-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
America's Secret Establishment
An introduction to The Order of Skull & Bones
by ANTONY C. SUTTON
Liberty House Press
2027 Iris
Billings, Montana 59102
1986
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Highly recommended. There is more in this book than can be presented here.
Many charts and reproductions of orginal source material. As always, . . .
In stock at: A-albionic Research, PO Box 20273, Ferndale, MI 48220-0273
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lloyd Miller, Research Director)
Om
K
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Memorandum Number Two: The Order
What It Is And How It Began
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".
The American chapter of this German order was founded in 1833 at
Yale University by General William Huntington Russell and Alphonso
Taft who, in 1876. became Secretary of War in the Grant Administra-
tion. Alphonso Taft was the father of William Howard Taft, the only
man to be both President and Chief Justice of the United States.
What Is The Order
The Order is not just another campus Greek letter fraternal society
with passwords and handgrips, common to most campuses. Chapter
322 is a secret society whose members are sworn to silence. It only
exists on the Yale campus (that we know about). It has rules. It has
ceremonial rites It is not at all happy with prying, probing citizens -
known among initiates as "outsiders" or "vandals''. Its members always
deny membership (or are supposed to deny membership) and in check-
ing hundreds of autobiographical listings for members we found only
half a dozen who cited an affiliation with Skull & Bones. The rest were
silent. An interesting point is whether the many members in various
Administrations or who hold government positions have declared their
members in the biographical data supplied for FBI "background
checks".
Above all, The Order is powerful, unbelievably powerful. If the
reader will persist and examine the evidence to be presented - which is
overwhelming - there is no doubt his view of the world will suddenly come
sharply into focus, with almost frightening clarity. (1)
Before we go further we need to add a couple of important observa-
tions about The Order:
* It is a Senior year society which exists only at Yale. Members are
chosen in their Junior year and spend only one year on campus.
Senior year. with Skull & Bones. In other words, the organization is
oriented to the post graduate outside world. The Order meets annually
_ patriarchs only - on Deer Island in the St. Lawrence River.
* Senior societies are unique to Yale. There are two other senior
societies at Yale, but none elsewhere. Scroll & Key and Wolf's Head
supposedly competitive societies founded in the mid 19th century. We
believe these to be part of the same network. Rosenbaum commented in his
Esquire article. very accurately'. that anyone in the Eastern Liberal
Establishment who is not a member of Skull & Bones is almost certainly
a member of either Scroll & Key or Wolf's Head
What is the significance of the "322" in Chapter 322? William Russell
imported the society from Germany' and so it has been argued the 322
stands for- '32 (from 1832). the second chapter. of this German
organization. Possibly a chapter 320 and a chapter 321 may exist
somewhere and 323 is the designation of a room within the Skull &
Bones temple at Yale.
Another interpretation is that The Order is descended from a Greek
fraternal society dating back to Demosthenes in 322 BC This has
perhaps some credibility because Bones records are dated by adding
322 to the current year. i.e.. records originating in 1950 are dated
Anno-Demostheni 2272.
How A Member Is Chosen By The Order
The election procedure for new members of The Order has not
changed since 1832. Each year 15, and only 15, never more, never
fewer, are selected in the past 150 years about 2500 Yale graduates
have been initiated into The Order. At any one time about 500-600
alive and active. Roughly about one-quarter of these take an active role
in furthering the objectives of The Order. The others either lose interest or
change their minds. They are silent drop-outs.
A Yale Junior cannot ask to join. There is no electioneering. Juniors
are invited to join and are given two options: accept or reject. Ap-
parently some amount of personal information is gathered on potential
members. The following is the kind of evaluation made in the last cen-
tury: we doubt it has changed too much down to the present time:
* "Frank Moore is an ideal Bones man, he is a hard worker and a
man whose efforts have been more for Yale than himself. He is
manager of the Musical clubs and has been active in Dwight
Hall. His election will be well deserved and popular "
* "Don Thompson is a sure man whom the class wishes well for
and will be glad to see go. He comes from a Bones family."
In selection emphasis is placed on athletic ability - the ability to play on
a team. The most unlikely potential member of The Order is a loner an
iconoclast, an individualist, the man who does his own way in the world.
The most likely potential member is from a Bones family, who is energetic,
resourceful. political and probably an amoral team player. A
man who understands that to get along you have to go along. A man
who will sacrifice himself for the good of the team. A moment's reflec-
tion illustrates why this is so. In real life the thrust of The Order is to
bring about certain objectives. Honors and financial rewards are guaranteed by
the power of The Order. But the price of these honors
and rewards is sacrifice to the common goal. the goal of The Order.
Some, perhaps many, have not been willing to pay this price.
(1) Readers who want more on the ceremonial and initiation aspects should
read the September, 1977 Esquire article by Ron Rosenbaum, "The Last Secrets
of Skull & Bones". Unfortunately, the article completely misses the historical
significance of Skull & Bones, although it is an excellent source of lurid
details and the mumbo-jumbo rites.
Inside The Order
Entry into The Order is accompanied by an elaborate ritual and no
doubt by psychological conditioning. For example:
"Immediately on entering Bones the neophyte's name is changed.
He is no longer known by his name as it appears in the college
catalogue but like a monk or Knight of Malta or St. John. becomes
Knight so and so. The old Knights are then known as Patriarch so and
so. The outside world are known as Gentiles and vandals."
