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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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The story behind the Geronimo lawsuit Harlyn Geronimo, great-grandson of Geronimo, and 19 relatives have filed suit for return of Geronimo's remains. Their lawyer is Ramsey Clark, an 81-year-old former U.S. attorney general who has earned his own share of notoriety by representing accused Serbian war criminals and Saddam Hussein, among others. Clark filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, on February 17, the 100th anniversary of Geronimo's death. A 1918 letter [PDF] published in the Yale Alumni Magazine in 2006 shows that Skull and Bones members at the time believed they had Geronimo's skull. Some experts contend the marauders had the wrong grave. But the letter refutes the claim made by Bonesmen in more recent years that the story of the grave robbery at Fort Sill -- widely circulated for two decades -- was a hoax. Other reports have identified Prescott Bush '17, father and grandfather of the former U.S. presidents, as one of the thieves. The legal complaint lays out a 22-page capsule history of Geronimo's life and legacy. Born around 1829 in New Mexico, Geronimo spent decades fighting U.S. and Mexican troops and white settlers after his mother, wife, and three young children were murdered. He finally surrendered to the U.S. Army in 1886 and remained a prisoner of war until he died of pneumonia at around age 79. His grave at Fort Sill is still a major tourist site, Clark says. In the mid-1980s, the chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona was campaigning to have Geronimo's remains moved to that state. When he received an anonymous letter from a purported Bones member, with a photo of a skull -- claimed to be Geronimo's -- in a display case, the grave-robbing story went national. But the San Carlos tribal chairman met frustration in his efforts to get the skull, or even a straight story, from Skull and Bones. Harlyn Geronimo and his kin bringing the lawsuit are a separate group of Apaches, who live on the Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico. Clark says he hasn't personally tried to contact Skull and Bones about the relics, but that his clients "probably have." "If there's anything that's true from the literature," Clark notes, "people who tried to pursue it got the runaround" from Skull and Bones. At a Washington, DC, press conference announcing the lawsuit, Harlyn Geronimo cast it as not only a legal matter, but also a spiritual one: "If remains are not properly buried, the spirit is just wandering, wandering, until a proper burial has been performed." But the legal issues may be murky. The Washington Post quotes Towana Spivey, "a Geronimo expert, a Chickasaw, and director of the Fort Sill National Historic Landmark Museum," as declaring that it's not the Army but the Fort Sill Apaches who decide whether a body remains in the cemetery there. Furthermore, the chairman of the Fort Sill Apaches told the Post that "it would be inappropriate to desecrate Geronimo's grave and remove him." "We disagree" that the Fort Sill Apaches have control," Clark responds. "We think it's on Army land and it's Fort Sill that has control." He also asserts that Yale has responsibility for the actions of Skull and Bones. "They must be a landlord," he says. Told that in fact the society owns the "Tomb," its clubhouse, Clark responds: "There must be some regulatory power that Yale has over its students, at least. And Yale University, as an institution of higher learning, has some moral obligation. It's their students and their alumni." Asked about the rumors surrounding one of those famous
alumni, Prescott Bush, he replies: "I don't know what to make of it. I
knew him as a senator, and he was a very distinguished man. But kids do
things." |
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Related Geronimo's great-grandson sues Skull and Bones for the return of his skull.
Did Skull and Bones rob the grave of Geronimo during World War I?
Judith Ann Schiff's "Old Yale" column on the origins of Yale's secret societies. |
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