Okay, let's see what I got here.

Once upon a time there was a  Lieutenant colonel François de La Rocque. It was 1930 in Paris, and La Rocque becomes the leader of a group of WWI veterans who were advocating the violent overthrow of the French Government. And their greatest fear, or their best kind of fear mongering involved the influences of Socialism and 'hidden Communism'.  Sound familiar?

Irony of ironies of course was that the real enemies of the French would come from the right-wing Nazis who had taken control of the German government and not the commies at all. Eventually, there were confrontations over the next half dozen years or so and by June of '36 this coalition of  right wing nutsos was toast.

It was interesting to me to read of this La Rocque because the amateur historian can see mirror images of this French right wing movement in Germany as well as in the U.S. during the same time period. In Germany of course, the disgruntled WWI veterans won out.

On July 17, 1932, thousands of World War I veterans converged on Washington, D.C., set up tent camps, and demanded immediate payment of bonuses due them according to the Adjusted Service Certificate Law of 1924. This "Bonus Army" was led by Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant. The Army was encouraged by an appearance from retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, who had some influence over the veterans, being a popular military figure of the time. A few days after Butler's arrival, President Herbert Hoover ordered the marchers removed, and their camps were destroyed by US Army cavalry troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur.

Butler, although a self-described Republican, responded by supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 US presidential election

See we had our own group of disgruntled WWI vets at the same time that La Rocque came to the fore in France.  Some 43,000 poverty stricken and disgruntled men and women showed up in DC demanding payment under some seven or eight year old law that  had promised some sort of bonus for those who served their country during the Great War. They actually pitched tents setting up camp. The group included around 17,000 vets as well as their families.

But General Butler turned out not to be anything like La Rocque. And as Wiki notes, he became infuriated when  MacArthur moved in with Patton and Ike leading the cavalry, and decimated the camp.  Although only two vets lost their lives, it was reported that some children died as a result of the use of poison gas  by MacArthur's forces.

These events occurred three years into the Great Depression; a world-wide depression affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people. I find it interesting that our protesting veterans brought their families and were seeking media coverage with no intent of creating a putsch in the manner of the French or German veterans.

A matter of great historical consequence occurred in that same year of course when FDR was elected President of the United States.

The Whitehouse Coup, BBC: Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen  The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush's Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy. [Listen to this programme in full] [View a picture gallery of images related to this edition]  http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/the-plot-agains.html

Smedley Butler shows up to testify before Congress that he had been approached to participate in this coup. According to the link as well as Wiki, no one was prosecuted. In other words, this great man stepped up to the plate and had something to do with the fascist plot's demise.

Now even Wiki disputes its certain portions of its own article.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_MacGuire

What is funny is that Gerald MacGuire, a nobody, was placed somewhere at the core of this proposed coup. Whether he was simply made the fall guy for a conspiracy that went sour, who knows? But powerful money interests were involved along with powerful members and ex members of the Armed Forces of the United States. And Butler was going to be a key figure, because they wanted him to lead a million vet march on Washington; except this was not going to be a camping expedition but a real putsch.

It is funny to me that the ring man is Jerry MacGuire. Hahahah 

But I digress.

One of my favorite movies was re-aired last night on Turner's Classic Movies. Seven Days in May is one of the most fascinating films I have ever seen. It hit the theaters in 1964 but was futuristic in that the events related took place in 1972.

Not only was the screen play written by Rod Serling, but some of my favorite actors appear in it.  I do not especially like black and white films and I am not one to tout actors from the 40's & 50's made in this country. It was not the actors' fault, but censorship was at its height during this period and most of the movies stink in my humble opinion.

But if Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster appear in the same film, I watch it. Add Frederic March to the cast and throw in Edmond O'Brien and Marty Balsam and you are going to have a good time.

Serling wrote the screen play but it was based upon a book by Fletcher Kneibel and Charles Bailey.  Douglas plays the chief assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs played by Lancaster. 

