- Industrialists: providing most of the funding for the coup were industrialists, including the Dupont group, which also engaged in sabotaging British rockets. They believed, probably correctly, that British products of a sophistication they could not hope to match would continue to flood American markets, ruining them. They needed isolation before they were ruined and they needed some time to recover from the growing power of the union movement. Providing funds towards a second coup attempt – the unproven Business Plot of 1936 would be the first – was a natural step.
- State Establishments: finally, the growth of black voting power – and the demand that black men and women be allowed to stand for election – threatened the established interests all across the south. The south had accepted retardation as the price of keeping the black men down – not always to the delight of whites either, who at least could take out their frustrations on the blacks – and now their comfortable Jim Crow system was being threatened. If blacks started voting for their own candidates – and the traditional methods of intimidation were no longer reliable – white control, their control, would be voted out of existence up and down the black belt.
Exactly who came up with the plan remains uncertain, although investigations pointed the finger at Hoover. Despite an awesome amount of influence within Congress, Hoover was unable to affect Roosevelt’s ‘coddling’ of what he considered a subversive movement, let alone shut down the communist-controlled Progressive Party. Aware of just how close the US was to civil war, Hoover convinced a number of people, including MacArthur, to go along with the plan to launch a coup.
The final requirement came with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, William Brockman Bankhead, third in line to the presidency under some interpretations of the law. (Hoover calculated that his supporters in Congress and the Senate would be enough to defeat any challenges.) A native of Alabama, where some of the first incidences of black resistance had appeared, Bankhead believed that Roosevelt would not handle the situation, refusing a demand by several Southern Governors to send in the troops to crush the blacks, and had to be impeached for the good of everyone. Once convinced that there wasn’t time to vote for impeachment when elections took place, Bankhead became the third member of the conspiracy’s troika.
Once funding and political support were organised, MacArthur was able to begin the task of assembling an army. Despite his position as Director of Training – regarded as a safe post for him personally – MacArthur was unable to recruit more than a handful of army trainees, turning instead to KKK and other white trash to supply the manpower. MacArthur adopted racist views at this point, although it remains a matter of debate if they were sincere or if they were used to create loyalty in the army.
The basic plan was simple. The army would move to Washington under cover and launch a strike against the White House, where both Roosevelt and Truman would be captured. They would be held at gunpoint until Roosevelt broadcast a statement resigning from the presidency and naming Bankhead as his successor, blaming both the White House attack and Truman’s death on communists. Once Bankhead was installed as President, Hoover and MacArthur would be able to purge the country of elements they didn’t like, ranging from communists to British allies. Black movements would be ruthlessly crushed, using very German-like methods, and they would be forced back down into second-class status.
(Post-Rebellion propaganda claimed that the blacks would have been forced back into slavery, but this is generally believed to be false, as the northern states would have probably refused to go along with it, to say nothing of desperate black resistance tearing the nation apart.)
The plotters were uncertain what to do about the war. MacArthur was very keen to fight it out to the last man, under his leadership, fighting a separate war to the British. Both Hoover and Bankhead would have preferred a negotiated peace.
As it happened, the plan went badly wrong right from the start. The sudden devastation of New York by a German attack, which was clearly not an act committed by Black Power, forced the plotters to launch the attack several days ahead of time. Although anti-communist sentiment was at an all-time high, due to the explosive materials being carried on a Soviet ship, it was clear that the fading Roosevelt would be unwilling to take the measures that the plotters believed necessary. If Roosevelt died before the plot, Truman, a tougher customer and future black supporter, would become President and the political support would have crumbled.
Seeing an opportunity in Roosevelt’s controversial dispatch of almost all of the troops in or near Washington to New York, the plotters launched their attack. All signs that something was in the works went through the FBI, where they were misfiled and lost. The White House was duly attacked, but some elements had warning of the attack, managing to save Truman from the hit squad that had been ordered to kill him. Worse, Roosevelt suffered his final heart attack during his capture, dying while in the hands of the plotters. Far from successfully installing Bankhead as President, the plotters didn’t have any legitimacy at all.
Without Roosevelt’s broadcast, the other plotters across the US didn’t move; some because they received no orders, others because they wanted to wait until a clear winner appeared. The Internet, a much underestimated method of communication, provided the legitimate resisters, under President Truman, the means to organise a counter-attack. While the FBI launched its pre-planned purge of communists and black leaders, many of whom were shot, most of their other allies sat on their hands. Once the counterattack was launched, the White House was retaken and the Rebellion collapsed.
It goes without saying that President Truman and his new allies were determined to avoid a repetition of the coup. It was also necessary to reward the black elements that took part in the attack to recover the White House, which would also serve as additional punishment for the Southern elements involved in the coup plot. Despite that, Truman waited until some units from Norway, under General Stillwell, were back in the United States before beginning what was regarded as the purge of the south.
The coup plotters were arrested and divided into three categories. The political leaders – and their entire establishments – that had surrendered in exchange for conditional amnesty were, by and large, exiled to South Africa. This, ironically, happened as a result of attacks launched against them by angry southerners, both black and white, who realised that what the plotters had wanted was VERY against their interests. The politicians who were unaware of the plot, but expected to support it and Jim Crow were stripped of their positions under martial law. Several tens of thousands accepted exile; a handful chose to remain and face trial.
The industrialists were generally tried for high treason. Companies that had funded the rebellion were stripped of their leaders and stock was sold to the workers, provided that all traces of segregation were removed.
Finally, the foot soldiers were generally offered conditional amnesty, with the exception of those who had committed crimes while they held the centre of Washington. The ‘condition’ was a long period in a punishment battalion in the war; many of them would go on to distinguish themselves in the long war against fascism.
Although some Southern fire-eaters talked of a second secession, their position was hopeless and enough were realistic enough to see that. This was not 1861, when the South had been reasonably united behind the CSA, but a small cabal of leaders attempting to use the loyalist factions to save their own hides. Once the coup had collapsed, their control collapsed rapidly in the midst of thousands of people settling scores of one kind or another.