Conspiracies in 20th Century (III) : The White House Putsch (Coup) Conspiracy in 1930

Today, the topic is about the Great Depression. Since it affected a lot of countries in 1930 and became the main reason to lead WWII, there were a lot of conspiracies behind this era. One of the most interesting ones was "The White House Coup" against President F.D. Roosevelt.

What is this?

Only a handful of Americans know this, but during the Great Depression, a groups millionaries and businessowners created a conspiracy to hijack the U.S. government and install a fasicst dictatorship, like the Nazi government in Germany.

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According to the book A Main in His Time by Spivak, plotters still continues to cover up the truth from the American public for sixty years after the incident: "...Even a generation later, those who are still alive and know all the facts have kept their silence so well that the conspiracy is not even a foonot in American histories."

Although the Hous of Representatives' McCormack-Dickstein Committee for Nazi and comminst activities in America confrimed the allegations, the investigation was quickly finished and was dismissed easily. No wonder! Most of the plotters were famous American financiers in the JP Morgan and Du Pont commercial empires, who bitterly opposed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal policies and friendly policies towards labour unions.

Without Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, the conspiracy would be the reality. In 1933, active putsch plotters approached Butler; they offered him the job of transforming the American Legion veterans group into a 500,000- man marauding army for the coup.

Unformtunately, Butler's honesty turned out to be the conspiracy's downfall. As he told the Committee, Butler was first apporached by Gerald G.MacGuire, a bond salesman of the Connecticut American Legion. MacGuire, Butler said, explained that he had traveld to Europe to study the role played by veterans' groups in propping up Mussolini's facist Italy, Hitler's Nazi Germany, and the French government. Then, he elaborated on the plot.

Althought MacGuire denied Butler's account under ohath, corroborating testimony came from Paul Comly French, a Philadelphia Record reporter. In his article, the leading plotters included:

*Grayson Murphy, a director of Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel, and a panoply of Morgan banks.

*William Doyle, a former state commander of the Legion and purportedly the architect of the coup idea.

* John W. Davis, former Democratic candidate for President of the United States.

*Al Smith, former governor of New York, a Roosevelt foe.

Mysteriously, though, the congressional committee released heavily edited reports and ended the investigation. The reason was, the committee said, there was no suffient evidence to support the claim.

Credit:
Vakin,Jonathan. The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time. 1st. Toronto,Ontarion: A Citadel Press Book, 1995.

(Next: 20th Century Conspiracies (IV))