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

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

Thanks, Jim - very interesting.  Could I have a citation for this?  Esp. for
the connection of the individuals you name - in particular Prescott Bush, GH
Walker, and JP Morgan, etc. - to the America First movement, which is the
antecedent to what is generally known as the "Old Right" who were
anti-imperialist, non-interventionists smeared routinely as "isolationists".
The imperialists you name are anathema to the heirs of the Old Right, the
paleocons - I would be interested in knowing of any documented link.  And so
would fellow paleos!

Anne

Hi Anne,

For openers, try the video from the History Channel called "The Plot to
Overthrow FDR" available for $19.95 and I urge all teachers and activists to
get your own copy and circulate or show it. Next, there is "The Plot to
Seize the White House", now out of print but still available, by Jules
Archer. From there, you can get sources of contemporary (at the time)
sources about the nautre of the Congressional investigation, allegations,
etc. From some of the notes left by Henry Morgenthau there is even more
detail on the plot.

The conspirators included: John Davis (former Democratic presidential
candidate in 1924), Al Smith, mayor of New York, J.P. Morgan, heir to the
Singer empire, Chairman of GM, Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker,
members of the American Liberty League (whose membership list is partially
given in the sources), General Douglas MacArthur (many of the
ultra-rightists wanted MacArthur as the "man on a white horse" to rally the
WWI vets and bonus marchers but he was so hated by the vets due to his
killing and wounding of veterans in the bonus marches of 1933 --against the
orders of Hoover his commander in chief). What is also interesting is that
the plans for how the veterans would be used to take and hold the White
House included: strikebreaking; acts of sabotage to create conditions for
martial law and suppressions of civil liberties; enforcers against people of
conscience; etc--sound familiar?

As to the nature of the "America Firsters" well I agree that the term
"isolationists" is a misnomer. As with members of the American Liberty
League (who billed themselves as defenders of the U.S. Constitution) many
were out-and-out fascists, financiers of Hitler and Mussolini from their
earliest days, hard-core imperialists with a sense of not getting the empire
overextended, and like all conservatives, paleo or otherwise, just plain
scum and/or the highly stupid, selfish, lazy, mean and uneducated.

Thanks for your inquiry.

Jim