Editing Bilderberg Meeting (section)

== Organizational structure ==
Meetings are organized by a steering committee with two members from each of approximately 18 nations.<ref name="bbc05">{{cite news |title=Inside the secretive Bilderberg Group |date=29 September 2005 |work=[[BBC News]] |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4290944.stm |access-date=5 August 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081229025714/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4290944.stm |archive-date=29 December 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref> Official posts include a chairman and an Honorary Secretary General.<ref name="prweb97" /> The group's rules do not contain a membership category but former participants receive the annual conference reports.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20000302093537/http://www.schnews.org.uk/bilderberg/introduction.html Introduction p. 3] in ''Bilderberg meetings'', [[Schnews]], 1999</ref> The only category that exists is "member of the steering committee".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?reference=P-2003-1370&language=EN |title=Parliamentary questions: Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission |date=15 May 2003 |publisher=[[European Parliament]]}}</ref> Besides the committee, there is a separate advisory group with overlapping membership.<ref name="iww">Entry for [[Conrad Black]], {{cite book |title=The International Who's Who |url=https://archive.org/details/internationalwho0000unse |url-access=registration |year=2000 |publisher=Europa Publications|isbn=9781857430509 }}</ref>

Dutch economist [[Ernst van der Beugel]] became permanent secretary in 1960, upon Retinger's death. Prince Bernhard continued to serve as the meeting's chairman until 1976, the year of his involvement in the [[Lockheed bribery scandals|Lockheed affair]]. The position of Honorary American Secretary General has been held successively by [[Joseph E. Johnson (government official)|Joseph E. Johnson]] of the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace|Carnegie Endowment]]; [[William Bundy]] of [[Princeton University]]; [[Theodore L. Eliot Jr.]], former [[United States Ambassador to Afghanistan|U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan]]; and [[Casimir A. Yost]] of [[Georgetown University]]'s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/reading_room/824.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060519182704/http://www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/reading_room/824.pdf |archive-date=19 May 2006 |title=Bilderberg: List of Invitees |date=31 January 1996 |publisher=United States Department of Defense |access-date=6 June 2009}}</ref>

According to James A. Bill, the "steering committee usually met twice a year to plan programs and to discuss the participant list".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bill|first1=James A.|title=George Ball: Behind the Scenes in U.S. Foreign Policy|date=August 1998|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300076462|page=53}}</ref>

In 2002, in ''[[Them: Adventures with Extremists]]'', author [[Jon Ronson]] wrote that the group has a small central office in Holland which each year decides what country will host the forthcoming meeting. The host country then has to book an entire hotel for four days, plus arrange catering, transport and security. To fund this, the host solicits donations from sympathetic corporations such as [[Barclays]], [[Fiat Automobiles]], [[GlaxoSmithKline]], [[Heinz]], [[Nokia]] and [[Xerox]].<ref>{{cite book |last= Ronson |first= Jon| date=2015 |orig-year=First published 2002|title= Them: Adventures with Extremists  |location=London |publisher= Picador Classic |pages= 271–72 |isbn=978-1447275466 |author-link=Jon Ronson}}</ref>