History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time
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As the cornerstone is laid, dignitaries and officials gather. Speeches are made. Often a time capsule is buried near, or sometimes beneath, the cornerstone. Some cornerstones contain a hollow cavity that’s lined with zinc to protect the time capsule. And generally, a plaque noting the date and time, and perhaps the names of those present, is affixed to the outer face of the stone for all to see.
Put all this together and you get a stone that announces: This structure is being built for the ages.
Now put yourself in 1792. The cornerstone is being laid for the White House—the residence of the president of the United States, on a site selected by George Washington himself.
How vital was the White House back then? Just as vital as it is today. In fact, to design it, a public competition was held. Among the entrants? Thomas Jefferson. (Jefferson submitted his entry under a false name.)
For our first few years, America had been governed from Philadelphia. But now this would be the first major government construction in the city that would serve as the nation’s capital. The true seat of power for the United States.
Washington Cornerstones
Thomas Jefferson
So important was the new presidential residence that a public competition was held to determine its design. Polymath and future president Thomas Jefferson submitted a design (under an assumed name), but didn’t win the contest.
As we set out to find the cornerstone of the White House, we spoke to author and historian Jeanne Fogle, an expert on the structures that make Washington, DC, such a strikingly beautiful city. She quickly pointed out that the placement of a cornerstone can be structural, and also ceremonial.
Yet in the new city of Washington, DC, Fogle observed, cornerstones meant even more than that. These were not just new buildings being erected—this was a whole new nation. And more than that, the United States of America was a whole new type of nation. Nothing like America had ever been tried before in the history of the world. So, of course, the cornerstones of the buildings that would house the vibrant young nation’s government would mean more than just symbolic blocks of stone.
In building the White House, they were building something exciting, something public, something dramatic. It’s not hard to imagine the enthusiasm and anticipation as the competition was decided . . . as George Washington made some adjustments to the winning entry . . . and as the preliminary site preparations took place—all of it leading to the big moment: the laying of the foundational block—the cornerstone.
So what kind of ceremony do you think they would’ve had for that? Who do you think was on the guest list? Who do you think got to speak? Was there a time capsule—and if so, what was inside it? The answer to all of these questions, and to most others involving the White House cornerstone: We just don’t know.
I’m not kidding. Other than a single newspaper account that was published a month after the stone was laid, there are no written records of the event.
But thanks to that newspaper story, we do know when the stone was laid: Saturday, October 13, 1792—though even that is sometimes disputed.
One legend says that the stone was laid on Columbus Day, October 12, and was put into place by George Washington himself. Good story, right? Unfortunately it’s not true. George Washington was in Philadelphia at the time, and while 1792 was indeed the year that Columbus Day observances first began to be held (there was one in New York that year), the day had not achieved the holiday significance we currently know. So the first step in building the White House was not timed to coincide with Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas.
But it may have been timed to coincide with another anniversary.
The Truman Connection
Beginning in 1949, during the Truman administration, the White House went through a substantial renovation. This struck many as the perfect time to make a concerted search for the cornerstone that had been missing since 1792. But the search was blocked by the president.
It’s Always the Freemasons
When it comes to conspiracies surrounding American history, no group gets mentioned—and blamed—more than the Freemasons. It’s no different here. Both James Hoban, the architect who won the design competition for the new executive mansion, and George Washington, who selected the site on which the mansion would be built, were Freemasons. Hoban himself, in fact, had founded the Washington Masonic Lodge that is still present today in Washington, DC.
Eight signers of the Declaration of Independence were Masons. Nine signers of the U.S. Constitution. Five Chief Justices of the Supreme Court. And 15 times, they took the White House, from George Washington, to Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, LBJ, and Ford. So you tell me that this many people who helped shape our country’s earliest days were also members of the same secret brotherhood, I want to know what that brotherhood stands for—and what it wants.
So what do Freemasons believe? There’re only two requirements: 1) You have to believe in a Supreme Being. It can be any god, be it Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any other. But you have to believe in God. And 2) you can’t have a criminal record.
For centuries, the Freemasons have included the powerful among their membership—a membership devoted both to good works and adherence to traditional virtues, but also to the preservation of ancient knowledge and lore known only to their members. So what does this have to do with cornerstones? As the organization’s name implies, trades that were associated with the art of building—much of it still resting upon techniques and principles that stretch back to the earliest days of civilization—played an important part in Freemasonry’s founding and growth. The organization honors Euclid, the father of geometry, for the role geometry plays in accurate surveying, site layout, and building.
Among those construction principles, according to Scott Brown, an expert on the history of the White House and himself a Mason in the Washington, DC, lodge, is the location of a building’s cornerstone. “We know the stone was laid Masonically,” Brown told us, “and Masons always put the cornerstone in the northeast corner of a new building.”
