Conspiracies Declassified

by Brian Dunning

  Although the Rothschilds did have a formidable start in the world of finance, the exaggerated stories today are more the result of bigotry than a reflection of true history. The spread of malicious stories about the Rothschilds is a manifestation of anti-Semitism in the conspiracy theory community. Throughout much of the past millennia, institutionalized anti-Semitism throughout Europe had consequences such as prohibitions against Jewish people owning property. Such policies often forced people of Jewish heritage to seek expertise in business or finance, where assets could be kept liquid and easily transferred or hidden; at any rate, this was the reputation they were eventually given. Thus, conspiracy theories involving Jewish wealth are nothing new.

  Today, wealth held in public funds is intermixed, at some level, with every other fund in the world. So saying that a Rothschild family member owns some of every company in the world is true, but only true in the sense that you do too if you have any kind of interest-bearing account. The money in your checking account is invested by your bank in various securities (such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds), each of which invests their own holdings in the same way. With some creativity, it’s possible to trace a line of ownership between any person in the world with a bank account and any publicly held company in the world, and vice versa.

  Claims that the Rothschild family has $500 trillion in assets are even more problematic. Prior to World War I, the Rothschild family did indeed control a disproportionate amount of wealth. But in the century since, the family has diversified and diluted substantially. Many family members work in unrelated industries. Many have divested whatever they inherited. There is no longer a single, central “House of Rothschild.” The closest thing is a Swiss company called Rothschilds Continuation Holdings AG, which manages interests in many Rothschild-founded companies, as well as other businesses. There are no Rothschild family members on its board, and only eight Rothschilds are known to hold any shares in the company; most of it is owned by non-Rothschild financial institutions. Its annual revenues are about $500 million (compare this to the world’s largest company, Walmart, with revenues of $500 billion). Rothschilds Continuation Holdings AG has billions in assets, but this is small potatoes compared to the many banks with trillions in assets, such as Deutsche Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, HSBC Holdings, and others.

  The idea of a single family owning a controlling portion of the world’s wealth, while romantic, is simply absurd. The rest of the world caught up with and surpassed them generations ago.

  Skeptoid ® Says . . .

  The world’s wealthiest Rothschild, Benjamin de Rothschild, appears way down at #1,376 on Forbes’s list of the world’s billionaires with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion. There are so many others ahead of him on the list that they even include a Rothschild with no relation to the famous family: Jeff Rothschild, a founding engineer at Facebook, at #896.

  The Bohemian Club

  * * *

  Date: 1872–Present

  Location: San Francisco and Sonoma County, California

  The Conspirators: The Bohemians

  The Victims: Innocent civilians worldwide

  * * *

  The Theory

  Once a year, the Sonoma County Airport fills with a staggering collection of private jets, and the 2,700-acre Bohemian Grove fills with military members, former US presidents, and other members of the powerful elite. Welcome to the sixteen-day annual retreat of the Bohemian Club, held under tight security. Here, conspiracy theorists say, bizarre activities take place in the redwoods—everything from occult ceremonies to drag shows to skinny-dipping. But they believe that the world’s most powerful men (no women are allowed) aren’t just here to have a good time. They say the Manhattan Project to create the world’s first atomic bomb was planned in the Grove, and wars, corporate takeovers, military plots, and overall global domination are strategized inside. Some theorists say that the bohemians (sometimes called bohos) represent the most dangerous gathering of power brokers on the planet.

  The Truth

  The bohemians are patrons of the arts and enjoy hobnobbing with well-connected associates who have similar interests. They get drunk in the woods, but aren’t planning to take over the world.

  The Backstory

  In the early days of the nineteenth century, San Francisco was home to a burgeoning theatrical arts community. It was also home to men who had made fortunes off the exploding West Coast economy. It was a match made in heaven. Artists are always looking for patrons, and patrons are always looking for more patrons to share the expense of supporting an active arts community. So a group of the social elite, including both leading artists and leading patrons, formed the Bohemian Club as a place where the two groups could mingle, and where the wealthy could buy a unique opportunity to hobnob with legendary musicians and artists. It quickly attained an exclusive reputation, exactly as its founders hoped, and it successfully cemented not only support for the arts community in San Francisco, but also personal relationships between its wealthy members.

  The conspiracy theorists, on the other hand, say that it is also much more than a place to mingle. Why? Well, a sizable portion of San Francisco’s wealthiest industrialists in the late 1800s also happened to represent much of government and finance. That never changed. The bohemians have always strived to recruit the biggest names they could—including US presidents. But not all potential recruits are impressed. Richard Nixon came away from a Bohemian Grove retreat with some incredibly disparaging language directed at the boho arts community, many of whom were gay. But you don’t need to express Nixon-level homophobia to find some of the Grove activities odd. There are, indeed, other off-the-wall performances. Most famous is the ceremony held every year on the first day, a live fifty-minute dramatic play featuring a full orchestra and a six-figure budget. At its climax, cloaked figures perform a human sacrifice by burning a man in a coffin on an altar at the feet of the pagan god Moloch, a giant 30-feet-tall stone owl. An artificial lake and the world’s second-largest outdoor pipe organ are part of the show. Misinterpretation of the play’s imagery is what has led many critics to describe it as “occult.”

