By Mark Coulton, New York
March 18, 2006
IF PRIME Minister John Howard ever wants anything from the new United States ambassador, Robert McCallum, here's a suggestion: don't mention General Russell.
That is the code used by members of one of the world's most powerful and elite secret societies. President Bush is alleged to have used its connections to get his first job.
Both George Bush and Robert McCallum are members of Skull and Bones, the Yale society with a fixation on the symbols of death. The society is said to have the skull of the Apache chief Geronimo, dug up by Mr Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush, in a glass case.
Its members have included presidents, generals, journalists and businessmen. General William Huntington Russell founded the society in 1832.
Bonesmen, as they are called, are sworn to secrecy. Tradition demands that if someone mentions Skull and Bones its members should leave the room. Mr Bush, in his autobiography A Charge to Keep, wrote: "My senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society. So secret, I can't say anything."
Only 15 people are initiated into the society every year, which means there are only about 800 living members at any time. Skull and Bones headquarters is in a windowless stone building on the Yale campus known as "the Tomb".
Each year, 15 Bonesmen  and since 1992, Boneswomen  are "tapped", or invited, to join. The status of the society has never been higher since the 2004 presidential election featured two Bonesmen in George Bush and John Kerry.
Members are put through a bizarre initiation ceremony. According to Alexandra Robbins, author of Secrets of the Tomb, it includes a devil, a Don Quixote figure and a pope with one foot in a white monogrammed slipper resting on a stone skull.
"Initiates are led into the room one at a time. They shriek at him. The Bonesman is shoved to his knees. The Don Quixote figure taps him on his left shoulder and says: 'By order of our order, I dub yee knight of Eulogia'." But is this just harmless university high jinks or something more sinister?
"It depends on how you define sinister," Robbins says. "It's not the Satan-worshipping cult that conspiracy theorists would have the public believe.
"What I find disturbing about Skull and Bones is that it's basically the most powerful elite alumni network in the US. It's essentially a form of nepotism that keeps the same people in power, over and over and over again."
Robbins said there was "no way in hell" that George Bush would have been in Skull and Bones if his father (former president George Bush) and his grandfather hadn't been members. "That's the only reason they tapped him, because he had no other college merits," says Robbins, who also broke the story of Mr Bush's university grades. "He got a D in astronomy, for God's sake.
"It's the old boys' network at its worst, because it's so exclusive, so secretive and it's so pretentious."
One of the stranger rituals is that the 15 new members are required to give their full sexual history to the other 14, starting with their first masturbatory experience. This helps reinforce the extreme code of silence that surrounds the society.
Before she stopped counting, Robbins says she knew of at least 11 fellow Bonesmen that Mr Bush has appointed to government posts. These include three members of his class of 1968.
In fact, ambassador-designate McCallum is coming to the position from his previous post of assistant attorney-general. Other 1968 Bonesmen that Bush has appointed are Roy Austin, who became ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, and Dr Rex Cowdry, associate director of the National Economic Council.
One of the more interesting Bonesmen appointments is that of Jack McGregor, to the St Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation advisory board. Skull and Bones owns Deer Island, in the St Lawrence, and uses it for an annual retreat.
Australia's major newspapers are highlighting the personal relationship between the U.S.  President George Bush and his newly nominated Australian ambassador, Robert McCallum. Australian reporters Phillip Hudson of ''The Age'', and Mark Coultan of the ''Sydney Morning Herald'', have written stories examining the Bush/McCallum friendship which allegedly dates back to 39 years ago when they were inducted into the Skull and Bones society.

The Australian ambassadorship post had been vacant for 13 months, which former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer said was an "unforgivable" delay. The McCallum nomination on March 11 would replace the former ambassador Tom Schieffer who left the post in February 2005. United States President George W. Bush nominated McCallum on March 11th.,2006

McCallum is an associate attorney-general for the Department of Justice and previously represented big tobacco companies at an Atlanta law firm. He also has a master's degree from Oxford University and is a Rhodes Scholar as well as having a bachelor's degree from Yale.

The two Australian papers report on activities of Bush and McCallum in their younger years, and the ''Sydney Morning Herald'' alleges that personal connections were instrumental in the career advancements of both men. 

McCallum also made news last year when he overrode U.S. Justice Department lawyers who had been handling the government's tobacco racketeering trial for the past 5 years. McCallum ordered the lawyers to reduce the penalties sought at the close of the nine-month trial from $130 billion to $10 billion, angering some of the trial lawyers to the point where it is reported they threatened to quit their jobs. McCallum said the reduction was necessary as a matter of law.