Informal Alliance is the first archive-based history of the secretive Bilderberg Group, the high-level transatlantic elite network founded at the height of the Cold War. Making extensive use of the recently opened Bilderberg Group archives as well as a wide range of private and official collections, it shows the significance of informal diplomacy in a fast-changing world of Cold War, decolonization, and globalization. By analyzing the global mindset of the postwar transatlantic elite and by focusing on private, transnational modes of communication and coordination, this study provides important new insights into the history of transatlantic relations, anti-Americanism, Western anti-communism, and European integration during the 1950s and 1960s. Informal Alliance also debunks the persistent myth that the Bilderberg Group was created by the CIA and repudiates widespread conspiracy theories alleging that Bilderberg was some sort of secret world government.
Author(s): Thomas W. Gijswijt
Series: Routledge Studies In Modern History
Publisher: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 323
Tags: Retinger, J. H. (Joseph Hieronim) 1888-1960, Bilderberg Group, Cold War, United States Foreign Relations: Western Europe, Western Europe Foreign Relations: United States
Cover......Page 1
Half Title......Page 2
Title Page......Page 4
Copyright Page......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 10
List of abbreviations......Page 12
Introduction......Page 14
1 Joseph Retinger – informal diplomat......Page 21
2 Anti-Americanism and the road to Bilderberg......Page 46
3 The first Bilderberg conference......Page 73
4 Organization, membership, and the informal alliance......Page 100
5 Integrating Europe......Page 132
6 Decolonization and the global Cold War......Page 157
7 NATO, nuclear strategy, and the Cold War......Page 185
8 The return of nationalism: from de Gaulle to Kennedy......Page 216
9 Alliance in crisis......Page 244
Conclusion......Page 277
Appendix – List of Bilderberg Conferences, 1954–1968......Page 282
Unpublished sources and interviews......Page 286
Bibliography......Page 290
Index......Page 310
