She met her contact in a coffee shop. Throughout the meeting,
he shot nervous glances at the other patrons. Was anyone eavesdropping?
Her source finally pulled a file from his briefcase. “If anyone
asks, you didn’t get this from me,” he warned as he handed her
the folder. “Don’t let anyone know you have this. Not even your
best friend. Don’t mention it on the phone. The NSA listens
to all telephone calls. They zero in on certain keywords. And
you can be pretty damn sure that one of those keywords is Gemstone.”
The year was 1990. The woman - a friend of mine - skimmed the
folder’s contents, while her contact slurped up black coffee
and trembled like a wet whippet. The file contained 24 typewritten
pages. The first one grabbed her attention:
A SKELETON KEY TO THE GEMSTONE FILES
May 1, 1975
The Gemstone File was written in many segments over a period
of years by an American man named Bruce Roberts. Parts of the
file were released to certain Americans beginning in 1969. The
number of handwritten pages is well over a thousand, of which
I have read about four hundred. I do not have the time or the
research facilities to verify the entire story. Perhaps others
can help.
Since the scope of the work is so large, and the events described
so complex and interlocking, it may be more easily understood
with this skeleton outline of the gemstone thesis. Individual
papers can then be read with greater comprehension.
1932: Onassis, a Greek drug pusher and ship owner who made
his first million selling “Turkish tobacco” (Opium) in Argentina,
worked out a profitable deal with Joseph Kennedy, Eugene Meyer,
and Meyer Lansky. Onassis was to ship booze directly into Boston
for Joseph Kennedy. Also involved was a heroin deal with Franklin
and Elliott Roosevelt.
1934: Onassis, Rockefeller and the Seven Sisters (major oil
companies) signed an agreement, outlined an oil cartel memo:
Beat the Arabs out of their oil, ship it on Onassis’s ships;
Rockefeller and the Seven Sisters to get rich. All this was
done.
Roberts, studying journalism and physics at the University
of Wisconsin learned these things via personal contacts. His
special interest was in crystallography - and the creation of
synthetic rubies, the original Gemstone experiment.
1936-1940: Eugene Meyer buys the Washington Post, to get our
news Media; other Mafia buy other papers, broadcasting, T.V.,
etc. News censorship of all major news goes into effect.
1941-1945: World War II; very profitable for Onassis, Rockefeller,
Kennedys, Roosevelts, I.G. Farben, etc. Onassis selling oil,
arms and dope to both sides went through the war without losing
a single ship or man...
So the text continued, offering a succinct chronology of the
covert schemes that have shaped the world. And Bruce Roberts
apparently was thick with these thieves. He was a man who had
seen and heard much - and then told, to his peril.
“They killed him back in 1976,” the contact told my friend.
“They injected him with cancer, because he knew too much. See,
he was this big expert on jewels and stuff. That’s how the file
got its name. And he invented this synthetic ruby. They use
it for high-powered lasers. The Hughes company stole his idea,
and Roberts got really pissed off. That’s when he started talking
to all these spooks he knew. That’s when he found out what was
really going on. He put together tons of evidence.”
“Where are all those documents?” my friend asked.
“Nobody knows,” the informant answered. “What you see here
is just a summary. I heard some reporter has the real thing
in storage. If that shit ever gets loose, this whole country’s
going to explode.”
My friend glanced ahead to the Skeleton Key’s final paragraphs:
IF YOU FOUND THIS OUTLINE INTERESTING:
You won’t be reading it in the papers for quite some time.
At present the only way to spread this information here in America
is hand to hand.
Your help is needed. Please make 1, 5, 10, 100 copies or whatever
you can, and give them to friends or politicians, groups, media.
This game is nearly up. Either the Mafia goes or AMERICA goes.
My friend didn’t realize it at the time, but she had just received
the most infamous samizdat document ever composed in English.
Within two years of its original photocopied distribution, “The
Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File” became a fixture of American
fringe culture. Many acquired the work on a hand-to-hand basis,
as my friend had. Versions of it appeared in a number of magazines,
including Larry Flynt’s Hustler - indeed, some suspect that
partial publication of the Skeleton Key prompted the assassination
attempt on Flynt. A comic-strip adaptation appeared. Those 24
photocopied pages became a perennial seller in bookstores servicing
the political underground around the world - especially in certain
Arab countries. Variant texts appeared, with additions by other
writers. An anonymous New Zealand writer produced a lengthy
continuation called “The Kiwi Gemstone,” sometimes known as
“The Opal File.” The legend of the Gemstone File has spawned
at least one popular spy novel and five non-fiction books, the
most reverential of which - Gerald Carroll’s Project Seek -
was written by a respected journalism professor.
Carroll did indeed seek, but he did not find. He has never
read the original documents. Neither have the writers of the
other “Gemstone” books.
I have.
Secrecy and shivers
What has attracted thousands of people to the “Skeleton Key
to the Gemstone File”?
Religious intolerance certainly plays a part. The work’s sub
rosa anti-Semitism has undoubtedly contributed to its popularity
in the Middle East, while its overt anti-Catholicism appeals
to Protestant fundamentalists and resentful former altar boys.
In an odd digression, the Skeleton Key states that the Catholic
Church covered up Jesus Christ’s true ethnicity: Arab. During
the Council of Nicea, we are told, a bishop “was assigned to
round up all the old copies of the Bible and destroy them in
favor of the ‘revised’ de-Arabized version.” Beyond that: “Later
during the holy crusades the Bible was again rewritten to include
Jesus’ warning against the ‘yellow race’” - whatever that may
mean. The work also avers, apparently with intent to disparage,
that Paul VI (who was Pope in 1975) had a Jewish mother.
Most readers, however, came to the document not for its vague
bigotries, but for its professed solution to such mysteries
as JFK’s assassination, the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick,
the missing files of J. Edgar Hoover, and the disappearance
of Howard Hughes. In the words of British political writer Robin
Ramsey: “The conspiratorial nature of its distribution, and
the warning printed in the front of it, give it an aura of being
‘the real shit.’”
Many have found the work compelling for its brevity, organization,
and scope. Most importantly: The text never argues - it states.
Like the Bible, it speaks with the voice of Authority. Jonathan
Vankin, author of an overview of conspiracy theories, once admitted
that “...the prose style of the Skeleton Key, though not a model
for my own, was an inspiration. Terse, Tense. Driven by certitude.
I needed to give my readers shivers of sudden access to horrifying
secrets...”
Bruce Roberts - whoever the hell he may have been - certainly
gave good shiver.
A summary of a summary
What is the view of history presented in “The Skeleton Key
to the Gemstone File”?
In brief: A covert cabal, which Bruce Roberts usually calls
“The Mafia” (apparently a far more powerful organization than
Martin Scorcese ever visualized), runs the entire world, controlling
the American defense department, the intelligence agencies,
and the Vatican. Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis ran
the Mafia, much as Blofeld ran SPECTRE in the James Bond books.
The Kennedy family had joined this evil consortium, taking orders
directly from its Grecian master.
‘Ari,’ however, faced competition: Aviator/industrialist Howard
Hughes, having paid off Vice President Nixon in the 1950s, had
carved out a rival empire. Onassis kidnapped Hughes in 1957,
with the help of Hughes’ own aides; the scuffle left Hughes
“battered and brain-damaged.” He spent the rest of his days
on Skorpios, Onassis’ private island. A double assumed the place
of “Hughes,” who became a recluse. The handwriting of the real
Hughes (who eventually died a heroin addict) was “duplicated
by a computer.”
By 1960, Onassis controlled both the Republican and Democratic
candidates for president. Following the death of his father,
John Kennedy began to act contrary to “Mafia” instructions.
His administration even dared to sanction a raid on an anti-Castro
hit team assembling in Louisiana - a team owing ultimate allegiance
to Onassis. Infuriated by this betrayal, the Hellenic overlord
targeted the very president he had placed in office.
