To the best of my recall, the first mention of Bilderberg in a "regular" newspaper in the U. S. was in 1991, when Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder temporarily lost his discretion and told someone in the press that he had just come home from the Bilderberg conference abroad. That was a "no-no" as far as the conferees were concerned. They were looking over Wilder at the same time they were considering another Democrat, Clinton, who won their approval.
But one of the significant things about the Bilderberg conferences has been that the late Katherine Graham, powerful publisher of the Washington Post, and in recent years her son succeeding her as publisher, have been regular attendees, and yet they have agreed with other conferees not to publish anything in the Post about the conference. Formerly it was the custom of many to deny that the Bilderberg even existed.
But I suppose this has nothing to do with secrecy, in the view of some of the termite posters.
Oh yes...I was around when they broke out tin-foil hats whenever someone mentioned the Bilderberger conference.
"A bunch of conspiracy nuts, everybody knows there's no such thing..."
I'm betting you remember as well.