The 15 Most Powerful Members Of 'Skull And Bones'

Our 27th, and fattest (fun fact), President was known to his college buddies as "Big Lub," and was the first "Bonesman" ever to reach The Oval Office.

 

Frankly, young Mr. Taft would probably had a rather easy time getting into the club...

His father, and one-time Attorney General, Alphonso Taft, co-founded Skull and Bones as a Yale student in 1832.

Yale's greatest football player of all-time (apologies to Calvin Hill), Stagg practically invented the modern game and is still the only man to be elected into both the Pro Football and Pro Basketball Halls of Fame.

 

It can only be assumed that being the most gifted jock in Yale's history had some bearing on Mr. Stagg's being chosen to join Skull and Bones.

The future Governor of New York and Presidential candidate was clearly a man who liked his time at Yale...

 

Immediately after inheriting the largest fortune in The United States from his railroad baron father upon his graduation, Harriman took a job as Yale's crew coach and stuck around New Haven.

No doubt the man his fellow Bonesmen referred to Averill as "Thor," continued to enjoy himself around town as Yale celebrity before moving on to his many future successes.

Before living in Paris amongst "The Lost Generation" of Hemingway, Pound and Fitzgerald, while honing a poetic voice that would yield three Pulitzer Prizes, MacLeish was a Yale Graduate and a member of Skull and Bones.

 

It would seem that MacLeish, like most Bonesmen, was chosen more for his brains more than his connections...

 "Archie's" father was an Illinois dry goods dealer, and his mother was a college professor, a rare combination of parentage and geography for the Bonesmen of his day.

If you thought "Dubya" was a wild man in his college years, you should have met his grand-daddy.

 

Prescott, the future Senator from Connecticut, was apparently a real "cut-up" who, along with some other Bonesmen, is believed to have dug up and absconded with the skull of the legendary Native American warrior Geronimo during World War I.

Legend has it that Geronimo's head is still inside Skull and Bones HQ, known as "The Tomb," at 64 High Street in New Haven.

Harry Truman's Secretary of War and the man whom many have called "The Architect of The Cold War" was the consummate Bonesman insider.

 

Along with sharing a membership timeline with Prescott Bush, Lovett was also friendly with fellow Bonesman Harvey Hollister Bundy, who served with Lovett in Truman's War Cabinet and was the father of future Bonesman McGeorge Bundy.

The man who went on to found and publish Time Magazine was first an editor of The Yale Daily News.

 

He was also a man that fellow Bonesmen referred to as "Baal," an apparent reference to a mythological, ancient, Aramaic demon.

We have no idea why, but the mind boggles at the implications.

The son of a Midwestern Congressman, Stewart went on to be an editor of The Yale Law Review, after being a member of Skull and Bones during his undergraduate days.

 

But it was perhaps much later in life that Mr. Potter was of greatest assistance to Bonesmen of the future...

As an Associate Justice of The Supreme in 1965, Mr. Potter wrote a dissent in Griswold v. Connecticut, setting the stage for the future legalization of the sales of contraceptives in The Nutmeg State, no doubt bringing great relief to the young gentlemen inside "The Tomb."

Before becoming one of JFK's "Wise Men," Bundy was another Bonesman with a long family lineage of getting "Tapped" for the society.

 

But, if the lore surrounding Skull and Bones has any veracity, he was apparently a man with a personality all his own, one that led his pals to nickname him "Odin."

The second ever Bonesman to be elected President, "41" was also a fighter pilot in WWII, Ambassador to "Red China" and Director of the CIA.

 

His training at Skull and Bones must have been invaluable in the career he made out of keeping safe the secrets of state.

It would have been pretty painful for the man who came to symbolize the most conservative brand of American elitism NOT to have been "Tapped" for Skull and Bones.

 

Luckily, he was, or they would most likely never have heard the end of it. 

The now senior Senator from Massachusetts was only a college Junior when he was "Tapped" as a Bonesman after a childhood spent abroad with his diplomat father.

 

Kerry's period of membership as an on-campus Bonesman just missed intersecting with a man he would come to challenge for the presidency in 2004..

"W" was a man who's family was synonymous with Skull and Bones by the time he arrived on Yale's campus as a Freshman, but it has been whispered that many thought his family would agree to his not being "Tapped" as George was a rather... "distractable" young man.

 

But after joining up with the family club, joining the cheerleading team and generally raising hell, "W" ended up as the third Bonesman to occupy the office of the President.

He was tapped only a year behind George W. Bush and came to prominence under the future president's administration when his Blackstone Investments hedge fund group went public in 2007.

 

The SEC filings for Blackstone's IPO revealed that Schwarzman had made an average of $1 million per day for the fiscal year ending in December 2006.

Goolsbee represents the newest generation of Bonesman on the list. The Texan-born economist was presumably tapped in 1989 while studying for his BA in Economics and performing with the Yale improve troupe "Just Add Water."

 

At 41, he is one of the youngest Chairmen of The Council of Economic Advisor's in the history of The White House, a building that has been staffed and led by a more than a few members of the society, and one can assume will be for many years to come.

Franklin MacVeagh, Class of 1862 - US Secretary of the Treasury under fellow Bonesman William Taft.

 

Walter Camp, Class of 1880 - Organized first iteration of professional football league in America.

Henry Sloane Coffin, Class of 1897 - Important American theologian and onetime leader of the Presbyterian Church.

Percy Rockefeller, Class of 1900 - "White Shoe" New York lawyer, oil man, gun dealer and a Rockefeller.

H. J. Heinz II, Class of 1931 - Ketchup heir, father of future US Senator.

William Sloane Coffin, Class of 1949 - Nephew of Henry, Presbyterian clergyman and a folk-hero of the anti-war movement of the 1960's.

Evan G. Galbraith, Class of 1950 - Investment banker and US ambassador to France under Reagan.

David McCullough, Class of 1955 - Pulitzer Prize winning historian and author.

Dana Milbank, Class of 1990, Washington Post reporter and former White House correspondent during the administration of fellow Bonesman George W. Bush but, judging from their opinions of one another, it can be assumed the two don't speak fondly at Skull and Bones reunions.