Bilderberg consultant: a “direct confrontation” is recommended – In the [redacted], is a 1964 memorandum from Curtis J. Hoxter to H. J. “Jack” Heinz II. Heinz helped found and fund the Bilderberg group, and was on the Steering Committee at the time. Hoxter ran a public relations marketing company. I can only assume that Heinz or the Bilderberg group themselves had hired him.
The memorandum concerns an October 28, 1963 editorial in the Richmond News Leader, titled “The Bilderbergers.” They weren’t happy about it at all, and Hoxter was tasked to get to the bottom of it. They were worried about the upcoming Bilderberg conference, in March, to be held in Williamsburg, Virginia.
The article and the subsequent memorandum are reproduced below (italic and bold emphasis added).
Hoxter’s report is quite revealing. Bilderberg were very sensitive about any press, let alone anything that cast them in a negative light. Hoxter produces something akin to an intelligence report—on the newspaper, its editors, and the political situation in Virginia—replete with a half-baked conspiracy theory about who may have been behind it.
There wasn’t a byline on the article, but Hoxter found out pretty quick that it was in fact James P. Lucier who wrote it. After first talking with his boss, he then engaged in an hour-long conversation with Lucier about the matter.
Both Hoxter and Heinz have since died, but James P. Lucier still works as a journalist.
I failed to find his email. It’d be interesting to get his take on these events, and if a “direct confrontation” from Bilderberg occurred as Hoxter, in conclusion, suggested they should do. I’m sure Lucier is oblivious to the fact that the memorandum even exists—it has never been published and sits in a dusty archive—let alone what it contains and what they say about him.
James P. Lucier, “The Bilderbergers,” Richmond, VA., News Leader, Oct. 28, 1963
In many a dark corner, there floats a whisper that the world is ruled by persons unseen. At some appointed time, silent limousines deliver a group of faceless men to a heavily guarded mansion where whole continents are carved up and put together around a table. These men, a kind of Mafia of international politics, are called the Bilderbergers.
We have always taken our Bilderbergers with mustard. Back in April of 1957, Westbrook Pegler reported that the Bilderbergers met in a heavily guarded session at St. Simon’s Island, off the coast of Georgia; but Peg was about the only newsman who saw them. In the summer of 1962, an early edition of the New York Times noted that a group of American diplomats were going to Stockholm to attend “a secret meeting of men of great wealth.” But the news mysteriously was crowded out of the final edition which is preserved on microfilm.
Now, quite accidentally, we are in a position to say that, Yes, Virginia, there is a Bilderberg. We were browsing through the authorized biography of Bernhard, Prince of the Netherlands, published last year. It is a silly and pretentious book about a silly and pretentious man. Nevertheless, Prince Bernhard is widely reported to be the leader of the Bilderberg meetings. And sure enough, Bernhard’s faithful Boswell devotes a whole chapter to “The Hotel de Bilderberg.”
The first meeting of the Bilderbergers took place May 29-31, 1954 at the hotel, located near Arnhem in the deeply wooded uplands of eastern Holland. As Bernhard’s biographer says proudly, “There was absolutely no publicity. The hotel was ringed by security guards so not a single journalist got within a mile of the place. The participants were pledged not to repeat publicly what was said in the discussions.” Since then, the meetings have been held once or twice a year, always in a different country.
The driving force behind the Bilderbergers was a strange cloak-and-dagger type by the name of Joseph E. Retinger. Dr. Retinger was a passionate Pole whose antics during the first world war brought a price upon his head from both the Central Powers and the Allies. He is described as a “Tallyrand [sic] without portfolio,” with a “Borgian aptitude for intrigue.”
Americans who have participated in the group include most of the familiar names in the international set: C. D. Jackson, H. J. Heintz [sic], John S. Coleman, David Rockefeller, Charles P. Taft, and Joseph E. Johnson. President Eisenhower’s personal delegates have been General Bedell Smith and Dr. Gabriel Hauge. When the group met at St. Simon’s island, Senators Fulbright and Wiley and several congressmen attended.
Similarly, President Kennedy has virtually staffed the State Department with Bilderberger alumni. Dean Rusk, George W. Ball, George McGhee, Walt Whitman Rostow, McGeorge Bundy, Arthur Dean have been regulars, along with Paul Nitze, now Secretary of the Navy.
About 60 to 80 attend each meeting, although the list of the invited is not always the same. Here at these off-the-record meetings, the men who make world decisions in politics and finance can hash out their opinions and differences and reach conclusions without interference. The beauty of it, according to the participants, is that they are accountable neither to the prying press nor the prying public.
