The flag follows the dollar, and the soldiers follow the flag. —Major General Smedley D. Butler
Sometimes we are so confused that we no longer
know where the truth of our dreams ends and the lies of our life begin. Smedley
D. Butler’s case is not unique: he was one of those who dedicate their life to
the military without disowning their past, but who later change course when
they realize that ideas, like time itself, evolve.
On page 18 of a priceless book (Por el bien
del Imperio, 2011), the historian Josep Fontana recalled one of the most
lucid works ever written about the Cold War —Washington Rules: America’s
Path to Permanent War (Metropolitan Books, 2010)— by Andrew Bacevich, a
U.S. Army colonel who, after being stationed in Eastern Europe following the
fall of the Berlin Wall and seeing for himself the miserable state of the
“enemy” world against which he had fought, “began to wonder whether the truths
he had accumulated over the previous twenty-three years as a professional
soldier —especially truths about the Cold War and U.S. foreign policy— might
not be entirely true.”
That reflection by Bacevich, which I
rediscovered in a summer rereading of Fontana’s book, immediately brought to
mind the most famous case of a soldier turned antimilitarist and pacifist
leader: Smedley Darlington Butler, Major General of the U.S. Marine Corps. He
was the youngest captain and the most decorated military officer in the
nation’s history, one of only two Marines ever awarded two Medals of Honor for
combat heroism. Until his death in 1940, he remained the most popular officer
among the troops —a general with a farmer’s face and a preacher’s voice.
Butler took part in nearly every war that
defined the American imperial century: in Cuba during the Spanish-American War;
in the Philippines during the Philippine-American War; in China during the
Boxer Rebellion; in the Banana Wars of Honduras and Nicaragua; in the seizure
of Veracruz, Mexico, where he received his first Medal of Honor; in the
occupation of Haiti, where he earned the second; in the First World War, and
later again in China. Were there a list of the most distinguished American
soldiers on the battlefield, Butler’s name would be near the top.
But he was also the first to pull the curtain
aside. In Connecticut, on August 21, 1931, General Butler gave a startling
speech denouncing the imperialist character of America’s foreign interventions.
This was part of what he said:
“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service
as a member of the most efficient fighting force in our nation —the Marine
Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to major
general... During that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle
man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers... In short, I was a
racketeer, a gangster for capitalism [...] In 1924 I helped make Mexico, and
especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests. I helped make Haiti and
Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues. I
helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for Wall
Street. [...] I was rewarded with honors, medals, and promotions. But when I
look back on it, I feel I could have given Al Capone a few hints. He operated
his racket in three districts of one city. I operated on three continents. The
flag follows the dollar, and the soldiers follow the flag.”
After examining his own military career, Butler
denounced the enrichment of the arms suppliers —a theme that President
Eisenhower would later echo when warning of the military-industrial complex.
Butler became a champion of the pacifist movement and spent years touring the
country, giving speeches to veterans and civic groups.
In 1935, Round Table Press published War Is
a Racket, the book in which Butler condensed his self-criticism with
disarming lucidity. He exposed the plunder that the government inflicted on its
own soldiers, the profits of the munitions makers who sold to both sides during
World War I, and proposed that U.S. armed forces should be used solely for the
defense of national territory. He suggested restricting naval operations to 200
miles and air operations to 500 miles off the American coast and requiring any
offensive war to be approved through a plebiscite limited to those eligible for
the draft.
It was a naïve proposal, yes —but also a brave
one: an attempt to return the decision of war to those who would fight it, not
to those who would profit from it.
Yet the episode that sealed his legend did not
unfold on the battlefield or in a lecture hall, but in the corridors of
Congress. In 1933, a group of powerful businessmen —including figures connected
to J.P. Morgan, DuPont, and General Motors— approached Butler to offer him
command of a private army of half a million veterans. The plan, later known as
the Business Plot or Wall Street Putsch, aimed to overthrow President Franklin
D. Roosevelt and install a corporate regime modeled on Mussolini’s Italy.
They wanted a patriotic dictator, a military
hero with popular appeal who could halt the New Deal and return the country to
the hands of big business. Believing Butler to be a man they could control,
they misjudged him completely. He listened, feigned interest, and then turned
them in.
Butler testified before the McCormack–Dickstein
Committee of the House of Representatives, describing the details of the
conspiracy with names and numbers. The committee confirmed that contacts and
plans had indeed existed, though the matter was quietly buried. The coup never
materialized, but the seed of suspicion took root: that patriotism in America
could serve both to free nations and to enslave them; both to defend democracy
and to strangle it.
Butler was called paranoid, a communist, a
traitor. He answered with the calm of a man who no longer had anything to lose:
“I would rather be called a traitor to my class
than a traitor to my country.”
He continued writing and lecturing until his
death in 1940, at his home in Pennsylvania, with his uniform hanging in the
closet and his conscience finally at rest. He had been the most decorated
soldier in the nation and ended up as its most inconvenient conscience.
Some say Butler repented too late. But perhaps, as Bacevich suggests, the truth lies not in repentance but in revelation. Butler discovered that the enemy was not always across the ocean. Sometimes, he was right at home —smiling from the boardroom.
