In 1975 an extraordinary document surfaced called\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Distributed hand-to-hand long before the\nadvent of computer-based social media, the 22-page typed copy I received in\n1976 had been reproduced so many times that several words and letters were\nunclear or missing. Evidently a fervent underground effort had been underway to\nget this information out. So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve kept a copy of the Skeleton Key around for\nthe last four decades taking notes on developments, and recent history, so far,\nhas increased my confidence in the document\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s veracity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Skeleton Key\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s genesis involves a\nconspiracy-themed radio talk show host named Mae Brussell n\u00c3\u00a9e Magnin, who lived\nin Carmel Valley, California in the early 1970s and was related to the founder\nof San Francisco\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fashionable and prosperous I. Magnin department store chain.\nA local news director had introduced Brussell to Stephanie Caruana, then a\ncontributing editor at Playgirl magazine. Although some question the Key\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\nauthorship, it is generally attributed to Caruana who says she wrote it. She\nsaid it was the Patty Hearst kidnapping that resulted in her meeting Brussell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was just ranting with curiosity about Patty\nHearst because she was living around a mile from me in Berkeley when the kidnap\nhappened, and this whole massive publicity campaign got underway. I was saying,\n\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWhat is going on here? This doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem like a normal case.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 It was so\noverblown,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Caruana said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The mass media get on a story and everybody covers\nthe same story day after day, but if you really know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on, you may suspect\nthat there is something else going on underneath, something they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not paying\nany attention to.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On February 4, 1974, a group of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153revolutionaries\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\nusing the contrived appellation, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Symbionese Liberation Army\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (SLA), abducted\nPatty Hearst\u00e2\u20ac\u201d the 19-year-old granddaughter of newspaper magnate William\nRandolph Hearst\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwho was attending the public university in Berkeley. The\nSkeleton Key refers to the SLA episode this way: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153February 1974: Mafia Hearst\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\ndaughter, Patty, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153kidnapped\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Lipset\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s SLA in a fake terrorist action.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hal\nLipset was a San Francisco private investigator whose name also appears in the\nSkeleton Key connected to the Watergate debacle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SLA began in 1971 as a loose-knit group of\nmostly middle and upper-class white radicals who embraced a m\u00c3\u00a9lange of\nphilosophies endorsing selective violence and crime to initiate social change.\nWhile a few members were in prison, they met Donald \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cinque\u00e2\u20ac\u009d DeFreeze during\nmeetings of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Black Cultural Association.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d After DeFreeze conveniently\nescaped from prison in 1972, he contacted SLA members in Oakland and eventually\nassumed leadership of the group, which engaged in kidnappings, bank robberies,\nassassinations\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand feeding the poor, all in an apparent effort to foment\nrevolution. After abducting Patty Hearst, the SLA demanded that large amounts\nof food be donated to poor people in exchange for the heiress\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s release.\nPatty\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father, Randolph Hearst, president of the San Francisco Examiner,\nagreed to pay an initial $2 million in ransom, and food was distributed at\nseveral sites. According to The Realist publisher Paul Krassner, when the\ngovernor, Ronald Reagan, saw one of the long lines of people waiting for food,\nhe groused, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I hope they get botulism.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Due to lack of adequate organization\nthe food giveaway was a disaster, so the SLA refused to release Hearst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Caruana had given Krassner a copy of the Skeleton\nKey in 1975, the same year he began reporting on the upcoming Hearst trial for\nthe Berkeley Barb. In his 2014 book, Patty Hearst and the Twinkie Murders,\nKrassner outlines a case to support a bold claim. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Donald \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cinque\u00e2\u20ac\u009d DeFreeze,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\nhe says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153was a double agent.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brussell too believed that a clandestine arm of\nthe US government either created or manipulated the SLA as a tool of espionage\ndesigned to distort the message of idealism. The root of the neologism\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Symbionese,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the Greek \u00e2\u20ac\u0153symbiosis,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d means \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a living together\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as in peace,\nharmony, and balance\u00e2\u20ac\u201damong the subversive ideas and ideals that the operation\napparently tried to undermine. Krassner, once a member of Ken Kesey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Merry\nPranksters and the first living inductee of the Counterculture Hall of Fame,\nhad published Brussell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s early articles on the Watergate antagonists. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She\nreally did scoop everybody,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Caruana said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I believe she got that information\nfrom Roberts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Gemstone papers because he certainly had the goods on those\npeople. He knew all about them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The public generally assumed Hearst was being\nheld against her will, so it was especially dramatic when on April 3, 1974, she\nannounced that she had joined the SLA to fight for the oppressed and had\nadopted the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153revolutionary\u00e2\u20ac\u009d name, Tania.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d After a security camera filmed her\nhelping the SLA rob a San Francisco bank on April 15, the public assumed she\nwas being coerced or brainwashed. Subsequently, the group fled south to Los\nAngeles where members sequestered themselves in a south-central community until\na suspicious neighbor tipped off the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Militarization of the police was relatively new\nthen, and I recall seeing on television the impressive public demonstration by\nthe LAPD\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit of its new and very\nexpensive military-grade equipment. So, not unexpectedly, on May 17, 1974, live\ncameras allowed the country to watch the house burn down with SLA members\ninside\u00e2\u20ac\u201dpresaging later events such as the destruction of the MOVE complex in\nPhiladelphia and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Branch Davidian\u00e2\u20ac\u009d compound in Waco, Texas. When officials\nbegan investigating, everyone wondered if Patty Hearst was inside. She wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.\nSix had perished, but the rest had escaped. Patty Hearst was caught on\nSeptember 18, 1975 and went to trial in January of 1976. She served two years\nfor \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bank robbery\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153use of a dangerous weapon\u00e2\u20ac\u009d before President Jimmy\nCarter commuted her sentence and President Bill Clinton later pardoned her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In December of 1974 Playgirl magazine ran an\narticle that Caruana and Brussell had co-authored called, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is Howard Hughes\nDead and Buried Off An Island In Greece?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It involved the disappearance of\nTexas multi-millionaire Howard Hughes and Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis,\nbut after examining the file folder of notes Brussell had provided, Caruana\ntold her she had found little evidence to justify an article accusing either\nman of misdeeds. At that point, Caruana said, Brussell reluctantly produced a\nfile containing several hundred handwritten notes, letters, articles and news\nclippings of a man named Bruce Porter Roberts along with specific instructions\non when and how to read them. Brussell stressed that it was easy to get \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lost\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\nin the material and imposed specific conditions on its reading. Caruana,\ncloistered in a bedroom at Brussell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s house, read into the early morning,\nincreasingly absorbed in a sordid tale of political intrigue, thievery, and\nmurder. Caruana wrote the Playgirl article based on the revelations contained\nin those pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mae placed a lot of restrictions on me. In the\nfirst place, she really didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want me to read Roberts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 letters. She was\nkeeping them a very closely held secret. I can imagine a lot of reasons, but I\ncan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell you which one is right. She just didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want this stuff to get out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\nCaruana said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought it could have something to do with her two uncles who\nwere involved in politics. They were both rabbis who were political\u00e2\u20ac\u201done a Democrat\nand the other a Republican. Part of this whole Gemstone thing has to do with\npeople\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s families and how important it is to know who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s related to whom and\nhow. These plots and plans and tools really determine what goes on in\ncountries. If you know who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s related to whom, it often clarifies things a great\ndeal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Caruana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Skeleton Key distills the massive collection\nof letters and various writings of Bruce Roberts, who had studied journalism\nand physics at the University of Wisconsin specializing in crystallography,\nincluding the creation of synthetic gems such as rubies. One of the few known\npictures of Bruce Roberts, a magazine photo from the 1950s, shows him pinning a\nsynthetic gemstone on the flamboyant entertainer Carmen Miranda. This verifies\nRoberts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 existence as well as his interest in artificial gems. Caruana assured\nme that this was the Bruce Roberts with whom she had conversed in San\nFrancisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Skeleton Key, Roberts had taken\nsome of his synthetic rubies to the Hughes Tool Company hoping to exchange a\nfew of them for use of its facilities. Instead, Hughes employees stole his\nrubies, which Roberts believed was due to their optical quality and potential\nuse in laser beam research. That episode caused Roberts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 profound animosity\ntoward the Mafia generally and Howard Hughes specifically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roberts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 thesis simply posits that organized\ncrime controls the United States and has since at least 1963. The Skeleton Key\nbegins in 1932, introducing readers to Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis,\nwho would one day marry Jackie Kennedy. The Key tells us he made his first\nmillion selling \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Turkish Tobacco (opium)\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Argentina and during Prohibition\nused his ships to smuggle alcohol into Boston for Joseph Kennedy. As crowned\nhead of the international Mafia, Onassis brokered a lucrative deal with the\nSeven Sisters (major oil companies) whereby they would swindle the Arabs out of\ntheir oil and transport it using the fleet of surplus World War 2 