had formed a special commission to investigate the national secret army, and after months or even years of research, presented a public report. Building on this data and secondary sources from numerous European countries, “NATO’s Secret Armies” confirms for the first time that the secret networks spread across Western Europe, with great details on networks in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Luxemburg, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, as well as the strategic planning of Britain and the US. The stay-behind armies were coordinated on an international level by the so-called Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) and the Clandestine Planning Committee (CPC), linked to NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). And they used cover names such as “Absalon” in Denmark, “P26” in Switzerland, “ROC” in Norway or “SDRA8” in Belgium. Interestingly, large differences existed from country to country. In some nations the secret armies became a source of terror, while in others they remained a prudent precaution.
In Turkey, the “Counter-Guerrilla” was involved in domestic terror and torture operations against the Kurds, while in Greece, the “LOK” took part in the 1967 military coup d’état to prevent a Socialist government. In Spain, the secret army was used to prop up the fascist dictatorship of Franco, and in Germany, right-wing terrorists used the explosives of the secret army in the 1980 terror attack in Munich. In other countries, including Denmark, Norway, and Luxemburg, the secret soldiers prepared for the eventual occupation of their home country and never engaged in domestic terror or manipulation.
In the context of the ongoing so-called war on terror, the Gladio data promotes the sobering insight that governments in the West have sacrificed the life of innocent citizens and covered up acts of terrorism in order to manipulate the population.
Allegations that NATO, the Pentagon, MI6, the CIA, and European intelligence services were linked to terror, coups d’état, and torture in Europe are obviously of an extremely sensitive nature, and future research is needed in the field. In the absence of an official investigation by NATO or the EU, ongoing international research into terrorism is about to tackle this difficult task, the first step of which I hope to have promisingly taken with “NATO’s Secret Armies”. Dr Daniele Ganser is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the ETH in Zurich. For more information on the topic, compare the research of the Center of Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich.
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/GAN412A.html
Prince Bernhard was not renowned for his subtlety, yet he made up for this by his unstoppable urge to enjoy life to the full.
But that will to live finally succumbed to years of mounting health problems on 1 December 2004. Cancerous tumours eventually got him at the age of 93.
His death heralds the end of the old royal regime which saw the Netherlands through the turmoil of the German occupation during World War II.
The war years and the post-war reconstruction were in many ways Bernhard's finest. But some of his many critics continue to insist the prince wasn't even sure which side he was on during the Netherlands' darkest hours.
Others claimed Bernhard was at the centre of a right-wing conspiracy by industrialists and politicians to dominate the world.
Such was his ability to win friends and offend in equal measure; it will probably take some time for history to give its final judgement on Bernhard's legacy.
To begin with, he was German — a twist of fate that helped colour people's views of him.
He was born in Jena, Germany, in 1911 with a very definite royal spoon in his mouth. The eldest son of Prince Bernhard von Lippe and Baroness Armgard von Sierstorpff-Cramm, his full name was Bernhard Leopold Friedrich Eberhard Julius Kurt Karl Gottfried Peter zu Lippe-Biesterfeld.
At an early age, he learned that few might have been of blue blood, but the ravages of war and revolution can take away some of the privileges of being high-born. His father lost his municipality and the revenues it accorded the family after World War I.
But times were nowhere as bad for his family as they were for millions of other Germans who lived through the hunger, revolution and inflation caused by their country's defeat in 1918.
The young Bernhard was raised on the family's new estates in Eastern Prussia and he was educated at home until the age of 12. Later, he went to a gymnasium school in Berlin before studying law in Switzerland and Berlin.
Although the family had lost its principality, Bernhard enjoyed the life of a jet setting prince to the full. He loved horseback riding, flying, big-game hunting and fast cars. (On his 87th birthday, Bernhard gave himself the latest model of Ferrari.)
He nearly killed himself twice in his youth — once in a boating accident and later in an airplane crash.
Despite his joie de vivre and constant striving for new physical challenges, the young Bernhard also saw himself as a real entrepreneur and a member of the elite.
He was appointed secretary of the Board of Directors of German chemical giant IG Farben. It was a prestigious name at the time, but given the company's association with the Nazis and the Holocaust, his choice of career continued to cloud Bernhard's reputation for years to come.
Several obituary writers have noted that Bernhard's political antenna was often his undoing. As a student in the early days of the Nazi regime, he and some of his fellow students joined the SS.
Bernhard claimed years later that he was totally opposed to the Nazi ideology, but joining the SS enabled them to continue their education. In the months before his death, evidence that Bernhard had also been a member of Hitler's National Socialist NSDAP party hit the newspapers.
In the mid-1930s, fears were brewing of a new war in Europe. The announcement of the engagement between Bernhard and Crown Princess Juliana of the Netherlands wasn't greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm among the Dutch public.
Bernhard didn't help when he visited Adolf Hitler, who suggested the marriage was a sign of an alliance between the two countries.
Although he was bestowed with Dutch citizenship for the wedding, the prince insensitively briefed an SS officer about the political situation in the Netherlands, including the Dutch Nazi party, just days before the nuptials.
But some of his critics insist to this day that Bernhard knew exactly what he was doing.
Bernhard appears to have sorted out his priorities by 10 May 1940 when the Germans invaded. Armed with a machine gun, Bernhard helped lead the royal family to safety in England.
Once there, he asked to work for British Intelligence, but lingering doubts about his loyalties deprived the prince of the James Bond role he would so dearly have loved.
