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The new publication has become available on Amazon.com: The Plot To Seize The White House: The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR

Update: (2006/11/01) - Here's the Skyhorse catalog copy I received on the new publication:

THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE

How Corporations Sought to Install the First American Dictator

by Jules Archer

In 1933, at the height of the Depression, a confederation of wealthy industrialists and political reactionaries looked to fascism for deliverance from their woes. They had lost their fortunes on Wall Street and their power structure of political favor in Washington. They thought they stood to lose everything if they condescended to allow President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to enact the New Deal and the silver standard. And they would stop at next to nothing in order to continue their grip on the levers of America’s most powerful institutions. In THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE, veteran author Jules Archer details tells this sordid, secret history of the most shocking act of sedition and intrigue since workmen drained the swamps to lay the foundation for Washington D.C.

The plotters studied Mussolini’s rise to power on the shoulders of nationalistic veterans’ groups, and devised a strategy to subvert or replace the leadership of the American Legion. If that failed, they would pull Legion’s funding and create their own. This would be followed by a call to law-and-order, local chapters deputized to break strikes and crush opposition demonstrations, and a brazen military organization arrayed against FDR and the U.S. Army. It would be a paramilitary police force beholden only to the party leaders; a fifth column: the American equivalent of Hitler’s Brown Shirts. Under the pretext of helping the ailing FDR with his duties, they would pressure him to appoint a strong-man dictator. They were linked to nationalist organizations with patriotic-sounding names, anti-Semitic groups, and the Ku Klux Klan. And they were led and bankrolled to the tune of millions of dollars by a constellation of industrialists and financiers whose inclusion is still shocking even today.

Their selection for dictator was tough-talking two-time Medal of Honor recipient and Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, a thirty-five year veteran of global U.S. gunboat diplomacy who was once a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. He was also a patriot, and having misplaced their trust in him, Butler broke the news through trusted journalists and friends on Capitol Hill. The McCormack-Dickstein Committee took testimony, some of which was under seal and is revealed only here. There were no consequences for the instigators however. The entire affair was swept under the rug, left out of history books, and conveniently forgotten, until the publication of THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE.

Born in New York City, JULES ARCHER is a graduate of City College of New York. During World War II he served four years in the Pacific with the Army Air Corps and was also a freelance correspondent by order of General MacArthur. He is the author of many books on political events and personalities, including Mao Tse-tung; The Dictators; Hawks, Doves, and the Eagle; The Extremists; and Chou En-lai.

The Plot to Sieze the White House by Jules Archer

Click here to read the Online HTML eBook from Empire Burlesque

Description Below and at Wikipedia

A key event in the History of Corporate Crime.

This book has achieved the "rare" book status. Rumor has it that copies are being bought up to erase its existence, ending its stain on reputations on rich families with embarrasing ancestery. In any case, readers will only find it in a few libraries. A recent book: The Corporation : The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, by Joel Bakan , ISBN: 0743247442, has a concise synopis of the facts presented in chapter 4.

Before reading this book, one should read The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us, by Martha Stout, ISBN: 076791581X. All of history needs to be interpreted through the understanding of sociopathy.

The Plot To Seize The White House contains a few primary sources, and records links to many other primary sources, which is its archival value. The details of the Plot itself are told here, and can be retold endlessly by others who care about this event. The story in brief is General Smedley Butler was approached to lead a coup d'etat to overthrow democracy in 1933 & 1934. (Reminding modern readers, 1933 was the year Hitler assumed power in Germany.) He declined, and exposed the plot. The plotters then employed the "OJ Simpson" theory of defense: "if you have enough money you can get away with murder."

Nobody was ever prosecuted. Important men were never arrested or grilled over facts. The newspaper sensation created by an impotent congressional investigation in 1934 and 1935 died down and the story collected dust, forgotten ever since.

However, the story fits into some others, including other suppressed and buried history. In telling the story of the Plot, Jules Archer tells also the biography of General Smedley Butler who declined to become the American Hitler or Mussolini, over a fascist takeover of the US. There are two books in one, woven together around this Plot.

Smedley Butler's biography shows him in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in 1914, simultaneously when armed men, government troopers, were killing American men, women and children in Ludlow, Colorado. Also, at this same moment in time, early 1914, Rockefellers were taking over the Remington Arms Company. For details of the Ludlow Massacre you need to read two books: Buried Unsung: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre, by Zeese Papanikolas, ISBN: 0803287275, and The Great Coalfield War, by George S McGovern, ISBN: 0395136490. Remington Arms Co. history is documented in the book: Remington Arms in American history, by Alden Hatch, ASIN: B0007DYPC4.

These details are not important only to The Plot To Seize The White House, but central to unravelling the Hitler Project. Yet two more books are required to place everything in order: Hitler's Secret Backers, by Sidney Warburg, ISBN: 0960035869, and Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, by Antony C. Sutton, ISBN: 0945001533.

From these books a timeline can be constructed:
1929 Wall Street interests send Hitler $10,000,000.
1931 Wall Street sends Hiltler another $15,000,000.
1933 Wall Street Sends Hitler a final $7,000,000. (total $32,000,000.)
1933 Wall Street puts up initial $3,000,000, backed by another reserve $15,000,000, for the Plot to Seize the White House. Up to $300,000,000 backing is promised.

Believable? The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance, by Ron Chernow, ISBN: 0802138292, reports that JP Morgan was Mussolini's banker for over $500,000,000 and heavily invested in fascist Japan by 1931. JP Morgan has over $3 BILLION invested in Germany by 1931. A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, by Nancy Lisagor, Frank Ipsivs, ISBN: 0688048889, reports that John Foster Dulles and S&C law firm have $1.15 BILLION invested in Germany by 1931. Titan : The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., by Ron Chernow, ISBN: 0679757031, reveals the Rockefeller "method" of business, including secret takeovers, bribed officials, blatant lawbreaking, industrial spying, and philosophy "the weakest must die first".

Yes, Wall Street was behind Hitler and Mussolini, without any doubt. All the plotter named in Archer's book, named by Smedley Butler to congress, were fascist supporters. Rockefellers were at war with the weak, using soldiers to kill. In 1927 Smedley's marines landed in China at the (Rockefeller's) Standard Oil docks, were stationed on S.O. property and protected S.O. investments. In 1914 Rockefellers and Morgans used Butler in Vera Cruz to kill peons in Mexico, just as Rockefeller-directed government troopers gunned down Americans at Ludlow, Colorado, at the same moment that Rockefeller-controlled Remington Arms was expanding arms production even before the Duke was shot starting WWI.

Using government troopers to quell democracy was a tradition by 1933, and fascist investments in German continued past Pearl Harbor. See: Trading with the enemy: An exposé of the Nazi-American money plot, 1933-1949, by Charles Higham, ISBN: 0440090644, and American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, by Kevin Phillips, ISBN: 0670032646.

This book stands alone as a mystery story, a spy story, a thriller, a history, a biography of a patriot, a record of government corruption. It also fits in with a great body of literature with pieces of information telling bits of the history of sociopathy that killed over 200,000,000 people last century.

EXCERPTED From PROBE March-April 1999, (pp. 8 -12) an article by Barbara LaMonica: The Attempted Coup against FDR

"The media gave little or scant coverage to the committee's final report. The Luce Press, which always led the charge in attacking Roosevelt and bolstering Fascism, ran a story called "A Plot Without Plotters" which sought to discredit Col Butler. He was called a "hothead". Other evidence of Butler's unsavory character, according to Luce, was that he had once given a speech in which he criticized Mussolini. His advocacy of the penniless Bonus Veterans Army was transformed into haranguing. The committee chairmen fared no better under Luce's pen. They were accused of only seeking publicity (despite their having sought to suppress the most explosive parts of their discoveries). The New York Times showed an astonishing lack of interest. Reference to the alleged coup was relegated to two paragraphs at the bottom of page five. However, not every newspaper discounted the plot. The independent Philadelphia Record ran a cartoon showing big business pointing to a soapbox Communist as the threat, while General Butler marches in with evidence revealing armed Fascists hiding beneath a banker's coat. References to the alleged conspiracy disappeared from the press. Nevertheless, individual reporters did attempt to pursue the story. Paul Comley French of the Philadelphia Record and investigative journalist John Spivak went to the Justice Department. They asked why no one implicated was ever questioned; and since MacGuire had perjured himself, did they intend to file criminal prosecution? The Justice Department indicated it had no plans to carry matters any further at the moment. MacGuire, the only man who could have testified against the rest, died soon after of complications from pneumonia. His physician claimed his death was partly due to the stress of the charges made by Butler. Grayson M.-P. Murphy, the Morgan banker and treasurer of the American Liberty League, died soon after."

