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Conspiracy file · Since 1832

Skull & Bones

Yale's most famous secret society, founded in 1832. Every year it chooses fifteen students, meets in a windowless "Tomb" in New Haven, and it has counted three U.S. presidents among its members.

Also known as The Order · Order 322 · The Brotherhood of Death · Russell Trust Association

WatchOn the recordTimelineFrom the comicsIn Paranoid American comicsSources & further reading

Skull & Bones, a panel from a Paranoid American comic
From Time Samplers #2

The story

Skull and Bones was founded at Yale in December 1832 by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft, after a fight among the college's debating societies. Its legal name is the Russell Trust Association, incorporated in 1856, the same year the first wing of its windowless headquarters, the Tomb, went up at 64 High Street in New Haven.

Each spring the society "taps" fifteen juniors. Its members have included presidents William Howard Taft, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, Secretary of State John Kerry, publisher Henry Luce and diplomat Averell Harriman. The 2004 presidential election was a race between two Bonesmen.

That concentration of power is what fuels the theories. Researcher Antony C. Sutton argued that the Order quietly shapes American finance, intelligence and politics, and the story of Geronimo's stolen skull refuses to die.

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George Bush & John Kerry on Skull & Bones · Unfair FunfairWatch on YouTube

Memorandum for the recordSubject: Skull & Bones

On the record

  1. Founded at Yale in December 1832 by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft.
  2. Incorporated in 1856 as the Russell Trust Association.
  3. The Tomb at 64 High Street, New Haven: first wing 1856, second wing 1903, towers 1912.
  4. It taps fifteen juniors a year; Yale's Tap Day dates back to 1879.
  5. It stayed all-male until alumni voted in October 1991 to admit women, starting with the class of 1992.
  6. George H. W. Bush (Bones 1948) was Director of Central Intelligence from January 1976 to January 1977.
  7. In 2009 Geronimo's descendants sued the society, Yale and the U.S. government for the return of his remains.

The theory

  • Bonesmen form a self-perpetuating network that places its members in the CIA, on Wall Street and in the White House.
  • The Tomb holds stolen skulls, including Geronimo's, said to have been dug up at Fort Sill in 1918 by members including Prescott Bush.
  • The Order has steered America's major institutions since the 1800s (Antony C. Sutton, America's Secret Establishment).

Timeline

  1. 1832Founded at Yale by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft
  2. 1856Incorporated as the Russell Trust Association; the Tomb's first wing is built
  3. 1878William Howard Taft is tapped; he becomes the 27th president
  4. 1879Yale's first Tap Day
  5. 1918The alleged theft of Geronimo's skull from Fort Sill
  6. 1948George H. W. Bush is tapped
  7. 1966John Kerry is tapped
  8. 1968George W. Bush is tapped
  9. 1976George H. W. Bush becomes Director of Central Intelligence
  10. 1991Alumni vote to admit women
  11. 2002Alexandra Robbins publishes Secrets of the Tomb
  12. 2004Bush vs. Kerry: both presidential candidates are Bonesmen
  13. 2009Geronimo's descendants sue for his remains

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