Pt. 1: Past Coup Attempts in the U.S. (AFA 10)

Part 1a 42:41 | Part 1b 42:19 | Part 1c 42:50 | Part 1d 44:48
(Record­ed July 11, 1985)

First of a four-part series about fas­cism in Amer­i­ca, this pro­gram doc­u­ments the ear­ly growth and pow­er­ful nature of Amer­i­can fas­cism. Much of the pro­gram cen­ters on the actions of Amer­i­can indus­tri­al­ists and financiers sym­pa­thet­ic to fas­cism, most of whom were also pro­fes­sion­al­ly con­nect­ed to cor­po­rate ele­ments in Nazi Ger­many.

The pro­gram presents analy­sis and his­to­ry of the rela­tion­ship of the Mor­gan and Dupont inter­ests to the MacArthur Group in the mil­i­tary (Gen­er­al Dou­glas MacArthur and an impor­tant group of high-rank­ing offi­cers on his staff.) The machi­na­tions of this eco­nom­ic, mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal milieu are the focus of much of the broad­cast.

The show high­lights the 1934 coup attempt by pow­er­ful mem­bers of Amer­i­ca’s cor­po­rate elite. Dis­sat­is­fied to the point of trea­son by Pres­i­dent Roo­sevelt’s New Deal, they sought to over­throw FDR and install a Mus­soli­ni-style “cor­po­rate state.” (See Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Show M42.) The con­spir­a­tors sought to uti­lize an armed force of World War I vet­er­ans, led by Marine Corps Major Gen­er­al Smed­ley But­ler, a two-time win­ner of the Con­gres­sion­al Medal of Hon­or.

A true patri­ot, But­ler pre­tend­ed to go along with the con­spir­a­tors, but actu­al­ly informed the Roo­sevelt admin­is­tra­tion of the plot. Dur­ing the sub­se­quent Con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tion, But­ler revealed that among the cen­tral con­spir­a­tors were mem­bers of the Mor­gan-Dupont eco­nom­ic axis and that Dou­glas MacArthur had been the plot­ters’ first choice to lead the coup.

The pro­gram also doc­u­ments the involve­ment of ele­ments of the MacArthur/Morgan/Dupont milieu in sub­se­quent attempts to over­throw FDR. Some of those attempts were under­tak­en in con­junc­tion with Third Reich intel­li­gence offi­cers and with the knowl­edge and bless­ing of the Nazi lead­er­ship.

The pro­gram con­cludes with his­to­ry and analy­sis of the pro­gram of assas­si­na­tion and ter­ror con­duct­ed by the so-called “Black Reich­swehr” (para-mil­i­tary units func­tion­ing at the behest of the Ger­man mil­i­tary lead­er­ship.) This assas­si­na­tion pro­gram paved the way for Hitler’s rise to pow­er.

Pro­gram high­lights include: the Nazi /fascist back­ground of Major Gen­er­al Charles Willough­by (Dou­glas MacArthur’s top intel­li­gence offi­cer from 1939 through the begin­ning of the Kore­an War); MacArthur’s selec­tion of Andres Sori­ano (a promi­nent Phillip­ine fas­cist) to hold a key post in the islands after “lib­er­a­tion;” the sup­port giv­en by the 1934 coup back­ers to Hitler; MacArthur staffer Gen­er­al George Van Horne Mose­ley’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ger­man intel­li­gence in an attempt to over­throw FDR; Amer­i­can fas­cist William Dud­ley Pel­ley’s trea­so­nous attempts to help over­throw Roo­sevelt (also under­tak­en in con­junc­tion with Ger­man intel­li­gence); the post-World War II Amer­i­can right’s adop­tion of the ide­o­log­i­cal line of the pre-war domes­tic fas­cists; the con­nec­tions of the ear­ly Nazi par­ty in Ger­many to Reich­swehr intel­li­gence

Pt. 2: The John Birch Soci­ety (AFA 11)

Part 2a 43:32 | Part 2b 43:49 | Part 2c 42:37 | Part 2d 42:40 | Part 2e 21:30
(Record­ed Sep­tem­ber 8, 1985)

Most Amer­i­cans have heard of the John Birch Soci­ety, but few know much about its ori­gins and his­to­ry. Con­tin­u­ing the line of analy­sis from AFA-10, this pro­gram doc­u­ments the real­i­ty of this orga­ni­za­tion. Con­cen­trat­ing on attempts to over­throw con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment in the Unit­ed States, the pro­gram empha­sizes the role of the “Chi­na Lob­by,” ele­ments of the John Birch Soci­ety and their respec­tive roles in the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy.

