Skull and Bones: what's so secret Bush and Kerry do refuse to talk about ?

The Order of Skull and Bones, once known as The Brotherhood of Death, was founded by William Huntington Russell (first cousin of Samuel Russell, the richest Opium dealer in the World) and Alphonso Taft (Secretary of War under President Grant). Skull and Bones has maintained its selective membership, masonic-inspired rituals, and other aspects for 175 years at Yale University.

Many influential figures have been in Bones and influential families have often had multiple members over successive generations, much like other societies at Yale. Bonesmen include U.S. Presidents such as George H. W. Bush and William Howard Taft, Supreme Court Justices, and U.S. business leaders. Both 2004 Presidential Nominees - Democratic Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Republican President George W. Bush - were members of Skull and Bones. The nominees were interviewed separately by Meet the Press's Tim Russert. When asked about the organization, both declined to give any details.

Judy Schiff, Chief Archivist at the Yale University Library and the most authoritative (and impartial) chronicler of secret societies at Yale has written that: "The names of (S&B's) members weren't kept secret—that was an innovation of the 1970s—but its meetings and practices were. The secrecy seems to have attracted fascination and curiosity from the start. The first expose of Skull and Bones, published in 1871 by Lyman Bagg in his book Four Years at Yale, noted that "the mystery now attending its existence forms the one great enigma which college gossip never tires of discussing."

Notwithstanding that resourceful researchers could assemble member data from these original sources, renewed attention may have been paid to leading families in Skull and Bones because in 1985 an anonymous source leaked rosters to a private researcher, Antony C. Sutton, who wrote a book on the group titled America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones. This leaked 1985 data was kept privately for over 15 years, as Sutton feared that the photocopied pages could somehow identify the member who leaked it. The information was finally reformatted as an appendix in the book Fleshing out Skull and Bones, a compilation edited by Kris Millegan, published in 2003.