The Business Plot, also called the Wall Street Putsch and the White House Putsch, was a political conspiracy in 1933, in the United States, to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedley Butler as dictator.
Butler, a retired Marine Corps major general, testified under oath that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans’ organization with him as its leader and use it in a coup d’état to overthrow Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified under oath before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the “McCormack–Dickstein Committee”) on these revelations.
Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee final report said, “there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”