Instead, he flew for the RAF and helped his wife run the government-in-exile and was allowed to work on war planning councils. But when Operation Market Garden proved a bridge too far at Arnhem, there were dark mutterings that Bernhard — now commander of the Dutch forces — had betrayed the plans to the Germans.
Present at the German surrender at Wageningen in the Netherlands on 5 May 1945, Bernhard showed his sincere, but insensitive side when he said he felt sorry for the general who signed on behalf of the German forces. The officer was charged with war crimes.
If the war provided Bernhard with a chance to escape the confines of being a prince-consort, the early post-war years were heaven for him.
Although the Dutch Constitution did not provide him with any official role, he was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of State and served on councils of all branches of the military.
He renewed his jet setting lifestyle as an unofficial ambassador and general Mr Fix It for the Netherlands. He was never shy of accepting 17-gun salutes to mark his arrival in a foreign country and it is said he also used the time abroad to indulge in extramarital affairs.
He served on the boards of dozens of companies, including Dutch plane maker Fokker and Dutch carrier KLM.
He truly earned a place in the history books — and on the pages of numerous websites that cater in conspiracy theories — when he helped organise an all-male meeting of key business and intellectual figures at a Bilderberg Hotel in the Netherlands.
Officially, the annual meeting was a forum to discuss economic issues in Western Europe and the threat of communism. Unofficially, the Bilderberg Group, say some amateur theorists, is a right-wing conspiracy to dominate the world.
Ironically, Bernhard, the big-game hunter, also found time to set up the conservation organisation World Wildlife Fund.
His high-flying career came crashing down in 1976, when it emerged that Bernhard — in typical cavalier style — seemed to think it was okay to accept "commissions" from US plane manufacturer Lockheed for his help to influence the purchase of a new fighter jet for the Netherlands.
It was hardly Bernhard's finest hour. The scandal allowed the media to take another look at his SS links as well as his extramarital affairs and his links to several dodgy business personalities.
The government was forced to tone down the final report of the inquiry into the Lockheed scandal as the then Queen Juliana threatened to abdicate if Bernhard was carpeted.
The final report could not find evidence he accepted a USD 1.5 million bribe from Lockheed, but it did say he had acted in such a way as to create the impression he was open to "doing favours".
The findings were damning enough to strip Bernhard of his business positions. He also lost his military titles and was prevented from wearing a Dutch military uniform ever again.
This punishment — though mild compared to a lengthy jail sentence — hurt Bernhard deeply.
He constantly harked back to the camaraderie he experienced during the war years and made a point of attending Liberation Day ceremonies and other events for veterans. He seemed happiest when taking a salute from old soldiers at the annual 5 May Wageningen Liberation Day celebrations.
When his daughter Beatrix became Queen in 1980, Bernhard was firmly relegated to the sidelines. This didn't stop him writing letters to the media or even ringing up editors to outline his view on the big story of the day.
In the last few years, Bernhard fought a constant battle against ill health. Though slowed, he still managed to make headlines — and find himself on the right side of public opinion — when he offered to pay any fine imposed on two have-a-go supermarket workers charged with roughing up a knife-wielding robber.
Some critics in the gossip press suggested he had less time for his wife, Juliana, who had Alzheimer's in the last few years before her death in March 2004.
Yet her death seemed to mark a serious decline in Bernhard's health. There were concerns he was too ill to attend the funeral, but true to form, he was there — looking frail and ill — but he was there.
In mid-October, the Government Information Service RVD announced Bernhard had an inoperable tumour. For once, Bernhard seemed to accept that this was one battle he wasn't going to win. His declared wish was to die in Soestdijk Palace, the home he had shared with his late wife of 67 years.
But life doesn't always have a fairy-tale ending.
In a no doubt well-meaning act, the prince was rushed to hospital when his doctors decided he could no longer be treated at home. When he got there, the prince took control of his life for one last time.
He told his doctors not to treat him any further. Prince Bernhard — an important part of Dutch history — passed away at 6.50pm on 1 December 2004.
His body was brought back to Soestdijk at 10pm.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/749465.stm
Prince Bernhard of Lippe Biesterfeld was German by birth, but became a naturalised Dutchman shortly before his marriage, in 1937, to the heir to the Dutch throne.
The young German was introduced to his future wife during 1935, before the romance reportedly developed on skiing jaunts to Switzerland.
When the Nazis tried to make political capital from the wedding, Queen Wilhelmina asserted, "This is the marriage of my daughter to the man she loves...not the marriage of the Netherlands to Germany."
When the Germans invaded the Low Countries in 1940, Prince Bernhard escorted the Royal Family to safety in England, but returned himself to serve with what remained of the Dutch army.
And during the closing phase of the war, the prince returned to Europe to organise the Dutch forces of resistance and prepare the way for the Canadian liberators.
When Princess Juliana succeeded to the throne in 1948, Bernhard played his part in the public life of his adopted nation, promoting Dutch trade and industry, especially abroad.
As inspector-general to the Dutch armed forces, he was a member of various services advisory councils.
Early in 1976, this side of his activities came under scrutiny after evidence was given to a United States Senate sub-committee that a "high Dutch official" had received bribes from the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in connection with the sale of military aircraft to Holland 15 years earlier.
A subsequent Dutch government inquiry found that the Prince had acted "in a completely unacceptable manner" in his relations with Lockheed.
