"It was them," said Jon Ronson. "I mean they're the ones who started talking about the conspiracy theories and about the secret room and the Bilderberg Group. You know, the Klan, I remember them telling me about it all in a car park in Michigan…"

There are more questions in those two sentences than we can even begin to play with. Who are they? What do they want? What secret room? What's the Bilderberg Group? And what is Jon Ronson, a nice Jewish boy from North London, doing hanging with the Klan in a car park in Michigan?

Jon's current Channel 4 series and his book, Them: Adventures With Extremists began life as a series of profiles of extremist leaders, but quickly mutated into something more sinister. One of the joys of the book is that it's warm and funny and human about people who really aren't warm or funny or, if David Icke is to be believed, even human. It's a story that links the richest, most powerful men on earth to the racist scum underbelly. While the stories are unlikely, they're also true. Or are they? Well, that depends who you're listening to.

"I had no interest in it," said Jon. "Conspiracy theories never occupied my mind whatsoever and will cease to fairly soon, hopefully, even though I'm going to keep on getting strange e-mails saying 'You've got to look at this link…' But extremists - so-called extremists or people who are called extremists - have always interested me and what interested me about them was us. How they impacted on us and how they clashed with our society - seeing our world through their eyes."

Running through his book is the idea that there's a New World Order, an international conspiracy dedicated to running our lives, a group of unelected people who get together and make the decisions that decide things. The story takes in strange robed owl-burning ceremonies, Timothy McVeigh, white supremacist enclaves in the redneck hills, and a man who asks the very reasonable question of why it is that Henry Kissinger, a man who has lived in the US since he was 14, still speaks with such a strong Germanic accent. It also takes in David Icke and his strange - some would say anti-Semitic - ideas about 12-foot lizards who run the world.

"I just thought it would be a funny shaggy dog story trying to track down the secret room, not realising it would become this whirlpool," Jon says. It's a whirlpool that's taken him into some very strange places like Bohemian Grove, a clearing in northern California where the rulers of the world meet, dress up in robes and burn effigies at the foot of a giant owl, and into some very strange situations. It's also given him access to some very powerful people. At one point we were talking and he says to me, "I'll tell you a funny thing about that. Me and David Owen were talking… I never thought I'd hear myself say that. Me and David Owen were talking… Me and Dave. And he said… No, I said to him…"

Central to this story is a group called The Bilderberg Group, but what is The Bilderberg Group? What do they do? What do they want? "Ninety-nine per cent of the population have never heard of The Bilderberg Group and that is strange because even if they're not actually ruling the world they are a very influential organisation."

But how can people have heard of them? There's nothing ever written about them. "I think there was a certain amount of cover up. Not a sinister cover up… well, they don't see it as sinister."

The Bilderbergs briefly are the rich and the powerful. Top politicians, captains of industry, movers and shakers at the highest levels of Western capitalistm. Yes, they do meet and dress up in robes and burn an effigy of an owl. What influence they have is the question.

"I may be wrong but I don't think these people have any more influence than they appear to have. It's certainly a networking place, but networking places happen all over the world. I mean, what are Cabinet meetings?" But the Cabinet are elected. "Some of the Bilderbergers are elected." To Bilderberg? "No," said Jon…. But is Bilderberg a policy making organisation? "Maybe. But, you know…"

You remember how when New Labour came to power, one of the first things Gordon Brown did was give the Bank of England power to raise and lower interest rates. What's that if not taking power away from the politicians? In Ronsonland you've got to ask, who made that decision?

Reading Jon's book - and talking to him this is even more true - there are two things that strike you. The first is that he had an amazing amount of access. People have been trying to get near the Bilderbergs for years and there's not a sniff of anything. It's shrouded in mystery, hidden behind closed doors and locked in secret rooms. Had you heard of it? This organisation that runs the world. Had you? No. The conspiracists would tell you that that's because all Bilderberg related information is surpressed by the Forces of Bilderberg. Yet Jon ambles along and he gets a book deal, a series on Channel 4 and serialisation in The Guardian. It's curious, no?

"I've had no censorship which means that either they're allowing me to do this because they know I'm not some crazy nut or because there is nothing sinister going on. The reason why Bilderberg fanatics… fanatics is a patronising word... Obsessives…" Obsessives is better? "Well, probably not. They say they wrote to The Guardian and they wouldn't print their letter, but the reason is because obsessives come over as mad. And even if they're not, even if they're on to something, that's the impression they convey. Maybe it's just as simple as that I happen to be the first mainstream person to become interested."

But you did get amazing access. "That's my boyish charm. But no, I was really lucky. After a while, people probably agreed to see me as a kind of damage limitation exercise. I think that happens quite a lot."

The other thing that strikes you is that Jon is either maybe fearless or stupid because he puts himself in some very dodgy situations. Aside from the time he was chased by the Bilderbergs in Portugal, a lot of these conspiracists are, not to put too fine a point on it, Nazis. Right wing extremists. Anti-semitics. White supremacists. Redneck hillbilles. And yet Jon - very visibly Jewish Jon - walked into places like Aryan Nation - which is exactly what it sounds like - and Elohim City, a Nazi hill township.

"I got a bit scared at Aryan Nation and I got very scared being chased by the Bilderbergs because that was the unknown, I had no idea if I was in any danger there, but most of the time you can rationalise it. I've been with Nazis for long enough now to know when I'm in danger. I was a little bit scared going into Elohim City… I'm not an adrenalin junkie."
"You weigh it up. What good would it do for these people to kill me - or even torture me? Ninety nine times out of a hundred it would do them no good and people are self-preserving. It's the same with Aryan Nation or the Bilderbergs. You know, Peter Mandelson wouldn't want a trail of blood leading from Channel 4 to his door, you kind of rationally work these things out and most people are pretty rational."

You walked into Aryan Nation and rationalised it. Maybe they're not as rational as you or I. "Aryan Nation was a mistake. That maybe wasn't rational." Doesn't your wife say anything? "She didn't want me to go and see Bin Laden [an international terrorist on the FBI's most wanted list]. That was the one thing she said. But, on both sides there's paranoia. We're paranoid about them, they're paranoid about us and probably neither side is as scary as the other side thinks it is."

Away from robes, owls and a strange fascination with Nazis, Jon seems remarkably well-balanced. He's 34, is married, has a three-year-old son anddisplays all the usual insecurities.

"Did you like the book?" he asked me. Yes, of course I like the book, I said. I wouldn't be here otherwise.

"No, but did you… Did you really like it?" What can I tell you? Last night I was reading it in the bath and the bath water went cold. "Really?"

Later, his phone rang. It was his publisher and they were telling him about the book's position in the bestseller list. "Have you got any news?" I heard him ask. "Do you know if we're on the best seller list this week? I suppose it's too early to say... So it was number 15 last week… Great, that's great. Well. I was in The Observer but not in The Sunday Times… I'm in Waterstone's top ten lists… Not that I've been in more than two, I think it's two…"

I bring him back. Do you like mixing with these types? Did it get to you? "It does get to you. I started to get paranoid about the idea that we could be being watched or bugged. One morning I got into my car and the door was unlocked. The rational explanation is that I forgot to lock it but it threw me completely and I spent the journey talking to my wife in very clear tones about things like buying the nappies…"

Them: Adventures With Extremists by Jon Ronson is published by Picador.

Jon Ronson is appearing at Waterstone's on Thursday June14, 7.30pm, admission by free ticket.

copyright New Insight 2000

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