After all the cover-up by deletion and omission for the committee's report and the continuation of the efforts of the press to deny and make light of the coup, it can be no surprise that the effects of the Fascist power centers and the schemes of the Fascists still haunt the American Political landscape.

"Aftermath And Beyond"

Although the coup never materialized, the unrelenting propaganda attack against Roosevelt and the New Deal reforms continued, spearheaded by the American Liberty League. The League listed as its main contributors the Du Pont family, representatives of the Morgan interests, Robert Sterling Clark, the Pew Family (Sun Oil) and Rockefeller Associates. Its treasurer was Grayson M.-P. Murphy, MacGuire's immediate boss. The League itself was ostensibly dedicated to the virtues of the Constitution, individual freedom and free market capitalism. But it claimed all New Deal reforms were inspired by Communists within the Roosevelt administration. In the election of 1936, the League spent twice as much money as the Republican Party in trying to defeat Roosevelt. Although the League disbanded after Roosevelt won his second term, it spawned a series of extreme right-wing groups and paramilitary bands which constituted a network that endured through the 1960s, and whose descendants are with us today. Their propaganda was anti-Communist and anti-Semitic; their tactic was violence. Some groups which the League financed were the Sentinels of the Republic (which labeled the New Deal "Jewish Communism"), the Minutemen and the Minutewomen. Another group, the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution, was associated with the Silver Shirt Squad of the American Storm Troopers. The goals of this organization, headed by a Texas oil magnate, were to create a mass movement of whites in the South to dilute Roosevelt's Dixie vote, and to stir up anti-black racism in order to attack organizing drives by the unions from the North. Significantly, these same hate sentiments were being stirred up against JFK, and for the same reasons. These groups formed the dark underside to the League, which tried to present a polite public face. But some industrialists, like Henry Ford, had no qualms about explicitness. American Fascist groups hawked his anti-Semitic tracts like "The international Jew."

The main function of these hate groups was to enforce the will of right-wing corporate America, seeking to regain the political power it lost in the 1932 election. On the grassroots level, this intention translated into supporting the efforts of management to stop workers from unionizing. The most glaring example of this was the struggle at the General Motors plants. (General Motors was owned by the DuPonts). The Du Ponts employed the Black Legion, a sort of Northern Klux Klux Klan, which would terrorize workers, bomb union halls, and torture and murder organizers. The Legion was organized into arson squads, execution squads, and anti-Communist squads. Discipline within its own ranks was maintained with the weapons of torture or death and was strictly enforced. The LaFollette Committee found that the Legion had penetrated police departments, high government offices, and the Michigan Republican Party.

These groups also acted as intelligence networks. They infiltrated unions, leftwing groups, and universities, and sold their information to industry. One example of such an intelligence agency was the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation, headquartered in Chicago and operated by Harry Jung. Jung later relocated to New Orleans where he was an associate of Guy Banister, who also hailed from Chicago. Banister's Detective Agency was spying for right-wing businesses as well. Some believe it may have been Jung's hotel in New Orleans that the famous Congress of Freedom meeting took place in the Spring of 1963. At this meeting, with Edwin Walker and Joseph Milteer in attendance, a police informant reported there was talk of murdering national leaders.

In the Thirties, corporate America's fear of government regulation threatened by Roosevelt's New Deal, ("Socialism" in their minds), gave them a reason to embrace Fascism. It justified their financing of paramilitary hate groups to carry out violent, anti-government and anti-union campaigns exploiting the vehicles of racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Communism. By the Sixties these groups had become entrenched in the grassroots landscape.
The institutionalization of the military industrial complex and the national security state, with which corporate America would meld, developed after World War II and its aftermath. The DuPonts, as well as other industrialists, implicated in the attempted coup against FDR played a major role in these developments."

False Dawn

When the new decade started on 01January, 1930 many manufactured perceptions were evidenced in the American public's consciousness. Even the fact that the new decade wouldn't start for another year was overlooked. That decade would see many things that portended even more ominous events fast approaching. As is nearly always is the case, manufactured perceptions were paramount over real events or the truth about known events.

The decade of the 1930s had seen the beginning of what became known as the Great Depression, but that was public knowledge. How could it be ignored except in the houses of obscene wealth of New England or Maryland? The then reigning President Herbert Hoover was of the let them eat cake variety as his class of society was shown to be all too clearly. He may not have fiddled while Rome burned, but he refused to engage in any relief for the starving American workers until his hope of re-election forced him to do something to appear to be aware of the vast need and starvation stalking the American social landscape. And then he thought his connection to the Wall Street set would be forgotten. Growling stomachs and malnourished bodies attached to them meant near nothing to the G.O.P.

What did matter to Hoover as the election approached was the "rabble" of veterans labeled the "Bonus Marchers." They had taken up residence in parks, dumps and abandoned buildings while seeking a redress of grievance from the Congress. The veterans of World War 1 had been promised a bonus payable in the 1940s. They sought a bonus of lesser amount paid then in the times of dire need. By 1945 there would be millions more new veterans to "worry about."

As Congress is prone to do they futzed around and delayed taking any action. They waffled in 1932 as they do today. The gates to the White House were padlocked and Herbert Hoover ate regally seemingly not even aware of an issue of hunger in his nation. But that is the way of the wealthy. Let them eat cake, until they break the gates and steal your cake. The police and U.S. Army would protect the chief executive and the seats of power in Washington D.C.

As the government played ping pong with the issue of the Bonus Marchers as they were known to the public, the "armed insurrectionists", as Hoover and the empowered referred to them, thought the plight of their own members was obvious and the remedy was obvious. However the men having the power and means to remedy the problems were equally sure it was just as obvious that the Communists were behind this problematic mob. To have given them something for nothing would negate the impetus to seek work at the very time that the impetus to work was the cure for the over all ills of the global economy. This position was sheer stupidity bred of opulence and cultural ignorance. Blinded by the glitter of the gold.
This is not to say the community of Washington D.C. didn't provide food, the small businesses or some of them did, sending bread and some other foods far short of the need but more than the wealthy were doing. More genuine would be the verbiage "more than the wealthy were doing publicly." The wealthy were quite busy in the election year 1932. Not only in America but also globally and all most exclusively in secret from America's We The People.

The machinations of the wealthy and the common man were soon to intersect in the life of one man for a moment in time.

This man was retired U.S.M.C. General Smedley Darlington Butler.

"He was even more famous and popular among rank and file leathernecks, doughboys, and bluejackets for the fierce battles he had fought against the American military hierarchy on behalf of the enlisted man. He was also admired, respected and trusted because of his one-man fight to compel Americans to remember their tragic war casualties hidden away in isolated veteran's hospitals.

Smedley Butler was a wiry bantam of a man, shoulders hunched forward as though braced against the pull of a heavy knapsack, his hawk nose prominent in the leathery face of an adventurer. Silhouetted against a flaming sunset, he made a speech of encouragement [to the Bonus Marchers] in the blunt language that had kept him in hot water with the nation's highest-ranking admirals and generals, not to mention the Secretaries of State and Navy.

"If you don't hang together, you aren't worth a damn!" he cried in the famous hoarse rasp that sent a thrill through every veteran who has heard it before. He reminded them that losing battles didn't mean losing a war. "I ran for the Senate on a bonus ticket," he said, "and got the hell beat out of me." But he didn't intend to stop fighting for the bonus, and neither should they, he demanded, no matter how stiff the opposition or the names they were called.

"They may be calling you tramps now," he roared, "but in 1917 they didn't call you bums!&You are the best behaved group of men in this country today. I consider it an honor to be asked to speak to you & Some folks say I am here after something. That is a lie. I don't want anything." All he wanted, he told the cheering veterans, was to see that the country they had served dealt with them justly. He concluded his exhortation by urging, "When you go home, go to the polls in November and lick the hell out of those who are against you. You know who they are & Now go do it."

