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The sixth Bilderberg Conference met at Fiuggi, Italy. The first five were held in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Denmark, and the United States.
A number of persons who had indicated their intentions of attending were prevented from doing so at the last minute by Asian influenza. Forty-five persons attended from eleven different countries; whatever their status or function in public life they all took part in a purely personal capacity. Like all other meetings of the Bilderberg Group this Conference set as its purpose the frank discussion of problems of common concern to the nations of the Western alliance. Its members were all informed persons of authority and influence in their respective countries. Since difficulties and differences are bound to arise among any group of democratic peoples which believes in the right of dissent, the Bilderberg Group aims at contributing towards a reconciliation of divergent views and interests by providing the opportunity of free discussion among leaders of opinion who share a common desire to achieve a better understanding of one another's motives and intentions.
For this reason, the subjects chosen for discussion at Bilderberg Conferences mainly concern questions on which the Western Alliance may have difficulty in agreeing. Fruitful discussion requires an atmosphere of mutual trust, so that participants can express themselves in complete frankness. This has been largely achieved at all the Bilderberg Conferences because the meetings are held in private, the press and public are excluded and neither background papers nor speeches are published. In the final printed report, including the present one, opinions are summarized and speakers are not quoted by name.
The Conferences of the Bilderberg Group do not aim to formulate policy or even reach conclusions—no resolutions are submitted for discussion or voted upon. The purpose of the debate is to present a comprehensive review of the problems on the Agenda from which each participant is free to draw his own conclusions. It is hoped, however, that as a result those who attend the meetings may be better equipped to use their influence so that the Atlantic alliance may function better.
web design shropshirebaby prams & pushchairsThe main items on the Agenda of the sixth Bilderberg Conference were as follows:
1. Survey of developments since the last Bilderberg Conference.
2.� Modern weapons and disarmament in relation to Western security.
(a) The impact of technological progress in armaments on strategy and diplomacy.
(b) Limitation of armaments and the effect of it on NATO.
3. Are existing political and economic mechanisms within the WesternCommunity adequate ?
Background papers were circulated before the meeting to provide information or the discussion or to focus debate on particular issues. Following normal custom, as each new subject was broached, the authors of the relevant papers opened the discussion by commenting upon them.
The Bilderberg Conferences are held throughout in plenary session so that any member may participate in any of the discussions. Advantage is also derived from the opportunities for informal conversation outside the conference room among participants, who spend three days living together in the same hotel away Tom the distractions of the city.
The Conference began with a general discussion of international developments since the previous meeting at St. Simons Island, Georgia, in February. The main themes of this discussion were political developments in the Communist bloc and the Middle East, and economic developments in the free world.
(a) The Soviet Union
The opening speaker analysed recent changes inside the Soviet leadership and compared the position and methods of Khrushchev with those of Stalin. Khrushchev must be seen as personifying the Communist Party element in the Soviet ruling class. He had first liquidated Beria so that the Party could regain control over the police. He demoted Malenkov so that the managerial bureaucracy could be subordinated to the Party—this was also the main purpose of the economic decentralization carried out earlier this year. The elimination of Molotov, Malenkov, and Kaganovich from the ruling group was accompanied by the old Stalinist technique of enlarging the most important Party organs so that they could be packed with the leaders' nominees. Though many observers expected the recent changes to mean a strengthening of the Red Army's power, the speaker doubted this on the grounds that whenever the Army seeks to strengthen its influence in a State it is the Majors and Colonels and seldom the Field Marshals who are behind it. It was doubtful whether the present Army leaders in Russia were capable of exerting much influence.*
There was every reason to believe that the Communist Party was now firmly in control of Soviet policy. As long as this situation lasted, the attitudes resulting from Party predominance in domestic affairs would determine Soviet policy abroad. There was no ground for hoping that recent changes in the Soviet leadership would produce an improvement in East-West relations.
It was easier to interpret the trend of Soviet policy by comparing the relative strengths of the two power blocs. Perhaps Khrushchev was taking more risks in foreign policy because he felt the Soviet position to be stronger—witness Russia's lead in the I.C.B.M. and the Sputnik.
