When Phi Beta Kappa responded to the anti-masonry in the air by abolishing its oath of secrecy, Russell (who later become Yale's valedictorian) founded 'The Scull and Bones' as an alternative. At the time, men's fraternal organizations were so popular that politicians like former President John Quincy Adams were denouncing their secret oaths as cancers on the body of the republic. Russell in 1832, more than a decade before Texas joined the union. Skull and Bones was founded by William H. 'We don't discuss those things,' said Roy Leslie Austin, now a sociology professor at Penn State. And members of his 1968 Skull and Bones class whom I contacted either neglected to return my calls or refused to comment on what goes on inside the Tomb. Like his father, who has consistently refused to discuss Skull and Bones, he isn't talking. But Bush is not helping to clear the air. Another says the interior of the 'Tomb' (the eerie Gothic headquarters where twice-a-week meetings are held) is decorated with human remains, including the skulls and bones of notables such as Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa and Apache warrior Geronimo.ДЄre the rumors true? Certainly not all of them the society is probably not the fountainhead of a vast international conspiracy to spread Hegel's dialectic via the drug trade. One rumor has each new member receiving a $15,000 payout.

Members take their secrecy oath seriously - no insider has ever published an exposi - so it is impossible to separate the realities from the rumors that swirl around the society. If outsiders raise the topic, Bonesmen are supposed to leave the room. In the outside world, members are never to speak about their society. (He may or may not be naked and may or may not be lying in a coffin.) During initiation, he endures some sort of physical challenge (mud wrestling? diving into a dung pile?) before being born again with a new name and a new identity. Each knight, as neophytes are called, reportedly regales his fellow initiates with his sexual exploits. The initiation rites that follow sound like something out of Fred Flintstone's Water Buffalo Lodge or a Robert Bly retreat. Each May on 'Tap Day,' senior Bonesmen troll around Yale's campus, selecting, or 'tapping,' 15 juniors for membership in the upcoming class. Though a seniors-only society, Skull and Bones is more than a tad sophomoric. An examination of the culture of Skull and Bones should shed some light on the character of the latest Bush who would be president. In the wake of the Clinton-Lewinsky mess, character has emerged as a leading theme in presidential politics. Bush far more than road trips or college courses. Much has been made of the Texas governor's 'youthful indiscretions' and of his gentleman's C's at Yale. Two Bonesmen, William Howard Taft and George Bush, were elected president, a post Gov. They have also become presidents of universities, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, foundation presidents and founders of investment banks.

Members have served as senators, secretaries of state, national security advisors, attorneys general, CIA directors and Supreme Court justices. Bush and his dad) look like your local Rotary Club. The list of past and present Bonesmen, as members are called, makes California's Bohemian Grove retreat (also patronized by Gov. Skull and Bones is one of the nation's most exclusive and powerful secret societies. The governor-to-be accepted and, like his grandfather and father before him, became a member of Skull and Bones. Bush, slapped him on the back and offered him membership in Yale's oldest secret society. One evening in May 1967, a man dressed in a black hood and sporting a gold pin emblazoned with a skull and crossbones approached George W.

The tomb skull and bones