In 1934, Smedley Butler became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow the president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. These people were actually planning to hijack the government, and Butler refused to be a part of this. This makes for a very interesting study indeed.

In his 1935 book War is a Racket, Smedley Butler described the workings of the military-industrial complex.

Butler summarizes:

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”

Many feel that Butler is a true American hero. He somehow got left out of the history books…