  Skeptoid ® Says . . .

  This group of artists and wealthy patrons called themselves the Bohemian Club in reference to the then-popular bohemian arts movement, in which it was fashionable to be offbeat, nonconforming, or free-spirited. Mark Twain and Jack London identified as bohemian writers, and both were elected as honorary members of the club. London became an active member, while it seems Twain never took the club up on its invite.

  Whenever the rich, the powerful, or world leaders gather, a natural reaction among the more paranoid is that they’re up to something malevolent. Accordingly, given the impressive roster of Bohemian Grove attendees—and especially given the appearance of US presidents and the connection to the Manhattan Project—charges of planning world domination have always been leveled at the gatherings.

  The Explanation

  Although US presidents would sometimes visit, by itself that’s not quite enough to force us to conclude that the bohos are running the world. Each of the claims about the retreat falls apart under even modest scrutiny. For example, the “occult ceremony” is hardly as it’s popularly described. The play, called The Cremation of Care, is about letting go of the troubles of the daily grind in order to achieve freedom. The antagonist, named Dull Care (from a 1919 Oliver Hardy short film), is the one in the coffin, his death symbolizing freedom from monotonous daily tasks. The pagan god depicted by the owl represents knowledge and has always been the club’s mascot.

  Skeptoid ® Says . . .

  If the CEO of a Fortune 100 company ever wanted to star in his own Broadway musical, well, the Bohemian Grove would be his chance. Each retreat closes with an original play, produced to the highest standards, called the High Jinks. However, there are also lesser productions performed throughout the two weeks called the Low Jinks, and these are the goofy drag shows and whatever stuff members want to
throw together for fun. And yes, they often live down to their name.

  Although conspiracy theorists such as far-right radio personality Alex Jones have long charged that world leaders meet at the Grove to hold confidential talks and plan global domination, little evidence supports this. Members do present informal “Lakeside Talks” on various public policy issues throughout the retreat, but nothing confidential or surprising has ever been said. Contrary to the claims of Jones and others, security during the retreat is actually quite lax. Many reporters have found that they’ve been able to walk in and out and come and go without ever being stopped or questioned, and the goings-on inside the Grove have been extensively reported. Although we can’t prove a negative, the fact that no undercover reporter has ever caught a whiff of global domination being planned is telling.

  What about the theory that the Manhattan Project was planned at Bohemian Grove? Well, the Grove is vacant most of the year, and members are allowed to rent it for private events. At the time the project was discussed, member Edward Teller (known as the “father of the hydrogen bomb”) had privately rented out the facility. The meeting was then run by J. Robert Oppenheimer and Ernest Lawrence, who went on to head national laboratories working on the Manhattan Project. Other than Teller, no Bohemian Club members were present or allowed. Nevertheless, this one 1942 closed meeting is as close as the Bohemian Club ever came to “planning world domination.”

  Now, you may be tempted to ask, if power brokers are going off to the woods, wouldn’t they be doing it for some reason more important than merely acting like drunken frat boys from the drama club? The Department of Sociology at UC Davis wrote a paper analyzing the Bohemian Grove encampment, and found that what happens there is essentially the same as team-building exercises popular in the corporate world. In essence, groups are more cohesive when they see themselves as high in status and when they interact in a relaxed and cooperative environment. Team building is an effective way for groups to learn to deal with problems more easily. So, in short, these men in positions of authority or status work better together in the outside world when they’ve developed camaraderie at the Bohemian Grove.

  And this, it turns out, was one of the group’s founding principles: not to bring any business into the club itself. The club motto is “Weaving spiders come not here.” Leave the work outside. Become better friends inside.

  The Bilderbergers

  * * *

  Date: 1954–Present

  Location: Europe and North America

  The Conspirators: Bilderberg conference attendees

  The Victims: Innocent citizens worldwide

  * * *

  The Theory

  Once a year, according to conspiracy theorists anyway, scores of the world’s most powerful leaders in business, finance, militaries, and arts meet at a different luxury hotel. Although members of this Bilderberg Group—named for the hotel where they held their very first meeting—claim that they meet merely to exchange ideas and discuss solutions to problems faced by many nations, conspiracy theorists charge that they are actually the secret world government. The belief is that the power brokers hold these highly-secure, closed meetings to decide all the national foreign and domestic policies that all attending nations must abide by. Attendees then return to their home countries with their new orders in hand, and their governments then carry these orders out—no matter how nefarious they may be.

  Have we all been duped? Are the conspiracy theorists correct, and this is how the real policies of the world’s nations are decided? Are elections just fictions, and world leaders just pawns of the Bilderbergers?

  The Truth

  The Bilderberg Group offers plenty of evidence that they meet for exactly the reasons they say: the free exchange of ideas and solutions to mutual world issues. There is nothing secret about their meetings, no orders are given to nations or heads of state, and they have no plans to take over the world.

  The Backstory

  The Bilderberg Group is indeed real, and they do indeed meet about once a year at a luxury hotel somewhere in Europe or the United States. This annual conference arose from the tensions of what would become the Cold War.