He had shown himself to be open to dishonourable requests and offers, and had allowed himself to be tempted to take initiatives which were bound to place him and Dutch policy in a dubious light.
To avoid a constitutional crisis after Queen Juliana had threatened to abdicate as a result of the findings, Prince Bernhard faced no criminal proceedings.
In the wake of the scandal, Prince Bernhard resigned from all his armed forces functions, and also gave up most of his business activities. Even so, Dutch exporters selected him for their 1977 man-of-the-year award.
In the meantime, the Prince had established a reputation as an accomplished horseman, and often competed in riding and jumping events at international shows.
Best known outside his country for his becoming the first president of the World Wildlife Fund in 1961, Bernhard raised $10m in two years by running a club subscription scheme among his friends.
His work for the organisation continued, after the Lockheed scandal forced his resignation from the presidency.
The prince was also instrumental in setting up the annual Bilderberg conference, named after the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland.
The conference was designed for high-powered policy makers to have "regular discussions to help create a better understanding of the complex forces affecting western nations".
It is credited with prompting the establishment of the European Community.
A lifelong fan of fast cars, for his 88th birthday, Prince Bernhard bought himself a present of a 200 mph Ferrari, despite the fact that his age and infirmity precluded him from driving it himself.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/749465.stm
Is now the unelected (appointed by Republic President) Prime Minister.
Durão Barroso, former Prime Minister, now president of European Comission, officially resigned in 29 June.
A political crisis begun on 10th June, day of European Elections, ending at the end of the month.
Lope's name first rumored as future PM around 28 June. That day he stated it was not true he was invited.
Former Environment Minister, hated by most, popular because he had a prime-time talkshow with Pedro Santana Lopes, where both discussed national politic.
Is, since Sunday 26th September 2004, the leader of the principal opposition party. Probably next Prime Minister, just a matter of how far this government will last.
Now president of European Commission, replaced by Santana Lopes.
Resigned in a social/political crisis envolving paedophilie, is place was took by José Socrates.
Washington Dispatch - September 10, 2004
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_10029.shtml
Downward and downward spiral the fortunes of Conrad Black, the deposed CEO of Hollinger International, the only tycoon in history brought low by his wife’s taste in shoes. Last week, the sometime Sun King of the Sun-Times received a mortal blow in the form of an internal report into his alleged malfeasance called ‘The Hollinger Chronicles’ authored by a personage no less prominent than Richard Breeden, former chairman of the SEC.
It is damning stuff. According to Dominic Rushe in the September 5 Sunday Times, Breeden has found that throughout the period of 1997-2003, the amount of money taken by Black and his cohort David Radler in a policy of ‘aggressive looting’ amounted to $400m, a staggering 95.2% of Hollinger’s net income for that period. Although there might not be much to substantiate the investigations by the SEC and the Illinois authorities, if he is found to have breached any SEC rules Black is automatically guilty of violating a consent decree requiring him to comply with securities laws, which was passed with his consent in 1982 and which remains in force, following litigation against sometime target Hanna Mining. Such violation is a criminal offence, and he goes straight to the hole.
However, it’s not only King Conrad who should be quaking in his boots with this report’s release. As a result of his failure to perform the duties incumbent upon him as a member of Hollinger’s executive committee, uber-neoconservative Richard Perle, ‘The Prince of Darkness’, sometime Chairman of the Pentagon Defence Policy Board, may soon find himself out of pocket to the tune of – wait for it, I’m savouring this – 5 MILLION DOLLARS!
Perle is not just a neoconservative – he is the personification of that philosophy. Along with David Frum, he is the co-author of An End to Evil, neoconservatism’s vision for the Middle East. Frum, like Black a Canadian by birth, was a columnist for Blacks’s National Post before being hired as a Bush speechwriter. Fired after his wife’s Internet boast that he coined the phrase ‘Axis of Evil’, Frum then penned the Bush hagiography The Right Man, before finding his true level as resident ideologue of the National Review Online. Frum is a hatchet man with a strong tendency towards self-promoting buy-the-book conservatism. In March 2003, he published a scandalous article in the National Review called ‘Unpatriotic Conservatives’ accusing Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak, Samuel Francis and others of, amongst other things, disloyalty, anti-Semitism and racism as payback for their refusal to support the Iraq War. Buchanan returned the compliment to Perle in a classic article, ‘Whose War?’ published in the March 24 2003 American Conservative.
Perle started his career in public life as an aide to Scoop Jackson. In 1983, the New York Times reported that he had been paid by Israeli weapons manufacturers. In 1996, he co-authored a report for Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm’ along with arch-neoconservative Douglas Feith. Buchanan quoted directly from the paper:
“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in co-operation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right – as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions”
Four years after writing that, Perle was back at The Pentagon. It was in the office of Feith, now the number three civilian at The Pentagon, that the suspected Israeli agent Lawrence Franklin worked.
However, Breeden blasts Perle for the lack of care he exhibited towards the interests of the wider shareholder democracy forming Hollinger International. Perle was not just a main board director; he was a member of the corporation’s executive committee. He should have been scrutinising the web of interlocking companies, the non-compete fees, the management fees and the asset sales and purchases that seem to have enabled Black and Radler get their hands on so much for so long. Either Perle wasn’t doing his job properly or he was looking the other way. Breeden proposes that the ultimate penalty be imposed on Perle for his consistent failure to perform. Black’s biographer Richard Siklos, writing in Hollinger’s former title The Sunday Telegraph of September 5, quotes Breeden thus –
“As a faithless fiduciary, Perle should be required to disgorge all compensation he received from the company”.
