-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: The Plot to Seize the White House Jules Archer(C)1973 Hawthorne Books, Inc. New York, NY ----- {Some of his testimony was not released in the official record of the hearings, for reasons that will be discussed later, but was nevertheless ferreted out, copied, and made public by reporter John L. Spivak. This censored testimony is indicated by the symbol + to distinguish it from the official testimony eventually released by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee. The same was true of testimony given by reporter Paul Comly French, who followed Butler as a witness, and the same symbol (+) indicates the censored portions.* [* The reader who wishes to examine the official testimony is referred to the government report, Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities: Public Hearings Before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy-third Congress, Second Session, at Washington, D.C., December 29, 1934. Hearings No. 73-D.C.-6, Part 1. Extracts of the censored testimony are revealed in the books A Man in His Time, by John L. Spivak, and 2000 Americans, by George Seldes.]} ----- 5 After Butler had completed his testimony, Paul Comly French took the witness chair to report on his own investigation of the plot, in which a candid two- hour conversation with MacGuire at the latter's office figured prominently. Describing these talks on the premises of Grayson M.-P. Murphy and Company, French verified every allegation about the plot the general had attributed to MacGuire. In addition French reported the more open statements MacGuire had made to him about the nature of the conspiracy and how it would work. More frank with French, apparently, than he had dared to be with the general, MacGuire made little attempt to disguise the Fascist nature of the proposed putsch with euphemistic phrases about "supporting the President." FRENCH: We need a Fascist government in this country, he insisted, to save the Nation from the Communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America. The only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader. He could organize a million men overnight. During the conversation be told me he had been in Italy and Germany during the summer of 1934 and the spring of 1934 and had made an intensive study of the background of the Nazi and Fascist movements and how the veterans had played a part in them. He said he had obtained enough information on the Fascist and Nazi movements and of the part played by the veterans, to properly set up one in this country. He emphasized throughout his conversation with me that the whole thing was tremendously patriotic, that it was saving the Nation from Communists, and that the men they deal with have that crackbrained idea that the Communists are going to take it apart. He said the only safeguard would be the soldiers. At first he suggested that the General organize this outfit himself and ask a dollar a year dues from everybody. We discussed that, and then he came around to the point of getting outside financial funds, and he said that it would not be any trouble to raise a million dollars. French's use of the phrase "crackbrained idea" to describe the notion by financiers and captains of industry that the country needed to be saved from communism was obviously his own, and not MacGuire's, expression. Censored in French's testimony was his revelation of the sources to which MacGuire had said that he could turn for the funds to finance the veterans' army. + FRENCH: He said he could go to John W. Davis [attorney for J. P. Morgan and Company] or Perkins of the National City Bank, and any number of persons to get it. Of course, that may or may not mean anything. That is, his reference to John W. Davis and Perkins of-the National City Bank. French testified that MacGuire had sought to impress him by indicating high- level support for the conspiracy from important movers and shakers of the American Legion. FRENCH: He then pushed a letter across the desk and said that it was from Louis Johnson, a former national commander of the American Legion. CHAIRMAN: Did he show you the letter? FRENCH: I did not read it. He just passed it over so I could see it, but be did not show it to me. He said that he had discussed the matter with him along the lines of what we were now discussing, and I took it to mean that he had talked of this Fascist proposition with Johnson, and Johnson was in sympathy with it. During the conversation he also mentioned Henry Stevens, of Warsaw, N.C., a former national commander of the American Legion, and said that he was interested in the program. Several times be brought in the names of various former national commanders of the American Legion, to give me the impression that, whether justly or unjustly, a group in the American Legion were actively interested in this proposition. CHAIRMAN: In other words, he mentioned a lot of prominent names; and whether they are interested or not, you do not know, except that he seemed to try to convey to you that they were, to impress on you the significance of this movement? FRENCH: That is precisely the impression I gained from him. As MacGuire had grown increasingly comfortable with him, French testified, the plotter had grown candid and enthusiastic about the Fascist rewards that would follow seizure of the White House. French's use of the word "brilliant" in the following portion of testimony was obviously sarcastic. FRENCH: He had a very brilliant solution of the unemployment situation. He said that Roosevelt had muffed it terrifically, but that he had the plan. He had seen it in Europe. It was a plan that Hitler had used in putting all of the unemployed in labor camps or barracks-enforced labor. That would solve it overnight, and be said that when they got into power, that is what they would do; that that was the ideal plan. He had another suggestion to register all persons all over the country, like they do in Europe. He said that would stop a lot of these Communist agitators who were running around the country. He said that a crash was inevitable and was due to come when bonds reached 5 percent. He said that the soldiers must