Operation Paperclipwas a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959; several were confirmed to be former members of the Nazi Party, including the SS or the SA.

The effort began in earnest in 1945, as the Allies advanced into Germany and discovered a wealth of scientific talent and advanced research that had contributed to Germany's wartime technological advancements. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff officially established Operation Overcast (operations "Overcast" and "Paperclip" were related, and the terms are often used interchangeably) on July 20, 1945, with the dual aims of leveraging German expertise for the ongoing war effort against Japan and to bolster US postwar military research. The operation, conducted by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), was largely actioned by special agents of the US Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC). Many selected scientists were involved in the Nazi rocket program, aviation, or chemical/biological warfare. The Soviet Union in the following year conducted a similar program, called Operation Osoaviakhim, that emphasized many of the same fields of research.

The operation, characterized by the recruitment of German specialists and their families, relocated more than 1600 experts to the US. It has been valued at US$10 billion in patents and industrial processes. Recruits included such notable figures as Wernher von Braun, a leading rocket-technology scientist. Those recruited were instrumental in the development of the US space program and military technology during the Cold War. Despite its contributions to American scientific advances, Operation Paperclip has been controversial because of the Nazi affiliations of many recruits, and the ethics of assimilating individuals associated with war crimes into American society.

The operation was not solely focused on rocketry; efforts were directed toward synthetic fuels, medicine, and other fields of research. Notable advances in aeronautics fostered rocket and space-flight technologies pivotal in the Space Race. The operation played a crucial role in the establishment of NASA and the success of the Apollo missions to the Moon.

Operation Paperclip was part of a broader strategy by the US to harness German scientific talent in the face of emerging Cold War tensions, and ensuring this expertise did not fall into the hands of the Soviet Union or other nations. The operation's legacy has remained controversial in subsequent decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

>>22847532

>>22847519

Background and Operation Overcast

In February 1945, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) set up T-Force, or Special Sections Subdivision, which grew to over 2,000 personnel by June. T-Force examined 5,000 German targets, seeking expertise in synthetic rubber and oil catalysts, new designs in armored equipment, V-2 (rocket) weapons, jet and rocket propelled aircraft, naval equipment, field radios, secret writing chemicals, aero medicine research, gliders, and "scientific and industrial personalities".[1]

When large numbers of German scientists began to be discovered by the advancing Allied forces in late April 1945, the Special Sections Subdivision set up the Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section to manage and interrogate them. The Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section established a detention center, Camp Dustbin, first near Paris and later in Kransberg Castle outside Frankfurt. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) established the first secret recruitment program, called Operation Overcast, on July 20, 1945, initially "to assist in shortening the Japanese war and to aid our postwar military research".[2] The term "Overcast" was the name first given by the German scientists' family members for the housing camp where they were held in Bavaria.[3] In late summer 1945, the JCS established the JIOA, a subcommittee of the Joint Intelligence Community, to directly oversee Operation Overcast and later Operation Paperclip.[4] The JIOA representatives included the army's director of intelligence, the chief of naval intelligence, the assistant chief of Air Staff-2 (air force intelligence), and a representative from the State Department.[5] In November 1945, Operation Overcast was renamed Operation Paperclip by Ordnance Corps officers, who would attach a paperclip to the folders of those rocket experts whom they wished to employ in the United States.[3]

The project was not initially targeted against the Soviet Union; rather the concern was that German scientists might emigrate and continue their research in countries that remained neutral during the war.[6] Much US effort was focused on Saxony and Thuringia, which on July 1, 1945, became part of the Soviet occupation zone. Many German research facilities and personnel had been evacuated to these states before the end of the war, particularly from the Berlin area. The USSR then relocated more than 2,200 Nazi specialists and their families—more than 6,000 people—with Operation Osoaviakhim during one night on October 22, 1946.[7]

In a secret directive circulated on September 3, 1946, President Truman officially approved Operation Paperclip and expanded it to include 1,000 German scientists under "temporary, limited military custody".[8][9][10] News media revealed the program as early as December 1946.[11]

On April 26, 1946, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued directive JCS 1067/14 to General Eisenhower instructing that he "preserve from destruction and take under your control records, plans, books, documents, papers, files and scientific, industrial and other information and data belonging to … German organizations engaged in military research";[12]: 185  and that, excepting war-criminals, German scientists be detained for intelligence purposes as required.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

>>22847535

>>22847519

Osenberg List

In the later part of World War II, Germany was at a logistical disadvantage, having failed to conquer the USSR with Operation Barbarossa (June–December 1941), and its drive for the Caucasus (June 1942 – February 1943). The failed conquest had depleted German resources, and its military–industrial complex was unprepared to defend the Greater Germanic Reich against the Red Army's westward counterattack. By early 1943, the German government began recalling from combat a number of scientists, engineers, and technicians to work in research and development to bolster German defense for a protracted war with the USSR. The recall from frontline combat included 4,000 rocketeers returned to Peenemünde, in northeast coastal Germany.[14][15]

Overnight, Ph.D.s were liberated from KP duty, masters of science were recalled from orderly service, mathematicians were hauled out of bakeries, and precision mechanics ceased to be truck drivers.

— Dieter K. Huzel, Peenemünde to Canaveral

The Nazi government's recall of their now-useful intellectuals for scientific work first required identifying and locating the scientists, engineers, and technicians, then ascertaining their political and ideological reliability. Werner Osenberg, the engineer-scientist heading the Wehrforschungsgemeinschaft (Defense Research Association), recorded the names of the politically cleared men to the Osenberg List, thus reinstating them to scientific work.[16]

In March 1945, at Bonn University, a Polish laboratory technician found pieces of the Osenberg List stuffed in a toilet; the list subsequently reached MI6, who transmitted it to US intelligence.[17][12] Then US Army Major Robert B. Staver, Chief of the Jet Propulsion Section of the Research and Intelligence Branch of the United States Army Ordnance Corps, used the Osenberg List to compile his list of German scientists to be captured and interrogated; Wernher von Braun, Germany's best rocket scientist, headed Major Staver's list.[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

>>22847536

Identification

V-2 rocket launching, Peenemünde, on the north-east Baltic German coast (1943)

In Operation Overcast, Major Staver's original intent was only to interview the scientists, but what he learned changed the operation's purpose. On May 22, 1945, he transmitted to the US Department of War Colonel Joel Holmes' telegram urging the evacuation to America of 100 of the 400 German scientists in his custody, as most "important for [the] Pacific war" effort.[12] Most of the Osenberg List engineers worked at the Baltic coast German Army Research Center Peenemünde, developing the V-2 rocket. After capturing them, the Allies initially housed them and their families in Landshut, Bavaria, in southern Germany.[19]

Beginning on July 19, 1945, the US Joint Chiefs managed the captured ARC rocketeers under Operation Overcast. However, when the "Camp Overcast" name of the scientists' quarters became locally known, the program was renamed Operation Paperclip in November 1945.[20] Despite these attempts at secrecy, the press interviewed several of the scientists later that year.[12][18][21]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

>>22847537

>>22847519

Capture and detention

Early on, the United States created the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (CIOS). This provided the information on targets for the T-Forces that went in and targeted scientific, military, and industrial installations (and their employees) for their know-how. Initial priorities were advanced technology, such as infrared, that could be used in the war against Japan; finding out what technology had been passed on to Japan; and finally to halt research elsewhere.

Von Braun and more than a thousand of his colleagues decided to surrender to Americans in 1945. One of the engineers later recalled their options: "We despise the French, we are mortally afraid of the Soviets, we do not believe the British can afford us. So that leaves the Americans." On June 20, 1945, they moved from the east closer to the American forces, to avoid the advancing Soviet army.[22]

A project to halt the research was codenamed "Project Safehaven"; it was not initially targeted against the Soviet Union but addressed the concern that German scientists might emigrate and continue their research in countries that had remained neutral during the war.[6][23] To avoid the complications involved with the emigration of German scientists, the CIOS was responsible for scouting and kidnapping high-profile individuals to block technological advancements in nations hostile to the US.[24]

Much US effort was focused on Saxony and Thuringia, which on July 1, 1945, would become part of the Soviet Occupation zone. Many German research facilities and personnel had been evacuated to these states, particularly from the Berlin area. Fearing that the Soviet takeover would limit US ability to exploit German scientific and technical expertise, and not wanting the Soviet Union to benefit from it, the United States instigated an "evacuation operation" of scientific personnel from Saxony and Thuringia, issuing orders such as:

On orders of Military Government you are to report with your family and baggage as much as you can carry tomorrow noon at 1300 hours (Friday, 22 June 1945) at the town square in Bitterfeld. There is no need to bring winter clothing. Easily carried possessions, such as family documents, jewelry, and the like should be taken along. You will be transported by motor vehicle to the nearest railway station. From there you will travel on to the West. Please tell the bearer of this letter how large your family is.

