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George W. Bush and the Brotherhood of Death

'Secrets of the Tomb'

Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths

of Power

By Alexandra Robbins

MSNBC.com

 

Wednesday, 4 September, 2002

 

Inside a cold, foreboding structure of brown sandstone

in New Haven, Conn., lives one of the most heavily

shrouded secret societies in American history. Yale's

super-elite Skull and Bones, a 200-year-old

organization whose roster is stocked with some of the

country's most prominent families: Bush, Harriman,

Phelps, Rockefeller, Taft, and Whitney. Journalist

Alexandra Robbins, herself a member of another of

Yale's secret societies, interviewed more than a

hundred Bonesmen and writes about the rituals that

make up the organization. Read an excerpt from her

book ‘The Secrets of the Tomb' below.

 

The Legend Of Skull And Bones

 

Sometime in the early 1830s, a Yale student named

William H. Russell--the future valedictorian of the

class of 1833- traveled to Germany to study for a

year. Russell came from an inordinately wealthy family

that ran one of America's most despicable business

organizations of the nineteenth century: Russell and

Company, an opium empire. Russell would later become a

member of the Connecticut state legislature, a general

in the Connecticut National Guard, and the founder of

the Collegiate and Commercial Institute in New Haven.

While in Germany, Russell befriended the leader of an

insidious German secret society that hailed the

death's head as its logo. Russell soon became caught

up in this group, itself a sinister outgrowth of the

notorious eighteenth-century society the Illuminati.

When Russell returned to the United States, he found

an atmosphere so Anti-Masonic that even his beloved

Phi Beta Kappa, the honor society, had been

unceremoniously stripped of its secrecy. Incensed,

Russell rounded up a group of the most promising

students in his class-including Alphonso Taft, the

future secretary of war, attorney general, minister to

Austria, ambassador to Russia, and father of future

president William Howard Taft-and out of vengeance

constructed the most powerful secret society the

United States has ever known.

 

The men called their organization the Brotherhood of

Death, or, more informally, the Order of Skull and

Bones. They adopted the numerological symbol 322

because their group was the second chapter of the

German organization and founded in 1832. They

worshiped the goddess Eulogia, celebrated pirates, and

plotted an underground conspiracy to dominate the

world.

 

Fast-forward 170 years. Skull and Bones has curled its

tentacles into every corner of American society. This

tiny club has set up networks that have thrust three

members into the most powerful political position in

the world. And the group's influence is only

increasing-the 2004 presidential election might

showcase the first time each ticket has been led by a

Bonesman. The secret society is now, as one historian

admonishes, " ‘an international mafia'. . .

unregulated and all but unknown." In its quest to

create a New World Order that restricts individual

freedoms and places ultimate power solely in the hands

of a small cult of wealthy, prominent families, Skull

and Bones has already succeeded in infiltrating nearly

every major research, policy, financial, media, and

government institution in the country. Skull and

Bones, in fact, has been running the United States for

years.

 

Skull and Bones cultivates its talent by selecting

members from the junior class at Yale University, a

school known for its strange, Gothic elitism and its

rigid devotion to the past. The society screens its

candidates carefully, favoring Protestants and, now,

white Catholics, with special affection for the

children of wealthy East Coast Skull and Bones

members. Skull and Bones has been dominated by about

two dozen of the country's most prominent

families--Bush, Bundy, Harriman, Lord, Phelps,

Rockefeller, Taft, and Whitney among them--who are

encouraged by the society to intermarry so that its

power is consolidated. In fact, Skull and Bones forces

members to confess their entire sexual histories so

that the club, as a eugenics overlord, can determine

whether a new Bonesman will be fit to mingle with the

bloodlines of the powerful Skull and Bones dynasties.

A rebel will not make Skull and Bones; nor will anyone

whose background in any way indicates that he will not

sacrifice for the greater good of the larger

organization.

 

As soon as initiates are allowed into the "tomb," a

dark, windowless crypt in New Haven with a roof that

serves as a landing pad for the society's private

helicopter, they are sworn to silence and told they

must forever deny that they are members of this

organization. During initiation, which involves

ritualistic psychological conditioning, the juniors

wrestle in mud and are physically beaten--this stage

of the ceremony represents their "death" to the world

as they have known it. They then lie naked in coffins,

masturbate, and reveal to the society their innermost

sexual secrets. After this cleansing, the Bonesmen

give the initiates robes to represent their new

identities as individuals with a higher purpose. The

society anoints the initiate with a new name,

symbolizing his rebirth and rechristening as Knight X,

a member of the Order. It is during this initiation

that the new members are introduced to the artifacts

in the tomb, among them Nazi memorabilia--including a

set of Hitler's silverware-dozens of skulls, and an

assortment of decorative tchotchkes: coffins,

skeletons, and innards. They are also introduced to

"the Bones whore," the tomb's only full-time resident,

who helps to ensure that the Bonesmen leave the tomb

more mature than when they entered.