One of the speakers believed that domestic problems were far more important to the Russian leaders than external problems—the former determining Soviet policy on the latter. There was disagreement in the Conference, however, concerning the nature of the interaction between domestic and foreign policy in Russia. Though Soviet foreign policy appeared to be tougher now than before, the internal system was subject to serious pressures and weaknesses. New social forces were beginning to exert a direct influence on Government behaviour—in particular the intelligentsia, the younger generation, and the managerial middle class. One result was an increasing demand for consumer goods which already faced the Russian leadership with difficult economic problems. The demands on the Soviet economy were now so large and numerous that it was doubtful whether the present system could satisfy them all.
One of the participants felt that for this reason the West should keep Russia under economic pressure by maintaining the arms race, which put much more serious burdens on the Soviet Union than competition between East and West in aid to the under-developed areas. Other participants, however, maintained that, since Russia now had a lead of four to one over the West in ground forces on the European continent, she could afford to reduce her margin of superiority considerably in this field without losing her capacity for military pressure or direct aggression. Other participants showed concern that in fact the West had been disarming unilaterally during the year without attempting to obtain military or political concessions from the Russians in return. (Some of the points made concerning defence and disarmament during the preliminary discussion will be recorded below in section III.)
(b) Communism outside the Soviet Union
Many participants referred to the setbacks suffered by Communism in Western Europe where Communist Party strength was at its lowest since the Second World War; its losses among the intellectuals, mainly as a result of events in Hungary and Poland, were particularly important. Russia's position was also much weaker in the satellite countries. One of the participants described the situation in Poland, which he had recently visited. He pointed out that it was now possible to establish economic and cultural contacts in many fields with the inhabitants of the satellite countries. Several other speakers also stressed the political gains which might follow economic co-operation with Eastern Europe. These countries must be shown that they need not rely exclusively on the Soviet Union for economic aid. One of the participants pointed out that this might also be true in China. Several speakers pointed out that the West was still unprepared for a repetition of the upheavals which occurred last year in Poland and Hungary. As regards Poland, there was still much hesitation in the West about the desirability of granting economic aid. We still had no policy for dealing with another explosion on the Hungarian model. This hiatus in our policy gravely weakened our propaganda to these countries.
One of the German participants referred to the Polish-German problem and in particular to the Oder-Neisse line as a factor which helped to keep Poland inside the Soviet bloc. He was confident that it would be possible to find a satisfactory solution for what was fundamentally a legacy of Hitler's war. While Germany would have to renounce her legal claims, she should not be called upon to make unilateral concessions, even though, when it came to negotiations, Germany might have to give up far more than Poland. Both parties should be less intransigent on this question. It should be possible to reach an agreement along the lines of that already reached between Germany and France.
(c) The Middle East
While Russia had lost ground on the European front she had gained substantially in the Middle East. One of the participants maintained that it was not sufficiently realized that the problem here was not Communism as a political doctrine but Russia as a diplomatic influence. Syria, for example, was not turning Communist—it would be quite misleading to compare her with the satellite states in Eastern Europe. But Syria was becoming a vassal state of the Soviet Union under the control of Russian agents and nominees.Key Waste Skip Hire
Russia had used her arms deliveries to extend her political influence. The Army, in particular the armoured units and the intelligence service, were in the hands of Russian stooges and this was enough to give Russia a decisive influence inside the Syrian Government. Russia's ultimate goals in the Middle East were to encircle Turkey, to evict the West from its military bases, and to cut its oil supply and deny it the free use of the Suez Canal. The West, therefore, must support Turkey and secure its oil supplies by building super-tankers and additional pipelines through Turkey. One of the participants believed we should also have to revise our attitude towards Colonel Nasser, however disagreeable this might be. It was pointed out that most of the tonnage which has been recently added to the world tanker fleet was being registered under the flags of Panama or Liberia; it was thus not under direct control by the Western Governments, and in case of crisis it could well be withdrawn to serve other clients. It was generally agreed that the Western countries should have a common policy in the Middle East, particularly since they all suffered the same serious limitations in their freedom of action. For example, they were committed to preserve Israel as a separate state in the Middle East although the Arabs considered Israel as their main enemy. Thus they could not play the card of Arab nationalism so successfully as Russia. As crisis succeeded crisis in the area, the West had never been able to develop and clarify a general line of policy for the Middle East. One of the major difficulties was the indiscriminate spread of arms among the Arab states and Israel. Some participants felt that the West should explore the possibility of reaching agreement on an arms embargo in the Middle East. Others felt the possibility of such an agreement was so remote that it was not worth jeopardizing relations with our Arab allies in order to achieve it.
