INTRODUCTION  

Image of the day Bruce Porter Roberts pins a gemstone decoration on Carmen Miranda, news photo 1952 Home Introduction Contents Bibliography The Plot Back Cover/Comments Links Purchase Info Update Contact Us

Rochefort said: "Presidents fear one thing: An historian, who writes with knowledge of events; who writes of current history—and traces it back. This man has the power to change the inscriptions on tombstones, and shape the course of the history he writes about." Bruce Roberts liked that quote; it may have been one of his favorites. If you think about it, it is a tall order. Who dreams of changing current history through his writing? And yet he set about it, like a scientist. In fact, he dedicated his life to doing just that. His "history" was written from day to day, in the form of letters, or papers. And he never stopped living, investigating, writing, and "pushing the weight further out," long enough to rearrange and organize it into book form. But he may have accomplished his aim, or at least some of it. At the very least, his writing reflects a point of view that is uniquely his own, quite different from any other account of the time he wrote about. For many, even in the brief, truncated version presented in the Skeleton Key, it has aroused fascinated curiosity. He left behind huge stacks of unedited writing, none of which have been published before this. He gave away, or sold to interested buyers, copies of various parts of his work, which he referred to at one time in 1971 as "about the thickness of four telephone books." Many of these copies have been destroyed or lost. Others may still exist in carefully guarded archives, here and around the world. When I knew him, he was frequently broke; his copying bills at San Francisco’s xerox machines were enormous. Several times I had the distinct honor of buying him a beer at one of his favorite San Francisco bars. And yet—in his letter to President Anwar Sadat, of Egypt, in 1975, he refers to "a solid performance record." What record? The man died broke, apparently, and unknown to the public. Biographical facts about his life are hard to come by. A complete stack of his writing—which he began as early as 1968, and which I estimate may have been about six telephone books thick by the time of his death in 1976—is not known to exist anywhere. But it is equally possible that a friend or relative has the complete file stashed away somewhere. Bruce Roberts was a bold and fearless man, who spoke and wrote his mind with disregard to his own personal safety. Or maybe he just decided that his freedom of speech and thought were more precious to him than his own personal safety. Whatever his reasoning, he was also a scientist, and a careful man in many ways. For instance, he had a safe deposit box or boxes in which he kept his most valuable possessions. As well as precious and synthetic gemstones, these included the collectible coins he inherited from his father, LaVerne Dayle Roberts, and I am sure, a huge stack of his original letters and papers. Someone inherited the contents of that safety deposit box. In addition, he liberally papered the neighborhood of San Francisco with copies of various of his writings. Though many people may have burned or otherwise destroyed them, through fear, or for whatever reason, I believe others may have kept them carefully stashed away. If so, I wish they would contact me, since I think it is time Bruce Roberts and his writings came in from the cold. People have asked me how Roberts could have had access to so much secret information about the events he described. It appears that some of his relatives worked in intelligence areas. He himself may have worked for the OSS (precursor of the CIA) during World War II. He had significant family connections with inside information. Bruce’s brother, Dayle, was married at one time to Marina Iglesias, sister of Antonio Iglesias. Antonio Iglesias was one of the CIA-Cuban mob involved in the Bay of Pigs Operation. Roberts told me Iglesias was also present at the JFK assassination, with a camera, taking photos in and around the pergola adjacent to the "grassy knoll" in Dealey Plaza. Excerpts from Iglesias's FBI (FOIA) files appear in Appendix A. Some of the photos were of Eugene Brading; one showed him stuffing his rifle under his coat after shooting at JFK from the shelter of this pergola. I have included one photo here showing Brading at Dealey Plaza in his distinctive X-marked leather sombrero. This photo first turned up in Peter Noyes' book, Legacy of Doubt (Pinnacle Books, October, 1973.) The source of the photo is not indicated. Roberts also referred to his CIA-connected uncle, C. J. Kimball, and a Kimball cousin who was apparently busy destabilizing Nigeria for the CIA at the time the family black sheep, Bruce, was writing his Gemstone papers. For all of his obscurity Bruce seems to have pushed history around, deliberately, and quite a bit, during his lifetime. He claims that his writing, and the evidence that he collected to support it, were used by Richard Nixon to gain the Presidency, and later forced him to resign it. Roberts also claims that he used his writing to change the national composition of the United Nations, and to drive various U.S. Intelligence groups crazy. From studying his writing, I conclude that what he said and wrote may have been a truthful account. However, even if it is exaggerated, or even tragically limited because it is from his own point of view, perhaps too self-centered, and does not take into account enough other factors to be called "history", it is still the most astonishing story I have ever read, far beyond the most daring derring-do of fictional spies and adventure heroes. But I will add that research efforts by others, recent publications and historical developments have confirmed many if not all of Roberts’ statements. The pale fractional 23-to-30-odd page shadow (in several versions) of his story that I wrote in a hurry and distributed free, urgently and out of what I deemed to be a necessity, early in March through July 1975, which I called "A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File," was too brief and fragile to hold Roberts’ entire story of the huge network of top-level conspiracy that surrounds us and robs us of our freedom every day. Looking at a battered, lop-eared "original" copy that has survived all these years, I am amazed at both its longevity and its brashness. It certain doesn’t look strong enough to make it on its own. But like the Flying Dutchman, it has drifted, rudderless, around the world many times over, inspiring fear, ridicule, belief, disbelief—but also research, to prove or disprove its claims. On the way, it has engendered millions of copies, many in formats and languages that I know nothing about. And at least six books, several movies, and countless TV episodes. The Gemstone File, itself unseen, has become a popular catchword for all the secrets of deliberate high-level government involvement in "population control", worldwide wars, "secret" military actions, incredible financial rip-offs by the military supply systems, drug trafficking on a world scale, tax free money laundering, media control and suppression, electoral fraud, and the general human devastation that we live with every day. Books and movies use the term freely and it is understood. Not bad for 23 pages! I’m proud of it. It has served its purpose well..... Knowledge is power, it is said. Gemstone plus Key plus some mental effort may give many people a better understanding of our lives and the way we live now, than they have ever had. And besides, it’s one of the few relevant histories of our time that I know about. ***************************************************************** (continued inside the book......)