Others had to die first. Senator Estes Kefauver, who threatened
to expose the whole mess, had an alleged “heart attack” on the
Senate floor, after eating apple pie laced with Sodium Morphate.
(According to Roberts, this is a common commercial rat poison
which Mafiosi have employed for centuries to induce fake cardiac
arrests.) A “suicide” was also arranged for Washington Post
editor Phil Graham, who favored JFK’s side of the power struggle.
Onassis killed the president, using mob boss Johnny Roselli
as his primary triggerman. In a scenario straight out of Robert
E. Howard, the slayer took his adversary’s woman into his own
harem. Teddy Kennedy, having learned his lesson, swore eternal
obedience to the Greek tycoon.
Teddy deliberately and personally murdered Mary Jo Kopechne
on Chappaquiddick island to prevent her from revealing what
she had uncovered about the family’s Mafia ties. Onassis covered
up the homicide. The truth about Chappaquiddick somehow made
its way to Eugenie Niarchos, wife of Stavros Niarchos, brother-in-law
to Onassis and generally considered his great rival in the shipping
business. Stavros, fearful of Onassis’ power, personally killed
Eugenie before she could tell what she knew.
Robert Kennedy had tried to tell the truth about his brother’s
1963 assassination in a book called “The Enemy Within,” which
Roberts claims was never published. (In fact, it was - in 1960!
It deals with the Teamsters union.) When RFK ran for president
in 1968, Onassis used a new tactic - a hypno-programmed assassin
- to silence yet another former underling grown independent.
Onassis engineered the Vietnam war to secure his oil and heroin
interests, then released the fraudulent “Pentagon Papers” to
divert attention from the assassination conspiracies. The Chinese
government eventually learned the truth about these murders
by reading the works of Bruce Roberts, and used the information
to blackmail its way into the United Nations. J. Edgar Hoover
threatened to expose the JFK and Hughes scandals, having learned
the truth from Roberts’ papers; the FBI boss soon fell to Sodium
Morphate, and most of his files were burned.
Nearing re-election, President Nixon (having received Bruce
Roberts’ paper on the Hughes kidnapping) became concerned about
Democratic chairman Larry O’Brien and his possible knowledge
of the aforementioned matters. He thus hired a band of Mafia/CIA
operatives and formed the “Plumbers” unit, tasked to plug information
leaks, conduct break-ins, and covertly attack opponents. In
February, 1972, the Plumbers team spied on Roberts in a San
Francisco bar, where he spoke at length about the things he
knew - including his knowledge of synthetic gemstones. Gordon
Liddy, impressed, bestowed the code-name “Gemstone” on his ambitious
project to ensure Nixon’s re-election. The bar’s owner tape-recorded
the entire dialogue, and sent the evidence to his secret paymaster,
Washington Post editor Katherine Graham.
The Plumbers then famously broke into Democratic headquarters
at the Watergate hotel, not knowing that San Francisco private
detective Hal Lipset, who also worked for Katherine Graham,
had learned their plans. Lipset, in disguise, provided the “second
piece of tape” which resulted in the capture of the Watergate
burglars. Video cameras captured the entire event.
When the scandal broke, Nixon voiced his displeasure with “asshole
Roberts.” His comments were excised from the White House tapes
- thus explaining the famous 18 ½ minute gap. Detective
Lipset also overheard Roberts pass information to the Russian
consulate in San Francisco. This information led directly to
Nixon’s resignation; had he not stepped down, the impeachment
trial would have uncovered the truth about “Hughes” and Onassis.
Meanwhile: The Symbionese Liberation Army, a phony “Marxist”
cell, kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst in order to discredit the
left. In a similar vein, the Mafia instigated the notorious
“Zebra” murder spree both to take out a specific individual
and to smear the Nation of Islam. (NOI zealots took the rap
for the crimes.) In March, 1975, Aristotle Onassis died. Killings
continued as various factions of the Mafia jockeyed for the
top spot.
Bruce Roberts, Stephanie Caruana and Mae Brussell
The preceding precis-of-a-precis leaves much out, but gives
the basics of the “Gemstone” worldview. The two obvious questions:
Where did the text come from, and how much of it is true?
The first answer comes more easily. A writer for Playgirl named
Stephanie Caruana (which semi-rhymes with “marijuana”) compiled
The Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File, after reading the original
letters and interviewing their author.
Bruce Porter Roberts really existed, although we have few independently
verifiable facts about him. He was born in New York (circa 1917)
and died in San Francisco, on July 30, 1975, reportedly of a
brain tumor. A daughter survived him. Author Gerald Carroll
discovered a photograph of him affixing costume jewelry to entertainer
Carmen Miranda, which goes some ways toward substantiating his
claimed interest in synthetic gems. An experiment in his garage
caused an explosion which singed off his eyebrows. He spent
the years 1969-75 writing lengthy handwritten missives addressed
to various newsworthy individuals. On the side, he occasionally
worked as a roofer.
How did Caruana first gain access to the Roberts letters? Through
a fascinating, frustrating lady named Mae Brussell, the legendary
queen of conspiracy research. Brussell created the Gemstone
File - literally: She was the one who placed Roberts’ letters
into a manila folder and wrote the word “Gemstone” on the tab.
(Presumably, Roberts’ interest in jewelry prompted this label.)
Since she occupies a central place in our story, a biographical
digression is in order.
The daughter of Los Angeles’ famed Rabbi Cyril Magnin, Mae
Brussell came within a hair’s breath of attaining a Ph.D. in
Psychology from Stanford. (A marriage proposal diverted her
from her goal.) In 1963, the televised sight of an obviously-beaten
Lee Harvey Oswald instantly transformed her into a conspiracy
researcher. A subsequent affair with Henry Miller further radicalized
her thinking. Unlike most previous conspiracy aficionados, who
pursued an anti-Semitic and anti-Communist agenda, Brussell
targeted post-War fascism. Her talk of a Nazi revival alienated
both traditional leftists - who accused her of over-reacting
- and her reactionary opponents. They called her a “kosher truth-butcher,”
among other colorful phrases.
Mae Brussell publicized her views in various publications,
and in a weekly radio program called Dialogue Conspiracy (renamed
WorldWatchers International). The latter part of her 17-year
career took place in the tiny studios of Monterey radio station
KAZU, located above a pizza joint. Despite this inauspicious
home base, she gained followers worldwide; these fans dubbed
themselves “Sprouts.” She also gained enemies: On several occasions,
death threats and break-ins forced her off the air, particularly
after a powerful Los Angeles radio station picked up her program.
Shortly afterward, she was diagnosed with a rapid-spreading
cancer, which some believe was artificially induced. She died
in October, 1988.
Mae Brussell’s atrocious communication skills prevented her
from having a greater impact. No-one has ever described her
radio performances as professional. Her published articles have
little organization, present surmises as facts, and contain
silly errors. Like most other conspiracy researchers, she argued
beyond the evidence, despised admitting error, and possessed
a self-destructive tendency to “spook-bait” anyone who irked
her.
Nevertheless, Mae Brussell deserved a more respectful hearing
than conspiracy buffs usually receive. Once one got past her
gravel-voiced broadcasts and her agonized writing style, one
encountered a truly engaged mind, working from a staggeringly
wide knowledge base. She had created her own non-electronic
internet: Numerous correspondents regularly sent her printed
material, necessitating the installation of a mailbox so massive
it looked like an import from Brobdinag. As a result, her listeners
encountered data nuggets of surprising rarity and value. A sense
of social justice motivated her work, differentiating it from
the fear-based rants of most conspiracy-mongers. In the light
of recent events - such as the rise of the militias, and the
popularity of extremist parties in Europe - her warnings of
a fascist resurrection now seem visionary.
