vault backup: 2026-10-26 19:02:15

40 - EVENTS/HISTORICAL_PHENOMENA/Business Plot.md

@@ -19,15 +19,20 @@ In 1933 members of the DuPont family became involved in what has since been euph
 
 In November 1934 Major General Smedley Butler informed a congressional committee that he had been approached by Grayson Murphy, a director at the [[Guaranty Trust Company]], to lead a paramilitary force composed of American military veterans. The purpose of this force was to provide the muscle for a coup that would install [[Hugh S. Johnson]], then head of the National Recovery Administration, as dictator of the United States. Butler, a decorated Marine who would later denounce war as a racket, testified that the conspirators envisioned relegating the presidency to a ceremonial role while real power rested with a military-industrial cabal.
 
+The committee's public statement of November 1934, released by [[John W. McCormack]] and [[Samuel Dickstein]] as a subcommittee, describes [[Gerald P. MacGuire|Gerald MacGuire]] as a bond salesman with [[Grayson M.-P. Murphy & Co.]] It states that MacGuire testified that he had bought and sold bonds worth about nine million dollars for [[Robert Sterling Clark]] through the Murphy firm, and it records that Paul Conley French, a reporter who had been told of the plan by Butler, testified that he went to the Murphy firm's offices at 52 Broadway on September 13, 1934, where MacGuire received him.[^1]
+
 ### Financial and Industrial Backing
 
-The plot was financed through the Guaranty Trust Company, a J.P. Morgan financial institution with ties to City of London financiers. Armaments for the prospective paramilitary units were to be supplied by Remington Arms Co., a firearms subsidiary controlled by the DuPont family. The DuPonts were not merely passive investors; they were literally fascists in the author's assessment, having maintained cartel arrangements with the Nazi chemicals conglomerate I.G. Farben throughout the 1920s and 1930s. S. Dovey wrote in 2023 that [[Alfred P. Sloan]], who managed [[General Motors]] on behalf of the DuPonts from 1923 to 1966, personally authorized the transfer of Ethyl lead to the [[Luftwaffe]] as late as 1938.[^1] Dovey also wrote that the largest tank manufacturer in Nazi Germany was Opel, a wholly owned GM subsidiary that continued operating under the American corporate umbrella throughout the Second World War.[^1] General Motors' 1974 correspondence to the Senate states that the Nazi government took over the Opel works in November 1939, before the United States entered the war.[^2] The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission recorded that the Russelsheim plant was placed under the control of the German Enemy Property Custodian on November 25, 1942, and that it "sustained severe war damage as a result of allied bombing raids in 1942 and 1944."[^3] The 1974 Senate hearing described Russelsheim as a war plane factory and the Brandenburg works as a truck plant.[^4]
+The plot was financed through the Guaranty Trust Company, a J.P. Morgan financial institution with ties to City of London financiers. Armaments for the prospective paramilitary units were to be supplied by Remington Arms Co., a firearms subsidiary controlled by the DuPont family. The DuPonts were not merely passive investors; they were literally fascists in the author's assessment, having maintained cartel arrangements with the Nazi chemicals conglomerate I.G. Farben throughout the 1920s and 1930s. S. Dovey wrote in 2023 that [[Alfred P. Sloan]], who managed [[General Motors]] on behalf of the DuPonts from 1923 to 1966, personally authorized the transfer of Ethyl lead to the [[Luftwaffe]] as late as 1938.[^2] Dovey also wrote that the largest tank manufacturer in Nazi Germany was Opel, a wholly owned GM subsidiary that continued operating under the American corporate umbrella throughout the Second World War.[^2] General Motors' 1974 correspondence to the Senate states that the Nazi government took over the Opel works in November 1939, before the United States entered the war.[^3] The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission recorded that the Russelsheim plant was placed under the control of the German Enemy Property Custodian on November 25, 1942, and that it "sustained severe war damage as a result of allied bombing raids in 1942 and 1944."[^4] The 1974 Senate hearing described Russelsheim as a war plane factory and the Brandenburg works as a truck plant.[^5]
 
 ### Legacy and Connections
 
 The DuPont family's political influence did not end with the exposure of the Business Plot. Decades later, Joe Biden's first senatorial campaign was fully funded and staffed by DuPont employees in Delaware, and his family moved into an old DuPont mansion following his victory. The corporate culture instilled at General Motors during the DuPont-Sloan era persisted into the 1970s, when executives at the company were accused of participation in organized child abuse rings in Michigan. Francis Shelden and his North Fox Island operation intersected with this same nexus of old money and impunity.
 
-[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.
-[^2]: Copelin, Philip W., letter to Richard C. Gerstenberg, April 5, 1974, Exhibit 2, pp. 2385-2387; Mooney, Michael M., letter to Senator Philip A. Hart, Exhibit 3, pp. 2387-2389; *The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4, Ground Transportation Industries* (1974), https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit.
-[^3]: Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States, *Annual Report to the Congress for the Period January 1-December 31, 1967*, excerpt re General Motors Corporation and General Motors Overseas Corporation, Exhibit 9, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, pp. 2396-2397, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit.
-[^4]: Stradella, C. G., letter to Richard C. Gerstenberg, April 10, 1974, Exhibit 4, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, pp. 2390-2392, quoting the Snell report, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit.
+### Footnotes
+
+[^1]: Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy-third Congress, second session, "Public Statement" released by John W. McCormack and Samuel Dickstein as a subcommittee, November 1934, in *Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities*. https://archive.org/details/CommitteeOnUnamericanActivitiesReport
+[^2]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.
+[^3]: Copelin, Philip W., letter to Richard C. Gerstenberg, April 5, 1974, Exhibit 2, pp. 2385-2387; Mooney, Michael M., letter to Senator Philip A. Hart, Exhibit 3, pp. 2387-2389; *The Industrial Reorganization Act: Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4, Ground Transportation Industries* (1974), https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit.
+[^4]: Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States, *Annual Report to the Congress for the Period January 1-December 31, 1967*, excerpt re General Motors Corporation and General Motors Overseas Corporation, Exhibit 9, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, pp. 2396-2397, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit.
+[^5]: Stradella, C. G., letter to Richard C. Gerstenberg, April 10, 1974, Exhibit 4, *Hearings on S. 1167, Part 4*, pp. 2390-2392, quoting the Snell report, https://archive.org/details/industrialreorga04unit.

40 - EVENTS/MAJOR_CONFLICTS/World War II.md

@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ aliases:
   - WW2
 summary: "World War II (1939-1945) produced the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the postwar recruitment of German scientists and intelligence officers."
 created: 2026-05-14
-updated: 2026-10-14
+updated: 2026-10-26
 relations:
   - type: participant_in
     with: "[[Office of Strategic Services]]"
@@ -141,17 +141,19 @@ A Treasury Department memorandum of August 18, 1941, from Mr. May to Mr. [[J. W.
 
 The memorandum does not name [[Prescott Bush]]. On October 20, 1942 the Alien Property Custodian, Leo T. Crowley, signed Vesting Order Number 248 under the [[Trading with the Enemy Act]], published in the Federal Register on November 7, 1942. It vested "all of the capital stock of Union Banking Corporation, a New York corporation," consisting of 4,000 shares of $100 par value common stock, and listed the registered owners and their shares: E. Roland Harriman, 3,991; Cornelius Lievense, 4; Harold D. Pennington, 1; Ray Morris, 1; Prescott S. Bush, 1; H. J. Kouwenhoven, 1; and Johann G. Groeninger, 1. The order states "all of which shares are held for the benefit of Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart, N. V., Rotterdam, The Netherlands, which bank is owned or controlled by members of the Thyssen family, nationals of Germany and/or Hungary." A second paragraph vested all claims of that bank and of the August Thyssen-Bank, Berlin, against the corporation for indebtedness.[^48]
 
-The Office of Alien Property Custodian's annual report for March 11, 1942 to June 30, 1943 lists property vested from German interests. Its schedules include the interests of I.G. Farbenindustrie in two patent contracts, one with the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company and one with Pen-Chlor, Inc., and the profits resulting from them.[^49]
+Of the seven registered holders in the vesting order, four were connected with Brown Brothers Harriman. [[E. Roland Harriman]] became a partner of the Harriman bank on October 30, 1926 and of the merged firm on January 1, 1931. Prescott Bush was a partner of Harriman Brothers & Co. on January 1, 1930 and of the merged firm on January 1, 1931. [[Ray Morris]] was a partner from January 1, 1921 to 1956. [[Harold D. Pennington]] was a partner of Harriman Brothers during 1930, manager in charge of operations of the merged firm from its start, and a partner from January 1, 1945 to December 31, 1956.[^49]
 
-The prosecution's opening statement in the Farben case before the American Military Tribunal at Nuremberg described the agreements between I.G. Farben and [[Standard Oil]] of New Jersey. The statement says that a 1929 agreement recognized Farben's priority in chemicals and Standard's priority in oil outside Germany, that a 1930 agreement created the jointly owned Joint American Study Company (Jasco) to develop new processes "on a basis of equality (50-50)," and that Frank A. Howard of the Standard Oil Development Company wrote in 1936 that "the IG may be said to be our general partner in the chemical business." It states that Standard turned over its butyl rubber process to Farben while Farben delayed the transfer of its buna rubber processes, and that after the outbreak of war in September 1939 Howard met Farben representatives at The Hague, where Farben transferred its Jasco interest to Standard but not the necessary know-how.[^50] The indictment charged that the cartel agreements delayed the development and production of buna rubber in the United States until 1940.[^51] The Tribunal's judgment in the Farben case describes the 1939 Hague transactions as having been held by the U.S. Federal courts in Standard Oil Co. v. Markham (S.D.N.Y.) and Standard Oil Co. v. Clark (2d Cir., September 22, 1947) to be "sham transactions designed to create an appearance of Jersey ownership of property interests which, nevertheless, continued to be regarded by the parties as IG owned."[^52]
+The Office of Alien Property Custodian's annual report for March 11, 1942 to June 30, 1943 lists property vested from German interests. Its schedules include the interests of I.G. Farbenindustrie in two patent contracts, one with the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company and one with Pen-Chlor, Inc., and the profits resulting from them.[^50]
 
-The New York law firm [[Sullivan & Cromwell]] had German clients in the 1930s, according to Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius's history of the firm, and [[John Foster Dulles]] and [[Allen Dulles]] were partners of the firm.[^53] [[IBM]]'s German subsidiary, Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft ([[Dehomag]]), is the subject of [[Edwin Black]]'s account. Black wrote that Dehomag, "with the knowledge of its New York headquarters," custom-designed devices and applications for the Reich as an official corporate undertaking, and that IBM's New York management understood from 1933 that it was doing business with the upper echelon of the Nazi Party.[^54]
+The prosecution's opening statement in the Farben case before the American Military Tribunal at Nuremberg described the agreements between I.G. Farben and [[Standard Oil]] of New Jersey. The statement says that a 1929 agreement recognized Farben's priority in chemicals and Standard's priority in oil outside Germany, that a 1930 agreement created the jointly owned Joint American Study Company (Jasco) to develop new processes "on a basis of equality (50-50)," and that Frank A. Howard of the Standard Oil Development Company wrote in 1936 that "the IG may be said to be our general partner in the chemical business." It states that Standard turned over its butyl rubber process to Farben while Farben delayed the transfer of its buna rubber processes, and that after the outbreak of war in September 1939 Howard met Farben representatives at The Hague, where Farben transferred its Jasco interest to Standard but not the necessary know-how.[^51] The indictment charged that the cartel agreements delayed the development and production of buna rubber in the United States until 1940.[^52] The Tribunal's judgment in the Farben case describes the 1939 Hague transactions as having been held by the U.S. Federal courts in Standard Oil Co. v. Markham (S.D.N.Y.) and Standard Oil Co. v. Clark (2d Cir., September 22, 1947) to be "sham transactions designed to create an appearance of Jersey ownership of property interests which, nevertheless, continued to be regarded by the parties as IG owned."[^53]
+
+The New York law firm [[Sullivan & Cromwell]] had German clients in the 1930s, according to Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius's history of the firm, and [[John Foster Dulles]] and [[Allen Dulles]] were partners of the firm.[^54] [[IBM]]'s German subsidiary, Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft ([[Dehomag]]), is the subject of [[Edwin Black]]'s account. Black wrote that Dehomag, "with the knowledge of its New York headquarters," custom-designed devices and applications for the Reich as an official corporate undertaking, and that IBM's New York management understood from 1933 that it was doing business with the upper echelon of the Nazi Party.[^55]
 
 ### War crimes trials and the disclosure record
 
-The International Military Tribunal sat at [[Nuremberg]] from November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946.[^55] The United States tried about 1,700 German and other Axis nationals at [[Dachau]] for concentration camp crimes.[^43]
+The International Military Tribunal sat at [[Nuremberg]] from November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946.[^56] The United States tried about 1,700 German and other Axis nationals at [[Dachau]] for concentration camp crimes.[^43]
 
-The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, Public Law 105-246 of October 8, 1998, directed the release of Nazi war criminal records and established the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group.[^56] The Working Group's 2007 report is the principal government account of how those records were handled, including the Gehlen files and the Draganovic memorandum.[^57]
+The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, Public Law 105-246 of October 8, 1998, directed the release of Nazi war criminal records and established the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group.[^57] The Working Group's 2007 report is the principal government account of how those records were handled, including the Gehlen files and the Draganovic memorandum.[^58]
 
 ### Footnotes
 
@@ -203,12 +205,13 @@ The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, Public Law 105-246 of October 8, 1998, direc
 [^46]: Sheldon H. Harris, *Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-45, and the American Cover-Up* (Routledge, rev. ed. 2002), p. 63.
 [^47]: Treasury Department memorandum, Mr. May to Mr. Pehle, August 18, 1941, "Re: Union Banking Corporation," ref. 9-151, with handwritten notation by J. W. Pehle, declassified by NARA (authority NND 960103). Copy held in an archive.org collection of Bush-related documents.
 [^48]: Office of the Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order Number 248, "All of the Capital Stock of Union Banking Corporation and Certain Indebtedness Owing by It," executed October 20, 1942, signed Leo T. Crowley, F.R. Doc. 42-11568, filed November 6, 1942, 7 *Federal Register* 9097 (November 7, 1942). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1942-11-07/pdf/FR-1942-11-07.pdf
-[^49]: Office of Alien Property Custodian, *Annual Report for the period March 11, 1942 to June 30, 1943*, schedule of vested interests (I.G. Farbenindustrie patent contracts with Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co. and Pen-Chlor, Inc.). https://archive.org/details/officeofalienpro00unit
-[^50]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals*, vol. VII (The Farben Case), prosecution opening statement, pp. 162-167 (1929 and 1930 Standard Oil agreements, Jasco, Howard's letter of 1936, butyl and buna, the Hague conference of September 1939; documents NI-10550, NI-10433, NI-10431, NI-10455). https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/NT_war-criminals.html
-[^51]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals*, vol. VII, indictment, paragraph 57.
-[^52]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals*, vol. VIII (The Farben Case), Decision and Judgment of the Tribunal, pp. 1273-1290 (Standard Oil agreements; *Standard Oil Co. v. Markham*, 64 F. Supp. 656 (S.D.N.Y.), and *Standard Oil Co. v. Clark*, 163 F.2d 917 (2d Cir. 1947), as quoted by the Tribunal).
-[^53]: Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius, *A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm Sullivan & Cromwell* (New York: William Morrow, 1988), pp. 95, 120-127, 132-133, 141 and 144.
-[^54]: Edwin Black, *IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation* (Crown, 2001), introduction.
-[^55]: *Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal*, Proceedings Volumes, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/imt.asp
-[^56]: Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, Public Law 105-246, 112 Stat. 1859 (October 8, 1998), Section 2. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-105publ246/pdf/PLAW-105publ246.pdf
-[^57]: Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, *Final Report to Congress* (April 2007), pp. 48 and 56. https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/reports/final-report-2007.pdf
+[^49]: John A. Kouwenhoven, *Partners in Banking: An Historical Portrait of a Great Private Bank, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., 1818-1968* (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), partner table pp. 231 to 235 and caption of the Pennington photograph pp. 197 to 198. https://archive.org/details/partnersinbankinganhistoricalportraitofagreatprivateb
+[^50]: Office of Alien Property Custodian, *Annual Report for the period March 11, 1942 to June 30, 1943*, schedule of vested interests (I.G. Farbenindustrie patent contracts with Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co. and Pen-Chlor, Inc.). https://archive.org/details/officeofalienpro00unit
+[^51]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals*, vol. VII (The Farben Case), prosecution opening statement, pp. 162-167 (1929 and 1930 Standard Oil agreements, Jasco, Howard's letter of 1936, butyl and buna, the Hague conference of September 1939; documents NI-10550, NI-10433, NI-10431, NI-10455). https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/NT_war-criminals.html
+[^52]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals*, vol. VII, indictment, paragraph 57.
+[^53]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals*, vol. VIII (The Farben Case), Decision and Judgment of the Tribunal, pp. 1273-1290 (Standard Oil agreements; *Standard Oil Co. v. Markham*, 64 F. Supp. 656 (S.D.N.Y.), and *Standard Oil Co. v. Clark*, 163 F.2d 917 (2d Cir. 1947), as quoted by the Tribunal).
+[^54]: Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius, *A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm Sullivan & Cromwell* (New York: William Morrow, 1988), pp. 95, 120-127, 132-133, 141 and 144.
+[^55]: Edwin Black, *IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation* (Crown, 2001), introduction.
+[^56]: *Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal*, Proceedings Volumes, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/imt.asp
+[^57]: Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, Public Law 105-246, 112 Stat. 1859 (October 8, 1998), Section 2. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-105publ246/pdf/PLAW-105publ246.pdf
+[^58]: Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, *Final Report to Congress* (April 2007), pp. 48 and 56. https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/reports/final-report-2007.pdf