By 1947, this evacuation operation had netted an estimated 1,800 technicians and scientists and 3,700 family members.[25] Those with special skills or knowledge were taken to detention and interrogation centers, such as one code-named "Dustbin" (located first at Chesnay, near Versailles and then moved to Kransberg Castle outside Frankfurt) to be held and interrogated, in some cases for months.[26]

A few of the scientists were gathered as a part of Operation Overcast, but most were transported to villages in the countryside where there were neither research facilities nor work; they were provided with stipends, and required to report twice weekly to police headquarters to prevent them from leaving. The Joint Chiefs of Staff directive on research and teaching stated that technicians and scientists should be released "only after all interested agencies were satisfied that all desired intelligence information had been obtained from them".[citation needed]

On November 5, 1947, the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS), which had jurisdiction over the western part of occupied Germany, held a conference to consider the status of the evacuees, the monetary claims that the evacuees had filed against the United States, and the "possible violation by the US of laws of war or Rules of Land Warfare". The OMGUS director of Intelligence Robert L. Walsh initiated a program to resettle the evacuees in the Third World, which the Germans referred to as General Walsh's Urwald-Programm ("jungle program"); but the program was not carried out. In 1948, the evacuees received settlements of 69.5 million Reichsmarks from the US, a settlement that soon became severely devalued during the currency reform that introduced the Deutsche Mark as the official currency of western Germany.[27]

John Gimbel concludes that the United States held some of Germany's best minds for three years, therefore depriving the German recovery of their expertise.[28]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

>>22847519

Arrivals

A group of 104 rocket scientists at Fort Bliss, Texas

In May 1945, the US Navy "received in custody" Herbert A. Wagner, the inventor of the Hs 293 missile; for two years, he first worked at the Special Devices Center, at Castle Gould and at Hempstead House, Long Island, New York; in 1947, he moved to the Naval Air Station Point Mugu.[29]

In August 1945, Colonel Holger Toftoy, head of the Rocket Branch of the Research and Development Division of the US Army's Ordnance Corps, offered initial one-year contracts to the rocket scientists; 127 of them accepted. In September 1945, the first group of seven rocket scientists (aerospace engineers) arrived at Fort Strong on Long Island in Boston harbor: Wernher von Braun, Erich W. Neubert, Theodor A. Poppel, William August Schulze, Eberhard Rees, Wilhelm Jungert, and Walter Schwidetzky.[12]

Beginning in late 1945, three rocket-scientist groups arrived in the United States for duty at Fort Bliss, Texas, and at White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico, as "War Department Special Employees".[14]: 27 [20]

In 1946, the United States Bureau of Mines employed seven German synthetic fuel scientists at a Fischer–Tropsch chemical plant in Louisiana, Missouri.[30]

On June 1, 1949, the Chief of Ordnance of the United States Army designated Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, as the Ordnance Rocket Center, its facility for rocket research and development. On April 1, 1950, the Fort Bliss missile development operation, including von Braun and his team of over 130 Paperclip members, was transferred to Redstone Arsenal.

In early 1950, legal US residency for some of the Project Paperclip specialists was effected through the US consulate in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico; thus, German scientists legally entered the United States from Latin America.[14]: 226 [18]

Between 1945 and 1952, the United States Air Force sponsored the largest number of Paperclip scientists, importing 260 men, of whom 36 returned to Germany, and one, Walter Schreiber, emigrated to Argentina.[31]

The United States Army Signal Corps employed 24 specialists—including the physicists Georg Goubau, Gunter Guttwein, Georg Hass, Horst Kedesdy, and Kurt Lehovec; the physical chemists Rudolf Brill, Ernst Baars [de], and Eberhard Both; the geophysicist Helmut Weickmann; the optician Gerhard Schwesinger; and the engineers Eduard Gerber, Richard Guenther, and Hans Ziegler.[32]

In 1959, 94 Operation Paperclip men went to the United States, including Friedwardt Winterberg and Friedrich Wigand.[29]

Overall, through its operations to 1990, Operation Paperclip imported 1,600 men as part of the intellectual reparations owed to the US and the UK, valued at US$10 billion in patents and industrial processes.[29][33]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

>>22847519

Major awards (in the United States)

Hermann Oberth (forefront) with officials of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency at Huntsville, Alabama in 1956. Left to right around Oberth: Ernst Stuhlinger (seated), Major General Holger Toftoy, Commanding Officer responsible for "Project Paperclip", Wernher von Braun, Director, Development Operations Division, Robert Lusser, a Project Paperclip engineer.

The NASA Distinguished Service Medal is the highest award which may be bestowed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). After more than two decades of service and leadership in NASA, four Nazi members from Operation Paperclip were awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1969: Kurt Debus, Eberhard Rees, Arthur Rudolph, and Wernher von Braun. Ernst Geissler was awarded the medal in 1973.

The Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award is the highest civilian award given by the United States Department of Defense. After two decades of service, Nazi member from Operation Paperclip Siegfried Knemeyer was awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 1966.

The Goddard Astronautics Award is the highest honor bestowed for notable achievements in the field of astronautics by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).[34] For their service, three Operation Paperclip members were awarded the Goddard Astronautics Award: Wernher von Braun (1961), Hans von Ohain (1966), and Krafft Arnold Ehricke (1984).

The US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, owns and operates the US Space Camp. Several Operation Paperclip members are members of the Space Camp Hall of Fame (which began in 2007): Wernher von Braun (2007), Georg von Tiesenhausen (2007), and Oscar Holderer (2008).

The New Mexico Museum of Space History includes the International Space Hall of Fame. Two Operation Paperclip members are members of the International Space Hall of Fame: Wernher von Braun (1976)[35] and Ernst Steinhoff (1979).[36] Hubertus Strughold was inducted in 1978 but removed as a member in 2006. Other closely related members include Willy Ley (1976),[37] a German-American science writer, and Hermann Oberth (1976),[38] a German scientist who advised von Braun's rocket team in the US from 1955 to 1958; neither Ley, nor Oberth moved to the US via the Operation Paperclip.

Two lunar craters are named after Paperclip scientists: Debus after Kurt Debus, the first director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, and von Braun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

>>22847519

Advancements in aeronautics

Significant migrants

Main article: List of Germans relocated to the US via the Operation Paperclip

Adolf Busemann

Dr. Adolf Busemann was born in Lubeck, Germany, in 1902. He graduated from the Carolo Wilhelmina Technical University in Braunschweig and received a Ph.D. in engineering in 1924. In 1925, the Max-Planck Institute invited him to become an official aeronautical research scientist, and in 1930, he became a professor at Georgia Augusta University in Goettingen.[39]

Busemann spent many years working for the German government, most notably directing research at the Braunschweig Laboratory. He gave a speech in 1935 at the Volta Congress, an international meeting on the problems of high-speed aeronautics. At this conference, he presented his first theory of how the angle of sweep of a plane wing reduces drag at supersonic speed.[40] After the war, he traveled to the United States to assist them with the war tensions with Russia, where he continued his work on his theory of wing sweep.

Wernher von Braun

Wernher von Braun is known for developing rocket and space-flight technology, including the V-2 missile. In late 1932, he worked for the German army to develop new liquid propulsion-based missiles.[41] He received a doctorate in physics in 1934 from the Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Berlin. He and his team then surrendered to the Allies at the end of World War II, shortly after Hitler's suicide in 1945. They were brought to America through Operation Paperclip and assimilated into NASA's space program, where they worked on missile technology at Fort Bliss before transferring to Huntsville, Alabama.[42] He became the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in 1960.[41]

Von Braun is also a controversial figure for his involvement with the Nazi party and the slave labor involved in developing the V-2 rocket in Germany before it began to be developed in the United States. He became a member of the Nazi party in 1937 and was made a junior SS officer in 1940.[41]

Marshall Space Flight Center

Wernher von Braun in 1961 with members of his management team. Pictured from left to right are, Werner Kuers, Director of the Manufacturing Engineering Division; Dr. Walter Häussermann, Director of the Astrionics Division; Dr. William Mrazek, Propulsion and Vehicle Engineering Division; Dr. von Braun; Dieter Grau, Director of the Quality Assurance Division; Dr. Oswald Lange, Director of the Saturn Systems Office; and Erich W. Neubert, Associate Deputy Director for Research and Development.

In July 1960, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama after taking control of the Development Operations Division from the Army's Redstone Arsenal. The Redstone Arsenal was led by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency.[42] Wernher von Braun became the first director of the MSFC. The MSFC's development team was formed by American engineers from the Redstone Arsenal and 118 German migrants who came from Peenemünde through Operation Paperclip.[43] Von Braun worked with Operation Paperclip to get scientists from his team to the United States. They began work at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas in September 1945, and most of the team had arrived by 1946. Von Braun and his team worked as consultants for the military until 1950 when they began transferring to Huntsville.[42]

Originally, the center focused on weaponry and further development of the V-2 rocket line but later became one of NASA's main development centers for space flight project. The team also worked on missions that related to Moon landing missions, such as the Lunar Roving Vehicle. However, the main projects from the Marshall Space Flight Center were the V-2 rocket and the Apollo missions.[42]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

>>22847519

>>22847545

The V-2 rocketwas developed in Germany at the Peenemünde military research center. Wernher von Braun was the director of Peenemünde and worked with a team of engineers, physicists, and chemists. The Nazis used the V-2 missile during World War II to attack Paris, the port of Antwerp, and Great Britain, among many other targets. Roughly five thousand people died in these attacks.[citation needed] The location of V-2 production moved to Mittelwerk in Nordhausen after a British raid on Peenemünde on August 17, 1943. Mittelwerk was supplemented with slave labor from Dora, a nearby concentration camp.[42]

Production of the V-2 missile moved to the United States after Wernher von Braun surrendered to the Allies (Hall 2022). In March 1946, a V-2 was test-fired in New Mexico, followed by the first launch of a captured V-2 in April of the same year. After months of adaptation, a V-2 missile was fired in White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico that broke a record with an altitude of 116 miles (187 km). The V-2 rockets were used to test the effects of cosmic rays on fruit flies and seeds. They also took the first pictures of Earth from 100 miles (160 km) in the air and tested g-force on various monkeys.[43]

Apollo missions

Wernher von Braun and Kurt Debus, Director of the Kennedy Space Center, attending the Saturn 500F rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), 1966

The Marshall Space Flight Center was one of three institutions at NASA involved in the Apollo program. The center was equipped to become a part of Apollo because it had the facilities to study rocketry: Aero-Astrodynamics, Astrionics, Space Sciences, Propulsion and Vehicle Engineering, Computation, Manufacturing, Test, and Quality.[42] Each of these laboratories handled a different aspect of creating and testing rockets that suited the shift from military weapons to space travel. The weaponry from WWII, including rocket and missile in the United States, set the precedent for the kinds of technology used to create the Saturn rocket line. The Marshall engineers' experience in rocket development led to what Dieter Grau, head of the Quality lab, described as a "rigid inspection program" focused on craftsmanship. This meant to create prototypes that had a higher success rate instead of lesser prototypes that required more tests.[42]

The American and German Marshall engineers created the launch vehicles and designed some launching facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida during the Apollo program. They also created the Saturn rocket line, which was the kind of rocket that sent American astronauts to the Moon.[41] The Saturn rocket line drew on previous military engineering, such as the liquid propulsion system developed from von Braun's V-2 rocket and navigation systems derived from the US army's Redstone and Jupiter rockets.[42]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

>>22847547

>>22847519

Controversy and investigations

Before his official approval of the program, President Truman was indecisive about it for sixteen months.[10] Years later in 1963, Truman recalled that he was not in the least reluctant to approve Paperclip; that because of relations with the Soviet Union "this had to be done and was done".[45] Several of the Paperclip scientists were later investigated because of their links with the Nazi Party during the war. Only one Paperclip scientist, Georg Rickhey, was formally tried for any crime, and no Paperclip scientist was found guilty of any crime, in the United States or Germany. Rickhey was returned to Germany in 1947 to stand at the Dora Trial, where he was acquitted.[46]

First page of a transcription of a protest telegram about Operation Paperclip sent to Harry S. Truman by the Council Against Intolerance In America, endorsed by several signatories, including Albert Einstein, on December 30, 1946

In 1951, weeks after his US arrival, Walter Schreiber was linked by The Boston Globe to human experiments conducted by Kurt Blome at Ravensbrück; he emigrated to Argentina with the aid of the US military.[47]

In 1984, Arthur Rudolph, under perceived threat of prosecution relating to his connection – as operations director for V-2 missile production – to the use of forced labor from Mittelbau-Dora at the Mittelwerk, renounced his US citizenship and moved to West Germany, which granted him citizenship.[48] Von Braun was investigated in 1961 for his involvement in the Nazi party as an SS member. The FBI concluded that he had joined the Nazi Party solely to advance his academic career and to avoid imprisonment.[49]

