The Plot To Seize The White House (5 page)

Shortly before three o'clock Butler entered the empty hotel lobby, where he found the pudgy bond salesman waiting for him. MacGuire wrung his hand enthusiastically as though they were long-lost comrades from Butler's old 4th Battalion in Panama. Leading the way to the rear of the lobby, MacGuire took him into the hotel's empty restaurant, which was not operating for the summer.

They took a table in a secluded corner of the room, and MacGuire began describing how enjoyable his trip to Europe had been. Butler patiently waited for him to get down to business. He wondered, not without sympathy, whether it was the silver plate in MacGuire's head that made him so prolix.

MacGuire finally asked whether the general planned to attend the forthcoming American Legion convention in Miami. Butler replied curtly that he did not. He felt irritated by MacGuire's arrogant assumption that the stale scheme of using the Legion for his gold clique's propaganda was a matter of the "utmost importance" to Butler.

MacGuire then insinuated that it was time to "get the soldiers 
together." Butler agreed grimly, but his cryptic tone, he was sure, implied a considerably different purpose for organizing the veterans than MacGuire had in mind.

MacGuire revealed what he had been up to on the Continent (hiring the previous seven months. His backers had sent him abroad to study the role that veterans' organizations had played in working for and bringing about dictatorships. In Italy MacGuire had found that Mussolini's real power stemmed from veterans organized in his Black Shirts; they had made him dictator and were the chief protectors of his regime.

Beginning to suspect what MacGuire had in mind, Butler tried to seem matter-of-fact as he asked whether MacGuire thought Mussolini's form of government was a good example for American veterans to work toward. MacGuire didn't think so.

His investigations on the Continent, he revealed, had convinced him that neither Mussolini nor Hitler, nor the kind of paramilitary organizations they had built, could be made attractive to the American veteran. But he
had
discovered an organization that could be, he revealed in elation.

He had been in France during a national crisis brought about by nationwide wage slashes. Riots had erupted in Paris early in February, ending in the calling of a general strike that had paralyzed the country. Civil war had been averted only by the formation of a National Union ministry made up of all parties except Socialists, Communists, and Royalists.

A key role in ending the crisis had been played by a rightwing veterans' organization called the Croix de Feu. It was a superorganization, MacGuire explained, an amalgamation of all other French veteran organizations, and was composed of officers and noncoms. The Croix de Feu had 500,000 members, and each was a leader of ten others, so that their voting strength amounted to 5,000,000.

It occurred to Butler that if MacGuire's description was accurate, the Croix de Fen was an elitist outfit minus the democratic voice of the greatest majority of veterans-the buck privates, who were expected only to follow and obey, exactly as they had been ordered to do in wartime.

MacGuire now told Butler that his group planned to build 
an American version of the Croix de Fen. Asked its purpose, the fat man hesitated, then replied that it was intended to "support" the President. Butler asked wryly why Roosevelt should need the support of 500,000 
"supersoldiers" when he had the whole American people behind him.

Looking petulant and impatient, MacGuire ignored the question, pointing out that the crux of the matter was Roosevelt's dilemma in not having enough money to finance the New Deal and the danger that he might disrupt the American system of finance to get it. MacGuire and his group were firmly determined that the President would not be allowed to do it.

Despite MacGuire's exasperating circumlocution and the twists in his logic, a fresh pattern was becoming clear to Butler. Far from "supporting" 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, MacGuire and the interests behind him were obviously planning to compel the President to yield to their demands about American finances.

The American version of the Croix de Fen was intended to be a powerful paramilitary organization to enforce those demands. But when Butler pressed him on its purpose, MacGuire denied emphatically any intention to frighten the President. In fact, he explained, the whole idea was really to support and help Roosevelt, who was obviously overworked, by providing him with an "Assistant President" to take details of the office off his shoulders. It was quite constitutional, MacGuire insisted. The aide would be called a Secretary of General Affairs.

