I need some reliable sources on Smedley Butler preventing the coup against FDR.

[Ilsa]

A friend would like to read up on it. Internet sources are okay, if solid.

[begin_within]

1. My grandparents knew him...

Unfortunately I have no information for you, though. My grandfather was in the USMC in WWI and through the 1930s. For a while he was the commander at Camp Matthews, which is now where the University of California at San Diego is located. He died of heart failure at the age of 58, in 1944, so I never met him. When I was a kid in the 1960s, I remember my grandmother and even my parents (who were both in the USMC) mentioning the name Smedley Butler, and it seems like they knew him, but I never met him or saw him in person. I think my grandparents were in the same social circles with him. If I dug through my grandfather's old letters and paperwork I might come across something about him, but that would be a huge task.

[Ilsa]

4. Thank you very much. Personal stories mean alot to me.

I believe that peple are honest about this stuff -- like the time my friend told me his father had been in Europe and saw the concentration camps. Please don't go to any more trouble for this. Thanks again!

[begin_within]

13. My Mom just told me she remembers meeting him when she was a girl...

but she doesn't remember much else about him (she's 89 now). She said that he was one of her father's "Marine buddies." There is a box of letters of my grandparents here - sometime I'll sit down and read through them. It's very interesting to read his name in news stories and articles because my grandparents were friends with him. My father, as a teenager, got to meet both Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart on the same day at a National Geographic Society luncheon.

[madfloridian]

2. There is a lot in this link from the BBC, with more in the comments.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1404

"Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen.

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy."

[Ilsa]

6. Thanks! I tried DU research, but failed to check the journals. nt

[madfloridian]

9. A lot in the comments if I remember correctly.

.

[madfloridian]

10. From the NYT via Daily Kos...in the comments at my link

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/27/112936/440

" These plotters represented 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 co-director 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."

[unhappycamper]

3. Here's a pretty good book on the subject.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gVrYRlV6L._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg


http://www.amazon.com/Plot-Seize-White-House-Conspiracy/dp/1602390363/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1986963-5902334?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207410271&sr=8-1

[Ilsa]

8. Thanks! I copied that and some online ebook links to him. nt

[Political Heretic]

5. If he really wants to dive in hardcore, there is congressional testimony

though I'm not going to do the work to figure out the dates of the hearings and how to access it. :) But you can! :)

[Ilsa]

7. Thank you! That is an excellent idea! nt

[Ilsa]

12. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

Excerpts, unless noted, are from "The Plot to Seize the White House" by Jules Archer, ISBN 1-60239-036-3, page 194-220

Reporter "John L. Spivak had been tipped off earlier by a fellow Washington correspondent that some of Butler's testimony had been deleted in the committee's November 26, 1934 report to the House of Representatives..."

"Other newsmen joined (Spivak) in pressing for a copy of the (McCormack-Dickstein Committee report). It was then that the defunct McCormack-Dickstein Committee...decided to publish a 125-page document containing the testimony of Butler, McGuire, and others, on February 15, 1935. It was marked "Extracts"...

"A veteran Washington correspondent told Spivak that he had heard the deletions had been made at the request of a member of the President's Cabinet..."

[Wind Dancer]

11. It's covered extensively

in the documentary - http://www.thecorporation.com/ including Smedley Butler's testimony!

[wildbilln864]

14. kick! nt