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Liberty\nships\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Onassis had acquired from the US at bargain prices. According to\nGemstone, Onassis established a power base in the United States by usurping\nHoward Hughes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s empire. He kidnapped Hughes and arranged a widely publicized\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153fake\u00e2\u20ac\u009d marriage to explain his seclusion. Then Onassis, who needed Hughes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\nsignature until a computer could successfully reproduce it, parked Hughes on\nSkorpios, his private island in the Ionian Sea, turning Hughes into a junkie in\norder to force his compliance. Onassis then adopted Hughes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153game plan\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of\nbuying up senators, judges, congressmen, governors, and major media\norganizations to take \u00e2\u20ac\u0153legal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d control of the government en masse for selfish\nadvantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Key states that Joseph Kennedy had \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reminded\nOnassis of an old Mafia promise: the presidency for a Kennedy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Onassis agreed\nbut naturally expected the Kennedys to behave themselves and follow orders. As\nlong as Joseph was directing their affairs, John and Bobby cooperated, but\nafter the elder Kennedy suffered a stroke, his control ended. The brothers\nembodied new attitudes that sympathetic Americans considered innovative and\nbold but which detractors perceived as cavalier and arrogant. From the\nperspective of the Kennedys\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 underworld sponsors, the brothers appeared\nungrateful and renegade\u00e2\u20ac\u201dOnassis angered that John Kennedy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153welches\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on a Mafia\ndeal. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The rest, as they say, is history\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the Key says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Onassis was so\nconfident of his control over police. media, FBI, CIA, Secret Service and the\nU.S. judicial system that he had JFK murdered before the eyes of the nation; then\nsystematically bought off, killed off or frightened off all witnesses, and had\nthe evidence destroyed; then put a 75-year seal of secrecy over the whole\nmatter.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are several convincing motives for the\nKennedys\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 murders, and they are not mutually exclusive. In 1961 they had\narrested the owner of Air Thailand, whose planes had been flying Onassis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\nheroin out of Southeast Asia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Golden Triangle; President Kennedy refused to\nprovide air cover at the Bay of Pigs, infuriating the hawks who had arranged the\ninvasion behind his back. Aggravating the situation, Kennedy fired cold warrior\nand intelligence community icon Allen Dulles as CIA director for lying to him\nabout the Bay of Pigs operation; He supported a bill to revoke the oil\ndepletion allowance, inspiring enmity from oil producers in states such as\nTexas; He challenged the privately owned and deceptively misnamed Federal\nReserve System, essentially a central bank, by ordering the Department of\nTreasury to issue debt and interest-free currency called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153United States Notes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\nrather than debt-laden \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Federal Reserve Notes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As Attorney General, Robert\nKennedy began prosecuting members of the Mafia; and President Kennedy intended\nto modify labor and tax laws so that previously exempt foreign ships could be taxed,\npresumably a significant issue for shipping tycoons like Onassis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interestingly, Allen Dulles had received help in\nforming the CIA from German spymaster Reinhard Gehlen\u00e2\u20ac\u201dAdolph Hitler\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chief\nintelligence officer against the Soviet Union. Hawks in the US\nmilitary-industrial complex shared the Nazis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rabid ideological hatred of the\nSoviets, a perplexing attitude considering that without Russia the Allies would\nnot have won World War 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dulles largely controlled the Warren Commission,\ncausing critics to question its impartiality and consequently the reliability\nof its conclusions. Perhaps even more significantly, President Kennedy had\nvowed to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\nHe formalized his intentions on October 11, 1963 by filing National Security\nAction Memorandum 263. His announcing that he intended to withdraw a thousand\ntroops from Vietnam by the end of 1963 portended a profit-threatening end to\nthe Vietnam War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consider the following two examples of claims made\nin the Skeleton Key that have been validated by subsequent historical\ndevelopments. Referring to the John Kennedy assassination, the Key claims one\nof the shooters \u00e2\u20ac\u0153went down a manhole and followed a sewer line away from Dealey\nPlaza.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Remember, this was written in 1975. In the 1990s I was watching a\nHistory Channel program called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Men Who Killed Kennedy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201da segment featuring\nTom Wilson, who had developed for US Steel a process called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153photonics\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to\ndetect product imperfections. Wilson applied this new technology to photos in\nthe Kennedy assassination, including the Mary Moorman photo, which she took\nalmost simultaneously with the fatal head shot. Wilson constructed a\nthree-dimensional model of Kennedy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gaping rear head wound and from that\ntraced back the path of the bullet, amazed to see it was coming \u00e2\u20ac\u0153out of the\nground.