And yes, the Masonic organization is said to have amassed a large body of historical material, artifacts, items, and documents that they keep solely to themselves. To that end, Freemasonry has also been surrounded by rumors of hidden powers, and of perhaps even being the secret masters pulling the strings that guide the world.
Let me be clear: I don’t believe that. But I do know it was the Freemasons who were there on that night in 1792 when the White House cornerstone was first set in place. So I was listening quite carefully when Brown suggested that the stone was actually removed from the building site and placed somewhere else for safekeeping. Where would they put it? And why take it?
Those are the questions that led us to one of the largest bodies of collected knowledge on Earth: the Library of Congress.
Who Exactly Are the Freemasons?
To put it simply, the Free-masons are the largest and oldest fraternity in the world. Some say they’re a secret fraternity. They say they’re a fraternity with secrets. And still others say they date back to the building of King Solomon’s Temple.
From Voltaire to Winston Churchill, the Freemasons have spent centuries inducting the most powerful members of society. In the United States, they grew that power to new heights: from Benjamin Franklin to Benedict Arnold, Mark Twain to John Wayne, Bob Dole to Jesse Jackson . . . even Harry Houdini—all Masons. And these presidents:
George Washington
James Monroe
Andrew Jackson
James K. Polk
James Buchanan
Andrew Johnson
James Garfield
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Warren G. Harding
Franklin D. Roosevelt
; Harry S. Truman
Lyndon B. Johnson
Gerald R. Ford
“On Saturday the 13th inst. the first stone was laid in the south-west corner of the president’s house, in the city of Washington, by the Free Masons of George-town and its vicinity, who assembled on the occasion. The procession was formed at the Fountain Inn, Georgetown. . . . The Ceremony was performed by brother Casaneva master of the lodge, who delivered an oration well adapted to the occasion.”
—Letter to Charleston City Gazette
You’d think the Library of Congress, in Washington, DC, would have a substantial collection of documents related to the construction of the White House.
In reality, among all the hundreds of millions of books, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and virtually every other kind of information ever created, there is exactly one document dealing with the laying of the White House cornerstone. And that document is written anonymously.
The item in question is a copy of the Charleston City Gazette, dated October 20, 1792, just over a month after the cornerstone was laid. It is not an actual newspaper account that recorded the circumstances of the cornerstone being put into place. Rather, it was a letter attributed only to a “gentleman from Philadelphia.” To see the full letter, see Exhibit 6A, and examine it for yourself.
And right there, in the very first line, is an answer to at least part of the mystery. Forget Masonic tradition and practice. The cornerstone was never placed in the northeast corner of the building, as is traditionally done. For some reason, it was put in the southwest corner. No explanation is given for the southwestern location of the stone, but there must have been one. Masons never do anything without a good, or at least arcane, reason.
But wait. It gets better.
Sole Documentation
A letter to the Charleston City Gazette (see Exhibit 6A) is the only existing published record of the laying of the White House cornerstone.
According to the letter, the cornerstone did have a commemorative plate—one that was evidently not affixed to its exterior. The letter describes a brass plate that bore the following words:
This first stone of the President’s House was laid the 12th day of October 1792, and in the 17th Year of the Independence of the United States of America.
George Washington, President
Thomas Johnson
Doctor Stewart, Commissioners
Daniel Carroll
James Hoban, Architect
Collen Williamson, Master Mason
Vivat Respublica.
With the exception of Thomas Johnson, all of the men listed were known to be Masons.
And did you note the discrepancy in the date? The letter makes clear that the stone was laid on Saturday, October 13, but the brass plate identifies Friday, October 12, as the date. Grand conspiracy? I don’t think so. That one strikes me as pretty easy to explain. The plate would have had to be fashioned and the inscription etched into its surface before the actual date for installing the stone. It seems likely that the 12th was the intended date for the ceremony. But there’s another explanation that some find compelling.
Washington as a Freemason
The father of our country was the first of 15 presidents who were Freemasons.
Another Explanation?
On October 13, 1307, Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of the leaders of the Knights Templar, a powerful medieval organization that many feel is closely related to the Freemasons, which developed far later.
With his order, Philip IV essentially destroyed the group . . . on Friday, the 13th. And yes, that led to the widespread, but probably inaccurate, belief that this event set in motion our superstitious Friday the 13th beliefs.
Few historians place credence in this theory of the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition. And not many more believe the almost equally widespread belief that the Knights Templar somehow went into hiding, preserving their special symbols and codes, and resurfaced as a new group, known as the Freemasons.