The Catalogue or membership list - it became "Addresses"
sometime in this century of Chapter 322, however, is made with the
usual "outside' names and is unique and impressive. Each member has
a copy bound in black leather with peculiar symbols on the outside and
inside. The symbols presumably have some meaning.
The owner's name and the single letter "D" is gilt stamped on the
outer cover of earlier issues, at least up to the mid-19th century. It then
appears to have been omitted, at least on copies we have seen. Each
right-hand page. printed one side only, about 6 x 4 inches, has the
members listed for one year and surrounded by a heavy black border,
thick in the early years, not so thick in recent decades. This symbolizes
the death of the person named as he adopts his new name and new life
upon entering The Order.
Most interesting is an entry between the decade lists of members.
the 1833 list, before the 15 founders names. are the words "Period 2
Decade 3" Similarly, before names on the 1843 list are the words
"Period 2 Decade 4". In brief. "Period" stays the same throughout the
years, but the "Decade" number increases by one in each ten years. No
doubt this means something to The Order, else it wouldn't be there.
Another mystical group of letters and numbers is at the top of the first list
of names in 1833, "P.231-D.31". The numbers increase by one in each
succeeding class. In 1834, for example, the entry reads "P.232 D 32".
Furthermore. the first class list of 1833 has two blank lines in place of the
eleventh name on the list. This supports the argument that the
society has German origins and this is the listing of the anonymous Ger-
man connection.
The Members of 1833
We estimate that at any one time only, about one-quarter of the
membership is active. Even the active quarter is not always effective or
successful. It's instructive to compare 1833 with 1983 and how, over
the century and a half span, a group of 20-30 families has emerged to
dominate The Order.
The very first name on the very first membership list, Samuel
Henshaw Bates, was a private in the Union Army, went west to farm
Santa Rosa, California, at that time very much in the boondocks, and
died in 1879 A life not different to millions of other Americans.
In fact, out of the first 15 members (actually 14 plus the anonymous
member) achievements were not much greater than we would expect
from the cream of a Yale "class". Rufus Hart spent several years in the
Ohio Senate, Asahel Hooker Lewis was in the Ohio Legislature for a
couple of years. Samuel Marshall was an Illinois State Legislator for a
while, and Frederick Mather was in the New York Legislature Other
members, apart from the two founders of The Order. did nothing much
with their lives or for the Order.
By contrast, the two founding members, William Huntington Russell
and Alphonso Taft, went far. William Russell was a member of the Con-
necticut State Legislature in 1846-47. a General in the Connecticut Na-
tional Guard from 1862-70, and founded the Collegiate and Commercial
Institute in New Haven, Connecticut. Alphonso Taft went further:
he was Secretary of War in 1876 - the first of several members of The
Order- to hold this post down into the 1950s. Taft became U.S. At-
torney General in 1876-7. then US. Minister to Austria in 1882-4. an
finally; U.S. Ambassador to Russia in 1884-5.
During the 150-year interval since 1833. active membership has
evolved into a core group of perhaps 20-30 families; it seems that active
members have enough influence to push their sons and relatives into
The Order, and there is significant inter-marriage among the families
These families fall into two major groups.
First we find old line American families who arrived on the East coast
in the 1600s, e.g., Whitney, Lord, Phelps, Wadsworth. Allen, Bundy,
Adams and so on.
Second, we find families who acquired wealth in the last 100 years
sent their sons to Yale and in time became almost old line families,
e.g.,Harriman, Rockefeller, Payne, Davison.
Some families, like the Whitneys. were Connecticut Yankees and ac-
quired wealth in the nineteenth century.
In the last 150 years a few families in The Order have gained enor-
mous influence in society and the world.
0ne example is the Lord family. Two branches of this family date
from the 1630s: Those descended from Nathan Lord and those from
Thomas Lord. Other Lords arrived in the US. over the years but do not
enter our discussion. Of these two main branches, only the Thomas
Lord group appears to have contributed members to The Order. Their
ancestry traces to Thomas Lord, who left Essex, England in 1635 in a
company led by Rev. Thomas Hooker. and settled in what is now Hart-
ford, Connecticut. In fact, part of Hartford is still known as Lord's Hill
The line of descent for this Lord family is full of DeForest and Lockwood
names because intermarriage is more than common among these elite
families.
-The first Lord to be initiated into The Order was George DeForest
Lord (1854), a New York lawyer. Together with his father, Daniel Lord
(another Yale graduate), George DeForest Lord established the New
York law firm of Lord, Day and Lord. Among its present day clients are
The New York Times and the Rubin Foundation. The Rubin Foundation is one of
the financial agents for the Institute for Policy Studies in
Washington, D.C.
In the next hundred years five more Lords were initiated into The
Order:
Franklin Atkins Lord ('98)
William Galey Lord ('22)
Oswald Bates Lord ('26)
Charles Edwin Lord. II ('49)
Winston Lord ('59)
When we ask the question, what have these member achieved? and
what are they doing today? a dramatic picture emerges . . . as
demonstrated in the chart . . .
Past Lords In The Older
1854 George de Forest Lord
1898 Franklin Atkins Lord
1922 William Galey Lord
= Francis Norton
son is Charles Edwin Lord 2nd
1926 Oswald Bates Lord
= Mary Pillsbury (of
Pillsbury flour family)
son is Winston Lord
1949 Charles Edwin Lord 2nd
1959 Winston Lord
The Lords Today
CHARLES EDWIN LORD
Acting Comptroller of
the Currency (1981)
WINSTON LORD
Chairman of the Council on
Foreign Relations (1983)
pps.5-9
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Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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