For 50 years, from 1963 to 2013, the Strughold Award – named after Hubertus Strughold, "the father of space medicine", for his central role in developing innovations like the space suit and space life support systems – was the most prestigious award from the Space Medicine Association, a member organization of the Aerospace Medical Association.[50] On October 1, 2013, in the aftermath of a Wall Street Journal article published on December 1, 2012, which highlighted his connection to human experiments during WWII, the Space Medicine Association's executive committee announced that the Space Medicine Association Strughold Award had been retired.[50][51]

In a 2014 book, Annie Jacobsen investigated 21 prominent scientists and technicians recruited by Paperclip, and found that 15 were active Nazi party members. 10 served in paramilitary groups like the SS or the SA, 8 worked directly with major Nazi leaders, and 6 were tried at Nuremberg.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

>>22847549

>>22847519

Business Plot

The plot planned to install retired Major General Smedley Butler as dictator of the United States.

The Business Plot, also called the Wall Street Putsch[1] and the White House Putsch, was a political conspiracy in 1933, in the United States, to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedley Butler as dictator.[2][3] Butler, a retired Marine Corps major general, testified under oath that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization with him as its leader and use it in a coup d'état to overthrow Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified under oath before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the "McCormack–Dickstein Committee") on these revelations.[4] Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee final report said, "there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."

Early in the committee's gathering of testimony most major news media dismissed the plot, with a New York Times editorial characterizing it as a "gigantic hoax".[5] When the committee's final report was released, the Times said the committee "purported to report that a two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler's story of a Fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true" and "… also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated".[6] The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot.

While historians have questioned whether a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of "wild scheme" was contemplated and discussed.[7][8][9][10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

>>22847553

>>22847519

Butler and the veterans

On July 17, 1932, thousands of World War I veterans converged on Washington, D.C., set up tent camps, and demanded immediate payment of bonuses due to them according to the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 (which made certain bonuses initially due no earlier than 1925 and all no later than 1945). Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant, led this "Bonus Army".[11] It was encouraged by an appearance from retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, a popular military figure of the time.[12] A few days after Butler's arrival, President Herbert Hoover ordered the marchers removed and U.S. Army cavalry troops under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur destroyed their camps.[11]

Butler, although a self-described Republican, responded by supporting Democratic Party candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 US presidential election.[13] By 1933, Butler started denouncing capitalism and bankers, going on to explain that for 33 years he had been a "high-class muscle man" for Wall Street, the bankers and big business, labeling himself as a "racketeer for Capitalism".[14]

Reaction to Roosevelt

Roosevelt's election was upsetting for many conservative businessmen of the time, as his "campaign promise that the government would provide jobs for all the unemployed had the reverse effect of creating a new wave of unemployment by businessmen frightened by fears of socialism and reckless government spending".[15] Some writers have said concerns over the gold standard were also involved; Jules Archer, in The Plot to Seize the White House, wrote that with the end of the gold standard, "conservative financiers were horrified. They viewed a currency not solidly backed by gold as inflationary, undermining both private and business fortunes and leading to national bankruptcy. Roosevelt was damned as a socialist or Communist out to destroy private enterprise by sapping the gold backing of wealth in order to subsidize the poor."[16]

McCormack–Dickstein Committee

The McCormack–Dickstein Committee began examining evidence of an alleged plot on November 20, 1934. On November 24, the committee released a statement detailing the testimony it had heard and its preliminary findings. On February 15, 1935, the committee submitted its final report to the House of Representatives.[17]

During the committee hearings, Butler testified that Gerald C. MacGuire attempted to recruit him to lead a coup, promising him an army of 500,000 men for a march on Washington, D.C., and financial backing. Butler testified that the pretext for the coup would be that the president's health was failing.[18] Despite Butler's support for Roosevelt in the election[13] and his reputation as a strong critic of capitalism,[19] Butler said the plotters felt his good reputation and popularity were vital in attracting support amongst the general public and saw him as easier to manipulate than others. Given a successful coup, Butler said that the plan was for him to have held near-absolute power in the newly created position of "Secretary of General Affairs", while Roosevelt would have assumed a figurehead role.[20] Those implicated in the plot by Butler all denied any involvement. MacGuire was the only figure identified by Butler who testified before the committee. Others whom Butler accused were not called to testify because the "committee has had no evidence before it that would in the slightest degree warrant calling before it such men … The committee will not take cognizance of names brought into testimony which constitute mere hearsay."[21]