Over the course of his involvement with the company, Perle was paid a total of 5 million dollars. If Perle is called upon to repay this sum, it will be very interesting to see who is backing him up.
‘A faithless fiduciary’. Man, that must really hurt. However, Conrad Black liked his company. Under Conrad Black, both the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs faithfully parroted the neoconservative line. According to Dominic Rushe, Hollinger International’s board meetings were civilised affairs, where, after a brief chat about the operations and tribulations of a global media empire, Black, Perle and Henry Kissinger would chew the fat about politics. It’s a pity that more time wasn’t spent on discussing corporate affairs; otherwise the Louisiana Teachers’ Pension Fund might not now be suing Hollinger. It just goes to show that, in business as in politics, don’t ever ask a neocon to mind the store.
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_10029.shtml
A black future
September 05, 2004 - The Times
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8209-1246866,00.html
After last week's damning report into Hollinger International accused Lord Black of Crossharbour of looting the company of $400m, the former Telegraph owner faces a welter of lawsuits and the prospect of a criminal inquiry that could lead to jail. Dominic Rushe reports from New York
AS a top bodyguard, James Hyslop saw some of the world’s most powerful people at their most vulnerable. Working in security for the Bilderberg Group, Hyslop came into close contact with the statesmen and leading businessmen that make up the right-wing think-tank’s membership.
Conrad Black, peer, former Telegraph boss and Bilderberg member, always impressed him, said Hyslop. “He didn’t need someone around the way other people on the world stage do — the bodyguard as a status symbol.”
Hyslop acted as Black’s bodyguard, accompanying him on his private jet and attending functions. He has nothing but fond memories of a man he describes as generous, warm, witty and intelligent.
Last week Lord Black’s former colleagues painted a very different picture of the disgraced peer — one that could land him in jail. In a phrase reminiscent of Black’s own famously florid oratory, he was accused of running “a corporate kleptocracy”. A 500-page internal report commissioned by his former company, Hollinger International, alleged that Black and others siphoned off $400m in an “aggressive looting” of the publishing company’s assets.
The cash taken by Black, his former deputy David Radler and their associates including Black’s wife Lady Barbara Amiel-Black, represents 95.2% of Hollinger’s entire adjusted net income during the period 1997-2003, claimed the report. Alongside the big numbers, the report is studded with a glittering trail of outrageous expense claims. Between 2001 and 2003, Black and co spent $23.7m on private jets. “Black’s corporate expense reports charge the company for items such as ‘handbags for Mrs BB’ ($2,463), ‘jogging attire for Mrs BB’ ($140), ‘exercise equipment’ ($2,083), ‘T Anthony Ltd leather briefcase’ ($2,057), ‘opera tickets for C&BB’ ($2,785), ‘stereo equipment for the New York apartment’ ($828), ‘silverware for Blacks’ corporate jet’ ($3,530) ‘summer drinks’ ($24,950), a ‘happy birthday, Barbara’ dinner party at New York’s La Grenouille restaurant ($42,870),” claimed the report.
Shareholders and Hollinger want the money back and are pursuing Black for more than $1 billion in the American courts. Also at risk are his former friends and directors, including Henry Kissinger, American defence adviser Richard Perle and Marie-Josée Kravis, wife of billionaire Henry Kravis. They stand accused of standing idly by as Black raided the piggy bank. Their bill for failing to stop Black’s excesses could run to hundreds of millions of dollars.
As the report makes clear, the claims against Black may well bankrupt the peer, but money could be the least of his worries. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), America’s top financial watchdog, the state authorities and the FBI are investigating various aspects of the Hollinger case. A criminal lawsuit is a strong possibility and, in the current environment, conviction would almost certainly mean jail.
Black and Radler are strongly protesting their innocence. A statement from Ravelston, a company controlled by Black, dismissed the report as “exaggerated claims laced with outright lies”. Radler described it as: “a highly inaccurate and defamatory diatribe written more like a novel than a serious report.” He said KPMG, Hollinger’s auditors, repeatedly reviewed and approved the now controversial payments.
Hyslop said that Black should be treated as innocent until proven otherwise. But if the worst came to the worst and Black was sent to jail, “I think he would thrive. He can adapt to any situation. At least we’d have a far more intelligent prison class.”
WHATEVER the final outcome for Black, he and his former colleagues now look set for years of legal skirmishes. To date Black faces:
The legal fallout from the debacle will have a wide impact and take years to settle, said Columbia University professor John Coffee, an authority on white-collar crime.
Black’s case, he said, reminds him of the trial of Dennis Kozlowski. The former boss of Tyco is awaiting a retrial on charges that he looted $600m from the conglomerate. Like Black he enjoyed a lavish, company-funded lifestyle, spending $1m on his wife’s birthday bash and $6,000 on a shower curtain for his Manhattan flat.
The Kozlowski case began with an investigation by the SEC. It then passed its findings to Manhattan’s district attorney Robert Morgenthau, who brought criminal proceedings against Kozlowski and other former Tyco executives.
Black is already being investigated by the SEC and by authorities in Chicago, the city Hollinger lists as its headquarters. The two will work in tandem and the SEC is “almost bound” to bring legal action against Black, said Coffee.
The Hollinger Chronicles, as the report is known, was compiled by Richard Breeden, a former chairman of the SEC, and contains such damning accusations that “the SEC, I am sure, will proceed against him”, said Coffee.
Should Black be found guilty, the SEC can fine him, demand he repay money and ban him for life from holding office in an American company. But the watchdog’s powers are civil, not criminal.
It will ultimately be up to Illinois’s attorney-general, Lisa Madigan, to decide whether criminal charges will be brought against the peer. Kozlowski’s trial will weigh heavily on the mind of any prosecutor. “In almost all respects this is a case that is similar to Tyco,” said Coffee. “And that one started unravelling all over the place the minute it got to court.”
Kozlowski’s trial was heralded by headline-grabbing examples of his excess and gross spending sprees. The trial proved far less spectacular, with the jury worn down by mindnumbing and complex arguments.
“I think this report could well result in indictments, but it’s not a slam dunk,” said Coffee. He expects prosecutors to begin working on former Hollinger directors to turn against Black and act as witnesses for the prosecution. “Flipping” witnesses, as its known, has been particularly successful in securing convictions against executives of Enron, the energy firm that imploded in one of America’s biggest scandals.
James Cox, law professor at Duke University, said Breeden’s report looks too damning for Black to escape criminal prosecution. “If Breeden is right, then it seems that this was not a question of poor judgment, but of scheming and design,” he said. He reckoned that prosecutors would identify one or two areas where they believe the evidence is strongest and attack Black on those charges rather than going to trial with a long list of accusations, as happened in the first Tyco case.
Last April, that case ended in mistrial after six months in court and two weeks of jury deliberation. Prosecutors are to bring the case back to court and are expected to trim down their charges after the successful prosecution of two other fallen business stars.
Complexity was a potential problem in the trial of Frank Quattrone, a former star banker at Credit Suisse First Boston. Quattrone was the biggest banker of the dotcom era and made millions for his clients from share sales in companies that subsequently collapsed, costing the investing public and pensioners billions in lost savings. Prosecutors side-stepped getting involved in a complex securities case and instead pursued Quattrone, successfully, for obstruction of justice. Martha Stewart, the media queen, was also convicted on obstruction charges after an investigation of insider-dealing charges — something that is very hard to prove.
Hollinger and Black’s affairs are about as tangled as they come. The peer controlled the Telegraph empire through a network of holding companies, had significant operations in Britain and Canada as well as the United States, and banked many of his most controversial payments in Bermuda.
With the successful prosecution of Stewart and Quattrone on simpler charges, Chicago’s prosecutors may be tempted to follow a similar solution, say legal experts. They say Black’s past behaviour has left him vulnerable to such an attack — one that could avoid the complexities involved in Breeden’s report, but could still land the peer in jail.
IN the early 1980s, Black was feeling socially and politically stifled in his native Canada. A lifelong Amerophile, he set his sights on making his debut in business across the border. An ideal candidate was found in Hanna Mining, a company whose largest shareholders were some of America’s most well-connected families, including the Humphrey family — George Humphrey was President Eisenhower’s secretary of the Treasury.
The foray ended in legal action between Black and Hanna. Court documents relate that the Humphreys were assured that Black’s intentions were friendly and in 1981 the Humphreys approved the sale of 4.9% of Hanna to Norcen, a company Black chaired.
In filings with the SEC this stake was described by Norcen as “an investment position” and “purchased for investment”. But minutes from a board meeting described a more aggressive scenario: the “ultimate purpose” of the investment was a takeover. Months later, Black launched a hostile bid. Hanna hit back hard, accusing Black and Norcen of fraud and racketeering.
Black spent 20 hours in the witness box over four days, but despite impressing both judge and prosecutor with his oratory, he lost the case. The judge called Black’s reading of events “strained and unpersuasive”.
After an SEC investigation of the case, Black signed a “consent decree” in 1982 in which he pledged not to break any of the rules and regulations surrounding publicly traded companies. A consent decree is a court order, and breaching it is a criminal offence.
Breeden’s report alleged that Black filed documents with the SEC that contained false statements, or “omitted to include material information” on numerous occasions.
Breeden claimed the SEC was not informed about tens of millions of dollars paid to Black, Radler and others “regarding fees and other forms of compensation or related party transactions ... For example, the compensation table in Hollinger’s proxy statements does not show Black and Radler as receiving any compensation from Hollinger as their share of $226m in management fees between 1996 and 2003. In an average year, Hollinger failed to disclose in its proxy statement as much as 96% of the compensation the committee believes was received by its top five officers,” reported Breeden.
Piling on the detail, Breeden reported that “Black and Radler caused Hollinger to make $15.6m in ‘non-competition’ styled payments in 2000 and 2001 to themselves and two associates without any review by or approval from the Audit Committee or the Board.” The Special Committee accuses Black and others of creating “sham transactions, the deliberate backdating of checks and concealment of the unauthorised payments” and says the payments were not fully disclosed to the SEC.
If the hotly disputed allegations were proven true, Black would be in clear breach of the consent decree.
FOR Black and his former colleagues the party is over, and the headaches have only just begun.
Under Black, board meetings operated more like “a social club or public-policy association than as the board of a major corporation”, according to Breeden’s report.
Black talked world affairs with Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle, the former Pentagon defence adviser. A good lunch followed the short meetings and never did the board query Black or his spending. Black and Radler bought newspaper titles from Hollinger, sometimes for as little as $1, and added them to their own private companies. The board appears to have failed to ask if this was as good a deal for Hollinger as it appeared to be for Black.
According to Breeden’s report, Black contributed to his board members’ charities and invested in businesses they were tied to. In the case of Perle, who at one point sat on Hollinger’s compensation committee, Hollinger awarded him millions in bonuses and even picked up his grocery bills — at least until Black started querying Perle’s expenses.
Those close ties and the board’s silence will come at a price, said Laura Jereski, analyst at Tweedy Browne, a Hollinger shareholder and the first to blow the whistle on Black. The company is threatening a lawsuit unless Hollinger pursues its present and former directors for allegedly allowing Black to allegedly loot the company.
Cardinal, another shareholder, is already demanding $300m in restitution from this rich and powerful board. Both Tweedy and Cardinal are likely to press for a settlement — if they don’t get one then Black’s former friends face embarrassing days in court.
Jereski said she was impressed with the Breeden report, before adding: “It’s one thing writing about what happened. But for me the finger wagging is less interesting than what gets done about it.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8209-1246866,00.html
http://www.canada.com/windsor/windsorstar/features/onlineextras/story.html?id=b6adcb4d-3ce6-4046-81bc-9bf47080fe5f
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=ea12c9eb-630c-438d-a0ca-4332a0dd8a5e
September 2, 2004
Conrad Black, by 1985, was a master at hobnobbing with the rich and famous and the politically powerful. He was an accomplished insider at the secretive Bilderberg conferences and the Trilateral Commission.
But he did not feel involved in world events. His business interests - with the exception of his newspaper interests - bored him. His involvement with grocery stores, mining, petroleum, farm machinery and the like served only one purpose. "I was in those solely for the reason of making some money out of them," he says. "Restructuring them, or managing them up and selling or trading them, or doing something financially 'preferably a bit innovative' with them."
Ever since Black had run the Eastern Townships Advertiser and the Sherbrooke Record in the 1960s, newspapers had appealed to him, and he had picked up a few in provincial Canadian backwaters. But his dream of becoming a press baron on a grand scale had been thwarted.
In 1979, he had been blocked by Kenneth Thomson in his quest to gain control of FP Publications, an important Canadian newspaper group.
Over the years, at Bilderberg conferences, Black occasionally discussed the prospect of investing in a British newspaper with Andrew Knight, editor of The Economist and a member of the Bilderberg steering committee. Black had always admired Canadian press barons who made it in London.
Lord Beaverbrook, from New Brunswick, had made a fortune through newspapers. He'd served as a minister in British cabinets in both world wars and vigorously promoted the Empire Crusade - an attempt to increase trade within the Commonwealth. He was even mentioned in the newsreel sequence of Citizen Kane as a newspaper power to be reckoned with.
Black had closely studied Kenneth Thomson's father Roy, admiring the way this astute but modest man from northern Ontario watched the balance sheet. But there was an obvious difference in style between Beaverbrook, the hands-on propagandist, and Thomson, the cool operator who had made a fortune in broadcasting and North Sea oil, then used it to subsidize The Times. Thomson considered the take-over to have been "the summit of a lifetime's work."
Even to this day, long after Thomson's death, Brian MacArthur, associate editor of The Times says: "I bless Roy Thomson's name. He hired excellent editors, spent money, didn't interfere, and let us journalists get on with it-something like the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Toronto Globe and Mail. All Thomson cared about was the number of classified ads, and giving journalists the resources to do their job."
Beaverbrook and Thomson Sr. had been Fleet Street giants, sending journalists around the world to report on events that mattered, setting a high standard for eye-witness news-gathering as much as for writing. They dominated the world's most competitive newspaper market and that commanding position gave them access to highest royalty and to politicians from mayors to prime ministers. They were sometimes asked to quietly smother stories, but also often had a hand in choosing the country's political leadership. Britain is a country with no written constitution, where the chain of command within the government - even in the planning of nuclear war - was subject to interpretation, based on historical precedents, and there was usually an informal, gentlemanly character to political decision-making. The press barons were a formidable, articulate alternative to the government.
Moreover, a strong majority in the British parliament could result in democratic tyranny. "Particularly in our constitution," said Lord Carrington, "press barons play an important role in Britain where if you have a very big majority in the House of Commons, there are no checks and balances. The House of Lords doesn't matter, and the House of Commons really doesn't matter, because if you have a big majority, the followers always go with the premiers - well, nearly always."
"Newspapers influence the outcomes of elections," said Lord Hattersley, a former minister in the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, and a noted journalist. "In a free society, it just happens. Journalists have to be accepted as part of the democratic process. People in political office complaining about journalists are like sailors complaining about the sea."
The British government draws press lords into the circle of power by using the honours system, the often cynical award of noble titles-one of "the most potent pieces of patronage in a premier's hands," according to constitutional authority Peter Hennessy. A peerage transforms newspaper proprietors into legislators, with the power to debate and vote on bills sent up to the House of Lords from the House of Commons. This fudges their role, from the observation of events and the shaping of public opinion to participation in decision-making. They are proprietors, marketing facts and ideas on a grand scale. But they are statesmen too - with a political platform of their own in and outside of Parliament.
In May 1985 came an opportunity that would change Black's life.
At the Bilderberg meeting at Arrowwood, outside New York, Andrew Knight told Black that The Daily Telegraph was undergoing severe financial and managerial strain. The paper was the English-speaking world's largest-circulation conservative broadsheet. It dated from 1855, the time of the Crimean War. Black's great-grandfather Robert Thomas Riley was the son of one of the founding shareholders. Since the late 1920s, the Telegraph had been controlled by the Berry family, industrious Welsh entrepreneurs with a history of coming to the rescue of faltering companies and then building up durable value. Bill Berry, the first Lord Camrose and one of the pre-war giants of Fleet Street, had promoted high standards of reporting at The Telegraph. He had the good sense to oppose fascism throughout the 1930s (unlike his competitor Lord Rothermere at The Daily Mail) and had even employed Winston Churchill as a freelance contributor before the Second World War. The Telegraph broke the one million circulation barrier in April 1947 - a net daily sale of 108,000 more copies than The New York Times and The New York Herald Tribune combined. But Camrose's son Michael - Lord Hartwell - a deaf and extremely shy man prone to mumbling, did not have much entrepreneurial flair.
His mission was to preserve the value and style of his late father in the newspaper's executive offices on the fifth floor of 135 Fleet St. "Just as he kept his own offices unchanged, with their 1930s panelling and their ancient Telegraph contents bills for decoration, so he maintained his father's routines to the letter," wrote Duff Hart-Davis, the Telegraph historian. "A butler dressed in black still guarded the entrance to the fifth floor." Staff members of the old school snapped to attention when they spoke to Hartwell on the telephone.
Hart-Davis explained that Hartwell maintained an antiquated system of management, surrounding himself with venerable gentlemen like himself, and had done little to prepare the next generation - his sons Adrian and Nicholas Berry - for administrative roles. Adrian was more interested in science than administration. Nicholas had shown a keen business sense, but had not been prepared for succession.
Besides, in the midst of rapid technological change on Fleet Street, and an ongoing war of attrition between newspaper proprietors and print unions, Hartwell had made a catastrophic mistake - committing to costly new printing installations in the East London's Docklands on the basis of overly optimistic projections without properly evaluating the financial risks. The new presses would offer financial benefits to the paper, but the Telegraph did not have the financial depth needed to pull it off without new capital. After lengthy negotiations with several banks during 1984, "a consortium led by Security Pacific, and including the National Westminster County Bank, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and Wardley London, agreed to put up £75 million on condition that the Telegraph raised £29 million from the sale of shares." Given the precarious financial position of the company, N.M. Rothschild & Sons was having trouble raising the £29 million.
"The Telegraph was bankrupt effectively," says Knight, "and it couldn't raise the money it needed to finance its new presses, let alone survive. Rothschild could not raise all the money needed, so I contacted Black with a view to having him invest in the paper. I had two candidates in mind, Conrad or Kay Graham. I went to Conrad because he was more ideologically attuned to the Telegraph and, unlike Kay, was not a friend of the Berry family, so future muddles would be avoided if and when he got control."
The Telegraph was the Crown Jewel of the British press. As Black later wrote, "the key to the Daily Telegraph's immense success was a formula devised by Lord Camrose and faithfully continued by his son, Lord Hartwell, consisting of an excellent, fair, concise, informative newspaper; good sports coverage; a page three in which the kinkiest, gamiest, most salacious and most scatalogical stories in Britain were set out in the most apparently sober manner, but with sadistically explicit quotations from court transcripts; and extreme veneration of the Royal Family."
Beyond the quality and prestige of the title, Black was also interested in the political platform that ownership, even partial ownership, would offer ?? a platform in a world capital, more than just a cut above Toronto. There was a charming, faded elegance to London, with its palaces and hotels, the bulky black Carbodies cabs and double-deckers lumbering by, the trotting procession of the Horse Guards and richly liveried staff in the clubs. London was a layered city, a visual feast for a history buff like Black.
There was also the impressive literary tradition of British journalism.
Bill Deedes (now Lord Deedes), a former editor of The Daily Telegraph, had been a war correspondent during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s (and a character in Evelyn Waugh's Scoop), a parliamentary secretary in Sir Winston Churchill's post-war government and a cabinet minister under Harold MacMillan. In the 1970s and 1980s, following in the footsteps of Waugh and George Orwell, came a series of adventurers and unusually gifted men - Reuters correspondent Anthony Grey, who was held hostage for two years during the Chinese Cultural Revolution as a symbol of the paper tigers of capitalism; war correspondent Max Hastings who sometimes scooped the opposition by taking a taxi to the front; John Pilger, a rugged Australian whose life mission was to denounce every abuse of power (he attacked the manufacturers of thalidomide as willingly as he blasted Henry Kissinger for the indiscriminate American bombing of civilian Cambodia during the 1970s); Robert Fisk who risked his life time and again reporting from Lebanon and throughout the Middle East; and Reuters man Andrew Tarnowski who became a temporary captive of the Amal militia in Beirut so he could interview hostages from the 1985 TWA hijacking and scoop the world's media.
Black relished the negotiating process; the opportunity of gaining The Telegraph at a bargain price and releasing the locked-up value."You have all the different elements there," said Black."You have possible economic gain, you have human drama, you sometimes haveâ?¦the abrupt and almost cruel end of long-standing incumbency, and the rise of new interests, which I suppose I myself represented. You have the unfolding drama, and you are conscious at all times of being in the midst of the drama, whose outcome is hoped-for, but there is a great deal of suspense as you get into these things. A lot of nervous energy is put into it." But Black recognized the risks as well.
Excerpted from Lord Black: The Biography by George Tombs.
Copyright 2004 by City Publishing Inc. www.optimumpublishing.com all rights
reserved.
This book will be available across Canada Sept. 13.
http://www.canada.com/windsor/windsorstar/features/onlineextras/story.html?id=b6adcb4d-3ce6-4046-81bc-9bf47080fe5f
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=ea12c9eb-630c-438d-a0ca-4332a0dd8a5e
After having announced the attributes and the names of the new European Commissioners on 12 August 2004, José Manuel Barroso met his team on the 20 August 2004 in Brussels for the first time. The new commissioners will then be submitted to hearings on September 27, by the European Parliament, who shall vote at the end October on the new Commission, before it officially takes over on November 1st 2004.
The "European popular group" showed its satisfaction the day after the announcement of the nominations. Its president Potterin commented positively on the Lisbon strategy, in other words the strenghtening of European competitiveness. This will be the central aim of Günter Verheugen. [Bilderberg], who will report directly to Barroso, himself presiding over the group in charge of this strategy.
Verheugen declared that he will be in charge of the group of commissioners responsible for European economic coordination and this will give him a strong position. The subject is essentially depending on the individual member states.
Between the nations in Europe and the EEC, we will find M. Verheugen. The president of the "democrat group", M. Graham Watson greeted the 'inspired' choices and the 'imaginative' thoughts of the future president of the commission. He was delighted at the presence of one third women in the commission and the absence of super commissioners.
The actual commissioners refuse to give their public ideas about the decision of Mr Barroso. One of them observed privately, that the former Portuguese prime minister rewarded his friends, who were with him on the side of the American intervention in Iraq. So, M. Mandelson (trade/commerce), Italy with Rocco Bottiglione (justice liberty security), Denmark with Marianne Fisher Boel (agriculture), Poland with Hubner (regional policy), Spain with Joaquin Almounia (economical and financial affairs) have got more powerful commission posts than France ad even Germany, if we judge limited the powers of M.Verheugen.
The preeminence of the liberals is also underlined with Peter Mendelson, says a senior civil servant of the commission. Trade policy runs a risk of being more liberal and Atlantic. The British commissioner, he added, can attempt to try again to suggest the idea of a free trade zone upon the Atlantic, against the which Pascal Lamy [Bilderberg] fought.
The Irish Charlie McCreevy and her collegue in charge of the concurrence, the Dutch Kroes Smit, are two ultra liberals in charge of two key posts, should provoke reservations from our point of view in regard with their past performance.
McCreevy, Irish finances secretary from 1997 to 2004 is considered as the artisan in company of First Minister Bertie Ahern of the 'Celtic miracle'. His policy towards Foreign Investments turned the island into an El Dorado of American Multinationals. Firms are paying 12,5 % of taxes (in France the rate is 35 % ). The minimum wages are under what is required to live with some respect of oneself. McCreevy promoted the recovery of the National Airways company, Air Lingus, which was near of the bankruptcy by cutting the number of employees.The result of this policy gave some undesired effects: public services running down, increased poverty, inflation, and strikes for higher pay in the public sector.
Sometime nicknamed the Iron Lady in the Netherlands, Mrs Kroes Smit, who was secretary of State then secretary of Transportation, is known by the Dutch Trade Unions as having been behind the privatisation of the old postal service. Her arrogance and bad temper brought her a lot of enemies. Her nomination may well be down to Jacques Chirac, President of France, because, is it told in The Hague, he asked the Dutch government to name Christian Democrat Veerman agriculture commissioner. Mrs Kroes says her policy is Popular/Liberal but no-one is quite sure why she thinks she is popular.
These beginnings are not reassuring, so the French socialist MP, Arnaud Montebourg, denounced the attribution of all the key posts in economical and financial fields to personalities who have a systematic orientation towards liberalism. This European commission, he concluded, is an enemy to every member of our party. Another French socialist MP underlined the decline of France which can only receive a little second order nomination.
The position of President Chirac is not comfortable. The partial nominations in the EEC Commission is showing a spirit of vengeance on the French and the German rebels who weren't on the American side in the Iraq war.
The strange Blairite creature the British press have christened the 'Prince of Darkness' for his twice being forced out of ministerial positions for illegal activities but ability to 'ressurect' his politiacal carreer. Peter Mandelson, we see that he is a member of the Ditchley Foundation, which aims to develop Transatlantic links between Great Britain and the USA. With more than 15 conferences every year in the castle of Ditchley Park, near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire
Ditchley is certainly one of the most important places of meeting for the International Elite, along with the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group. Ditchley has focused on International problems, as the expansion of Europe (mister Verheugen was just Commissary at the broadening of Europe during the commission Prodi, is this not curious ?), Global Arms Control, the Euro currency, Defense Industry, conflict of Kosovo. It is a very select club, the members are industrialists, financiers, ministers, secretaries of State, journalists, intellectuals and leaders of armed forces, including NATO.
President of Ditchley, we find as we look closer, is ex-British Prime Minister John Major. A member of Bilderberg and the European President of the Carlyle Group. John M is also credit adviser for Suisse First Boston, President of the council of European Advisers of Emerson Electric and boss of Atlantic Partnership. We find as well as members Lord Leon Brittan, vice-president UBS Warburg, director of Unilever, former vice-president of the European Commission. Giulanio Amato, former first secretary of Italy and Bilderberger. Etienne Davignon, that all know in Bilderberg affairs as President, dame Pauline Neville Jones who was Governor of the BBC, president NatWest