Afterward he was mobbed by veterans eager to speak to him. Until 2:30 A.M. he sat sprawled on the ground in front of his tent, listening sympathetically to tales of lost jobs, families in distress, and troublesome old wounds. He slept three hours, then woke to resume talks with the veterans.
Sharing a Bonus Army breakfast of potatoes, hard bread, and coffee, he learned that the food was running out, and veterans were muttering about rioting against Congress if it did. Before he left for his home in Newtown Square, a small town outside of Philadelphia, he warned the Bonus Marchers, "You're all right so long as you keep your sense of humor. If you slip over into lawlessness of any kind you will lose the sympathy of a hundred twenty million people in the nation."

It was the government, however, that unleashed the violence. Under orders from President Herbert Hoover, General Douglas MacArthur led troops in driving the Bonus Army out of Washington at bayonet point and burning down their shacktowns.
By August 1 [1932] rumors began spreading from the last stronghold of the veterans, an encampment at Johnstown, Virginia, indicated that the infuriated Bonus Marchers were determined to organize a new nonpartisan organization of veterans and wanted General Butler to lead it. Reporters pressed him to comment.

"I have heard nothing about it at all, although I was in Washington to address the veterans," he replied with a shrug. "I have neither seen nor heard from Mr. Waters or any of the other leaders of the Bonus Expeditionary Force."
Meanwhile he phoned the governors of a number of states and won their agreement to provide relief for those who wanted to return home. He phone Waters in Washington to urge that the remnants of the Bonus Army break camp and start back home under this plan, and he issued a blast a the Hoover administration as heartless for its treatment of the veterans and its failure to help them, their wives, and their children return home without further humiliation.
That November lifelong Republican Smedley Butler took the stump for Franklin D. Roosevelt and helped him turn Herbert Hoover out of the White House. [1]

Another view of the downfall of right wing unregulated economic politics, in the person of Herbert Hoover as President is this passage:

"Hoover's image had already suffered a crushing blow by the Depression. Industrial production was down 50 percent, according to the Federal Reserve Board; iron and steel, 85 percent; lumber, 77 percent; cement, 65 percent. Factory payrolls had been slashed 65 percent, employment 44 percent. Over 13 million workers were jobless and over 4,000 banks had failed.

But the coup de grâce to Hoover's career was delivered in June 1932, by his own hand. A "bonus army" of thousands of tired unemployed veterans and their families arrived that month in Washington demanding a federal bonus promised them by law, but not payable until the 1940s. They had traveled thousands of miles in battered jalopies, trucks, and wagons; many had even walked. And when Hoover wouldn't even receive them, they pitched tents, erected shacks, and slept in the capital's parks to petition Congress. As soon as Congress adjourned after refusing to grant the marchers any relief, Hoover made a show of force. On July 28 a police attempt to evict some of the squatters resulted in the killing of two veterans. Hoover then called in the Army. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, who described the marchers as "a mob & animated by the essence of revolution," delayed the use of troops only long enough to have his swagger stick and medal covered uniform arrive from a nearby fort.

Aided by Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower and Major George Patton, MacArthur ordered tanks, four troops of cavalry with drawn sabers, and a column of steel helmeted infantry with fixed bayonets to enter downtown Washington and advance on the unarmed veterans. From Pennsylvania Avenue, MacArthur's proud army marched across the Anacostia bridge, thousands of veterans and their wives and children fleeing before them, and advanced on their shanty village, lobbing tear gas bombs and setting its shacks and tents afire. An infant died from the tear gas, an 11-year-old boy was blinded for life, and many veterans were wounded. MacArthur responding to a reporter's claim of having seen a cavalryman use his saber to slash off a veteran's ear, explained, somewhat amused, that that was quite impossible. "You don't slash with a saber," he told the press, "you lunge." And striking the correct pose for photographers, he demonstrated the proper thrust.

That night, from the windows of the White House's Lincoln Room, Hoover watched the red glow from the burning camps in the southeast and retired. The next day the press was informed "the President was pleased."

Such crude brutality only spurred desertions already underway in Hoover's ranks, even among leading Republicans." [2]

The reality of the "armed insurrectionists" was far from the manufactured perceptions spread by the interests associated with the wealthy DuPont Empires and the like that Herbert Hoover represented. The newspapers knew it, the average American citizen knew it and the Elite knew it. It would seem everyone knew the reality. The elite whose interests were threatened by any unification of the "consumers", those Americans of the non-working class were painting the propaganda presentation to be made to the gullible however.

Some room for questioning the constitutionality of Hoover sending in the U.S. Army to abuse American Veterans exists. The deployment of U.S. Armed Forces against American Citizens had been made illegal by the Constitution as a result of the abuses of the Crown heads of the British Empire and the redcoats in revolutionary and pre-Revolutionary times. But this guarantee is only a paper prohibition of little effect in determining the actions of the elite at any time. 1932 or 1970 it matters little.

The Washington police had earned Herbert Hoover's anger by feeding the bonus marchers. It is a clear statement as to what the mindset of the elite was concerning hunger and need to be wrathful towards a police force feeding people in need. All this was before the militarization of the police forces of this nation, in the days when a policeman was respected and served as a peace officer. A friend of the citizenry, not an enforcer and protector for the gated communities of the elites and their own selfish interests as the police have become in this century.

Therefore, the U.S. Army was the only force left, Washington D.C. had no National Guard. The supposed armed insurrectionists were quite different than the portrayed caricatures circulating in the boardrooms of the elite firms and banks.

"The bonus marchers were unarmed, had expelled radicals from their ranks, and despite their evident hunger weren't even panhandling openly. They seemed too weak to be a menace. Drew Pearson, a thirty-four year old Baltimore Sun reporter, described them as "ragged, weary and pathetic," with "no hope on their faces." Increasingly the BEF [Bonus Expeditionary Force] vigil had become an exercise in endurance. A health department inspector described the camp's sanitary conditions as "extremely bad." Makeshift commissaries depended largely upon charity. Truckloads of food arrived from friends in Des Moines and Camden, New Jersey; a hundred loaves of bread were being shipped each day from a sympathetic baker; one thousand pies came from another; the Veterans of Foreign Wars sent $500, and the bonus marchers raised another $2500 by staging boxing bouts among themselves in Griffith Stadium. The administration was doing virtually nothing - Washington police had aroused Hoover's wrath by feeding the District's uninvited guests bread, coffee and stew at six cents a day&"[3]

It is clear what six cents a day could do, or what the payment in advance of the $500 bonus could have done. It was not however the money or the hunger that was problematic, it was the open unification of American veterans in a common cause to exercise the guaranteed right to seek the redress of grievance that was seen as the problem. How dare the "rabble" think they could do such a thing? That is a dangerous thing, a very threatening state of affairs to the status quo empowering the wealthy.

The economic collapse that presaged all the social upheaval didn't just destroy the political base of the wealthy conservatives, it also spurred them into legal and illegal action against their presumed opponents. Not only domestically in the U.S. but also in other empires outside America's borders. With the advantage of hindsight from the 21st Century a more detailed explanation of why Wall Street crashed in 1929 should be taught in primary schools other than the worn lie about too much easy credit extended to buy stocks on margin. It is not and was not that simple. It is often ignored that the workers wages were falling and production was rising for years before the "crash." Farmers and other large segments were in a depressed economic condition years before 1929. Over production had exceeded the consumer's ability to purchase the produced good for years. It was a warning to the elite, it should have been for the "consumers" too, even though there is little the consumer can do to change the imbalance. The purchase of new automobiles had fallen for three years before the crash. General Motors and the DuPont Empire knew well of the impending problems in the domestic economy as did the House of Morgan.

Too often it is not reported in "history classes' that the margin credit policies were methods to draw the "not wealthy people's" money into the markets to be gambled with and ultimately stolen by manipulation and fraud. In 2002 the exposed fraud of the houses of Wall Street and the attending fall guys, the accounting firms is nothing new. It has all been done before. More frauds and thieves were jailed in the aftermath of the 1929 crash though.
None of the financial crisis was accidental and none was unforeseen. The financial movers and shakers knew the system was over extended, as did the Federal Reserve System that was intended to control credit and banking.

Desperation was stalking the land in 1932 and given the seemingly intentional alienation by Herbert Hoover of the American People another way had to be found. Of crucial importance was the common mood of desperation, common to both divisions of American society wealthy and powerless. The powerless were sweeping in Franklin Roosevelt in hopes of something different, part of the empowered people were also in favor of Franklin Roosevelt but for another cause. FDR was "one of their class" and would surely be able to ease the tensions of America.

There were more pressing problems for the elite though, someone was raiding the gold reserves and collapsing banks all over the nation. A crisis of finance was stalking the land and stealing savings and hope from rich and poor alike. Someone was trying very hard to subjugate the American Republic to another will.

