The McCormack-Dickstein Committee agreed to listen to Butler's story in a secret executive session in New York City on November 20, 1934. The two cochairman of the committee were Representative John McCormack, of Massachusets, and New York Representative Samuel Dickstein, who later became a New York State Supreme Court justice. Butler's testimony, developed in two hours of questions and answers, was recorded in full.

Simultaneously Paul Comly French broke the story in the Stern papers, the Philadelphia Record and the New York Post. Under the headline "$3,000,000 Bid for Fascist Army Bared," he wrote:


Major General Smedley D. Butler revealed today that he has been asked by a group of wealthy New York brokers to lead a Fascist movement to set up a dictatorship in the United States.

General Butler, ranking major general of the Marine Corps up to his retirement three years ago, told his story today at a secret session of the Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities.


McCormack opened the hearing by first noting that General Butler had been in the Marine Corps thirty-three years and four months and had received the Congressional Medal of Honor twice, establishing his integrity and credibility as a witness. Then he invited the general to "just go ahead and tell in your own way all that you know about an attempted Fascist movement in this country."

"May I preface my remarks," Butler began, "by saying, sir, that I have one interest in all of this, and that is to try to do my best to see that a democracy is maintained in this country?"

"Nobody who has either read about or known about General Butler," replied McCormack promptly, "would have anything but that understanding."

Butler then gave detailed testimony about everything that had happened in connection with the plot, from the first visit of MacGuire and Doyle on July 1, 1933.

Some of his testimony was not released in the official record of the bearings, for reasons that will be discussed later, but was nevertheless ferreted out, copied, and made public by reporter John L. Spivak. This censored testimony is indicated by the symbol † to distinguish it from the official testimony eventually released by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee. The same was true of testimony given by reporter Paul Comly French, who followed Butler as a witness, and the same symbol (†) indicates the censored portions.*

Butler first described the attempts made by MacGuire and Doyle to persuade him to go to the American Legion convention hand make a speech they had prepared for him.


BUTLER: . . . they were very desirous of unseating the royal family in control of the American Legion, at the convention to be held in Chicago, and very anxious to have me take part in it. They said that they were not in sympathy with the . . . present administration's treatment of the soldiers. . . . They said, "We represent the plain soldiers. . .We want you to come there and stampede the convention in a speech and help us in our fight to dislodge the royal family."


He told of MacGuire's revelation that he was the chairman of the Legion's "distinguished guest committee," on the staff of National Commander Louis Johnson, and that at MacGuire's suggestion Johnson had put Butler's name down as one of the distinguished guests to be invited to the convention.


† BUTLER: [MacGuire said] that Johnson had been taken this list, presented by MacGuire, of distinguished guests, to the White House for approval; that Louis Howe, one of the secretaries of the President, had crossed my name off and said that I was not to be invited-that the President would not have it.


This tale had struck Butler as peculiar, since the President had been grateful for the general's assistance in winning Republican votes for him away from Hoover, and their relations had always been cordial and warm.


BUTLER: I thought I smelled a rat, right away-that they were trying to get me mad-to get my goat. I said nothing....

CHAIRMAN: When you say you smelled a rat, you mean you had an idea that they were not telling the truth?

BUTLER: I could not reconcile . . . their desire to serve the ordinary man in the ranks, with their other aims. They did not seem to be the same. It looked to me as if they were trying to embarrass the administration in some way.... I was just fishing to see what they had in mind. So many queer people come to my house all the time and I like to feel them all out.


MacGuire had told him, Butler revealed, that invitation or no invitation, he and his supporters had figured out a way for Butler to address the Legion convention.


BUTLER: I said, "How is that, without being invited?" They said, "Well, you are to come as a delegate from Hawaii."

I said, "I do not live in Hawaii."

"Well, it does not make any difference. There is to be no delegate from one of the American Legion posts there in Honolulu, and we have arranged to have you appointed by cable, by radio, to represent them at the convention....

I said, "Yes; but I will not go in the back door."

They said, "That will not be the back door. You must come."

I said, "No; I will not do this."

"Well," they said, "are you in sympathy with unhorsing the royal family?"

I said, "Yes; because they have been selling out the common soldier in this Legion for years. These fellows have been getting political plums and jobs and cheating the enlisted man in the Army, and I am for putting them out. But I cannot do it by going in through the back door."

"Well," they said, "we are going to get them out. We will arrange this."


Butler described the second visit of MacGuire and Doyle a month later, at which time MacGuire had unfolded a new plan they had developed to get Butler to the speaker's platform at the Chicago convention of the Legion...

[snip]

*The reader who wishes to examine the official testimony is referred to the government report, Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities: Public Hearings Before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy-third Congress, Second Session, at Washington, D.C., December 29, zg34. Hearings No. 73-D.C.-6, Part 1. Extracts of the censored testimony are revealed in the books A Man in His Time, by John L. Spivak, and 1000 Americans, by George Seldes.

*Italics are the author's."