prepare to save the Nation. If Roosevelt went along with the dictatorship as the King had done in Italy, MacGuire had suggested, Butler could have the proposed labor camps put under his own control. + FRENCH: . . . be suggested that Roosevelt would be in sympathy with us and proposed the idea that Butler would he named as the head of the C.C.C. [Civilian Conservation Corps] camps by the President as a means of building up the organization.... French then testified that MacGuire had told him the plotters could obtain arms and equipment from the Remington Arms Company, on credit through the Du Ponts. His testimony also implicated the American Liberty League. + FRENCH: I do not think at that time he mentioned the connection of Du Pouts with the American Liberty League, but he skirted all around it. That is, I do not think he mentioned the Liberty League, but be skirted all around the idea that that was the back door; one of the Du Ponts is on the board of directors of the American Liberty League and they own a controlling interest in the Remington Arms Co. . . . He said the General would not have any trouble enlisting 500,000 men. It was because MacGuire saw the general as the indispensable man of the putsch, French testified, that he persisted in his efforts to win Butler's adherence to the scheme. FRENCH: When I left him he said that he planned to get in touch with the general and again try to persuade him to accept the leadership of this organization; that he was going to Miami in a couple of weeks for the national convention to do a little work. CHAIRMAN: To beat the bonus? FRENCH: Yes. CHAIRMAN: I thought he was for the bonus. FRENCH: He was at first. BUTLER (interposing): He wants it paid in gold. Clark told me that he had been for the bonus or that he would be for the bonus if we could get the gold standard restored. FRENCH: Then he said he would be in Miami. I told him that the general was going out on a rather lengthy speaking tour and did not know how to get to him. He said that he would either see him before be went to Miami or, if be could not, after he came back from Miami. But he did not see him and in a couple of days the general went out West. Then I went back to see MacGuire on the 27th of September and talked to him for only a few minutes this time. In the meantime I had tried to get in touch with him once when I was in New York, but he was then in Miami and could not. At this time he said that he was extremely sorry that he could not get to Newtown Square [Butler's hometown], but hoped to do so soon; that things were moving nicely. Everything is coming our way, is the way he expressed it. That same afternoon the committee grilled Jerry MacGuire, who had also been summoned to testify at the executive session. MacGuire, who earned only $150 a week as a bond salesman, contradicted himself on the amount of money he had received from sponsors and what be had done with it. He denied Butler's allegation that he had thrown eighteen thousand-dollar bills on the bed at the Newark hotel during the 29th Division convention to bribe Butler into going to the Legion convention in Chicago. But he could not explain what he had done with at least thirty thousand in letters of credit, funds advanced to him by either Clark or Clark's attorney, Albert Grant Christmas, and which MacGuire had had with him at the Legion convention in Chicago the following October, at which he had been both a delegate and a member of the "distinguished guest committee." The McCormack-Dickstein Committee found five significant facts that lent validity to Butler's testimony. Clark, who wanted the Legion to pass a gold- standard resolution, had given MacGuire those funds. In the long-distance call Clark had allegedly made to Chicago while Butler was listening, he had instructed MacGuire, "You can put this thing across alone. You've got $45,000. You can send those telegrams." MacGuire could not explain how he had spent those funds. But telegrams had, indeed, flooded the convention, and the Legion had passed the resolution. Corroboration of Butler's testimony about MacGuire's mission in Europe was borne out by the committee's finding that he had spent large sums of money on that trip to study Fascist movements in Italy, Germany, and France. The committee found, too, that he and Clark had handled large sums of money for various organizations, that he had been active in organizations mentioned by Butler, and that he had acted as cashier for one organization. His accounts of some of these financial transactions failed to satisfy the committee, and he was curtly instructed to reappear the following day for further questioning. Interviewed by reporters afterward, MacGuire declared that he was a personal friend of General Butler's and had last seen him six months earlier when he had gone to Philadelphia to sell some bonds. They had talked about an adequate military force for the nation, MacGuire insisted, and about world affairs in general, but he denied ever discussing a Fascist army or movement. A little desperately MacGuire suggested that "General Butler must be seeking publicity," and called the general's testimony "a pacifist stunt." His attorney, Norman L. Marks, called it "a joke and a publicity stunt for General Butler." Smedley Butler's reputation as an honest patriot made what he had testified to under oath impossible for the press to ignore. On November 21, 1934, in the center of its front page, The New York Times carried a two-column headline: Gen. Butler Bares 'Fascist Plot' To Seize Government by Force Says Bond Salesman, as Representative of Wall St. Group, Asked Him to Lead Army Of 500,000 in March on Capital-Those Named Make Angry Denials-Dickstein Gets Charge Reading the Time's account of the secret hearings, Butler was struck by a unique arrangement of the facts in the story. Instead of beginning with a full account of his charges, there was only a brief paragraph restating the facts in the headline. This was followed by a whole string of denials, or ridicule of the charges, by prominent people implicated. Extensive space was given to their attempts to brand Butler a liar or lunatic. Only at the tail of the story, buried inside the paper, did the Times wind up its account with a few brief paragraphs mentioning some of his allegations. Many papers that picked up the story dropped the tail carrying even those cursory details of the plot. Newspaper publishers had little reason to be fond of the firebrand general who, in his speech to veterans in Atlanta almost a year earlier, had warned them not to believe the capitalist-controlled press, which, Butler charged, suppressed facts unfavorable to America's powerful corporations. The New York Times did note, however, that Butler had told friends in Philadelphia that General Hugh S. Johnson, former N.R.A. administrator, had been among those slated for the role of dictator if Butler turned it down and that J. P. Morgan and Company and Grayson M.-P. Murphy and Company were both involved in the plot. "It's a joke--a publicity stunt," Jerry MacGuire was quoted as insisting. "I know nothing about it. The matter is made up out of whole cloth. I deny the story completely." General Johnson growled, "He had better be pretty damn careful. Nobody said a word to me about anything of this kind, and if they did I'd throw them out the window. I know nothing about it." Thomas W. Lamont, partner in J. P. Morgan and Company, gave his comment: "Perfect moonshine! Too unutterably ridiculous to comment upon!" J. P. Morgan himself, just back from Europe, had nothing to say. "A fantasy!" scoffed Colonel Grayson M.-P. Murphy. "I can't imagine how anyone could produce it or any sane person believe it. It is absolutely false so far as it relates to me and my firm, and I don't believe there is a word of truth in it with respect to Mr. MacGuire." Colonel Murphy specifically denied to reporters that he had financed any Fascist plot and called the statement that be had made out a check for General Butler's Chicago expenses "an absolute lie." He declared that he did not know General Butler and had never heard of the reputed Fascist movement until the charges had been published. He insisted that in 1932 he had voted for President Roosevelt, the target of the alleged plot. Asked about these denials, Butler snorted to a New York Times reporter, "Hell, you're not surprised they deny it, are you? What they have to say they'll say before the committee." He wanted them under oath, as he had been. In Washington General Douglas MacArthur, Chief of Staff, was unavailable for comment because of a real or a diplomatic "heavy cold." His aides, however, expressed amazement and amusement that MacArthur had been named by Butler as an alternate choice of the plotters for dictator if Butler persisted in refusing the offer. "All the principals in the case," George Seldes noted in his book Facts and Fascism, "were American Legion officials and financial backers." Secretary of War George H. Dern, Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson, and a large number of senators and congressmen urged the McCormack-Dickstein Committee to get to the bottom of the conspiracy. "We are going to make a searching investigation of the evidence submitted by General Butler," McCormack announced. "Our original information came from several different sources. General Butler was not the first source of our information.... We have been in possession of certain information for about five weeks and have been investigating it. We will call all the men mentioned in the story, although Mr. Clark is reported to be in Europe." "From present indications," declared Dickstein, "Butler has the evidence. He's not going to make any serious charges unless he has something to back them up. We'll have the men here with bigger names than his." He added that Butler had substantiated most of the statements attributed to him and had denied none. Both McCormack and Dickstein emphasized that the general had repulsed all proposals from the Fascist group. Dickstein indicated that about sixteen persons mentioned to the committee by Butler would be subpoenaed and that an open hearing might be held within a week. Returning from Washington, Butler was besieged by reporters at his home in Newtown Square. "My name has been used all around the country by organizations," he told them. "They'd get some vets and say, 'See, we have Butler with us.' They were using me. The investigators who have been running this thing down found my name popping up everywhere, so they wanted to know what I knew about it-and I'm not the only man in this thing." Next day Dr. W. D. Brooks, of Jackson, Michigan, wired the President: Very obviously Wall St. plans to take over the U.S. Govt. if Hoover re- elected. Very obviously Butler is telling the truth. I have been looking for just this attempt at a Wall St. coup if your policies looked like succeeding. Wall St. is the enemy of our govt. and Butler is giving it to you straightdon't doubt that for a minute. The writer was unable to ascertain the identity of Dr. Brooks, but apparently his opinion carried some weight at the White House, because Louis Howe referred his wire to Attorney General Homer S. Cummings "for acknowledgment and consideration." A demand for prosecution of the conspirators came from many V.F.W. posts all over the country, which passed resolutions praising Butler for exposing the plotters. Typical was the resolution of Philadelphia Post 37 on November 2.2, 1934: Whereas Major General Smedley D. Butler has again exhibited his patriotism, sterling integrity and incorruptible character by exposing a sinister clique of adventurers who would undermine and destroy our form of government, and whereas such treasonable activities by men of money and of influence are more dangerous to our institutions than radical groups in our midst, therefore be it resolved ... that it commend General Butler for his patriotic spirit and hereby expresses its deep gratitude for his great service to our country. And be it further resolved that the Clair Post hereby respectfully requests the Attorney General of the United States to take proper legal action against all guilty parties involved. If the press seemed overeager to emphasize denials of Butler's charges, the people of grass-roots America were far readier to believe the man who had exposed the plot. Letters of encouragement poured in from