This was raw greed and it was no respecter of the sovereignty of nations, financial empires were using the lame duck time between the election of 1932 and the March 1933 inauguration of FDR to extract as much of America's gold reserves as they could manage.

Banks were collapsing at an unprecedented rates, less financially secure (not wealthy) Americans were watching their saving accounts disappear into a created ether. As is ALWAYS the case the money didn't disappear into thin air, neither does missing money in the Federal Budget just disappear.
The only real disappearing act in 1932 was the "magic act" perpetrated on the depositors of the raided banks. Numbering between 4,000 and 7,000 banks "failed" actually raided in a similar maneuver to the corporate raiders of the 1980s and 1990s.

How similar? In the 1980s Corporate raiders looked for a company to take over looking not for profits or great R & D, but a pension fund of deposits in some bank. Once in control of the company the pension fund was used and "disappeared." The Savings and Loan thefts if the 1980s were the same old game, i.e. money "disappeared", as in the 1930s. The same kind of attack was used on banks, creditors, most often connected to either huge megalopolies of banking centers or to foreign empires called in all debt at once "on demand" on a local small bank. Poof more "disappeared money" that really wasn't gone but like a magician's act vanished from public view, converted to gold as that was the American currency and moved to another pigeon hole.

A bank closed, savings gone and worse still the working people have their own confidence shattered, their hope STOLEN along with their deposited money or pensions.

The failing banks number in the thousands in a matter of weeks in February 1933, the number of accounts wiped out was 9,000,000. That is to say about 9,000,000 families in a nation of 120,000,000 citizens were wiped out financially. Clearly the Banking Industry was demonstrating the need for it to be regulated as the Financial Empires of Wall Street had done in 1929. By 1932 15,000,000 Americans were unemployed and there were no prospects of jobs being created in a few years. All this was partially because of the raiding of the wealthy on the wealth of the not so wealthy.

Fear, hunger and despair were stalking the land in larger proportions than had been known in decades, if ever. In the most dire times the elite were stealing, or "disappearing" what little the others has saved or earned by their own toil.

Three years into the Depression so much had been stolen and so much hope was stolen that the question was now: "Who is to blame?" In 1929 or 1930 the question may have been: "What went wrong?" Herbert Hoover's answer was no answer beyond, prosperity and the "great turn around" was fast approaching. In fact he never addressed the question of the people, about what went wrong.

Because the too long anticipated "great turn around" never came, it was clear that the economic system could not repair itself. The question paired with "who was to blame?" was "What to do to get things fixed?"

"A Senate investigation into the machinations of Wall Street found that investors organized raids on the stock market, pulled out all their money hoping for prices to drop, and then bought low. Insiders were also afforded the opportunity to buy securities at prices much lower than the public. Financiers were lining their pockets with fantastic bonuses, and the committee found that "& the Stock Exchange was no more than a glorified gambling casino where the odds were weighted heavily against the eager outsiders.' " [4]

The what was to be done issue can in hindsight be seen to be the creation and empowerment of the Securities and Exchange Commission for the regulation of the Wall Street house of thieves and similar legislation for the regulation of banking institutions. The revolt against the elite that was the 1932 election had swept in Democratic less business oriented Senate and House of Representative officials. Elected representatives more than willing to look behind doors and under the rugs for the criminals that were stealing the treasury and the people blind.

The press was spouting junk about the "noble" efforts of some financiers that supposedly pumped money in huge amounts into the market in October 1929 when the crash started. In that day though it fooled no one.

The words of Franklin Roosevelt asking Congress to pass the Securities Act shed light on the view of himself and many others not to include the Houses of Morgan or DuPont.

"In the working out of a great national program seeking the primary good of the greater number, it is true that the toes of some people are being stepped on. But those toes belong to the comparative few who seek to retain or to gain position or riches or both by some short cut that is harmful to the greater good." [4]

The pressure was mounting against the comparative few FDR spoke about, further it was not going to relent. Talk was being heard in the halls of Congress about taxing the "comparative few" and even regulating and investigating the "comparative few." The "comparative few" were not going to just let this run of events have free run.

Where the "comparative few" did nothing to correct the economic woes of the nation the new ideas and suggestions of Franklin Roosevelt were doing something. He had taken America off the sacrosanct "gold standard" and is noted above was moving to regulate the playgrounds of the "comparative few" so that if nothing else the deeds done could be exposed and maybe jail the thieves to boot.

When FDR chose Joe Kennedy to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission it had to send the worst fears into the boardrooms of the "comparative few." Joe Kennedy knew too well for their liking the methodology of their thefts and worse was not one of the club members. Not only had Joe Kennedy been long sighted enough to get out of the market before the crash, but even FDR has reported said when he decided upon Joe Kennedy for chairman that was setting a thief to catch thieves. The pressure was building. Something had to give.

Enter the intersection of power, the "comparative few" and retired General Smedley Darlington Butler.

Had the American Fascists chosen Douglas MacArthur instead of Smedley Butler things may have been very different. MacArthur had the ego and the rightist elite view to in his own mind to countenance a take over, provided he was the American Fuhrer, even if the position was only as a figurehead to receive public adoration. The flaw in trying to use MacArthur was the Bonus Marcher debacle that sealed Hoover's fate as well as making Doug MacArthur very unpopular with the veterans. Dugout Doug had never been popular with the men serving under his command. He was now even less well thought of by the veterans in 1934. The veterans were crucial to the plotters' plans.

Again they would have been the public faces of the undertaking to kill the Republic and replace it with Corpocracy in the face of Fascism.

The elite are not above using veterans more than once, first in uniform and second or third in "civilian" life after. Nor are they above redefining at will the guaranteed rights to peacefully assemble and/or to seek redress of grievance. Dissent is a forbidden crime to the elite, as is organizing to exercise those presumed but non-existent rights. Single dissenters can be deal with or disposed of at leisure, many dissenters can much more bothersome even when you control the press. In the early thirties the control of the press was much less complete than today in the dawn of the 21st Century.

"In 1932 the General [MacArthur] was invited to address the graduating class at the University of Pittsburgh. He seized the occasion to argue that demonstrators protesting the government's ineffectual responses to the spreading Depression were "organizing the forces of unrest and undermining the morals of the working man." Some three hundred students jeered, three of their leaders were arrested and fined, and the university's business manger, telling reporters that "we want right-minded students here," announced that incoming freshmen would be required to sign loyalty oaths. It seemed MacArthur had won. He hadn't. An appeals court reversed the conviction of the three, and the press was sharply critical of the General. He said: "It was bitter as gall and I knew something of that gall would be with me always."

He had not, however, changed his mind. Returning from Pittsburgh, he instructed officers commanding the country's nine corps areas to send him information on any agitators posing as veterans. In the summer of 1932 that order has special significance. Some twenty-five thousand vets and their families were already encamped in Washington, and more were on the way. Penniless in these hard times, they were petitioning the government to pay them a cash "bonus." They called themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force, or BEF. A Veteran's Administration survey would later shoe that 94 percent of the bonus marchers had army or navy records, 67 percent had served overseas, and 20 percent had been disabled. MacArthur refused to believe it. He thought 90 percent of them were fakes. And he never changed his mind. Long afterward Major General Courtney Whitney, his most noisome advocate, reflected the General's view when he wrote that BEF ranks were swollen with "a heavy percentage of criminals, men with prison records for such crimes as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, burglary, blackmail, and assault." Whitney charged: "A secret document which was captured later disclosed that the Communist plan covered even details as the public trial and hanging in front of the Capitol of high government officials. At the very top of the list was the name of Army Chief of Staff MacArthur."

There was no secret document; there were only hungry Americans. But as Eisenhower observed of his chief, the General "had an obsession that a high commander must protect his image at all costs and must never admit his wrongs." In addition he felt an ideological bond to Hoover, and on July 28, when Hurley told him that the President wanted the BEF evicted, he proceeded with enthusiasm. What was really needed was tact." [5]

Having used up the respect of veterans by killing or maiming them, Doug MacArthur would not be available to the Fascist conspirators. Franklin Roosevelt was wise enough to reappoint him to the Chief of Staff of the Army position to keep him under watch and under control. This was the first time a Chief of Staff had succeeded himself.

The divide between political perspectives can be seen by the contrast between the views of the two generals, Butler and MacArthur. Butler pronounced the BEF as the best-behaved group of hungry men, MacArthur saw only that 90 percent of them were fakes. This issue in vague terms would define the politics of the time: For the great majority of Americans that were hungry, or opposed to them.

