February 8, 2004

 

                                                     The Order of Skull and Bones

                                     (The Brotherhood of Death B Established, 1832)

 

     ABrother@                                        Date                                      Official Post(s)                                                                     Initiated

 

Timothy Dwight                                 1849    President, Yale University.

 

Daniel Coit Gilman                             1852    Founding President, Johns Hopkins University.

 

Arthur Hadley                         1876    President, Yale University.  In 1922, acquiesced to a quota on the admission of Jews in the University.

 

William Howard Taft                       1878    President of the United States.                    

 

Henry L. Stimson                                1888    Secretary of War, Secretary of State.  Chairman, AThe 1945 Committee@ which was in charge of deciding how the atomic bomb should be used.

 

Percy Rockefeller                                1900    Financier.

 

George L. Harrison                             1910    President, New York Federal Reserve Bank.  Deputy Chairman, AThe 1945 Committee@ which was in charge of deciding how the atomic bomb should be used.  Harrison sent a cable to Stimson announcing the first successful test of an atomic device in the New Mexico desert: AChild is born.  Larger than expected...@

 

W. Averell Harriman                           1913    Director of W. A. Harriman & Co., which in 1926, when it hired Prescott Bush, was the largest private bank in the United States.  Founder of Today which in 1937, became Newsweek magazine.  Ambassador to the Soviet Union, World War II. 

 

Archibald MacLeish                           1915    Assistant Secretary of State, World War II.

 

Prescott Sheldon Bush                        1917    U.S. Senator. (Father of G. H. W. Bush).  In 1926, at the age of 31, was hired by W. A. Harriman & Co., the largest private bank in the United States.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert A. Lovett                                1918    U.S. Secretary of Defense.  Prepared a secret blueprint for the founding of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

 

Henry Luce                                         1920    Co-founder of Time magazine.

 

George Herbert Walker, Jr.                 1927    Founder, GH Walker & Co. Investments, St. Louis, MI.  (Maternal Uncle of G. H. W. Bush).

 

McGeorge Bundy                               1940    National Security Adviser, President John F. Kennedy.  Planned the Bay of Pigs Operation, the 1961 covert CIA-financed invasion of Castro=s Cuba.

 

George Herbert Walker Bush         1948   President of the United States.

 

William F. Buckley                             1950    Founder of the National Review.  In 1991, obtained a court order temporarily blocking the initiation of women in the New Haven branch of the Brotherhood.

 

William H. Draper III                         1950    Chairman, Export-Import Bank.

 

Jonathan Bush                         1953    Director of the New York investment firm, J. Bush & Co.  (Paternal uncle of G. H. W. Bush).

 

William H. Donaldson                        1953    Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

John Forbes Kerry                            1966    Senator, U.S. Presidential Candidate, 2004.

 

George W. Bush                                1968    President of the United States.

 

Robert D. McCallum, Jr.                    1968    Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, U.S. Justice Department.

Edward McNally                                1979    General Counsel, Office of Homeland Security.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                     Organizational Characteristics

 

The Brotherhood

The Society: The Brotherhood of Death, more informally known as The Order of Skull and Bones, is a highly secret, elitist society originating at Yale University.

 

Headquarters: The society=s headquarters is a dark windowless crypt in New Haven, called AThe Tomb.@  The roof serves as a landing pad for the society=s private helicopter.

 

Membership: The society has approximately 800 living members.  Fifteen members are selected yearly from the Yale junior class.  Allegiance to the society must supersede all else B family, friendships, country, God.  The society does not use its wealth and connections to help the community and is designed only to serve its members. 

 

Women: In 1991, the society narrowly endorsed the admission of women. 

 

Finances: Members pay no dues but are asked for voluntary contributions.  They must  tithe their estate to the society.  The society gives each member a graduation gift ($15,000) and a wedding gift (a tall grandfather clock).  In the late 1990's, it had an endowment of $3,000,000.

 

War and Death: War is a prominent theme within the building which serves as the society=s headquarters.  The building itself is called AThe Tomb.@  Death imagery pervades.  A special room, known as the German room, is full of German artifacts.   

 

Goddess Eulogia: According to Bones lore, the goddess of eloquence, Eulogia, ascended into heaven in 322 B.C. when the Greek orator, Demosthenes died, and returned in 1832 to take up residence with Skull and Bones.  Bones lore refers to the AThe first miracle of the origin of Our Goddess@ and Athe equally miraculous transmigration of Her Spirit to Yale College 2,154 years after her birth.@  The society=s symbol is the number A322" and Bonesmen traditionally sign their intra-society letters with, AYours in 322@ (Robbins, pp. 3- 7, 84-87, 139-141, 157 and 171).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                             Organizational Roots

History

Piracy: The pirates= pennon had on it the design of a skull and crossed bones.  Since piracy dates from antiquity, one must assume that the emblem was well known throughout the world, including Germany. 

 

Pirates preyed upon Phoenician and Greek commerce.  They almost starved Rome during the 1st century B.C.  During the 17th and 18th centuries, the English buccaneers of the Spanish Main despoiled the Spanish treasure armadas and pillaged Spanish-American coast settlements.