It had to be admitted that though the Western countries agreed in principle on the need for a common policy in the Middle East, they were still far from having achieved it. Each Western country tended to choose one Middle Eastern state as its particular client and to pursue friendship with it at the expense of good relations with the area as a whole. Britain had Iraq, America had Saudi Arabia, France had Israel, and now Italy had Persia, yet many of these states used the assistance they received from their protectors to pursue private conflicts with the clients of other Western powers. The recent trouble in Oman was a good example.
One participant felt that in inheriting the position of Britain and France as the predominant Western Powers in the Middle East, the United States had copied some of the political errors of its predecessors, in particular an over-reliance on the old ruling classes which were bound to disappear in the near future. It was a mistake to rely on the artificial patriotism of the royal families rather than the nationalism of the rising classes, which gave much more importance to the concept of Pan-Arab unity than to the existing state boundaries. Other speakers pointed out that however desirable it might be in theory for the West to identify itself with the revolutionary groups in the Arab world, in practice we had to accept the political situation as it was today and co-operate with whatever groups were in power. Moreover, in some cases the old ruling groups contained the most progressive and constructive elements.
In this respect as in others the real disagreement in the Conference was on the priority of long-term policies as against short-term expedients. No one denied the necessity for American intervention during the Jordan crisis, but some participants felt that the success of this intervention had misled America into imagining that it was a precedent which could be followed successfully elsewhere. In the long run the West must find some better way of making contact with the broad mass of Arab opinion and with the political and social groups which represented it in practice. Several participants drew attention to the serious shortcomings of Western propaganda to the Arab world. Cairo Radio still had an overwhelming influence in the Middle East. Whatever could and should be done to cope with immediate crises as they arose, the West must try to develop a long-term policy. It looked as though the Eisenhower doctrine, which had been welcomed at the last Conference as evidence of a positive American concern with the area, was already losing its rele vance in the military field. In the economic field, however, it remained valid and several participants felt that this was the most promising field for Western initiative. One speaker stressed the importance of a regional approach in the Middle East. So long as the area was treated as a mosaic of separate economic entities, there was little scope for fruitful intervention. Several participants called for a new Western effort to solve the problem of the Arab refugees, as a major obstacle to better relations between the Arab states and Israel.
It was pointed out, however, that economic development in the Middle East raised the same problems as in Asia or indeed in Europe during the Industrial Revolution. If the backward peoples were given access to modern techniques and to a twentieth-century standard of life, they must also be guided towards political democracy, otherwise the social chaos created by rapid economic development would provide Communism with new opportunities. For this reason one of the speakers believed that the problems of the Middle East should be seen in conjunction with those of similar areas in Asia, and more should be done to link the problems of the Far East and Middle East together.
(d) Inflation
It was impossible to discuss such problems as defence and overseas development without considering the impact of these expenditures on the domestic economy of the Western Powers. Reviewing the situation in the United States, one of the participants said there had been considerable development both in the depth and breadth of the American economy. The chief problem now was to maintain stability in economic growth. There was a close relationship between a stable currency and stability of employment. People realized that inflation must lead to a "Bust" and to mass unemployment. In its rapid economic development since the Second World War,
America faced a new set of problems. As a result of past experience, many defencesagainst depression had been built into the economic structure, but there was lessprotection against inflation. Economically, the USA was still fighting the last war. Allof the Western countries now had to decide how great a demand they could place ontheir economies and how much they could pay themselves for what they did. We mustexamine our national budgets, our credit policies and our price support policies in thelight of the pace at which our economies could develop. Unless we preserved flexibilityand resilience in our economies, they might collapse under the strain of built-ininefficiencies and inflation-encrusted costs. We must aim at stable economic growthwith rates of expansion which could sustain an improvement in our living standards,support our defence establishments, and make reserves available for the underdevelopedparts of the world. We should approach this task confident that it could be done withouta steady attrition of our currency. Experience would prove whether our confidence wasjustified. The speaker felt sure our economies were strong enough to accept themeasures of restraint which might be necessary to keep inflationary tendencies undercontrol.Though there was general agreement on the desirability of halting inflation, someparticipants doubted whether in practice it was possible to maintain a stable level ofprices at the same time as full employment, i.e. a high pressure of demand on the labourmarket. Wages were not, however, the only inflationary factor to be considered. Some ofthe speakers discussed the shortage of savings and the role of Government expenditureand credit policies. This was particularly important for the under-developed countrieswhich had to fight against heavy internal demand and were disappointed at the meagresupplies of capital trickling from the huge Western reservoir.One of the American participants believed that in spite of current talk of a recession, inflation was still the biggest long-term danger to the American economy, since it was still fundamentally expansionist; in fact present rumours of a business recession were probably mainly due to the measures the Government had introduced against an inflation which threatened America's defence posture as well as the basic health of her economy. There was, however, also some excess capacity, mainly in manufacturing industries, and a consequent decline in stock prices had caused some apprehension. Certain industries were particularly weak, for example housing, mineral mining, and the automobile industry. The speaker felt that during the past few years the American economy had tried to grow too fast and the price level had risen more than it should. Thus, in 1958, the gross national product in real terms might level off if it did not actually decline, although in money terms it would probably be several billion dollars higher than it was in 1956. Though this pause might be healthy and desirable in itself, there was a danger that psychological factors might carry it further than was econo-mically justifiable, but on the whole he felt confident since basically the American economy was strong and the trends were ''bullish".
(e) The European Common Market
Besides discussing economic integration in Europe in its opening session, the Conference spent some time at the end of its agenda in considering the European Common Market and Free Trade Area. The whole of this discussion is summarized below. In general, the American participants welcomed the creation of a European Common Market and Atomic Pool. They stressed, however, that the economic benefits of the Common Market would depend on its looking outwards and not inwards. If the Common Market led to the formation of a self-centred economic bloc, it could do severe political and economic harm to the broader development of the free world as a whole. Indeed, American tariff policy would be influenced by the way in which the Common Market handled similar problems, and the trend inside Europe would have a direct bearing on the attitude of the USA as expressed in the legislative programme on foreign trade shortly to come before Congress.
Another speaker believed that, in general, forward-looking business and industrial circles in America saw the Common Market as creating opportunities rather than obstacles. Exporters, however, took a more realistic view, and expected not only increased competition but also an increase in quantitative restrictions" on dollar imports. For various reasons the different measures of integration proposed would probably influence the behaviour of firms well before they came to be implemented. It was expected that the Common Market would encourage industrial concentration in Europe and accelerate penetration of American markets. Conversely American industry would find it harder to compete in Europe. As a result Americans were beginning to contemplate increased direct investment , in European industry, mainly as partners contributing capital and, when necessary, technical know-how. There was a danger that protectionist elements in the United States might draw fresh strength from these developments.
Participants from the countries directly involved, however, felt that these fears would prove to be unfounded. The Common Market would be implemented by easy stages and, if the experience of Benelux was any guide, trade with the outside world would increase together with internal trade. They were confident that the Common Market would be a step towards greater freedom in world trade as a whole. This was the purpose of the plan, although in some cases adjustments had had to be made so that particular interests would not be too drastically affected. Now that the internal pattern had been settled in the Common Market Treaty, attention would concentrate increasingly on relations with third countries ; the Free Trade Area would be the next step in the process of European economic integration. One of the European participants from outside the Common Market area said that his country, while sharing some of the American apprehensions regarding the Common Market, hoped that a way could be found of grafting the Free Trade Area on to it. The main obstacle to British and Scandinavian participation in the Common Market was its function as a step towards political union among the countries concerned. It would not be easy, however, for third countries to associate with the Common Market even for economic purposes, since the Common Market represented a delicate balance between the interests of its members, which might be disturbed by the addition of further countries. There was also the problem of including agriculture, which for countries like Denmark was of fundamental importance. Difficulties also arose over the techniques required to operate a Free Trade Area, particularly a watertight system for Certificates of Origin. Nonetheless the political desire for a Free Trade Area as an addition to the Common Market was so strong that these difficulties should be overcome.
(f) Other Developments
Several references were made to the crisis at Little Rock over schools segregation. While no one was disposed to underestimate the damaging consequences of these events on opinion in the uncommitted areas, all the European participants agreed that in Europe the American Administration had won credit for its stand and that the incident was rightly seen in the context of the general trend in the United States against racial discrimination. Several American participants, however, while expressing appreciation for the understanding shown by the responsible press and public opinion in Europe, expressed misgivings about the consequences inside the United States, in particular the revival of Civil War memories and increased racial tension in the Northern States as larger numbers of negroes cross the Mason-Dixon line.