omkoopschandaal

Contributing writer for Muckrock Emma Best reports on a recently declassified State Department cable from the US ambassador to the Netherlands to Henry Kissinger warning off the Church Committee’s widespread 1975 investigation into intelligence abuses and strongly admonishing to keep findings out of public purview.
Documents obtained talk around the potential scandal but research indicates that the conclusions might present corroborating evidence for the kick-back scheme that royal consort Prince Bernhard was implicated in. Although his highness stated to reporters’ questions when the story broke two years later, “I am above such things,” he nonetheless stepped down as head of the country’s armed forces over the allegations. According to the communique issued at the time, whatever the controversy, the interlocutors believed it would have repercussions serious enough to destabilise NATO and possibly transform the government of the Netherlands, intimating the royal couple might abdicate in disgrace. Though I really hope that the annual, mysterious gathering is about something more esoteric than grift and pay-offs, that Prince Bernhard is the same figure who in 1954 held the first conference at the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, establishing an annual trans-Atlantic meeting meant to foster cooperation on political, economic and academic issues between Europe and the US. Learn more at the link up top.