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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe fascist tried a coup attempt before in 1934 with backing by the wealthy.
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Butler went to Senator John McCormack and told him that there was a fascist plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler claimed that on 1st July 1934, Gerald C. MacGuire a Wall Street bond salesman and Bill Doyle, the department commander of the American Legion in Massachusetts, tried to recruit him to lead a coup against Roosevelt. Butler claimed that the conspirators promised him $30 million in financial backing and the support of most of the media.
Butler pretended to go along with the plot and met other members of the conspiracy. In November 1934 Butler began testifying in secret to the Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities (the McCormack-Dickstein Committee). Butler claimed that the American Liberty League was the main organization behind the plot. He added the main backers were the Du Pont family, as well as leaders of U.S. Steel, General Motors, Standard Oil, Chase National Bank, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
Butler also named Prescott Bush as one of the conspirators. At the time Bush was along with W. Averell Harriman, E. Roland Harriman and George Herbert Walker, managing partners in Brown Brothers Harriman. Bush was also director of the Harriman Fifteen Corporation. This in turn controlled the Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation, that owned one-third of a complex of steel-making, coal-mining and zinc-mining activities in Germany and Poland. Friedrich Flick owned the other two-thirds of the operation. Flick was a leading financial supporter of the Nazi Party and in the 1930s donated over seven million marks to the party. A close friend of Heinrich Himmler, Flick also gave the Schutz Staffeinel (SS) 10,000 marks a year.
https://spartacus-educational.com/USAbutlerSD.htm
IrishAfricanAmerican
(3,815 posts)At least not in my school. I learned about this listening to Thom Hartmann.
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,853 posts)I was also never taught about Hoover using the military to attack veterans, who were picketing Washington DC for early payments on their WW1 service bonuses.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/07/28/the-veterans-were-desperate-gen-macarthur-ordered-u-s-troops-to-attack-them/?outputType=amp
IrishAfricanAmerican
(3,815 posts)Buckeye_Democrat
(14,853 posts)... of the ugly history that happened in the USA/America, so I'm grateful for that, but several of the more recent fascist aspects were ignored completely.
mitch96
(13,892 posts)And at the cost of the young on both sides....
In the 1950's Eisenhower was right when he said to beware of the Military Industrial Complex.
m
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Trump's threat of a coup d'etat inspired the WaPo to also write about this earlier attempt by RW businessmen to overthrow the government after Democrats were elected to clean up the national mess.
Lots of fascists everywhere in those days (as now, the same kind of peple), inspired by Mussolini and Hitler while searching for a compelling Strongman at home. Even member of the British Royal family were "inspired."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/13/fdr-roosevelt-coup-business-plot/
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,853 posts)... supported the Nazis too, seeing them as preferable to the socialists and communists over there.
malthaussen
(17,187 posts)Indeed, at the time, the whole thing was dismissed as a massive hoax. Mr Bush, of course, went on to a prosperous career in the US Senate.
-- Mal
roamer65
(36,745 posts)Response to Hotler (Original post)
malthaussen This message was self-deleted by its author.
Kid Berwyn
(14,876 posts)...
The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bushs Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.
Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml