• Findom_DeLuise [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    I remember reading that he was involved, but all references to him being part of the plot have been scrubbed from the Wikipedia page. What's hilarious is this edit adding him back in on October 13th, 2022:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Business_Plot&diff=1146416230&oldid=1115813149&diffmode=source

    In July 2007, a BBC investigation reported that Prescott Bush, father of US President George H. W. Bush and grandfather of then-president George W. Bush, was to have been a "key liaison" between the 1933 Business Plotters and the newly emerged Nazi regime in Germany,[50] although this has been disputed by Jonathan Katz as a misconception caused by a clerical research error.[51]. According to Katz, "Prescott Bush was too involved with the actual Nazis to be involved with something that was so home grown as the business plot."

    Here's a Rolling Stone article referencing Katz's book, mentioned in the now-deleted section of the wiki page:
    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/coup-jan6-fdr-new-deal-business-plot-1276709/

    The Reddit TIL thread from 2010 is also full of weird nerds coming out of the woodwork to rehabilitate the Bush family.


    Edit: To clarify on the bit about the BBC documentary, the way that they lay it out is that Prescott Bush was very clearly in league with the Nazis/German fascists, and had pretty deep business ties to them. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but it sounds like they only really mention him in passing a couple of times since there is supposedly "no evidence" linking him to the actual plot, hence the Katz quote. Here's the original page on the BBC site, which looks like you can only get at the audio in RealMedia format:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

    ...and here's a more current page with a link to the audio in a normal-ass Web player:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007tbs0