On the final day of the committee,[22] January 29, 1935, John L. Spivak published the first of two articles in the Communist magazine New Masses, revealing portions of testimony to the committee that had been redacted as hearsay. Spivak argued that the plot was part of a plan by J. P. Morgan and other financiers who were coordinating with fascist groups to overthrow Roosevelt.[23]

Historian Hans Schmidt concludes that while Spivak made a cogent argument for taking the suppressed testimony seriously, he embellished his article with his "overblown" claims regarding Jewish financiers, which Schmidt dismisses as guilt by association not supported by the evidence of the Butler-MacGuire conversations themselves.[24]

On March 25, 1935, MacGuire died in a hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 36. His attending doctor at the hospital attributed the death to pneumonia and its complications, but also said that the accusations against MacGuire had led to his weakened condition and collapse which in turn led to the pneumonia.[25]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

>>22847554

>>22847519

Butler's testimony in detail

Duration: 1 minute and 26 seconds.1:26Subtitles available.CC

1935 newsreel footage of Smedley Butler describing his 1934 congressional committee testimony and views towards the alleged 1933 plot

1933

On July 1, 1933, Butler met with MacGuire and Bill Doyle for the first time. MacGuire was a $100-a-week bond salesman for Wall Street banking firm Grayson Murphy & Company[26][27] and a member of the Connecticut American Legion.[28][29] Doyle was commander of the Massachusetts American Legion.[28] Butler stated that he was asked to run for National Commander of the American Legion.[30]

On July 3 or 4, Butler held a second meeting with MacGuire and Doyle. He stated that they offered to get hundreds of supporters at the American Legion convention to ask for a speech.[31] MacGuire left a typewritten speech with Butler that they proposed he read at the convention. "It urged the American Legion convention to adopt a resolution calling for the United States to return to the gold standard, so that when veterans were paid the bonus promised to them, the money they received would not be worthless paper."[16] The inclusion of this demand further increased Butler's suspicion.[citation needed]

Around August 1, MacGuire visited Butler alone. Butler stated that MacGuire told him Grayson Murphy underwrote the formation of the American Legion in New York, and Butler told MacGuire that the American Legion was "nothing but a strikebreaking outfit."[32] Butler never saw Doyle again.[citation needed]

On September 24,[33][34] MacGuire visited Butler's hotel room in Newark.[35] In late September Butler met with Robert Sterling Clark.[36] Clark was an art collector and an heir to the Singer Corporation fortune.[37][38] MacGuire had known Clark when Clark was a second lieutenant in China during the Boxer Rebellion, where he had been nicknamed "the millionaire lieutenant".[38]

1934

During the first half of 1934, MacGuire traveled to Europe and mailed postcards to Butler.[39] On March 6, MacGuire wrote Clark and Clark's attorney a letter describing the Croix-de-Feu,[40] a nationalist French league of the Interwar period.[citation needed]

On August 22, Butler met MacGuire at a hotel, the last time Butler met him.[41][42] According to Butler's account, it was on this occasion that MacGuire asked Butler to run a new veterans' organization and lead a coup attempt against the President.[citation needed]

On September 13, Paul Comly French, a reporter who had once been Butler's personal secretary,[43] met MacGuire in his office.[44] In late September, Butler told Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) commander James E. Van Zandt that co-conspirators would be meeting him at an upcoming Veterans of Foreign Wars convention.[citation needed]

On November 20 the committee began examining evidence. French broke the story in the Philadelphia Record and the New York Post on November 21.[45] On November 22, The New York Times wrote its first article on the story and described it as a "gigantic hoax".[5][46]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

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Committee reports

The Congressional committee preliminary report of November 24, 1934 said:

This committee has had no evidence before it that would in the slightest degree warrant calling before it such men as John W. Davis, Gen. Hugh Johnson, General Harbord, Thomas W. Lamont, Admiral Sims, or Hanford MacNider.

The committee will not take cognizance of names brought into the testimony which constitute mere hearsay.

This committee is not concerned with premature newspaper accounts especially when given and published prior to the taking of the testimony.

As the result of information which has been in possession of this committee for some time, it was decided to hear the story of Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler and such others as might have knowledge germane to the issue. …

The congressional committee final report, released on February 15, 1935, said:

In the last few weeks of the committee's official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country. No evidence was presented and this committee had none to show a connection between this effort and any fascist activity of any European country. There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.