The film opens on a Monday in May. Douglas comes across a file mentioning something called ECOMCON. He also comes across a file involving a solicitation for bets on the upcoming Preakness race to be held the following Sunday.  This bothers the adjutant because the solicitations for wagers are being addressed to the most powerful members of the U.S. Military. It just does not make any sense to him.

The film involves drunken southern politicians (Edmond O'Brien), secret military bases in Texas, a clash between the Joint Chiefs and the President over nuclear arms, a mock national alert that may not be that much of a test at all but the real thing, a conspiracy to shut down and take control of our entire communication system, a murdered Presidential Chief of Staff and a plot to overthrow the government of the United States of America.

On a pretense of taking the night off, Kirk Douglas secretly meets with the President of the United States in the Oval Office to express his concerns.

We find ourselves in the Rumsfeld conundrum:

What do we know and what do we not know?

At what point do you express concerns when you have only indications of criminal conduct undertaken by powerful people?  Context is important in the film because Lancaster's character is acting much worse than MacArthur ever did as a military leader expressing his disagreement with certain actions of his Commander-in-Chief.  I mean this General is going before Congressional Committees spewing out his personal political opinions and dissing his own President.

After several meetings in the Oval Office, it becomes apparent that the plot is not some mirage. There is a secret base. There is an Admiral who refused to participate in the treason--although we lose the evidence given by the Admiral when the Chief of Staff dies in a plane crash.

I cannot gain access to a free transcript of the film but one piece of dialogue is really poignant and goes something like this:

President:  Colonel, tell me, what do you think of this proposed non-proliferation treaty with the Soviets?

Colonel: I do not involve myself in politics Mr. President.

President:  No, it is all right... I just wish to know how you come down on this issue.

Colonel: I do not like the proposed treaty. I think it weakens our position in the world. But I believe in the Constitution and I do not believe that this is my call Mr. President.

Serling does a better job I am sure. But Douglas draws a line. And the expression on the face of Frederic March is not one of disappointment at the Colonel's response.  He expresses a pride that there are still members of the Military who understand their offices and their responsibilities to their country.

It recalled to me the Congressional hearing of a few years ago; that ditsy blond adjutant in the White House Counsel's Office who remarked that she had taken an oath to her president.

Except she never took an oath to her president, she had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Now Wiki tells us that Knebel got his idea for the novel after interviewing Curtis LeMay.

We come to the infamous Bay of Pigs incident.

The scenario of the film may have been inspired by the clash between General Curtis LeMay and President John F. Kennedy. It is suspected that LeMay, furious after the Cuban missile crisis for not being allowed to use his atomic bombs, talked to some of his staff about removing the President from power.

Other observers cite as the inspiration for the story a historically-ambiguous conspiracy among major industrial leaders to enlist retired Marine Gen. Smedley Butler in a plot to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as reported by Butler in his testimony to the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional Committee in 1934.[1] (See Business Plot of 1933.)

I do not believe that Curtis LeMay plotted to overthrow the U.S. Government. He was probably angry, maybe even a little tipsy and said something he should not have. But then again, Knebel said he got the idea for his plot after interviewing LeMay.

Owing to his unrelenting opposition to the Johnson administration's Vietnam policy and what was widely perceived as his hostility to Secretary McNamara, LeMay was essentially forced into retirement in February 1965, and seemed headed for a political career. Moving to California, he was approached by conservatives to challenge moderate Republican Thomas Kuchel for his seat in the United States Senate in 1968, but he declined. For the presidential race that year, LeMay originally supported Richard Nixon; he turned down two requests by George Wallace to join his American Independent Party that year, on the grounds that a third party candidacy might hurt Nixon's chances at the polls. (By coincidence, Wallace had served as a sergeant in a unit commanded by LeMay during World War II.) However, LeMay gradually became convinced that Nixon planned to pursue a conciliatory policy with the Soviets and to accept nuclear parity, rather than retain America's first-strike supremacy....

See, in this country, our right wing generals resign their commissions and run for office. That is why we have the oldest constitutional government in the world.

I love Seven Days in May.

And sometimes I need to be reminded of how much I love my Country.