Henry A. Kissinger

Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. provides and disseminates ideas on foreign policies to individuals, corporate members, journalists and policy makers. It operates a forum for government officials, students and other interested parties to study and discuss world issues and impact on American foreign policies. The company publishes Foreign Affairs, a magazine that comes out six times a year, along with books and studies by its own scholars. Council on Foreign Relations was founded in 1921 and is headquartered in New York City, NY.

Bilderberg takes its name from the hotel in Holland, where the first meeting took place in May 1954. That pioneering meeting grew out of the concern expressed by leading citizens on both sides of the Atlantic that Western Europe and North America were not working together as closely as they should on common problems of critical importance. It was felt that regular, off-the-record discussions would help create a better understanding of the complex forces and major trends affecting Western nations in the difficult post-war period. The Cold War has now ended. But in practically all respects there are more, not fewer, common problems - from trade to jobs, from monetary policy to investment, from ecological challenges to the task of promoting international security. It is hard to think of any major issue in either Europe or North America whose unilateral solution would not have repercussions for the other. Thus the concept of a European-American forum has not been overtaken by time. The dialogue between these two regions is still - even increasingly - critical.

THE ORGANIZATION IS A SOCIAL CLUB.