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Business Plot

The Business Plot (also called the Plot Against FDR, Wall Street Putsch and The White House Putsch) was a political conspiracy in 1933 in the United States to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install a dictator. Major General Smedley Butler, one of the most inspirational and gallant heroes in the history of the United States Marines, and his dizzying involvement with a shadowy putsch by wealthy plotters to overthrow FDR's "New Deal" White House and set up an American Fascist dictatorship in 1933. The conspirators included investment banker and future Connecticut Senator Prescott Bush (father of George H.W. Bush), bond salesman Gerald MacGuire, and Bill Doyle commander of the Massachusetts American Legion.

In the sensationalistic McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings that followed in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Iran-Contra media circus of its day, the honorable General Butler's testimony was ridiculed as the delusional fantasies of an alcoholic and syphilitic old warrior. Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler (retired), twice decorated by the Congress of the United States, testified before the McCormack–Dickstein committee as to conversations with one Gerald C. MacGuire in which the latter is alleged to have suggested the formation of a Fascist army under the leadership of General Butler (p. 8–114 D. C. 6 II). MacGuire denied these allegations under oath, but your committee was able to verify all the pertinent statements made by 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 principal, Robert Sterling Clark, of New York City, while MacGuire was abroad studying the various forms of veterans' organizations of Fascist character (p. 111 D. C. 6 II).

The following is an excerpt from one of MacGuire's letters : “I had a very interesting talk last evening with a man who is quite well up on affairs here and he seems to be of the opinion that the Croix de Feu will be very patriotic during this crisis and will take the cuts or be the moving spirit in the veterans to accept the cuts. Therefore, they will, in all probability, be in opposition to the Socialists and functionaries. The general spirit among the functionaries seems to be that the correct way to regain recovery is to spend more money and increase wages, rather than to put more people out of work and cut salaries.

“The Croix de Feu is getting a great number of new recruits, and I recently attended a neeting of this organization and was quite impressed with the type of men belonging. These fellows are interested only in the salvation of France, and I feel sure that the country could not be in better hands because they are not politicians, they are a cross section of the best people of the country from all walks of life, people who gave their “all ” between 1914 and 1918 that France might be saved, and I feel sure that if a crucial test ever comes to the Republic that these men will be the bulwark upon which France will be saved.

“There may be more uprisings, there may be more difficulties, but as is evidenced right now when the emergency arises party lines and party difficulties are forgotten so far as France is concerned and all become united in the one desire and purpose to keep this country as it is, the most democratic, and the country of the greatest freedom' on the European Continent” (p. 111, D. C. 6 II).





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