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Skull
and Bones in Bush's Foreign Policy Closet
New California Media, Paolo Pontoniere, Sep 30, 2002
Amidst
the debate over the impending US-led war against Iraq, some European
media, mostly in Italy and Germany, took note of the publication of
Secrets of The Tomb: Skull and Bones, The Ivy League and The Hidden
Paths of Power.
In the Little Brown book, author Alexandra
Robbins discusses the connections between America's wealthiest
families, secret fraternities and the role of Ivy League
institutions in the genesis of United States foreign policy. For
some European analysts, Skull and Bones explains much of the mystery
surrounding how power is apportioned in the US by describing a
well-established system of nepotism and co-optation among members of
this fraternity. They fear that the unwieldy influence that secret
lobbies--such as those described in Skull and Bones--have on the
American administration may interfere with President Bush's ability
to decide freely what action to take. They also believe that Bush's
belonging to such a secret fraternity may explain the nihilistic
overtones of his foreign policy and his strong drive toward waging
war against Iraq because of the gothic character of the
fraternity.
Europeans have noted that not only the current US
president is a Bonesman, but that also his former-president father
and his grandfather, senator Prescott Bush, are members. In the Bush
family, connection to the Tomb--the name of the Yale building where
the fraternity meets--also involves three uncles of the current
president and two of his cousins. A couple of Bonesmen came up with
the money to launch President Bush's career in business when he
founded the oil company Arbusto; another Bonesman provided the
capital for Bush to acquire a stake in the Texas Rangers; and
another member of the fraternity that bolstered Bush's 2000
presidential campaign by paying for advertising billboards at a
million dollars a piece. One of President Bush's first actions when
he entered the White House was to organize a dinner with the members
of his fraternity.
What worries Europeans most about the
Bonesmen is the suspicion that the organization may have a neo-Nazi
tendency or that it may be animated by anti-Semitic sentiments.
According to various reports about the activities of the Bonesmen
throughout the years, it appears that many prominent members, in
particular those linked to the Union Bank in New York and its sister
bank in Holland at the beginning of WWII, were financing Hitler
throughout the war and as late as 1945. Italians and Germans alike
have a long history of secret associations meddling in the internal
affairs of their countries.
This fact makes European
analysts tend to distrust both politicians that can be linked to
such groups and secretive associations that have links to political
parties or single politicians. In the case of the Skull and Bones,
Italian and German media have reported that such ties between the
secret organization and politicians could be understood as a
multigenerational secret society with a global reach and a finger in
many different pies. They describe the Skull and Bones' influence as
resulting in a sort of oligarchic government that includes some of
the most influential American families such as the Bushes, the
Harrimans, the Tafts, the Whitneys, and the
Rockefellers.
Skull and Bones was founded in 1832 by William
Russell, the heir to Russell and Company, at that time one of the
world's most prominent opium traders. According to author Robbins,
Russell befriended the leader of a secret society during a year of
study in Germany. Returning to the US, Russell sought to re-create
in the US the spirit of exclusivity that he had encountered with the
German secret society, whose main goal was the establishment of a
strong government of the kind that would mold every individual to
the obedience of the state.
In the rarefied atmosphere of
Yale University, Russell found a receptive environment for his
dream, enrolling the help of Alphonso Taft, future US secretary of
war and father of President William Howard Taft. The society they
founded was called the Brotherhood of Death, or more informally, the
Order of Skull and Bones. Later the order would include among its
ranks Prescott Bush, who would take the helm of the Union Bank,
Roland and Arvell Harriman, several Rockerfellers, Henry Luce, and
others who read like a who's who in American public
life.
European reporters were astonished to learn that the
cult has been extremely successful in its pursuit of establishing a
"New World Order"-the Bonesmen's lingo was used by then-President
Bush Senior to describe the philosophy behind his foreign policy.
The Bonesmen's New World Order consists of fewer individual freedoms
for the majority and of a few elected people sitting in the
collective driver's seat. They noted that besides pushing three of
its men-the two Bushes and Taft-to the presidency of the United
States, the society has produced nine supreme court justices,
several senators and congressmen, and that the idea of launching
both Time and Newsweek magazines was first conjured up in the Bones'
Tomb. Skull and Bones members founded the American Historical
Association, the American Economic Association and the American
Psychological Association. More than a dozen Bonesmen have worked at
the Federal Reserve. Bonesmen are believed to control the
Rockerfeller, Carnegie and Ford families' wealth.
European
reporters don't appear to buy Alexandra Robbin's suggestions that
Bonesmen may have developed and dropped the first nuclear bomb; may
have organized the Bay of Pigs invasion; were tied to the Kennedy
assassination and to the Watergate break-in; or that they may
control the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral
Commission. Nevertheless, Europeans are intrigued by the notion that
Bonesmen may be tied to many of history's recent conflicts,
compelling them to wonder if the fraternity mentality may not
explain a tendency toward destruction rather than building. They
also wonder how a 2004 presidential race between Senator John Kerry
on the democratic side running against President Bush-both
Bonesmen--might unfold.
Sources: A Call To Awaken -
home.iae.nl, Panorama, Telepolis.de
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