How many are aware of the fascist plot to overthrow FDR by big business?

[shance]

I am amazed by that this event has been effectively scrubbed by those controlling what is placed into our history books. (Atleast, until recently, I have never heard of it).

How many of you are aware of a man by the name of Smedley D. Butler?

He was the highest ranked Marine Brigadier General(I believe in history) who exposed the 1934 coup to overthrow the White House, and because of his courage to expose this plot, consequentially salvaged our Democracy?

Smedley Butler, after he exposed the coup, wrote the book War is a Racket in 1935, which is a small, no-nonsense, heart rendering book that reveals the profit making motives that essentially have led us to every war we have ultimately entered into.

<<The First Fascist Plot to Seize the U.S. Government

George Seldes' Editorial Note:

General Smedley Butler testified before a Congressional Committee that several Wall Street bankers, one of them connected with J.P. Morgan and Co., several founders of the American Liberty League, and several heads of the American Legion plotted to seize the government of the United States shortly after President Roosevelt established the New Deal. The press, with a few exceptions, suppressed the news. Worse yet, the McCormack-Dickstein Committee suppressed the facts involving the big business interests, although it confirmed the plot which newspapers and magazines had either refused to mention or had tried to kill by ridicule.>>

p12
From 1000 Americans
by George Seldes, 1947

Fascinating stuff and amazingly pertinent to our current situation.

Here is a link with more information:

http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/morgan4.htm

[whistle]

1. Yep, I'm reading about that now.....

The 1930s: Nazis Parading on Main Street Part 1: The Plot Against Roosevelt



One cannot hope to gain an understanding of fascism in America without first looking at its roots in the 1930s. For most readers, the 1930s evoke images of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. However, this wrenching decade of world economic turmoil involved far more serious events. From the beginning of the decade, events were conspiring to unleash on an unsuspecting world the horrors of the Second World War and the unfathomable inhumanity of the Holocaust. The Second World War would go on to shape the geopolitical scene for the remainder of the century. Claims arising from the Holocaust would still be front-page headlines as the world entered the 21st century.

The 30's were a decade in which Nazis openly paraded, unopposed, in the streets of America and were supported by many. Much of the details of 1930's fascism are still shrouded in secrecy. It has been over a half-century since the end of the war, yet news is still surfacing of corporate America's dealings with the Nazis. As of yet, no one has exposed, in a comprehensive manner, the connections between the 1930's fascists and today's American right wing. Many of the events of the decade have been quietly swept under the rug, such as the plot against Roosevelt. The press downplayed the assassination attempt at the time and even today, most people are still unaware of it. <much more>

<link> http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/1930s.html

[jdj]

24. The 20's and 20's were also the height of Klan membership here.

The republican party and Klan were apparently indistinguisable then. People were openly Klan members, and rallies and marches drew thousands.

[whistle]

2. Wow, your link at tripod.com just gave me a flood of pop-ups....

[shance]

3. Pop ups?

n/t

[The Crazy Canadian]

4. I've heard about it.

Read about this a few years back. I've also heard about Smedley D. Butler and am aware that he wrote that book too. A book i'd like to read sometime.

[shance]

6. Wonderful eye opening book. And its very short.

n/t

[jeff30997]

5. Smedley D. Butler was a genius. War is a Racket is a must-read.

You can read it here:

http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/racket.html

It's not really long to read and incredibly interesting.

[shance]

7. Truly. How history is repeating itself and how so little has changed

amazed me.

He even mentions the oil interest way back then*

[AmerDem]

13. Hey ,Thanks for that link!

I can't wait to read it!:toast:

[Logansquare]

8. I just found the article "American Supporters of European Fascists"

Very interesting..some of our biggest corporations were very friendly to the fascists right up until WWII.

There's a creepy picture of Henry Ford being given the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle as a birthday present from Adolph Hitler.

