excerpts from the book

America's Secret Establishment

An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones

by Antony Sutton

Trineday LLC, 1983, paperback (2002 edition)

pxiii
In classical liberalism, the State is always subordinate to the individual. In Hegelian Statism, as we see in Naziism and Marxism, the State is supreme, and the individual exists only to serve the State.

... Progress in the Hegelian State is through contrived conflict: the clash of opposites makes for progress. If you can control the opposites, you dominate the nature of the outcome.

pxiv
Progress in the Hegelian State is through contrived conflict: the clash of opposites makes for progress. If you can control the opposites, you dominate the nature of the outcome.

We trace the extraordinary [Yale] Skull and Bones influence in a major Hegelian conflict: Naziism vs. Communism. Skull and Bones members were in the dominant decision-making positions Bush, Harriman, Stimson, Lovett, and so on - all Bonesmen, and instrumental in guiding the conflict through use of "right" and "left." They financed and encouraged the growths of both philosophies and controlled the outcome to a significant extent.

pxiv
[John] Dewey was an ardent statist, and a believer in the Hegelian idea that the child exists to be trained to serve the State. This requires suppression of individualist tendencies and a careful spoon-feeding of approved knowledge.

p1
There is an Establishment history, an official history, which dominates history textbooks, trade publishing, the media and library shelves. The official line always assumes that events such as wars, revolutions, scandals, assassinations, are more or less random unconnected events. By definition events can never be the result of a conspiracy, they can never result from premeditated planned group action.

... Woe betide any book or author that falls outside the official guidelines. Foundation support is not there. Publishers get cold feet. Distribution is hit and miss, or non-existent.

p4
There is a group within the Council of Foreign Relations which belongs to a secret society, sworn to secrecy, and which more or less controls the CFR.

... These members are in 'The Order' [Yale Skull and Bones]. Their membership in The Order can be proven. Their meetings can be proven. Their objectives are plainly unconstitutional. And this Order has existed for 150 years in the United States.

p5
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.

... 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.

... The Order is powerful, unbelievably powerful.

... It is Senior year society which exists only at Yale. Members are chosen in their Junior year and spend only one year on campus, the Senior year, with Skull & Bones. In other words, the organization is oriented to the post graduate outside world.

p6
The selection 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 are alive and active. Roughly about one-quarter of these take an active role furthering the objectives of The Order.

... 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 goes 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... 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.

p8
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 [Skull and Bones], and there is significant inter-marriage among the families.

... 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., L Harriman, Rockefeller, Payne, Davison.

... In the last 150 years a few families in The Order have gained enormous influence in society and the world.

p17
The membership list of about 2500 initiates into The Order [Skull and Bones] has very obvious features:

* Most members are from the Eastern seaboard United States. As late as 1950 only three members resided in Los Angeles, California, but 28 members resided in New Haven, Connecticut.

* Members are all males and almost all WASPS (White Anglo Saxon Protestant). In great part they descended from English Puritan families, their ancestors arrived in North America in the 1630-1660 period.

* These Puritan families either intermarried with financial power or invited in sons of money moguls, e.g., Rockefellers, Davisons, and Harrimans, whose sons became members of The Order.

p19
Hypothesis Number One: A Secret Society Dominated By Old Line American Families And New Wealth Has Existed From 1833 To The Present Day.

WHITNEY FAMILY
STIMSON FAMILY
PERKINS FAMILY
TAFT FAMILY
PHELPS FAMILY
WADSWORTH FAMILY
BUNDY FAMILY
LORD FAMILY
GILMAN FAMILY
ROCKEFELLER FAMILY
PAYNE FAMILY
HARRIMAN FAMILY
DAVISON FAMILY
WEYERHAEUSER FAMILY
PILLSBURY FAMILY
SLOANE FAMILY

p23
The Order [Skull and Bones] and Britain go through Lazard Freres and the private merchant bankers. Notably the British establishment was also founded at a University - Oxford University, and especially All Souls College at Oxford. The British element is called "The Group."

The Group links to the Jewish equivalent through the Rothschilds in Britain (Lord Rothschild was an original member of Rhodes "inner circle"). The Order in the U.S. links to the Guggenheim, Schiff and Warburg families.

