08-09-2005, 15:57
Some Prominent Members of Skull & Bones
William F. Buckley, Jr. (Bones Class of 1950) Founder of National Review, the leading conservative magazine in the United States. Brother James (Skull & Bones l944) is now a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals.
William F. Buckley, Jr., former CIA officer in Mexico, also built the political grassroots conservative movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. President Bush and Buckley have recently split over Buckley's strong pro-lsraelism.
McGeorge Bundy (Skull & Bones initiate of 1940) Scion of the Skull & Bones Bundy family. Father Harvey H. Bundy was Skull & Bones, as was brother William P. Bundy. McGeorge served in the War Department during World War II as Henry Stimson's assistant and later became the Nalional Security Adviser to President Kennedy. William Bundy became a CIA official and later served in key positions at the Departments of State and Defense. McGeorge headed the Ford Foundation (1968-1980) and William chaired the Council on Foreign Relations (1972-1983).
George Bush (initiated in 1948) President of the United States. Comes from a complete Bones family. Father Prescott, a Bones initiate of the class of 1917. Uncle George Herbert Walker, Bones Class of 1927. U S Federal District Court Judge John Walker is also a relative and a Bonesman.
Alfred Cowles (Class of 1913): Built the Cowles Communication empire based on the Des Moines (lowa) Register and the Minneapolis (Minnesota) Star and Tribune. These two newspapers play a significant role in shaping the early presidential primaries, especially in Iowa.
Hugh Cunningham (Bones 1934); CIA man from 1947 to 1973. He served in top positions in the Clandestine Services, the Board of National Estimates and later as Director of Training.
Thomas Daniels (initiated in 1914) founder of the largest agro-business and grain cartel company in Minnesota-Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) Served in the Foreign Service and later during World War II as head of the Fats and Oils Section of the War Produclion Board. ADM Corporation's new head Dwayne Andreas is one of the most powerful figures in U.S.-Soviet trade relations. Daniels's only son, John (Bones 1943), also works in ADM. The bank which underwrites ADM stock issues is the Morgan Stanley investment bank
Richard Ely Danielson (Skull & Bones 1907) Past publisher of the Atlanric Monthly magazine, one of the leading magazines for seeing which policy line on a variety of issues is coming out of the Eastern Establishment.
Russell Wheeler Davenport (initiated in 1923); Fortune magazine writer and editor, made this magazine the leading authority on financial matters in the United States. Davenport created the Fortune 500 companies list.
Henry P. Davison (Bones Class of l920): Key senior partner in the Morgan banking and financial trust networks. His fellow Bonesman Harold Stanley (1908) founded the investment bank Morgan Stanley. Davison and his family helped set up the Guaranty Trust Corporation which became Morgan Guaranty Thomas Cochran (1904 Bonesman) was one of the most powerful partners in the Morgan bank. The influence of the Mgrgan banking system can be seen in its relationship with the hierarchy of U.S. intelligence. The head of the Office of Strategic Services, Gen. William Donovan, worked as a Morgan intelligence operative in thc 1920s and prepared the intelligence reports for the Morgan banking concerns on developments in Europe. F. Trubee Davison became CIA Director of Personnel in 1951 and placed key Bonesmen in the right positions inside the CIA.
Averell Harriman (1913 initiate). Scion of the Harriman railroad family. His brother Roland (Skull & Bones 1917) ran the investment bank Brown Brothers Harriman. Averell was one of the most powerful members of the Skull & Bones fralernity, His government posts ranged from Ambassador to Russia during World War II and various State Department positions to chief negotiator on the Vietnam Talks. Confidential adviser to Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and later Nixon and Carter. His investment banking firm is virtually a Skull & Bones bank-nine senior partners are from Skull & Bones. President Bush's father worked in Brown Brothers Harriman after helping to merge several companies in the Unitd Rubber Corporation of America.
Winston Lord (Bones Class of 1959): Chairmah of the Council on Foreign Relations (1983-l988). Former State Department official and CIA officer in Asia. China expert. Six members of the Lord family were Skull & Bones, including Charles Edwin Lord, former Comptroller of the Currency, Department of the Treasury. Oswald Bates Lord (Skull & Bones l926) married Mary Pillsbury of the Minnesota based Pillsbury Flour Corporation. Winston Lord is their son.
Robert A. Lovett (1918 initiate): Put together the Brown Brothers Harriman merger and later organized the aviation industry mobilization for World War II. Became part of the most exclusive power group in World War II under Henry Stimson. Lovett was one of the five or six most powerful men in the United States for nearly 40 years until his death in 1986.
Henry Luce (initiated in 1920): Built the Time-Life publishing empire. Became the leading publicist of the "American century" doctrine
Dino Pionzio (Bones Class of 1950): CIA deputy chief of station in Chile during the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende. Now works at the investment firm Dillion Read.
Alphonso Taft (initiated in 1833): Secretary of War (1876), Attorney General (1876-1877) and later Minister to Austria and Russia. Co-founder of Skull & Bones.
Robert A. Taft (1910 initiate); Speaker of the House of Representatives (1921-1926) and Senator (R-Ohio). Leader of the Isolationist movement in the 1930s. His son Robert A. Taft, Jr., also senator from Ohio, led the right-wing of the Republican Party in the 1950s and 1960s. Robert A. Taft, Jr., however, was the only member of the Taft family who was not Skull & Bones.
William H. Taft (Skull & Bones 1878): President of the United Statcs (1908-1912) and appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1921-1930). Secretary of War (1904-1908). Trustee, Carnegie Institution. Part of the long line of Tafts who served in the U.S. government.
William Collins Whitney (initiated 1863): Secretary of the Navy (1885-1889). Promoter of the Naval Shipyards and financier. Part of the Whitney family which sent eight of its members to Yale to become Skull & Bonesmen. Family intermarried with the Payne, Harriman and Vanderbilt clans. The Whitneys became some of Wall Street's most powerful financiers through the Guaranty and Knickerbocker Trust Companies.
Current U.S. senators who are Skull & Bones members;
Sen. Jonathan Bingham (D-N.M.).
Sen. David Boren (D-Okla.) is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.); Former Navy Secretary and on the Senate Intelligenee Committee.
Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.): Recently killed in an airplane crash. was a Bonesman as was his father. The Heinz farnily has one of the largest food-producing companies in the world.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.): Formerly on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kerry is now on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Selected Quotations
* During the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, two Skull & Bones advisers to President Kennedy, McGeorge Bundy and Robert Lovett, met in the west wing of the White House to discuss strategy. According to author Godfrey Hodgson, there was a photograph of master Bonesman Henry L. Stimson, their mentor, on Lundy's desk. "All during the conversation the old Colonel seemed to be staring me straight in the face," recalled Lovett. Finally, he said to Bundy, "Mac, I think the best service we can perform for the president is to try to approach this as Colonel Stimson would."
* At the Potsdam summit in 1946 when President Truman first met Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, Stimson told the president: "The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him."
* Commenting on the plan of Robert Morgenthau, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Treasury Secretary, to deindustrialize Germany after World War II, Stimson wrote: ". . . just such a crime as the Germans themselves hoped to perpetrate on their victims . . . a crime against civilization itself?" He added rather ironically that the plan was like "a beautiful Nazi program! This is to laugh!"
* "They possessed a common background, common experience, and a common liking for old wines, proper English and Savile Row clothing," wrote the biographer of former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew. A top level diplomat and State Department powerhouse during the first half of the 20th century, Bonesman Hugh Wilson adds, "The Foreign Service [is] a pretty good club."
* "These men helped establish a distinguished network connecting Wall Street, Washington, worthy foundations and proper clubs," wrote historian and former JFK aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. "The New York financial and legal community was the heart of the American Establishment. Its household deities were Henry L. Stimson and Elihu Root; its present leaders, Robert A. Lovett and John J. McCloy; its front organizations, the Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie foundations and the Council on Foreign Relations."
* Brtiish author Godfrey Hodgson stated in an essay on the American Establishment that it was "characteristic of these men to take on the burdens of world power with a certain avidity . . . It reflected a grim but grand duty that was a legacy from half-buried layer of New England Puritanism."
* Averell Harriman's father, owner of the largest railroad company in the United States at the turn of the century, told his son: "Great wealth is an obligation and responsibility. Money must work for the country."