It is and will become clear that the BEF was not organized by the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, nor any other pre-existing veteran's fraternal organization.

History records that the "Bonus Army" had its roots on Portland Oregon, from a small group of veterans headed by a former U.S. Army sergeant a Mr. Walter W. Waters.

It is worthwhile to examine the origins of the two establishment "veterans fraternal organizations," the V.F.W. and particularly the American Legion.
First the V.F.W., as it was not the V.F.W. that approached Smedley Butler to be front man for the Fascist Coup attempt on 1934. The V.F.W. had a very different history than the American Legion.

>From the V.F.W.'s own web site: this summarized history is found:

"The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States traces its roots back to 1899 when veterans of the Spanish-American War (189 and the Philippine Insurrection (1899-1902) founded local organizations to secure rights and benefits for their service: Many arrived home wounded or sick.

There was no medical care or veterans' pension for them,
and they were left to care for themselves. In their misery, some of these veterans banded together and formed organizations with what would become known as the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. After chapters were formed in Ohio, Colorado and Pennsylvania, the movement quickly gained momentum. By 1915, membership grew to 5,000; by 1936, membership was almost 200,000.

A Century of Accomplishments
Planned establishment of the Veterans Administration
Led development of the national cemetery system
Fought for compensation for Vietnam vets exposed to Agent Orange
Encouraged elevation of the Veterans Administration to the president's cabinet
Protected and enhanced the VA budget
Raised $500,000 to provide 300,000 care packages to Desert Storm troops
Matched funds for the creation of the World War II Memorial"

Before one gets to mushy about veteran services rendered to the veterans, the reality is far different from the presented picture. Witness the constant cutting of the G.I. Bill of 1946 until it was finally eliminated completely and that "service turned over to the Veteran's Administration to be constantly reduced as the G.I. Bill was.

Three issues I will raise the names of for any curious to look into the reality as opposed to the "presentation."

PTSD and the denial of the issue for a decade in the 1970s,

Agent Orange and denial until most victims were dead,

the "Gulf War Syndrome" again denied until most victims were dead. All denied to avoid financial costs - PERIOD. No other excuse exists.
All denied. Particularly by the same "comparative few" Franklin Roosevelt spoke of, the elite abuse the veterans by making blood money from the efforts of their betters, they abuse the veterans by denying earned benefits after they return to the U.S.A.
Doubt my word? Check the statistics of funding for the Veteran's Administration over the last century. How much good did it do Max Clelland to be loyal to America and then to King George the Second? No good at all. Once the service was rendered the loyalty ends, but the veterans are by now well accustomed to such shoddy use and abuse by the "comparative few." Nothing at all new in any of it.
I cannot find out who funded the original start of the V.F.W. and that is suspicious to me, I am a veteran but joined NO "fraternal groups."
Why I have not done so comes out of two facts in my own life both the county "V.A." officers I ever spoke with were corrupted and punks. One a wife beater , the other on the take in determining who he would help in getting benefits from the big V.A. coffers supposedly dedicated to the veterans, remember them?

More crucial to the issue of the 1934 Coup though is the corruption and abuse of veterans' organizations by the "comparative few."

"The Morgan family, along with their allies also bankrolled the formation of the American Legion in 1919, and crafted it into a union busting organization of thugs. The initial operating officers of the Legion were bankers, stockbrokers and the like. Throughout the 1920s, the Legion was employed as a union busting organization.

The Legion took on a fascist character almost from its birth, and would play a prominent role in the fascist plot against Roosevelt in the 1930s. In 1923, Commander in Chief of the Legion Alvin Owsley openly embraced Mussolini, and endorsed fascism as a viable policy for the United States. Quoted in the Journal of the National Education Association, Owsley equated the Legion to America as the Fascisti were to Italy.

"...the American Legion stands ready to protect our country's institutions and ideals as the Fascisti dealt with the destructionists who menaced Italy... The American Legion is fighting every element that threatens our democratic government - soviets, anarchists, I.W.W., revolutionary socialists and every other red... Do not forget that the Fascisti are to Italy what the American Legion is to the United States." [7]

As reported in Jules Archer's book, The Plot to Seize the White House, Smedley Butler had under gone a transformation in the times of 1930 - 32. He had made such public statements supporting ideas that the young men that would have to fight a war should be the only ones able to vote on the declaration of war, and that the owners and workers in armament plants be paid no more than the service men.

Both ideas can be seen as threats to the Morgan Empire Banks habit of profiting by financing wars, but particularly to the DuPont Empires century old addiction to profit from other men's shed blood by manufacturing and selling the weapons of war while making sure they and their family's progeny were never at risk in those wars.

It would be unthinkable for the DuPont family to be paid only what a Dog Face or Gyrene would be paid for applying their weapons, at the time: "$37.50 a day once a month." Even by World War Two $50.00 a month.

General Butler had become a pacifist as his Quaker upbringing would have dictated. The veterans that have fought wars know something often forgotten by others and even by some veterans of the REMF variety: War is a terrible thing holding no glory only death and horror and victory or defeat for the mud Grunts fighting it, but the "REMFers" and the overseers can only see the Empire and profit views.

There are few more conspicuous contrasts in American History than General Smedley Butler and U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur. One was loved and held in highest regard by his own men, the other was reviled and hated by his men but held high by the people back home.
Both were awarded Congressional Medals of Honor. Butler won two.

One was of the common cloth and never forgot the men he served with, the other served for personal glory and fame and the troops were only commodities to be consumed as pawns for personal gain.

One camped with the Bonus March Veterans, the other aligned himself with the Elite and ignored orders to restrain himself in his eviction methods from the President concerning the same veterans. That is self-assurance that even the President could not do anything to him. Harry Truman proved Presidents could and do reign in the commanders, as Presidents are the Commander in Chief. The forced submission to authority was a pair of decades too late.

When MacArthur was removed from position he spoke to Congress and the People to lament "Old Soldiers Never Die They Just Fade Away." He relished the spotlight of fame and acclaim.

On October 1, 1932 Smedley Butler retired and was a civilian. A well earned rest. He did so at Quantico speaking to his esteemed Marines.

"In his farewell speech to his beloved leathernecks his voice was more than customarily hoarse, and tears misted his fierce glare.
"It has been a privilege to scrap for you just as you have scraped for me,' he told them. "When I leave I mean to give every one of you a map showing you exactly where I live. I want you to come around and see me, especially if you ever get into trouble, and I will help you if I can. I can give you a square meal and a place to sleep even if I cannot guarantee you a political job.'

He meant every word, gave out the maps, and kept his promise for as long as he lived." [1]

Mr. Archer worked with the family when he wrote this book. He knows what he wrote of.
This is esprit de corps, this is the Semper Fidelis, the motto of the Corp.
I find it impossible to think MacArthur could or would do something like this. The man simply was not that popular or identified with the G.I. in the enlisted ranks.

General MacArthur and in particular member of his staff later will be central to the Elite's plans.
General Butler was also to be involved in those plans but he was not cooperative. Mr. Butler for example had to sell off the land around his home to pay off the mortgage later. He spoke and toured not changing the things he promoted: Always this Republic and the veterans that had paid the price. In 1932 he made public his own decision to vote Democratic for the first time in his life, IF the right man were nominated. He thought the right man were Franklin Roosevelt.

He managed to get the money for his sons to go to college, not by influence of the "comparative few" but by writing and lecturing as he was quite in demand.

The mortgage was a picking point in the approach of the Morgan Dupont Empires by proxy of the American Legion.
He never forgot his beloved Corps and it's people. He blasted the U.S. Navy after the Corp quietly submitted to being made a department of the U.S. Navy. An article titled "To Hell With the Admirals" in Liberty Magazine of December 5 1931 got his tablet erected in his honor removed from the Navy Building.

The times of 1932 polarized the nation, Butler predictably becoming more anti-big business. As opposed to the lies of the Empire cults, Butler said:

"I've about come to the conclusion that some American corporations abroad are, in a measure, responsible for trouble with the natives because of the way they treat them. ... I've seen hundreds of boys from the cities and farms of the United States die in Central American countries just to protect the investments of our large corporations." How could Washington criticize Japan for its takeover in Manchuria, he demanded, when we ourselves has been just as imperialistic?" [1]

It should have been clear that General Butler was not the right choice for front man of a Fascist Coup.
Not every man has a price measured in dollars, some do value integrity and honor and fidelity.
Butler having been a Marine since age 15, lived the code now so antiquated as to be ridiculed in some quarters in this country today. Particularly in the college campuses populated by the sons and daughters of parents and fathers never knowing of such a code, they equate a frat house code and hazing to induction into the brotherhood of the Marine Corps.