... The core of The Order, like the core of "The Group" in England, comprises about 20 families. In the U.S. case they are mostly descendents from the original settlers in Massachusetts. New wealth did not enter The Order until the mid-19th century and until recently, has never dominated The Order.

p25
The evolution of American society is not, and has not been for a century, a voluntary development reflecting individual opinion, ideas and decisions at the grass roots. On the contrary, the broad direction has been created artificially and stimulated by The Order [Skull and Bones].

p25
Hypothesis Number Two is:

THE ORDER [Skull and Bones] HAS PENETRATED OR BEEN THE DOMINANT INFLUENCE IN SUFFICIENT POLICY, RESEARCH AND OPINION MAKING ORGANIZATIONS THAT IT DETERMINES THE BASIC DIRECTION OF AMERICAN SOCIETY.

p30
In 1981 'The Anglo American Establishment', by Carroll Quigley, was published in New York by a small anti-Establishment publisher. Quigley was formerly instructor at Princeton and Harvard and then Professor at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. The publisher notes in his introduction that Quigley had been unable to find a major publisher for the manuscript. This is not surprising. The book blows the lid off the British equivalent of The Order.

... The British secret society, known as "The Group" or just plain "US", was founded at Oxford University, much as The Order was founded at Yale.

... The Groups objective is recorded in Cecil Rhodes' will. It was:

"The extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom and of colonization by British subjects of all lands wherein the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise ... and the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire.

... Both The Group and The Order have been created by Anglophiles who want to pattern the world on a Hegelian-Anglo hybrid culture.

... Both The Group and The Order are unwilling or unable to bring about a global society by voluntary means, so they opted for coercion. To do this they have created wars and revolutions, they have ransacked public treasuries, they have oppressed, they have pillaged, they have lied - even to their own countrymen.

... The activities of The Order are directed towards changing our society, changing the world, to bring about a New World Order. This will be a planned order with heavily restricted individual freedom, without Constitutional protection, without national boundaries or cultural distinction.

p34
In the Hegelian system, conflict is essential ... for Hegel and systems based on Hegel, the State is absolute. The State requires complete obedience from the individual citizen. An individual does not exist for himself in these so-called organic systems but only to perform a role in the operation of the State. He finds freedom only in obedience to the State. There was no freedom in Hitler's Germany, there is no freedom for the individual under Marxism, neither will there be in the New World Order. And if it sounds like George Orwell's 1984 - it is.

p34
Who or what is the State? The State is a self-appointed elite.

p35
Most of us believe the State exists to serve the individual, not vice versa. The Order [Skull and Bones] believes the opposite to most of us... always towards more state power ... and away from individual rights.

p53
The left-right political spectrum [is used] to neutralize unwelcome facts and ideas or just condition citizens to think along certain lines.

The "left" leaning segment of the press [in the US] can always be relied upon to automatically assault ideas and information from the right" and vice versa. In fact, media outlets have been artificially set up just for this purpose: both Nation and New Republic on the "left" were financed by Willard Straight, using Payne Whitney (The Order) funds. On the "right" National Review published by William Buckley (The Order) runs a perpetual deficit, presumably made up by Buckley.

Neither the independent right nor the independent left sees the trap. They are so busy firing at each other; they've mostly forgotten to look behind the scenes. And The Order smugly claims control of the 'moderate" center.

p55
The movement that will topple The Order [Skull and Bones] will be extremely simple and most effective. It will be ten thousand or a million Americans who come to the conclusion that they don't want the State to be boss, that they prefer to live under the protection of the Constitution,. They will make their own independent decision to thwart The Order.

The Order [Skull and Bones] has so wrecked' education that reading comprehension is difficult for many - that's part of the brainwashing program.

p57
Put to one side the descriptive clichés of left and right, liberal and conservative, communist and fascist, even republican and democrat... You will never understand The Order [Skull and Bones] if you try to label it right or left. .

A Robert Taft and a William Buckley on the right are just as important for the forward motion of society, the fundamental change desired by The Order, as a William Sloan Coffin and a Harry Payne Whitney (who financed the left). Their conflict is essential for change.

p57
THE ORDER USES THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC PROCESS TO BRING ABOUT A SOCIETY IN WHICH THE STATE IS ABSOLUTE, i.e., ALL POWERFUL.

p57
Our whole way of life is based on the assumption that the individual is superior to the State. That the individual is the ultimate holder of sovereignty. That the State is the servant of the people. It's deeply engrained within us.

