In my last post I started telling the story of the "business plot" to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt and install a pro-capitalist dictator in America. This is the rest of the story...
This "peaceful" military takeover was to be lavishly financed by some of the biggest names in American business. MacGuire said he had millions of dollars on hand to pay the veterans for this service. First among the supporters was millionaire stockbroker Grayson Murphy, one of the founders of the American Legion. (By the by, Butler despised the American Legion, seeing their ranks as hapless strikebreakers for America's elite class.) Next was investor Robert Clark, also known as the "millionaire lieutenant" who Butler had once crossed paths with in China. Other names included JP Morgan Jr., Irénée du Pont, and the CEOs of General Motors and General Foods. So many generals.
One name didn't come out until much later. In 2007 we learned that Prescott Bush, onetime US Senator, father of President George H.W. Bush and grandfather of President George W. Bush was part of the plot. According to Harpers, Bush was lined up to be a key liason to Germany's government. Yahtzee!
Old Smedley obviously knew a coup when he saw one. It was his job after all. He responded, “I am interested in it, but…you know, Jerry…my one hobby is maintaining a democracy. If you got these 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, l am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home. You know that.”
MacGuire was undeterred. He told Butler that they'd be doing Roosevelt a favor, calling the president weak. Even though he was a class traitor “He will run true to form. In the end he will come around. But we have got to be prepared to sustain him when he does…”
The plan was simple. MacGuire told Butler, "We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the president’s health is failing. Everybody can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second." He continued, "You watch. In two or three weeks you will see it come out in the paper. There will be big fellows in it. This is to be the background of it. These are to be the villagers in the opera.”
“And in about two weeks,” Smedley Butler said, “the American Liberty League appeared, which was just about what he described it to be.”
Butler recruited a reporter to independently verify the plot. Paul Comly French, a writer for the New York Post, went undercover to interview Jerry MacGuire (OMG I just realized that). He said MacGuire, “continually discussed the need of a man on a white horse, as he called it, a dictator who would come galloping in on his white horse. He said that was the only way to save the capitalistic system.”
Major General Butler reported the business plot directly to J. Edgar Hoover. Before long Butler, French, and Jerry MacGuire were testifying in front of the Special House Committee on Un-American Activities.
The main stream press treated the story like a big joke. One partner at J.P. Morgan was quoted calling it "perfect moonshine." Time magazine called it a "plot without plotters" and the New York Times dismissed it as "a gigantic hoax."
The House Committee felt differently, however. Their final report concluded there was clear evidence of an attempt to establish a fascist organization in the US, writing “There is no question that these [fascist] attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient [suitable].”
There's just one problem. The committee's final report deleted the identities of almost all the conspirators and redacted testimony. Smedley Butler was righteously pissed, later saying “The big shots weren’t even called to testify. They were all mentioned in the testimony. Why was all mention of these names suppressed from this testimony?”
In fact, the only reason we know the names of the powerful men involved in this plot is because of a communist reporter named John Spivak, who attended the hearings and published the testimony in 1935.
No one ever faced any criminal charges in what was a pretty clear-cut case of treason. Modern analysts suggest that FDR used his leverage to cut a different kind of new deal with the powerful conspirators. If they agreed to end opposition to his New Deal those treason charges (and the end of a long rope that goes with them) would go away. I guess we'll never know.
But let this story serve as a reminder about what happens when capitalism feels threatened. The rich business plotters intended to stop encroaching socialism with a fascist authoritarian dictatorship. Don't forget that fascism is the preservation of existing hierarchy of power by force. Despite a lifetime of having socialism and communism associated with authoritarianism thanks to American propaganda system you need to understand that authoritarianism is used to crush socialism and communism in capitalist countries. That's why authoritarian dictators like Hitler and Mussolini attacked the communists first. That's why the US military, using men like Major General Smedley Butler, continues to install authoritarian dictators to crush socialism and communism everywhere it can on the planet. There always seems to be someone who can be bribed to oppress a country's population by force when the people start getting funny ideas about changing the shape of capitalism's pyramid scheme.
It is just absolutely hilarious to me that the conspirators behind the business plot chose Smedley Butler to ride the white horse on their behalf. The man who would later get standing ovations saying of his military career “I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”
Please check out my other post on Smedley Butler, War is a Racket and don't forget to like, comment, and restack this post.
Let’s make them pay.
The Business Plot Part 2