Mistake Prone
John Kerry as 'Pragmatic Choice'
Bizarre secrets of Bush club exposed
By Philip Delves Broughton in New York
(Filed: 25/04/2001)
THE bizarre rituals of one of America's most exclusive clubs, which counts both
President Bush and his father among its members, have been laid bare by a hidden
camera.
The all-male Skull and Bones club at Yale University has long been held up as an
example of the powerful cabals that run America from behind the scenes. Fifteen new
members in their final year at Yale are initiated annually and remain in the club for
life.
Besides the Presidents Bush, the club has among its members Wall Street businessmen,
ambassadors, politicians and judges. Soon after he entered the White House, George W
Bush held a private dinner for his year of Bonesmen, as they are called.
The initiation rites at the club, however, have always been a mystery. Initiates
simply disappeared into The Tomb, the club's gothic building at Yale, and emerged as
Bonesmen, set up with a network that would see them through life.
A night-vision camera, however, planted by fellow students at Yale caught this year's
initiation. For Mr Bush, it will reinforce his image as an establishment scion rather
than man of the people.
It shows one member posing as George W Bush, wearing a cape and speaking in a Texas
twang threatening an initiate: "I'm gonna kill you like I killed Al Gore!" Initiates
are then seen kneeling and kissing a skull at the feet of the members, while they are
bombarded with sexual insults and shouts of "Run Neophytes".
The group then joins in chanting the Skull and Bones mantra, part of the ritual since
the club's founding in 1856: "The Hangman Equals Death/The Devil Equals Death/Death
Equals Death."
During the initiation, new members undergo a mock throat-cutting ceremony and then
take turns to lie in a coffin and recount their personal and sexual histories to forge
a bond of secrecy within the club. Having died as "barbarians" they step from the
coffin reborn as members of "The Order".
The secret society that ties Bush and Kerry
(Filed: 01/02/2004)
Revelations that leading candidates for the US presidency were "Skull and Bones"
members have provoked claims of elitism. Charles Laurence reports from New York
The "tomb" stands dark and hulking at the heart of the Yale University campus, almost
windowless, and shuttered and padlocked in the thick snow of winter storms.
Yale's candidates for the White House pictured in their student days and the 'Skull
and Bones' mascot
Built to mimic a Greco-Egyptian temple, it is the headquarters of the Order of the
Skull and Bones, America's most elite and elusive secret society - and it has become
the unlikely focus of this year's presidential election. It turns out that four
leading contestants for the White House in November's election were 1960s
undergraduates at Yale: President Bush and Democratic rivals Governor Howard Dean, Sen
John Kerry and Sen Joseph Lieberman.
What is more, two are "Bonesmen". Both Sen Kerry, now the Democrat front runner, and
President Bush belong to the 172-year-old society, which aims to get its members into
positions of power. This presidential election seems destined to become the first in
history to pit one Skull and Bones member against another.
The phenomenon of the "Yalies", as Yale alumni are known, has provoked an intense
debate over apparent elitism among Americans amazed that - in a democracy of almost
300 million people - the battle for power should be waged among candidates drawn from
the 4,000 who graduated from Yale in four different years of the 1960s.
"To today's Yale undergraduates it seems quite extraordinary," said Jacob Leibenluft,
a student and a reporter on the Yale Daily News, the campus newspaper. "For some it's
a source of pride, to others it's a source of shame."
In fact Yale, with annual tuition fees of $28,400 (£16,000), has long sent graduates
to the top of all professions from the campus in New Haven, Connecticut, where it was
founded in 1731.
The Skull and Bones is the most exclusive organisation on campus. Members have ranged
from President William Taft to Henry Luce, the founder of the Time-Life magazine
empire, and from Averill Harriman, the businessman and diplomat, to the first
President George Bush.
Alexandra Robbins, a Yale graduate and author of a book on the Skull and Bones,
Secrets of the Tomb, said: "It is staggering that so many of the candidates are from
Yale, and even more so that we are looking at a presidential face-off between two
members of the Skull and Bones. It is a tiny club with only 800 living members and 15
new members a year.
"But there has always been a sentiment at Yale to push students into public service,
an ethos of the elite making their way through the corridors of power - and the sole
purpose of the Bones is power."
The four candidates' time at Yale spans the period from 1960, when Sen Lieberman began
his studies, through Sen Kerry's arrival in 1962 and Mr Bush's two years later, to
1971, when Mr Dean graduated - a period that swung through the bright hopes of the
Kennedy presidency to tumult and bitterness over Vietnam.
Mr Lieberman and Mr Kerry served on the same committee to oppose resistance to the
Vietnam war draft, but otherwise the four appear not to have known each other at the
time. They all studied history and political science, however, and had some of the
same professors and academic mentors.
Robert Dahl, the then head of the political science department, said: "Many of us had
the sense we were preparing future leaders, but I don't think any of us had any idea
we were teaching so many presidential candidates."
While at Yale all four showed hints of the varying character traits that would
eventually propel them, on different paths, towards the top of American politics.
Mr Lieberman, the grandson of immigrants, arrived from a state school, probably a
beneficiary of an unofficial 10 per cent quota of places for Jews that Yale then
operated. Politically ambitious, he chaired the Yale Daily News, the most sought-after
student position on campus.
Sen Kerry is remembered as "running for president since freshman year". One of his
contemporaries said: "He was obsessed by politics to the exclusion of all else. At
that age, it's a bit creepy." He dated Janet Auchincloss, the half-sister of Jackie
Kennedy, the First Lady, won the presidency of the Yale Political Union, and was
initiated into the Skull and Bones before joining the United States Navy for service
in Vietnam.
In laid-back contrast, Mr Bush achieved only a "C" grade academically and took little
interest in politics. He joined a "sports jock" fraternity and followed his father
into the Skull and Bones.
By the time Mr Dean arrived in 1967, Yale was admitting women and setting more store
by applicants' academic merit than their social background. The future Vermont
governor showed a disdain for Yale politics and resigned from a fraternity order in a
dispute over a coffee bar.
Whether the four men's Yale backgrounds is a plus with voters is uncertain. Mr Dean
seems embarrassed, once saying he studied "in New Haven, Connecticut" to avoid
mentioning Yale by name. Mr Bush makes light of his student years, apparently
revelling in his reputation for socialising, not studying.
The Skull and Bones connection is more troublesome. Mr Kerry laughed nervously when
questioned about his and Mr Bush's membership on television. "You both were members of
the Skull and Bones; what does that tell us?" he was asked. "Yup. Not much," he
replied.
Not surprisingly, the club's rituals fascinate many Americans. Robbins's book
describes a social club with arcane rules, a hoard of relics ranging from Hitler's
silver collection to the skull of the Indian chief Geronimo - plus a resident
prostitute.
She says initiation rites include a mud-wrestling bout, receiving a beating and the
recitation by a new member of his sexual history - delivered while he lies naked in a
coffin. Elevation of a Bonesman creates opportunities for his fellows, and Robbins
says that President Bush has appointed 10 members to his administration, including the
head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
She recently surveyed 100 of the estimated 800 living Bonesmen on their preferred
election winner - Sen Kerry or President Bush. Perhaps not surprisingly, given that
both are pledged to advance the interests of fellow Bonesmen, "They answered that they
didn't care. Whichever way it went, it was a win-win for them."
29 January 2004: Yankee Kerry is on a roll, but the South awaits
28 January 2004: Kerry pulls in voters as candidate most likely to scare Bush
25 April 2001: Bizarre secrets of Bush club exposed