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilson went to Dealey Plaza and discovered that\nthe path he anticipated led directly to a manhole cover and storm drain. In\nother words, someone could have been crouching underground shooting at Kennedy\nfrom the street. Subsequent studies by a researcher named Jack Brazil have\ndetermined that shooters from behind the picket fence on the Grassy Knoll and\nfrom the curb on Elm Street could have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153squeezed off rounds\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and escaped\nunderground in about twenty minutes. The sewer lines lead to the Trinity River\nwell away from Dealey Plaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here is another claim the Key makes that sounded\nunlikely to me in 1976: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lots of heroin gets produced in a Pepsi Cola factory\nin Laos. So far, it hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t produced a single bottle of Pepsi Cola.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\nyet learned about the CIA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Air America\u00e2\u20ac\u009d drug flights, but this was another\ntruth that Roberts understood long before most of the herd. In 1990 Mel Gibson\nand Robert Downey, Jr. starred in a film called Air America. The film includes\nthe Pepsi-Cola factory, the CIA, and the heroin. Details like these over the\nyears make me believe that Bruce Roberts knew more than the average citizen\nabout past history and current events. Eventually, Caruana trekked to San Francisco\nto meet Roberts\u00e2\u20ac\u201da story she details in her 2006 book, The Gemstone File: A\nMemoir\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto validate what he was telling her. She intended to visit the various\nembassies Roberts had mentioned. If he had written to them as he claimed, his\nletters should be in their files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I wanted to know if Roberts was telling me the\ntruth. He gave me a note that said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThis is my permission to let the bearer\nlook at my letters,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Caruana explained. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t succeed at first. The\nRussian Embassy threw me out, and believe me, I did not want to go. At that\ntime you really didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just want to go marching up to the Russian consulate; it\nwas the middle of the Cold War! The embassy of an Arab country didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cooperate\neither,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. Eventually, however, Caruana found the verification she had\nbeen seeking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the Norwegian Consulate there was this\nsecretary who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what I was looking for. I just went up to her and\nsaid I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to read Bruce Roberts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 letters that he gave the embassy, and she\nsaid okay. So I had one day of joy of reading these letters, and it did a lot\nfor me because then I knew he was telling me the truth as far as I could check\nit out, but he really did give letters to this consulate; they have them in a\nfile folder! Then the next day I went back to get more of it, and as I said, it\nwas those notes that I made on that first day that was the basis of the\nGemstone Skeleton Key. I did them all in one afternoon. I had of course read\nthe background of the 360 pages that Mae had, but I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a single one of\nthose. I think I did a good job on it, and I know Bruce liked it. That was\nsomething that helped me a great deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few days later I noticed that my phone had been\ntapped. I returned to the Norwegian consulate with my notebook, hoping to take\nmore notes, but the consul told me I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read or take any more notes at\nthe consulate. Then he told me he had spoken to Roberts, and had asked him\nabout me. Roberts had suggested that he read the Playgirl article, and he had\ndone so. Then he asked me whether I had read it. I told him I had written it.\nThen he pulled out another long new letter Bruce had just given him, and told\nme that since he had just received this letter from Roberts, and since he had\nnot yet given it to the consulate library, it was still legally his property\nand he could legally give it to me to read. He offered to lend me the letter,\nwhich was an original letter, not a Xerox copy, and asked me to read the letter\ncarefully, note whatever it said that pertained to Norway, and then return the\noriginal letter to him. I did that, made a copy of that letter, and returned\nthe original letter to him. I originally prepared the Skeleton Key for my own\nuse, but when Bruce called me in February, 1975 and told me he was sick and in\nthe hospital, I decided to fight back on his behalf by releasing the Skeleton\nKey, as I did, in March 1975.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Caruana realized that people could easily get\nsidetracked in minutiae and miss the global picture, so she felt it was\nimportant to provide the public with a taste of Robert\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s material that was\naccessible\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsomewhat organized, chronological, and cross-referenced. Robert\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\nwriting style is repetitive, minutely detailed, and occasionally cryptic and\nmanic. It demands much of the average reader. The Skeleton Key condenses and refines\nthe ideas yet provides enough background to correlate seemingly unrelated\nevents. Caruana reports that when she first gave Roberts a copy of the Key, he\nreacted by saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why did you do that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But not long after he was requesting\ncopies to show people. Roberts could not have written the Key himself; he was\ntoo mired in the details and emotions of the story. Conversely, Caruana could\nwrite well but wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t overly invested in the material, which could compromise\nobjectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Caruana first typed the Skeleton Key on her\nIBM Selectric typewriter, she included her name and address on the copy she\nXeroxed and distributed. After that, however, the file was retyped, often by\npeople who would add or delete parts according to their taste or bias, and these\ncopies were reproduced thousands of times around the world with Caruana\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name\nmissing. She has said she was never averse to having her name associated with\nthe file, yet many who have read the Key don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know she wrote it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I acquired my first copy of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Skeleton Key to\nthe Gemstone File\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from my high school history teacher, Henry Denny, who now\nlives near Prescott, Arizona. Mr. Denny said he was shocked when he first read\nthe Key because it contrasted so sharply with everything he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d learned and\ntaught as a student and teacher of history. He couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite believe the Key\nwas completely true, he said, but it did compel him to look more deeply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bruce Roberts filled in a lot of gaps in many of\nthe official reports. There were too many gaps in the Warren Commission Report,\ntoo many gaps in the other accounts of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King,\nJr. and so many others,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Denny said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Skeleton Key opened those avenues of\ninquiry for me to really investigate what went on. So much information Roberts\nmentions in the Skeleton Key has turned out to be accurate.