RE: [A-List] US Imperialism: The Special Relationship

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Oct. 27, 1941, FDR, locked in mortal combat with an America First
Committee that was resisting his drive to war, played his trump. On Navy
Day, at the Mayflower Hotel, FDR declared,

Response Jim C: No this was not his trump cazrd. His real trump card FDR
never played--and even worse.

In July of 1934, out of a group called "The Committee for a Sound Dollar",
another group was formed called "The American Liberty League" many of whose
members went on to become principals in the "America First"
movement--including Prescott Bush, George Herbert Walker, JP Morgan, Al
Smith, John Davis, Henry Luce, Skull and Bones members, Douglas MacArthur.
et al. In 1934, they approached Maj General Smedley D. Butler, a real
soldier's general, three times awarded the Medal of Honor (but only allowed
to hold two Medals of Honor as officers were not eligible until 1914) to
form and lead an army of World War I bonus marchers and veterans to ack as
shock troops to support a planned takeover of the White House, removal of
FDR, removal of the vice-president and to install Genral Butler as a sort of
"Secretary of General Affairs." and to set up a full-blown (but American in
style) fascist dictatorship. Had General Butler nopt gone along with them to
find out who was behind the plot and had General Butler not convened a
public press conference to expose the plot and conspirators, a fascist coup
might well have been successful.

Congress convened an investigation under Congressmen Dickstein and McCormack
(later Speaker of the House) which was a whitewash job but which did confirm
Butler's allegations and those of a reporter named Paul French who had been
recruited by Butler to witness what he was being told by the conspirators.

The major conspirators not only were not taken to trial, they went on to
some of the most influencial positions in government (or remained in their
influencial positions), MacArthur went on untouched and even promoted.
FDR claimed that if we went after the conspirators it would cause such a
crisis in government and potentially popular riots that the costs would
outweigh any benefits; many of those conspirators went on to prominence in
the America First movement and went on to trading with the enemy thorughout
World War II.


Jim C