  In 1954, the Socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe began rising after World War II as the Communist Bloc. Many leaders in the West wanted to join forces to resist the rise of Communism, but post-war Europe was fractured and there was substantial anti-American sentiment spreading across the Continent. Clearly, if the Western nations couldn’t learn to get along, it would be increasingly difficult to mount a credible defense against the Communist Bloc. These international tensions were characterized by fear of the United States’ rising economic status that led to mistrust throughout Europe. It seemed that if progress were to be made, it must be handled through unofficial channels.

  Józef Retinger, a Polish politician, was among the first to see this, and was the first to act. He spoke with Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and Belgian prime minister Paul van Zeeland about the need to create an unofficial working group of world leaders, with one liberal and one conservative representative from each nation. They agreed, and in turn, they spoke with other leaders from Europe and the United States. Their whole idea was to find common ground and ways for Europe and the United States to work together to counter the rising Communist threat. However, world leaders are often bound by the restrictions of their office, so leaders from business and economics, who were often more free to meet than military or government leaders, were included as well.

  Skeptoid ® Says . . .

  The Bilderbergers hold their meetings under the Chatham House Rule, a set of protocols intended to encourage free and open discussion by maintaining confidentiality. Participants are free to use the information gleaned from the meeting, but the identity and affiliation of each speaker is not recorded, guaranteeing anonymity. In addition, there is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.

  Retinger’s idea came to life and sixty prominent representatives, including politicians, industrialists, academics, and editors, met for three days at the Bilderberg Hotel in the Netherlands in May of 1954. Their stated agenda was to discuss the Soviet Union, European attitudes toward Communism, relevant economic policies, and European defense. The meeting was a great success. Two more meetings followed in 1955, and there’s been about one a year ever since. A steering committee invites participants to each meeting. Each year brings largely a different group of attendees, making the discussions as broad as possible, and most attendees are only invited to one or two conferences.

  The Explanation

  The Bilderberg meetings continued on as scheduled for many years, but in 2006 public awareness of the group increased when conspiracy theorist and author Daniel Estulin published The True Story of the Bilderberg Group. This book claims that the group secretly plans global domination and, each year, sends its attendees home with orders to follow. Who picked up this book? Fidel Castro, longtime dictator of Cuba, which was part of the Communist Bloc that the Bilderbergers were formed to protect the world against. Castro read the book voraciously and believed every word of it. His official endorsement has given the theorists their best fodder.

  Hungry for more news about the Bilderbergers, the media sought out former meeting attendees to interview. In 2010, a Dutch radio program found Willy Claes, the secretary-general of NATO during the 1994 Bilderberg meeting. Claes told the program that each session is run by a rapporteur who speaks for ten minutes, laying out a particular problem faced by the West. This is followed by a group discussion, during which the rapporteur takes notes and attempts to find a consensus from the group. The group’s conclusions are then provided to attendees. During his interview, Claes said:

  and everybody is supposed to use those conclusions in his circle of influence.

  Taken out of context, this sentence has been trumpeted by conspiracy theorists as proof that orders are given to nations at the Bilderberg meetings,
and attendees are required to take those orders back to their home nations. However, in context, it’s clear that Claes also said there is no voting, no resolutions made, and the purpose of the exchange is to accommodate different—and even contradictory—opinions. One must make a deliberate misinterpretation of Claes’s one sentence in order to find anything suspicious or ominous in the interview.

  Another central claim made by the conspiracy theorists is that the meetings are held in secret. Although the meetings are private, they are definitely not secret. The Bilderberg Group puts out press releases for each meeting, the list of attendees and the agenda of topics to be discussed is always public, and a press corps is present at each meeting. It is only due to the necessary restrictions of the Chatham House Rule—which is what makes the meetings both possible and useful—that the actual minutes are not published.

  Skeptoid ® Says . . .

  Check out www.bilderbergmeetings.org. Here you’ll find info about each of the Bilderberg meetings since the group’s inception in 1954. The transparency is impressive; they freely discuss how the meetings are financed, how the invitations work, and the names and affiliations of the dozens of steering committee members (mostly bigwigs from companies you know). One thing missing from the website, unfortunately, is an outline of their plans for taking over the world.

  Now, let’s talk about the idea that the Bilderberg meetings are held to allow a select group of power brokers to plan global domination. To start, the meeting is alleged to be some sort of obedience pact, presumably threat-driven, but it is made up of a completely different group of people each year. What if an attendee is given orders that he doesn’t like or refuses to carry out? The theorists say that, when a first-time attendee walks in the door—like Bill Gates did in 2010—he is told that he will be required to carry out whatever orders he is given, or else face some consequences. If that were true, it would mean that all of the thousands of attendees over the decades were okay with this arrangement, having no idea what such orders might entail. While people in positions of influence and responsibility do have real reasons for wanting to come together in an open forum to discuss problems and find mutually beneficial solutions, it’s unlikely that such people would be willing to throw away their autonomy and voluntarily enter into threat-driven obedience pacts with foreigners who may have radically different agendas.