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/american_supporters_of_the_europ.htm

[Postman]

9. I have two books that tell of this plot...

1. The Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer

2. Trading With The Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949 by Charles Higham

excerpt from Trading With The Enemy....
.....The connection between General Motors and the Nazi gov't began at the moment of Hitler's rise to power. Goring declined to annex General Motors and indeed received with pleasure General Motor's president, William S. Knudsen, who returned on October 6, 1933 to New York telling reporters that Germany was "the miracle of the twentieth century."
Early in 1934, Irenee du Pont and Knudsen reached their explosion point over President Roosevelt. Along with friends of the Morgan Bank and GM, certain Du Pont backers financed a coup d'etat that would overthrow the President with the aid of a $3 million-funded army of terrorists, modeled on the fascist movement in Paris known as the Croix de Feu. Who was to be the figurehead for this ill-advised scheme, which would result in Roosevelt being forced to take orders from businessmen as part of a fascist gov't or face the alternative of imprisonment and execution? Du Pont men allegedly held an urgent series of meetings with the Morgans. They finally settled on one of the most popular soldiers in America, General Smedley Butler of Pennsylvania. Butler, a brave hero, had been awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor and his brilliant career as commandant of the Marine Corps had made him a legend. He would, the conspiratorial group felt, make an ideal replacement for Roosevelt if the latter proved difficult......

....The Du Ponts' fascist behavior was seen in 1936, when Irenee du Pont used General Motors money to finance the notorious Black Legion. This terrorist organization had as its purpose the prevention of automobile workers from unionizing..They firebombed union meetings, murdered union organizers, often by beating them to death, and dedicated their lives to destroying Jews and communists. They linked to the Ku Klux Klan. Irenee du Pont encouraged General Motors foremen to join the Legion. In one episode a Detroit worker, Charles Poole, was brutally murdered by a gang of Black Legionists, several of whom belonged to the sinister Wolverine Republican League of Detroit. This organization had as its members several in big business. However, their names were kept out of the papers during the Poole case trial. It was brought out that at least 50 people, many of them blacks, had been butchered by the Legion, which swept through GM factories and had 75,000 members.
At the same time, the Du Ponts developed the American Liberty League, a Nazi organization whipping up hatred of blacks and Jews, love of Hitler, and loathing of the Roosevelts. Financed by Lammot and Irenee to the tune of close to $500,000 the first year, the Liberty League had a lavish thirty-one room office in New York, branches in twenty-six colleges, and fifteen subsidiary organizations nationwide that distributed fifty million copies of its Nazi pamphlets. In September 1936, while Hitler at Nuremberg expressed his grand design for the Four-Year Plan, the Du Ponts and the American Liberty League poured thousands into backing Republican Alf Landon against Roosevelt in the election. Other backers were the American Nazi Party and the German-American Bund.....

[Minstrel Boy]

22. "Trading with the Enemy" is terrific!

There's so much in there regarding the fascist sympathies and business ties of leading American industrialists.

I've picked up Higham's companion volume, American Swastika, but have yet to read it.

[shance]

10. General Butler spoke from experience, and the plotters had never seen war

Quote from War is a Racket:

<< How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle?

How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dugout? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?>>

<< A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group know what its about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, and the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. >>

[DerekG]

11. Butler delayed our descent into fascism by more than a decade

It is my opinion that fascism came to this country with the death of Roosevelt, by the hands of men like Harriman and the Dulles brothers (alas, Truman did not possess the resilience and vision of his predecessor).

Despite this, General Butler remains the greatest unsung hero in American history. His name needs to appear on the DU more often.

[jeff30997]

12. I agree.

General Butler was a man of vision.

[DerekG]

14. Kick

This needs to reach as many as possible.

[Zan_of_Texas]

15. I know I know! Call on ME!

:hi:

I just recently found out about it, and couldn't believe I've been alive and conscious THIS long and hadn't heard one peep about it before.

I'm told it's referred to in the new movie The Corporation.

There's also a History Channel video on it, but I haven't seen it yet.

- The Plot To Overthrow FDR (video) produced by the History Channel
http://www.historychannel.com Item Number: AAE-42344


Also, I found this piece, among others.