* "I scoffed at Harvard's Porcellian club. It was too smug. But to get into Bones, you had to do something for Yale, wrote Averell Harriman. He would frequently retum to the "Tomb on High Street." During the Paris Peace Conference on the Vietnam War, Harriman was quite upset about not being able to attend a "Bones Reunion." In the book The Wise Men, Harriman is described as willing to talk openly about national security affairs, but "he refused, however, to tell [even] his family anything about Bones . . . so complete was his trust in Bones's code of secrecy . . ."
* Stimson during the liberation of France in 1944 wrote about the need for France's reconstruction following the Nazi occupation of France: "America cannot supervise the elections of a great country like France. Consequently, we must eventually leave the execution of the State Department formula to the French themselves . . . where we ourselves will assume responsibility in part or more for its execution according to Anglo-Saxon ideals."
* Stimson on Austria and Germany following World War II: "They [the British] haven't any grasp apparently of the underlying need of proper economic arrangements to make peace stick . . . If they restore Austria to her position in which she was left by the Versailles arrangement 25 years ago, why they would reduce her to a non-self-sustaining state [is beyond me] . . . Central Europe after the war has got to eat. She has got to be free of tariffs in order to eat."
* Stimson was "opposed to a Carthaginian Peace" in which Germany was reduced to a non functioning society. He wrote, "The Ruhr and Saarland . . . [must not] be turned into a second rate industrial land . . . regardless of what it means to Germany . . . [rather] to the welfare of the entire continent "
* In 1948, the debate within the U.S. government over the creation of the state of Israel was reaching critical intensity. President Truman was the "dark horse" candidate to defeat the Republican nominee, Thomas Dewey. Truman thought he needed the Jewish goups to mobilize in his support in order to get elected. He also believed that after so many years of suffering and persecution, the Jews deserved a homeland of their own. However, his most trusted foreign policy advisers, George Marshall, Dean Acheson and Robert Lovett, were, according to the book The Wise Men, "all dead set against the birth of Israel . . . However humanitarian a Jewish homeland might seem . . . it posed a real risk to U.N. national security. It was absolutely vital that the U.S. maintain its pipeline to Mideast oil. Supporting tne Zionist cause would only antagonize the Arabs." Lovett said, "Israel was one ally too many "
* On Japan, Stimson and McGeorge Bundy wrote their book On Active Service in Peace and War: "Since 1937, when the Japanese attacked China, Stimson had been urging, as a private citizen, an embargo on all American trade with Japan, and this attitude he carried with him into the Cabinet [when he became Secretary of War]." Stimson prepared a memorandum in 1940 pointing out how Japan had yielded before American firmness, in her withdrawal from Shantung and Siberia in 1919 and her acceptance of naval inferiority in 1921. "Japan," Stimson wrote, "has historically shown that she can misinterpret a pacifistic policy of the United States for weakness. She has also historically shown that when the United States indicates by clear language and bold actions that she intends to carry out a clear and afflrmative policy in the Far East, Japan will yield to that policy even though it conflicts with her own Asiatic policy and conceived interests. For the United States now to indicate either by soft words or inconsistent actions that she has no such clear and definite policy towards the Far East will only encourage Japan to bolder action."
* On December 7, 1941, Stimson wrote in his diary: "When the news first came that Japan had attacked us, my first feeling was of relief that the indecision was over and that crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people. This continued to be my dominant feeling in spite of the news of catastrophes which quickly developed. For I feel that this country united has practically nothing to fear, while the apathy and division stirred by unpatriotic men have been hitherto very discouraging."
* On the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Stimson wrote in an article for Harper's Weekly in 1947: "My chief purpose was to end the war in victory with the least possible cost in the lives of men in the armies which I had helped to raise. In the light that no man, in our position and subject to our responsibilities, holding in his hands a weapon of such possibilides for accomplishing this purpose and saving those lives, could have failed to use it and afterwards looked his countrymen in the face."
* At the Truman White House in the presence of Secretary of State James Byrnes, Adm Leahy and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, according to his biographer: "Stimson had argued consistently for a commitment to allow the Japanese to keep their Emperor, not because- with the memory of Manchuria in his mind-he had any special sympathy for him, but because only the Emperor could persuade the Japanese to surrender and therefore save American lives."
