Conspiracy: History’s Greatest Plots, Collusions and Cover-Ups (6 page)

Whatever the case, no one identified the mystery man and the story that McVeigh was a lone bomber became the generally accepted truth.

Two of McVeigh's friends, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier, were subsequently arrested. Both of them had sheltered McVeigh. Michael Fortier, who had sheltered and aided McVeigh before the bombing, but had then become a key FBI informant, was sentenced to twelve years in prison on 27 May 1998 on the charge of failing to warn the authorities about the attack.

The role played by Terry Nichols was harder to assess. At his federal trial, alongside McVeigh, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2004 he was tried again, this time on state murder charges in Oklahoma, and was convicted of 160 counts of first-degree murder. The jury, however, were deadlocked on the question of whether or not this should result in a death sentence. As a result, the judge sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole.

F
AR-RIGHT MILITIAS
That should have been the end of the story. The FBI would certainly have been happy to have drawn a line under this terrible incident. However, it was hardly likely that the conspiracy aficionados would let things rest there. After all, there had been any number of rumours floating around from the very start. Some of the rumours came from those sympathetic to the far right. They were so accustomed to blaming the Federal Government for everything that they were not prepared to stop now. According to these obsessives, the Oklahoma bombing was actually carried out by the government in order to discredit the far right. There were unfounded allegations that federal employees had been warned not to go into work on the day of the bombing. Similar rumours circulated in the days following the events of September 11.

Rather more plausible is the suggestion that the far right militia movement was actually much more involved in the bombing than the FBI were prepared to admit. Following McVeigh's confession and subsequent conviction, this was the direction in which most conspiracy theorists started to look. In particular some assiduous reporters began to find clear links between McVeigh and a gang of far-right militia men that was connected to the Aryan Republican Army. The gang, led by Peter Langan and Richard Guthrie, carried out a series of bank robberies across the Midwest during the mid-1990s.

Close investigation revealed that McVeigh had been in the same place at the same time as the gang over the years. During those periods he was able to travel continually and he always had money without having a job. He also told friends about a group that he had become involved with. For years, rumours of McVeigh's connection with the gang circulated but for a long time the FBI refused to accept the link. All that changed when, early in 2004, Associated Press revealed that blasting caps of the type used in Oklahoma City had been found at the gang's compound when they were arrested in 1996. Furthermore, the gang were in possession of a driving licence that belonged to a gun dealer who had been robbed by McVeigh immediately before the bombing. These revelations were deeply embarrassing to the FBI and they resulted in an internal inquiry being launched into the matter in March 2004. As yet, however, no conclusions from this inquiry have been made public.

A
COVER-UP?
So was there a wider conspiracy or did McVeigh act alone? In this case it definitely looks as if the conspiracy theorists have a point. The evidence of links between McVeigh and the Midwest bank robbers is extremely persuasive, especially when it is backed up by the fact that so many eyewitnesses recalled seeing McVeigh with other men on the day of the bombing. And the reasons for the cover-up? Probably simple incompetence and the desire to make sure that there was a successful outcome at the trial – one that would make a nice neat story and reassure the American people that justice had been done. Unfortunately, the result of this apparent deceit was to further entrench the mistrust of government in the minds of many Americans and make them all the more likely to give credit to outlandish conspiracy theories – like those, indeed, that McVeigh and his cohorts believed in.

It may well be the oldest conspiracy theory of all – that the world is controlled by a shadowy cabal of powerful men and women. Often, the existence of such groups is dubious in the extreme – as with, for instance, the Illuminati. In other cases, there may be some basis in fact (for example, it is true that there are many powerful Jewish bankers) but the leap to conspiracy (that Jewish bankers are running the world) is nothing more than the product of a delusion, in this case a form of anti-Semitic paranoia.

However, the Bilderberg Group does at least look as if it might just be the genuine article – a group whose members rule the world. To begin with, it is clear that the Bilderberg Group does actually exist. It was founded fifty years ago and it has held an annual meeting ever since. And it is undoubtedly a secret organization. It has no corporate presence, not even a website, and it goes to some lengths to keep its annual meeting place – which is different each year – a secret. Finally, it does indeed involve many of the most powerful men, and women, in the world. Henry Kissinger and Paul Wolfowitz are regular attendees as are numerous Rockefellers, Fords and Agnellis. Even more significant, as far as the conspiracy theorists are concerned, is the fact that Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair all attended before they came to lead their countries. Coincidence? Perhaps. Let us just wait and see whether the Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, a Bilderberg guest in 2005, ever makes it to the top job.

S
ECRET MEETINGS
So what are the known facts about this mysterious organization? It was founded in 1954 and it took its name from the hotel in the Netherlands where the first meeting was held. Its founder members were British politician Denis Healey, Joseph Retinger, David Rockefeller and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, a man who, it is often pointed out, was a member of the Nazi party in his youth (though how that impacts upon those conspiracy theorists who see the Bilderberg Group as a Jewish conspiracy is anyone's guess).

