[R-G] 1934: The Plot Against America (Harper's)

[gregory meyerson]

hi:  I couldn't access the documentary.


has anyone succeeded in accessing it?
On Jul 31, 2007, at 3:43 PM, Sid Shniad wrote:

>
>    [1]http://harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651
>
>
>    Harpers                [2]July 28, 2007
>
>
>    DEPARTMENT
>
>
>
>    [3]No Comment
>
>
>    1934: The Plot Against America
>
>
>
>    By [4]Scott Horton
>
>
>    Im back from the land of heather and thistles, not to mention wee
>    drams and lukewarm ale, but on my way out a friend at the BBC  
> alerted
>    me to [5]this
>     
> [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml]
>    , a not-to-miss program on the BBC this morning, accessible over the
>    next several days by internet. Its the story of the Plot Against
>    America. I dont mean the Philip Roth novel, nor even the Sinclair
>    Lewis book, It Cant Happen Here, but rather the historical events  
> upon
>    which these two works of fiction were based.
>
>
>    In November 1934, federal investigators uncovered an amazing plot
>    involving some two dozen senior businessmen, a good many of them  
> Wall
>    Street financiers, to topple the government of the United States and
>    install a fascist dictatorship. Roths novel is developed from  
> several
>    strands of this factual account; he assumed the plot is actually
>    carried out, whereas in fact an alert FDR shut it down but stopped
>    short of retaliatory measures against the plotters. A key element of
>    the plot involved a retired prominent general who was to have  
> raised a
>    private army of 500,000 men from unemployed veterans and who blew  
> the
>    whistle when he learned more of what the plot entailed. The plot was
>    heavily funded and well developed and had strong links with fascist
>    forces abroad. A story in the New York Times and several other
>    newspapers reported on it, and a special Congressional committee was
>    created to conduct an investigation. The records of this committee
>    were scrubbed and sealed away in the National Archives, where they
>    have only recently been made available.
>
>
>    The Congressional committee kept the names of many of the  
> participants
>    under wraps and no criminal action was ever brought against them.  
> But
>    a few names have leaked out. And one is Prescott Bush, the  
> grandfather
>    of the incumbent president. Prescott Bush was of course deep into  
> the
>    business of the Hamburg-America Lines, and had tight relations
>    throughout this period with the new Government that had come to  
> power
>    in Germany a year earlier under Chancellor Aldoph Hitler. It appears
>    that Bush was to have formed a key liaison for the group with the  
> new
>    German government.
>
>
>    Prescott Bush, of course, went on to service as a U.S. Senator from
>    Connecticut, and his son, George H.W. Bush emerged from World War II
>    as a hero.
>
>
>    The Plot Against America portrayed in this episode of the BBC series
>    Document gives fascinating insight into a dark and little known  
> piece
>    of American history in which the nation stood on the brink of
>    betrayal. The role of the most powerful political dynastic family in
>    the nations history in this whole affair is shocking.
>
> References
>
>    1. http://harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651
>    2. http://harpers.org/archive/2007/07
>    3. http://harpers.org/subjects/NoComment
>    4. http://harpers.org/subjects/ScottHorton
>    5.  
> file://twubby1/home/sshniad/Data/Regions/North%20America/U%20S%20A/ 
> Domestic%20politics/this%20[%20http:/www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/ 
> document/document_20070723.shtml%20,
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