Skull & Bones: Yale's Tomb of the Caskets
Two hundred members alive at any time. Three U.S. presidents. Six CIA officers. They steal each other's skulls and call it tradition.
Founded in 1832 at Yale, Skull & Bones taps 15 senior students per year. Initiation reportedly involves a stone tomb, a crypt, and a ritual that includes lying naked in a coffin and confessing one's sexual history to the assembled brotherhood.
Alumni include three U.S. presidents (William Howard Taft, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush), Senator John Kerry (who ran against George W. Bush in 2004 - both Bonesmen, both refused to discuss it), William F. Buckley, Henry Stimson, Averell Harriman, and a long line of CIA officials and Wall Street power-brokers.
The society is alleged to possess Geronimo's skull, taken from his grave at Fort Sill in 1918 by Prescott Bush. The Apache nation has sued for its return. The society denies it. The skull has not been produced.
The connections from Skull & Bones to the founding of the CIA, to the Federal Reserve, to nearly every American war of the 20th century - are not coincidence. They are the network.