And decisions are made here too. At the Bilderberg meetings were laid the foundations of the Treaty of Rome (GATT), the Common Market, and the Atlantic Community – according to Bernhard. We doubt it not.
Apparently other strategies are planned here too. Bernhard’s biographer, writing at least two years ago, lays his finger prophetically on the current détente with Russia.
Prince Bernhard … believes that as the old Bolsheviks die off and the young Russians, who have lost the hot crusading fervour of the Marxist Revelation, take over, there will be a return to a more democratic type of socialism and a loosening of discipline that will make it possible to bring those lost lands back into the European sphere.
“That’s a lovely thought,” says Bernhard, “but when it will come, or if it comes in time, who shall say?” The Bilderbergers say.
Memorandum
February 6, 1964
To: Mr. H. J. Heinz II
From: Curtis J. Hoxter
Subject: The editorial “The Bilderbergers” in the Richmond (Va.) News Leader of October 28th
This past week we have been conducting a cautious, deliberate inquiry into the reasons for the appearance of the above-mentioned editorial. This effort was carried out without any identification whatever for the reasons of the examination. Fortunately, because of previous standings with the editorial board of the Richmond News Leader it was possible to complete the analysis without in any way giving the impression that any member of the Bilderberg organization or participant group was concerned or worried or that in showing interest we were acting in behalf of anybody.
Some basic points about the News Leader should be noted:
The Richmond Newspapers, Inc., headed by D. Tennant Bryan, own both the Richmond Times Dispatch, the morning and sunday paper, and the Richmond News Leader, the evening counterpart. The editor of the editorial page of the Times Dispatch is Virginius Dabney, probably one of the most widely-heralded commentators, highly respected and recognized through numerous Pulitzer prizes, and held in real esteem among the more responsible Washington officials at all levels. His counterpart on the News Leader is James J. Kilpatrick, not as well known as Mr. Dabney, but in intellectual distinction and appreciation must be listed rather high. I had an intensive talk with Mr. Kilpatrick and found that he knew very little about the reasons for the editorial in question being written, but, curiously, as we talked on the long-distance telephone, he was able to within seconds have the October 28th comment on hand and even discussed various aspects of it with me. He pointedly stated that the editorial was conceived and written by James Lucier, the News Leader’s editorial writer, who specialized on international matters. Kilpatrick, however, backed up Lucier 100 per cent in the presentation of the issue in that fashion. It should be noted that the Richmond News Leader is not regarded as a right-wing or anti-internationalist publication. Published in Virginia, it does reflect the customary international flair which has been known to exist among the American cotton and tobacco industry which produced, as you will recall, the Reciprocal Trade Agreements concept, the GATT and Cordell Hull. Nobody can recall that the political representatives from Virginia in the House of Representatives or the Senate showed even limited isolationist tendencies. While the two Senators, Harry F. Byrd and A. Willis Robertson, are conservative in economic and financial policy, they are internationalist in foreign policy matters. The State’s nine Congressmen are leaning toward the conservative side on domestic matters, particularly the chairman of the House Rules Committee, Howard W. Smith, and his Democratic colleagues, of which Porter Hardy, Jr. is the other well-known and influential member. Howard W. Smith, it must be noted, represents Richmond and since he is an advocate of no civil rights action, he could be the originator of the information which was passed on to the Richmond News Leader. At least, it could be argued – and I gained the impression after talking openly with Mr. Kilpatrick – that this may have been the entry point. J. Vaughan Gary, also a Democrat, comes from Richmond and represents the other parts of the city. None of the House and Senator members from Virginia, it must be noted, are either members of the House Foreign Affairs or the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This, in turn, could form a conclusion that foreign affairs are not Virginia’s foremost concern, although their ports have shown widest interest in the European Common Market and even the chicken issue has stirred up the delegation from time to time.
The Congressman representing the area where Williamsburg is located is Thomas N. Downing, who is rather new to the Washington scene, having initiated his first time in 1958.
The fact that Kilpatrick was aware of the editorial in question so quickly, led me to believe that the issue was this past week very much on his mind.
