The "Bilderbergers" are another powerful group involved in the internationalist web. The "Bilderbergers" take their name from the scene of their first known meeting–the Bilderberg Hotel, Oosterbeck, The Netherlands, in May, 1954. The group consists of influential Western businessmen, diplomats, and high governmental officials. Their meetings, conducted in secrecy and in a hugger-mugger atmosphere, are held about every six months at various places throughout the world. His Royal Highness, Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, has presided at every known meeting of the Bilderberger Group.
Prince Bernhard is known to be an influential member of the Societé Generale de Belgique, a mysterious organization which seems to be an association of large corporate interests from many countries. American firms associated with the society are said to be among the large corporations whose officers are members of the Council on Foreign Relations and related organizations. I make no effort to explore this situation in this volume.
My confession of limitation upon my research does not embarrass me, because two committees of Congress have also failed to make a complete investigation of the great camarilla which manipulates our government. And the congressional committees were trying to investigate only one part of the web–the powerful tax-exempt foundations in the United States.
My own research does reveal the broad outlines of the invisible government.
D.S.
May, 1962
Chapter 1
HISTORY AND THE COUNCIL
President George Washington, in his Farewell Address to the People of the United States on September 17, 1796, established a foreign policy which became traditional and a main article of faith for the American people in their dealings with the rest of the world.
Washington warned against foreign influence in the shaping of national affairs. He urged America to avoid permanent, entangling alliances with other nations, recommending a national policy of benign neutrality toward the rest of the world. Washington did not want America to build a wall around herself, or to become, in any sense, a hermit nation. Washington's policy permitted freer exchange of travel, commerce, ideas, and culture between Americans and other people than Americans have ever enjoyed since the policy was abandoned. The Father of our Country wanted the American government to be kept out of the wars and revolutions and political affairs of other nations.
Washington told Americans that their nation had a high destiny, which it could not fulfill if they permitted their government to become entangled in the affairs of other nations.