THE BUSINESS PLOT TO OVERTHROW ROOSEVELT

http://mirrors.korpios.org/resurgent/Coup.htm
In the summer of 1933, shortly after Roosevelt's "First 100 Days," America's richest businessmen were in a panic. It was clear that Roosevelt intended to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Roosevelt had to be stopped at all costs.

The answer was a military coup. It was to be secretly financed and organized by leading officers of the Morgan and Du Pont empires. This included 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 codirector 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.

The plotters attempted to recruit General Smedley Butler to lead the coup. They selected him because he was a war hero who was popular with the troops. The plotters felt his good reputation was important to make the troops feel confident that they were doing the right thing by overthrowing a democratically elected president. However, this was a mistake: Butler was popular with the troops because he identified with them. That is, he was a man of the people, not the elite. When the plotters approached General Butler with their proposal to lead the coup, he pretended to go along with the plan at first, secretly deciding to betray it to Congress at the right moment.

What the businessmen proposed was dramatic: 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.

If this sounds too fantastic to believe, we should remember that by 1933, the crimes of fascism were still mostly in the future, and its dangers were largely unknown, even to its supporters. But in the early days, many businessmen openly admired Mussolini because he had used a strong hand to deal with labor unions, put out social unrest, and get the economy working again, if only at the point of a gun. Americans today would be appalled to learn of the many famous millionaires back then who initially admired Hitler and Mussolini: Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, John and Allen Dulles (who, besides being millionaires, would later become Eisenhower's Secretary of State and CIA Director, respectively), and, of course, everyone on the above list. They disavowed Hitler and Mussolini only after their atrocities grew to indefensible levels.

The plot fell apart when Butler went public. The general revealed the details of the coup before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, which would later become the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee. (In the 50s, this committee would destroy the lives of hundreds of innocent Americans with its communist witch hunts.) The Committee heard the testimony of Butler and French, but failed to call in any of the coup plotters for questioning, other than MacGuire. In fact, the Committee whitewashed the public version of its final report, deleting the names of powerful businessmen whose reputations they sought to protect. The most likely reason for this response is that Wall Street had undue influence in Congress also. Even more alarming, the elite-controlled media failed to pick up on the story, and even today the incident remains little known. The elite managed to spin the story as nothing more than the rumors and hearsay of Butler and French, even though Butler was a Quaker of unimpeachable honesty and integrity. Butler, appalled by the cover-up, went on national radio to denounce it, but with little success.

Butler was not vindicated until 1967, when journalist John Spivak uncovered the Committee's internal, secret report. It clearly confirmed Butler's story:
In the last few weeks of the committee's life it received evidence showing that certain persons had attempted to establish a fascist organization in this country…

There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned and might have been placed in execution if the financial backers deemed it expedient…

MacGuire denied allegations under oath, but your committee was able to verify all the pertinent statements made to General Butler, with the exception of the direct statement suggesting the creation of the organization. This, however, was corroborated in the correspondence of MacGuire with his principle, Robert Sterling Clark, of New York City, while MacGuire was abroad studying the various form of veterans' organizations of Fascist character.
Needless to say, the survival of America's democracy is not an automatic or sure thing. Americans need to remain vigilant against all enemies... both foreign and domestic.

Return to <Timeline.htm>

Sources:
Jonathon Vankin and John Whalen, The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time (Secaucus, N.J.: Carol Publishing Group, 1997)
Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House (New York: Hawthorne Books, 1973)
George Seldes, Even the Gods Can't Change History (Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1976)
John Spivak, A Man in His Time (New York: Horizon Press, 1967)

[Zan_of_Texas]

16. But the really, really excellent piece I found is this one.

I thought this was great, whether you're interested in FDR, or JFK, or now -- she ties the pressures against them together.

Really makes it so much clearer what is behind the curtain today.


