Jon Ronson, an investigative journalist whose books include The Men Who Stare At Goats and Them: Adventures with Extremists, spent a hilarious week with Tucker in 1999 in Portugal attempting to infiltrate a Bilderberg meeting. Tucker, who called a friend in the States every day to announce that he hadn’t been assassinated yet, led Ronson to an English expat journalist, also hot on the trail, who declared: “Maybe my head’s gone, but the Book of Revelation speaks of a one-world order, one financial order, a one-world religion. There’ll be a sense of disorder, of children not respecting their parents, and then a very powerful group will form. So it does all fit together.”
The reality, Ronson discovered, was a little less apocalyptic. After he’d returned home, Healey invited him round for a chat. “Bilderberg is the most useful international group I ever attended,” he told him. “The confidentiality enabled people to speak honestly without fear of repercussions.”
Other members of the group spoke to Ronson on condition of anonymity, furiously denying that they secretly ruled the world. In 2005 Viscount Davignon, a former European Commssioner, gave his interview to the BBC, pointing out that it was entirely natural for people of influence to speak to like-minded people. When George Osborne, now the Chancellor, went last year he registered it in the parliamentary register of members’ interests.
