Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895 -1972)
US Senator/ Failed Presidental Bid due to support of Hitler
Father of President George Herbert Walker Bush
grandfather of current President George Walker Bush.
Prescott Bush
Prescott Soldiers On
*By the time Prescott Bush was a teenager, the Bushes were sufficiently established to be regarded as part of the aspirational elite who were shaping the new, booming economy of the United States in the early twentieth century. Although regarded by some as still a "minor league" family in the New England aristocracy of wealth and power, their children were now able to attend the "right" schools and universities, and be in a position to advance further should the opportunities arise.
Prescott Bush attended Yale University. There the tall (6 ft 4 in), athletic and handsome young man formed an advantageous close friendship with E. Roland "Bunny" Harriman, younger son of the immensely wealthy Harriman family. "Bunny's" father, railroad baron & stock broker E.H.Harriman was denounced by President Theodore Roosevelt as an "undesirable citizen" guilty of "deep-seated corruption" for issuing tens of millions of dollars of fraudulent railroad stock; but Harriman had managed to keep the cash and become one of America's richest men.
As a close chum of "Bunny" Harriman, Prescott was "tapped" (recruited) with him for the infamous
Skull and Bones Society, whose many wealthy and well-placed "Patriarch" graduates were to assist him throughout his rise in life.
Skull and Bones
The Tomb, New Haven
At a number of private US colleges there are "secret societies" where the children of the rich form hidden and often snobbish cliques, to establish lifelong networks of advantage. Some of these groups practise bizarre initiations, regular group bonding ceremonies with weird mumbo-jumbo rituals, and the usual extreme horseplay of overprivileged adolescents with time on their hands. Of all these the most powerful and secretive is the Skull and Bones Society of Yale.
Founded by the scion of an opium trader, Skull and Bones is notorious for its focus on death rituals and perverse sexual interrogation. The group houses a collection of stolen skulls and other macabre objects - reputedly including Hitler's silverware - in its windowless headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, a building known to members as the Tomb. Outsiders are never permitted entry, and those attempting to investigate Skull and Bones may be discouraged by subtle or less than subtle means.
The Skull and Bones society is immensely wealthy. For example it possess its own private island (Deer Island) with an exclusive "retreat", and owns much property at Yale. Members include many leading corporate and financial figures, senior lawyers and justices, some ranking FBI and CIA personnel (the CIA has been a haven of Bonesmen), and politicians. Both President's Bush are "Patriarchs" (graduate members) of Skull and Bones, many of whose alumni have assisted and protected their family's rise from the days of Prescott Bush at Yale. "Bonesmen", as with similar networks, are sworn to assist each other wherever possible in life. However in the real world they sometimes become enemies or even political rivals. The current President Bush has appointed at least eleven "Bonesmen" to important positions.
The Geronimo Incident
*Prescott Bush graduated BA from Yale in 1917. He had enlisted in the Connecticut National Guard in 1916 and then attended US Army Officer training. Now he joined the army as a captain of field artillery, and in 1918 was posted to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. There, with fellow Skull and Bones members Neil Mallon, Ellery James and four other novice captain accomplices, he led a grave-robbing incident involving the remains of the famous Chiricahua Apache chief Geronimo, who had been buried at Fort Sill in 1909.
Geronimo's skull, elbow bone and some belongings were taken to the Tomb (Skull & Bones HQ) in New Haven, and are evidently still there, on display in a glass cage. Despite Apache grievance, law enforcement officers have never entered the Tomb to reclaim them, so powerful is the Skull and Bones in the legal and judicial worlds (most members in any case regard it as their duty to deceive outsiders to protect their secrets).
Postscript: An attempt to negotiate a settlement to this shameful issue with Jonathan Bush, President George H. W. Bush's brother, in NYC in 1986 ended without agreement, and the Skull and Bones Society lawyer Endicott P. Davison then blandly denied all, despite the existence of substantial physical evidence supplied by a "Bonesman" with a conscience. In the Bush world, truth is what you can get away with.
With Prescott gone off to play soldier boy, his chum E. Roland "Bunny" Harriman hurriedly married a Miss Gladys Fries. It's interesting to note that although he and Prescott were frequently in each other's company throughout their lives thereafter, neither managed to attend the other's wedding. The newlyweds then departed for Washington, for Roland in a singular coincidence had secured a position in the War Department in connection with munitions ordnance, the same area of occupation as that of Prescott's father Samuel Bush.
