Thursday, 15 April 1999 14:51

The Attempted Coup Against FDR

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Although the coup never materialized, the unrelenting propaganda attack against Roosevelt and the New Deal reforms continued, spearheaded by the American Liberty League, writes Barbara LaMonica.


From the March-April 1999 issue (Vol. 6 No. 3) of Probe


The John F. Kennedy assassination represents a theme in our political history. The causes, even the inevitability, of the assassination were born out of the power struggles among the ruling elite which are consistent throughout the American story. These struggles revolve around questions of what is the proper role of government vis a vis the business community's pursuit of its own self-interest. Is the government's role minimal or laissez-faire? Should government only provide a stable environment of "law and order", through increased police powers, conducive to the maximization of profits and the minimization of workers wages and benefits? Or does the government have a higher purpose? Is it responsible for the common good? Is it the one entity capable of implementing justice, equality, and a partial redistribution of wealth through the regulation and taxation of corporations in order to provide a cushion against the more egregious effects of the free market? Should it ensure the worker's share in the profits they helped to create?

At various times factions of what has become known as "corporate America" have argued over which role of government is ultimately more advantageous to their own ends. Generally speaking, banking and Wall Street favor less government. Retail, light manufacturing and small to medium size corporations are more tolerant of an activist government which might put more money in the hands of their consumers, and protect small businesses against the unfair competitive practices of larger corporations.

The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression dramatically thrust the question of government's role to the forefront of American political and corporate life. The election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt represented a revolutionary realignment of political power: the ascendancy of the Democratic party facilitated by new voting coalitions of rural south and industrialized north which dislodged the Republican Party's nearly seventy-year dominance, signaling the abandonment of laissez-faire economics in favor of state regulation. The losers in this political process coalesced into right-wing Republicanism, and the next sixty years of American history is, in part, the story of their attempt to regain power, reinstitute Lassiez-faire policies, and dismantle the New Deal.1 I would like to suggest that the forces behind the assassination of President Kennedy were born in the furies which the Great Depression unleashed between these competing sectors of American political and economic life.

I believe that in 1934 there was a foreshadowing of the JFK assassination. A conspiracy was uncovered in which right-wing elements of big business, namely the DuPont family and the Morgan banking interests, planned to finance and arm a veteran's army to march on the White House and hold President Roosevelt captive.2 The conspiracy was reported by two- time Congressional Medal of Honor winner Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler. Although the House Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities found his allegations credible, it failed to call major conspirators to testify, and the Committee deleted crucial testimony from its final report to the public. The press relegated the story to the back pages, and discredited those, including Major Butler, who tried to alert the public to the threat against republican government. No prosecutions were forthcoming from the Justice Department, in part because the main witness who would have substantiated Butler's claims died suddenly from pneumonia at the age of 37. In short, there was a cover-up, maybe worse.

Background

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in November 1932, three years into the Great Depression. National income was cut by more than half and five thousand banks had crashed, wiping out nine million savings accounts. More than fifteen million workers had lost their jobs. Not only was the question "What to do" being asked, but also "Who was to blame?" A Senate investigation into the machinations of Wall Street found that investors organized raids on the stock market, pulled out all their money hoping for prices to drop, and then bought low. Insiders were also afforded the opportunity to buy securities at prices much lower than the public. Financiers were lining their pockets with fantastic bonuses, and the committee found that "...the Stock Exchange was no more than a glorified gambling casino where the odds were weighted heavily against the eager outsiders."3

The severity and persistence of the Depression raised questions in the minds of the public about business leaders and capitalism itself. Underlying this questioning was the perennial debate over what role the government should take. Although Roosevelt wanted and needed the support of business, he also knew that the government must advance beyond representing the "single interest" that is big business and represent the needs of all segments of society. Such interests as farm groups and unions were to be given a voice in the government which had been previously denied them so that, as Senator Robert Wagner argued, "...the strong may not take advantage of the weak."4 Roosevelt himself felt that reforms that from time to time would impose policies distasteful to representatives of industry would be essential to lasting relief. While asking Congress to pass the Securities Act to regulate the Stock Exchange, Roosevelt stated,

In the working out of a great national program seeking the primary good of the greater number, it is true that the toes of some people are being stepped on, and are going to be stepped on. But these toes belong to the comparative few who seek to retain or to gain position or riches or both by some short cut that is harmful to the greater good.

Roosevelt did step on some toes. Roosevelt and the New Dealers were determined to eliminate the abuses of the financial system by subjecting it to federal regulation. Threatened by prospects of government regulation and taxation of individual wealth as well as corporate profits to fund relief programs and public works, industrialists took up the offensive.

In 1934, two events aroused the wrath of the DuPonts and the Morgans. First, there were rumors that pressure was being exerted to open a Senate investigation into the munitions industry's alleged role in America's entry into WWI. The DuPonts were the leading armament producers in the world. They had already earned the title "Merchants of Death" because of the huge profits they made during the Civil War and the War of 1812. The DuPonts always tried to bury this fact in carefully crafted public relations euphemisms such as" DuPont - Better things for better living through chemistry." The DuPonts have always remained reticent about revealing the extent of their wealth, corporate holdings and armament productions. Certainly, a Senate investigation revealing their irregular dealings and huge profits during a time of national hardship, when many Americans were already questioning whether financiers really had the national interest at heart, could be disastrous for industrialists like the DuPonts. It could only lead to more popular support for the reforms Roosevelt was trying to implement.5

The second event that alarmed the big financiers, striking directly at the heart of the Morgan empire, was the passage of the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934. This legislation proposed federal supervision of securities traded over state boundaries, and established the Securities and Exchange Commission empowered to enforce the regulations. Some of the abuses that the commission was to address were insider trading, bear raiding, and manipulating stocks to create the illusion of activity. One of the most alarming propositions was that companies selling stocks would have to reveal their financial histories to the public. In choosing a chairman for the Securities and Exchange Commission, Roosevelt needed a man who would strike a balance between the more radical, anti-business theorists of the New Deal, and the entrenched business interests whose support Roosevelt needed. Confiding to his advisors with the cavalier phrase "I'll set a thief to catch a thief," Roosevelt appointed Joseph P. Kennedy as the first Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.6 With this appointment Kennedy became responsible for drafting legislation which would regulate the business dealings of his former Wall Street colleagues. Furthermore, an alliance between the Roosevelt and Kennedy families was indelibly printed upon the minds of reactionary elements of business. I will return to this Kennedy-Roosevelt alliance and its repercussions later.

The Coup

During this same period, retired Marine Corps General Smedley Darlington Butler was approached by two members of the American Legion: Bill Doyle, and Gerald C. MacGuire (who was also a bonds salesman for a Morgan concern). The American Legion, ostensibly a veterans' benevolent society, was founded by wealthy industrialists who used the Legionnaires as strike busters.7 The men invited Butler to address an upcoming Legion convention. They were dissatisfied with how the organization was being run, and hoped Butler's influence would help them oust the present leadership. Butler politely listened, but refused, saying he did not wish to get involved in Legion politics. A short time thereafter the two men called upon Butler again. They seemingly disregarded Butler's former refusal to attend the convention. They had a new plan. Butler would now bring a few hundred Legionnaires with him to the convention and scatter them throughout the audience. MacGuire assured Butler that the Legionnaires' expenses would be covered as he showed him a bank book with deposits totaling over $100,000. When Butler appeared in the spectator gallery, the Legionnaires were to leap to their feet demanding he speak. MacGuire then produced the prepared speech he wanted Butler to give. The speech urged the convention to adopt a resolution calling for Roosevelt to return to the Gold Standard.

Up until that time the dollar was backed by gold, meaning the US Treasury could only print as much money as there was gold reserve backing that money in Fort Knox. Going off the Gold standard allowed for more money to printed and pumped into the economy, partially to fund the proposed relief programs. Those who had a lot of money were opposed to going off the Gold standard for fear their money would have less value. So Butler was to convince the veterans, who were due a second bonus payment, that if they were not paid in money backed by gold, their bonuses would be compromised. Butler became suspicious. Who was trying to use him in this way? Where did MacGuire get all this money and for whom was he really working? And wasn't the Gold Standard argument merely a means to alienate the veterans from Roosevelt by convincing them his policies would render their money worthless?8 Feigning interest in order to learn more about the purpose of the intrigue, and who was behind it, Butler said he might be interested, but he needed to know the plan was foolproof. Butler also said he wanted to talk to the top man, and not intermediaries. After some hesitation MacGuire revealed that Singer Sewing Machine heir Robert Sterling Clark was instrumental, as was Grayson M.P. Murphy. Murphy ran a Wall Street brokerage house, was a director of Guaranty Trust, a Morgan Bank, and also had interests in Anaconda Copper, Bethlehem Steel and Goodyear Tire.9

Other meetings followed. At one point MacGuire took out his wallet and threw down 18 $1000 bills saying he wanted to pay Butler for his help. Robert Sterling Clark himself paid Butler a visit, and hinted at such things as Butler's mortgage payments. Finally MacGuire revealed their real plans: he wanted Butler to lead an insurrection army to march on the White House, "force" Roosevelt to resign, and install a Secretary of General Affairs to take Roosevelt's place and reinstate the Gold Standard.

Why would the plotters choose Butler? Butler, a two-time congressional medal of honor winner was one of the few well-loved military men. Only Butler could induce veterans, who would ordinarily have nothing to do with insurrection to follow him. The plotters felt they could seduce Butler with money and power. They misjudged him.

Butler was an extraordinary man. Of Quaker stock, he served for thirty years in the Marines and enjoyed great popularity among the men he commanded as well as among the rank and file veterans. His military experiences in China, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Cuba eventually led him to suspect that these interventions were nothing more than scouting expeditions for big business. He felt that the lives of American boys were being sacrificed for the profits of United Fruit. In retirement Butler become very outspoken about this. He went on speaking engagements, and even penned a book entitled "War is a Racket".10 He was also one of the few military men to support the Bonus Marchers. These veterans had camped outside the capital demanding the money owed them, only to have their tents burned down by the likes of Generals MacArthur, Patton, and Eisenhower acting on orders from President Hoover.

Butler was still unconvinced that there was a real plot; however, MacGuire made some starling predictions. He predicted there would be an announcement in the press about the formation of a new organization, the American Liberty League. The American Liberty League, funded by the DuPonts, was to complement the coup by functioning as a propaganda organ to discredit the overthrown Roosevelt in the public's mind (a technique which should be all too familiar to students of the character postmortem on JFK).11 MacGuire was also able to predict, well in advance, important personnel changes in the White House. This apparent forecasting ability indicated to Butler that conspirators were even within the New Deal administration. Butler, now taking the conspiracy seriously, approached some of his friends in Congress and the media. The House Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities, chaired by Congressmen John McCormack and Samuel Dickerstein, agreed to hear Butler's testimony.12

What The Committee Revealed

Not surprisingly, when called as a witness, MacGuire denied any plot. He claimed he was part of The Committee For Sound Dollar and Sound Currency, Inc., which was spearheading a lobbying effort on behalf of the Gold Standard. However, his contradictory testimony and his inability to satisfactorily explain the large amounts of money which were deposited in several of his accounts compromised his credibility as a witness. At one point he said he was acting as purchasing agent of securities for Clark, but he never produced any evidence that he ever purchased any securities at all.13 It was also revealed that Clark had sent MacGuire on a trip to Germany, Italy, Spain, and France allegedly to study 'economic' conditions. But records of the Committee for a Sound Dollar, where MacGuire filed his reports, indicated he was studying something more. In each of the countries he met with veterans in paramilitary groups. These were the types of groups that carried out coups and assassinations in Germany and Italy on behalf of Hitler and Mussolini. A similar group operated in France, the Croix de Feu, about which MacGuire wrote this glowing report: "... this French super organization is composed of about 500,000 men, and each of them was the leader of 10 others, and that is the kind of organization that we should have in the United States."14 Finally, Butler's story was corroborated by Commander James Van Zandt of the Veterans of Foreign Wars who claimed he was also approached to lead an insurrection army. It was also alleged by Butler that MacGuire had guaranteed arms on credit from the Remington Arms Company. Investigation by the committee revealed that the DuPonts had just bought the controlling interest in Remington Arms.15

The committee stated in its final report that it found credible evidence of a contemplated plot to overthrow the elected government with a military coup. Nevertheless, some alleged co-conspirators (supposedly revealed to Butler by MacGuire) such as General Hugh Johnson, (who was head of FDR's National Recovery Administration), former NY Governor Al Smith and General Douglas MacArthur were never subpoenaed.16

Media Treatment Of The Plot

The media gave little or scant coverage to the committee's final report. The Luce Press, which always led the charge in attacking Roosevelt and bolstering Fascism, ran a story called "A Plot Without Plotters"17 which sought to discredit Col. Butler. He was called a "hothead." Other evidence of Butler's unsavory character, according to Luce, was that he had once given a speech in which he criticized Mussolini. His advocacy of the penniless Bonus Veteran Army was transformed into haranguing. The committee chairmen fared no better under Luce's pen. They were accused of only seeking publicity (despite their having sought to suppress the most explosive parts of their discoveries). The New York Times showed an astonishing lack of interest. Reference to the alleged coup was relegated to two paragraphs at the bottom of page five.18 However, not every newspaper discounted the plot. The independent Philadelphia Record ran a cartoon showing big business pointing to a soapbox Communist as the threat, while General Butler marches in with evidence revealing armed Fascists hiding beneath a banker's coat.19 References to the alleged conspiracy disappeared from the press. Nevertheless, individual reporters did attempt to pursue the story. Paul Comley French of the Philadelphia Record and investigative journalist John Spivak went to the Justice Department. They asked why no one implicated was ever questioned; and since MacGuire had perjured himself, did they intend to file criminal prosecution? The Justice Department indicated it had no plans to carry matters any further at the moment. MacGuire, the only man who could have testified against the rest, died soon after of complications from pneumonia. His physician claimed that his death was partly due to the stress of the charges made by Butler. Grayson M.P. Murphy, the Morgan banker and treasurer of the American Liberty League, died soon after.20

Aftermath And Beyond

Although the coup never materialized, the unrelenting propaganda attack against Roosevelt and the New Deal reforms continued, spearheaded by the American Liberty League. The League listed as its main contributors the DuPont family, representatives of the Morgan interests, Robert Sterling Clark, the Pew Family (Sun Oil), and Rockefeller Associates. Its Treasurer was Grayson M.P. Murphy, MacGuire's immediate boss. The League itself was ostensibly dedicated to the virtues of the Constitution, individual freedom and free market capitalism. But it claimed that all New Deal reforms were inspired by Communists within the Roosevelt administration.21 In the election of 1936, the League spent twice as much money as the Republican Party in trying to defeat Roosevelt. Although the League disbanded after Roosevelt won his second term, it spawned a series of extreme right-wing groups and paramilitary bands which constituted a network that endured through the 1960s, and whose descendants are with us today. Their propaganda was anti-Communist and anti-Semitic; their tactic was violence. Some groups which the League financed were the Sentinels of the Republic (which labeled the New Deal "Jewish Communism"), the Minutemen and the Minutewomen. Another group, the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution, was associated with the Silver Shirt Squad of the American Storm Troopers. The goals of this organization, headed by a Texas oil magnate, were to create a mass movement of whites in the South to dilute Roosevelt's Dixie vote, and to stir up anti-black racism in order to attack organizing drives by the unions from the North. Significantly, these same hate sentiments were being stirred up against JFK, and for the same reasons. These groups formed the dark underside to the League, which tried to present a polite public face.22 But some industrialists, like Henry Ford, had no qualms about explicitness. American Fascists groups hawked his anti-Semitic tracts like "The International Jew."

The main function of these hate groups was to enforce the will of right-wing corporate America, seeking to regain the political power it lost in the 1932 election. On the grassroots level, this intention translated into supporting the efforts of management to stop workers from unionizing. The most glaring example of this is the struggle at the General Motors plants (General Motors was owned by the DuPonts). The DuPonts employed the Black Legion, a sort of Northern Klux Klux Klan, which would terrorize workers, bomb union halls, and torture and murder organizers. The Legion was organized into arson squads, execution squads, and anti-Communist squads. Discipline within its own ranks was maintained with the weapons of torture or death and was strictly enforced. The LaFollette Committee found that the Legion had penetrated police departments, high government offices, and the Michigan Republican Party.23

These groups also acted as intelligence networks. They infiltrated unions, leftwing groups, and universities, and they sold their information to industry. One example of such an intelligence agency was the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation, headquartered in Chicago and operated by Harry Jung.24 Jung later relocated to New Orleans where he was an associate of Guy Bannister, who also hailed from Chicago. Banister's Detective Agency was spying for right-wing businesses as well. Some believe it may have been in Jung's hotel in New Orleans that the famous Congress of Freedom meeting took place in the Spring of 1963. At this meeting, with Edwin Walker and Joseph Milteer in attendance, a police informant reported there was talk of murdering national leaders.

In the Thirties, corporate America's fear of government regulation threatened by Roosevelt's New Deal, ("Socialism" in their minds), gave them a reason to embrace Fascism. It justified their financing of paramilitary hate groups to carry out violent, anti-government and anti-union campaigns exploiting the vehicles of racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Communism. By the Sixties these groups had become entrenched in the grassroots landscape.

The institutionalization of the military industrial complex and the national security state, with which corporate America would meld, developed during World War II and its aftermath. The DuPonts, as well as other industrialists, implicated in the attempted coup against FDR played a major role in these developments.

The Nye Committee Hearings to investigate the munitions industry were finally held in 1935. Committee findings revealed that the DuPonts were heavily invested in fascist Italy, and had played a major role in the rearming of Germany.25 According to the Versailles Treaty, which ended WWI, it was illegal to sell arms to Germany, but the DuPonts lobbied State Department delegates to the Paris Peace Conference. They finally obtained assurance from one of the delegates that their business with Germany would be "winked at." That delegate was Wall Street lawyer Allen Dulles. In addition, the Wall Street lawyer who represented the DuPonts at the hearings was William Donovan, who went on to head the Office of Strategic Services (the OSS was the forerunner of the CIA) during WWII.

In spite of the DuPonts' illegal dealings, no prosecutions were forthcoming as a result of the Nye committee either. The DuPont family interests represented the largest holdings in the military industrial complex. DuPont built and operated the plant for the Manhattan project. They built all the facilities for atomic bomb production including the facility at Oak Ridge Tennessee. DuPont technicians and engineers ran the show; and by the Sixties the DuPonts effectively had control of the whole atomic energy industry.26

The JFK Presidency and the New Deal Legacy

The post war economic boom, coupled with the Democratic Party's advocacy for civil rights, encouraged the Republicans to try to win back the voting coalition of urban ethnic groups, the Dixie vote and the Catholic vote that Roosevelt had captured.27 But when John F. Kennedy was elected, that chance evaporated. Kennedy had stopped the Catholic vote on its way back to the right. In spite of the controversy at the time, the Democrats needed a Catholic candidate, not a Mafia Don, to secure the election.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed Joseph Kennedy as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, it was payback time. For it was Joseph Kennedy as chair of the Roosevelt election committee who helped put together that winning "Roosevelt coalition" of urban ethnic groups and the Catholic votes of the Northeast. Kennedy and his family had a powerful legacy in the urban political wards and could deliver that vote. They also elicited the support of some businessmen who were otherwise suspicious of FDR (Kennedy even managed to get William Randolph Hearst to support FDR's first bid for the Presidency). The Roosevelts and the Kennedys cooperated on other levels as well. James Roosevelt, the President's son, was instrumental in securing British liquor franchises for Joseph Kennedy. Elliot Roosevelt, another son, served alongside Joseph Kennedy Jr. in WWII. In fact, he was flying the escort plane when Joseph was shot down.28

The relationship between Kennedy and Roosevelt was not always cordial, but Kennedy's isolationism vs. Roosevelt's internationalism is beyond the scope of this article.29 Kennedy nevertheless remained a loyal Roosevelt supporter even after most businessmen abandoned the New Deal ship. By the time Roosevelt sought his third term, Kennedy had become more critical of FDR, fostering hope in the business community that he might endorse Wendel Wilkie. Robert E. Woods of the right-wing America First Committee encouraged Kennedy to support Wilkie. Kennedy apparently led Woods, and the Luces, to believe he would shift allegiances. Remember, in 1940 Kennedy was a well-known public figure, and the nation anxiously awaited his radio address to announce whom he supported for President. In spite of his contrary posturing, Kennedy finally supported Roosevelt. Years later, he told Claire Booth Luce, "I simply made a deal with Roosevelt. We agreed that if I would endorse him for President in 1940, then he would support my son Joe for Governor of Massachusetts in 1942."30 So Joseph Kennedy gained the enmity of FDR's enemies; he was perceived as a traitor.

In the 1960 campaign, John F. Kennedy consciously welded himself to the FDR legacy. The New Frontier was to be the fulfillment of the New Deal. Franklin Roosevelt Jr., later to become JFK's Undersecretary of Commerce, campaigned with Kennedy throughout states such as West Virginia, where memories of the Great Depression were still vivid. Certainly this campaign, as well as Kennedy's proactive policies, gained the ire of FDR's New Deal enemies.

In his book Battling Wall Street, Donald Gibson convincingly shows that JFK did come up against the same business interests that opposed FDR. 31 For example, in his confrontation with U.S. Steel (a company in which DuPont owned a significant share of stock) over price increases Kennedy railed against "a situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profits exceeds their sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the interest of 185 million Americans."

Recall the FDR speech about Wall Street bankers harming the greater good.

In closing I would say the attempted coup against FDR and the power struggles surrounding it will not give us a smoking gun to the Kennedy assassination. But it will allow us to draw some important implications about the assassination.

  1. The coup attempt against FDR gives us an historical precedent to conclude that powerful interests will consider using every available means including political murder in order to pursue their personal wealth.
  2. The Kennedy assassination was domestic in nature.
  3. The assassination was carried out by two groups created by corporate interests: The national security state and right-wing paramilitary organizations.
  4. Although foreign policy issues such as Cuba and Vietnam were important, JFK's domestic policies and vision of an activist government mediating for the interests of all segments of society precipitated his assassination.
  5. Since the assassination was domestic in nature the cover- up that followed was not to avoid an international nuclear war, but to avoid a domestic civil strife.
  6. Finally, if nothing else, studying the anti-FDR coup attempt and what it represents allows us to break the seals on a chapter of our history which, like the JFK case, vested interests would like to keep hidden.

Notes

1. For an in-depth analysis of this political realignment see Michael W. Miles, The Odyssey of the American Right (New York, Oxford' Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 1-16.

2. Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973). See also Clayton E. Cramer's article "An American Coup D'Etat?" in History Today, November, 1995.

3. William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal (New York, London: Harper Colophon

Books Harper & Row Publishers, 1963), pp. 20, 89.

4. Ibid., p. 89.

5. For one of the best histories of the DuPonts see Gerard Colby's DuPont: Behind the Nylon Curtain (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1974).

6. Michael R. Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance (New York: Random House, 1964) pp.83-89.

7. For a more detailed account of the formation of the American Legion see Richard 0. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, Labor's Untold Story (New York: Cameron Associates, 1955) pp. 211-216, 280.

8. Archer, pp. 10-11, 14-19, 25-27. Interestingly enough, the person who wrote the Gold standard speech was a John W. Davis, a chief attorney for J.P. Morgan. Morgan may have been creating an alibi for himself while publicly stating that "...going off the Gold standard saved the country from complete collapse. It was vitally necessary..." see Leuchtenburg, p. 51.

9. Ibid., pg. 12.

10. Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket (Costa Mesa, California: The Noontide Press, reprinted 1991) The forward to this edition contains a concise biography of Butler.

11. Archer, pp.31-32. On FDR's problems with the DuPonts and Liberty League, see Harold Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L.Ickes: The First Thousand Days 1933-1936 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954) pp.523-525. Also Miles, pp.32-33 and Leuchtenburg, pp.91-92.

12. This was before the Committee was taken over by Martin Dies, a right-wing Southern Democrat who used the committee to label all political enemies "communists". This was to reach its apogee in the McCarthy years when the committee was using the red scare to purge all New Dealers from government and cultural life. See Archer, p. 136; also Miles, p. 36. For an account of Martin Dies' committee surpressing investigation of fascist activites, and his association with Harry Jung, a later associate of Guy Bannister, see John L. Spivak, Secret Armies:The New Techniques of Nazi Warfare (New York: Modern Age Books, Inc., 1939) pp.136-154.

13. U.S. House of Representatives, Public Statement of Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Seventy-Third Congress, Second Session, November 24, 1934. pp.5-10.

14. U.S. House of Representatives, Investigation of Un-American Activities, Seventy-Third Congress, Second Session, November20, 1934. Testimony of Col. Butler-pp. 17-19; testimony of Paul Comly French pp.20-23.

15. Ibid., Testimony of Paul Cornley French. Initally this testimony concerning Remmington and the Duponts was censored, see Archer, p. 161. Also Colby, p. 291.

16. Archer, pp.209-210.

17. Time, December 3, 1934

18. New York Times, March 26, 1935.

19. Cartoon reprinted in Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House.

20. Ibid., pp.197-198. See also Cramer, "An American Coup d'Etat?' in Historv Today, November 1995.

21. Archer, p. 228. Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein, Danger on the Right (New York: Random House, 1964) p. 189.

22. Archer, p. 201. See also Spivak for a flill description of American fascist organizations.

23. Boyer and Morais, pp. 280-281; Colby, pp.327-331.

24. Spivak, pp.81-83.

25. Colby, pp. 302-315. See also Christopher Simpson, The Splendid Blond Beast (New York: Grove Press, 1993) pp.43-57 for a detailed account of the Dulles brothers' dealings on behalf of the German armament industry.

26. Ibid., pp.364-365.

27. Miles, p. ix.

28. Beschloss, pp. 68-95, 173-174, 256.

29. A good description of the Kennedy-Roosevelt controversy is in Nigel Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth (New York: Random House, 1992) pp.368-376.

30. Beschloss, p. 276.

31. Donald Gibson, Battling Wall Street: The Kennedy Presidency (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1994).

32. The New York Times, The Kennedy Years (New York: Viking Press, 1964) p. 263.

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