The Plot To Seize The White House

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THE PLOT
TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE
BY JULES 
ARCHER

Americans can no longer be shocked by the discovery that information directly affecting their personal freedom is withheld from news media to protect persons with governmental influence.

But it still comes as a shocking revelation that in 1933 there was an actual attempt to make a fascist puppet of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Now, more than forty years later, the public still remains ignorant of the story behind THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE.

The fact that the plot was a failure and our present government is still a democracy, is directly attributable to Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, one of the most remarkable generals in American history. A veteran of 35 years in the Marine Corps and twice a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, Butler finally decided that "war is a racket!" His reputation for patriotism, integrity, and dedication to democracy, coupled with his proclivity to speak the truth as he saw it irrespective of official policy, made him a seemingly perfect front for the men who hated Roosevelt. They were people with a determination, if it were impossible to replace the president, to manipulate him through the person of an American Mussolini. Their shortsightedness prevented their realizing that Butler was obviously the wrong choice for the job.

Jules Archer quotes testimony from the McCormack-Dickstein House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings (including testimony that was subsequently censored from public record) that details how Butler was approached by representatives of the arch-conservative American Liberty League; how they tried to persuade him to lead an army of veterans in demonstration against Roosevelt's silver standard; how Butler quickly concluded that the silver standard controversy was being used as a subterfuge to lead American veterans against Washington for truly sinister purposes; and how this hero, patriot, and Republican democrat, upon uncovering the full dimensions of the conspiracy, determined to go to Washington and blow it wide open.

John L. Spivak, a reporter assigned to cover the committee hearings, calls the story "one of the most fantastic plots in American history. . . . What was behind the plot was shrouded in a silence which has not been broken to this day. 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 footnote in American histories. It would be regrettable if historians neglected this episode and future generations of Americans never learned of it."

Born in New York City, Jules Archer is a graduate of City College of New York. During World War II he served four years in the Pacific with the Army Air Corps and was also a freelance correspondent by order of General MacArthur. He is the author of many books on political events and personalities, including
Mao Tse-tung, The Dictators, Hawks, Doves and the Eagle, The Extremists,
and Chou
En-lai.

Hawthorn Books, Inc.
Publishers
260 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10016

Printed in U.S.A.

THE

PLOT

TO SEIZE

THE

HAWTHORN BOOKS, INC.

PUBLISHERS /
New York

THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE

Copyright © 1973 by Jules Archer. Copyright under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. All inquiries should be addressed to Hawthorn Books, Inc., 260 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. This book was manufactured in the United States of America and published simultaneously in Canada by Prentice-Hall of Canada, Limited, 1870

Birchmount Road, Scarborough, Ontario. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-39261.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

To 
reporters George Seldes and John L. Spivak 
for their courageous dedication to the 
truth, wherever it led

CONTENTS

FOREWORD ix

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi

The Plot
1

The Indispensable Man
35

137

Fallout
203

INDEX 245

FORWARD

This is the true story of a remarkable American who, during the early New Deal years, was sought by wealthy plotters in the United States to lead a putsch to overthrow the government and establish an American Fascist dictatorship.

According to retired Representative John W. McCormack, former Speaker of the House, if the late Major General Smedley Butler of the U.S.

Marine Corps had not been a stubborn devotee of democracy, Americans today could conceivably be living under an American Mussolini, Hitler, or Franco.

An ironic aspect of the conspiracy General Butler unmasked is that few Americans have ever heard about it, or even know anything about the general. As children all of us were taught about the treason of Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold, whose betrayals were safely cobwebbed by the distant past. But school texts that deal with the New Deal are uniquely silent about the powerful Americans who plotted to seize the White House with a private army, hold President Franklin D. Roosevelt prisoner, and get rid of him if he refused to serve as their puppet in a dictatorship they planned to impose and control.

There is strong evidence to suggest that the conspirators may have been too important politically, socially, and economically to be brought to justice after their scheme had been exposed before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee of the House of Representatives. The largely anti-Roosevelt press of the New Deal era scotched the story as expeditiously as possible by outright suppression, distortion, and attempts to ridicule General Butler’s testimony as capricious fantasy.

ix

x Forward

Smedley Butler’s whole life, however, was proof that he was a man of incorruptible character, integrity, and patriotism, with a deserved reputation for bluntly speaking the whole truth at all times, regardless of the consequences. He was named by Theodore Roosevelt “the outstanding American soldier.” The official Marine Corps record calls him “one of the most colorful officers in the Marine Corps’ long history” and “one of the two Marines who received two Medals of Honor for separate acts of outstanding heroism.” He was decorated no fewer than twenty times.

Former Speaker McCormack told the author, “In peace or war he was one of the outstanding Americans in our history. I can’t emphasize too strongly the very important part he played in exposing the Fascist plot in the early 1930’s backed by and planned by persons possessing tremendous wealth.”

The crucial events of the plot to seize the White House unfolded between July and November, 1933, with hearings before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee begun in New York City on November 20, 1934. On November 26 the committee released a statement detailing the testimony it had heard, and its preliminary findings. On February 15, 1935, the committee submitted to the House of Representatives its final report, verifying completely the testimony of General Butler.

This book may help break some of the seals of silence that have kept Americans from knowing the truth about that conspiracy. As the first effort to tell the whole story of the plot in sequence and full detail, it may serve as a fresh reminder of Wendell Phillips’s warning about the price of liberty.

No American was ever more dedicated to eternal vigilance in preserving our freedom under the Bill of Rights that the remarkable war hero, pacifist, and Republican democrat-Smedley Darlington Butler.

I am deeply indebted first and foremost to the immediate family of the late Major General Smedley D. Butler-daughter Mrs. Ethel Peters Wehle and sons Smedley Butler, Jr. and Thomas Richard Butler-for their generous cooperation; for use of the general’s private and military papers, scrapbooks, memorabilia, recordings, and photos; and for vivid personal recollections of their father.