In 1933 members of the DuPont family became involved in what has since been euphemistically termed the Business Plot, a conspiracy to replace the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt with a fascist dictatorship. The scheme represented an overt attempt by segments of American industrial and financial elites to impose an authoritarian regime upon the United States, drawing on the same reactionary currents then ascendant across Europe. [[Francis Shelden|Shelden]] and his [[North Fox Island]] operation intersected with this same nexus of old money and impunity. ### Origins and Recruitment In November 1934 Major General Smedley Butler informed a congressional committee that he had been approached by Grayson Murphy, a director at the Guaranty Trust Company, to lead a paramilitary force composed of American military veterans. The purpose of this force was to provide the muscle for a coup that would install [[Hugh S. Johnson]], then head of the National Recovery Administration, as dictator of the United States. Butler, a decorated Marine who would later denounce war as a racket, testified that the conspirators envisioned relegating the presidency to a ceremonial role while real power rested with a military-industrial cabal. ### Financial and Industrial Backing The plot was financed through the Guaranty Trust Company, a J.P. Morgan financial institution with ties to City of London financiers. Armaments for the prospective paramilitary units were to be supplied by Remington Arms Co., a firearms subsidiary controlled by the DuPont family. The DuPonts were not merely passive investors; they were literally fascists in the author's assessment, having maintained cartel arrangements with the Nazi chemicals conglomerate I.G. Farben throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Alfred P. Sloan, who managed General Motors on behalf of the DuPonts from 1923 to 1966, personally authorized the transfer of Ethyl lead to the Luftwaffe as late as 1938. The largest tank manufacturer in Nazi Germany was Opel, a wholly owned GM subsidiary that continued operating under the American corporate umbrella throughout the Second World War. ### Legacy and Connections The DuPont family's political influence did not end with the exposure of the Business Plot. Decades later, Joe Biden's first senatorial campaign was fully funded and staffed by DuPont employees in Delaware, and his family moved into an old DuPont mansion following his victory. The corporate culture instilled at General Motors during the DuPont-Sloan era persisted into the 1970s, when executives at the company were accused of participation in organized child abuse rings in Michigan. [[Francis Shelden]] and his North Fox Island operation intersected with this same nexus of old money and impunity. [^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.