It is also worth noting that Brussell had what is generally
called “a life” - meaning children, family obligations, participation
in community events, hobbies, artistic interests, a knowledge
of literature, and so forth. She was eccentric, but not alienated.
The same cannot be said for most of the lonely outsiders usually
attracted to conspiracy-spotting.
I do not know enough about Stephanie Caruana to determine whether
she fits the “lonely outsider” profile (although that phrase
seems to fit Bruce Roberts well enough). Caruana’s own words
best describe her time as a Playgirl journalist:
I was writing articles for Playgirl magazine, primarily about
issues of importance to women. I wrote about a new method of
early abortion, at a time when abortions were only legal in
New York and California, and coat-hanger-back-room-trips-to-Mexico
stories were all too common. I wrote about decent nutrition
and care for pregnant women as a way to avoid birth defects.
I interviewed black poet Maya Angelou, and black feminist activist
Flo Kennedy. Playgirl got off to a zooming start, probably due
primarily to the male nudes, but I’d like to think that some
of my articles on issues important to women helped. (This was
at a time when, as now, women’s magazines pretty much stuck
to cosmetics, diets, and how to get a better job.)
This admirable career took an odd turn in 1974, when Caruana
helped Mae Brussell to write about the Patty Hearst kidnapping,
arguing that intelligence agency “plants” manipulated the Symbionese
Liberation Army into actions discrediting the left. Their published
views prompted SLA leader William Harris to respond with a tape-recorded
tirade against “White, sickeningly Liberal, paranoid conspiracy
freaks.” But Brussell may deserve more credit than she received
at the time, since Harris and his wife did mysteriously brief
stints in prison - despite a record of murder, kidnapping, torture
and bank robbery.
Playgirl’s editor suggested that the team should next try an
article on Howard Hughes. While researching this project at
Mae Brussell’s home, Caruana happened upon a cache of letters
from the enigmatic Bruce Roberts. A regular Brussell listener,
he had, since 1972, been sending the broadcaster his conspiracy-oriented
monographs. Brussell had even met with Roberts in San Francisco,
later describing him as a “Casper Milquetoast” type. She didn’t
encourage her protégé to take the letters too
seriously. According to Caruana:
[Mae] “ordered” me to not actually read the letters, but only
to skim over them, and only to read what related to Howard Hughes!
At midnight, exhausted after a long hard day, I started to read.
The first page was chock full of murders, poison, and dirty
words. My reaction was: Hey, this guy is a paranoid schizophrenic.
I’ve been told all my life about them. In a sense, I had been
brainwashed to automatically reject anyone who talked about
the things he did, in the ways he did it. I had to pull back
and take a look at my reactions, and to decide that I would
read the material with an open mind. It all held together -
from first to last page.
She eventually broke with Brussell, and visited Roberts. He
struck Caruana as a real-life James Bond, living in a world
of spies, assassinations and tapped phones - hardly a “Milquetoast”
type. Roberts convinced her that he had indeed invented a synthetic
ruby used in laser research, and that he often sold artificial
gemstones to foreign governments in exchange for secret data.
“It was,” Caruana averred, “a worldwide information network
on the highest level.”
In short: Caruana became a convert. The Skeleton Key - her
concise rendition of the world according to Roberts - was her
protestation of faith.
How much of it is true?
All previous attempts to analyze the Gemstone “thesis” (as
proponents grandly call it) have presumed that said thesis originated
with a credible individual privy to information unavailable
to the average person. If Bruce Robert really were a paranoid
schizophrenic (as Caruana first suspected), or if he possessed
no informants within the intelligence community, what value
would anyone place on the claims made in either the Skeleton
Key or the sequestered letters which begat it? His would be
the story of just another lonely buff who spent his days clipping
newspapers and speculating about the tales behind the headlines.
Such a buff is entitled to his opinions, of course. But, as
the low-yet-apt axiom reminds us, opinions are like assholes:
Everybody has one. Roberts, we are told, had something more,
something nobody else possessed - secret sources of explosive
information.
Did he really?
The proposition becomes difficult to accept after one studies
the Skeleton Key critically. The text never presents a single
provably true piece of data not otherwise available to the public
at the time of writing. Granted, the precis introduced a number
of claims which were new (and strikingly odd) in 1975, but these
claims arrived unburdened by corroboration or evidence, and
they remain so to this day. History has proven no friend to
Gemstone.
A quick review of the evidence proves the point:
Aristotle Onassis. The Greek shipping tycoon makes a poor candidate
for leading Mafia capo of his era - he wasn’t even Italian!
Perhaps Roberts meant “Mafia” in a non-literal sense; even so,
the Skeleton Key ascribes far more power to Onassis than does
even his most hostile biographer. While it is true that the
Greek tycoon’s personal fortune eventually exceeded the yearly
income of his homeland’s government, his wealth paled compared
to that held by families such as the Rockefellers or the Fords.
No hint of his global overlordship has come from any friend,
foe or family member - not even from his lover, quintessential
diva Maria Callas, the kind of woman who could turn every day
into high drama. One can imagine Jackie keeping her mouth shut,
but not opera’s most fiery Carmen.
The image of Onassis as the CIA’s hidden puppet-master seems
particularly ludicrous in light of the American political establishment’s
epic reaction to the “Jiddah Agreement” of 1954, which granted
Onassis the right to ship much of Saudi Arabia’s oil. This contract
infuriated Aramco, a consortium of American oil interests, which
spurred the U.S. government to declare war on the Greek tycoon.
FBI head J. Edgar Hoover labeled Onassis “anti-American,” the
U.S. government seized his ships, and the Justice Department
arrested him on threadbare charges. The CIA entered the battle
(despite legal prohibitions) via operative Robert Mayheu, who
headed the real-life prototype of TV’s “Mission Impossible”
team. Onassis’ rooms were bugged and his phones tapped, newspaper
stories smeared his name, an international boycott targeted
his firm, ships were sabotaged, his whaling operations were
derailed, and nuisance suits racked up massive legal bills.
In 1956, Onassis made a shaky peace with his persecutors, although
the Saudi contract went to his brother-in-law and rival, Stavros
Niarchos, Aramco’s preferred candidate.
Much of the above became public knowledge after the Skeleton
Key’s release. At the time Roberts wrote, mystery still surrounded
Onassis, who had offended many when he took the martyred President’s
widow as an apparent trophy wife. The CIA’s planted stories
perfumed his reputation; many believed him capable of anything.
Nowadays, those who receive their history from scholars, and
not from samizdat, can put his career in perspective.
Howard Hughes. The famously eccentric aviator/film producer/industrialist
disappeared from public view in 1957. Many (including Mae Brussell)
doubted that he still lived. The wildest theorists, citing photographic
“evidence,” claimed that Hughes dropped out of sight in order
to take on a new identity - as either CIA chief Richard Helms,
or Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini!
We now know much about the 1966-70 period, when Howard Hughes
bought up a number of Las Vegas casinos while living atop the
Desert Inn. His health and mental stability had deteriorated
shockingly - due (depending on which source you consult) to
syphillis, pain pills, poor diet, or even, as biographer Charles
Higham suggests, an early case of AIDS. Always a key military
supplier, Hughes’ business became deeply enmeshed in expensive
CIA projects, as the Glomar Explorer episode illustrates. No
doubt this relationship explains why none other than Robert
Maheu stepped in to function as Hughes’ major domo, displaying
Job-like patience as he kept up with the billionaire’s outlandish
demands. Michael Drosnin’s Citizen Hughes reprints many of the
handwritten notes Hughes sent his “spooky” babysitter. Much
of this correspondence is hilarious; not even the cleverest
fictionist could have concocted Hughes’ exasperating quest for
the perfect television set. Eventually, the two men had an explosive
“divorce.” In November of 1970, Hughes - very ill, but increasingly
fearful of Nevada’s nuclear tests - moved (or was taken) to
the Bahamas, and later to Nicaragua. Maheu became convinced
that a private intelligence firm called Intertel had abducted
the billionaire. Author Charles Higham argues that Hughes, no
matter how debilitated, remained in charge of his affairs.
That kidnapping, if kidnapping it was, took place in 1970,
not 1957; Onassis had no involvement. Despite his seclusion,
Hughes’ general whereabouts between 1957 and 1976 are known.
I know of no handwriting expert who has challenged the many
memos to Mayheu. Bruce Roberts’ suggestion - that the industrialist’s
handwriting was mimicked by a computer - is simply inane. Such
a job cannot be done by today’s computers, and certainly not
by those available during Hughes’ lifetime.
Watergate. Could the Skeleton Key be correct when it suggests
G. Gordon Liddy decided to use the term “Gemstone” after his
team heard Roberts hold court at a San Francisco bar in February
of 1972? The chronology works against this idea. Liddy formally
presented his “Gemstone” plan to Nixon’s Attorney General in
January, 1972; the Plumbers’ chief dirty trickster had formulated
the plan roughly a month earlier. No book on the Watergate scandal
makes any mention of the Plumbers team travelling en masse to
San Francisco at that busy time; their schedules would seem
to rule out a cross-country drinking spree. And why would Liddy,
who has gleefully admitted criminality, keep secret any bar-room
encounters with Roberts? At the risk of getting ahead of the
story, I should note that the original Roberts letters from
this period do not make notable use of the word “gemstone;”
he fixated on that term later, after newspapers revealed Liddy’s
plan.
Many have suggested that the Watergate break-in concerned the
financial links between Nixon and Hughes, which were well-known
at the time. The idea hardly began with Bruce Roberts. And if
video cameras captured the Watergate break-in, why on earth
would anyone keep this visual record secret?
JFK. The Skeleton Key’s version of the JFK murder is a fantasia
on themes familiar from the assassination literature available
at the time Roberts wrote. The enigmatic Eugene Hale Brading,
fingered by Roberts as one of the shooters, cropped up in many
news stories in 1967, when New Orleans District Attorney Jim
Garrison tried to extradite him; a 1973 book by Peter Noyes,
Legacy of Doubt, deals with Brading at length. Roberts claims
that Mafia capo Johnny Roselli shot Kennedy from the famous
grassy knoll, and then disappeared “down a manhole behind the
fence.” No such manhole ever existed. Roselli’s involvement
with the CIA’s anti-Castro assassination plots was revealed
in a March 3, 1967 column by the renown Drew Pearson and Jack
Anderson, a column which also makes a garbled argument that
Mafia/CIA joint efforts led to Kennedy’s assassination. That
famous article could easily have inspired Roberts. The idea
of a chieftain like Roselli performing the hit personally seems
ludicrous; one can as easily visualize the CEO of Sears making
a house call to fix a washing machine.
The Patty Hearst kidnapping and the Zebra Murders. On these
two subjects, Roberts reflects the broadcast views of Mae Brussell.
Since he was a Brussell listener, we need look no further for
the source of his information. Naïve conspiracy buffs tend
to believe that a claim has been “verified” when multiple parties
(in this case, Brussell and Roberts) say the same thing. But
one should never confuse repetition with confirmation. The claimants
must be independent.
Sodium Morphate. Roberts makes these four statements about
the putative super-poison: 1. It smells like apples. 2. It has
been used since the Middle Ages. 3. It does not show up during
autopsy. 4. It is a common ingredient in rat poison. He insisted
on this last point to Caruana in a face-to-face interview.
In fact, no package of rat poison has ever listed this substance,
which remains unmentioned in any book on toxins. To dispatch
rats, one generally uses arsenic, strychnine, or warfarin, none
of which smells like apples. The term “morphate” implies a morphine
derivative, but morphine was impossible to synthesize in medieval
times - and it, too, does not smell like apples. Morphine can
indeed kill (as Caruana has pointed out), but one would need
very large amounts to use it as she and Roberts suggest, since
ingestion (as opposed to injection) decimates the drug’s potency.
An autopsy would quickly reveal morphine’s presence. While opiates
can provide an excellent means of dispatching a known intravenous
drug user, anyone “seasoning” an enemy’s supper has a choice
of far more efficient toxic substances.
The James Bond connection. Die-hard Gemstone believer David
Hatcher Childress makes an entertaining argument that author
Ian Fleming, in his James Bond novel Diamonds Are Forever, “confirmed”
Bruce Roberts’ Onassis-kidnapped-Hughes scenario. Childress
believes that Fleming (who had worked for British intelligence
during World War II) based the super-villainous Ernst Stavro
Blofeld on Aristotle Onassis. In the film version of Diamonds
Are Forever, Blofeld kidnaps a reclusive, Vegas-based billionaire
named Willard Whyte, whom even the dimmest viewers will recognize
as a countrified version of Hughes. (The film-makers place Whyte
atop the now-demolished Landmark Hotel, which Hughes did, in
fact, once own.) Childress asks: Did the British writer’s espionage
contacts inform him of the 1956 Hughes kidnapping? And did Diamonds
Are Forever reveal the truth in a thinly-disguised fiction?
Unfortunately, the “Whyte”/Hughes kidnapping occurs not in
Fleming’s novel, but in the substantially different screenplay
by Richard Maibaum. Fleming died in 1964. The film appeared
in 1971, when much gossip focused on Hughes’ Las Vegas escapades.
Maibaum obviously wanted to capitalize on the controversy by
working a Hughes-like figure into his script. The chronology
suggests that Roberts simply cribbed the idea of a Hughes abduction
from the popular movie - a point so obvious, only a buff of
Childress’ stripe could miss it.
Did Onassis inspire, at least in part, the creation of Ian
Fleming’s immortal Blofeld? Possibly. During the 1954-56 “war”
on Onassis, the CIA used every available means to paint the
Greek tycoon as a monster, and these tales surely reached Fleming.
However, I believe Bond’s creator used the notorious English
magician Aleister Crowley (whom he knew personally) as the primary
real-life model for his arch-fiend. Crowley, a brilliant man
who reeked of vices considered unspeakable, was callous, egomaniacal,
oversized, bald, ugly - and yet, despite all, mysteriously attractive
to women. All of these descriptions apply to Blofeld. Crowley
pretended to titles of nobility that he never actually held,
as does Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In his WWI-era
dealings with both German and British intelligence, Crowley
apparently played both sides against the middle, a classic Blofeld
maneuver. I sometimes wonder: Had the English mage sought temporal
rather than supernatural power, might he have evolved into a
true-life version of Bond’s nemesis?
Inside the Brussell archives
Will the foregoing critique end the Gemstone legend? Doubtful.
Defenders have argued that Stephanie Caruana created any problems
in the Skeleton Key, problems that the original letters would
surely resolve. As long as they remained unread, the ur-texts
provided the perfect foundation for a conspiracy theory, since
invisibility granted them immunity from criticism or counter-argument.
They became, in the mind’s eye, anything the reader wanted them
to be. For a quarter-century, aficionados have speculated as
to their contents, much as New Testament scholars speculate
about the long-lost “Q” document - but no-one, outside a handful
of people, truly knew.
Until now.
In order to explain how I acquired a copy of the letters, I
must first recount some history that may strike many readers
as only tangentially related.
Many readers mistakenly refer to Caruana’s Skeleton Key as
“The Gemstone File,” despite the fact that Caruana clearly explains,
in the first few paragraphs of her work, that she has boiled
down the content of roughly 400 handwritten pages, housed within
one of Mae Brussell’s file cabinets. Even that number was but
part of the whole: According to Caruana, Roberts compiled at
least 1000 manuscript pages, outlining his view of the Grand
Conspiracy. No-one knows what happened to the other 600-odd
pages; someone probably trashed them after the author’s death,
although Caruana reportedly holds a tiny sampling. (She has
not shared them.) The surviving letters are the 351 pages -
the actual number, as it turns out - sent to “Conspiracy Queen”
Mae Brussell. These pages constitute the actual Gemstone file.
When Mae Brussell died in 1989, her friends, followers and
heirs faced a dilemma: What to do with her research materials?
She had amassed over 40 well-stuffed four-drawer file cabinets,
along with dozens of large cardboard boxes brimming with correspondence,
notebooks, un-filed newsclippings, pamphlets, and monographs
- not to mention innumerable magazines representing the entire
range of political opinion, from left to right to off-the-map.
There was also the not-inconsiderable matter of a specialist’s
library compiled by a world-class bibliomaniac. Even her detractors
grudgingly admitted that her collection, containing many obscure
and unusual items, deserved preservation. Among those rarities,
of course, was the original Gemstone File.
Following her death, there was an attempt to create a “Mae
Brussell Research Center,” headed by fellow left-wing conspiratologist,
John Judge. Alas, this project imploded due to the otiose paranoia
of her associates. Detailing those battles here would serve
no sensible purpose; suffice it to say that Brussell provided
her disciples with both a rudder and an anchor - absent which,
the ship carrying her life’s work could only founder.
Brussell’s materials passed into the hands of her long-time
friend, mail-order bookseller Tom Davis, of Aptos, California.
In 1994, the collection moved to Santa Barbara, California,
where Davis tried to establish a “Brussell Library” in the bottom
floor of an elegant old office building he had purchased - a
building which needed expensive repairs and attracted an insufficient
number of paying tenants. Once it fell out of his possession,
Brussell’s files and books passed into the care of writer Virginia
McCullough. Though McCullough never knew the “Conspiracy Queen”
personally, she does similar work on the world wide web, and
possesses sufficient storage space. There the collection rests.
I tried to help Tom during the difficult 1994-1995 Santa Barbara
period. With his permission, I gained access to the Brussell
files, and spent many a night reviewing the work of a woman
some hailed as a genius and others derided as a crank. Her “paper
trail” revealed many fascinating ideas and ahead-of-her-time
insights, liberally sprinkled with shards of crackpottery; it
was the million-page autobiography of an exhaustingly original
thinker confronting bizarre times. Had we known each other personally,
we surely would have fought. I still wish I had known her.
A search for the fabled Roberts letters revealed that the actual
Gemstone File no longer rested in the manila folder marked “Gemstone.”
The original manuscript pages, handwritten on sheets of varying
sizes, have gone missing; Mae Brussell apparently returned them
to Bruce Roberts. Before doing so, she had photocopied the lot
onto legal-sized sheets, and Tom kept those pages sequestered
and safe.
Jim Keith’s popular 1992 compilation volume, which presents
the Skeleton Key and various commentaries, created a market
for the original letters. Those letters, I suggested to Tom
Davis, deserved a public airing, and might translate into a
book that could help him financially. They required transcription
and editing, of course. Tom seemed of two minds about the proposal
- and when he finally produced the fabled Roberts cache, the
reason for his hesitation became clear.
I had expected an expansion of the Caruana precis, containing
details, organized materials, a discussion of sources, and comprehensible
writing. While I always doubted that the letters could offer
a persuasive argument that Onassis killed JFK and Howard Hughes,
I had hoped that Roberts would, at the very least, present his
weltanschauung in a more-or-less lucid fashion, and that he
would offer some discussion of his mysterious informants. In
short: I hoped for the makings of a publishable book.
Alas, as I flipped through page after page of Roberts’ quirky
(but mostly legible) handwriting, certain facts became clear:
1. His alleged sources of “inside” information would remain
as nameless as ever. In all likelihood, they never existed.
(In one letter, Roberts claims that he sold a synthetic ruby
to a foreign country in exchange for the diary of Aristotle
Onassis. He never describes this diary, never quotes from it,
never reveals its location, never names the country that held
it, and never hints at a knowledge of Greek.)
2. Many of the allegations mentioned in the Skeleton Key have
no echo in the original letters. The precis presents a more
complete conspiracy theory than does the original text!
3. Most importantly, the letters confirm the suspicions of
the Skeleton Key’s more level-headed commentators: Bruce Roberts
was severely mentally ill. He was not merely neurotic, foolish,
wrong-headed, eccentric, fanatical, odd, single-minded, silly,
mistaken, paranoid or any of the other adjectives commonly used
to describe conspiracy buffs. He was insane.
Not even a whisper of proof backs his many grand claims about
himself. There is no evidence that he personally determined
the course of elections, that his writings paved the way for
Chinese entry into the U.N., and that the Hughes corporation
stole his method of creating synthetic rubies. Anyone familiar
with the writings produced by schizophrenics will immediately
recognize Bruce Roberts’ repetitive, shapeless “brain-dump”
literary style. (Excerpts from his letters, below, demonstrate
his delusional state.)
After I finished reading, disappointment set in. Obviously,
Roberts’ mad missives could do nothing to help Tom Davis’ cash
crunch. Not even the tiniest publishers would touch this material
- and even if such a book somehow hit print, word-of-mouth would
kill sales.
In the end, one can only laugh at the absurdity of it all,
the way Walter Houston laughed at the close of Treasure of the
Sierra Madre. The Gemstone “thesis” had circled the globe. For
many people, it had become an article of faith. The hidden oeuvre
of Bruce Roberts provided that faith with its foundation. And
his logos now stood revealed as the howling of a lunatic.
If we knew the true origins of our major religions, would we
find similar secrets? Probably.
Mysteries
Questions remained. First and foremost: Why did the Skeleton
Key make a number of claims not appearing in the original letters?
Why does the summary represent an expansion - not a contraction
- of Roberts’ conspiracy theories?
A couple of years after I acquired the “real” Gemstone File,
I wrote to Stephanie Caruana. She now heads a society devoted
to proving that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, authored the
plays attributed to Shakespeare, a position which gained semi-respectability
after Sir John Gielgud adopted it. (With all due respect to
the late Sir John, I’ve read the pro-Oxford arguments, and remain
a Stratfordian.) Naturally, she asked for proof that I possessed
a copy of the true Roberts letters; a detailed description soon
convinced her. Our brief e-mail correspondence quickly turned
acrimonious when she heard my plans to tell the truth about
her hero’s mental state. But before breaking off communication
in a snooty harrumph, she confided that much of the information
in the Skeleton Key derived from her conversations with Roberts,
not from his writings. That explained much.
Mae Brussell publicly expressed antipathy for the Skeleton
Key, yet she never described for her audience the unmistakable
odor of psychosis scenting Roberts’ letters. Why didn’t she?
Perhaps out of embarrassment: For a brief period, she took a
few of his ideas at least semi-seriously. She also considered
selling the letters; insulting the wares didn’t serve her interest.
But the deeper answer probably concerns her own reputation as
the “Conspiracy Queen.” Anyone who seriously considers notions
outside the political consensus inevitably has his or her sanity
questioned, often quite unfairly. One can easily understand
why Mae hesitated to label another theorist crazy, even one
who clearly deserved the charge.
I don’t think Mae Brussell was a nut, but she wasn’t always
wise. She disallowed copying or distributing the letters in
her possession because she had formed a poor opinion of Roberts
and hoped to discourage interest in his work. This strategy
backfired. The legend of the hidden cache only made the Gemstone
mythos more intriguing.
This situation brings to mind an amusing - and instructive
- scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. The title character,
fleeing pursuers in old Jerusalem, poses as a street preacher.
He tries to speak his mind rationally and clearly, only to have
the audience heckle him. The pursuers vanish. Brian, now safe,
suddenly breaks off in mid-sentence and walks away. Instantly,
the crowd becomes fascinated: What the hell was he going to
say? They follow him, desperate for more words, trying to piece
together his message from the few clues available. Brian discourages
further questioning; naturally, his silence only transforms
his followers into fanatics. Thus is born a myth: Mystery, not
knowledge, creates faith.
Can the Gemstone myth survive the end of the mystery? Probably
not. Then again, one should never underestimate the human capacity
for rationalization.
Bruce Roberts vs. MMORDIS
If the excerpts below seem tediously extensive, I apologize
- but many people have waited decades to see the true Gemstone
File, and they deserve some satisfaction. Despite the length
of these extracts, certain die-hard conspiracists will no doubt
accuse me of quoting selectively in order to make Roberts look
bad. The only way to silence those claims is to make the entire
file available -- as it soon shall be. While Roberts manages
to write semi-reasonably (albeit vaguely) for the first twenty-or-so
pages of the Gemstone File, the veneer of rationality soon flakes
away - with results that you can judge for yourself. The quotes
below are representative.
Our first example comes from a letter written to Ralph Nader.
(If a copy of this missive ever reached its intended recipient,
Nader surely trashed it long ago.) Throughout his one-way correspondence
with the famed consumer advocate, Bruce Roberts alternates between
asking Nader for help and accusing him of being part of the
Mafia. Since this is an early letter, the wording is fairly
comprehensible - at first:
I sent a proposition to Teddy. To stand up in the Senate and
let it all hang out. Congressional immunity. Unravel himself
like a ball of string and expose for the naked Mafia shit that
he is. Take the rest of the Mafia and cancer with him. A truly
American service. As his Mafia brother stated (as his the Pope
leaped into the “Holy Crusade” of Vietnam) -- “Ask not what
your country can do for you - but what you can do for your country.”
Were Teddy to perform such a thing, it wouldn’t help him much.
No portion of manhood can ever be attributed to cancer. But
- if we survive as a result of that action, maybe in a few centuries
people would stop spitting in the general direction of his cross
- where he would be - along with the Pope, Onassis, and a lot
of treasonous, murderous, cancerous, bribing public officials
and back room Mafia - all branches. This Mafia “congressional
immunity” has little meaning to the man who’s been hanging on
the cross for 2000 years - nor does the Mafia “statute of limitations”
on crime. He wants off the cross and out from under the cover-up.
So does Mary Jo. These are the actions of anti-matter.
Apparently, Teddy won’t do it. Cancer espouses the perpetuation
of cancer. It will never expose itself. Well, will you, Nader?
Anti-matter. When anti-matter collides with matter - Zilch.
It’s here and it’s waiting.
There follows a paragraph in which Roberts discusses his ancestry:
“I was born Welsh, Scottish and Irish, apparently in equal thirds.”
Then he gets back on the Mafia trail:
I elected Nixon - and the Mafia - not Nixon and Mitchell -
the Mafia put an unlimited price tag on the murder of me and
my family and my friends - then supposed to be a Yablonski-type
wipe out - and since changed to a CIA type slow-torture die
on the vine type of thing. They know how to hurt allright. I
watch my mother and father rot daily - in total torture. Yes
they know how to hurt. And so do I. Hoover’s Catholic boys have
been plugging for the 3 secrets of Fatima. Fatima 1 -- War II
- was rigged by Roosevelt. Fatima 2 -- conversion of the entire
world to Vatican rule - has long been in progress. The Mafia
is the handmaiden in this - just as it was for any Political-Religious
“Holy Crusade” since Constantine. Legal secrecy and Vatican
confessionals to cover it all. Vietnam is a current example
of number 2 -- and the 7 So. American countries the CIA and
the Vatican have anointed they will overthrow - working together.
A short while later:
There just isn’t any doctor to cut this cancer out. So - take
me, for instance. I’m dead. I get the message occasionally.
And I - like Brezhnev, like Mao - am aware of the power and
malignancy of this monstrous group that rests on the grave of
Mary Jo, Christ - and a host. They murder and loot at whim -
for personal gain, revenge, or pleasure - whatever - with immunity.
So, I look to the future. Mine happens to be eternity. So I
want the no. 2 job there - in charge of personnel placement.
The man on the cross is a friend of mine. He wants off. Mary
Jo is a friend of mine. She wants out of her grave for a nose
patch job. No lady wants to go to her own funeral without her
purse - or a properly straightened nose. What I must do is what
every doctor takes an oath to do. Kill cancer - one of Christ’s
covered-up commandments. Primarily because this group desires
to kill me. And that is self-defense - and it is the primary
law of the world. And I have arranged for such a thing to occur
- dead or alive. Remember -- 80% cancer, the patient is dead
anyhow. I know exactly how to cut that cancer out - leaving
the patient mighty sick - but alive. But, the tools? Who’s gonna
give me a scalpel? Nixon? I elected him and he said: “Fuck you.
I’m gonna murder you - and your family.” Nader? I set him up
in business and he said “Fuck you - now I can be President.”
Teddy? “I wanna be President.” No - cancer won’t furnish the
tools to kill itself with. So I use what I happen to have -
a bloody fucking meat axe.
A few comments on the foregoing:
1. Many books discuss the three secrets of Fatima, which have
nothing to do with the claims made above.
2. Judging from references in other letters, Roberts’ father
suffered from cancer. Bruce Roberts himself died in 1976 of
a tumor. These facts explain why he fixates on the word “cancer.”
If, as Caruana reports, his tumor was in the brain, much else
is explained as well.
3. Throughout the file, the writer frequently claims that the
election of Richard Nixon resulted from certain actions Roberts
took following a 1968 hit-and-run accident in San Francisco.
This same accident, we are told, also led to the tragic death
of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick. Alas, the writer fails
to clarify exactly how these events link together.
Neither does he help us comprehend why Nixon supposedly complained
about “that asshole Roberts” during the infamous 18 ½
minute gap in a key Watergate tape. Nor does Roberts ever explain
his claims of personal responsibility for Watergate, the Nixon
resignation, and General Motors’ settlement offer to Ralph Nader
(which ended the consumer advocate’s famed class action lawsuit).
In various letters, Roberts asserts that his ruby-making abilities
give him an unlimited source of wealth. He recounts one instance
when he offered one such jewel to a buyer representing a Third
World government. The buyer allegedly responded: “You ask for
$1,000 for your stone. We feel its true value is $3,500 American
dollars. How would you like payment?” Roberts later claims that
he sold this same country “a piece of gravel that I picked up
in front of Alioto’s City Hall for $2,500. I shipped it wrapped
in a few sheets of whys.” (The term “whys” apparently refers
to Roberts’ rambling screeds, which he believed foreign governments
desperately wanted to read. For some reason, his mad mind always
linked the concepts of selling his letters and selling physical
gemstones.)
And yet, despite these enviable international transactions,
and despite his alchemical abilities, we read the following:
Legally, I live with my parents - an elderly couple who also
respect you [Nader] -- at [address given]. Actually I spend
nearly all of my time in an apartment downtown - and answer
the phone only when mother calls. (It’s my way of getting some
work done.)
I cannot leave San Francisco, because of what is happening,
and what will happen soon.
For your sake, you should read a copy of this entire affair.
You can read it at my mother’s...
In a subsequent letter, Roberts (then in his 50s) dickers with
Mom over the electric bill. You may have thought that a man
who could make his own rubies would live in higher style. Now
you know better.
The selections presented so far show Roberts on his best behavior.
Eventually, he reaches fever pitch. This passage, chosen at
random, comes from a letter to his mother:
As with Mary Jo - at any time - this can be you, your family,
your town, And - via a defensive switch - your country - the
U.S. of Mafia. Who’s to censor it? J. Mafia Hoover’s FBI? Mafia
ITT? McCone’s CIA? President Chappaquiddick-Onassis-Hughes Dick?