William F. Buckley, Jr. (Bones Class of 1950) Founder of National Review, the leading conservative magazine in the United States. Brother James (Skull & Bones l944) is now a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals.
William F. Buckley, Jr., former CIA officer in Mexico, also built the political grassroots conservative movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. President Bush and Buckley have recently split over Buckley's strong pro-lsraelism.
McGeorge Bundy (Skull & Bones initiate of 1940) Scion of the Skull & Bones Bundy family. Father Harvey H. Bundy was Skull & Bones, as was brother William P. Bundy. McGeorge served in the War Department during World War II as Henry Stimson's assistant and later became the Nalional Security Adviser to President Kennedy. William Bundy became a CIA official and later served in key positions at the Departments of State and Defense. McGeorge headed the Ford Foundation (1968-1980) and William chaired the Council on Foreign Relations (1972-1983).
George Bush (initiated in 1948) President of the United States. Comes from a complete Bones family. Father Prescott, a Bones initiate of the class of 1917. Uncle George Herbert Walker, Bones Class of 1927. U S Federal District Court Judge John Walker is also a relative and a Bonesman.
Alfred Cowles (Class of 1913): Built the Cowles Communication empire based on the Des Moines (lowa) Register and the Minneapolis (Minnesota) Star and Tribune. These two newspapers play a significant role in shaping the early presidential primaries, especially in Iowa.
Hugh Cunningham (Bones 1934); CIA man from 1947 to 1973. He served in top positions in the Clandestine Services, the Board of National Estimates and later as Director of Training.
Thomas Daniels (initiated in 1914) founder of the largest agro-business and grain cartel company in Minnesota-Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) Served in the Foreign Service and later during World War II as head of the Fats and Oils Section of the War Produclion Board. ADM Corporation's new head Dwayne Andreas is one of the most powerful figures in U.S.-Soviet trade relations. Daniels's only son, John (Bones 1943), also works in ADM. The bank which underwrites ADM stock issues is the Morgan Stanley investment bank
Richard Ely Danielson (Skull & Bones 1907) Past publisher of the Atlanric Monthly magazine, one of the leading magazines for seeing which policy line on a variety of issues is coming out of the Eastern Establishment.
Russell Wheeler Davenport (initiated in 1923); Fortune magazine writer and editor, made this magazine the leading authority on financial matters in the United States. Davenport created the Fortune 500 companies list.
Henry P. Davison (Bones Class of l920): Key senior partner in the Morgan banking and financial trust networks. His fellow Bonesman Harold Stanley (1908) founded the investment bank Morgan Stanley. Davison and his family helped set up the Guaranty Trust Corporation which became Morgan Guaranty Thomas Cochran (1904 Bonesman) was one of the most powerful partners in the Morgan bank. The influence of the Mgrgan banking system can be seen in its relationship with the hierarchy of U.S. intelligence. The head of the Office of Strategic Services, Gen. William Donovan, worked as a Morgan intelligence operative in thc 1920s and prepared the intelligence reports for the Morgan banking concerns on developments in Europe. F. Trubee Davison became CIA Director of Personnel in 1951 and placed key Bonesmen in the right positions inside the CIA.
Averell Harriman (1913 initiate). Scion of the Harriman railroad family. His brother Roland (Skull & Bones 1917) ran the investment bank Brown Brothers Harriman. Averell was one of the most powerful members of the Skull & Bones fralernity, His government posts ranged from Ambassador to Russia during World War II and various State Department positions to chief negotiator on the Vietnam Talks. Confidential adviser to Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and later Nixon and Carter. His investment banking firm is virtually a Skull & Bones bank-nine senior partners are from Skull & Bones. President Bush's father worked in Brown Brothers Harriman after helping to merge several companies in the Unitd Rubber Corporation of America.
Winston Lord (Bones Class of 1959): Chairmah of the Council on Foreign Relations (1983-l988). Former State Department official and CIA officer in Asia. China expert. Six members of the Lord family were Skull & Bones, including Charles Edwin Lord, former Comptroller of the Currency, Department of the Treasury. Oswald Bates Lord (Skull & Bones l926) married Mary Pillsbury of the Minnesota based Pillsbury Flour Corporation. Winston Lord is their son.