all over the country. One Nebraska woman wrote him: It is heartening to find a man who has the courage to fight that Octopus, Wall St. More power to you. There are millions of honest people in the United States who applaud you and would follow you heart & soul. Read of MacNider's name being linked with the case. Heard him speak before a woman's club in Omaha. Sized him up as being that kind of tripe. Here's hoping you expose these traitors to a showdown. Yours for justice. . . . Jerry MacGuire returned as a witness for a second day of secret grilling by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee. Again he denied Butler's charges that he had approached the general on behalf of a plot to establish a Fascist dictatorship. He testified that he had received thirty thousand dollars from Robert Sterling Clark to be deposited in the Hanover Trust Company to the credit of "The Committee for a Sound Dollar and Sound Currency, Inc." He and his backers had only wanted to interest Butler in that committee, MacGuire insisted, because as an important and popular public figure the general could command attention for their movement. They wanted to give him the opportunity to "make a little money" in the process. Although Clark, his attorney A. G. Christmas, Walter E. Frew, and others were behind the Committee for a Sound Dollar and Sound Currency, their names had been carefully omitted from its records. MacGuire testified that as far as he knew, Clark had never had any interest in a Fascist organization. But the McCormack-Dickstein Committee located letters from MacGuire written from Europe to Clark and Christmas that proved otherwise. To many questions thrown at him MacGuire answered evasively, "It -is too far back,", or "I cannot recall." At the conclusion of his testimony Dickstein told reporters that MacGuire was "hanging himself" by contradictions in his story and by forced admissions made during his testimony. When this opinion was quoted in a few evening newspapers, Dickstein observed that he had meant it to be "off the -record." Norman L. Marks, the attorney who had accompanied MacGuire at the secret hearings, told reporters that MacGuire had denied ever having had any connection with any Fascist organization of any sort; that he had ever been the "cashier" for any Fascist group; or that he had gone to Europe to study the Fascist movement. MacGuire's European trip, Marks alleged, had been solely for purposes of private business. McCormack declared that all information about the testimony would be withheld because it had been given in closed executive session. But the fact that the committee regarded the testimony as important, he added, was shown by the decision to recall MacGuire for further questioning. Despite Dickstein's earlier statement that sixteen people named by Butler would be subpoenaed, McCormack said that the committee had not yet decided whether to call additional witnesses. Noting that the most important witness, apart from MacGuire, was Robert S. Clark, "a wealthy New Yorker with offices in the Stock Exchange Building," who was abroad, McCormack indicated that if the facts warranted, a public hearing would be held. Leaders of important organizations like the American Legion and the V.F.W. would then be invited to appear before the committee. The Associated Press reported from Indianapolis that banker Frank N. Belgrano, Jr., national commander of the Legion, had denied that the Legion was involved "in the slightest degree" in any plot to supply an army for a "march on Washington." Highly placed Legion officials in Washington also characterized as "horsefeathers" a rumor that a group of "big-business men" had promised the Legion payment of adjusted service certificates, in return for a pledge to support the Fascist movement. Louis Johnson, former Legion national commander, declared in Fairmont, West Virginia, that he could not recall having written the letter to Jerry MacGuire, promising to see him about the Fascist army plan, that MacGuire had shown briefly to Paul Comly French. If he had written such a letter, Johnson insisted, it would show that he and the Legion were unalterably opposed to any dictatorship. On November 22 the Associated Press struck a low blow at Butler by getting Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, of New York, to express an opinion of the conspiracy based on what he had read about it in the press. The AP ran this "news item" under the headline "COCKTAIL PUTSCH," MAYOR SAYS: Mayor LaGuardia of New York laughingly described today the charges of General Smedley D. Butler that New York brokers suggested he lead an army Of 500,000 exservice men on Washington as "a cocktail putsch." The Mayor indicated he believed that some one at a party had suggested the idea to the ex-marine as a joke. Reading the press treatment of the scanty disclosures that had leaked out of the closed hearing, Butler was not surprised by the attempts to minimize and ridicule his exposure of the conspiracy. He had expected to be pilloried for his audacity in pinning a traitors' label on powerful American interests. He hoped, however, that the press would eventually be compelled to print the whole story of the plot as it had unfolded to him, when he testified at a public hearing along with French's corroboration. The committee would surely have to subpoena all the people who were implicated, in one way or another, to testify at that open meeting under oath. Fresh support for Butler's expose came from Van Zandt, who revealed to the press that he, too, had been approached by "agents of Wall Street" to 'lead a Fascist dictatorship in the United States under the guise of a "Veterans Organization." He revealed that Butler had informed him about the plotters' solicitation of the general two months earlier and had warned him that he, too, would be contacted by them at the V.F.W. convention in Louisville, Kentucky. Van Zandt said he had asked Butler the purpose of the organization and the general had replied that it sought to return the American dollar to the gold standard and, in MacGuire's words, "to get rid of this fellow in the White House." In addition to Butler and himself, Van Zandt told reporters, MacArthur, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and former Legion Commander Hanford MacNider had recently been sounded out on their interest in leading the proposed Fascist veterans organization. He also charged that MacGuire had spent months in Europe studying Fascist organizations as models for an American one. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., decried as "ridiculous" the idea that he could be used to wrest the powers of the Presidency away from his fourth cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt. McCormack declared that the committee was continuing to give serious consideration to General Butler's charges and might call Van Zandt to testify on the proposals made to him and others he had named. MacGuire would be called before the committee again in executive session, he announced, for scrutiny of his bank accounts and records. But McCormack indicated that he intended to keep the scope of the investigation circumscribed by legal considerations. "We don't intend to drag in names that come to us through rumors," he told reporters. "If investigation discloses there is sufficient reason to subpoena witnesses, we will do so. Simply because someone mentions the name of Mr. Lamont or General Johnson is not sufficient to ask them to appear before the committee." Meanwhile the focus of the committee's interest was shifted when it turned its attention to investigating charges that some left-wing unions had used a three-million-dollar fund to "foment and carry on strikes." The New York Times ran headlines reading "Reds Fund Activity in Fur Industry" and "Red Union Funds Traced at Hearing." Buried in third-rank subheads, and in the body of the story, was further information about the Fascist plot. A news dispatch from Paris reported that Robert Sterling Clark was sending a lawyer to New York to answer charges made by Butler and "clear the matter up." Clark declared himself bewildered by the mention of his name and said he would send the lawyer "if the whole affair isn't relegated to the funny papers by Sunday." "MacGuire went to Europe for me, but his visit had nothing to do with politics," he insisted. "He visited France, Italy and Germany and was in Paris in February of this year. He spent four months on the Continent. His trip was made for the purposes of investigating the financial situation, the possibilities of monetary stabilization and commercial trends." When reporters showed him Van Zandt's accusation that MacGuire had returned to the United States with copious data for setting up an American Fascist regime, he exclaimed, "My God, what is back of all this? I saw all of MacGuire's reports. I cannot imagine him doing anything else on the side." Although he was on vacation in Paris, Clark declared, he was ready to return to testify if the committee summoned him. 10 MacGuire showed up a third time for interrogation by the committee, this time with the bankbooks, canceled checks, and other financial records he was ordered to produce. Before entering the committee room accompanied by his counsel, he asked permission to read to the committee a cablegram he had received from Albert Grant Christmas, Clark's lawyer, in Paris: Read this wire when you testify. Reports of the Butler testimony in Paris outrageous. If reports are correct, my opinion is that a most serious libel has been committed. I am returning at once to testify as to our anti-inflation activities. MacGuire now testified that on September 24, 1933, on the date Butler had said he was approached by MacGuire in the Newark hotel and offered eighteen thousand-dollar bills, MacGuire had been in Chicago. He claimed to have registered at the Palmer House on September 21, remaining in Chicago until October 8, so that he could not have met Butler in Newark on the twenty- fourth. But committee investigators found that he had indeed called upon Butler that day and had had available at least sixteen thousand dollars, largely in thousand-dollar bills. Unless MacGuire had shown them to him, Butler could not possibly have known about them, lending strong verification to the general's charge that they had been tossed on his bed as a bribe. MacGuire produced the bank accounts of the Committee for a Sound Dollar and Sound Currency, Inc., of which he was an official, and whose purpose he described as "opposing monetary inflation in the United States." He and his lawyer now insisted that the only discussions MacGuire had had with Butler concerned financial backing for a contracting concern. MacGuire reluctantly admitted receiving $75,000 from Clark for an "unexplained purpose," the McCormack-Dickstein Committee report later noted, while working on a drawing account of $432 a month. This $75,000 was in addition to $30,000 he had also received from Walter E. Frew, of the Corn Exchange Bank, for the Committee for a Sound Dollar and Sound Currency, Inc. "Whether there was more, and how much more," said the report, the [McCormack-Dickstein] Committee does not yet know." MacGuire admitted spending almost $8,000 on the trip to Europe, ostensibly to buy bonds, but the investigators noted the trip had resulted in detailed reports to MacGuire's backers on various Fascist organizations abroad. Although he still denied having tossed the eighteen thousanddollar bills on Butler's bed in the Newark hotel, the committee found bank records showing he had bought letters of credit six days later from Central Hanover Bank, paying for them with thirteen thousand-dollar bills. The testimony of MacGuire under oath flatly contradicted everything Butler had testified to. The McCormack-Dickstein Committee was left with no other option than to conclude either that Butler was lying, in which case the whole plot was a fabrication or fantasy, or that MacGuire was lying, in which case Butler's charges were true, and the dangerous conspiracy of which he warned was a reality. McCORMACK: Did you leave a speech with him--a speech that he was to make to the convention if he went out there? MacGUIRE: No, sir. McCORMACK: Was anything said about weakening the influence of the administration with the soldiers? MacGUIRE: No, sir; I do not believe the administration was mentioned, as far