Gangsters of Capitalism, with Jonathan Katz

When retired Marine General Smedley Butler told Congress a group of wealthy business tycoons were scheming to overthrow the U.S. government, people weren't sure what to make of him. Over the course of his life, Butler had been called a war hero, an activist, a monster and a crackpot. What was this so-called Business Plot, and why was Butler blowing the whistle? Were any of his accusations true? In today's episode, the guys join investigative journalist Jonathan Katz, author of Gangsters of Capitalism, to learn more about Butler's life, his controversial career, and a shocking allegation of conspiracy that, if true, could have ended democracy in the United States.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controled decades. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Democracy is uh, I think most
people can agree a fragile concept. For most of us

(00:46):
listening in the audience today, the events of January six
in Washington, d C. Showed just how fragile this system
can be. And across the world you can sadly find
numerous examples of coups and dictators and so on. And democracy,
in a way is like a living organism. It must
be nurtured, it must be protected. In today's episode, we're

(01:08):
exploring another story of democracy in peril and often overlooked example.
It's the story of an alleged conspiracy. It's a story
of big business. It's the story, perhaps UH, most singularly
about a man named Smedley Butler, a complex guy who
in his time was called everything from a war hero

(01:29):
to an activist, and a trader and a crack pot.
This is the story of the business plot, and we
are not exploring it alone. We're immensely fortunate to be
joined today with Jonathan Katz, a multi award winning journalist
and most recently the author of Gangsters of Capitalism, Smedley Butler,
The Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire. Jonathan,

(01:51):
thank you so much for coming on the show today. Hey, good,
good to be here. I gotta tell you, Jonathan, we
we talked about this story that just Smedley Butler in
two thousand and ten in a video we made for YouTube,
and you know, we delved into it. I recall Ben,
you and I just being kind of I mean, I
was personally flabbergasted to know that this was something that

(02:13):
had occurred. I didn't think something like this was possible.
I wonder if guys, should we start with Smedley Butler
the person, or should we start with the business plot
in general. Let's maybe go into it this way. Um, Jonathan,
you and I have talked in the past for some

(02:34):
other projects. As you were as you were working on
this book, which is, for my money, the most comprehensive
work on Smedley Butler. Uh. You came to this as
a seasoned investigative journalists, and I think in a way, um,
this story starts for you in Haiti right when you

(02:55):
were You were on the ground in Haiti during the
deadliest earthquake ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere to this point.
So could you tell us about how that connected you
to Spedy Butler. Yeah. So you know, the people who
know about Smelly Butler usually know about him through one
of two roots. Either either they were Marines and learned
about him in boot camp um, or they know about

(03:16):
him because of either the business plot or his sort
of anti war, anti imperialless activism in the nineteen thirties,
especially his his book War as a Racket. UM. I
am part of a minority of a minority of people
who know about him, principally because of his work overseas,
especially as you note in Haiti. So I was the
Associated Press correspondent uh in Haiti from two thousand seven

(03:40):
until eleven, which means that I was there on almost
exactly actually twelve years ago on on January twelve, when
when I was very fortunate to survive the seven point
or earthquake that that killed you know, a hundred thousands,
three sixteen thousand people. And it was when so I

(04:02):
had encountered Smedley's name before that UM in the context
of an event that most Americans don't know about, but
Haitians very much do, which was the U s occupation
of Haiti Um that lasted for nineteen years from the
nineteen fifteen nineteen thirty four. It was the longest continuous
US occupation, uh military occupation until that record was broken

(04:25):
in Afghanistan just before we withdrew and after the earthquake,
I you know, I sat down to write my first
book UM about the earthquake, and I was looking for
information about you know, I was trying to basically set
the scene of like how did Haiti become so fragile?
How did how did this country become so poor? And

(04:46):
and how did things get to a place where, you know,
a relatively moderate earthquake. It was big, I can tell you,
but it was a relatively moderate earthquake as earthquakes go.
Killed more people than any other earthquake ever recorded in
North or South America and that brought me back to
the Haitian A, the U S occupation of Haiti, which
brought me to Smedley Butler. And so I was looking

(05:08):
for information on Butler, um, you know, to sort of
liven up this in case I was going to use
any of his information in the book, because he's a
fascinating like I could just tell that he was like
a colorful guy. He's a Quaker from you know, Philadelphia.
So the so the first thing that stuck out to
me was some of his letters have been collected in
an edited volume, um, and he uses his Quaker these

(05:32):
and thy so he's like, you know, he's like writing
his parents and he's like, you know, like the affectionate
son is in Haiti doing horrible things. And so then
I was like, okay, so who you know what this
guy looked like, like it's you know, just plug him
into Google, see like if there's more information out there,
and what comes up is the business plot and wore

(05:53):
as a racket. And my first instinct was like, well,
this can't be the same guy because in Haiti Butler
was known as the devil. Literally they called him that,
like he was you know, considered you know, one of
the worst of the worst of the Marines who were
the aggressors and in that occupation, at least as far
as the Haitians were concerned. And then, you know, to
have that guy turn around and become a anti war

(06:19):
activist as somebody who like you know, foils a fascist plot.
That didn't make a whole lot of sense to me,
but of course it was the same guy, and that's
that set me off on the path to try to
figure out, you know who who is Smedley Butler. My
understanding of the part of the Marines UH deployment, the
use when they were in Haiti was to protect property

(06:41):
and interest like American interests. Could you just talk a
little bit about that. Yeah, So, without getting too into
the weeds here, but the UH, the the occupation started
with an invasion in nineteen fifteen. It actually started first
in December of nights fourteen with a bank heist the Marines.

(07:03):
Butler was not one of these Marines, although he would
have been if he had been ordered there. Um UH
sub marines came ashore and literally robbed the central Bank
of Haiti. They took half the gold and brought it
to New York to to a vault on Wall Street,
whereas far as we could tell it never it never left,
certainly never went back to Haiti. Um. The reason for

(07:23):
that was um and reason I'm kind of putting reason
in air quotes here, but the reason for that was
that Haiti, so Haiti, traces its origins to the only
successful slave revolution uh in modern history. The enslaved people
of the French colony of Sanda mang rose up overthrew

(07:46):
slavery and their French imperial masters, and as a reward
for this, about twenty years later, the French then imposed
a crippling indemnity on Haiti, where they basically said, Okay,
we won't invade you again, and we won't and we'll
give you diplomatic recognition if you pay us an enormous fine,

(08:06):
which it took the rest of the nineteenth century for
for Haiti to do. And the Haitians did that. But
in order to do that, in part, they had to
take out loans from banks elsewhere, and one some of
those banks within the United States, and the biggest of
those banks in the United States was the National City
Bank of New York nowadays known just as City Bank
and City Bank was worried that they weren't going to

(08:29):
get uh, you know, the full payment of their debt,
and so they went to the Wilson administration, which Wilson
was president at the time, and said, let's rob the bank.
That made things even worse in Haiti. A president was assassinated,
the last time a president of Haiti was assassinated until

(08:50):
last summer in and then that was used as the
pretext for a full invasion. So it was an invasion
basically requested by City Bank, Inc. And done for you know,
for the purposes of of making sure that their ledgers
were right. Um. And then other American capitalists, other you know, exporters, investors, uh,

(09:14):
you know, real estate people like all the you know,
all these other Americans came down to to take advantage
of that. And Smedley Butler was he was ultimately the
point man on the ground. He what makes him a
fascinating character and and and and one of the reasons
why you know, I just spent the last well seven
years really writing a book about him, um, is because

