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12. THE WAY
THINGS ARE DONE
IN MY ATTEMPTS to
find out whether the world really was being secretly ruled from inside the
Caesar Park golfing resort that June weekend, I contacted dozens of
Bilderberg members. And, of course, nobody returned my calls. Nobody even
wrote back to decline my request and thank me for my letter, and these are
people whose people always write back and decline requests -- Peter
Mandelson's office, for instance -- which is why I began to envisage these
silences as startled ones.
I did manage to
speak to David Rockefeller's press secretary, who told me that Mr.
Rockefeller was thoroughly fed up with being called a twelve-foot lizard,
a secret ruler of the world, a keeper of black helicopters that spy on
anti-Bilderberg dissenters, and so on.
The Rockefeller
office seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the conspiracy
theories. They troubled Mr. Rockefeller (his press man said). They made
him wonder why some people are so scared and suspicious of him in
particular and global think tanks such as Bilderberg in general. Mr.
Rockefeller's conclusion was that this was a battle between rational and
irrational thought. Rational people favored globalization. Irrational
people preferred nationalism.
I asked him why he
thought no Bilderberg member had returned my calls or answered my letters.
"Well," he shrugged,
"I suppose it's because they might want to be invited back."
I PERSEVERED. I
wanted the information. I felt I deserved to have the information, and I
simply couldn't believe that, in this day and age, there was some
information that I couldn't get my hands on. It was driving me crazy.
I learned that being
followed around by a man in dark glasses was tame in comparison to the
indignities suffered by some of the few prying journalists who had
traveled this road before me. In June 1998 a Scottish reporter tracked
Bilderberg to the Turnberry Hotel in Ayrshire, and when he started asking
questions he was promptly handcuffed by Strathclyde police and thrown into
jail.
BILDERBERG MEMBERS
CONTINUED to ignore my inquiries through the end of 1999 and into 2000. It
was around the same time that my former Islamic fundamentalist friend Omar
Bakri decided to take against me in a big way.
It began innocently
enough. I wrote an article about him in the Guardian newspaper, and
a few days later he phoned to say that as a result of it he had been asked
to appear on a TV discussion program entitled Fanatical Debate.
"Fanatical
Debate!" sighed Omar. "What a name! See how you've typecast me, Jon."
We laughed about it.
The next day Omar
called back. Something had changed.
"I am very angry
with you," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"You said you'd
portray Omar the husband, and you lied."
"How could I portray
Omar the husband if you never introduced me to your wife once during the
entire year we were together?" I said.
"Anyway," said Omar,
"I am not angry. I am happy."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because it was a
funny article," said Omar. "It made me laugh."
THREE HOURS LATER, I
received a telephone call from Helen Jacobus, a journalist on the
Jewish Chronicle.
"I've just been
speaking to Omar Bakri," she said. "He's very angry. He says that you have
personally destroyed relations between all Muslims and all Jews in the
U.K. He says that if there is a violent aftermath, you will have nobody to
blame but yourself. He says that the Zionist-controlled British media has
demonized him, and it is all your fault. Would you care to comment?"
"But," I said, "I
haven't."
"Is that it?" said
Helen. "Is that your comment?"
"I haven't," I said.
"I just haven't."
"My God, Jon," said
Helen. "This is all we need."
"What else did Omar
say?" I asked her.
"He said that you
will burn in hell," she said.
THIS WAS THE worst
possible news. Here I was, still smarting at the heavy-handed treatment
afforded to me by the Bilderberg security guards in Portugal, and Omar was
going around telling people that I was part of the international
media-controlled Jewish conspiracy. I seemed to be in a unique, and not
pleasant, position in the grand conspiratorial scheme of things.
I debated whether to
phone Omar and remind him that journalism is very much a team effort.
There are researchers, publishers, and so on. I realized then, with shame,
that I do not cope well under pressure.
I telephoned Omar.
"Omar," I said, "did
you tell the Jewish Chronicle that I have destroyed relations
between all Muslims and all Jews?"
"Yes," he said,
merrily.
"Don't you think
it's getting out of hand?" I said.
"Oh, Jon," said
Omar. "I know how to work the media! Ha ha! Don't you think it is all very
funny? I'm going to cause as much trouble as possible, ha ha!"
"But what if some of
your followers take your words seriously and -- you know -- kill me?" I
said.
"Oh, Jon," he
muttered. "Don't be silly. We are all very mature. All Muslims are very
mature."
"So we're friends?"
I said.
"Of course," said
Omar.
"Maybe I can come
over?" I suggested.
"Oh no," said Omar.