as President Roosevelt or anybody down there are concerned.... McCORMACK: Was there some talk about his going out as an individual Legionnaire and having two or three hundred Legionnaires go out to Chicago, too? MacGUIRE: No, sir.... McCORMACK: At any time did you take out a bank book and show him deposits in it? MacGUIRE: No, sir. . . . McCORMACK: Did he at any time ask you where you got the money? MacGUIRE: I never had any money, and he never asked me if I had any.... McCORMACK: Did you know that Mr. Clark had a personal talk with General Butler? MacGUIRE: It seems to me that he mentioned it to me, but I am not sure. . . . McCORMACK: Did you know that Mr. Clark talked with him about going to the convention? MacGUIRE: No, sir; I do not.... McCORMACK: Did Mr. Clark call you up in Chicago at any time? MacGUIRE: Mr. Clark? No, sir.... McCORMACK: Did he ever call you up in Chicago from General Butler's home? MacGUIRE: No, sir; to my recollection he did not. . . . McCORMACK: Did you tell him [Butler] at that time that you went abroad to study the part that the veterans played abroad in the set-up of the governments of the countries abroad? MacGUIRE: No, sir.... McCORMACK: Did you talk with him about the forming of an organization of that kind here? MacGUIRE: No, sir.... McCORMACK: You previously testified that you only had one transaction in the swapping of checks with Christmas [Clark's attorney] of $20,000 and until later, when you paid him. back the balance? MacGUIRE: No; I believe that was paid back to Christmas in cash. McCORMACK: What have you got to show that? MacGUIRE: I haven't got anything to show it. McCORMACK: Did you receive a receipt from Christmas? MacGUIRE: No, sir; not necessarily; as far as that goes, he is an old friend of mine. . . . At this point McCormack produced subpoenaed bank records showing that MacGUIRE had cashed letters of credit in the amount Of $30,300, prior to the Legion convention in Chicago. MacGUIRE claimed that this money was meant to allow him to buy bonds in case he came across a good buy. McCORMACK: What did you do with that $30,300 in Chicago? MacGUIRE: I kept that money in cash and put it in a safe deposit box with the First National Bank.... McCORMACK: What became of that money? MacGUIRE: That money was brought back and returned to Mr. Christmas. McCORMACK: In cash? MacGUIRE: Yes. McCORMACK: When did you return this $30,300 to Mr. Christmas? MacGUIRE: I do not remember the date.... McCORMACK: Did you get a receipt for it? MacGUIRE: No, I did not get a receipt for it.... McCORMACK: Let me ask you this: why should you have cashed the letters of credit in Chicago and -put that money in a safe deposit box? MacGUIRE: Because I felt that if I had a chance to buy the bonds I could buy them right off for cash. McCORMACK: Wouldn't letters of credit be accepted just as cash? MacGUIRE: They probably would. McCORMACK: Wouldn't they be safer than cash on your person? MacGUIRE: They probably would, yes; but there is no objection to getting the cash, is there? ... McCORMACK: Did you buy any bonds? MacGUIRE: No, sir. McCORMACK: What bonds did you want to buy? ... MacGUIRE: I think Chicago Sanitary District 4's McCORMACK: Whom did you talk to about buying the Chicago Sanitary District 4's? MacGUIRE: I did not talk to anybody. McCORMACK: Whom did you speak to about it? MacGUIRE: I didn't speak to anybody. . . . McCormack next turned to subpoenaed reports that MacGuire had sent back from Europe and cited the one he had sent back praising the Croix de Feu as a model veterans organization. He also read out another report MacGuire had submitted to his backers on the. Fascist party of Holland. McCORMACK: And in this report you also said: "I was informed that there is a Fascist Party springing up in Holland under the leadership of a man named Mussait who is an engineer by profession, and who has approximately 50,000 followers at the present time, ranging in age from 18 to 25 years. It is said that this man is in close touch with Berlin and is modeling his entire program along the lines followed by Hitler in Germany. . . ." So you studied this Fascist Party when you were in Holland, did you? MacGUIRE: No, sir, I did not. It was a matter of public information in the press and was reported so in the letter.... The committee examined tellers from the Central Hanover Bank and Trust Company and other banks on financial transactions that had taken place between MacGuire and Clark, on the account of Albert Christmas, Clark's attorney. Evidence was found that the day before MacGuire had allegedly seen Butler in Newark, he had drawn six thousand dollars in thousand-dollar bills from a "special account" in the Manufacturers Trust Company and had also been given ten thousand dollars in thousand-dollar bills by Christmas in Clark's presence. The committee was convinced that MacGuire had been the "cashier" for the planned veterans organization. The committee also found evidence that disproved MacGuire's alibi that he had been in Chicago on September 24, as well as his contention that he had not seen Butler on that day at the Newark hotel. And it was established beyond dispute that he had written detailed letters to Clark and Christmas reporting on the Black Shirts of Italy, the Brown Shirts of Germany, and the Croix de Feu of France. McCormack announced grimly that he would subpoena Clark as soon as he returned from Europe. "As the evidence stands," he declared, "it calls for an explanation that the committee has been unable to obtain from Mr. MacGuire." On November 26, 1934, referring to MacGuire's testimony, Representative Dickstein declared, "You can't get away from it -somebody is trying to shield somebody on something that looks rotten, and honest people don't do that." 11 When the committee called no further witnesses from among those named in the testimony, gossip swept Washington that the uncalled witnesses were simply too powerful to be subpoenaed. Investigating, reporter John Spivak learned that the only one known to have been called to testify was California banker Frank N. Belgrano, commander of the American Legion. Checking into why he had not testified, Spivak found that he had been informed he could return