A little-known fact unites Democratic frontrunner John Kerry and President Bush: they are both members of Yale's secret society Skull and Bones. We speak with the author of "Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power" that reveals details about the secret society and its members.

The New Hampshire primary is just a few days away and Howard Dean's status as the frontrunner has almost totally dissipated. The latest Boston Herald poll now shows that John Kerry holds a 10 point lead - a major surge for the Massachusetts Senator. Still reeling from his victory in Iowa, Kerry is starting to act like the frontrunner, shifting his focus from comparing himself to the other Democrats to putting his record up against President George W. Bush, saying he is the only candidate who can beat Bush and who represents a real difference from the current occupant of the White House.

But there is a fact about Kerry's past that brings him closer to Bush than any of the other candidates. Both Bush and Kerry are members of a secretive society dating back to their respective days at Yale University - Skull and Bones. This fact has not been widely reported but when Kerry's campaign spokesperson was asked about it, she said, "John Kerry has absolutely nothing to say on that subject. Sorry."

The origin of the Skull & Bones Society, once known as The Brotherhood of Death, in the U.S. begins at Yale when a group of men established an organization for the purpose of drug smuggling. Indeed, many American and European fortunes were built on the China (opium) trade. [The Secret Origins of Skull & Bones] The society's alumni organization, which owns its properties and oversees all the organization's activity, is known as the Russell Trust Association (R.T.A.), and is named after one of Bones' founding members.

It still exists today only at Yale and has evolved into more an organization dedicated to the success of it's members after leaving the collegiate world. The shape of that success can only be left to speculation. The Skull & Bones Society has been described as the most secretive organization in the world.

Some of the world's most famous and powerful men alive today are "bonesmen," including George Bush, John Kerry, Nicholas Brady, and William F. Buckley. Other bonesmen include U.S. President William Howard Taft, Morrison R. Waite (Chief Justice of the Supreme Court), Henry Luce (Time-Life), Harold Stanley (founder of Morgan Stanley), John Daniels (founder of Archer Daniels Midland), Henry P. Davison (senior partner Morgan Guaranty Trust), Pierre Jay (first chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York), Artemus Gates (President of New York Trust Company, Union Pacific, TIME, Boeing Company), Senator John Chaffe, Russell W. Davenport (editor Fortune Magazine), the first presidents of the University of California, Johns Hopkins University, and Cornell University, and many others.

The story begins at Yale, where three threads of American social history -- espionage, drug smuggling and secret societies -- intertwine into one.

Elihu Yale was born near Boston, educated in London, and served with the British East India Company, eventually becoming governor of Fort Saint George, Madras, in 1687. He amassed a great fortune from trade and returned to England in 1699. Yale became known as quite a philanthropist; upon receiving a request from the Collegiate School in Connecticut, he sent a donation and a gift of books. After subsequent bequests, Cotton Mather suggested the school be named Yale College, in 1718.

A statue of Nathan Hale stands on Old Campus at Yale University. There is a copy of that statue in front of the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Yet another stands in front of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts (where George H.W. Bush ('48) went to prep school and joined a secret society at age twelve).

Nathan Hale, along with three other Yale graduates, was a member of the "Culper Ring," one of America's first intelligence operations. Established by George Washington, it was successful throughout the Revolutionary War. Nathan was the only operative to be ferreted out by the British, and after speaking his famous regrets, he was hanged in 1776. Ever since the founding of the Republic, the relationship between Yale and the "Intelligence Community" has been unique.

ON High Street, in the middle of the Yale University campus, stands a cold-looking, nearly windowless Greco-Egyptian building with padlocked iron doors. This is the home of Yale's most famous secret society, Skull and Bones, and it is also, in a sense, one of the many homes of the family of George W. Bush, Yale '68.

Bush men have been Yale men and Bonesmen for generations. Prescott Bush, George W.'s grandfather, Yale '17, was a legendary Bonesman; he was a member of the band that stole for the society what became one of its most treasured artifacts: a skull that was said to be that of the Apache chief Geronimo. Prescott Bush, one of a great many Bonesmen who went on to lives of power and renown, became a U.S. senator. George Herbert Walker Bush, George W.'s father, Yale '48, was also a Bonesman, and he, too, made a conspicuous success of himself. Inside the temple on High Street hang paintings of some of Skull and Bones's more illustrious members; the painting of George Bush, the most recently installed, is five feet high.

Skull and Bones Founders

William Huntington Russell (1832), Connecticut State Legislator
Alphonso Taft (1832), U.S. Attorney General (1876–1877); Secretary of War (1876); Ambassador to Austria-Hungary (1882) and Russia (1884–1885); father of William Howard Taft

1830s

Morrison R. Waite (1837), Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
William M. Evarts (1837), U.S. Secretary of State; Attorney General; Senator; grandson of Roger Sherman

Read more...

Skull and Bones is a secret society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The society's alumni organization, which owns the society's real property and oversees the organization, is the Russell Trust Association, named for General William Huntington Russell,[1] who co-founded Skull and Bones with classmate Alphonso Taft. The Russell Trust was founded by Russell and Daniel Coit Gilman, member of Skull and Bones and later a university president. The society is known informally as "Bones", and members are known as "Bonesmen".[2]

During the senior year each Skull and Bones class meets every Thursday and Sunday night.[3]

The emblem of Skull and Bones is a skull with crossed bones, over the number "322".

President George H. W. Bush, his son President George W. Bush, and the latter's 2004 Presidential opponent Senator John Kerry are members of Skull and Bones.[4][5]

Read more...