Introduction
In early January the American writer Martin Cannon, whose ‘Mind Control and the American Government’, was published in Lobster 23, and who has a very interesting letter in this issue, offered me a big piece of his on the so-called Gemstone File. Cannon had got access to some of the original documents on which the famous precis, The Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File, was based; and said documents showed that Gemstone author Bruce Roberts was crazy. Notwithstanding the fact that the Skeleton Key’s central claims are either uncheckable or false, there has been considerable interest in the damned thing; and given that these documents had never been made public, I said, ‘Yes, please’.
But only a few days later I received an e-mail from Stephanie Caruana, the creator of the original Skeleton Key, informing me that she had a book coming out on Gemstone. Would I like to see something of it? Although Caruana does not share my views about Gemstone, ‘Yes please’ I e-mailed her back; and, without thinking about it, forwarded her e-mail to Cannon. Oops! This triggered a testy exchange between Cannon and Caruana which embroiled Steamshovel’s Kenn Thomas and found its way onto the Net via Robert Sterling’s The Konformist. More importantly, the prospect of a Caruana book on Gemstone persuaded Cannon to put his assault on it out on the Net there and then (1) rather than waiting months for Lobster to appear. Caruana then distributed her critique of Cannon’s critique, the whole thing getting very, very complex – and, frankly, since the Skeleton Key is manifestly and demonstrably baloney, not worth the effort involved in trying to untangle it.
Minus the Caruana-Cannon dispute, here are some extracts from Bruce Roberts’ writing with a brief introduction by Cannon. The Roberts extracts are the indented sections. A fuller version of this will appear in Cannon’s forthcoming book on hoaxes (2)- ed.
Bruce Roberts vs. MMORDIS
If the excerpts below seem tediously extensive, I apologise – 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. 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 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 …….. 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 all right. 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 hand-maiden 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 ……. 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:
- Many books discuss the three secrets of Fatima, which have nothing to do with the claims made above.
- 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.
- 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 1/2 minute gap in a key Watergate tape. Nor does Roberts ever explain his claims of personal responsibility for Wategate, the Nixon resignation, and General Motors’ settlement offer to Ralph Nader (which ended the consumer advocate’s famed class action lawsuit).
The selections presented so far show Roberts on his best behaviour. 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 Chappa-quiddick 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.
‘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 Chappa-quiddick – 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’ouevres – 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: (3)
‘I write this from my psychiatrists’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.’
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 offences 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 tenderised 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 Piranha 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.]’
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.”
Notes
- On www.newsmakingnews.com
- On 6 March the Rumour Mill posted ‘The Opal File’, the Aussie Gemstone. Like its Kiwi (New Zealand) predecessor, this takes bits of the outline offered in the Roberts Gemstone File and stuffs it with Australian ‘facts’ which have virtually no connection with it – ed.
- Dr Lecter is the central, cannibal figure in the novels and films Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal – ed.