According to MacGuire, the President himself had been grooming an aide for such a role-General Hugh S. Johnson, controversial administrator of the National Recovery Administration (N.R.A.). But, MacGuire confided, Johnson had been too loose-lipped to suit Roosevelt, and as a result was slated to be fired within three or four weeks.

Pressed to explain how he acquired this information, MacGuire assured Butler that his group was close to the White House and had advance information on all such secret matters.

Confused, Butler didn't know quite what to make of these oddly faceted revelations, but he was subsequently reminded of MacGuire's prediction when Johnson resigned in pique from the peace administration soon afterward and began attacking Roosevelt 
and the New Deal in a syndicated column for the Scripps Howard press.

Butler did not have to feign new interest in MacGuire's proposals; obviously much more was now involved than simply lobbying efforts for restoration of the gold standard. MacGuire, interpreting the general's absorption as an omen of cooperation, grew more candid about the plan of his group. They would work up public sympathy for the overburdened President, he explained eagerly, by a campaign explaining that Roosevelt's health was failing. The "dumb" public would accept the need to give him "relief" by having a Cabinet official take the chores of patronage and other routine worries of the office off his shoulders. Then the President's status would become like that of the President of France, a ceremonial figurehead, while the Secretary of General Affairs ran the country.

Thus, at one stroke, the country would be rid of Roosevelt's misrule and would be put back on the gold standard. And now, MacGuire concluded triumphantly, how did the general feel about heading the new "superorganization" that would be the power behind bringing about these sweeping changes?

Unable to contain himself any longer, Butler exploded that if MacGuire and his backers tried to mount a Fascist putsch, he would raise another army of 500,000 veterans to oppose them and the nation would be plunged into a new civil war.

Upset, MacGuire hastily assured the general that he and his group had no such intentions, but only sought to ease the burdens of the Presidency.

Butler sarcastically expressed doubt that Roosevelt would appreciate their concern and turn his executive power over to their "Secretary of General Affairs," while limiting himself to ceremonial functions. Besides, Butler pointed out tersely, any attempt to build a huge paramilitary army of half a million men would require enormous funds.

MacGuire revealed that he now had $3 million in working funds and could get $300 million if it were needed. He added that in about a year Butler would be able to assemble 500,000 veterans, with the expectation that such a show of force would enable the movement to gain control of the government fully in just a few days.
 

Butler was stunned. Either MacGuire was a madman, psychotic, or fantastic liar, or what he was describing was a treasonous plot to end democracy in the United States.

He demanded to know who was going to put up all the money.

MacGuire replied that Clark was good for $15 million and that the rest would come from the same people who had financed the "Chicago propaganda" about the gold standard at the American Legion convention, and who were now behind the planned march on Washington.

What plans, Butler wanted to know, did they have to take care of the veterans? The "superorganization," MacGuire said, would pay privates ten dollars and captains thirty-five dollars a month for one year, and after that it would no longer be necessary. But how did the plotters plan to manage the legal aspects of setting up an Assistant President in the White House? MacGuire explained that the President would be induced to resign because of bad health. Vice-President Nance Garner, who didn't want to be President, would refuse the office.

By the rule of succession, Secretary of State Cordell Hull was next in line, but he was far too old and could easily be set aside to make way for a Secretary of General Affairs to take Roosevelt's place as President.

MacGuire again urged Butler to head the paramilitary army. The scale of the plot, as it was unfolding to him, took Butler's breath away.

It occurred to him now that MacGuire's backers had been contemplating the creation of a Fascist veterans' army at the time MacGuire had first approached him to "get the soldiers together" 
behind their gold-standard campaign. That explained why MacGuire had wooed him so persistently, despite the general's obvious reluctance and outbursts of temper when patriotic indignation overcame his attempts to play along and learn what the plotters were up to.

