The Business Plot
 | |
| Date | 1933 - 1934 |
|---|---|
| Planners | The Money Trust |
| Perpetrators | Irenee Du Pont, Grayson Murphy, William Doyle, John Davis, Al Smith, John J. Raskob, Robert Clark, Gerald MacGuire |
| Exposed by | Smedley Butler |
| Description | A military takeover of the USA planned by The Money Trust. Never enacted due to the character of the man they ill advisedly chose to head it Smedley Butler, who foiled the plot and decreased the group's influence. |
The Business Plot was a failed coup in 1933-34 by The Money Trust which intended to install a Wall Street-backed fascist government in the USA. It was foiled primarily because of one man - Major General Smedley Butler, whom the plotters mistakenly judged suitable to head the operation.[1][2] No one was prosecuted, but the event significantly restrained the influence of the Money Trust, possibly due to a secret deal with FDR. A key perpetrator, Gerald MacGuire, died suddenly in 1935 and the event was nearly memory holed with the help of the commercially-controlled media.
Contents
Official narrative
Wikipedia remarks dismissively that: "The Business Plot was an alleged political conspiracy in 1933 in the United States"... The closest thing to an official narrative of the event may be the responses to FOIA requests about the event which are available on the MuckRock website.[3]
Sourcewatch
The Sourcewatch article was moved to the Talk: namespace within 3 hours[4] because of concerns that it was not well enough sourced.
Perpetrators
The coup was planned by The Money Trust. Irénée Du Pont of the DuPont corporation was active in the planning, including in setting up the American Liberty League, a front organization of wealthy business elites and prominent political figures that would take over power.
Exposure
| Original recording of General Butler denouncing the plot |
The cabal of bankers chose the wrong guy - Smedley Butler blew the whistle on the planned coup by testifying to the McCormack-Dickstein Committee.[5][6] He was invited by bond trader, Gerald MacGuire, and feigned interest while gathering details of the planned coup.[1] In order to help expose the plot, before easy access to take recorders, he invited MacGuire to explain the plan to a friend of his (in actual fact, a journalist, Paul Comly French) so he could have a second opinion before he finally decided whether to proceed with the plan. The journalist confirmed Butler's account in an article in on the 11 November 1934 in the New York Post.
Cover-up
The US deep state was fairly successful in flushing the details down the memory hole.[7] No prosecutions were forthcoming and the McCormack-Dickstein Committee's report was redacted, with the names of the key financiers redacted. This was ostensibly to protect their anonymity pending further investigations, but since no further investigations were made, their names were permanently redacted, raising suspicions that there may have been a secret agreement not to prosecute the leaders in return for Wall Street's dropping its opposition to FDR's New Deal.[1]
Smedley Butler was appalled by the cover-up and "went on national radio to denounce it, but with little success".[8]
FBI Disinterest
A FOIA request to the FBI revealed a pronounced disinterest in the plot.[9]
Corporate media
After initial interest in the plot, the commercially-controlled media later dismissed it. A New York Times editorial characterized it as a "gigantic hoax" and a "bald and unconvincing narrative."[10][11]
Sudden deaths
Gerald McGuire died, reportedly of pneumonia brought on by exhaustion, in March 1935. Grayson Murphy, who was implicated in the Business Plot by Smedley Butler, died in 1937.
Related Document
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:MacGuire Denies Butler Charges | report | 20 November 1934 | What was to become the US Deep state promoted official narrative of the Business Plot, that it never happened. |
References
- ↑ a b c http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/749
- ↑ http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Coup.htm
- ↑ https://cdn.muckrock.com/foia_files/2017/06/07/File_1_Section_1_Serial__1.pdf
- ↑ https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Business_plot&action=history
- ↑ http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/229
- ↑ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCormack%E2%80%93Dickstein_Committee saved at Archive.org saved at Archive.is
- ↑ http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/229
- ↑ http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Coup.htm
- ↑ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/aug/29/smedley-butler-fbi/
- ↑ Credulity Unlimited date=November 22, 1934 The New York Times
- ↑ Schmidt, Hans (1998). Maverick Marine (reprint, illustrated ed.). University Press of Kentucky. p. 224. ISBN 0-8131-0957-4.