BULLSHIT I say.

Or foreign service in the Peace Corp to active duty in the Corp as a Yuppie once did to my face. I just laughed and replied, 'not by a damn sight young foolish one.'

Indicative of the divide in those that know and those that don't in America today, I was once told that "anyone that went to Vietnam got what they deserved," also words uttered by a son of wealth on a major campus. They know nothing so well as false superiority over others.
This may seem as a digression from the 1934 Coup, but it is not, the same division of society and the same delusions of the "comparative few" were in play in 1934.

When an assassination attempt on Franklin Roosevelt failed shortly before his inauguration Butler wondered if the bullets had been inspired by the "comparative few" that so violently opposed Franklin Roosevelt, his "New Deal?"

Early on July 1, 1933 the phone rang in General Butler's home. An official of the American Legion that had met General Butler told him that two "veterans" were coming to see him about an important matter later that day. It was the beginning of an ordeal by treasonous approaches.

The men that came to see him were not the "veterans" they were said to have been, they arrived at Butler's home by chauffeured limousine. Dressed well and introduced as Bill Doyle (commander of the Massachusetts American Legion) and Gerald C. MacGuire. Butler thought the second man was a former commander of the Connecticut American Legion.

MacGuire claimed to have been a Marine with a combat wound. Doyle didn't claim Marine membership but also attempted to establish bone fides by having a purple heart.

>From that July to the next December Butler was pursued by MacGuire to engage him in schemes of the financial group MacGuire represented. Mr. MacGuire was a bond salesman for Grayson M-P Murphy and Company.

I would suspect that this was an attempt to compromise Butler to gain control of his persona and public presentations.
It speaks highly to me that Butler was again speaking to the American people touring the country for the V.F.W. He attacked the American Legion as selling out the veterans and the working people as they had done.

He spoke of "taking Wall Street by the throat." He urged the veterans to organize to get the bonuses they has been promised. He repeated his claims that the American Legion had sold out the veterans. He opposed dictatorship, he told V.F.W. groups that he came out of retirement to "educate the soldiers out of the sucker class."

I have to wonder when did the Morgan-DuPont plotters figure out that he was never going to support a Fascist Veterans March on Washington to force the abdication from real power of Franklin Roosevelt?

Notes for the False Dawn:

1. Archer, Jules. The Plot To Seize The White House, New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973
2. Zilg, Gerard Colby. DuPont Behind the Nylon Curtain, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc. , 1974
3. Manchester, William. The Glory and the Dream, Boston - Toronto: Little Brown and Company., 1973-4
4. LaMonica, Barbara. "The Attempted Coup Against FDR." PROBE, March-April 1999, pp. 8 - 12
5. Manchester, William. American Caesar, Boston - Toronto: Little Brown and Company., 1978
6. V.F.W. web site www.vfw.org/index.cfm?fa=...ld&did=224
7. Glen Yeadon "The Nazi Hydra in America," The 1930s: Nazis Parading on Main Street Part 1: The Plot Against Roosevelt, www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/1930s.html

False Dawn Part 2

The 34 Coup had been ignored and debunked in the "controlled press", the propaganda nature of the UnFree Press is nothing new to the 21st Century. Neither is it anything new to the 20th Century. However, the press cannot bear all the blame for the manufactured picture of the Morgan and DuPont Empires actions given to the people. Even the Congress shaped the recording of the deeds in it's Report of the Dickstein-McCormick Committee - more formally known as the "Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities: Public Hearings Before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy Third Congress, Second Session, at Washington D.C., December 29, 1934, Hearings No. 73-D.C.-6, Part 1."

This Report was edited. Specifically it was edited to eliminate some of the most inflammatory parts of General Smedley Butler's testimony of the conduct and declarations of the men that approached him for the Morgan-DuPont Empires. In spite of the fact that his testimony was corroborated by the reporter, Mr. Paul Comly French. The excuse for excising parts of General Butler's testimony was that his reporting the events was "hearsay". In that the Committee had already published "hearsay" testimony in press releases from sessions taking place in New York City. This reasoning seems lame as hell to me in light of the very serious nature of the threat to the American Republic.

Consider: Does this sound like testimony that needed to be deleted from a U.S. Congressional Report concerning a fascist plot to depose the U.S. Government and the Constitution?

It is now known that the released Report, the "Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities: Public Hearings Before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy Third Congress, Second Session, at Washington D.C., December 29, 1934, Hearings No. 73-D.C.-6, Part 1" was rewritten from historical fact to present a safer picture of events to the public. So ended the hope of and U.S. Government participation in any investigation and exposure of the Fascist element in the wealthy and corporate bloodlines of America.

The press would now set out to reinforce this perception by reporting the "story" surrounding the Fascist Plot as much ado about nothing meaningful when the facts demonstrate exactly the opposite. The UnFree Press would complete the minimization of the history. This article excerpt details how the press refused to report the story.

The Real Plot to Overthrow FDR's America

by Steven D - Daily Kos

Sun Feb 27, 2005 at 09:29:36 AM PDT

[Preliminary Note: Some of you may wonder about the relevance of this diary, but trust me, by the end you'll see how it all ties in with our present day situation.]

Time for a trip in the way-back machine to recall a bit of history of which most of us have never heard.  Last year, Phillip Roth had a bestseller with his novel, The Plot Against America, a fictionalized alternative history involving a fascist plot to take over the government of the USA and turn it into a fascist state under President Charles Lindbergh.  But how many of you know of the real plot to overthrow FDR during the early years of his administration, a plot conceived by rich industrialists and bankers concerned that Roosevelt was about to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth?  

It's a sordid tale of fascist intrigue by some of America's most famous corporate and political families (including members of FDR's own party) which was deliberately covered up by both the only Congressional Committee to investigate the plot, and also by the leading media outlets of the day including the New York Times.  And the truly scary part is that the plot might very well have succeeded if not for the bravery of a single, progressive leader: Marine General, Smedley Butler.

The life of Smedley Butler is an uniquely American story.  A decorated soldier (he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor twice) and warrior who ascended through the ranks to become one of the most admired soldiers of his era, he also grew to deeply despise war, and to distrust the reasons he had been sent to fight in distant places.  As he stated himself in a speech he gave on August 21, 1931 to an American Legion convention in New Britain, Connecticut:

"I spent 33 years...being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism....

"I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street....

"In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested....I had...a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions....I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three cities. The Marines operated on three continents...

Fortunately for those of us living today, the people he condemned in that speech must not have been aware of his beliefs, or if they were they must have told themselves he didn't mean what he said, because they selected him to be the leader of a military coup attempt by which they meant to supplant Roosevelt as President in all but name.  These plotters represented

Some of America's richest and most famous names of the time:

• Irenee Du Pont - Right-wing chemical industrialist and founder of the American Liberty League, the organization assigned to execute the plot.
• Grayson Murphy - Director of Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel and a group of J.P. Morgan banks.
• William Doyle - Former state commander of the American Legion and a central plotter of the coup.
• John Davis - Former Democratic presidential candidate and a senior attorney for J.P. Morgan.
• Al Smith - Roosevelt's bitter political foe from New York. Smith was a former governor of New York and a co-director of the American Liberty League.
• John J. Raskob - A high-ranking Du Pont officer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party. In later decades, Raskob would become a "Knight of Malta," a Roman Catholic Religious Order with a high percentage of CIA spies, including CIA Directors William Casey, William Colby and John McCone.
• Robert Clark - One of Wall Street's richest bankers and stockbrokers.
• Gerald MacGuire - Bond salesman for Clark, and a former commander of the Connecticut American Legion. MacGuire was the key recruiter to General Butler.

They chose MacGuire as the point man to approach Butler with their proposal.  The plot would be funded by Dupont and Morgan money funneled through an organization they had recently created to oppose Roosevelt, the  American Liberty League.  (The League was funded by donations from US Steel, General Motors, Chase Manhattan Bank, Standard Oil, Goodyear and the Dupont family, among others.  Not surprisingly, the League would later actively oppose almost every major piece of New Deal legislation, including, but not limited to Social Security).