This committee received evidence from Maj. Gen Smedley D. Butler (retired), twice decorated by the Congress of the United States. He testified before the committee as to conversations with one Gerald C. MacGuire in which the latter is alleged to have suggested the formation of a fascist army under the leadership of General Butler.

MacGuire denied these allegations under oath, but your committee was able to verify all the pertinent statements made by General Butler, with the exception of the direct statement suggesting the creation of the organization. This, however, was corroborated in the correspondence of MacGuire with his principal, Robert Sterling Clark, of New York City, while MacGuire was abroad studying the various forms of veterans organizations of Fascist character.[47]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

>>22847556

>>22847519

Contemporaneous reaction

On November 21, 1934, one day into the committee gathering testimony, The New York Times ran an article with the 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".[48]

The Philadelphia Record also reported on the story on November 21 and 22, 1934.[citation needed]

A November 22, 1934, New York Times editorial published just two days into committee testimony dismissed Butler's story as "a gigantic hoax" and a "bald and unconvincing narrative."[5][46]

Time magazine reported on December 3, 1934, that the committee "alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated".[6]

Thomas W. Lamont of J.P. Morgan & Co. called it "perfect moonshine."[46][when?] Gen. Douglas MacArthur, alleged to be the back-up leader if Butler declined, referred to it as "the best laugh story of the year."[46] By February 16, 1935, one day after the committee had released its final report, The New York Times had changed its tone, running on page one the headline: "Asks Laws To Curb Foreign Agitators; Committee In Report To House Attacks Nazis As The Chief Propagandists In Nation. State Department Acts Checks Activities Of An Italian Consul – Plan For March On Capital Is Held Proved." The article stated, "It also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated. The committee recalled testimony by General Butler, saying he had testified that Gerald C. MacGuire had tried to persuade him to accept the leadership of a Fascist army."[49]

Separately, VFW commander James E. Van Zandt stated to the press, "Less than two months" after Gen. Butler warned him, "he had been approached by 'agents of Wall Street' to lead a Fascist dictatorship in the United States under the guise of a 'Veterans Organization'."[50]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

>>22847557

>>22847519

Later reactions

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. said in 1958, "Most people agreed with Mayor La Guardia of New York in dismissing it as a 'cocktail putsch'".[51] In Schlesinger's summation of the affair in 1958, "No doubt, MacGuire did have some wild scheme in mind, though the gap between contemplation and execution was considerable, and it can hardly be supposed that the Republic was in much danger."[10]

Historian Robert F. Burk wrote, "At their core, the accusations probably consisted of a mixture of actual attempts at influence peddling by a small core of financiers with ties to veterans organizations and the self-serving accusations of Butler against the enemies of his pacifist and populist causes."[7]

Historian Hans Schmidt wrote, "Even if Butler was telling the truth, as there seems little reason to doubt, there remains the unfathomable problem of MacGuire's motives and veracity. He may have been working both ends against the middle, as Butler at one point suspected. In any case, MacGuire emerged from the HUAC hearings as an inconsequential trickster whose base dealings could not possibly be taken alone as verifying such a momentous undertaking. If he was acting as an intermediary in a genuine probe, or as agent provocateur sent to fool Butler, his employers were at least clever enough to keep their distance and see to it that he self-destructed on the witness stand."[8]

Prescott Bush

In July 2007, a BBC investigation reported that Prescott Bush, father of U.S. President George H. W. Bush and grandfather of then-president George W. Bush, was to have been a "key liaison" between the 1933 Business Plotters and the newly emerged Nazi regime in Germany,[52] although this has been disputed by Jonathan Katz as a misconception caused by a clerical research error.[53] According to Katz, "Prescott Bush was too involved with the actual Nazis to be involved with something that was so home grown as the Business Plot."[54]

Film adaptations

City of Angels, Stephen J. Cannell’s 1976 television detective series set in 1930s Los Angeles, featured a three-part pilot (later released separately on VHS and DVD), "The November Plan," loosely based on the Business Plot.[55] The Business Plot inspired the 2022 comedy mystery film, Amsterdam, written and directed by American filmmaker David O. Russell, starring Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington as a trio of protagonists who uncover the conspiracy and prevent it from materializing.[56] General Gil Dillenbeck, played by Robert De Niro, is based on Major General Smedley Butler. During the end of the film, a clip of Dillenbeck speaking before the congressional committee is played alongside footage of Butler's actual testimony, revealing it to be the same speech.[57]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

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