The Plot To Seize The White House (27 page)

The committee would surely have to subpoena all the people who were implicated, in one way or another, to testify at that open meeting under oath.

Fresh support for Butler's expose came from Van Zandt, who revealed to the press that he, too, had been approached by "agents of Wall Street" to lead a Fascist dictatorship in the United States under the guise of a "Veterans Organization."

He revealed that Butler had informed him about the plotters'

solicitation of the general two months earlier and had warned him that he, too, would be contacted by them at the V.F.W. convention in Louisville, Kentucky. Van Zandt said he had asked Butler the purpose of the organization and the general had replied that it sought to return the American dollar to the gold standard and, in MacGuire's words, "to get rid of this fellow in the White House."

In addition to Butler and himself, Van Zandt told reporters, MacArthur, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and former Legion Commander Hanford MacNider had recently been sounded out on their interest in leading the proposed Fascist veterans organization. He also charged that MacGuire had spent months in Europe studying Fascist organizations as models for an American one.

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., decried as "ridiculous" the idea that he could be used to wrest the powers of the Presidency away from his fourth cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

McCormack declared that the committee was continuing to give serious consideration to General Butler's charges and might call Van Zandt to testify on the proposals made to him and others he had named. MacGuire would be called before the committee again in executive session, he announced, for scrutiny 
of his bank accounts and records. But McCormack indicated that he intended to keep the scope of the investigation circumscribed by legal considerations.

"We don't intend to drag in names that come to us through rumors," he told reporters. "If investigation discloses there is sufficient reason to subpoena witnesses, we will do so. Simply because someone mentions the name of Mr. Lamont or General Johnson is not sufficient to ask them to appear before the committee."

Meanwhile the focus of the committee's interest was shifted when it turned its attention to investigating charges that some left-wing unions had used a three-million-dollar fund to "foment and carry on strikes."
The New
York Times
ran headlines reading "Reds Fund Activity in Fur Industry" and "Red Union Funds Traced at Hearing." Buried in third-rank subheads, and in the body of the story, was further information about the Fascist plot.

A news dispatch from Paris reported that Robert Sterling Clark was sending a lawyer to New York to answer charges made by Butler and "clear the matter up." Clark declared himself bewildered by the mention of his name and said he would send the lawyer "if the whole affair isn't relegated to the funny papers by Sunday."

"MacGuire went to Europe for me, but his visit had nothing to do with politics," he insisted. "He visited France, Italy and Germany and was in Paris in February of this year. He spent four months on the Continent. His trip was made for the purposes of investigating the financial situation, the possibilities of monetary stabilization and commercial trends."

When reporters showed him Van Zandt's accusation that MacGuire had returned to the United States with copious data for setting up an American Fascist regime, he exclaimed, "My God, what is back of all this? I saw all of MacGuire's reports. I cannot imagine him doing anything else on the side."

Although he was on vacation in Paris, Clark declared, he was ready to return to testify if the committee summoned him.

MacGuire showed up a third time for interrogation by the committee, this time with the bankbooks, canceled checks, and other financial records he was ordered to produce. Before entering the committee room accompanied by his counsel, he asked permission to read to the committee a cablegram he had received from Albert Grant Christmas, Clark's lawyer, in Paris:

Read this wire when you testify. Reports of the Butler testimony in Paris outrageous. If reports are correct, my opinion is that a most serious libel has been committed. I am returning at once to testify as to our anti-inflation activities.

MacGuire now testified that on September 24, 1933, on the date Butler had said he was approached by MacGuire in the Newark hotel and offered eighteen thousand-dollar bills, MacGuire had been in Chicago.

He claimed to have registered at the Palmer House on September 21, remaining in Chicago until October 8, so that he could not have met Butler in Newark on the twenty-fourth.

But committee investigators found that he had indeed called upon Butler that day and had had available at least sixteen thousand dollars, largely in thousand-dollar bills. Unless MacGuire had shown them to him, Butler could not possibly have known about them, lending strong verification to the general's charge that they had been tossed on his bed as a bribe.

MacGuire produced the bank accounts of the Committee for a Sound Dollar and Sound Currency, Inc., of which he was an official, and whose purpose he described as "opposing monetary inflation in the United States." He and his lawyer now insisted 
that the only discussions MacGuire had had with Butler concerned financial backing for a contracting concern.

MacGuire reluctantly admitted receiving $75,000 from Clark for an "unexplained purpose," the McCormack-Dickstein Committee report later noted, while working on a drawing account of $432 a month. This $75,000 was in addition to $30,00o he had also received from Walter E. 
Frew, of the Corn Exchange Bank, for the Committee for a Sound Dollar and Sound Currency, Inc. "Whether there was more, and how much more," said the report, the [McCormack-Dickstein] Committee does not yet know."

MacGuire admitted spending almost $8,000 on the trip to Europe, ostensibly to buy bonds, but the investigators noted the trip had resulted in detailed reports to MacGuire's backers on various Fascist organizations abroad.

Although he still denied having tossed the eighteen thousand--
dollar bills on Butler's bed in the Newark hotel, the committee found bank records showing he had bought letters of credit six days later from Central Hanover Bank, paying for them with thirteen thousand-dollar bills.

The testimony of MacGuire under oath flatly contradicted everything Butler had testified to. The McCormack-Dickstein Committee was left with no other option than to conclude either that Butler was lying, in which case the whole plot was a fabrication or fantasy, or that MacGuire was lying, in which case Butler's charges were true, and the dangerous conspiracy of which he warned was a reality.

MCCORMACK: Did you leave a speech with him-a speech that he was to make to the convention if he went out there?

MACGUIRE: No, sir.

MCCORMACK: Was anything said about weakening the influence of the administration with the soldiers?

MACGUIRE: No, sir;
I
do not believe the administration was mentioned, as far as President Roosevelt or anybody down there are concerned....

MCCORMACK: Was there some talk about his going out as an individual Legionnaire and having two or three hundred Legionnaires go out to Chicago, too?

MACGUIRE: No, sir. . . .
 

MCCORMACK: At any time did you take out a bank book and show him deposits in it?

MACGUIRE: No, sir. . . .

MCCORMACK: Did he at any time ask you where you got the money?

MACGUIRE: I never had any money, and he never asked me if I had any. . . .

MCCORMACK: Did you know that Mr. Clark had a personal talk with General Butler?

MACGUIRE: It seems to me that he mentioned it to me, but I am not sure. . . .

MCCORMACK: Did you know that Mr. Clark talked with him about going to the convention?

MACGUIRE: No, sir; I do not....

MCCORMACK: Did Mr. Clark call you up in Chicago at any time?

MACGUIRE: Mr. Clark. No, sir....

MCCORMACK: Did 11e ever call you uP in Chicago from General Butler's home?

MACGUIRE: No, sir; to my recollection he did not. . . .

MCCORMACK: Did you tell him [Butler] at that time that you went abroad to study the part that the veterans played abroad in the set-up of the governments of the countries abroad?

MACGUIRE: No, sir.... .

MCCORMACK: Did you talk with him about the forming of an organization of that kind here.

MACGUIRE: No, sir....

MCCORMACK: You previously testified that you only had one transaction in the swapping of checks with Christmas [Clark's attorney] 
of $20,000 and until later, when you paid him back the balance?

MAcGUIRE: No; I believe that was paid back to Christmas in cash.

MCCORMACK: What have you got to show that?

MACGUIRE: I haven't got anything to show it.

MCCORMACK: Did you receive a receipt from Christmas?

MACGUIRE: No, sir; not necessarily; as far as that goes, he is an old friend of mine. . . .

At this point McCormack produced subpoenaed bank records showing that MacGuire had cashed letters of credit in the 
amount of $30,300, prior to the Legion convention in Chicago. MacGuire claimed that this money was meant to allow him to buy bonds in case he came across a good buy.

MCCORMACK: What did you do with that $30,300 in 
Chicago?

MACGUIRE: I kept that money in cash and put it in a safe deposit box with the First National Bank....

MCCORMACK: What became of that money? 

MACGUIRE: 
That money was brought back and returned to Mr. Christmas.

MCCORMACK: In cash?

MACGUIRE: Yes.

MCCORMACK: When did you return this $30,300 to Mr. 
Christmas?

MACGUIRE: I do not remember the date. . . .

MCCORMACK: Did you get a receipt for it?

MACGUIRE: No, I did not get a receipt for it....

MCCORMACK: Let me ask you this: why should you have cashed the letters of credit in Chicago and put that money in a safe deposit box?

MACGUIRE: Because I felt that if I had a chance to buy the bonds I could buy them right off for cash.

MCCORMACK: Wouldn't letters of credit be accepted just as cash?

MACGUIRE: They probably would.

MCCORMACK: Wouldn't they be safer than cash on your person?

MACGUIRE: They probably would, yes; but there is no objection to getting the cash, is there? ...

MCCORMACK: Did you buy any bonds?

MACGUIRE: No, sir.

MCCORMACK: What bonds did you want to buy? ...

MACGUIRE: I think Chicago Sanitary District 4's.

MCCORMACK: Whom did you talk to about buying the Chicago Sanitary District 4's?

MACGUIRE: I did not talk to anybody.

MCCORMACK: Whom did you speak to about it?

MACGUIRE: I didn't speak to anybody....

McCormack next turned to subpoenaed reports that MacGuire had sent back from Europe and cited the one he had sent back 
praising the Croix de Feu as a model veterans organization. He also read out another report MacGuire had submitted to his backers on the Fascist party of Holland.

MCCORMACK: And in this report you also said: "I was informed that there is a Fascist Party springing up in Holland under the leadership of a man named Mussait who is an engineer by profession, and who has approximately 50,000 followers at the present time, ranging in age from 18 to 25 years. It is said that this man is in close touch with Berlin and is modeling his entire program along the lines followed by Hitler in Germany. . . ." So you studied this Fascist Party when you were in Holland, did you?

MACGUIRE: No, sir;
I
did not. It was a matter of public information in the press and was reported so in the letter....

The committee examined tellers from the Central Hanover Bank and Trust Company and other banks on financial transactions that had taken place between MacGuire and Clark, on the account of Albert Christmas, Clark's attorney.

Evidence was found that the day before MacGuire had allegedly seen Butler in Newark, he had drawn six thousand dollars m thousand-dollar bills from a "special account" in the Manufacturers Trust Company and had also been given ten thousand dollars in thousand-dollar bills by Christmas in Clark's presence. The committee was convinced that MacGuire had been the "cashier" for the planned veterans organization.

The committee also found evidence that disproved MacGuire's alibi that he had been in Chicago on September 24, as well as his contention that he had not seen Butler on that day at the Newark hotel.

And it was established beyond dispute that he had written detailed letters to Clark and Christmas reporting on the Black Shirts of Italy, the Brown Shirts of Germany, and the Croix de Feu of France.

McCormack announced grimly that he would subpoena Clark as soon as he returned from Europe. "As the evidence stands," he declared, "it calls for an explanation that the committee has been unable to obtain from Mr. MacGuire."

On November 26, 1934, referring to MacGuire's testimony, 
Representative Dickstein declared, "You can't get away from it - 
somebody is trying to shield somebody on something that looks rotten, and honest people don't do that."

When the committee called no further witnesses from among those named in the testimony, gossip swept Washington that the uncalled witnesses were simply too powerful to be subpoenaed.

Investigating, reporter John Spivak learned that the only one known to have been called to testify was California banker Frank N. 
Belgrano, commander of the American Legion. Checking into why he had not testified, Spivak found that he had been informed he could return home without having to answer a single question. The reporter could not verify a rumor that Belgrano had met with President Roosevelt at the White House, after which he had been taken off the committee's hook.

When Spivak tried to learn more about this from the committee itself, Dickstein revealed that he didn't know why Belgrano had been sent home without being questioned, and McCormack declined to answer any questions on the subject.