06-08-2005, 07:27
HENRY STIMSON: MASTER BONESMAN
According to a January 1991 article by the Washington syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, when President George Bush was making his final decision to use military force to crush Saddam Hussein and decimate Iraq, he spent most of the Christmas holidays closeted at Camp David reading a newly published biography of one of his true heroes, fellow Skull & Bones initiate Henry Stimson. While most White House advisers thought that the gulf crisis would be ultimately resolved through diplomacy, unbeknownst to them, President Bush had already decided on the use of devastating military force-regardless of what measures the world community or the Iraqi leaders took to avert war. Intimate Bush advisers described the president as being in a "mesmerized" state of mind as he walked around the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains with his Stimson biography, The Colonel: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, under his arm at all times.
Indeed, for most contemporary Bonesmen, Henry Lewis Stimson, the quintessential WASP warrior, was the very personification of the Order's full ascent to power during the period of World War II.
A member of the Order's class of 1888, Stimson served seven U.S. presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft (a fellow Bonesman), Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S Truman. As the Secretary of War under FDR and Truman, Stimson oversaw the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb. Stimson personally decided on the use of that devastating weapon against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Years earlier, as the chairman of the American delegation at the London Naval Conference and as Secretary of State under President Hoover (1929-1933), Stimson had played a pivotal role in restricting the size of the Japanese Imperial Navy. He would be an architect of the FDR 's administration's economic provocations against Japan which ultimately helped induce Japan into the attack at Pearl Harbor, thus bringing the United States formally into World War II.And Stimson was also ultimately responsible for the FDR administration's decision to intern the Nisei (Japanese-Americans) after Pearl Harbor.
Yet, it was also Stimson who ordered American bombers to refrain from attacking the old Japanese imperial capital of Kyoto, a city rich in religious and historical tradition and artifacts. And, according to at least one of Stimson's biographers, it was also "the Colonel" who decided at the close of the war that the Japanese emperor should not be deposed. His sensitivity to Japanese culture and the importance of allowing Japan to retain honor even in defeat is widely to his close adviser, Joseph Grew, a longtime U.S. ambassador to Japan and an accomplished historian. Whether this report of Stimson's involvement in the decision to maintain the emperor is accurate or whether it underplays the role of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the fact remains certain that Stimson was the key policymaker overseeing the postwar occupations of both Japan and Germany.
To fully understand President George Bush's attitudes and policies toward Japan, one must first appreciate the overarching influence that Stimson had on the current occupant of the White House.
According to his British biographer Geofrey Hodgson, Sdmson's membership in Skull & Bones was "the most important educational experience in his life." Unlike most of his fellow Bonesmen, Stimson earned his membership solely on the basis of his achievements at Yale-not through family money. His parents were not wealthy, although his forefathers did come to America as early Puritan colonists. But Stimson made up for his lack of financial credentials by his fierce competitive spirit. As he himself put it, the "idea of a struggle for prizes, so to speak, has always been one of the fundamental elements of my mind, and I can hardly conceive of what my feelings would be if I ever was put in a position or situation in life where there are no prizes to struggle for."
Although Stimson did not come from classic blueblood background, he married into wealth and power. His wife, Mabel White, came from a prominent Establishment family with longstanding ties to the Order. Thus, upon graduation from law school, Stimson became a partner in the law firm of Eliahu Root, President Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of War.
Although Stimson and Roosevelt would have a falling out in later years, early on Roosevelt and Root provided "the Colonel" with the critical sponsorship and training required to succeed in the world of Establishment politics. According to Stimson's biographers, Roosevelt would frequently taunt the young Bonesman about the fact that he, unlike the president, had never been-in the military or fought in any wars. (Roosevelt had resigned as Under Secretary of the Navy to go off and fight in the Spanish-American War.) Thus, at the ripe old age of 44, Stimson joined the Army during World War I and served in the American Expeditionary Force in Europe.
Among the other lasting interests that Roosevelt would pass on to Stimson was his deep passion for the Pacific. Roosevelt was convinced that America's imperial destiny was dependent upon its domination of the Pacific Ocean and the Far East. The Spanish-American War, which marked the beginning of Ameriea's imperial phase-and the virtual abandonment of the republican principles upon which the nation had been founded-began the U.S. colonial occupation of the Philippines, which would continue through half of the next century. Ultimately, Stimson would himself serve as the American Governor General of the islands.
In 1900, Roosevelt wrote to Stimson: "Our people are neither craven nor weaklings, as we face the future high of heart and confident of soul, eager to do the great work of a great power . . . ~ wish to see the United States the dominant power on the Pacific Ocean."