The group is still based in the Netherlands, for administrative purposes at least. It maintains an office in the quiet town of Leiden. Phone calls to the office, however, are invariably met with an anonymous answerphone message.

The official purpose of the Bilderberg group, inasmuch as it has been publicly expressed, was to further the understanding between Western Europe and North America through informal meetings between powerful individuals. If it has an agenda, says founder member Lord Healey, it is to promote democracy across the globe. To this end, a steering committee draws up an invitation list each year with up to a hundred names on it, all of them either European or North American. The location of the annual meeting is fixed, with countries taking it in turn to host the meetings. Funding for the conferences is then raised from friendly corporations like Nokia or Fiat, for these conferences are where the top names in politics and industry meet. The list of participants is made available to the public, but the topics of the discussions are not. And attendees have to promise not to reveal what has been said at Bilderberg meetings. This secrecy, of course, has attracted much sceptical coverage and has provided the conspiracy theorists with ammunition. Bilderbergers themselves claim that it is not secrecy but privacy – and that privacy is essential if prominent people are to be allowed to speak freely, without the fear of media attention.

A
DARKER PURPOSE?
One thing is for sure, though. Few people ever turn down an invitation to a Bilderberg event and attending one of their meetings is almost always a good career move. Some say that this is just the way of the world. There are plenty of exclusive clubs where the rich and powerful meet away from prying eyes: the Bilderberg is simply the most exclusive club of them all.

Its members like to suggest that the Bilderberg Group is a benign organization, a think-tank dedicated to the values of liberal democracy, whose interest is simply in helping the world to run better. Its critics, however, feel that the group has a much darker purpose. They find it hard to believe that an organization that is genuinely committed to democracy should feel the need to shroud its discussions in secrecy. At best, say the critics, the Bilderberg is an engine of globalization, an organization dedicated to producing a bland new world where we all consume the same goods, watch the same TV shows and believe the same identikit politicians. A world, in short, that is run for profit. Earth plc.

Others feel that the aims of the group are more sinister yet. They claim that the Bilderberg is an actively neo-Nazi organization that is working to build a world fascist state. Others suggest that the Bilderberg Group is simply the latest front organization for the Illuminati, the secret rulers of the world for centuries.

So which of these is the Bilderberg? Benign talking shop or sinister cabal? There seems to be little or no evidence for the more extreme claims. However, the accusation that this is an organization that is committed to globalization seems to have some substance. It is surely no coincidence that one of the delegates in 2005 is Mrs Bill Gates, wife of the supreme globalizer. Yet globalization is hardly a secret matter: one has only to walk down any shopping street from Berlin to Baltimore to see that. Perhaps the truth of the matter is that today, political, media and commercial power is increasingly concentrated in an ever-smaller number of hands, and that the Bilderberg Group is part of that process. It is not so much a shadowy organization of world rulers but an informal group of people whose economic power already dominates our lives, whose brand names are written on almost everything we consume and who wish to further their global interests.

The Illuminati are one of the great touchstones of conspiracy theory. This is the shadowy group that the conspiracy theorists believe are behind practically everything that takes place in the world – capitalism or communism, Zionism or Catholicism. The British royal family, the American presidency, Freemasons, the Knights Templar, even extra-terrestrials – all of them are bound up with the Illuminati, the secret rulers of the world. And of course the fact that there is no evidence of the existence of the Illuminati is actually proof of their all-powerful nature, rather than of their non-existence.

So who are – or were – the Illuminati and why are they credited with such extraordinary powers? The first part of this question is easy enough to answer. The Illuminati were a group founded in Bavaria, Germany, in the late eighteenth century by an ex-Jesuit named Adam Weishaupt, a professor of canon law in Ingolstadt, Germany. Much taken with the ideas of the Enlightenment, he decided to form a group of fellow republican freethinkers which would be clandestine, because it was dangerous to hold such ideas at that time. Together with one Baron Adolph von Knigge, he founded his movement on 1 May 1776, calling it the "Perfectibilists". However, its adherents soon became known as the Illuminati. They were also sometimes referred to as the Illuminati Order, the Order of the Illuminati or the Bavarian Illuminati.

Many of those attracted to the new movement were already Freemasons, which accounts for the perceived links between the two, quite different, movements. Members had to pledge obedience to their superiors and were divided into three classes. The first class was called the Nursery, and it included the offices of Preparation, Novice, Minerval and Illuminatus Minor; the second was known as the Masonry and it embraced the higher ranks of Illuminatus Major and Illuminatus Dirigens; and the third class was referred to as the Mysteries and within it were the Lesser Mysteries, the ranks of Presbyter and Regent and the Greater Mysteries, the highest ranks of Magus and Rex.