The Attempted Coup Against FDR

By Barbara LaMonica

Probe From the March-April 1999 issue (Vol. 6 No. 3)
http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr399-fdr.html

The John F. Kennedy assassination represents a theme in our political history. The causes, even the inevitability, of the assassination were born out of the power struggles among the ruling elite which are consistent throughout the American story. These struggles revolve around questions of what is the proper role of government vis a vis the business community’s pursuit of its own self-interest. Is the government’s role minimal or laissez-faire? Should government only provide a stable environment of "law and order", through increased police powers, conducive to the maximization of profits and the minimization of workers wages and benefits? Or does the government have a higher purpose? Is it responsible for the common good? Is it the one entity capable of implementing justice, equality, and a partial redistribution of wealth through the regulation and taxation of corporations in order to provide a cushion against the more egregious effects of the free market? Should it ensure the worker’s share in the profits they helped to create?

At various times factions of what has become known as "corporate America" have argued over which role of government is ultimately more advantageous to their own ends. Generally speaking, banking and Wall Street favor less government. Retail, light manufacturing and small to medium size corporations are more tolerant of an activist government which might put more money in the hands of their consumers, and protect small businesses against the unfair competitive practices of larger corporations.

The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression dramatically thrust the question of government’s role to the forefront of American political and corporate life. The election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt represented a revolutionary realignment of political power: the ascendancy of the Democratic party facilitated by new voting coalitions of rural south and industrialized north which dislodged the Republican Party’s nearly seventy-year dominance, signaling the abandonment of laissez-faire economics in favor of state regulation. The losers in this political process coalesced into right-wing Republicanism, and the next sixty years of American history is, in part, the story of their attempt to regain power, reinstitute Lassiez-faire policies, and dismantle the New Deal.1 I would like to suggest that the forces behind the assassination of President Kennedy were born in the furies which the Great Depression unleashed between these competing sectors of American political and economic life.

I believe that in 1934 there was a foreshadowing of the JFK assassination. A conspiracy was uncovered in which right-wing elements of big business, namely the DuPont family and the Morgan banking interests, planned to finance and arm a veteran’s army to march on the White House and hold President Roosevelt captive.2 The conspiracy was reported by two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler. Although the House Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities found his allegations credible, it failed to call major conspirators to testify, and the Committee deleted crucial testimony from its final report to the public. The press relegated the story to the back pages, and discredited those, including Major Butler, who tried to alert the public to the threat against republican government. No prosecutions were forthcoming from the Justice Department, in part because the main witness who would have substantiated Butler’s claims died suddenly from pneumonia at the age of 37. In short, there was a cover-up, maybe worse.

<more>


it goes into war profiteering in WW I, the creation of the SEC after blatant stock schemes, the actual approach to Gen. Smedley Butler and the plot, including the purchase by DuPont of Remington Arms company just before the plot started to move forward....so they could arm their proposed 500,000 man army.

Re: the corporations' hate groups: "These groups also acted as intelligence networks. They infiltrated unions, leftwing groups, and universities, and they sold their information to industry."

After Butler exposed the plot, the front man died suddenly.

And, press coverage was scanty, and got scantier. "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."

Does any of this ring a bell?

[AntiCoup2K4]

17. Conspicuously absent from this article is the name of Prescott Bush

Grandpa Bush not only funded Hitler himself, but Allen Dulles (who is mentioned) was the lawyer who helped him launder his Nazi money. It was old man Bush who assembled the Eisenhower/Nixon ticket, after Tricky Dicky actually helped bring some of their Nazi friends into America (where they - oddly enough - joined the Republican party)

[Zan_of_Texas]

20. AntiCoup, anybody -- you got any concise sources on the Dulles boys?

Their names do keep cropping up. I hear Dulles, when I heard their names I think "CIA," I think "airport."

So, were the Dulles boys players, or just hired hands?

I do know that researcher Margie Burns has found that Dubya's below-the-radar brother Marvin, who lives in suburban Virginia, was involved in the security contracts for both the World Trade Towers AND Dulles Airport.