home without having to answer a single question. The reporter could not verify a rumor that Belgrano had met with President Roosevelt at the White House, after which he had been taken off the committee's hook. When Spivak tried to learn more about this from the committee itself, Dickstein revealed that he didn't know why Belgrano had been sent home without being questioned, and McCormack declined to answer any questions on the subject. Apparently in response to Spivak and other newsmen pressing for an explanation of what the committee was doing about Butler's charges, McCormack announced on November 25 that the committee would make a statement the next day detailing the testimony it had received. He declared that it would reveal "several important inconsistencies" between the testimony of MacGuire and statements attributed to him in the press. McCormack also wept out of his way to emphasize vigorously that General Butler could not be accused of "publicity seeking" in making public his exposure of the plot. Next day, November 26, the committee's preliminary findings were released in an eight-thousand-word statement signed by McCormack and Dickstein. It began: "This committee has had no evidence before it that would in the slightest degree warrant calling before it such men as John W. Davis, General Hugh Johnson, General James G. Harbord, Thomas W. Lamont, Admiral William S. Sims or Hanford MacNider. The committee will not take cognizance of names brought into the testimony which constitutes mere hearsay. This committee is not concerned with premature newspaper accounts, when given and published prior to the taking of testimony. . . ." In 1971 McCormack told the author that he had always tried to operate by the rules of courtroom law, eliminating hearsay evidence be considered legally inadmissible. Dickstein had given the same explanation of the committee's modus operandi in 1934, whereupon Spivak had pointed out, "But your published reports are full of hearsay testimony." Dickstein had merely blinked and said, "They are?" The committee statement withheld passing judgment on the testimony it had heard as premature, but the two chairmen indicated that they intended to pursue their inquiry further by calling Clark and Christmas to testify on their return from Europe, to question them about the thousand-dollar bills. The New York Times reported: COMMITTEE CALM OVER BUTLER PLOT Has No Evidence to Warrant Calling Johnson and Others Named, It Declares The so-called plot of Wall Street interests to have Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler head a Fascist movement to take over the national government and restore the gold dollar failed yesterday to emerge in any alarming proportions from the statement by the Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities on the evidence before it. . . . But the committee was far from being as "calm" about the matter as the Times story insisted. On that same day Dickstein wrote to President Roosevelt, "The committee on C.U.A.A. has issued the enclosed short report on Gen. Butler's charges, which we have made public, as the pressure brought to bear on the committee made this course absolutely imperative.... I should very much like to have a conversation with you at your convenience." The day after the Times ran its "Committee Calm" version of the preliminary McCormack-Dickstein statement, a refutation of this interpretation by Dickstein compelled the paper to print a revised article of the retraction. Now a new headline no longer carried the word "plot" in scoffing quotes: BUTLER PLOT INQUIRY NOT TO BE DROPPED Dickstein Says Committee Will Get to the Bottom of Story- Awaits Clark's Return The Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities still intends to get to the bottom of the story of a Wall Street plot to put Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler at the head of a Fascist army here, Representative Samuel Dickstein, vice chairman, said yesterday. The committee's statement of the evidence, he explained, was intended only to satisfy the great public interest in the plot. Mr. Dickstein said that the committee was pleased that this preliminary report was received "neither as a whitewash of notable persons nor as sensationalism because of the startling nature of the possibilities, but simply as an indication of the purpose of the committee to proceed carefully in such an important matter." Dickstein emphasized that the committee was far from satisfied with the story told by MacGuire, whose memory had failed to produce any satisfactory account of the funds that he had handled for Clark and Christmas. Furthermore, although Clark and Christmas had cabled from abroad that they were willing to return to testify, Dickstein said that they had not done so and that the committee would like to question them both. As soon as their presence was assured, a special executive session of the committee would be called to hear them. On November 30 President Roosevelt replied to Dickstein, thanking him for sending him the preliminary report on the testimony and declaring, "I am interested in having it. I take it that the committee will proceed further." 12 On December 3, 1934, Time magazine ran a first-page story that attempted to ridicule Butler under the headlines "Plot Without Plotters." The story opened with a pseudoaccount of Butler on a white horse assembling 500,000 veterans at a C.C.C. camp at Elkridge, Maryland, and crying, "Men, Washington is but 30 miles away! Will you follow me?" The men all shout, "We will!" Then Butler's army marches south to Washington on Highway 1 while an ammunition train supplied by Remington Arms Company and E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company brings up the rear. Also in the column on horseback behind Butler, according to Time's burlesqued version of the plot, are "that grim, old-time cavalryman, General Hugh Samuel Johnson" and MacArthur; behind them, three past national commanders of the American Legion--MacNider, Johnson, and Henry Stevens. They are followed in a shiny limousine by J. P. Morgan and his partner, Thomas W. Lamont. Then, in Time's parody, Butler ("his spurs clinked loudly") strides into