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The Gemstone File: A MemoirReview by Shawn Hamilton, 24 May 2008I first received a copy of Stephanie Caruana's "A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File" in 1976 from a high school history teacher. The typed original had been copied so many times that some words and letters were unclear or missing. The document was only about a year old then, so clearly there was a feverish underground effort to get this information out. While the claims made in the Skeleton Key are startling, I always felt that the document possessed an internal consistency that justified my withholding judgment on its primary thesis, which is simply that the United States government is essentially run by, and as, organized crime. Bruce Robert's Gemstone letters redefine the stereotypical definition of "Mafia," the kind of caricature and even glorification we see on a show like "The Sopranos," and paints for us a truer picture that shows how deeply the roots of organized crime intertwine every aspect of US politics. So I've kept a copy of the Skeleton Key around for the last thirty years taking notes on developments. History, so far, has increased my faith in the document's veracity. Let me give you just a couple of examples regarding statements made in the Skeleton Key and subsequent historical developments. The Skeleton Key claims one of the shooters of JFK "went down a manhole and followed a sewer line away from Dealey Plaza." Keep in mind this was written in 1975. In the 1990's I was watching a History Channel program called The Men Who Killed Kennedy. The show featured Tom Wilson, who had developed for US Steel a process using "photonics" to detect imperfections in steel. He applied this new technology to photos in the Kennedy assassination, including the Mary Moorman photo, and ended up making a three-dimensional model of Kennedy's gaping head wound. From that he traced back the path of the bullet and was amazed the see it was coming "out of the ground." He went to Dealey Plaza and discovered the path he anticipated led directly to a manhole cover and open curb sewer line. In other words, someone could have been crouching underground shooting at Kennedy from the curb. Subsequent studies by a researcher named Jack Brazil have determined that shooters from behind the picket fence on the Grassy Knoll and from the curb on Elm Street could both have "squeezed off rounds" and escaped underground in about twenty minutes. The sewer lines lead to the Trinity River well away from Dealey Plaza. Another claim that sounded wild to me in 1976 was this one: "Lots of heroin gets produced in a Pepsi Cola factory in Laos. So far, it hasn't produced a single bottle of Pepsi Cola." I hadn't learned about the CIA's "Air America" drug flights at the time, but this was another truth that Roberts understood long before most of us. In 1990 Mel Gibson and Robert Downey, Jr. starred in a film called "Air America." The film included the Pepsi-Cola factory, the CIA, and the heroin. Details like these over the years make me believe that Bruce Roberts knew more than the average citizen about current events and past history. While his emotional state might have been somewhat unstable, that's understandable considering the threatening forces he felt were surrounding him and had killed his father. Robert's letters aren't always easy to read, and it's only after reading The Gemstone File: A Memoir that I realize what an excellent job Caruana did writing the original Skeleton Key. Considering the scattered yet repetitive nature of Robert's original letters and notes, Caruana's "Skeleton Key" is an amazingly competent work. It's organized, reads not only well but powerfully, and has survived without the benefit of formal recognition for over three decades. Caruana took the rough stone of Bruce Robert's notes and letters and created, in the Skeleton Key, a finely faceted Gemstone! I give Caruana's The Gemstone File: A Memoir my highest recommendation. The book is important historically and as a basis for future research. As a compendium to "A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File," it's invaluable. Anyone who has ever read the Key, or wants to, needs to buy this book!