 

Members of Skull and Bones must make some sacrifices

to the society--and they are threatened with blackmail

so that they remain loyal--but they are remunerated

with honors and rewards, including a graduation gift

of $15,000 and a wedding gift of a tall grandfather

clock. Though they must tithe their estates to the

society, each member is guaranteed financial security

for life; in this way, Bones can ensure that no member

will feel the need to sell the secrets of the society

in order to make a living. And it works: No one has

publicly breathed a word about his Skull and Bones

membership, ever. Bonesmen are automatically offered

jobs at the many investment banks and law firms

dominated by their secret society brothers. They are

also given exclusive access to the Skull and Bones

island, a lush retreat built for millionaires, with a

lavish mansion and a bevy of women at the members'

disposal.

 

The influence of the cabal begins at Yale, where Skull

and Bones has appropriated university funds for its

own use, leaving the school virtually impoverished.

Skull and Bones' corporate shell, the Russell Trust

Association, owns nearly all of the university's real

estate, as well as most of the land in Connecticut.

Skull and Bones has controlled Yale's faculty and

campus publications so that students cannot speak

openly about it. "Year by year," the campus's only

anti-society publication stated during its brief

tenure in 1873, "the deadly evil is growing."

 

The year in the tomb at Yale instills within members

an unwavering loyalty to Skull and Bones. Members have

been known to stab their Skull and Bones pins into

their skin to keep them in place during swimming or

bathing. The knights (as the student members are

called) learn quickly that their allegiance to the

society must supersede all else: family, friendships,

country, God. They are taught that once they get out

into the world, they are expected to reach positions

of prominence so that they can further elevate the

society's status and help promote the standing of

their fellow Bonesmen.

 

This purpose has driven Bonesmen to ascend to the top

levels of so many fields that, as one historian

observes, "at any one time The Order can call on

members in any area of American society to do what has

to be done." Several Bonesmen have been senators,

congressmen, Supreme Court justices, and Cabinet

officials. There is a Bones cell in the CIA, which

uses the society as a recruiting ground because the

members are so obviously adept at keeping secrets.

Society members dominate financial institutions such

as J. P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Brown

Brothers Harriman, where at one time more than a third

of the partners were Bonesmen. Through these

companies, Skull and Bones provided financial backing

to Adolf Hitler because the society then followed a

Nazi-and now follows a neo-Nazi--doctrine. At least a

dozen Bonesmen have been linked to the Federal

Reserve, including the first chairman of the New York

Federal Reserve. Skull and Bones members control the

wealth of the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford

families.

 

Skull and Bones has also taken steps to control the

American media.

 

Two of its members founded the law firm that

represents the New York Times. Plans for both Time and

Newsweek magazines were hatched in the Skull and Bones

tomb. The society has controlled publishing houses

such as Farrar, Straus & Giroux. In the 1880s, Skull

and Bones created the American Historical Association,

the American Psychological Association, and the

American Economic Association so that the society

could ensure that history would be written under its

terms and promote its objectives. The society then

installed its own members as the presidents of these

associations.

 

Under the society's direction, Bonesmen developed and

dropped the nuclear bomb and choreographed the Bay of

Pigs invasion. Skull and Bones members had ties to

Watergate and the Kennedy assassination. They control

the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral

Commission so that they can push their own political

agenda. Skull and Bones government officials have used

the number 322 as codes for highly classified

diplomatic assignments. The society discriminates

against minorities and fought for slavery; indeed

eight out of twelve of Yale's residential colleges are

named for slave owners while none are named for

abolitionists. The society encourages misogyny: it did

not admit women until the 1990s because members did

not believe women were capable of handling the Skull

and Bones experience and because they said they feared

incidents of date rape. This society also encourages

grave robbing: deep within the bowels of the tomb are

the stolen skulls of the Apache chief Geronimo, Pancho

Villa, and former president Martin Van Buren.

 

Finally, the society has taken measures to ensure that

the secrets of Skull and Bones slip ungraspable like

sand through open fingers. Journalist Ron Rosenbaum,

who wrote a long but not probing article about the

society in the 1970s, claimed that a source warned him

not to get too close.

 

"What bank do you have your checking account at?" this

party asked me in the middle of a discussion of the

Mithraic aspects of the Bones ritual.

 

I named the bank. "Aha," said the party. "There are

three Bonesmen on the board. You'll never have a line

of credit again. They'll tap your phone. They'll. . .

"

 

. . .The source continued: "The alumni still care.

Don't laugh. They don't like people tampering and

prying. The power of Bones is incredible. They've got

their hands on every lever of power in the country.

You'll see--it's like trying to look into the Mafia."

 

In the 1980s, a man known only as Steve had contracts

to write two books on the society, using documents and

photographs he had acquired from the Bones crypt. But

Skull and Bones found out about Steve. Society members

broke into his apartment, stole the documents,

harassed the would-be author, and scared him into

hiding, where he has remained ever since. The books

were never completed. In Universal Pictures' thriller

The Skulls (2000), an aspiring journalist is writing a

profile of the society for the New York Times. When he

sneaks into the tomb, the Skulls murder him. The real

Skull and Bones tomb displays a bloody knife in a

glass case. It is said that when a Bonesman stole

documents and threatened to publish society secrets if

the members did not pay him a determined amount of

money, they used that knife to kill him. This, then,

is the legend of Skull and Bones.