The broad­cast delin­eates the evo­lu­tion of the Chi­na Lob­by, dat­ing from the end of World War II. Soci­ety fig­ure­head John Birch was the intel­li­gence offi­cer for Gen­er­al Claire Chenault’s Fly­ing Tigers in World War II, sub­se­quent­ly serv­ing with the OSS Chi­na con­tin­gent. Birch was killed recruit­ing Chi­nese col­lab­o­ra­tionst troops to fight the Chi­nese com­mu­nists. (These col­lab­o­ra­tionist forces had served the Japan­ese dur­ing World War II.) Com­ing lit­tle more than a week after the end of the war in the Pacif­ic, his death was her­ald­ed by the Amer­i­can right as “the begin­ning of World War III.”

The dis­cus­sion turns to oth­er instances of Japan­ese and/or Axis forces being recruit­ed by the U.S. and the Kuom­intang to fight against Mao Tse Tung’s forces. (As late as 1947, there were 80,000 ful­ly-armed Japan­ese troops in east­ern and north­west­ern Manchuria alone help­ing to guard the rail­way sys­tem for Chi­ang Kai- shek’s forces.)

The “Chi­na Lob­by” evolved from Amer­i­can mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence per­son­nel who served in Chi­na dur­ing the war. Most impor­tant of these was Gen­er­al Albert C. Wede­mey­er, who replaced Gen­er­al Joseph Still­well as Amer­i­can mil­i­tary lia­son to Chi­ang Kai- shek. (Birch had been under Wede­mey­er’s com­mand at the time of his death.) Edu­cat­ed (in part) at the Ger­man mil­i­tary acad­e­my in Nazi Ger­many, Wede­mey­er rent­ed his apart­ment from Ger­hard Ross­bach. Along with Ernst Rohm, Ross­bach had com­mand­ed the SA and worked for the CIA after the war.

Wede­mey­er remains the chief sus­pect in the delib­er­ate betray­al of the U.S. mobi­liza­tion for World War II to The Chica­go Tri­bune, bit­ter­ly opposed to both FDR and the prospect of Amer­i­can entry into the war. Its pub­li­ca­tion fun­da­men­tal­ly com­pro­mised U.S. mil­i­tary prepa­ra­tion for war. Wede­mey­er became a lynch­pin of the Chi­na Lob­by and a dar­ling of the far right in the 1940’s and 50’s. In the 1980’s, Rea­gan appoint­ed the reac­ti­vat­ed Wede­mey­er to a spe­cial mil­i­tary posi­tion.

The pro­gram cen­ters on the work­ing hypoth­e­sis that ele­ments of the John Birch Soci­ety served as a front, enabling reac­tionary ele­ments of the mil­i­tary to project their activ­i­ties into civil­ian soci­ety in order to affect polit­i­cal reac­tion. In this respect, the orga­ni­za­tion func­tioned in a man­ner rough­ly anal­o­gous to the Ger­man Nazi Par­ty in the 1920’s.

The pro­gram high­lights the over­lap­ping ele­ments between the Chi­na Lob­by and the JBS. Ele­ments of the John Birch Soci­ety par­tic­i­pat­ed in the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy, func­tion­ing in con­junc­tion with fas­cist and Nazi ele­ments dat­ing from World War II.

Mr. Emory con­cep­tu­al­izes Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion as the res­o­lu­tion of a con­sti­tu­tion­al strug­gle between the civil­ian and mil­i­tary sec­tors of Amer­i­can soci­ety, the cul­mi­na­tion of a chain of events begun with the 1934 coup attempt and the com­ing of fas­cism to Amer­i­ca.

Pro­gram high­lights include: Gestapo spy Louis Siefken’s stint as Chi­ang Kai Chek’s intel­li­gence chief dur­ing the war; Gen­er­al Edwin Walk­er’s ser­vice as chief U.S. mil­i­tary advis­er to Chi­ang in the 1950’s; Walk­er’s polit­i­cal con­flicts with Kennedy; the alleged “attempt” by Oswald in April of 1963; the stag­ing of the alleged Oswald/Walker inci­dent by Lar­rie Schmidt and Amer­i­can Nazi ele­ments spawned with­in Amer­i­can Army units in Ger­many; the col­lab­o­ra­tion of the Schmidt/ CUSA milieu with the H.L. Hunt finan­cial empire, ele­ments asso­ci­at­ed with the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc Nations, the Gehlen spy out­fit and World War II era Ger­man Nazis; the Hunt- spon­sored Amer­i­can Vol­un­teer Group (formed to assas­si­nate Amer­i­can polit­i­cal fig­ures); the gen­e­sis of the group’s title with the Fly­ing Tigers (Birch’s unit).

Part 3 (AFA 12)

Part 3a 43:27 | Part 3b 43:21 | Part 3c 43:13 | Part 3d 43:03 | Part 3e 43:15 | Part 3f 11:03
(Record­ed Octo­ber 24, 1985)

This pro­gram details the involve­ment of groups and indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed in AFA #‘s 10 & 11 in the assas­si­na­tions of Pres­i­dent Kennedy, his broth­er Robert and Mar­tin Luther King. Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis is on the role played in the JFK assas­si­na­tion by neo-Nazis and Bay of Pigs vet­er­ans enraged by Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s lit­tle-known attempts to nor­mal­ize diplo­mat­ic rela­tions with Cuba’s Fidel Cas­tro.

Two piv­otal and over­lap­ping ele­ments in Mr. Emory’s analy­sis are what he termed “the Cuban Freiko­rps” and the historical/functional con­ti­nu­ity between the Chi­na, Guatemala and Cuban lob­bies. Many of the peo­ple and insti­tu­tions that com­pro­mised the Chi­na Lob­by (dis­cussed in AFA-11) direct­ed their ener­gies toward the over­throw of Guatemalan pres­i­dent Jacobo Arbenz. (Arbenz was deposed in a CIA-led coup in 1954.)

Those ele­ments from the China/Guatemala lob­by lent their efforts to the CIA-coor­di­nat­ed efforts to depose Cas­tro. Fol­low­ing the unsuc­cess­ful Bay of Pigs inva­sion of 1961, a huge para­mil­i­tary milieu picked up where that inva­sion had left off. Offi­cial­ly “pri­vate,” this milieu was actu­al­ly a clan­des­tine exten­sion of the nation­al secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment coor­di­nat­ed by the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty. In this regard, these anti-Cas­tro war­riors were anal­o­gous to the Freiko­rps or “Black Reich­swehr,” whose mur­der­ous activ­i­ties in the 1920’s helped over­throw the Weimar Repub­lic (see AFA-10 and M5.)

Far from acced­ing to the Cuban Freiko­rps’ desire to depose Cas­tro, Pres­i­dent Kennedy was mov­ing to nor­mal­ize rela­tions with Cuba at the time of his death. Uti­liz­ing a back-door diplo­mat­ic chan­nel to Cas­tro, Kennedy had worked out a ten­ta­tive agree­ment with the Cuban strong­man. The accord involved a quid pro quo, with Kennedy tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for the hat­ed Batista dic­ta­tor­ship (over­thrown by Cas­tro’s rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies) on behalf of the Unit­ed States and Cas­tro mov­ing away from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­nists in his own cir­cle, Che Gue­vara in par­tic­u­lar. (Cas­tro, although Marx­ist, was pri­mar­i­ly a Cuban nation­al­ist and under­stood that the best long-term prospects for his coun­try lay in a pro­duc­tive rela­tion­ship with its giant neigh­bor to the North. His near brush with nuclear war in the Cuban mis­sile cri­sis fresh­ly in mind, Kennedy was attempt­ing to end the Cold War.)

There are firm indi­ca­tions that the anti-Cas­tro Cuban com­mu­ni­ty had learned of the secret nego­ti­a­tions, which fur­ther enraged them against Kennedy. At the moment that he heard that Kennedy had been killed, Cas­tro was meet­ing with Jean Daniel, a French jour­nal­ist serv­ing as one of JFK’s diplo­mat­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Cas­tro is report­ed to have said “this is bad news. bad news!” In the years since the assas­si­na­tion, Daniel, mem­bers of the Kennedy state depart­ment and Cas­tro him­self have con­firmed this account.

Pro­gram high­lights include: the role of Loran Eugene Hall (inves­ti­gat­ed by New Orleans D.A. Jim Gar­ri­son in con­nec­tion with the JFK assas­si­na­tion) in the “Cuban Freiko­rps;” Rea­gan aide (and lat­er U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al) Ed Meese’s efforts at sub­merg­ing the truth con­cern­ing the Gar­ri­son inves­ti­gaion by deep-six­ing the extra­di­tion request for Edgar Eugene Bradley; the role of Sol­dier of For­tune edi­tor Robert K. Brown in the Anti-Cas­tro effort; Aryan Nations aide Kei­th Gilbert’s attempt to kill Dr. Mar­tin Luther King Jr. (he claims to have been pro­tect­ed and financed by pow­er­ful peo­ple while in prison for the attempt); Gilbert’s links to Loran Eugene Hall and both men’s con­nec­tions to the milieu of Colonel William Pot­ter Gale, a for­mer MacArthur aide and a prime-mover in the Aryan Nations milieu.

Pt. 4: The Ku Klux Klan (AFA 13)

Part 4a 42:57 | Part 4b 43:00 | Part 4c 42:33 | Part 4d 43:18 | Part 4e 44:07
(Record­ed Decem­ber 5, 1985)

The con­clud­ing install­ment of this episod­ic exam­i­na­tion of Amer­i­can fas­cism, this broad­cast high­lights the involve­ment of Ku Klux Klan ele­ments with ele­ments of the nation­al secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment. Empha­siz­ing the involve­ment of some of these ele­ments with the assas­si­na­tions of the Kennedy broth­ers and Mar­tin Luther King, the pro­gram demon­strates that the Klan is far more than an amal­gam of night-rid­ing red­necks. In addi­tion, involve­ment of Klan ele­ments with instances of ter­ror­ism have helped to expose the ambigu­ous roles of some par­tic­i­pants.

After ana­lyz­ing con­nec­tions between a Sirhan dou­ble and Aryan Nations fig­ure Kei­th Gilbert (men­tioned in AFA-12 in con­nec­tion with an attempt on the life of Mar­tin Luther King), the dis­cus­sion turns to the links between the 16th Street Bap­tist Church bomb­ing and the assas­si­na­tions of John Kennedy and Mar­tin Luther King (see G‑4, AFA‑8). One of the most noto­ri­ous inci­dents of vio­lence dur­ing the civ­il rights strug­gles of the 1960’s, the church bomb­ing was per­pe­trat­ed by Klan ele­ments, led by Robert Cham­b­liss.

Cham­b­lis­s’s defense was con­duct­ed by for­mer Birm­ing­ham may­or Arthur Hanes Sr. In addi­tion to rep­re­sent­ing James Earl Ray (see AFA‑8), Hanes had worked for the FBI, CIA and was the may­or of Birm­ing­ham when that the city was at the cen­ter of the civ­il rights strug­gle. A record­ing made in ear­ly Novem­ber of 1963 by a Mia­mi police infor­mant con­nects the 16th St. Bap­tist Church bomb­ing with the assas­si­na­tions of Mar­tin Luther King and JFK.

Dis­cussed at some length in AFA-12, the “Cuban Freiko­rps” milieu involved numer­ous Klan ele­ments, as well as Amer­i­can Nazi Par­ty mem­bers and mem­bers of var­i­ous para­mil­i­tary right-wing orga­ni­za­tions. The dis­cus­sion high­lights the 3‑bullet sui­cide of Amer­i­can Nazi Par­ty mem­ber Daniel Bur­ros at the home of Penn­syl­va­nia Klan mem­ber Roy Frankhouser. (Bur­ros’ name and phone num­ber were in Oswald’s address book at the time of his arrest.) Frankhouser has worked for the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, his role being var­i­ous­ly described as work­ing for CIA or Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

Much of the pro­gram focus­es on David Duke, the Louisiana fas­cist who has been a Nazi, a Klans­man and a Repub­li­can can­di­date for office. Orig­i­nal­ly a mem­ber of George Lin­coln Rock­well’s Amer­i­can Nazi Par­ty (Rock­well’s address and phone num­ber were also in Oswald’s address book), Duke has main­tained that he worked for the CIA in South­east Asia. Although the Agency has denied Duke’s asser­tion, pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tors who have inves­ti­gat­ed the Klan have con­curred with Duke’s claim of gov­ern­ment ser­vice.

The broad­cast also details the involve­ment of numer­ous gov­ern­ment agents (dou­bling as Klan & Nazi mem­bers) with a mixed Klan and Nazi con­tin­gent that mas­sa­cred some com­mu­nist demon­stra­tors in Greens­boro, North Car­oli­na in 1979. The con­clud­ing sec­tion of the pro­gram looks at the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tions as the cul­mi­na­tion of the devel­op­ment of Amer­i­can fas­cism and the ulti­mate expo­nent of “Freiko­rps method­ol­o­gy”.

Pro­gram high­lights include: David Duke’s role as an unin­dict­ed co-con­spir­a­tor in an abortive Klan and Nazi takeover of the Caribbean island of Domeni­ca (all of the inva­sion’s oth­er plan­ners were indict­ed.); the role of ATF agent Bernard Butkovich with the Klan and Nazi group that per­pe­trat­ed the Greens­boro mas­sacre; the role of Ed Daw­son (who led the Nazi & Klan car­a­van in Greens­boro) as an FBI infor­mant; the CIA back­ground of the fore­man of the jury that acquit­ted the Nazis & Klans­men of the Greens­boro mas­sacre; the influ­ence of the abortive Klan-Nazi Domeni­can coup attempt in set­ting the stage for Domeni­ca’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the U.S.-led inva­sion of Grena­da; FBI infor­mant Gary Thomas Rowe’s role in the slay­ing of civ­il rights activist Vio­la Liuz­zo; Louis Far­rakhan’s asso­ci­a­tion with Nazi and white suprema­cist ele­ments.