Robert A. Lovett (1918 initiate): Put together the Brown Brothers Harriman merger and later organized the aviation industry mobilization for World War II. Became part of the most exclusive power group in World War II under Henry Stimson. Lovett was one of the five or six most powerful men in the United States for nearly 40 years until his death in 1986.
Henry Luce (initiated in 1920): Built the Time-Life publishing empire. Became the leading publicist of the "American century" doctrine
Dino Pionzio (Bones Class of 1950): CIA deputy chief of station in Chile during the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende. Now works at the investment firm Dillion Read.
Alphonso Taft (initiated in 1833): Secretary of War (1876), Attorney General (1876-1877) and later Minister to Austria and Russia. Co-founder of Skull & Bones.
Robert A. Taft (1910 initiate); Speaker of the House of Representatives (1921-1926) and Senator (R-Ohio). Leader of the Isolationist movement in the 1930s. His son Robert A. Taft, Jr., also senator from Ohio, led the right-wing of the Republican Party in the 1950s and 1960s. Robert A. Taft, Jr., however, was the only member of the Taft family who was not Skull & Bones.
William H. Taft (Skull & Bones 1878): President of the United Statcs (1908-1912) and appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1921-1930). Secretary of War (1904-1908). Trustee, Carnegie Institution. Part of the long line of Tafts who served in the U.S. government.
William Collins Whitney (initiated 1863): Secretary of the Navy (1885-1889). Promoter of the Naval Shipyards and financier. Part of the Whitney family which sent eight of its members to Yale to become Skull & Bonesmen. Family intermarried with the Payne, Harriman and Vanderbilt clans. The Whitneys became some of Wall Street's most powerful financiers through the Guaranty and Knickerbocker Trust Companies.
Current U.S. senators who are Skull & Bones members;
Sen. Jonathan Bingham (D-N.M.).
Sen. David Boren (D-Okla.) is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.); Former Navy Secretary and on the Senate Intelligenee Committee.
Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.): Recently killed in an airplane crash. was a Bonesman as was his father. The Heinz farnily has one of the largest food-producing companies in the world.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.): Formerly on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kerry is now on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Selected Quotations
* During the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, two Skull & Bones advisers to President Kennedy, McGeorge Bundy and Robert Lovett, met in the west wing of the White House to discuss strategy. According to author Godfrey Hodgson, there was a photograph of master Bonesman Henry L. Stimson, their mentor, on Lundy's desk. "All during the conversation the old Colonel seemed to be staring me straight in the face," recalled Lovett. Finally, he said to Bundy, "Mac, I think the best service we can perform for the president is to try to approach this as Colonel Stimson would."
* At the Potsdam summit in 1946 when President Truman first met Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, Stimson told the president: "The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him."
* Commenting on the plan of Robert Morgenthau, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Treasury Secretary, to deindustrialize Germany after World War II, Stimson wrote: ". . . just such a crime as the Germans themselves hoped to perpetrate on their victims . . . a crime against civilization itself?" He added rather ironically that the plan was like "a beautiful Nazi program! This is to laugh!"
* "They possessed a common background, common experience, and a common liking for old wines, proper English and Savile Row clothing," wrote the biographer of former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew. A top level diplomat and State Department powerhouse during the first half of the 20th century, Bonesman Hugh Wilson adds, "The Foreign Service [is] a pretty good club."
* "These men helped establish a distinguished network connecting Wall Street, Washington, worthy foundations and proper clubs," wrote historian and former JFK aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. "The New York financial and legal community was the heart of the American Establishment. Its household deities were Henry L. Stimson and Elihu Root; its present leaders, Robert A. Lovett and John J. McCloy; its front organizations, the Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie foundations and the Council on Foreign Relations."
* Brtiish author Godfrey Hodgson stated in an essay on the American Establishment that it was "characteristic of these men to take on the burdens of world power with a certain avidity . . . It reflected a grim but grand duty that was a legacy from half-buried layer of New England Puritanism."
* Averell Harriman's father, owner of the largest railroad company in the United States at the turn of the century, told his son: "Great wealth is an obligation and responsibility. Money must work for the country."