But keep that in mind the next time you hear about a Masonic conspiracy centered on Friday the 13th.
Inside the Temple
As we searched for the White House cornerstone, it was easy to find people who blamed it all on the Freemasons. We found folks who told us the Masons were part of the new world order—that their goal was to rule the world—and that they’re even responsible for the deaths of others.
The Knights Templar
On October 13, 1307, Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of the leaders of the Knights Templar, a powerful medieval organization that many feel is closely related to the Freemasons. Many were burned at the stake, but that failed to end the influence the group was thought to wield.
One of those people was filmmaker Chris Pinto, who has devoted a large portion of his life and career to investigating what he sees as the darker sides of secret societies, including the Freemasons.
As an example, Pinto cites the story of William Morgan, a Baptist minister who, in 1826, was kidnapped and murdered after announcing that he was going to expose the secrets of the Freemasons. Yet Pinto believes that while there are high-ranking Masons who extol many virtues, there is an inner circle of leaders who control and guide the organization toward far darker goals—goals that include world domination. That Mason who lives next door to you and whose lodge devotes itself to community good works is, according to Pinto, no more aware of the inner circle than is anybody else.
No question, that’s an extreme view, written off by many, including myself. But let’s not forget that the Freemasons are a secret society. They keep secrets. That’s what they do. But do you want to know why the Masons really don’t want to talk to most people (especially those with TV cameras)? Because everybody burns them. Everyone blames them for every bad thing that’s happened in this world.
The Chosen Ones
The Knights Templar believed themselves to be special soldiers of the Lord, their religious fervor possibly enhanced by divinely inspired powers. They developed and used secret symbols and codes to communicate among themselves.
But as we began this search, we explained to the Freemasons what we were looking for. We showed them our evidence. We asked for their help. And guess what happened? They let us inside, making ours one of only three camera crews that were allowed to tape inside the Scottish Rite headquarters in Washington, DC, known as the House of the Temple. This was a once in a lifetime chance to go right to the source.
Started in 1911, the HQ of Scottish Rite Freemasonry was modeled on the Persian tomb of Mausolus, the original mausoleum, which became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It’s got two giant limestone sphinxes that guard the entrance. The sphinxes have human faces but lions’ bodies. And they represent two pillars of Masonic belief: wisdom and strength.
The building itself is a labyrinth of rooms and passageways. Symbols like the two-headed eagle, which represents power over east and west, decorate the walls. And you see symbols like pyramids and triangles everywhere. It’s a nod to the Masons’ origins as builders. The triangle, with its three sides, has been a sacred symbol for thousands of years. But to Masons, it reminds them of the three degrees of Masonry, the three orders of architecture. And for the Catholic Masons, it’s a symbol of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The all-seeing eye is the Eye of Providence. It’s the reminder to Masons that the Supreme Being watches and judges their words and actions. You’ll see those on buildings, corporate logos, and even on the back of the dollar bill.
The biggest room is known as the Temple Room. It’s where the Supreme Council convenes every two years to elect 33rd Degree Masons. Just outside is the seat where a guard is placed, in the Tyler’s seat, to protect against non-Masons from entering. (See Exhibit 6B for photos of the Temple Room and Tyler’s chair.) A
n inscription on the back of the chair says “Know thyself,” which was written on ancient temples. Albert Pike, the father of modern-day Masonry, is always close by—because he’s entombed in one of the building’s walls.
As we toured through the House of the Temple, we found some of history’s greatest artifacts: a flag that astronaut Neil Armstong took into space to the moon (Armstrong, John Glenn, and Buzz Aldrin were all Freemasons); the actual desk from J. Edgar Hoover’s (also a Freemason) FBI office. And even a small stone from the White House.
For a moment, we thought this was it—especially when we saw the Masonic symbols—the compass and square—on the stone. How did this piece wind up in this headquarters of the Scottish Rite Freemasons?
It was sent there personally . . . by President Truman.
Eye of Providence
The all-seeing Eye of Providence—adopted by the Masons years after it first appeared on the reverse of the Great Seal—reminds Masons that the Supreme Being watches and judges their words and actions. The Masons keep their Eye on us by way of buildings, corporate logos, and even on the back of the dollar bill.
William Morgan
Businessman and Baptist minister William Morgan sought to expose the secrets and motives of the Freemasons—a mortal violation of the Freemasons’ code. After the publication of Morgan’s exposé Illustrations of Masonry, he disappeared and was presumed murdered, sparking the anti-Masonic movement.
The Truman Show
Harry S. Truman
The 33rd president was hardly secretive about his Freemason membership. He’s reported to have claimed to be more proud of his rank within the Masons than he was of having been president.