The Order holds the opposite - that the State is superior, that the common man (the peasant) can find freedom only by obedience to the State.

p63
In Hegelian theory ... the State is superior to the individual... Nazism and Marxism have the same philosophy.

p67
The State is absolute. But the State is also a fiction. So if The Order [Skull and Bones] can manipulate the State, it in effect becomes the absolute.

p71
A tragic failure of American education in this century has been a failure to teach children how to read and write and how to express themselves in a literary form ... their prime purpose is not to teach subject matter but to condition children to live as socially integrated citizen units in an organic society - a real life enactment of the Hegelian absolute State. In this State the individual finds freedom only in obedience to the State, consequently the function of education is to prepare the individual citizen unit for smooth entry into the organic whole.

p79
The Illuminati was founded May 1, 1776 by Professor Adam Weishaupt of the University of Ingolstadt. It was a secret society, but in 1785 and 1787 several batches of internal documents came to the Bavarian Government. Subsequent investigation determined that the aim of the Illuminati was world domination, using any methods to advance the objective, i.e., the end always justifies the means. During its time, the Illuminati had widespread and influential membership.

... So far as education is concerned, the Illuminati objective was as follows: "We must win the common people in every corner. This will be obtained chiefly by means of the schools..."

p80
We can trace the foundation of three secret societies - the most influential three secret societies that we know about, to universities. The Illuminati was founded at University of Ingolstadt. The Group was founded at All Souls College, Oxford University in England, and The Order was founded at Yale University in the United States.

p96
Your doctor knows nothing about nutrition? Ask him confidentially and he'll probably confess he had only one course in nutrition And there's a reason.

Back in the late 19th century American medicine was in a deplorable state. To the credit of the Rockefeller General Education Board and the Institute for Medical Research funds were made available to staff teaching hospitals and to eradicate some pretty horrible diseases. On the other hand, a chemical-based medicine was introduced and the medical profession cut its ties with naturopathy. Cancer statistics tell you the rest.

p101
The philosophy and practice of today's [educational] system has been achieved by injection of massive private funds by foundations under influence, and sometimes control, of The Order [Skull and Bones].

p102
John Dewey in 'My Pedagogic Creed'

"The school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends.

p102
John Dewey in 'My Pedagogic Creed'

The Dewey educational system does not accept the role of developing a child's talents but, contrarily, only to prepare the child to function as a unit in an organic whole - in blunt terms a cog in the wheel of an organic society. Whereas most Americans have moral values rooted in he individual, the values of the school system are rooted in the Hegelian concept of the State as the absolute.

p103
Hegel

"The State is the absolute reality and the individual himself has objective existence, truth and morality only in his capacity as a member of the State."

p103
For [John] Dewey, man has no individual rights. Man exists only to serve the State. This is directly contradictory to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with the preamble "We the people." They then go on to define the rights of the state which are always subordinate and subject to the will of "We the people."

p103
For Hegel every quality of an individual exists only at the mercy and will of the State. This approach is reflected in political systems based on Hegel whether it be Soviet Communism or Hitlerian national socialism.

p110
The Order [Skull and Bones] has been able to convert the educational system from one aimed at developing the individual child to one aimed at conditioning the child to be a unit in an organic society.

p115
In Hegelian terms, an existing force (the thesis) generates a counterforce (the antithesis). Conflict between the two forces results in the forming of a synthesis. Then the process starts all over again: Thesis vs. antithesis results in synthesis.

The synthesis sought by the Establishment is called the New World Order. Without controlled conflict this New World Order will not come about... The International bankers backed the Nazis, the Soviet Union, North Korea, North Vietnam against the United States. The "conflict" built profits while pushing the world ever closer to One World Government. The process continues today.

p118
The so-called establishment in the U.S. uses "managed conflict." The practice of "managing" crises to bring about a favorable outcome - favorable to the elite.

p118
Both Marx and Hitler have their philosophical roots in Hegel.

p119
What is the function of a Parliament or a Congress for Hegelians? These institutions are merely to allow individuals to feel that their opinions have some value and to allow a government to take advantage of whatever wisdom the "peasant" may accidentally demonstrate.