* "I scoffed at Harvard's Porcellian club. It was too smug. But to get into Bones, you had to do something for Yale, wrote Averell Harriman. He would frequently retum to the "Tomb on High Street." During the Paris Peace Conference on the Vietnam War, Harriman was quite upset about not being able to attend a "Bones Reunion." In the book The Wise Men, Harriman is described as willing to talk openly about national security affairs, but "he refused, however, to tell [even] his family anything about Bones . . . so complete was his trust in Bones's code of secrecy . . ."
* Stimson during the liberation of France in 1944 wrote about the need for France's reconstruction following the Nazi occupation of France: "America cannot supervise the elections of a great country like France. Consequently, we must eventually leave the execution of the State Department formula to the French themselves . . . where we ourselves will assume responsibility in part or more for its execution according to Anglo-Saxon ideals."
* Stimson on Austria and Germany following World War II: "They [the British] haven't any grasp apparently of the underlying need of proper economic arrangements to make peace stick . . . If they restore Austria to her position in which she was left by the Versailles arrangement 25 years ago, why they would reduce her to a non-self-sustaining state [is beyond me] . . . Central Europe after the war has got to eat. She has got to be free of tariffs in order to eat."
* Stimson was "opposed to a Carthaginian Peace" in which Germany was reduced to a non functioning society. He wrote, "The Ruhr and Saarland . . . [must not] be turned into a second rate industrial land . . . regardless of what it means to Germany . . . [rather] to the welfare of the entire continent "
* In 1948, the debate within the U.S. government over the creation of the state of Israel was reaching critical intensity. President Truman was the "dark horse" candidate to defeat the Republican nominee, Thomas Dewey. Truman thought he needed the Jewish goups to mobilize in his support in order to get elected. He also believed that after so many years of suffering and persecution, the Jews deserved a homeland of their own. However, his most trusted foreign policy advisers, George Marshall, Dean Acheson and Robert Lovett, were, according to the book The Wise Men, "all dead set against the birth of Israel . . . However humanitarian a Jewish homeland might seem . . . it posed a real risk to U.N. national security. It was absolutely vital that the U.S. maintain its pipeline to Mideast oil. Supporting tne Zionist cause would only antagonize the Arabs." Lovett said, "Israel was one ally too many "
* On Japan, Stimson and McGeorge Bundy wrote their book On Active Service in Peace and War: "Since 1937, when the Japanese attacked China, Stimson had been urging, as a private citizen, an embargo on all American trade with Japan, and this attitude he carried with him into the Cabinet [when he became Secretary of War]." Stimson prepared a memorandum in 1940 pointing out how Japan had yielded before American firmness, in her withdrawal from Shantung and Siberia in 1919 and her acceptance of naval inferiority in 1921. "Japan," Stimson wrote, "has historically shown that she can misinterpret a pacifistic policy of the United States for weakness. She has also historically shown that when the United States indicates by clear language and bold actions that she intends to carry out a clear and afflrmative policy in the Far East, Japan will yield to that policy even though it conflicts with her own Asiatic policy and conceived interests. For the United States now to indicate either by soft words or inconsistent actions that she has no such clear and definite policy towards the Far East will only encourage Japan to bolder action."
* On December 7, 1941, Stimson wrote in his diary: "When the news first came that Japan had attacked us, my first feeling was of relief that the indecision was over and that crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people. This continued to be my dominant feeling in spite of the news of catastrophes which quickly developed. For I feel that this country united has practically nothing to fear, while the apathy and division stirred by unpatriotic men have been hitherto very discouraging."
* On the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Stimson wrote in an article for Harper's Weekly in 1947: "My chief purpose was to end the war in victory with the least possible cost in the lives of men in the armies which I had helped to raise. In the light that no man, in our position and subject to our responsibilities, holding in his hands a weapon of such possibilides for accomplishing this purpose and saving those lives, could have failed to use it and afterwards looked his countrymen in the face."
* At the Truman White House in the presence of Secretary of State James Byrnes, Adm Leahy and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, according to his biographer: "Stimson had argued consistently for a commitment to allow the Japanese to keep their Emperor, not because- with the memory of Manchuria in his mind-he had any special sympathy for him, but because only the Emperor could persuade the Japanese to surrender and therefore save American lives."
There's no stoppin' what can't be stopped, no killin' what can't be killed. You can't see the eyes of the demon, until him come callin'...