Sticks & Stones and Skulls & Bones
"The history of the world is the history of the warfare between secret societies."—Ishmael Reed
"Yale has influenced the Central Intelligence Agency more than any other university, giving the CIA the atmosphere of a class reunion." —Gaddis Smith, Professor of History, Yale University
"Men with secrets tend to be drawn to each other, not because they want to share what they know but because they need the company of the like-minded, the fellow afflicted."—Don DeLillo, Libra
Founded in 1832, The Order of Skull and Bones (formally known as the Brotherhood of Death) is Yale's oldest secret society. Headquartered in a "windowless tomb" on High Street, Skull and Bones is only open to 15 Yale seniors, who are "tapped" to join in the spring of their junior year.
"Those on the inside know it as The Order. Others have known it for more than 150 years as Chapter 322 of a German secret society. More formally, for legal purposes, The Order was incorporated as The Russell Trust in 1856. It was also once known as the 'Brotherhood of Death'. Those who make light of it, or want to make fun of it, call it 'Skull & Bones', or just plain 'Bones'."—Anthony C. Sutton, America's Secret Establishment, 1986
"So, according to Skull and Bones lore . . . in 322 B.C., a Greek orator died. When he died, the goddess Eulogia, the goddess, whom Skull and Bones called the goddess of eloquence, arose to the heavens and didn't happen to come back down until 1832, when she happened to take up residence in the tomb of Skull and Bones. Now Skull and Bones does everything in deference to this goddess. They have songs or . . . sacred anthems that they sing when they are encouraged to steal things, some remarkably valuable items, supposedly, they are said to be bringing back gifts to the goddess. They begin each session in the tomb, and they meet twice weekly by unveiling a sort of a guilt shrine to Eulogia. That's the point of the society. They call themselves the Knights of Eulogia. That's where the 322 comes in."—Alexandra Robbins, author of Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power, Pacifica Radio interview, January 22, 2004
Incorporated in 1856, Skull & Bones' alumni organization, The Russell Trust Association, was granted an exemption from filing corporate reports in 1943 by a special act of the Connecticut state legislature.
According to rumor, initiates engage in strange bonding rituals such as lying in a coffin and reciting their sexual history in front of all the members. The object of such rituals is to create intense loyalty among members of the society. Some critics allege that these rituals contain satanic overtones.
One of the Thousand Islands, Deer Island, which lies near Alexandria Bay, New York, is used as a Skull & Bones retreat.
“I think Skull and Bones has had slightly more success than the mafia in the sense that the leaders of the five families are all doing 100 years in jail, and the leaders of the Skull and Bones families are doing four and eight years in the White House,”— Ron Rosenbaum, columnist for the New York Observer, quoted in CBS News' report on Skull & Bones, June 13, 2004
Other prominent Bonesmen include James L. Buckley (U.S. Senator), William F. Buckley (conservative columnist), John Chafee (U.S. Senator and Secretary of the Navy), John Sherman Cooper (U.S. Senator and member of the Warren Commission), John Daniels (founder of Archer Daniels Midland), Paul Giamatti (actor), Pierre Jay (first chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York), John Kerry (U.S. Senator), Winston Lord (Chairman of Council on Foreign Relations), Henry Luce (Time-Life), Archibald MacLeish (poet), David McCullough (historian), William Huntington Russell (Connecticut State Legislator), Amos Alonzo Stagg (famous football coach), Harold Stanley (founder of Morgan Stanley), Potter Stewart (U.S. Supreme Court justice), Alphonso Taft (Secretary of War and father of William Howard Taft), Robert A. Taft (U.S. Senator), Morrison R. Waite (U.S. Supreme Court justice), James Whitmore (actor), William Collins Whitney (U.S. Secretary of the Navy) and many others.
Meanwhile, presidential candidates are handpicked behind closed doors to play the "bagman" role, as the National Security State churns on uninterrupted since the days of Harry S. Truman, who signed the National Security Act in 1947.
Summary:
"There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multinational dominion of dollars! Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! . . . There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today . . . We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business . . . The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr.Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality—one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused."—Arthur Jensen, Network, 1976
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