Bush Treason Exposed by Smedley Butler

The Business Plot
By John Burl Smith

The Business Plot was a conspiracy to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Major General Smedley Butler exposed the attempted coup d'état in 1934. It involved some of the wealthiest businessmen in the United States (US). The twice decorated WWI veteran and former Commander of the Marine Corps testified before the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional Committee and laid out an amazing saga, detailing how the conspirators attempted to recruit him.

An outspoken critic and author of War Is A Racket, Gen. Butler, a true American patriot, opposed using US military power to support "Big Business." "The U.S. has routinely destroyed democracy throughout the globe while its leaders claimed to be spreading democracy. I spent 33 years in active military service as a high class muscle-man for Big Business, Wall Street and bankers. I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914, then made Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues. I helped rape half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street and did the same to Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912."

Buried beneath a wall of silence until American journalist John Buchanan dredged it up in July 2007, the story was picked up by the Guardian newspaper (UK). The BBC followed with a full documentary. A kaleidoscope of treason, "The Business Plot" is shrouded in secrecy and is a testament to how wealthy people in the US are held to a different standard of criminal justice.

The McCormack-Dickstein Congressional Committee hearings confirmed Gen. Butler's story and swore initially it would question all parties involved. However, the Committee's final report was a whitewash. It called only Gerald MacGuire, a go-between, who possessed neither resources nor connections to organize such a plot. It covered up the involvement and protected the reputation of wealthy conspirators by not determining the source of the large sums MacGuire spent or said higher ups would provide. No prosecutions or further investigations followed.

There is an old maxim which says, "If you want to get to the bottom of a conspiracy, follow the money!" Preserving their wealth and power is the reason US businessmen plotted to overthrow FDR. First and foremost, businessmen like Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, John and Allen Dulles, Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker admired Hitler and Mussolini. Although at the point of the gun, fascists used a strong hand protecting business. They were ruthless dealing with labor unions and social unrest, which is what these men wanted in the US.

Next, the Great Depression brought thousands of WWI veterans to Washington, D.C. on July 17, 1932. Led by a former sergeant, Walter W. Waters, they pitched tents around the city and demanded payment of bonuses granted them under the Adjusted Service Certificate Law of 1924. Gen. Butler encouraged them to fight Hoover as though he was the Kaiser to get what they deserved. Hoover refused to meet with them and ordered the US Cavalry to remove them and their campsites. A Republican, Gen. Butler threw his support to Roosevelt for president.

By the end of Roosevelt's "First 100 Days," America's richest businessmen were in a panic. They felt Roosevelt intended to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Gen. Butler's testimony described a plot only powerful men with money could design. First, they planned to create a fascist army, like Italy's Black Shirts and Germany's Brown Shirts, for Butler to lead. MacGuire claimed to have 500,000 war veterans from the American Legion and each man was a leader of 10 others, equaling 5 million men, if needed. A second fascist army was to be recruited from the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and financed with $700 million. Arms and equipment would be obtained from the Remington Arms Co. and supplied by the Du Pont family. They would model their forces after the Croix-de-Feu in France, one of several fascists groups MacGuire studied while touring Europe.

Backed up by such manpower, Wall Street plotters wanted Gen. Butler to deliver an ultimatum demanding either Roosevelt pretended to be incapacitated by polio and allow Butler to takeover or be forced out with the army of 500,000 war veterans from the American Legion.

Money was no object according to MacGuire. He provided a bank account with $100,000 and told Butler that his Wall Street backers had $300,000,000 if necessary. Principal conspirator and founding member of the American Liberty League, the primary source of funds for the plot, Robert Sterling Clark, a New York banker, told Butler he would spend $30 million. Other major backers were leaders of U.S. Steel, General Motors, Standard Oil, Chase National Bank, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

Most astoundingly, the Bush family was a major backer of the coup. Prescott Bush, a founding partner of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., (1931) was the Wall Street front for several Nazi companies and U.S. financial interests of Fritz Thyssen. Thyssen was an early financial backer of the Nazi party. Bush was a director and shareholder, along with George Herbert Walker, his father-in-law, in the Union Banking Corporation (UBC) which also ran a complicated financial web that supported Hitler until 1942. UBC's assets were confiscated that year by the government, after Pres. Roosevelt signed the Trading with the Enemy Act.

The following is a list of some of the fascist coup leaders: Irenee Du Pont, founder of the American Liberty League, which executed 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, bitter political foe of Roosevelt, former governor of New York and a co-director of the American Liberty League; and John J. Raskob, officer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party. Raskob later became 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.

Years later, retired US Rep. John W. McCormack, former Speaker of the House and Chairman of The McCormack-Dickstein Congressional Committee said, "If the late Major General Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps had not been a stubborn devotee of democracy, Americans today could conceivably be living under an American Mussolini, Hitler, or Franco."

Nevertheless, America did not escape the 2000 coup d'état, which was facilitated by the US Supreme Court, that successfully put George Walker Bush in the White House. Moreover, Barack Obama was expected to undertake some FDR type programs to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor but just the opposite occurred. Could it be the country underwent a coup d'état and Mr. Obama is merely a figurehead, as Roosevelt would have been had Major General Smedley Butler not been there? (Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot, http://kavips.wordpress.com, http://carnival-of-anarchy.blogspot.com and http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/Plot1.html)

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Vol. 12 No 45...Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race... 11-08-09


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Table of Contents

1. The Business Plot...By John Burl Smith
2. Venue for an Artist...Second Bill of Rights, (1944)...By President Franklin D. Roosevelt
3. Politics Y2K9...The Pendulum Effect ...By Mumia Abu-Jamal
4. Intuit's Vibe..Should Some Teenagers Die in Prison?...By Liliana Segura
5. Hood Notes...US Wages and Salaries Rise at Record-Low Levels...By Andre Damon
6. Disgruntled
7. Mailbox