Next president Chappaquiddick Onassis-Hughes Teddy? Any Mafia
court? Any Mafia attorney? Any Media Mafia? Who? Mafia Alioto’s
cops? Mary Jo’s Necrophiliac Mafia Montini in Rome? Necro Nader?
Chappaquiddick Dickie’s handmaiden Graham? 33rd Degree Masons
and Papal Knights - a la Alioto’s Swig? J. Mafia Hoover’s Ex-FBI
agent group, featuring Maheu, the assassin at Dallas, Memphis
& L.A.?
Page 187 constitutes the masterpiece of the Gemstone File.
Words cannot adequately describe its unsettling aura of psychopathology.
Much of the page features a photocopied portrait shot of Joan
Kennedy (at the time, Senator Edward Kennedy’s wife), as originally
printed in Good Housekeeping. Above it, Roberts reproduces the
magazine’s masthead, then pens in the following indicia: “PUBLISHED
BY HEARST CORP. WE SQUAT ON BUSTED NOSE MARY JO’S U.S. GRAVE.”
A crudely-drawn word balloon makes Mrs. Kennedy announce, in
massive letters: “WE ATE MARY JO’S LIVER!” This announcement
is followed by smaller lettering: “Teddy and me and the U.S.
of Mafia.”
Roberts surrounds his memorable graphic with a great deal of
tiny handwritten marginalia. The words scroll across the page
both vertically and horizontally. Anyone who has ever studied
the unusual messages printed on bottles of Dr. Bronner’s soap
will experience déjà vu upon seeing this page
of the File. But even Dr. Bronner’s essays sound more rational
than the following aria - which, apparently, is meant to represent
the thoughts of Joan Kennedy:
“Hearst (Kennedy blood pact -- 1934) printed images of Rosie,
Jackie, and me (Madonna-style look). Hearst printed the Carfarkis’
Onassis story in order to establish JFK’s angry phone call to
Jackie (“Get off Onassis’ yacht, on the planned double. Diem
- JFK murder day - Nov. 1, 1963 -- as a “polite letter.” Onassis
ate the livers of Hampton and Clark - in Chicago - after Chappaquiddick
- because they knew of the aborted JFK Chicago murder. I love
Hearst. Cafarkis - Onassis’ former bus boy - is now a millionaire
- hotels on the Riviera. I love Cafarkis. And liver.”
“Mary Jo’s intestines were chopped into hors d’ouerves - wafers
for brave, free Americans who support us and will vote me queen.
Courtesy of Ma and Pa Kopechne, who clutch Cushing’s crosses
saying “We don’t care if it was murder. We are satisfied.” On
to Fatima 3 -- blowoff of other heathens who eat the livers
of their victims. Convert them to our way - or kill them.”
From this point forward, Roberts - whether speaking as “Joan”
or in his own voice - seizes upon the “liver-eating” leitmotif
with all the zeal of Dr. Lecter:
I write this from my psychiatrist’s couch. Regardless of what
Hearst prints - here we let it all hang out. These are notes
to my psychiatrist who is out of the room at the moment. Onassis
tells me I can eat Hearst’s liver when all this blows over -
and my psychiatrist’s. “No witnesses,” says he. Onassis says
my college roommate, Joan Tunney, gets out of her English nut
house soon and that she enjoyed eating her husband’s liver after
she chopped his head off. Onassis says she gets to eat the livers
of everybody at the nut house. “No witnesses” again, in case
they heard her speak of John Tunney’s first Chappaquiddick phone
call from her home outside San Francisco. (In S.F., Alioto made
Police Chief Cahill a security guard at the phone company to
sit on those phone call records. Back east, Publisher Loeb got
Hoffa out of the clink by promising Nixon to burn all his card
copies of the Chappaquiddick calls). During the middle of his
Mafia trial, Alioto shocked the jury by eating barbecued girl
liver - Newsom’s nieces, Pelosi’s daughters - plus a roasted
Japanese liver, the nurse.
And you thought that scene in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life
was just a joke! Later, in the same corpulent paragraph, we
find this:
Onassis, of course, ate the livers of JFK, Diem, and Nhu.
(Captain Nung did it for Onassis on Diem and Nhu at a Cholon
railroad crossing. Nung is now big with Thieu, and Thieu is
big with Montini, Onassis and Dickie - and that’s as big as
you can get. Where can you go after the top of the Vatican and
the top of the Mafia? Working together? Well, where? The man
on the cross? -- 2000 years ago the Romans pinned him on a cross
- speared him in the liver, and pulled on it and ate that. Tacitus
sneaked records of the action out of Rome in 64 A.D., and Nero
burned the town. They burned His 11th Commandment - “murderers
on the cross, not me” - retained His skinny skewered body as
a symbol of submission - and today you can get a symbolic bit
of Christ’s liver in any church.
Later still, the undying paragraph offers this noteworthy sentence:
Onassis was gonna give some of JFK’s liver to his Turk blackmail
friend, Mustapha, when he walked down the gangplanks in Turkey
with JFK’s wife, Jackie, my sister-in-law, on his arm - just
after JFK’s call to Jackie, “Get off that yacht if you have
to swim.” - but frightened Jack John cancelled his Chicago Stadium
speech that day - Nov. 1, 1963 -- and Onassis didn’t get JFK’s
liver until 3 weeks later at Dallas, via Maheu (who was still
smarting from his earlier failure to assassinate Castro for
the CIA Onassis branch) -- and he was so hungry he ate the whole
thing.
No doubt he did so with fava beans and a nice Chianti.
Believe it or not, the above-quoted paragraph goes on for another
two pages. History does not record Ralph Nader’s reaction. When
the mighty screed finally ends, Roberts takes us on an even
stranger interlude:
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is all Joanie gave us on that date. However,
we had a spy hiding behind a moosehead and he tells us that
the psychiatrist came back into the room and Joanie handed him
the notes quoted above and the psychiatrist read them and then
Joanie said, “My problem is that the constitution says murder
and treason and bribery are hanging offenses and yet we do these
things daily and fuck dead people and eat liver and we get elected
queen. I’ve learned to love liver and Teddy says he can live
with it - meaning being president - and - what is that you’re
eating doctor? It looks a lot like 2000 year old liver -- 1972
years to be exact, and well-aged, and marinated, and tenderized
by a spear hole. Is that - the real thing? Lover!” and she leaped
from the couch, drooling, and they embraced in a frenzy, chewing
their way, opposite sides of the most prized of all livers,
toward ecstasy. We, as impartial observers, do not feel that
we should report the private actions of consenting adults in
the privacy of their own offices and so our observer behind
the Moosehead withdrew - at that moment. We do know that they
did not eat each other, like Pyrrahna fish, because we saw Joanie
later and she gave us a copy of all those letters, documents
and volumes that Roberts sent to Teddy. Buy our next edition.
OBSERVER BEHIND THE MOOSEHEAD’S NOTE: We do not consider the
actions of consenting adults in public to be subject to invasion
of privacy - in the case of the necrophiliac fucking of Mary
Jo on her Pennsylvania grave. An entire nation is there - drooling
and fucking - Presidents and Priests, Senators and Judges -
everybody, including Ma and Pa Kopechne. Hearst is out there
now. And if I don’t hurry the crowd will be so huge I’ll have
to stand at the Pennsylvania border and hump whoever is in front
of me. And, with my luck, that would be Onassis.
JANITOR’S NOTE: Hearst and Moosehead rushed out of here drooling
- on their way to fuck some Pennsylvania grave dirt - and forgot
these papers. And I have something to add. I’m 98 years old
and sweep up around here and flush shit. My greatest thrill
is going to the bathroom. The relief...[End of page; next page
missing]
Next, the Gemstone File gives us a Roberts-eye view of familiar
assassination lore. We are told that Sirhan was hypnotized,
as was Arthur Bremer, the man who attempted to kill George Wallace.