According to a January 1991 article by the Washington syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, when President George Bush was making his final decision to use military force to crush Saddam Hussein and decimate Iraq, he spent most of the Christmas holidays closeted at Camp David reading a newly published biography of one of his true heroes, fellow Skull & Bones initiate Henry Stimson. While most White House advisers thought that the gulf crisis would be ultimately resolved through diplomacy, unbeknownst to them, President Bush had already decided on the use of devastating military force-regardless of what measures the world community or the Iraqi leaders took to avert war. Intimate Bush advisers described the president as being in a "mesmerized" state of mind as he walked around the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains with his Stimson biography, The Colonel: The Life and Wars of Henry Stimson, under his arm at all times.
Indeed, for most contemporary Bonesmen, Henry Lewis Stimson, the quintessential WASP warrior, was the very personification of the Order's full ascent to power during the period of World War II.
A member of the Order's class of 1888, Stimson served seven U.S. presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft (a fellow Bonesman), Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S Truman. As the Secretary of War under FDR and Truman, Stimson oversaw the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb. Stimson personally decided on the use of that devastating weapon against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Years earlier, as the chairman of the American delegation at the London Naval Conference and as Secretary of State under President Hoover (1929-1933), Stimson had played a pivotal role in restricting the size of the Japanese Imperial Navy. He would be an architect of the FDR 's administration's economic provocations against Japan which ultimately helped induce Japan into the attack at Pearl Harbor, thus bringing the United States formally into World War II.And Stimson was also ultimately responsible for the FDR administration's decision to intern the Nisei (Japanese-Americans) after Pearl Harbor.
Yet, it was also Stimson who ordered American bombers to refrain from attacking the old Japanese imperial capital of Kyoto, a city rich in religious and historical tradition and artifacts. And, according to at least one of Stimson's biographers, it was also "the Colonel" who decided at the close of the war that the Japanese emperor should not be deposed. His sensitivity to Japanese culture and the importance of allowing Japan to retain honor even in defeat is widely to his close adviser, Joseph Grew, a longtime U.S. ambassador to Japan and an accomplished historian. Whether this report of Stimson's involvement in the decision to maintain the emperor is accurate or whether it underplays the role of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the fact remains certain that Stimson was the key policymaker overseeing the postwar occupations of both Japan and Germany.
To fully understand President George Bush's attitudes and policies toward Japan, one must first appreciate the overarching influence that Stimson had on the current occupant of the White House.
According to his British biographer Geofrey Hodgson, Sdmson's membership in Skull & Bones was "the most important educational experience in his life." Unlike most of his fellow Bonesmen, Stimson earned his membership solely on the basis of his achievements at Yale-not through family money. His parents were not wealthy, although his forefathers did come to America as early Puritan colonists. But Stimson made up for his lack of financial credentials by his fierce competitive spirit. As he himself put it, the "idea of a struggle for prizes, so to speak, has always been one of the fundamental elements of my mind, and I can hardly conceive of what my feelings would be if I ever was put in a position or situation in life where there are no prizes to struggle for."
Although Stimson did not come from classic blueblood background, he married into wealth and power. His wife, Mabel White, came from a prominent Establishment family with longstanding ties to the Order. Thus, upon graduation from law school, Stimson became a partner in the law firm of Eliahu Root, President Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of War.
Although Stimson and Roosevelt would have a falling out in later years, early on Roosevelt and Root provided "the Colonel" with the critical sponsorship and training required to succeed in the world of Establishment politics. According to Stimson's biographers, Roosevelt would frequently taunt the young Bonesman about the fact that he, unlike the president, had never been-in the military or fought in any wars. (Roosevelt had resigned as Under Secretary of the Navy to go off and fight in the Spanish-American War.) Thus, at the ripe old age of 44, Stimson joined the Army during World War I and served in the American Expeditionary Force in Europe.
Among the other lasting interests that Roosevelt would pass on to Stimson was his deep passion for the Pacific. Roosevelt was convinced that America's imperial destiny was dependent upon its domination of the Pacific Ocean and the Far East. The Spanish-American War, which marked the beginning of Ameriea's imperial phase-and the virtual abandonment of the republican principles upon which the nation had been founded-began the U.S. colonial occupation of the Philippines, which would continue through half of the next century. Ultimately, Stimson would himself serve as the American Governor General of the islands.
In 1900, Roosevelt wrote to Stimson: "Our people are neither craven nor weaklings, as we face the future high of heart and confident of soul, eager to do the great work of a great power . . . ~ wish to see the United States the dominant power on the Pacific Ocean."
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'...