 

Piracy is robbery committed on the high seas by force of arms.  The pirate usually attacks vessels of all nations and is, therefore, is a highwayman of the sea.  He holds no commission and receives the protection of no national flag.  Piracy is a crime against mankind, not against any one nation.  It flourished in times of unrest or when navies ordinarily protecting commerce, were engaged in war (Encyclopedia).

 

Freemasonry: Freemasonry may have its roots in antiquity but the formation of the English Grand Lodge in London in 1717 marks the beginning of the widespread dissemination of speculative Freemasonry, the present-day fraternal order.  By the end of the 18th century, there were Masonic lodges in all European countries as well as in many other parts of the world.  Custom is the supreme authority of the order.  Masons are expected to believe in a Supreme Being (Encyclopedia).

 

The Illuminati:  The Illuminati (derived from the Latin, enlightened) was a rationalistic society founded in Germany soon after 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, professor at Ingolstadt University, in Bavaria, South West Germany.  The society had a close affinity to the Freemasons.  It was very popular among German rationalists for ten years but as a society, its influence was limited.  It was dissolved by the Bavarian government in 1785.

 

In 15th century Spain and Italy, the term Illuminati referred to persons believed to hold supra-natural intellectual powers (Encyclopedia). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skull and Bones: The Order of Skull and Bones was founded in the early 1830's by William H. Russell, then a student at Yale University.  Russell came from a very wealthy family whose business, Russell and Co., relied on the opium trade.

 

During a year of study in Germany, Russell became involved in a secret German society which was an outgrowth of the Illuminati and had a skull as its logo.  Upon his return to the United States, he founded The Order of Skull and Bones, now the most powerful secret society the country has ever known. 

 

Alphonso Taft, future secretary of war, attorney general, and father of future president William Howard Taft, as one of its first members. 

 

Russell himself would later become valedictorian of the Yale class of 1833, 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 (Robbins p. 3).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                     Some Relationships of the Brotherhood to Nazism

 

Nazi Memorabilia: In its house, at Yale, the Brotherhood keeps Nazi memorabilia, including a set of Adolf Hitler=s silverware (Robbins, p. 5).

 

Using the German National Anthem: One of the traditional songs of the Brotherhood is sung to the tune of ADeutschland uber Alles,@ the German national anthem (Robbins, p. 83).

 

Giving Financial Backing to Hitler: Society members dominate financial institutions such as J. P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter and Brown Brothers Harriman, where at one time more that a third of the partners were Bonesmen.  Through these companies, Skull and Bones provided financial backing to Adolf Hitler.  According to Robbins, the society=s then Nazi doctrine has now become a neo-Nazi doctrine (Robbins, p. 6).

 

Investing Hitler=s Money: Hitler=s financier stowed $3,000,000 in the Union Banking Corporation, in which Prescott Bush was serving as one of seven directors (Robbins, p. 188).

 

Investing in Nazi Germany: In the late 1930's, the W. A. Harriman and Co., now renamed the Brown Brothers Harriman, was a notable active investor in Germany B which under Adolf Hitler, was rapidly re-arming.  Much of the company=s German work was handled by Prescott Bush, using the legal services of the brothers John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles.  The company used an agent, Henry Mann, to bring Third Reich deals back for New York decision makers.  This agent was sufficiently well connected with Hitler to meet several times with him (Hersh, p. 143; Higham, p. 114; Phillips, pp. 38 and 262).

 

An  Anti-Semitic Organization: Robbins could not find indisputable evidence that Bones as a institution has at any time preached anti-Semitism.  However, she did find ample proof that some of the society=s members as individuals loath Jews.  In 1922, Robert Nelson Corwin (Bones 1887), Yale University chairman of admissions (1919-1933), wrote a letter to Frederick Jones (Bones 1884), Dean of the University, in which he advocated the institution of a quota on Jewish enrollment.  Jones agreed and the quota was set.  Yale President, Arthur Hadley (Bones 1876) acquiesced (Robbins, p. 142).

 

A Misogynist Organization: The society encourages misogyny.  It narrowly endorsed the admission of women in 1991 (Robbins, pp. 7 and 157).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                      References

 

Hersh, Burton, Old Boys, p. 143; cited in Phillips, Kevin, American Dynasty B Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush (Viking/Penguin Group, New York, N.Y.), 2004, p. 262.

 

Higham, Charles, Trading with the Enemy (Dell, New York), 1984; cited in Phillips, Kevin, American Dynasty B Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush (Viking/Penguin Group, New York, N.Y.), 2004, p. 262.

 

Harris, William and Judith Levey, The New Columbia Encyclopedia (Columbia University Press, New York, N.Y.), 1975.

 

Phillips, Kevin, American Dynasty B Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush (Viking/Penguin Group, New York, N.Y.), 2004.

 

Robbins, Alexandra, Secrets of the Tomb B Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power (Back Bay/Little, Brown, New York, N.Y.), 2002.  (Pictures and poem from Robbins= book).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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