Butler was supposed to be the "famous name" who would recruit an army of out of work war veterans to march on Washington.  It was thought that his popularity with the troops would make it easy for him to rally them to the cause of supplanting Roosevelt as the effective head of government.  As proposed:

They wanted General Butler to deliver an ultimatum to Roosevelt. Roosevelt would pretend to become sick and incapacitated from his polio, and allow a newly created cabinet officer, a "Secretary of General Affairs," to run things in his stead. The secretary, of course, would be carrying out the orders of Wall Street. If Roosevelt refused, then General Butler would force him out with an army of 500,000 war veterans from the American Legion. But MacGuire assured Butler the cover story would work:

      "You know the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President's health is failing. Everyone can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second..."

The businessmen also promised that money was no object: Clark told Butler that he would spend half his $60 million fortune to save the other half.

And what type of government would replace Roosevelt's New Deal? MacGuire was perfectly candid to Paul French, a reporter friend of General Butler's:

      "We need a fascist government in this country... to save the nation from the communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America. The only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers, and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader. He could organize a million men overnight."

Indeed, it turns out that MacGuire travelled to Italy to study Mussolini's fascist state, and came away mightily impressed. He wrote glowing reports back to his boss, Robert Clark, suggesting that they implement the same thing.

The plot collapsed when Butler went public in late 1934 and exposed the conspiracy.  The General revealed the details of the coup attempt in sworn testimony before the  "McCormack-Dickstein" Committee (the predecessor of the soon to be infamous "House Un-American Affairs Committee":

This House committee was named after its chairman and vice chairman, John W. McCormack and Samuel Dickstein. It was called the Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities. In 1934, it held public and private hearings in six cities, questioned hundreds of witnesses and collected testimony filling 4,300 pages. Its mandate was to get "information on how foreign subversive propaganda entered the U.S. and the organizations that were spreading it." 

The committee did investigate Butler's claims, and subpoenaed witnesses, including MacGuire, Butler's main contact with the plotters.  Initially,

MacGuire, not surprisingly, denied that such a plot existed. Instead, he claimed his activities had been political lobbying to preserve the gold standard, but he quickly destroyed his credibility as a witness by giving contradictory testimony. While the final report agreed with Butler that there was evidence of a coup d'état plot against Roosevelt, no further action was taken on it. The Committee's authority to subpoena witnesses expired at the end of 1934, and the Justice Department started no criminal investigation.

So why, after concluding that the plot did indeed exist was no one prosecuted?  

Why were principals of the plot never even required to testify?  

It's hard to say at this far remove.  Certainly it wasn't because the individuals behind the coup attempt abandoned all hope of future success, as this letter, dated 1936, from William Dodd, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, to President Roosevelt makes clear:

"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime.... A prominent executive of one of the largest corporations, told me point blank that he would be ready to take definite action to bring fascism into America if President Roosevelt continued his progressive policies.  Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there. Propagandists for fascist groups try to dismiss the fascist scare. We should be aware of the symptoms. When industrialists ignore laws designed for social and economic progress they will seek recourse to a fascist state when the institutions of our government compel them to comply with the provisions."

Perhaps the naming of prominent Democrats, such as Al Smith and former Democratic Party Chairman Raskob, as members of the plot convinced the Roosevelt administration, not anxious to reveal dissent within its own ranks, to suppress the Committee report.  Perhaps MacGuire's untimely death from pneumonia shortly after he testified led the Department of Justice to back away from any investigation.  Or perhaps the wealth and influence of the plotters themselves was simply too great.  What is abundantly clear, however, is that the Committee report was suppressed.

Suppression by the [Committee] took the form of deleting extensive excerpts relating to Wall Street financiers including Guaranty Trust director Grayson Murphy, J.P. Morgan, the Du Pont interests, Remington Arms, and others allegedly involved in the plot attempt. Even today, in 1975, a full transcript of the hearings cannot be traced.

" " "

John L. Spivak, the reporter who unearthed the suppression in the Congressional transcripts, challenged Committee Co-chairman Samuel Dickstein of New York with his evidence. Dickstein admitted that:

[t]he Committee had deleted certain parts of the testimony because they were hearsay."

"But your published reports are full of hearsay testimony."

"They are?" he said.

"Why wasn't Grayson Murphy called? Your Committee knew that Murphy's men are in the anti-Semitic espionage organization Order of '76?"

"We didn't have the time. We'd have taken care of the Wall Street groups if we had the time. I would have no hesitation in going after the Morgans."

"You had Belgrano, Commander of the American Legion, listed to testify. Why wasn't he examined?"

"I don't know. Maybe you can get Mr. McCormack to explain that. I had nothing to do with it."

The fact remains that the committee did not call Grayson Murphy, Jackson Martindell, or John W. Davis, all directly accused in sworn testimony. Further, the committee deleted all portions of the testimony involving other prominent persons: J.P. Morgan, the Du Ponts, the Rockefeller interests, Hugh Johnson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. When Congressman Dickstein pleaded his innocence to John Spivak, it was inconsistent with his own letter to President Roosevelt, in which he claims to have placed restrictions even upon public distribution of the committee hearings, as printed, "in order that they might not get into other than responsible hands."

The final report issued by the committee in February 15, 1935 buried the story even further. John L. Spivak sums up the burial succinctly: "I... studied the Committee's report. It gave six pages to the threat by Nazi agents operating in this country and eleven pages to the threat by communists. It gave one page to the plot to seize the Government and destroy our democratic system."

What was even more distressing (and eerily familiar to the our present situation) was not just  the failure of the press of that era to cover the story, but the active role they played in covering it up, even to the extent of scrubbing internal archives:

The role of leading newspapers and journals of opinion in reporting the Butler affair is equally suspect. In fact, their handling of the event has the appearance of outright distortion and censorship. The veracity of some major newspapers has been widely questioned in the last 50 years, and in some quarters the media have even been accused of a conspiracy to suppress "everything in opposition to the wishes of the interest served."

Does such suppression extend to major news journals? We can take two prime examples; The New York Times and Time magazine. If such a combination as Callaway charges did exist, then these two journals would certainly be among "25 of the greatest papers involved in the 1930s." The New York Times reporting of the "plot" opens up with a front-page headline article on November 21, 1934: "Gen. Butler Bares 'Fascist Plot' to Seize Government by Force," with the lead paragraph quoted above (p. 143). This Times article is a reasonably good job of reporting and includes a forthright statement by Congressman Dickstein: "From present indications Butler has the evidence. He's not going to make any serious charges unless he has something to back them up. We'll have men here with bigger names than his." Then the Times article records that "Mr. Dickstein said that about sixteen persons mentioned by General Butler to the Committee would be subpoenaed, and that a public hearing might be held next Monday." The Times also includes outright and sometimes enraged denials from Hugh Johnson, Thomas W. Lamont, and Grayson M-P. Murphy of Guaranty Trust.

The following morning, November 22, the Times made a major switch in reporting the plot. The disclosures were removed to an inside page, although the testimony now concerned Gerald MacGuire, one of the accused plotters. Further, a decided change in the attitude of the committee can be discerned. Congressman McCormack is now reported as saying that "the committee has not decided whether to call any additional witnesses. He said that the most important witness, aside from Mr. MacGuire, was Robert Sterling Clark, a wealthy New Yorker with offices in the Stock Exchange Building."

While the Times reporting was consigned to an inside single column, the editorial page, its most influential section, carried a lead editorial that set the tone for subsequent reporting. Under the head "Credulity Unlimited," it contended that the Butler charge was a "bald and unconvincing narrative. ... The whole story sounds like a gigantic hoax ... it does not merit serious discussion," and so on. In brief, before the 16 important witnesses were called, before the evidence was on the record, before the charge was investigated, the New York Times decided that it wanted to hear nothing about this story because it was a hoax, not fit to print.

The next day, November 23, the Times changed its reporting still further. The headlines were now about Reds and Red Union Strife and concerned alleged activities by communists in American trade unions, while the Butler testimony and the developing evidence were secreted deep within the reporting of Red activities. The resulting story was, of course, vague and confused, but it effectively buried the Butler evidence.

On November 26, the hearings continued, but the committee itself now had cold feet and issued a statement: "This Committee has had no evidence before it that would in the slightest degree warrant calling before it such men as John W. Davis, General Hugh Johnson, General James G. Harbord, Thomas W. Lamont, Admiral William S. Sims, or Hanford MacNider."

