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 front runner, 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.”
AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to and watching Democracy Now, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Welcome to all of our listeners and viewers around the country. The New Hampshire primary is just a few days away, and Howard Dean’s status as a 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 Bush, saying he’s the only candidate who can beat Bush and who represents a real difference from the current occupant of the White House.
AMY GOODMAN: But there is a fact about Kerry’s past that brings him closer to Bush than any other candidate. Both Bush and Kerry are members of a secretive society dating back to their respective days at Yale University. It’s called “Skull and Bones.” This fact has not been widely reported, but when Kerry’s campaign spokesperson was asked about it, she said, quote, “John Kerry has absolutely nothing to say on that subject. Sorry.” In a moment, we’ll be joined by Alexandra Robbins, the “New York Times” best-selling author of, “Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League and the Hidden Paths of Power.” But first, we turn to an interview that I did with Kevin Phillips, the author of “American Dynasty, Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics Of Deceit in the House of Bush.” When I asked him about the significance of that Yale secret society, Skull and Bones.
KEVIN PHILLIPS: Well, I hate to overdo the secret societies because the average person has no idea of this. I went to Harvard Law School, and Harvard has these secret societies, too, but the ones at Yale, I think, if anything are more influential, and it’s sorta hard to cold turkey right in and say, my god, Skull and Bones, this is virtually like a diplomatic or international business piracy. You can almost see the pirate flag, but they all take it very seriously, because Admiral Harriman, instead of going to Harvard and getting involved in the “Porks,” so to speak, which was the big club up at Harvard, he went to Yale and did Skull and Bones. There was a crowd of people who were involved in operations like National CitiBank and Guaranteed Trust and just a whole lot of people who were major players in finance were Skull and Bones. And the crowd that was at W.S. Harriman was full of Skull and Bones people, and Prescott Bush was Skull and Bones. A lot of these people who were Skull and Bones wound up in the intelligence services, or they were assistant secretaries for aviation and the war department and things like this. It was a whole network.
AMY GOODMAN: But for people who don’t know what Skull and Bones is, what you are referring to.
KEVIN PHILLIPS: It’s a Yale secret society. Yale has other secret societies. Another one was called “Book and Snake.” So, they came up with these names. But these people took secrecy incredibly seriously. Books that have been written about Skull and Bones – they’ve got a vault at Yale. Nobody is supposed to be able to get in there. You can’t even tell your wife about Skull and Bones. Avril Harriman, his wife received a letter that was in hieroglyphics, and she didn’t know what to make of this and Avril Harriman said, “Well, that’s Skull and Bones, and I have to tell you about that, and he said, no, I can’t tell you about that.” If you want to know why they deal in secrecy, (a) you have Skull and Bones, and (b) so many of them were in the intelligence services and that whole side of Washington and New York.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about that, the beginning of intelligence, and how the Bush family fits into the beginning of the intelligence agencies?
KEVIN PHILLIPS: Well, this gets complicated because nobody quite agrees when the intelligence agencies started. But Yale was front and center, because the statue that’s in front of the C.I.A. is Nathan Hail. Nathan Hail’s statue that they copied that from appears in front of Connecticut Hall at Yale in New Haven. So, if you go back to the revolution you have Yale and the Secret Service.
AMY GOODMAN: It goes back to Andover where Bush went as well.
KEVIN PHILLIPS: Andover was really in the thick of this sort of stuff. They had a secret society sort of junior grade where you practiced to be at Skull and Bones at Yale when you were in Andover. It sounds like a joke today, but it wasn’t then. What happened was the crowd that was in with Prescott Bush and George H. Walker at W.A. Harriman, a number of them became prominent in the intelligence community and then when you get to the firm that was merged out of W.A. Harriman, which was Brown Brothers Harriman, one of the partners there was Robert A. Lovett, who was the son of one of the big cheeses in Harriman’s railroad operation, which is how they knew George H. — I mean, it all fits together. Robert A. Lovett was the man who came up with the blueprint for the C.I.A. after World War II, which was never acknowledged and only became public knowledge maybe 15, 20 years ago. So, he was a major player, and Prescott Bush, I have no doubt, was very close to the intelligence agencies. During World War II he was a director of two companies. One was Dresser Industries, which is now part of Halliburton, and the second is Vanadium Corporation of America. They were both involved in atomic energy projects. Prescott Bush was a friend of Alan Dulles who went on to be the C.I.A. Director, but he was also a lawyer during the 30’s for some of Brown Brothers Harriman international gamesmanship, so to speak. So, they were very tightly knit into all of this. And the real thing about the Bushes is how far back they go in this loose combination of investment banking, Wall Street law, the intelligence community, international business, the State Department, and the War Department.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Kevin Phillips. He is author of the new book, “American Dynasty, Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics Of Deceit In The House of Bush.” As we turn now to Alexandra Robbins, the “New York Times” best-selling author of the book, “Secrets of the Tomb — Skull and Bones, the Ivory League and the Hidden Paths Of Power,” who was formerly on the Washington, D.C. staff of the New Yorker Magazine. She is a 1998 graduate of Yale University and was the first reporter to publish George W. Bush’s transcript from Yale when he was a student there. We welcome you to Democracy Now!.
ALEXANDRA ROBBINS: Good Morning.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Juan.
ALEXANDRA ROBBINS: Thanks for having me.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Alexandra, I’d like to start out – in your book, you mention John Kerry several times. For those folks who might think this is something of the college days and in the 60’s when Kerry was at Yale, but you mentioned an experience that Jacob Weissberg, the editor of “Slate” magazine had about 20 years later in 1986. Can you talk a little bit about that.
ALEXANDRA ROBBINS: Sure. Skull and Bones is really much more than a college club. In fact the year that the members spend in it, their senior year at Yale (there are 15 members tapped for Skull and Bones membership each year) is really just the beginning. Skull and Bones is a powerful alumni network, perhaps the most elite network in the country and it really focuses on life after college. What Kerry did was he tried to recruit Jacob Weissberg from his senate office in Washington to become a member of Skull and Bones. And Weissberg ended up declining the invitation, but he was shocked that Kerry was a member of the society, which so clearly exhibited a history of misogyny, and he challenged Kerry on it. Kerry sort of blew him off. He said, “Oh, well, you know, you should look at my record – for women, defending battered women, et cetera,” and Weissberg said “I can’t be a part of this,” but he was shocked that Kerry would have his secretary call Weissberg into his office in the senate in order to try to make this recruiting possible.