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the claims made in the Skeleton Key are\nunsettling, I have always felt the document possesses an internal consistency\nthat justifies our withholding immediate judgment and examining its details more\nclosely. Bruce Roberts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Gemstone letters, as conveyed to us by Stephanie\nCaruana, redefine the stereotypical definition of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mafia,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the kind of\ncaricature and even glorification we often see in media portrayals, and paint\nfor us a truer picture that shows how deeply the roots of organized crime\nintertwine every aspect of US politics and culture. While I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say with\ncertainty that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is completely true, I am\nconvinced that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s truthful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1975 an extraordinary document surfaced called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Distributed hand-to-hand long before the advent of computer-based social media, the 22-page typed copy I received in 1976 had been reproduced so many times that several words and letters were unclear or missing. Evidently a fervent underground effort had been underway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tQeJ-1Aa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5322,"url":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?p=5322","url_meta":{"origin":6086,"position":0},"title":"‘A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File’ Turns 40- The Sleuth Journal","author":"Shawn Hamilton","date":"November 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00c2\u00a0In\u00c2\u00a01975 an extraordinary document surfaced called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Distributed hand-to-hand long before the advent of computer-based social media, the 22-page typed copy I received in 1976 had been reproduced so many times that several words and letters were unclear or missing. Evidently a fervent underground\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gemstone File"","block_context":{"text":"Gemstone File","link":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?cat=556"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thesleuthjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/BradingXMarkedHAtband.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5251,"url":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?p=5251","url_meta":{"origin":6086,"position":1},"title":"‘A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File’ Turns 40","author":"Shawn Hamilton","date":"May 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00c2\u00a0\"A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File\" (link to original 22-page document) \"Is Howard Hughes Dead and Buried on an Island in Greece?\" Stephanie Caruana and Mae Brussell, Playgirl, December, 1974 \u00c2\u00a0Is this Eugene Brading's\u00c2\u00a0'X-marked hatband'? ('A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File' (p. 5) \u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 Bruce Roberts and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gemstone File"","block_context":{"text":"Gemstone File","link":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?cat=556"},"img":{"alt_text":"BradingXMarkedHAtband","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theswillbucket.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/BradingXMarkedHAtband.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5518,"url":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?p=5518","url_meta":{"origin":6086,"position":2},"title":"‘A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File Turns 40’ \/ The Sleuth Journal","author":"Shawn Hamilton","date":"September 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File Turns 40 The Sleuth Journal,\u00c2\u00a02015 excerpt: \u00a0 \u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6088,"url":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?p=6088","url_meta":{"origin":6086,"position":3},"title":"‘A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File’ by Stephanie Caruana","author":"Shawn Hamilton","date":"September 18, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Gemstone-Skeleton-Key2-1Download","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1259,"url":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?p=1259","url_meta":{"origin":6086,"position":4},"title":"Hoax or History? Introduction to ‘A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File’","author":"Shawn Hamilton","date":"November 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File (SK) was an underground cultural phenomenon of the early 1970s. The document, by a then-unnamed author, purported to explain the relationship between the US government, the Mafia, Howard Hughes, and Aristotle Onassis, while providing believable scenarios of who killed John F. Kennedy, Robert\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6730,"url":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?p=6730","url_meta":{"origin":6086,"position":5},"title":"Jim Garrison press conference regarding JFK assassination (1967)","author":"Shawn Hamilton","date":"December 18, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Garrison summarises and explains to the media key points of his official investigation -- as New Orleans District Attorney -- into the JFK Assassination. Much of what he reveals is not common knowledge even now. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7VF9cR6AHg4","rel":"","context":"In "Gemstone File"","block_context":{"text":"Gemstone File","link":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/?cat=556"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/7VF9cR6AHg4\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theswillbucket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}