It should be noted that these names had come up in sworn testimony, later to be deleted from the official record.  The Times pursued its reporting of this development in abbreviated form on an inside page under the head, "Committee Calm over Butler 'Plot', Has No Evidence to Warrant Calling Johnson and Others." On November 27 the Times reporting declined to five column inches on an inside page under the ominous head "Butler Plot Inquiry Not To Be Dropped." The December hearings were reported by the Times on a front page (December 28 1934), but the plot was now twisted to "Reds Plot to Kidnap the President, Witness Charges at House Inquiry."

Reviewing the story of the Butler Affair in the Times 40 years after the event and comparing its story to the printed official testimony, itself heavily censored, it is obvious that the newspaper, either under its own initiative or under outside pressure, decided that the story was not to be made public. Consistent with this interpretation, we find that The New York Times, the "newspaper of record," omits the Butler testimony from entries in its annual index, depended upon by researchers and scholars. The Times Index for 1934 has an entry "BUTLER (Maj Gen), Smedley D," but lists only a few of his speeches and a biographic portrait. The Butler testimony is not listed. There is an entry, "See also: Fascism-U.S.," but under that cross-reference there is listed only: "Maj Gen S.D. Butler charges plot to overthrow present govt; Wall Street interests and G.P. MacGuire implicated at Cong com hearing." The only significant Wall Street name mentioned in the index is that of R.S. Clark, who is reported as "puzzled" by the charges. None of the key Morgan and Du Pont associates cited by General Butler is listed in the Index. In other words, there appears to have been a deliberate attempt by this newspaper to mislead historians.

Now it's true that this story hasn't been completely forgotten.  There are websites that discuss the conspiracy (some to which I've already linked, and others which I'll list at the conclusion of this diary), and a few people wrote books which at least mention the subject.  However, the only book that focuses exclusively on the fascist plot to oust President F.D. Roosevelt is now out of print: The Plot to Seize The White House (New York: Hawthorne Books, 1973) by Julius Archer.  Soon after publishing this, Hawthorne Books went out of business. Second-hand copies are now available for as much as $250.

What's to be learned from all this?  The simple truth that those of us who see a corporatist conspiracy to manipulate and even "steal" our state and national elections, to influence at the highest levels the policies of our government, and to suppress or distort the news that the media reports are not as crazy as our opponents make us out to be.  Because IT HAS ALL HAPPENED BEFORE, and we were JUST DAMN LUCKY THE BASTARDS DIDN'T SUCCEED!

Next: Part 3: General Smedley Butler, and his descendant Drew Raines, III

Resources:

http://www.buzzflash.com/store/items/750

Note: Still few Americans and young voters are aware of this historical event, not taught in history classes, Fewer still areor are informed about this sordid chapter in American History

The following are among the best sources of information on the plot:

Books:

Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, 1973
(This is the only book dealing entirely with this fascist coup plot.)

These books have chapters devoted to the fascist coup plot:
George Seldes, 1000 Americans, 1947, pp.292-298. "Table of donations to American fascist organizations that was originally published by Senator Black (74th Congress, 2nd Session, Digest of Data, Special Committee to Investigate Lobby Activities)."
(This is the source for the data in Press for Conversion! #53 on donations to the American Liberty League and its fascist front groups).

John Spivak, A Man in His Time, 1967.

Christopher Simpson, "Bankers, Lawyers and Linkage Groups," The Splendid Blond Beast, 1995.

Gerard Colby, Du Pont Dynasty, 1984

Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy: The Nazi - American Money Plot 1933-1949, 1983.

David Kyvig, Repealing National Prohibition, 1979.

Video:

In Search of History: The Plot to Overthrow FDR, History Channel
(This is the only video documentary on the coup plot.)
http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=42344

MacCormack-Dickstein Committee documents:
Here are three PDF files containing some of the documents published by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC):

HUAC1.pdf:
Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain other Propaganda Activities
Public Statement of the Special Commmittee on Un-American Activities
House of Representatives, 73 Congress, Second Session at Washington DC, Nov. 24, 1934 (pages 1-12)

Investigation of Un-American Activites: (part 1 of) Testimony by Gerald C. MacGuire (pages 39-47)

HUAC2.pdf:
Investigation of Un-American Activites: (part 2 of) Testimony by Gerald C. MacGuire (pages 47-87), Testimony by Claude M. Adamson (of Central Hanover Bank) (pages 89-99) and (part 1 of) Resumed Testimony by Gerald C. MacGuire (pages 99-105)

HUAC3.pdf:
Investigation of Un-American Activites: (part 2 of) Resumed Testimony by Gerald C. MacGuire (pages 106-125), Testimony by James Haggett (of Lawyers County Trust) (pages 127-128), Testimony by public accountant James Rempe (pages 129-136) and Testimony by Albert Christmas (Attorney for Robert Clark) (pages 136-162).

Online Articles:

John Spivak, "Wall Street's Fascist Conspiracy: Testimony that the Dickstein MacCormack Committee Suppressed," New , Jan 29, 1935
John Spivak, "Wall Street's Fascist Conspiracy: Morgan Pulls the Strings," New Masses, Feb. 5, 1935
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/spivak-New.pdf

Glen Yeadon, "The 1930s: Nazis Parading on Main Street," The Nazi Hydra in America, 2004.
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/noon.html

The Great Depression and the New Deal (1929-1941)
Google cache: http://mciunix.mciu.k12.pa.us/~udhsweb/aphistory/file1012.htm

"One World Vision, New York City and the CFR," American Babylon - Rise and Fall
http://www.redmoonrising.com/AmericanBabylon/Part4.htm

Barbara LaMonica, "The Attempted Coup Against FDR," PROBE, March-April 1999.
http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr399-fdr.html

L. Wolfe, "Franklin Delano Roosevelt vs. the Banks: Morgan's Fascist Plot, and How It Was Defeated," The American Almanac,
(This is divided into four installments, published: June 27, July 4, July 11, July 25, 1994.
http://www.members.tripod.com/american_almanac/morgan1.htm
http://www.members.tripod.com/american_almanac/morgan2.htm
http://www.members.tripod.com/american_almanac/morgan3.htm
http://www.members.tripod.com/american_almanac/morgan4.htm

Joseph S. Kennedy, "A plot to take over the U.S.? One military hero's story," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 03, 2002
http://www.macon.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/chester_county/cities_and_neighborhoods/4429828.htm

Clayton Cramer, "An American Coup d'État?," History Today, November, 1995
http://www.claytoncramer.com/amcoup.html

Glen Yeadon and John Hawkins, The Nazi Hydra in America , Chapter 5: The 1930s: Nazis Parading on Main Street, Part 1: The Plot Against Roosevelt
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/1930s.html

"In the Mists of American Historical Memory: Five Stories," American Idealism website
http://www.americanidealism.com/stories.php?StoryID=47

Plans Hatched & Monies gathered for a coup d'etat in the United States (1934)
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/plans_hatched.html

Steve Kangas, The Great Depression: Timelines of the Great Depression
"The Business Plot to Overthrow Roosevelt"
http://home.att.net/~resurgence/Coup.htm

Mark and Kristi Fisher, "The White House Putsch," Seize the Night website
http://www.carpenoctem.tv/cons/whitehouse.html

David West, "The Low, Dishonest Decade," Hemp Times, Fall, 1999.
http://www.gametec.com/hemp/Thirties.wd6.html

"The Plot to Seize the White House" from What Really Caused World War 2?
http://threeworldwars.com/world-war-2/ww2-background.htm

Book Excerpts online:

Excerpt from Gerard Colby, DuPont Dynasty (Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, Inc.), pp. 324-330.
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/dupont-by_colby.html

Excerpt from Hans Schmidt, Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History, University Press of Kentucky (1987).
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/butler03-by_schmidt.html

Excerpt (re: how Gen. Butler reacted to the House Committee's cover up of conspirators' names),
from Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, 1973
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg06402.html

Excerpts (re: Media Cover Up: The Plotters Deny Everything)
from Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, 1973
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/archer-denials.html

Excerpts (mostly about Gen. Butler), from Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, 1973
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/archer excerpts.html

Charles Higham, Trading with the Enemy: The Nazi - American Money Plot 1933-1949, 1983.
"The Car Connection"
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Car_Connection_TWE.html

David Kyvig, Chapter 10, "Champagne and Sour Grapes," Repealing National Prohibition (1979)
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/rnp/RNP10.html

Back to the PREFACE (Part 1)

On to General Smedley Darlington Butler (Part 3)