Cowboys and Indians
Ramsey Clark has spent decades going after Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Now he’s even taking on their secret society.
The former attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson has been hired to represent the Apache medicine man and military leader Geronimo’s descendants in a federal suit demanding his remains be returned to their final resting place in Arizona. Which raises the question: Where did they go in the first place?
The defendants in the case provide some clues. Along with President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of the Army Pete Geren, Yale University and the campus’ Order of Skull and Bones, which counts the father and son presidents as members, are the standouts in the list of people being sued for allegedly stealing Geronimo’s bones.
“There’s been widespread reporting that in 1918 a group of Yale students entered the tomb and took the skull and some other bones,” Clark stated at a news conference Tuesday. Legend has it the members of the secret society allegedly kiss the skull at initiation ceremonies held in the tomblike headquarters on the New Haven campus.
Clark and Harlyn Geronimo, the warrior’s great-grandson, spoke at the National Press Club on Tuesday — which also marked the 100th anniversary of the warrior’s death — to clarify their intent to have the remains of Geronimo returned.
“I hope the government will take this seriously at this time. The repatriation of my great-grandfather is important so that his soul can rest,” Geronimo said.