"I can never trust you again. You lied. I am very angry. You have caused
much unhappiness among the Muslims."
"But you said you
were very happy."
"Oh yes," said Omar.
"I am very happy."
"Omar," I said, "are
you happy or angry?"
."Happy," said Omar.
There was a silence.
"There's something
else," I said.
"What?" he said.
"Helen Jacobus said
that you said that I would burn in hell."
"Ha ha ha!" said
Omar. "I was joking. I say that to my children! If you
don't do your homework you will go to the hellfire! Ha ha! I can't believe
that you believed me!"
"So I won't go to
hell?"
"You will go to
paradise," said Omar. " And if you go around telling people that I said
you will burn in hell then I will give you sixty lashes."
"Will you?" I said.
"Jon!" said Omar.
"I'm joking again! Ha ha!"
"Ha ha," I said.
"Sixty lashes for
you!" said Omar.
IN 1999, THREE mail
bombs exploded in London -- in Brixton and Brick Lane and at a gay bar in
Soho. The bomber, David Copeland, believed that Tony Blair's government
was being secretly controlled by a clique of powerful Jews who call
themselves the Bilderberg Group and meet once a year in a five-star hotel
at an undisclosed location. He also believed that this Judaic-Satanic
elite attends a secret summer camp every year called Bohemian Grove, where
they sacrifice children on an altar to their owl god.
The Serbian leader
Slobodan Milosevic publicly blamed the Bilderberg Group for starting the
war against him in the former Yugoslavia. His accusation was barely
reported. I suppose that the journalists at the press conference had never
heard of the Bilderberg Group and simply didn't know what to write.
The Iraqi government
announced in November 2000 that the vote-rigging scandal that convulsed
the American elections in Florida was all part of the great Bilderberg
Jewish conspiracy to get their man, Al Gore, into power. Other conspiracy
theorists contended that this could not be true because George W. Bush was
himself a regular attendee at Bohemian Grove and must, therefore, also be
part of the conspiracy.
I thought about
Timothy McVeigh visiting the remains of Randy Weaver's cabin and rummaging
through the family's scattered belongings like an archaeologist, or a
pilgrim, shortly before blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City
-- a building he considered to be the local headquarters of the global
elite. I realized just how central these conspiracy theories were to the
practice of terrorism in the Western world.
In October 2000, in
Gaza, a twelve-year-old boy called Mohammed al-Direh went out looking for
used cars on a Saturday morning with his father. They blundered into a
street battle with Israeli soldiers. The boy hid behind his father's back
for safety. He was killed. It was a clean and deliberate shot. The
Israelis appeared to the world like old-fashioned monsters.
A series of posters
appeared overnight in London and Birmingham calling, in vast letters, for
the murder of the Jews.
The final hour will not come until
the Muslims kill the Jews ...
At the bottom of the
poster was a telephone number. I recognized it straightaway. It was Omar's
cell phone number.
That night, a Jewish
student was brutally stabbed while reading the Talmud. Britain's Jews were
becoming scared. I was becoming scared. I felt that things were getting
out of control. I was one of the only Jews in Britain on speaking terms
with Omar, so I telephoned him.
"Hello, Jon," he
said. "How are you? It is lovely to hear you."
"Omar," I said. "Why
have you done this? Why are you bringing all of this to Britain? I think
that you have done a terrible thing."
"Oh, Jon," said
Omar, sadly. "You know me. I had nothing to do with the posters."
"But your phone
number was printed at the bottom," I said.
"Some terrible
person must have found my number," said Omar.
"But why would they
do that?" I asked.
"To frame me," said
Omar. "To get me into trouble. I had nothing to do with the posters. I
promise you that. We are not at war with the Jewish community but with the
terrorist state of Israel. The posters were nothing to do with me."
"Oh, Omar," I said.
"What?" said Omar.
"Nothing," I said.
What else was there
to say?
FOR A WHILE, I
became paranoid. Even when I wasn't actually being followed, I imagined I
was. One morning I found my car unlocked. I had locked it the night
before. But nothing had been stolen. A wire was dangling behind the
rearview mirror. Had that wire been dangling there before? I didn't want
to tell my wife that I suspected we were being surveilled. I didn't want
to panic her. For a month after that, the conversations we had in our car
were stilted and awkward.
"Have we got enough
milk?" my wife would ask.
"That is so,"
I would reply.
In the spring of
2001, two extracts from Them appeared in the Guardian newspaper,
including the chapter about being chased through Portugal by the
Bilderberg Group. As a result, I was invited to appear on Channel 4's
Big Breakfast TV show. A taxi picked me up at 5 A.M. and took me to
the cottages in East London that they have turned into a TV studio. I was
greeted by a production assistant who wanted to run through the questions
with me.
"The interviews will
be filmed in the attic, she said. "It's creepy and shadowy up there."
"That sounds like a
good idea," I said.
"First," she said,
"Paul will do a bit of an introduction -- 'Joining me up in the attic is
crazy conspiracy theorist Jon Ronson' -- and then he'll ..."
I coughed. "I really
don't feel comfortable being introduced as a crazy conspiracy theorist," I
said.
She looked panicked.
"Could you not
introduce me as a writer and documentary maker?" I said.
There was a silence.
"I know it isn't as
good," I admitted.
"How about
conspiracy theory investigator?" she said.
"I really prefer
writer and documentary maker," I said, apologetically.
"How about
conspiracy theorist and writer?" she said.
"That still doesn't
sound absolutely right," I said.
"How about writer
and conspiracy theorist?" she said. "Or writer on conspiracy theories?"
"I would be prepared
to accept writer and documentary maker who investigates conspiracy
theories and theorists," I said.
"I definitely have a
problem with documentary maker," she said.
"Conspiracy writer?"
I said. "Actually, no ..."
"Yes," she said.
"That sounds good."
In the end, I was
introduced as a writer and documentary maker and crazy conspiracy
theorist.
I felt I was gaining
insight into what it must be like to be David Icke.
I CONTINUED
DUTIFULLY to write to Bilderbergers, although I held out no hope of a
breakthrough.
And then, one
Tuesday morning, the phone rang. It was the instantly recognizable voice
of a Bilderberg founder member, for thirty years one of their inner
circle, their steering committee, a Bilderberg agenda setter, a headhunter
-- a secret ruler of the world himself, should you choose to believe the
assorted militants I had spent the last five years with.
It was Denis Healey.
Denis Healey was one
of Britain's most powerful political figures during the 1970s. He was the
deputy leader of the Labour Party and Chancellor of the Exchequer during
the dark years of spiraling taxation and inflation. Despite his fearsome
budgets -- he once promised to "squeeze the rich until the pips squeak" --
he was remembered as a jovial and scrupulous moderate, with a tremendous
laugh and vast eyebrows, two great hedgehogs nestling on his forehead. It
was a surprise to find Lord Healey at Bilderberg's heart. Unlike Peter
Mandelson, or Henry Kissinger, or David Rockefeller, or Vernon Jordan, he
was not seen as a cunning puppet-master. He was a plain- living centrist,
who spent much of his retirement years eulogizing the Yorkshire Dales.
(David Icke, by the way, remained on the fence about whether Dennis Healey
was a shape-shifting reptile. He said he hadn't done his genealogy.)
"How can I help
you?" said Lord Healey.
"Well," I said,
"would you tell me what happens inside Bilderberg meetings?"
"OK," he said,
cheerfully.
There was a silence.
"Why?" I said.
"Nobody else will."
"Because you asked
me," he said. Then he added, "I'm an old fart. Come on over."
ONCE LORD HEALEY had
agreed to talk to me -- and I had circulated this information far and wide
-- other Bilderberg members became amenable too (albeit on the condition
of anonymity).
These interviews
enabled me to, at least, piece together the backstage mechanics of this
most secret society.
So this is how it
works. A tiny, shoestring central office in Holland decides each year
which country will host the next meeting. Each country has two steering
committee members. (The British ones have included Lord Carrington, Denis
Healey, Andrew Knight, the one-time editor of The Economist
magazine, and Martin Taylor, the ex-CEO of Barclays Bank).
They say that each
country dreads its turn coming around, for it has to raise enough money to
book an entire five-star hotel for four days (plus meals and
transportation and vast security -- every package of peas is opened and
scrutinized, and so on). They call up Bilderberg-friendly global
corporations, such as Xerox or Heinz or Fiat or SmithKline Beecham or
Barclays or Nokia, who donate the hundreds of thousands of pounds needed.
They do not accept unsolicited donations from non-Bilderberg corporations.
Nobody can buy their way into a Bilderberg meeting, although many
corporations have tried.
Then they decide who
to invite -- who seems to be a "Bilderberg person."
THE NOTION OF a
Bilderberg person hasn't changed since the earliest days, back in 1954,
when the group was created by Denis Healey, Joseph Retinger, David
Rockefeller, and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (a former SS officer
while he was a student -- ironic that a former Nazi, albeit a low ranking
and halfhearted one, would give birth to an organization that so many
would consider to be evidence of a Jewish conspiracy).
"First off," said a
steering committee member to me, "the invited guests must sing for their
supper. They can't just sit there like church mice. They are there to
speak. I remember when I invited Margaret Thatcher back in '75. She wasn't
worldly. She'd probably never even been to America. Well, she sat there
for the first two days and didn't say a thing. People started grumbling. A
senator came up to me on the Friday night, Senator Mathias of Maryland. He
said, 'This lady you invited, she hasn't said a word. You really ought to
say something to her.' So I had a quiet word with her at dinner. She was
embarrassed. Well, she obviously thought about it overnight because the
next day she suddenly stood up and launched into a three-minute Thatcher
special. I can't remember the topic, but you can imagine. The room was
stunned. Here's something for your conspiracy theorists. As a result of
that speech, David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger and the other Americans
fell in love with her. They brought her over to America, took her around
in limousines, and introduced her to everyone.
"I remember when
Clinton came in '91," he added. "Vernon Jordan invited him along. He used
it as a one-stop-shop. He went around glad-handing everyone. Nobody
thought they were meeting the next president." (Of course, Jim Tucker
would contend that they all knew they were meeting the next
president -- for they huddled together that weekend and decided he would
be the next president.)
At times I become
nostalgic for when I knew nothing. There are so few mysteries left, and
here I am, I presume, relegating Bilderberg to the dingy world of the
known.
The invited guests
are not allowed to bring their wives, girlfriends, or -- on rarer
occasions -- their husbands or boyfriends. Their security officers cannot
attend the conference and must have dinner in a separate hall. The guests
are expressly asked not to give interviews to journalists. Rooms,
refreshments, wine, and cocktails before dinner are paid for by
Bilderberg. Telephone, room service, and laundry bills are paid for by the
participants.
There are two
morning sessions and two afternoon sessions, except for on the Saturday
when the sessions take place only in the evening so the Bilderbergers can
play golf.
The seating plan is
in alphabetical order. It is reversed each year. One year Umberto Agnelli,
the chairman of Fiat, will sit at the front. The next year Norbert
Zimmermann, chairman of Berndorf, the Austrian cutlery and metalware
manufacturer, will take his place.
While furiously
denying that they secretly ruled the world, my Bilderberg interviewees did
admit to me that international affairs had, from time to time, been
influenced by these sessions.
I asked for
examples, and I was given one:
"During the
Falklands War, the British government's request for international
sanctions against Argentina fell on stony ground. But at a Bilderberg
meeting in, I think, Denmark, David Owen stood up and gave the most fiery
speech in favor of imposing them. Well, the speech changed a lot of minds.
I'm sure that various foreign ministers went back to their respective
countries and told their leaders about what David Owen had said. And you
know what, sanctions were imposed."
The man who told me
this story added, "I hope that gives you a flavor of what really does go
on in Bilderberg meetings."
THIS IS HOW Denis
Healey described a Bilderberg person to me:
"To say we were
striving for a one-world government is exaggerated but not wholly unfair.
Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one
another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So
we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good
thing."
He said, "Bilderberg
is a way of bringing together politicians, industrialists, financiers, and
journalists. Politics should involve people who aren't politicians. We
make a point of getting along younger politicians who are obviously
rising, to bring them together with financiers and industrialists who
offer them wise words. It increases the chance of having a sensible global
policy."
"Does going help
your career?" I asked Denis Healey.
"Oh yes," he
said. Then he added, "Your new understanding of the world will certainly
help your career."
"Which sounds like a
conspiracy," I said.
"Crap!" said Denis
Healey. "Idiocy! Crap! I've never heard such crap! That isn't a
conspiracy! That is the world. It is the way things are done. And quite
rightly so."
He added, "But I
will tell you this. If extremists and leaders of militant groups believe
that Bilderberg is out to do them down, then they're right. We are. We are
against Islamic fundamentalism, for instance, because it's against
democracy."
"Isn't Bilderberg's
secrecy against democracy too?" I asked.
"We aren't secret,"
he snapped. "We're private. Nobody is going to speak freely if they're
going to be quoted by ambitious and prurient journalists like you who
think it'll help your career to attack something that you have no
knowledge of."
I noticed a
collection of photo albums piled up on his mantelpiece. Denis Healey has
always been a keen amateur photographer, so I asked him if he'd ever taken
any pictures inside Bilderberg.
"Oh yes," he said.
"Lots and lots of photographs."
I eyed the albums.
Actually seeing the pictures, seeing the setup, the faces, the mood --
that would be something.
"Could I have a look
at them?" I asked him.
Lord Healey looked
down at his lap. He thought about my request. He looked up again.
"No," he said.
"Fuck off."
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