p118
Hegel

"By virtue of [the] participation, subjective liberty and conceit, with their general opinion, (individuals) can show themselves palpably efficacious and enjoy the satisfaction of feeling themselves to count for something."

p119
John Dewey 'German Philosophy And Politics'

"War is the most effective preacher of the vanity of all merely finite interests, it puts an end to that selfish egoism of the individual by which he would claim his life and his property as his own or as his family's."

p120
For Hegel the individual is nothing, the individual has no rights, morality consists solely in following a leader.

p120

The Order in the United States, The Group in England, the Illuminati in Germany, and the Politburo in Russia. For these elitists the State is supreme and a self-appointed elite running the State acts indeed as God on earth.

p120
Carroll Quigley in 'Tragedy And Hope'

To [JP] Morgan all political parties were simply organizations to be used, and the firm always was careful to keep a foot in all camps.

p122
[The] manipulation of "left" and "right on the domestic front is duplicated in the international field where "left" and "right" political structures are artificially constructed and collapsed in the drive for a one-world synthesis.

College textbooks present war and revolution as more or less accidental results of conflicting forces. The decay of political negotiation into physical conflict comes about, according to these books, after valiant efforts to avoid war. Unfortunately, this is nonsense. War is always a deliberate creative act by individuals.

Western textbooks also have gigantic gaps. For example, after World War II the Tribunals set up to investigate Nazi war criminals were careful to censor any materials recording Western assistance to Hitler. By the same token, Western textbooks on Soviet economic development omit any description of the economic and financial aid given to the 1917 Revolution and subsequent economic development by Western firms and banks.

Revolution is always recorded as a spontaneous event by the politically or economically deprived against an autocratic state. Never in Western textbooks will you find the evidence that revolutions need finance and the source of the finance in many cases traces back to Wall Street.

Consequently it can be argued that our Western history is every bit as distorted, censored, and largely useless as that of Hitler's Germany or the Soviet Union or Communist China. No Western foundation will award grants to investigate such topics, few Western academics can "survive" by researching such theses and certainly no major publisher will easily accept manuscripts reflecting such arguments.

In fact, there is another largely unrecorded history and it tells a story quite different than our sanitized textbooks. It tells a story of the deliberate creation of war, the knowing finance of revolution to change governments, and the use of conflict to create a New World Order.

p124
The key to modern history is in these facts: that elitists have close working relations with both Marxists and Nazis.

p125
World history, certainly since about 1917, reflects deliberately created conflict with the objective of bringing about a synthesis, a New World Order.

p138
Wall Street ... assisted the Bolshevik Revolution. This assistance was mainly cash, guns and ammunition, and diplomatic support in London and Washington, D.C..

p138
JP Morgan and other financial interests financed and influenced all [political] parties from left to right in the political spectrum.

p143
It was in Washington and London that The Order [Skull and Bones] really aided the Soviets. The Order succeeded not only in preventing military actions against the Bolsheviks, but to so-muddy the policy waters that much needed vital raw materials and goods, ultimately even loans, were able to flow from the United States to the Soviets, in spite of a legal ban.

p163
Since World War II the United States has kept the Soviets abreast of modern technology. This story has been detailed elsewhere.

In brief, the creation of the Soviet Union stems from The Order [Skull and Bones]. The early survival of the Soviet Union stems from The Order. The development of the Soviet Union stems from The Order.

But above all, his story has been concealed from the American public by politicians.

p164
The State in practice becomes all powerful. The immediate task of "the revolution" is to convey all power to the state, and modern Marxist states operate under a constant paranoia that power may indeed pass away from the hands of the State into the hands of the people.

... If Marxism is posed as the thesis and national socialism as antithesis, then the most likely synthesis becomes a Hegelian New World Order, a synthesis evolving out of the clash of Marxism and national socialism. Moreover, in this statement those who finance and manage the clash of opposites can remain in control of the synthesis [New World Order]..

... The Order [Skull and Bones] has artificially encouraged and developed both revolutionary Marxism and national socialism while retaining some control over the nature and degree of the conflict.

p170
Conflict can be used for profit by corporations under control and influence of The Order [Skull and Bones]. In World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnamese War we can cite examples of American corporations that traded with "the enemy" for profit.