These passages will probably spur some conspiracy buffs to argue
that Roberts must have had inside information about MKULTRA,
the CIA mind control program, which was not revealed publicly
until after his death. In fact, he could have lifted the notion
of a hypnotized assassin from any number of sources, such as
Richard Condon’s famous novel The Manchurian Candidate; there
was also much talk of hypnosis during Sirhan’s trial.
As for JFK: According to the File (but not the Skeleton Key!)
Robert Mayheu - the CIA veteran who, as we have already noted,
became Howard Hughes’ major domo - fired the fatal shot from
the overpass, apparently unseen by the many others who stood
there. Perhaps those witnesses found themselves on the menu.
According to Roberts: “Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren
ate the livers - for Onassis - of all those who were murdered
over Dallas...” Oddly, the Skeleton Key does not name Maheu
as the shooter. In Caruana’s text, the triggermen are mob boss
Johnny Roselli, Jimmy “the weasel” Fratianno, mysterious con-artist
Eugene Hale Brading - and Lee Harvey Oswald, who aimed at Texas
Governor John Connally. Perhaps Stephanie Caruana can explain
this discrepancy between the original letters and her summary.
I doubt that she or anyone else could explain why a capo like
Roselli would do his own “wet work.”
Eventually, the Moose returns for further commentary:
CIA MOOSEHEAD OBSERVER’S - JUST RETURNED FROM THE GRAVE-FUCKING
NOTE: “Hearst, I quit. By the time you read this I will be at
the South Pole, burrowing deep down with the Penguins. Us Penguins
hate you Necrophiliac Murdering Treasonous Mafia bastards. May
that radioactive cloud never reach that far south. Us Penguins
never hurt nobody.”
FRESH-FROM GRAVE-FUCKING-HEARST’S NOTE: “Jeeeeeeesus Cheeeeeerist!”
Exit the Moose, disguised as a penguin. Sadly, he makes no
further appearances on the Gemstone stage. (Although I’m told
he has a cameo appearance during the opening credits of Monty
Python and the Holy Grail. There is something eerie about the
way Roberts anticipates so many of their best-loved routines...)
Bruce Roberts was not afraid to name names, especially the
name of the “cancerous” organization he fought. Usually, he
referred to it as “The Mafia” - although that word apparently
meant something different to him than it did to, say, Mario
Puzo. Schizophrenics often communicate in cryptic metaphors
and symbolic language; thus, Roberts uses “Mafia” as a generic
term for “the bad guys,” while “liver-eating” presumably means
“murder.”
However, he does occasionally employ a more specific label
for The Enemy. He begins one of the earlier letters (dated Feb.
4, 1972) by announcing proof of a conspiracy to destroy the
United States “by the group known as Mmordis.” Deeper in the
File, there are further references to this organization. Roberts
makes clear that this name is not just his own slang term for
his opponents; “MMORDIS” is what the conspirators call themselves.
From page 156:
“The Enemy Within” - by Bobby - suppressed. Onassis bought
it, blocked it, buried it. The title was taken from the “treason”
definition. Too dangerous.
“The Enemy Within and Without” - amplified and described herein.
Given a tag - MMORDIS. Individual crimes and wholesale crimes
documented and detailed. The cause of war. The cause of crime.
Proven.
Finally, on page 196, we learn what the acronym MMORDIS stands
for:
There’s a deadly disease running around: It’s called MMORDIS
- Mouldering Mass Of Rotten Dribbling Infectious Shit. Have
a happy day.
I have yet to determine whether MMORDIS, like the Trilateral
Comission, has a street address and a receptionist. (“Hello,
this is Mouldering Mass Of Rotten Dribbling Infectious Shit.
How may I direct your call?”) As of this writing, they don’t
have a web page.
To round out our survey, here are a couple of excerpts. The
first, chosen entirely at random, comes from page 300:
At the bottom - asshole end - the movement is quiet - like
practice runs in Cambodia - criminal heads - and liver. And
Japanese travel groups. And South American groups. African.
Said McGovern - re the Kennedy-Eagleton squabble - “I don’t
know how much more our system can stand.”
It’s simple. The answer is Chappaquiddick. The world wants
that. The law: “Anyone who dead-fucks on Mary-Jo’s grave - and
all that lies buried there - will hang.”
A part of the fallout from Option 3. And what others are doing.
And - in no way related to what one man has arranged. Option
four is underway. Join me at a birthday party at Cypresstown
- where I shall present mobile strings to my father - On August
3, 1972 -- half-way between the dead-fuck of Mary Jo at Miami
- and the upcoming gala - a gang bang on Christ. The Mafia can
not murder the dead. But the dead will murder them. This is
known as equal justice for all.
The following is from one of the last pages in the Gemstone
File:
Hierarchy of shit - sustained by a society of shit. Sucking
on Onassis’ heroin chancered thing, sitting on Montini’s “Holy
Crusade - brave, free, Americans eating Grecian and Roman shit
for desert. Melting Pot? Yes indeed. Rejects from every corner
of the world - too rotten to correct the shit in their own native
area - run to America - the U.S. of Mafia - and from that gutless
breed comes the creeping crawling cancer that today composes
a necrophiliac nation dead-fucking on Mary Jo’s grave - now
escalated to the horror of a 1972 “free” election between Onassis-Montini-
Kennedy-Chappaquiddick-“Hughes”-Teddy McGovern - and Onassis-Montini-
Chappaquiddick- “Hughes”-Dickie - in a joint Hand-Maiden-Vatican,
Mafia-Mafia election process. All of them running now - from
these papers. Double cross, triple cross - anything to continue
the run toward other crosses that wait - empty. Gang-bang on
Christ vs. Universal Fuck of God.
There may be some highly illuminated conspiracy aficionados
who will find the above passages perfectly comprehensible. They
are the lucky ones.
One such aficionado, apparently, was Stephanie Caruana. In
all likelihood, she now considers me an agent of the Great Conspiracy
- or, as Bruce Roberts might have put it, “a necrophiliac cancerous
liver-eating Mafioso from MMORDIS.” Even so, I can’t help feeling
sorry for her. She has devoted much of her life to championing
her two heroes: Bruce Roberts and Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford.
Alas, the world will now know the truth about Roberts - a truth
which Caruana should have seen back in 1975, before she foisted
her “Skeleton Key” on a public capable of an almost transcendental
gullibility (to borrow writer Jim Hougan’s delightful phrase).
Her “Skeleton Key” stands revealed as a hoax, since it never
mentions Mmordis, mooseheads, nonstop liver luncheons, Bruce
Robert’s claims of personal responsibility for Chappaquiddick
and Nixon’s election, and a myriad cognate inanities. In short,
Caruana deliberately and disingenuously covered up much of the
madness at the heart of the File. Throughout the past quarter-century,
she has refused to publish the few pages of Roberts’ writings
still in her possession. Now we know why: Like other schizophrenics,
he wrote in an impenetrable stream-of-consciousness style best
described as “word salad.”
Nevertheless, Caruana remains loyal to the legend she created,
and even plans to publish a book furthering the cause of her
beloved madman. I don’t know whether she is driven by fanaticism,
a desire for fame, simple stupidity, or a crippling inability
to admit that she was fooled by a fruitcake. Perhaps some combination
of all those factors plays a part. Whatever her motives, her
continuing insistence on marketing this myth crosses the line
separating gullibility from culpability.
The actual words of Bruce Roberts - an alcoholic with a brain
tumor and hallucinations of importance - should now cause all
Gemstone aficionados a great deal of embarrassment. But I doubt
that Stephanie Caruana is capable of feeling embarrassed. True
zealots rarely are.
Poor Stephanie. Maybe the Oxford business will work out better
for her.
