In fact, the key conspirators in the plot to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt were Legionnaires.
- Wall Street banker Grayson Murphy, a West Point grad, who had contributed $125,000 in 1919 to help start the American Legion, was key organizer of the plot. He was also treasurer of the Liberty League.
- Gerald C. MacGuire, a Wall Street bond salesman who worked for Murphy, was the department commander of the American Legion in Massachusetts. He was the point person in the plot.
- It was when MacGuire and Bill Doyle, another Legion commander, visited General Smedley Butler on July 1, 1933, that the two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner first began to suspect that a plot was afoot.
- Butler was also visited by Singer Sewing Machine heir Robert Sterling Clark, who allegedly provided the principal financing for the plot and who asked Butler to “use his influence” at the 1933 convention of the American Legion and speak in favor of the gold standard. As Clark explained to Butler, "I have got 30 million dollars and I don't want to lose it. I am willing to spend half of the 30 million to save the other half."
- In testimony given before the McCormack-Dickstein Committe in 1934, Butler claimed that the plotters had the backing of people within the American Legion and the VFW and that the Liberty League was connected with the plan.
I don't know why we continue to tiptoe around this.
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