Having been told that Mr. Lucier had initiated the commentary, I then had a one-hour telephone conversation with him and found him generally an open-minded, if not confused individual; confused, because his information about Bilderberg was evidently third-hand. At the same time, he appeared disturbed and concerned that such an institution as Bilderberg existed, as he put it, “because it defeats the basic premise of democracy.” In a manner identified with the News Leader previously, Mr. Lucier pointedly criticized that the Bilderberg conferences by being secret were (a) giving personal gains to the business participants; (b) going around the consent-and-advice role of Congress; and (c) bringing into the meeting individuals from the United States that were not representative of this country, “with their overly emphasis on the ‘New York Internationalists’.” It seemed that Mr. Lucier was especially concerned with the Bilderberg issue “after having been exposed to the silly biography on Prince Bernhard.” The key phrases from the book quoted back to me by Mr. Lucier were these:
- “That meeting and the subsequent ones that stemmed from it, which have had a great, if indefinable impact on the history of our times…”
- “When asked for an example of a Bilderberg accomplishment, George McGhee said: ‘I believe you could say the Treaty of Rome, which brought the Common Market into being, was nurtured at these meetings and sided by the main stream of our discussions here’.”
- “The formation of an international corporation to finance industrial development in the Near East is another concrete result.”
- “The present American Government is even closer to Bilderberg, becausePresident Kennedy has virtually staffed the State Department with what C. D. Jackson calls ’Bilderberg alumni.’”
Any innocent bystander, not really familiar with the purpose and objective of the Bilderberg session, must sympathize with Mr. Lucier’s reactions after he read the book and had been exposed to the charges in the Congress, as he put it, by Senators Goldwater, Thurmond, and others. This may be the reason, too, why the editorial pointedly stated “It is a silly and pretentious book about a silly and pretentious man.”
One of the points of my exchange with Lucier was his reference to the role of Mr. Marcus Wallenberg, “indicative,” as he put it, “of the obvious personal gains the international business operator gets out of such Bilderberg meetings.” Lucier knew that Wallenberg had been a Bilderberg regular and, as he recalled it, just this week had received a new release from the Liberian Embassy in Washington in which the new Liberian Ore project of the Wallenberg interests was highlighted, together with the point that the Swedish banker had actually gotten American participants into the picture, too.
Mr. Lucier reflected, generally speaking, a distinct concern about the role in Washington and free world policy making of the “New York-Eastern Seaboard Internationalists.” While he never used the word “conspiracy” and even tried to state that this was not the purpose of his editorial comment, he implied that those Americans active in the Bilderberg sessions “are all of one and the same connotation, overly world-wide minded and not enough reflecting the American viewpoint.”
That the issue is not dead for Mr. Lucier could be learned from his revelation that he was seriously thinking of putting a pamphlet together on “the danger that such an informal, non-governmental, non-democratically responsive sessions” imply. This fact led me to conclude that there are some people behind him pushing this issue, particularly with an internationally-minded paper so as to cover up their work.
It must be realised that the editorial in the Richmond News Leader will somehow get to certain members of Congress who, likely when the weekend of March 20th comes around will sound off on the issue. It is also vital to understand that there is no counter-statement possible to correct Mr. Lucier’s mis-conception because of the sentiments that have obviously been conveyed to him by certain sources. Unhappily, the book on Prince Bernhard by Alden Hatch provides delicate documentation of boastfulness that American public opinion at this state of over-concern on domestic matters can quite absorb.
Finally, Lucier appears to us a most independent individual, who, like so many editorial writers, cherishes his freedom of expression and wants to be played up because of this fact. He can, however, be considered to be open-minded if he is approached directly by high-level, experienced and identifiable Bilderberg personnel. These must not be the prototype of the internationalist that he seems too much concerned about or the expertese type who will merely give the impression that there is desire to cover up and neutralize. My impression is like this: If a direct confrontation with Lucier at his office in Richmond can be made, he may well come around to understand the purpose of the Bilderberg sessions which he does not at present. It must be realized, too, that there may be other editorial writers of the generally responsive type that have been approached by unknown outsiders who may well, once it becomes known that there will be a Bilderberg conference in the United States, react sharply and critical too. Lucier, it seems, is not affected by pressure from his top management because he has, as I readily realized, the fullest support of his top editor. Kilpatrick actually appeared to indicate that he was rather proud of his name to have such “ingenious ideas as in the October 28th issue.”
In conclusion, since in the case of the Richmond News Leader we do not see a Pegler or David Lawrence or a Chicago Tribune situation, fullest disclosure, without revealing anything meaningful or delicate, is obviously very much warranted at the moment. I consider, after fully absorbing all the reaction and points made to me by Mr. Lucier, that this is not a hopeless situation, but rather reflects a European approach to the American situation which Lucier, himself, termed naïve. But since the atmosphere in Washington tends to turn sensitive in this connection, antidotes must be found and used.