Roosevelt's study and barks, "Mr. President, I have 500,000 men outside who want peace but want something more. I wish you to remove Cordell Hull as Secretary of State." Roosevelt promptly telephones for Hull's resignation. "And now, Mr. President, I ask you to fill the vacancy which has just occurred in your Cabinet by appointing me Secretary of State." Roosevelt signs the commission for Butler, who then tells him, "Let it be understood that henceforth I will act as the nation's executive. You may continue to live here at the White House and draw your salary but you will do and say only what I tell you. If not, you and Vice-President Garner will be dealt with as I think best. In that event, as Secretary of State, I shall succeed to the Presidency, as provided by law." The President nods assent, and the United States becomes a Fascist state. Time then commented: Such was the nightmarish page of future United States history pictured last week in Manhattan by General Butler himself to the special House Committee investigating unAmerican Activities. No military officer of the United States since the late tempestuous George Custer has succeeded in publicly floundering in so much hot water as Smedley Darlington Butler. Time then recounted highlights of Butler's career, emphasizing the controversies he had never shied away from and implying that they arose solely from the general's taste for publicity. Last month he told a Manhattan Jewish congregation that he would never again fight outside the U.S. General Butler's sensational tongue had not been heard in the nation's Press for more than a week when be cornered a reporter for the Philadelphia Record and New York Post, poured into his ears the lurid tale that he had been offered leadership of a Fascist Putsch scheduled for next year.... Thanking their stars for having such sure-fire publicity dropped in their laps, Representatives McCormack and Dickstein began calling witnesses to expose the "plot." But there did not seem to be any plotters. A bewildered army captain, commandant at the Elkridge CCC camp, could shed no light on the report that his post was to be turned into a revolutionary base. Mr. Morgan, just off a boat from Europe, had nothing to say, but Partner Lamont did: "Perfect moonshine! Too utterly ridiculous to comment upon!" . . . . Investor Clark, in Paris, freely admitted trying to get General Butler to use his influence with the Legion against dollar devaluation, but stoutly maintained: "I am neither a Fascist nor a Communist, but an American." He threatened a libel suit "unless the whole affair is relegated to the funny sheets by Sunday." "It sounds like the best laugh story of the year," chimed in General MacArthur from Washington.... Though most of the country was again laughing at the latest Butler story, the special House Committee declined to join in the merriment . . . . .. From present indications," said the publicity-loving New York Representative [Dickstein], "General Butler has the evidence. He's not making serious charges unless he has something to back them up. We will have some men here with bigger names than Butler's before this is over." For those of its readers who might have found Time's satirical attack too subtle, the magazine helped them get the message by its choice of photos to accompany the story. An unflattering photo of Butler in civilian clothes, with his finger reflectively in one ear, was labeled, "He was deaf to a dictatorship." The pose subtly suggested that the general, as the copy broadly hinted, was a bit daft. In contrast, a jovial, laughing picture of that good-natured, genial humanitarian, J. P. Morgan, looking like everybody's grandfather, was labeled, "Moonshine provided the amusement." And a stern, handsome picture of Colonel Grayson M.-P. Murphy, dressed in a trim World War I colonel's uniform, hand dashingly on hip, was captioned with this quote: "'A fantasy!"' The author asked McCormack in 1971 about Time's fairness in reporting the Butler hearing. The answer was a snort of disgust. "Time has always been about as filthy a publication as ever existed," he said emphatically. "I've said that publicly many times. The truth gets no coverage at all, just sensationalism, whatever will sell copies." Indignant on Butler's behalf, the New York City post of the V.F.W. sent President Roosevelt a wire on December 7 pledging their loyalty and support, and commending Butler for his courage and patriotism in exposing the conspirators. Ten days later McCormack announced that Albert Christmas had returned from Europe and would testify in two or three days in an executive session. Clark's attorney was not questioned, however, until the final day of the committee's life, January 3, 1935, after which no further investigatory action could be taken by the committee. ". . . and then the questions were limited only to money given MacGuire by the lawyer and Clark," Spivak noted. "Presumably because of the sacredness of lawyer-client confidences, no questions were asked about conversations or correspondence between an alleged principal in the plot and his attorney." There was an interesting exchange, nevertheless, in the matter of $65,000 MacGuire testified that he had received for traveling and entertainment expenses: McCORMACK: So the way you want to leave it is there is $65,000 or $66,000 that Mr. MacGuire received from either you, or Mr. Clark, which he spent in the period between June and December of 1933 for traveling and entertainment expenses? CHRISTMAS: Yes, Sir. McCORMACK: Did he return to you some time in August 119341 approximately $30,000 in cash? CHRISTMAS: No. McCORMACK: Do you know he testified be did? CHRISTMAS: The committee gave me some indication of such testimony at a previous session. McCORMACK: Assuming he has testified to that, that is not so? CHRISTMAS: I would say he is in error. He is mistaken. So the committee found still another reason to doubt the veracity of MacGuire, who had denied, under oath, all the allegations of the Fascist plot in which he was the go-between, as alleged by General Smedley Butler. pp. 164-189 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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