- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Sources: A Call To Awaken - home.iae.nl, Panorama, Telepolis.de
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