Security, Secrecy and a Bush Brother

By Margie Burns
http://www.populist.com/03.02.burns.html
Feb. 1, 2003
Progressive Populist

<snip>
Marvin P. Bush, a younger brother of George W. Bush, was a principal in the company from 1993 to 2000, when most of the work on the big projects was done. But White House responses to 9/11 have not publicly disclosed the company's part in providing security to any of the named facilities. Public records indicate that the firm, formerly named Securacom, had Bush on its board of directors. He was also listed as a significant shareholder. The firm, which is now named Stratesec, Inc., is located in Sterling, Va., a D.C. suburb, and emphasizes federal clients. Bush is no longer on the board.
Bush has not responded to repeated telephoned and emailed requests for comment. <snip> According to its present CEO, Barry McDaniel, the company (Securacom) had an ongoing contract to handle security at the World Trade Center "up to the day the buildings fell down." Yet instead of being investigated, the company and companies involved with it have benefited from legislation pushed by the Bush White House and rubber-stamped by Congressional Republicans. Stratesec, its backer KuwAm, and their corporate officers stand to benefit from limitations on liability and national-security protections from investigation provided in bills since 9/11.

<snip>
The former CEO of Stratesec is Wirt D. Walker III, who is still chairman of the board. Although he has also been the managing director of KuwAm for several years, Walker states definitively in phone interviews that there was no exchange of talent between Stratesec and KuwAm during the WTC and other projects.
As Walker put it, "I'm an investment banker." He continued, "We just owned some stock." The investment company "was not involved in any way in the work or day-to-day operations" of the security company. He explained clearly and pleasantly that there was no sharing of information or of personnel between the two companies.

In December 2000 -- when the presidential election was determined -- Stratesec added a Government Division, providing "the same full range of security systems services as the Commercial Division," in the company's words. Stratesec now has "an open-ended contract with the General Services Administration (GSA) and a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) with the agency that allows the government to purchase materials and services from the Company without having to go through a full competition." The company lists as government clients "the US Army, US Navy, US Air force, and the Department of Justice," in projects that "often require state-of-the-art security solutions for classified or high-risk government sites." In 2000, the US Army accounted for 29% of the company's earned revenues, or about $6.9 million.
<snip>

Marvin Bush joined Securacom's Board of Directors in 1993, as part of new management hired when the company separated from engineering firm Burns and Roe. The new team was capitalized by KuwAm, the D.C.-based Kuwaiti-American investment company. Bush also served on the Board of Directors at KuwAm, along with Mishal Yousef Saud al-Sabah, Chairman of KuwAm and also a Director on Securacom's (Stratesec's) board.
The World Trade Center and the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority -- which operates Dulles -- were two of Securacom's three biggest clients in 1996 and 1997. (The third was MCI, now WorldCom.) Stratesec (Securacom) ... defines itself as a "single-source" provider of "end-to-end" security services, including everything from diagnosis of existing systems to hiring subcontractors to installing video and electronic equipment. It also provides armored vehicles and security guards.

[jdj]

26. This is what scares me, because this is what is happening now.

"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."

They are planting stories that Bush is taking pills, building up, I think to if he somehow wins the election, then they can put Cheney in his place, or maybe something more sinister than this before the election. Because if Bush were taking pills, they wouldn't let anyone know about it, ever.

[Karenina]

18. Kick!

:kick:

[shance]

19. morning kick*

n/t

[terrya]

21. The film "The Corporation" talks about this.

Thank you for the link. I wanted to read more about it.

[shance]

23. You bet. There is also the video, The Plot to Overthrow FDR

n/t

[htuttle]

25. The movie 'Seven Days in May' was loosely based on this

Kirk Douglas plays the equivalent of the Smedley Butler role.

[shance]

27. Butler could not be bought and paid for.

He actually LIVED the principles we have learned about in school.

Butler was the top ranked general and could have named a price and hit easy street like so many other weaker individuals chose to do, but he cared about his country, he had seen the atrocities of war, not to mention he was witnessing the direction we were headed, so he blew the lid off the scandal and stood up to the biggest bullies in big business.

Apparently (and obviously) he is quite a hero in the Marine world. Whats interesting is they do not seem to bring up his anti-war stance and the fact he was a vocal opponent and denounced war after 33 years of active service.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

28. Oh Yes!

Gen. Butler, a Marines' Marine! This stuff is unbelievable. Not exactly "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" is it? Gen Butlers speech is something to be read by EVERYBODY! In my opinion.

[Karenina]

29. For those yet unaware

:kick: