World War I was then raging in Europe. With the prospect that the U.S.A. would soon join the war,two Skull and Bones "Patriarchs" , Averell Harriman (class of 1913) and Percy A. Rockefeller
(class of 1900), paid special attention to Prescott's class of 1917. They wanted reliable cadres to
help them play the Great Game, in the lucrative new imperial era that the war was opening up for
London and New York moneycrats. Prescott Bush, by then a close friend of "Bunny" Harriman, and
several other Bonesmen from their class of 1917 wBrothers Harriman, the world's largest private investment bank. ould later comprise the core partners in Brown
World War I did make an immense amount of money for the clan of stock speculators and British
bankers who had just taken over U.S. industry. The Harrimans were stars of this new Anglo-
American elite.
Averell's father, stock broker E.H. Harriman, had gained control of the Union Pacific Railroad in
1898 with credit arranged by William Rockefeller, Percy's father, and by Kuhn Loeb & Co.'s
British-affiliated private bankers, Otto Kahn, Jacob Schiff and Felix Warburg.
William Rockefeller, treasurer of Standard Oil and brother of Standard founder John D.
Rockefeller, owned National City Bank (later "Citibank" ) together with Texas-based James
Stillman. In return for their backing, E.H. Harriman deposited in City Bank the vast receipts from
his railroad lines. When he issued tens of millions of dollars of "watered" (fraudulent) railroad
stock, Harriman sold most of the shares through the Kuhn Loeb company.
The First World War elevated Prescott Bush and his father, Samuel P. Bush, into the lower ranks of
the Eastern Establishment.
As war loomed in 1914, NRockefeller took direct control of the Remington Arms company, appointing his own man, Samuelational City Bank began reorganizing the U.S. arms industry. Percy A. (^)
F. Pryor, as the new chief executive of Remington.
The U.S entered World War I in 1917. In the spring of 1918, Prescott's father, Samuel P. Bush,
became chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms and Ammunition Section of the War IndustriesBoard.@s2 The senior Bush took national responsibility for government assistance to and relations (^)
with Remington and other weapons companies.
This was an unusual appointment, as Prescott's father seemed to have no background in munitions.
Samuel Bush had been president of the Buckeye Steel Castings Co. in Columbus, Ohio, makers ofrailcar parts. His entire career had been in the railroad business-- supplying equipment to the Wall
Street-owned railroad systems.
The War Industries Board was run by Bernard Baruch, a Wall Street speculator with close personal
and business ties to old E.H. Harriman. Baruch's brokerage firm had handled Harriman speculationsof all kinds.@s
In 1918, Samuel Bush became director of the Facilities Division of the War Industries Board.
Prescott's father reported to the Board's Chairman, Bernard Baruch, and to Baruch's assistant, Wall
Street private banker Clarence Dillon.
Robert S. Lovett, President of Union Pacific Railroad, chief counsel to E.H. Harriman and executor
of his will, was in charge of national production and purchase "priorities" for Baruch's board.
With the war mobilization conducted under the supervision of the War Industries Board, U.S.