... Corporations - even large corporations - are dominated by banks and trust companies, and in turn these banks and trust companies are dominated by The Order and its allies.

p174
Chase Bank was a Nazi collaborator... On the other hand, Chase Bank, later Chase Manhattan Bank, has been a prime promoter of exporting U.S. technology to the Soviet Union.

... The corporate segment of the elite profited from Lend Lease to the Soviets and by underground cooperation with Nazi interests.

p174
World War II was the culmination of the dialectic process created in the 1920s and 1930s. The clash between "left" and "right," i.e., the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, led to creation of a synthesis notably the United Nations, and a start towards regional groupings in the Common Market, COMECON, NATO, UNESCO, Warsaw Pact, SEATO, CENTO, and then the Trilateral Commission. A start towards New World Order.

World War II left The Order with the necessity to create a new dialectical situation to promote more conflict to achieve a higher level synthesis.

p175
The intellectual world is locked into a phony verbal battle between "left" and "right," whereas the real struggle is the battle between individual freedom and the encroaching power of the absolute State.
... In the West the choice is basically between a controlled "left-oriented" information and a controlled "right-oriented" information. The conflict between the two controlled groups keeps an apparent informational conflict alive. Unwelcome facts that fall into neither camp are conveniently forgotten. Books that fall into neither camp can be effectively neutralized because they will incur the wrath of both "right" and "left".

In brief, any publication which points up the fallacy of the Left-Right dichotomy is ignored... and citizens keep trooping down to the polling booths in the belief they have a 'choice".

p180
The Bush family [was] involved with the early development of the Soviet Union, then with financing the Nazis.

p181
Communist China will e a "superpower" built by American technology and skill. It is presumably the intention of The Order [Skull and Bones] to place this power in a conflict mode with the Soviet Union.

p185
Back in the late 17th century the Elector of Bavaria, the constitutional government of Bavaria, banned the Illuminati organization. Accidental discovery of Illuminati documents demonstrated that a secret organization was devoted to the overthrow of the Bavarian state and establishment of a world society run by elitist Illuminati.

p186
The Order, a secret society also known as Skull & Bones, is a clear and obvious threat to constitutional freedom in the United States.

p186
an anonymous pamphlet entitled 'Skull & Bones' -Yale University, 1876

Bones is a chapter of a corps in a German University. It should properly be called, not Skull & Bones Society but Skull & Bones Chapter. General R------------- (Russell), its founder, was in Germany before Senior Year and formed a warm friendship with a leading member of a German society. He brought back with him to college, authority to found a chapter here. Thus was Bones founded.

p189
The Iconoclast, New Haven, CT, 1873

Out of every class Skull and Bones takes its men. They have gone out into the world and have become, in many instances, leaders in society.

p190
The Order [a secret society also known as Skull & Bones] is the only fully documented example we have of a secret society within the U.S. establishment.

p191
The Yale Senior society system is unique to Yale University. There is nothing like it elsewhere in the United States or for that matter in the entire world.

... There are three senior societies, Skull & Bones, Scroll & Key and. Wolfs Head. Each year 15 male Yale juniors are tapped for admission.

... Skull & Bones was founded in 1933 and has initiated 15 members each year since 1933... Every year during commencement week 15 Yale juniors receive an invitation "Skull & Bones. Accept or reject?" Those who accept, presumably the greater number, are invited to attend the Bones Temple on campus to undergo an initiation ceremony.

... The Yale campus student is well aware that the senior society system is geared to the affluent outside world, to the world after graduation. Money and connections flow from membership.

... In effect the societies are the source of a vast establishment network, a formalized "old boy" network that effectively shuts out the newcomers and the non-Yale talented from the halls of power. Because these are senior societies, the emphasis is not on campus activities but on post graduation ambitions. That is the fundamental difference to all other campus societies in the U.S.

... Each annual class of new initiates forms a club consisting of 15 members. Initiates are called Knights in the first year and thereafter Patriarchs.

p212
The Illuminati was a group of Bavarian conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of government. The society was founded on May 1, 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, Professor of Canon Law at the University of Ingoistadt. The Order of the Illuminati presumably ceased to exist when it was raided by the Bavarian police in 1786 on orders from the Elector of Bavaria.

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