 

It is astonishing that so many people continue to

believe, even in twenty-first-century America, that a

tiny college club wields such an enormous amount of

influence on the world's only superpower. The breadth

of clout ascribed to this organization is practically

as wide-ranging as the leverage of the satirical

secret society the Stonecutters introduced in an

episode of The Simpsons. The Stonecutters theme song

included the lyrics:

 

Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric

system down? We do! We do. . .

 

Who holds back the electric car? Who makes Steve

Guttenberg a star? We do! We do.

 

Certainly, Skull and Bones does cross boundaries in

order to attempt to stay out of the public spotlight.

When I wrote an article about the society for the

Atlantic Monthly in May 2000, an older Bonesman said

to me, "If it's not portrayed positively, I'm sending

a couple of my friends after you." After the article

was published, I received a telephone call at my

office from a fellow journalist, who is a member of

Skull and Bones.

 

He scolded me for writing the article--"writing that

article was not an ethical or honorable way to make a

decent living in journalism," he condescended --and

then asked me how much I had been paid for the story.

When I refused to answer, he hung up. Fifteen minutes

later, he called back.

 

"I have just gotten off the phone with our people."

"Your people?" I snickered.

 

"Yes. Our people." He told me that the society

demanded to know where I got my information.

 

"I've never been in the tomb and I did nothing illegal

in the process of reporting this article," I replied.

 

"Then you must have gotten something from one of us.

Tell me whom you spoke to. We just want to talk to

them," he wheedled. "I don't reveal my sources."

 

Then he got angry. He screamed at me for a while about

how dishonorable I was for writing the article. "A lot

of people are very despondent over this!" he yelled.

"Fifteen Yale juniors are very, very upset!" I thanked

him for telling me his concerns.

 

"There are a lot of us at newspapers and at political

journalism institutions," he coldly hissed. "Good luck

with your career"--and he slammed down the phone.

 

Skull and Bones, particularly in recent years, has

managed to pervade both popular and political culture.

In the 1992 race for the Republican presidential

nomination, Pat Buchanan accused President George Bush

of running "a Skull and Bones presidency." In 1993,

during Jeb Bush's Florida gubernatorial campaign, one

of his constituents asked him, "You're familiar with

the Skull and Crossbones Society?" When Bush

responded, "Yeah, I've heard about it," the

constituent persisted, "Well, can you tell the people

here what your family membership in that is? Isn't

your aim to take control of the United States?" In

January 2001, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd

used Skull and Bones in a simile: "When W. met the

press with his choice for attorney general, John

Ashcroft, before Christmas, he vividly showed how

important it is to him that his White House be as

leak-proof as the Skull & Bones ‘tomb.'"

 

That was less than a year after the Universal Pictures

film introduced the secret society to a new

demographic perhaps uninitiated into the doctrines of

modern-day conspiracy theory. Not long before the

movie was previewed in theaters--and perhaps in

anticipation of the election of George W. Bush--a

letter was distributed to members from Skull and Bones

headquarters. "In view of the political happenings in

the barbarian world," the memo read, "I feel compelled

to remind all of the tradition of privacy and

confidentiality essential to the well-being of our

Order and strongly urge stout resistance to the

seductions and blandishments of the Fourth Estate."

This vow of silence remains the society's most

important rule. Bonesmen have been exceedingly careful

not to break this code of secrecy, and have kept

specific details about the organization out of the

press. Indeed, given the unusual, strict written

reminder to stay silent, members of Skull and Bones

may well refuse to speak to any member of the media

ever again.

 

But they have already spoken to me. When? Over the

past three years. Why? Perhaps because I am a member

of one of Skull and Bones' kindred Yale secret

societies. Perhaps because some of them are tired of

the Skull and Bones legend, of the claims of

conspiracy theorists and some of their fellow

Bonesmen. What follows, then, is the truth about Skull

and Bones. And if this truth does not contain all of

the conspiratorial elements that the Skull and Bones

legend projects, it is perhaps all the more

interesting for that fact. The story of Skull and

Bones is not just the story of a remarkable secret

society, but a remarkable society of secrets, some

with basis in truth, some nothing but fog. Much of the

way we understand the world of power involves myriad

assumptions of connection and control, of cause and

effect, and of coincidence that surely cannot be

coincidence.

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Guest imported_El Mamerro

My best friend is in one of those crazy secret societies at Yale, I've hung out with them. All that stuff up there is a bunch of BS. Beer,

 

El Mamerro

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Guest imported_SecretAgentX9

as i know one as well, i will say some of it could be bullshit, but some of it is not.

sure you can argue the conspiracy, but fuggit. i'm not typing that one out.

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Guest imported_El Mamerro

No, I know what you mean, it exists and stuff, and they're powerful people no doubt, I was referring to the whole goddess worshipping and temple rites and ultra masonic world domination thing. Good mindfuck material though. beer,

 

El Mamerro

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Guest imported_SecretAgentX9
Originally posted by El Mamerro

No, I know what you mean, it exists and stuff, and they're powerful people no doubt, I was referring to the whole goddess worshipping and temple rites and ultra masonic world domination thing.

 

say word.

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