(09:37):
he was everywhere, uh he was. He was in every
you know, US invasion and occupation basically from uh the
war in Cuba, against Spain in eight until you know,
the nineteen thirties, the eve of the Second World War. Um,
but Haiti. For one of the things that I had
in common with Smedley Butler, um is that both of

(09:59):
us spent um you know a significant amount of time
and and you know to a certain extent, uh, you
know the height of at least you know a part
of our careers, for better or for worse, in both
of our cases in an amazing country. But but in Haiti.
And the reason I think this is a great entry
point is because this is your Like you said, you're

(10:19):
in a minority of minorities by the way you connected
with the story of Spentley Butler. But this story is
also still so extraordinarily obscure to the average member of
the American public. They, like you said, Marines may learn
of Butler in boot camp, where he is considered he's

(10:40):
considered a war hero because he was deployed on a
global scale. But we when we're talking about this story,
this little interest our audience today. So we started with
a bank heist. City bank conspired with Uncle Sam to
rob a bank in Haiti. That's not the conspiracy, That's
not what this episode is about that conspiracy. Yes, that's

(11:07):
a side spiracy. Yes. Uh. The conspiracy that we're talking
about that we're going to explore in depth today is
something that today is known as the business plot. And
I love that you've already pointed out Butler, over the
course of his life had this transformation from a die
hard marine, a true believer, as maybe stan Lee would

(11:29):
have put it, and he became a very a very prominent,
very outspoken, barn storming activist. Could you, and I know
this is tough because you just you wrote an entire
book on this, but could you, in a in a
like a brief kind of headline snippet, could you tell
everyone what the business plot was, at least from Smedley's perspective.

(11:53):
So essentially, the headline of the business plot is that bank,
specifically Well Brokers, specifically one one uh prominent Wall Street
stock brokerage, approached Butler with a plan in which Butler

(12:13):
would lead a army of about half a million World
War One veterans into Washington. They would basically go up
Pennsylvania Avenue, you know, maybe surround the White House and
intimidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt into either resigning or handing the

(12:36):
bulk of his power over to a cabinet secretary who
the plotters would name. And the really eerie rings of
the present very much, very much the insurgency, yes, exactly, exactly, Um,
just the other way up, the other way down Pennsylvania Avenue. Basically, Um,
the numbers go up instead. Uh and um. The reason

(13:00):
that they were doing that was because they were rich
and they hated the New Deal. So it's a great depression.
Millions of Americans are suffering, and Franklin Roosevelt has promise
and is starting to implement programs to use the wealth
of the federal government, the power of the federal government

(13:23):
to help Americans in lots of different ways by you know,
uh ultimately uh, you know, giving them social security, you
know old age insurance, uh, you know, helping with infrastructure
of the Tennessee Valley authorities, so like the electrification of
the rural south, you know, deposit insurance jobs through the

(13:43):
Civilian Conservation Corps. Um. Not all those things were in
place at this moment, but but this is what he
was rolling out. So commies, COMMI commy stuff, basically exactly,
and from from the perspective of you know, the people
who Butler alleged were and really what Butler's contact with this,
with this stock brokerage alleged we're behind this plot. Um.

(14:06):
They considered it one of the DuPont brothers of DuPont Um,
who was you know, sort of the most powerful, uh
and and richest person associated allegedly with this plot. Um.
He did say, uh, and and you know this is
this is recorded, um that the New Deal was, you know,
essentially the socialist doctrine by by another name. I mean.

(14:28):
The thing is that in nineteen ninety four, when when
Butler blows the whistle on this in front of a
House committee in Congress. Um, you know, a lot of
people thought that liberal democracy was over. The Great Depression
was a tremendous shock to the capitalist worldview. Um. It was.

(14:51):
It was a total failure of capitalism, and it looked
to a lot of people, like you know, having people
sort of you know, have the American style constitutional government
elect their leaders elected president like Franklin Roosevelt, that that
that was maybe on its last gasp, and that the
only ways forward would be either fascism or communism in

(15:15):
the sense that Stalin was was was was implementing communism
in the Soviet Union at that time. Why did these
plotters think that he would be down for this given
his track record as like a patriot, right, you know,
whoever we know was behind it, and I can I
can talk about the people that we know and the
people who we can theorize. They very badly miscalculated obviously

(15:37):
in in in getting Butler. Um, but it was you
could see what they were thinking. So as as we
noted at the top here, Butler had a long track
record of participating in coups and overthrowing democratic governments all
over the world. Um, he had he had helped overthrow

(15:59):
government in Nicaraguay, he had helped overthrow governments in Honduras.
Um he had helped, you know, prevent a democratic government
from from coming to power in the Philippines when he
was you know, participating in the colonization of the Philippines.
In Haiti, where he also helped overthrow uh the president
through the invasion of nineteen fifteen. In nineteen seventeen, he

(16:22):
actually led a kind of a business plot January six
like thing in Haiti in Haiti's National Assembly, in the parliament,
essentially Haiti's constitution going back to you know, their their
their days of self liberation, prohibited foreigners from owning land

(16:44):
in Haiti without getting, you know, some kind of special
permission or generally, you know, by by marrying into a
Haitian family. And that wasn't gonna work for the Americans
who wanted to just you know, buy a bunch of
stuff in Haiti and make a bunch of money. So
the Wilson administration, the State's Department, decided to write a
new constitution. So there was a new problem. There was

(17:05):
a puppet president in Haiti at that point, but the
Haitian Parliament was still essentially independent, and so Butler led
an armed column of marines and members of the gendarmerie deity,
which was the Haitian client army, basically a preview of
you know, the the Afghan National Army, or like our
client militaries in Iraq and other places which people might

(17:27):
be more familiar with today. And he said, you're done,
and they shut down. The parliament went through the archives,
destroyed all the records of the parliament's last votes in
which they were planning to reject the American written constitution,
and the parliament didn't meet again for twelve years and
that was done, you know, on behalf of banks. So

(17:48):
it was not a ridiculous thought for a banker to
be like this guy is good at doing these things.
The other thing that I'll that I'll note is and
this is like another another piece of American history, really
important American history that most Americans don't know about. And
I don't want to go like two into the weeds
with this either, but well we go on the weeds.

(18:10):
I don't as as you can probably tell, like I'm
like going like I live in the weeds. Is basically
I'm reporting live from the weeds. So in nineteen thirty two,
so two years before he basically gets approached to do
this business plot um and and blows the whistle um,
there's an event called the Bonus march um. So essentially

(18:33):
World War One veterans have been promised back pay for
their time in World in the First World War at
that at that point, the only World war, you know,
since that war ended. Uh, They've been told that they
wouldn't be paid until either the service member died or
ninety five, whichever came first. But it's two, the depression

(18:55):
is at its bottom, and they need this money now.
So tens of thousands of veterans and their families converge
on Washington to stage a month long kind of protest occupation.
It's basically, you know, occupy Washington, UM, to demand that
Congress and President Herbert Hoover act on paying them the

(19:19):
money that they need. And most of the establishment derided
them as communists and degenerates and like and and you know,
one of the organizers definitely had fascist sympathies, and Butler
sided with the veterans because he was a veteran himself, UM,
and he had been in World War One at the rear,

(19:40):
but as a general at a you know, overseeing a
disembarkation and reimbarkation camp. And he gave this stirring uh
speech to them, encouraging them to stay. Side note to
the side note. Nine days after his speech, Herbert Hoover
sends the army, led by Douglas MacArthur with his adjutants

(20:02):
Major Dwight Eisenhower and Major George Patton, to attack the
veterans burn their encampment. They launched tear gas chemical weapons,
a baby dies um and UH. It's it's known as
it is known as the Battle of Washington. So if
you were paying close attention and maybe with the to

(20:23):
a certain extent, with the benefit of hindsight, although you know,
let it be said, fascist dangerous as they are, have
never been known for their perceptiveness her intelligence generally. Um,
there were these newsreels that showed Butler addressing you know,
tens of thousands of veterans in the shadow of the capital,

(20:44):
and they're sitting there hanging on his every word. And
if you if it's you know, it's now four and
you're thinking, who do we pick to lead this you
know mob that that's gonna tim date the president. I mean,
a guy who's done a bunch of coups, a guy

(21:05):
who and a guy who who they love, who has
who has been seen on camera rallying them. It just
so happens that they missed the part where his politics
had taken a a major left turn. I think it's
fair to say, and that he was close personal friends
with Franklin Roosevelt, going back to their shared days in Haiti,
which I've now gone on about way too much. So

(21:27):
you know, this is this is person signing off from
the weeds. Jonathan. This is perfect because you're assembling a
lot of pieces for this story. They did miscalculate severely. Uh.
And you could make a strong argument that the United
States today is immensely fortunate that they screwed up. Uh.