Don't Mention the War
*Later in 1918 Captain Prescott Bush was sent to the European War, by now running towards its last bloody days. He was attached to the 158th Field Artillery Brigade in France, and later to the occupation forces in Germany. When evidently bored from a lack of wartime "action", Bush amused himself & he thought his readers by writing a humorous letter in which he claimed to have been awarded the Victoria Cross, the Legion of Honor, and the Distinguished Service Cross, under circumstances that were clearly preposterous.
However in the fevered war atmosphere of the time the letter was taken seriously, & published in a newspaper as factual. This led to a scandal as a result of which Bush was unable to remain in his hometown of Columbus Ohio when he returned there in mid 1919. The "phony war hero" label, though unjustified, was a permanent humiliation thereafter. However there is no evidence to support the view that bitterness over this incident pushed Bush towards Nazi sympathies.
Seeking Employment
*Now at a loose end, Bush attended the 1919 reunion of his Yale class, where fellow Skull & Bonesman Wallace Simmons offered him a job in his St. Louis, Missouri, railroad equipment company. Bush accepted, and moved to St. Louis, where his" fortunate connections" were soon to offer him further and better opportunities.
In 1919 wealthy Missouri corporate wheeler- dealer George Herbert Walker obliged the Harriman family patriarch by forming the W.A. Harriman & Co. private bank for the Harriman sons to have something to do. Walker, who took the posts of bank president and chief executive, was a "colourful" character, a former champion boxer whose hobbies were described as "golf, hunting, drinking scotch and beating his (four) sons to a pulp." However he was more polite towards the far richer Harrimans, whose elder son W. Averell Harriman was made chairman of the bank, and joint owner with his younger brother, Prescott's friend " Bunny".
At this time Prescott Bush met George Herbert Walker's daughter Dorothy, wooed her, & married her in 1921. They were to have four sons - George, Prescott Jr., Jonathan and William - and a daughter Nancy. With little success from his own business efforts, Bush was tapped by his old Yale chum "Bunny" to work firstly for the Harriman-controlled U.S. Rubber Co. in 1924, & then in 1926 directly for the W. A. Harriman bank itself.
In 1931 the Harriman bank was to merge with the British-American firm Brown Bros. and Co. to form Brown Brothers Harriman, with E.Roland Harriman as vice-president and Prescott Bush now a full partner. "Bert" Walker retired from the bank to his own G.H Walker & Co. Prescott Bush, who had gradually come to run the day-to-day operations of WA Harriman & Co., now became a managing partner of the merged entity. BBH was to be eventually the most important private banking house in America. Prescott Bush had reached the zone of serious money.
W (William) Averell Harriman, as a young man
W.Averell Harriman was the elder of the two heirs of railroad baron and stock market manipulator E H Harriman. The Harriman brothers were handsome, influential and immensely rich. Averell Harriman later formed an association with the Democratic Party, becoming at various times Governor of New York State, Ambassador to Moscow and Special Presidential Envoy. His brother remained a registered Republican. It is believed that embarrassment over Harriman's Democratic Party connections (resented by many in the party) is the reason the US Democratic Party has refused to raise the Bush-Harriman Nazi connections as an election issue, despite ample evidence.
Averell Harriman (centre), Special Presidential Envoy, with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, Moscow Conference, August 1942
The First Sniff of Oil
*As a result, Prescott also sat on several corporate boards alongside "Bunny" Harriman, including
(1929 -1952) Dresser Industries. Dresser was an oil equipment company, on whose board the pair installed Yale classmate Henry Neil Mallon as chairman. Mallon was a fellow Skull and Bonesman and one of the Geronimo grave-robbers. In 1948 Mallon was in turn to hire Prescott's son George Herbert Walker Bush, later the first President Bush, to work at Dresser. (George H.W. Bush later named one of his own sons, Neil Mallon Bush). In September 1998, Dresser merged with Halliburton, a company much in the news recently.
The Bushes, the Walkers, the Harrimans and their connections remained close socially as well as in business. If we dip into the New York Times social pages of December 12 1941 for example we see the annual "Gay Thirties Dinner Dance" for charity being held on the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. At this event we find that the rollcall includes E.Roland "Bunny" Harriman present as President of the Boys' Club of New York, and the Prescott Bushes as guests at his table.
Another glance at the NYT shows a wedding on November 11 1950 uniting a Miss Marie Abbie Walker, daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Charles Herbert Walker, with a John Malcolm Lilley, late of Yale. One of the bridesmaids is a Joan Harriman. The bridegroom, it transpires, is an employee of the Rockefeller-owned Standard Oil Co. and the grandson of a Samuel Bush.
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