No false modesty prevented Butler from recognizing that he was perhaps the best-known, and certainly the most popular and charismatic, military figure in the United States. He also suited the plotters' plans perfectly because he was noted for a brilliant, hard-hitting style of oratory that, they undoubtedly reasoned, could be put to the service of demagoguery in the same spell 
binding way Hitler and Mussolini had magnetized millions into following them. His rasping voice and fiery spirit captured audiences and held them hypnotized.

His reputation for fearless honesty, for speaking his mind bluntly no matter whose corns he trod on, also made him the ideal candidate to sell the plotters' propaganda to the nation's veterans, if he could be persuaded to view their scheme as ultrapatriotic. A combination of these reasons had unquestionably inspired Jerry MacGuire's insistent campaign to win him as the head of the putsch. It explained why MacGuire had refused to lake No for an answer, counting on his persuasive powers as a I bond salesman to break down Butler's sales resistance by camouflaging the raw nature of the conspiracy, and tempting him into the plot with the biggest bribe ever offered to any American. The opportunity to become the first dictator of the United States. In a word, MacGuire was convinced that with Smedley Butler as their Man on the White Horse, the plotters would have their greatest chance of success.

Increasingly uneasy and on guard, Butler now resolved to play along carefully until he had penetrated the full secret blueprint of the conspiracy. Keeping his voice cordial, he expressed interest in MacGuire's scheme, but exhibited enough doubts to induce him to reveal more in the effort to reassure Butler and win him over.

Butler became convinced that if MacGuire was telling the truth, far richer and more powerful men than just Robert S. Clark had to be involved. Clark had told Butler that he had been willing to spend $15

million of his fortune in the plotters' schemes to restore the gold standard. But MacGuire had revealed that the people behind him could, and would if necessary, raise $300 million for the putsch.

Butler determined to find out who they were. He demanded assurances from MacGuire that reputable and important people were really behind the plan to create an American Croix de Feu, pointing out that he could not afford to risk his reputation by getting involved in any second-rate adventure.

Convinced that at last he was on the verge of winning the general's support, MacGuire eagerly sought to impress him with 
the caliber of the influential movers and shakers of America who were involved in the plot. He revealed that in Paris he had made his headquarters at the offices of Morgan and Hodges. Butler tried to conceal his astonishment.

There was only one Morgan in the financial world-J. P. Morgan and Company. MacGuire left no doubt in his mind that the nation's biggest financiers were, indeed, involved. According to the bond salesman, there had been a meeting in Paris to decide upon the selection of the man to head the superorganization. MacGuire and his group had held out for Butler, but the Morgan interests distrusted the general as "too radical," preferring Douglas MacArthur instead.

MacArthur's term as Chief of Staff expired in November, and the Morgan interests felt that if Roosevelt failed to reappoint him, he would be bitter enough to accept their offer. Butler observed that MacArthur would be likely to have difficulty in lining up veterans behind him, because his dispersion of the Bonus Army had made him highly unpopular.

MacGuire indicated that the Morgan coterie's second choice was Hanford MacNider, an Iowa manufacturer who was a former commander of the American Legion. But MacGuire emphasized that his own group was still insisting that Butler was the only military leader in the country capable of rallying the veterans behind him. The Morgan interests had acknowledged Butler's immense prestige and popularity, he revealed, but were apprehensive that as head of the paramilitary force Butler might lead it in the "wrong direction."

Butler observed that MacNider would have no more popular appeal than MacArthur because he had gone on record as opposing the bonus.

MacGuire then revealed that MacNider would be cued to change his stand, and would do so. Butler remembered this prediction when, three weeks later, MacNider suddenly reversed his position and came out in support of the bonus.

If Butler could not be persuaded to head the new superorganization, MacGuire said, the offer would definitely be made to MacArthur, whether or not the latter was reappointed Chief of Staff. He confided that there would be an administration fight over MacArthur's reappointment, but he would get it because he 
was the son-in-law of Philadelphian Edward T. Stotesbury, a Morgan partner.