(21:48):
One thing that I think is interesting by way of
comparison for people first hearing about this in is that
when you think of Butler from the respective of his
contemporaries and from this time in his life, think of
Captain America. Think of like an older retired Captain America

(22:10):
who still has a lot of them and vigor and
fight in him. They still a hero. Yeah, Yeah, he's considered.
He is considered, of course um an infernal force to
the people of Haiti, but to the people back home
he is a war hero. And this is something that
they sought no pun intended. The banking force has sought

(22:31):
to capitalize upon. That's two levels of no pun intended.
But here we are so one One thing that really
stands out to me in these conversations when we've been
talking in something you address in Gangsters of Capitalism is
the weird opinion of fascism. Right nowadays, most people in

(22:55):
the US can't agree, whatever their political ideology, that Fascism,
however nebulously defined, is a bad thing. That is no
longer a hot take, right. But but this wasn't always
the case, and you know, you can see this in
the statements and beliefs of business tycoons of Butler's day.
Could could you tell us a little bit more about

(23:19):
what they saw fascism as and why they preferred it
to you know, what they saw as the dangerous, vast
red shadow of communism or socialism. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Mussolini in particular was really really popular, um in you know,
throughout the nineteen twenties and and the early nineteen thirties

(23:39):
at least, and certainly up to this point that we're
talking about four. Um, not with everybody, but you know,
much more popular than I think that than than people
maybe two fully appreciate. He was seen by a lot
of people as sort of this you know, strong modernizer.
You know, Mussolinian in particular had come out of he

(24:02):
had come out of the socialist movement in Italy, but
rejected it ultimately and essentially came up with fascism as
a way of sort of doing a socialist style reorganization
of society, by which I mean breaking away from the

(24:23):
liberal order, um and and breaking away from sort of
you know, nineteenth century style capitalism. But he did it
by rejecting class analysis or by using a class I guess,
by using a class analysis that basically said that like
rich people could keep their money and and rich people

(24:46):
really like that, like that that that was that was
a really exciting thing for them because again, like you know, socialism,
it was a very attractive idea to a lot of
people still is because it promises a our way of
life for for more people. Um And, So Mussolini is
basically saying, like, we'll do that, but instead of you know,

(25:08):
using sort of class analysis and class politics and labor
unions to to you know, improve people's lives, will just
like have rich people stay rich and then break the
heads of you know, anybody who like, we feel like
it doesn't actually make any sense, Like it's like it's

(25:28):
a completely incoherent like way of thinking about the world.
But if you are saying, you know, Thomas Lamott, who
was the head of JP Morgan and Company at this moment,
he called himself, you know, something of a missionary for Mussolini.
He was like he was friends with him the Johnson
Read Act. So the Johnson Read extremely racist Immigration Act

(25:50):
that that kind of shut off immigration you know, from
from Europe, and uh, you know, this lasted for for decades,
basically until until the nineties sixties. One of the sponsors
of that read you know, said, you know, on the
Senate floor that like, you know, he thought that, you know,
the United States could use a Mussolini. You know, the

(26:11):
the American Legion they invited Mussolini to speak. They you know,
they would open their conventions with like, you know, greetings
from a fellow, uh, you know, honorable you know World
War veteran sw York. There's a song from h the
musical Anything Goes, you know, You're the Top, and one
of the versions of that, you know, so it's like

(26:32):
you're the top, You're the Mona Lisa, like you're like
all the best things that are like in the twenties,
and one of the lines was like you're Mussolini, right,
people like it was dumb, like like it was really stupid,
and it became and it became very clear, i think
shortly after this. So one of the things that Mussolini
did that that that discredited him quickly was invading Ethiopia.

(26:55):
It was a horrendous invasion. They used mustard gas and
fighter planes, and it's sort of a previ of of
the Second World War, UM, and then obviously everything that
happened after that, the Spanish Civil War, World War two. Like,
you know, fascism is pretty much discredited at this point,
but it appeals to a certain kind of mind, people

(27:16):
who are just sort of like, the best thing to
do is to crack the skulls of my enemies. The
best thing to do is to have like, you know,
one strong leader who you know, who speaks with authority
and tells me what to believe. Um. You know, that's

(27:38):
that's appealing to to some people. And again in you know,
if you were a very wealthy businessman, um, and you
see your you know, your fellow rich guy, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt come into office and say, you know, you know,

(27:58):
he takes the dollar off the gold standard, He you know,
declares an immediate bank holiday. He's he's, you know, trying
to to regulate the banks. He's trying to sort of
regulate the excesses of capitalism that led to the crash
that that you know creates, uh, the Great Depression, you know,
you're like, oh god, this sounds so much like socialism,

(28:21):
because to some extent it was. I mean, he was
taking some of the good ideas of socialism had and
using them really to save capitalism. But um, you know
you could. I'm not I'm not saying I agree with them,
but I'm just sort of trying to put put put
you and and and you know, the people listening in
the mindset of like what would make somebody think this?
And to a certain extent, we're seeing this again today.

(28:42):
I mean, you know, liberal democracy is again been being
discredited in various ways. It doesn't sort of matter where
you are on the political spectrum, like liberal has kind
of become a dirty word. Um, you know, even if
you're on the left. And there is sort of a
you know, as as Franklin Roosevelt no it in his day,
you know, kind of a hunger among some people for

(29:04):
a strong man. It's almost always a man who you
know will destroy their your enemies and you know, tell
you who to hate and then give you permission. And
this is really the big thing. It will give you
permission to just like live out you're just you know,
most extreme, you know, right in psycho sexual fantasies in

(29:26):
in destroying these people, and that just as it did
back then, it is now as memory of the horrors
of fascism, uh, you know, in the nineteen thirties and
the nineteen forties, as as everybody who remembers those things
is you know, slowly you know going away. Rip Betty
White um and her generation that is again starting to

(29:50):
appeal to people, and you know, and that's in a
lot of ways what makes us such an urgent conversation.
Have Can we go back to the Spanish American War
for a moment, because I I think Smedley Butler had
that maybe that moment where all of a sudden, there's
something worth fighting for. When the USS main explosion tragedy occurs,
and I think it's two and or sixty individuals lost

(30:12):
their lives during that, and it was you know, blamed
pretty squarely on the Spanish forces and through you know,
through the things that were written. And is it the
New York Journal, I forget, what's the what's the uh,
that's the one New York journal at the time. Yeah,
it was The Herald was the Hearst paper, and the
Journal was the Pulitzer Paper. So yeah, something that was confused.

(30:35):
But there's something you know, their articles written that basically
identify an enemy and something worth fighting for. And that's
when Smedley around the time when Smedley joins up correct
it's exactly what it is. To put it in in
modern terms, it was basically a nine eleven of its day.
I don't say that lightly. Uh and and and maybe
I should, like, you know, define a couple of terms

(30:56):
in there, just so people don't get the wrong impression.
But what what I mean, basic lee is that it
was a big, spectacular event that was that was immediately
interpreted as a national tragedy, as an attack on the
nation um that that that called out for revenge, and
then was used as one pretext. It wasn't actually the

(31:17):
only pretext, but it was, it was one, and it
was a major pretext for the US invasion of Cuba.
So back to the weeds. So Cuba cubas an island
in the so Cuba Cuba. Cuba was a colony of
Spain and it had been basically since Christopher Columbus dropped
anchor in Guantanamo Bay in in uh and Um Cubans

(31:43):
had been fighting for their independence for about thirty years
at that point, UM, and they were very close to
winning it. Um. A new war had started in and
to a certain extent it had. The best thing you
could say that for the Spanish was that they had
battled to a a stalemate at that point. But the
Spanish were they they were committing horrible, horrible atrocities against

(32:08):
the Cuban people. Um. They invented a thing called contraction,
which is translated by into English as concentration camps. So
they invented concentration camps in Cuba. UM. And you know,
they're starving the population, they're you know, killing women and children.
It's it's it's a it's it's a nightmare. And the

(32:29):
main the battleship Maine, one of America's first to steel battleships,
goes to Havana Harbor on a mission to basically protect
American interests in Cuba during this war, and it explodes
and nobody knows why it explodes. And actually, contrary to
popular belief, the US government never actually makes a statement

(32:53):
that the Spanish were responsible for the explosion. They also
don't make a statement like disclaiming the rumors that the
Spanish were were responsible for the explosion. They kind of
use that frenzy, which, as you know, it was, you know,
really created by you know, the sort of the Cuban
Exile War Caucus, but also by the newspapers, especially Joseph Pulitzer,

(33:13):
who for whom the Pulitzer Prizes are named by the way,
and and William Randolph Hurst, and so Smedley Butler is
a sixteen year old he's in high school on on
the mainline of Philadelphia in a town called Westchester, and he, uh,
you know, he hears about this, and he's spurred into
action like like a lot, like like a lot of people,

(33:34):
and you know, he he sees himself as avenging the
deaths of of the sailors and the marines who died
on on the main um. And he also sees himself
as you know, as he puts its shouldering a rifle
to to free little Cuba. So he gets into that
war for anti imperialist you know, democratic they're they're they're

(33:57):
filtered through this sort of racist the term a list
like idea that like a sixteen year old white kid
from like the suburbs of Philly is needed to like
help the Cubans, like fight a war that they've already
been fighting for thirty years. Like it doesn't actually make
any sense when you think about it, but it made
sense to him, and so he actually lies about his
age and and joins the Marines. What I wanted to

(34:18):
say about, you know, the comparisons to to nine eleven, um,
is that the main is often sort of you know,
talked about, especially online, as being like, you know, the
prime example of a false flag attack, and nine eleven
is like in the darker corners of the Internet sometimes
you know, sort of talked about in the same way. Um.

(34:39):
And I've seen no evidence that, I mean, the Bush
administration certainly used nine eleven for their own purposes, um.
And and it was it was it ended up being
crassly convenient for them, um. But I don't see any
of it instant like they actually like planned it or
did it. And and by this by the same token,

(34:59):
there's no evid and that the McKinley administration like purposefully
blew up their own ship in order to to justify
going to war. They probably would have been able to
justify going to the war anyway, that there was already
sort of a beating drums about you know, in that
direction in Congress, which at that point had the power
to declare we're still does technically but doesn't really use it.

(35:19):
And you know, it just seems like it was a
design flaw basically, like the boiler was next to the
munition store and it was just a dumb It was
a dumb designersh ep section. Yeah, there are definitely events
that you know, helped to spur action. We see that
in Gulf of Talka. We see that, and I mean
Pearl Harbor all the way across across the board. There's
always one thing that ends up being the thing that

(35:40):
least is remembered by history as the thing that occurred.
Then everything else happened exactly. And just like and just
like Smithley Butler and the main a lot of people
on nine eleven, you know, especially young people, especially young men,
were like, my country needs me. I'm going to go
fight for democracy, and that's how you end up, you know,
getting to fight in in Iraq and Afghanistan. We're gonna

(36:04):
pause for a word from our sponsors. We're you know,
hopefully not Haliburton or something, and we'll be back with
more from Jonathan Cats. We've returned with more on the
complicated legacy of General Smedley Butler. Can we go back

(36:24):
to the business plant for just one second. I'm intrigued.
We keep we keep kind of hitting on echoes, you know,
in history of of things that happened then, and think
the kind of parallels of of things that we know
from more recent history. Um. The idea of a cabal
of elite business people UM conspiring to overthrow the government
is like such red meat for like conspiracy theorists, and

(36:48):
just like it's like sort of the quintessential thing everyone's
scared about happening. But we we've we sort of talked
on the show UM a lot about how like you
almost don't even have to do that anymore, are like
to go to that extreme to organize in that way
because everything is sort of so set up for the
success of these elite business people already, like the way

(37:10):
our our system is sort of evolved or devolved. I guess, um,
can you speak to that a little bit about what
would a modern analog of this even look like or
is it something that people would even seek because the
business people at that level are already so set up
and uh, you know, government is already so in their pocket. Yeah,
so I mean one of the one of the things,

(37:31):
you know, to look at the business plot in its
own moment and then look at there are other analogs
in that in that era that I think, you know,
in some ways are closer to the things that are
actually happening in this country now. You know, fascists never
really came to power as there's I can't think of
an example of fascists coming to power as a result
of sort of as you note, like an elite copal,

(37:54):
you know, planning a secret takeover um and then overthrowing
the government. They tended to come to power through a
combination of mass action and street violence, but also parliamentary action. Right.
So you know, Hitler becomes chancellor essentially no prime minister
of the Reichstag through democratic means, um he you know,

(38:21):
and an alliance between the Nazis, who were the far
far right party obviously in Germany at that time, and
then also the and then also the these the slightly
less extreme conservatives, um, who stupidly thought that they could
control him and they would just sort of like make
him like this figurehead prime minister and then and then

(38:41):
everything would turn out okay, Mussolini comes to power in
the nineteen twenties. Again, this is sort of a a
a preview of of the plans or this was part
of where the business plotters, however many of there were
we could talk about, that drew their inspiration. It was
from UH an action in the N two called the

(39:02):
March on Rome. We're basically, you know, a bunch of
just you know, FASCISTI thugs, UM, you know, came to Rome,
the capital, and and intimidated the government UM and then
convinced the King of Italy to appoint Mussolini as his
prime minister, and appointed and convinced the parliament to to

(39:23):
approve it. The event that actually the business plotters, UH,
we're the you know, the one business plotter that we
know was there right was was this guy, Gerald C. Maguire.
He was like a thirty seven year old bond salesman.
Who's the who's the guy who actually does the the
the attempted recruiting of UH smelly Butler And he's and

(39:45):
he's the only one who actually gets UH called before
Congress after you know, before the same subcommittee. The butler
testified in front of UM and he purchased himself and
lies about a whole lot of things. But in so
doing he has essentially confirms all the salient points that
that that Butler alleged against him. So we have him.

(40:06):
And he says to Butler, according to Butler um that
his inspiration. McGuire takes this tour of Europe in early
and he goes to all the hotspots. He goes to Italy,
he goes to Germany, and he goes to France. And
it's in France that he finds the model that he

(40:26):
thinks is most best suited to the American you know culture.
Um and he meets a group called the quad If
the Fiery Cross, and it's kind of like, you know,
like a like a super militaristic version of the American Legion.
Of the American Legion obviously was also U was also

(40:49):
doing sort of you know, street actions and and and
you know, strike breaking and stuff like that. But the
Quadrifa was was even more violent, and it's made up
of French veterans of the Last World War. And the
reason why the Quadife is important and an important model
is that a couple of weeks before McGuire's in Paris

(41:11):
on February, another thing that people don't know about. There
is a an enormous anti parliamentary riot in Paris consisting
almost entirely of fascist and far right groups and one
group of revolutionary communists because it's like they didn't want
to miss out on it, and they are they storm parliament.

(41:34):
Lets tell me if any of this sounds familiar, it's
kind of a loosely organized group of people that all
have they're all sort of in the same direction, but
they kind of all hate each other and and a
bunch of them are just like a bunch of clowns,
and they are like they end up storming the legislature, um,
and just end up fighting the police. Most of the

(41:56):
people who die are the rioters themselves, about teen of
them I think are killed. But they terrify the French
people because you know their demand. And oh, by the way,
they're also animated by a conspiracy theory. Um. There was
a an anti Semitic conspiracy theory because a prominent corrupt individual,

(42:19):
uh named Jeffrey Epstein, I'm sorry, named stevisty um has
just gotten rung up for corruption and so they then
build out this like huge, just ridiculous conspiracy theory that
basically like everyone in the French government on the left
or basically left of left of the fascist cannibal pedophiles. Yeah,

(42:43):
it's like they're they're corrupt, and they're like they're selling
out the French people, and and and it's basically on
the basis of this that they storm parliament and just
as on January six. Um. And by the way, it's
even known by its state, it's called the Cis fevrier
and in French, so it's just it's just known as
February six. Still is so on just on it's on

(43:05):
January six, on February six. They don't achieve their their
main aim um, but they do succeed in because of
the parliamentary system getting the oh and they're also trying
to basically they're trying to keep a government that's been
elected from being seated. That's that's the last that's the
last obvious parallel right. And what they do succeed in

(43:27):
in having sort of the center left prime Minister of France,
who they say is you know, a communist, but he isn't.
He's just like he's just a normal he's just not
a fascist. He's just not a fascist that he resigns
um In in favor of a conservative and and this
ends up having long implications in French history. Uh, it's

(43:48):
it's kind of the creation of what's known as the
Popular Front, which was sort of a coalition between socialists
and liberals to to fight against fascism. But then it
also helps coalesced what ends up becoming the vs. Collaborationist
you know government in France that takes power when when
the Nazis and made the point of all of these
all this rambling is that what all of these things

(44:10):
have in common and what they have what is different
between them and the business plot is that they are
all examples of mass action that actually involves like a
significant portion of a society. They're they're needed, They're needed
to be a large number of people who believed in
this and we're willing to go into the streets and

(44:34):
get into fights and draw blood, and then a larger
number of people around them that was willing to you know,
cheer and you know, write songs about them and all
these other things. You need. You need all of that
really to see a fascist or a fascist government succeed.

(44:55):
And you know, there are a number of reasons why
um it's the business plot, uh, such as it was,
didn't succeed in in overthrowing the government. I mean, I
think the biggest one is that smelly Butler blew the
whistle on it before it could go any further, assuming
it would have gone any further. But one of the

(45:15):
things that I think that that did maybe was to
discredit whatever was trying to happen, you know, behind the
scenes before you know, what would be known now like
as an AstroTurf campaign, before before sort of this messaging
could get out and and create this kind of mass action.
But also like the people who Butler alleges were behind

(45:38):
it were people like you know, the dupons and like
you know, the head of General Motors. These were people
who were maybe also sort of at JP Morgan in company.
These were people who were also maybe so sort of
out of touch with the would be rank and file,
you know, the working class that the people in the
country who they would need to to get behind them,

(45:59):
um that maybe they would have had a hard time
doing it. Anyway. However, however, again we'll talk about this,
but however, from the planet here got that's the that's
the questions, that's one of the spooky things that we
keep going back and forth over. You know, we know
that the person who contacted Butler originally we know uh

(46:20):
that they they were definitely attempting to proselytize. They were
definitely like evangelizing, pitching him on how great this would be.
But I love that you point out there are serious
questions about how successful uh a kudata would have actually
been when the rubber of fascism hits the road, as

(46:41):
it were. But one thing, this is one thing that
I think is haunting about this situation. Uh. And I
would love to hear you speak on this in a
little more detail. My general understanding what happens. Butler says, uh,
we have different views on what constitutes patriotism. So he

(47:01):
blows the whistle, Congress hears him out, he does testify
to to Congress, and Congress does listen to him at least.
But then there's a moment where Congress just sort of
doesn't do right if I if I could use the

(47:21):
technical legislative term here, they just don't. Uh. So that
missing part, right, the fact that they did not move
forward on there is why UM folks like you and
us have to carefully deploy the word allegedly in a
lot of these conversations. So I would love to hear

(47:42):
your um because you are the foremost expert on this now,
So I would love to hear your concepts or your
your perspective on why those investigations never occurred, Like why
was there never? Why? Why was there never? Like a
hard hitting dive into pots, you know, uh what why

(48:03):
was that? So the committee that Butler testifies in front
of as a subcommittee, but it's it's it's the leaders
of this larger committee. It's called the Select Committee on
un American Activities. And my fellow history and ords out
there might those words might ring a bell. This is
what becomes ultimately HUAK, which is one of the most

(48:25):
notorious committees in American history. It is associated with the
McCarthy era. Obviously, Joseph McCarthy was a senator, so he
wasn't on HUACK. But but they were engaging in in
that same kind of sort of red baiting, you know,
wish hunting of of you know, suspected communists after the
Second World War, um during during the Cold War and

(48:47):
the and the Second Red Scare. So that committee was
primarily engaged in that They had been convened to investigate
it was called like Nazi propaganda and other activities. Um,
they were interested in attempts by the actual Nazis, right,

(49:07):
the German National Socialist Workers Party to infiltrate the United States,
which was happening. I mean, there were there were American groups, Um,
the Silver Shirts were one, the German American Blend was another.
Um that that you know was taking direct money and
direct funding from the Nazis. And there were Americans who
were working with the Nazis. Right. So Henry Ford is

(49:29):
is one of the most famous. He ends up, you know,
accepting like the Grand Cross of the German Eagle in
nineteen thirty eight, which is like there's no good time
to be hanging out with Nazis. But like that's late,
that is extremely late. Mr ford another name by the
way that that often is it comes up popularly with
the business plot um, but as far as I can tell,

(49:51):
was not actually involved. This is sort of the result
of of miscommunication. Is Prescott Bush, right, who was the
grandfather of George W. Bush and the father of George H. W. Bush.
So to presidents, he becomes a senator himself later. The
reason why that confusion occurs is because the same committee

(50:12):
that that that Butler testified in front of was investigating,
in a separate investigation the bank that Bush was a
partner of Brown Brothers Harriman, because Brown Brothers Harriman was
doing business with the Nazis and they had this sort
of joint ownership thing over over shipping line. So so

(50:33):
it's actually not true. But it's like Bush was too
close to the actual Nazis to actually be involved with
the business plot because the business plot was an entirely
homegrown affair. So to a certain extent, maybe that's part
of the explanation of of why can I kind of
jump in really fast? I just want to apologize to

(50:54):
everyone listening. I have asserted a couple of times that
Prescott Bush was a part of it. I just as understood,
So I I do apologize there. Um, Wow, he was
too busy in Nicaragua. I guess the exactly exactly. Yeah,
it's a it's an easy it's an easy mistake to make. Um.
And if anybody out there has, you know, information that

(51:15):
is different than this, like, I would love to to
to hear it. Um. I'm always open to corrections and
and trying to be as complete as possible. Um. But
but so far as I can tell, that came into
the conversation. There was a BBC documentary in two thousand
and seven that sort of ran through that very quickly,
and and and and there was like a blog post

(51:36):
that got written that that made that confusion. And that's
that's what you know. And it was you know, Bush
was president at the time, so it kind of caught
fire and and here we are, okay, So that's part
of it. The other thing is that you know, this
committee it had it had a limited shelf life. It
was supposed to disband a couple of weeks after Butler testified,

(51:57):
and it did on schedule. Now it seems like to me,
who am I A million years later, you know, it
would have been like I I could have you could
have easily made the case to like go back to
to you know, the Speaker of the House and say, like,
we have this actual important thing going on, you know,

(52:18):
maybe we should extend the life of this committee for
for a little while. Um they did not. So so
there are two main members of the committee. John McCormack,
who ends up becoming Speaker of the House years later,
he ends up serving until the nineteen seventies. And Samuel Dickstein,
who's a Democrat of New York. They're the two people
who really wanted to form this committee, and they're the

(52:40):
two people who here Butler's testimony under oath um in
a special session in New York. And Butler spends a
significant portion of n fighting on the radio. Basically it's
like in a poster like flame war with Samuel Dickstein.
We're Butler has this like radio show um uh sponsored

(53:04):
by Pep Boys, by the way, because he's in Philly,
um where he like he's like using his his like
Pep Boys radio hour to be like, these these assholes
aren't like I gave them this thing, and they're not
investigating it. They brought the lowest level people forward. Why
aren't they going to bring the higher, higher level people.
And he sort mocked a little bit, wasn't he, like

(53:25):
even publicly he was ashamed to some degree. Yes, So
so that's so that's another part of it, right. The
initial the initial reaction by the press too, Butler's uh
testimony is ridicule. The New York Times runs the story
of him testifying on the front page, but they give
most of the real estate to the denials of the

(53:47):
people who who Butler implicated. Um, he's mocked in Time magazine,
he's mocked in a in a Times editorial. Later on,
they're like very small walk backs corrections. Um. When McCormick
and dick Stein, you know when their committee like issues

(54:07):
his final report and they're basically like, we were able
to verify you know, the pertinent parts of Butler's testimony
as far as they went, Um, we you know these
these things. I forget the exact wording. It's in Gangsters,
but like it's like, you know, these things were definitely
discussed and they may have been put into action, you
know when when the backers saw fit, but they did

(54:29):
not bring the big guys in, And I think it
was probably fear of I mean, these are very powerful people,
the DuPonts, Um, JP Morgan, Uh, you know his bank,
Alfred Pecelane of General Motors, McCann, Ericsson ad Agency. Um.
You know, these were very very powerful, very influential people.

(54:51):
So Butler testifies that Jerry McGuire approached him. Jerry McGuire
is brought in to testify, as I said, through a
perjury filled ridiculous testimony. He ends up sort of accidentally
confirming most of of of what Butler said. Um, they're
one of the low level people who sort of seemed

(55:11):
to be backing McGuire early on is a guy named Um.
He's the heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, and
Um his lawyer comes in and basically throws McGuire under
the bus, and it's just sort of like, no, it
was all him. It was all him. So one of
the reasons why why I think maybe more than some

(55:32):
other people do, that it is credible that McGuire actually
had some people behind him is McGuire's boss, a guy
named Grayson Mallett Provost Murphy. He was a rich financier
who had the resume of someone who would have known
how to plan a coup, So he's Butler's age. He

(55:53):
joins the military during the Spanish American War, but goes
into military intelligence and spends a couple of day gads
going around the world to a lot of the places
the Butler went, but as a spy, and he works
in the Philippines. He seems to be part of the
plot to sever Panama from Colombia, which the Marines participate

(56:14):
in which which is what enables the United States to
build the Panama Canal and established the the US Canal Zone. UM.
He then goes into private finance. His uncle is the
guy who actually calls Brown Brothers speaking of Prescott Bush
and tells them, you should come into Nicaragua, um and

(56:35):
and take over the banks and we can get the
Marines behind you. Um. He tours Europe after World War One.
He's in he's in Europe helping run the American Red
Cross UM during the First World War, and then he
tours Europe after the war with wild Bill Donovan, who
ends up becoming the spymaster head of what's known as

(56:55):
the OSS, which is, you know, the immediate forerunner to
the CIA. So this is a guy who would have
known Butler very well, not necessarily personally, but he would
have known his career and he certainly, you know, as
the saying gangsters, would have known his way around the
planning of a coup. That is Jerry McGuire's boss. And
with that, we're going to take a quick break, but

(57:15):
we'll be right back with more from Jonathan Katz. And
we're back with more from Jonathan Kats. I just want
to pause for a moment and point this out. Although
it's extraordinarily petty when we hear these kind of stories, Jonathan,

(57:36):
with all with this massive connections and evidence and people
getting away, I am yet again flabbergasted, Like I can't
even get out of a late fee at the library,
you know what I mean, what is the justice? But
you're but you're laying out this case like it's are
extremely important. I just want libraries are and I do

(57:58):
pay the fees in case they're listening, I do pay
the fees, and I'm sorry. But the the the thing
that we're talking about here that I think should disturb
a lot of people is the the hidden connections here,
you know, the there is you don't even need necessarily

(58:19):
active obstitutation or a conspiracy by design, because if people
have these close relationships, they as rational actors, are going
to move toward things that they feel are acts of
self preservation. Right. And and we also just to highlight
I'm sure a lot of us listening at home we're

(58:40):
thinking this too. Those have to highlight these tremendously powerful
people don't just have the ability to influence their friends
and government. They have the ability to influence their friends
and media. So I personally feel that it is highly
unlikely that editorial boards at Time and the New York

(59:01):
Times just independently decided to report a similar slant and
I left out by the way of Murphy's. So when
Murphy goes into private finance, he ends up being part
of the JP Morgan universe. Um, he ends up overseeing
the controlling loan that the Morgan's end up controlling in

(59:22):
the Dominican Republic, where Butler and the Marines also in vade.
And so he's very closely tied to JP Morgan. And
you know, Gerald McGuire when he's in France meeting with
the Quadrifie uh you know this this this fascist group
or far right group, I guess um his his headquarters

(59:43):
in Paris is more is essentially the Morgan subsidiary in Paris.
Um that so, all of that said, in order to
get from these guys to the bigger names, the DuPonts
Afred p Sloan, you know, et cetera, McGuire says to Butler,

(01:00:05):
and Butler testifies that there is going to be a
group that emerges that is going to be He calls
them the villagers and the opera right, so the the
the extras right in the background, who are going to
be supporting this thing. And uh, he predicts that, um,

(01:00:26):
this new organization is going to emerge, and he's like,
you're gonna see it in the front pages, you know,
in the next couple of weeks. And as Butler says,
lo and behold, a couple of weeks later, on the
front page of the New York Times, this new organization
emerges and announces itself called the Liberty League. It is
a group that is founded by the DuPonts with all
these other guys that I that I mentioned. It also

(01:00:47):
has two uh, former Democratic candidates for president, Al Smith
and John W. Davis, who remain important Democrats you know
throughout the middle part of the twentieth century. You know,
they're Democrats, but they're but they become anti f DR,
anti New Deal Democrats, and um, you know, because they're

(01:01:09):
sort of hearkening back to the older conservative tradition in
the Democratic Party. And um, you know, the Liberty League
is indisputably an anti f DR, anti New Deal group.
It is it's basically a a business led interest group
that is trying to short circuit and stop the new

(01:01:32):
Deal and stop the redistribution of wealth from the people
who caused the Great Depression to the to the masses
who are the victims of the Great Depression. Right, that's
what that's what the Liberty League wants, which is also
what the business plotters wanted. So it's not it is
it is in no way is it beyond the realm
of imagination that they could have backed the sort of

(01:01:53):
thing because they wanted this thing. And by the way,
Grayson M. P. Murphy is the treasurer of the Liberty League. Okay,
so this is all very very strong circumstantial evidence. It
is not definitive evidence. Definitive evidence would have needed a
paper trail. They would have needed Congress calling in the

(01:02:16):
big shots, the DuPonts, Al Smith, John W. Davis, you know,
Alfred P. Sloan pew All, every all. It seems like
all these guys who have like big like charitable trust
these days, they were all hard of like the Liberty League, right, um.
And it would have needed, you know, uh, more definitive investigation,

(01:02:36):
more definitive reporting, and that was not done. It was
not done at the time. Butler enlists a reporter who
he knew from his days running the Philadelphia Police Department.
By the way, Butler spent a couple of years running
in Miltar. I see the Philadelphia Police Department. Um, yes, exactly,

(01:02:57):
that's in the book. Read it. Um. But uh, yeah,
he brings that one guy in basically to do sort
of his own allied you know, maybe quote unquote independent investigation,
because he's he's definitely you know, siding with Butler in this.
But there's no there's no other investigative journalism done, and
there's no congressional investigation. And that's and that's the part

(01:03:20):
that's missing, you know. I say in the book, like,
you know, it is possible that interpretive denials that are
issued by you know, these principles, um, that they were legitimate.
Like it maybe that they hadn't heard about this happening
yet because Grace and Murphy hadn't come to them yet.

(01:03:41):
You know, maybe or maybe or maybe or maybe he
maybe you know, maybe he had just started talking about it,
but they hadn't agreed to anything yet. Or maybe they
hadn't I mean, maybe maybe maybe these plans, maybe these
plans were in the works and and Butler blew the
whistle on him and who knows. It's really hard to say.
And that's one of the things that's lost by but
by the lack of investigation. And so you know, the

(01:04:02):
answer is and this is something that that I'm afraid
that we're going to see with with you know, the
January six committee, UM. You know, they seem to be
going farther in they're they're they're doing a longer investigation,
uh than than the the UN American Activities Committee, did
you know, with with Butler's allegations, um in N four.

(01:04:24):
But one of the things that you know, I'm I'm
afraid of is that there will be and we see
this right now with with Biden's Justice Department, with Marrick Garland.
There is a there is an American allergy among elites
and among power elites and economic elites to uh, you know,
holding their own accountable unless it is absolutely necessary, like

(01:04:49):
unless unless they unless they have absolutely no choice, um.
And and that's that's that. And that was what Butler
was yelling at at Samuel Dick Steon about. And and
it may be what we uh, I mean, it could
be what we see happen now. And I think it
would be more dangerous for that to happen now even
than the yes. And that's what's another thing that's important
about that point, I would argue, is that there is

(01:05:11):
a misconception in the American public that self preservation of
an elite class is often a political right. It's it's
not something that is more common to one party than another. Um.
And with this, you know, our our show today is

(01:05:31):
running a a little longer. Uh, but but we're just
scratching the surface. We're obviously fans of your work here
and it touched there. There's so many things we have
not touched on now. One of the last questions that
we had was about what this tale can teach us
about the present day. And I love that you're you've

(01:05:53):
already taken us to that point to put a really
fine point on this, to and throw a bow on it.
What would you say people who check out gangsters and capitalism,
or people who familiarize themselves with Butler's story, what what
should they take away from it? The shortest way to
put it is you know that that it can happen

(01:06:14):
here right Um. In fact, the book It Can't Happen
Here by St. Clair Lewis was was in a lot
of ways inspired by you know, Butler's whistleblowing on on
the business plot, like he he he drew, he drew
inspiration from that event, and he had had run ins
with with Butler before that, which is which I talked
about in Gangsters. St. Clair Lewis had um. I think

(01:06:37):
that it is it is first of all, that we
need to know our history, not just the business plot.
I mean, you know, Gangsters is really the business plot, uh,
and and Butler's you know, end of life activism kind
of book ended. But the meat of the book really
almost the entire book is about uh Butler and the Marines,

(01:06:58):
you know, conquests and invasions of Nicaragua, China, UH, the Philippines, Haiti, etcetera, etcetera, Mexico,
all of these things that happened uh much more recently
than wars that we we spend much more time talking about,
like the Civil War. But then Americans don't know anything
about and the rest of the world does know about these,

(01:07:19):
especially the places that we invaded, and it puts us
at a disadvantage when we're understand when we're when we're
trying to to, you know, uh, deal with with those
countries in terms of international relations, but also comes with
a disadvantage in terms of understanding ourselves. Um. You know,
there were a lot of thinkers, especially you know, people

(01:07:40):
who had had gone through the process of colonization themselves.
Uh in the decades after this period, in in the
mid twentieth century, um ahm says, there Uh the great
UH French writer from from um Uh Martinique Uh and
France found on Uh. They both talked about France found

(01:08:02):
on had this great uh description of fascism, that fascism
is colonialism practiced in the heart of a traditionally colonialist country.
And I like that. It's very good, very good. Frans
found on um and he and and what he is
arguing there is it was you know, it was it
was primarily you know, they were they were gearing that

(01:08:26):
toward Europe. But it's also applicable to the United States.
And in order to understand the ways in which is
applicable to the United States requires understanding that we have
been a traditionally colonialist country. We've been many things, we
are many things. We've also we are also a great
you know, innovator of democracy and and the country you

(01:08:47):
know that was founded on the principle that that all
men are created equal, even if it wasn't true at
all then as far as the founders were concerned, and
and and we have struggled to make it true since.
But that's part of us too. But we have also
done these horrible things and and continuing to do them
up to the present day, with with you know, the
Drone War, and and you know our our conquests of

(01:09:10):
countries in the Middle East, and so you know, in
a lot of ways, what was happening in ninety four
was that these forces which had been unleashed abroad by people,
including maybe especially Smedley Butler, were then trying to be
applied at home. And the idea was that if you

(01:09:30):
could do this to your enemies abroad, if you can
do this to people that you consider subhuman abroad, why
not just declare your political enemies subhuman and do it
to them. And we are we we are seeing that
tendency take root again in the United States. You know,
you see it in poll after poll as Americans say,

(01:09:52):
you know that they are more willing to see uh
political violence applied to you know, the other side ESPEC.
Actually those numbers go up especially high. I think it
was like people were saying, you know, before election that
as long as they could sort of justify to them,
as long as the other party didn't first. What that

(01:10:12):
really means, as long as you can justify yourself saying
that the other party is doing it first. You know,
if you consider like the COVID vaccine to be violent,
then like then all is permitted, right as as as
you know, and that that's that's a fascist tendency. Um
and and you know, and you and we saw in
the run up to that election, um, people saying that,

(01:10:35):
you know, they would be willing to do anything to
keep the other side from gaining power, in the same
way that Americans were willing to, you know, do anything
after eleven. We're willing to torture, we were willing to invade,
we were willing to kill. And it's it's the important
thing is understanding those connections existed in the nineteen thirties,

(01:10:57):
those those connections exist today. And it is only by
talking about them and understanding structurally what is happening that
we can understand how seriously to take this threat of
losing our democracy, of of losing these extremely fragile, oftentimes
not fully lived out principles really quickly. I mean like

(01:11:20):
not only not fully lived out, but not even enforceable
in some ways. Like it's sort of like a lot
of it is like a matter of decorum whether leaders
choose to follow those norms. You know. It's almost like,
uh polite, but now people are not being polite anymore,
you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, like you

(01:11:41):
know one of the people who, I mean, god knows,
I don't know how to get through the Kristin Kristen cinema.
If I did, I would, but like, you know, she
she's somebody who you know, she wasn't progressive, and she's
somebody who you know could benefit from from understanding you
know how. You know, the United States is a country

(01:12:02):
that has not been above using violence and dehumanization all
over the world. And it took somebody like Smedley Butler
who had done those things and then regretted them, right.
I mean he you know at the same time that
he that he blows the whistle on the business plot.
A year later, um he he writes, you know a
series of articles for uh frankly, a socialist magazine called

(01:12:25):
Common Sense, in which he says, you know, I, you know,
participated in the raping of half a dozen Central American countries.
I made you know, Mexico and China, say for for
for the oil companies. I was a racketeer for capitalism
um and and to a certain extent, what he's doing
over the last ten years of his life is trying
to make that right. And and we are at we

(01:12:49):
are at a moment when you know, uh, you know,
the Voting Rights Act has been gutted, and you know
Congress is the Democrats in Congress are trying to you know,
pass a voting rights bill and they're being stymied by
you know, two Democrats in in Joe Mansion and Kristen
Cinema who were saying like, oh, but it's this holy

(01:13:11):
principle of like the filibuster, which is which is really
a brand new thing that didn't exist anyway. That's going
off topic, but what but what I'm trying But what
I'm trying to say is like they need to understand
how urgent this is, and they need to understand how
easily could happen. And you know, the one thing to
to take I think you're absolutely right that you know,

(01:13:32):
the media in ninety four was certainly influenced by their
contacts and their sympathies in the business community, but to
a certain extent also they didn't understand how real the
threat was because they didn't fully understand what had been
happening for all those decades overseas. Smedley Butler did. He had,
you know, he had overthrown the parliament in Haiti, he

(01:13:52):
had overthrown governments all over the world. He knew how easily,
how how it doesn't actually take you know, a great
cinematic event to to overthrow a democracy. That all you
need are a critical mass of people, you know, the
wrong people in the right place at the right time
to do it. Because he had been one of those

(01:14:13):
wrong people, and he was now trying to be one
of the right people. And we need more people to
stand up and be the right people today to keep
that from happening. That is so well said. So peek
behind the curtain, folks. We actually we paused for a
second because there's so much stuff that we didn't get to.
And uh, Matt Nolan I actually had a little bit

(01:14:36):
of a back and forth over what we what we
could get to. We are, believe it or not, just
scratching the surface of an incredibly, incredibly dense story. Jonathan,
thank you so much for coming on the show, but
I think more importantly, thank you for writing this book,
because this is this is both something people need to

(01:14:57):
know and I would argue it's stuff they don't want
you to know, or certainly people at the time did not.
Could you let our audience know where to find you,
where to contact you. Earlier you had said, you know,
if anyone has some Prescott Bush evidence, hit me up.
So where can people do that? Yeah? So, first of all,

(01:15:18):
Gangsters of Capitalism is out. You can buy it anywhere
that you buy books. Uh. Independent bookstores are great, Please
support them. But you know, anywere anywhere, anywhere, anywhere that
you get your books, you can get it. Um. You
can find me. I have a newsletter. It is called
The Racket, uh, named for Smelly Butler's book War As

(01:15:39):
a Racket. You can find that at the Racket dot
news UM and you can find me on Twitter at
cats on Earth kat e z on this planet that
we're on. Well we did it. We uh, we sort
of tricked you, dear listen uh and ourselves into attending
a college class. Amazing, this episode brought to you by

(01:16:02):
the Great Courses dot Com. But but that was just
as good, if not better than any of their offering. Yeah,
there's no tricking here. Uh, like I would, I would
pay for that. Yeah. And we Uh. Behind the scenes,
we did go back and forth about whether to make
this interview segment a two parter, but we wanted to
keep all of this together because the context sort of

(01:16:25):
dovetails so beautifully throughout the throughout the story. Uh. And
we can't wait to hear what you think. We have
read this book, Gangsters of Capitalism is out now. We
also have more work with Jonathan Kat's coming in the future.
We would love to hear your opinion on what the
business plot can teach us today. What does it tell

(01:16:49):
us about the modern world, not just the US, but
the modern concept of democracy in general. I don't know,
is that a good way to set it up? Guys?
I think it tells us heaps, It does not all
not all all the best stuff really, I mean, from yes,
from this conversation, I want us to cover the Spanish
American War more. I learned so much from this book
and from Smedley Butler's Like Travels. I learned a lot

(01:17:11):
about what the US was doing and like the the
hard choices that were made during that conflict. So I
don't know, I'm really into it. Also, I can't get
over what a miss que it was on the part
of those business elite to try to rope Smedley Butler
into their business plot. Like, better luck next time, guys,
try to read the room better. Um. Also, if you're

(01:17:33):
interested in some further listening on sort of an adjacent subject, Ben,
you and I did an episode about Nazi summer camps
in the United States that kind of is adjacent to
this story and folds in a lot of the reasons
that the House on American Committee was created and some
of the kind of tensions that were simmering here in
the United States. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a good call

(01:17:55):
as well. Not I would go one further and say
that we have future episodes about Forgotten Wars. You know,
as as Jonathan pointed out, a lot of people aren't
familiar with US activity and Haiti especially during that time,
as well as the Philippines and Panama and all, I

(01:18:16):
mean all these other places that we touched on, right right, Uh,
So we are going to talk a little bit more
about that. In the future you can check out our
earlier work we have done. But before you do any
of that, we want to make sure that you know
how to contact us, you know how to make your
voice heard. As long as the fragile democracy of this

(01:18:37):
podcast stands, it must stand, and this aggression will not stand. Um.
But you can find us, in fact, all over the
Internet the usual places of note, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or
we exist under the handle at conspiracy stuff. If you're
more of an Instagram person, you can find us another
handle at conspiracy Stuff. Show big things popping over on

(01:18:59):
the Instagram front in the very near future, so keep
an eye. I I have a feeling before very much longer,
you're going to see more than just a see of
new show graphics and uh and some more fun stuff coming.
It's no spoilers. Reminder of our Facebook group here's where
it gets crazy. If you do want to join, all
you have to do is write one of our names,

(01:19:20):
a couple of our names, just the people who host
the show or make this show, including Paul, Mission Control,
decond uh. And if you don't want to use social
media at all, you can instead call us. That's correct.
If the spirit so moves you. Uh, you need to
contact us, but you do not sip the social meeds.
Just give us a call. Say it with me one

(01:19:41):
eight three three st d W y t K. You
will have three minutes. Those three minutes are yours and
yours alone. Give yourself fantastic nickname, a code name and alias,
so Monika on A k A. Tell us what's on
your mind, tell us if we can use your name
and or voice on air, and most importantly, do not

(01:20:02):
censor yourself. If you have something that we and your
fellow conspiracy realists need to know and it's going to
take more than three minutes to explain, you can skip
the phone call entirely and just send us an email.
Write the whole thing out. We read every email we
get at our good old fashioned address where we are
conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't

(01:20:41):
want you to know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.