The plots against the president FDR, a nation in crisis, and the rise of the American right

When Franklin Roosevelt assumed the presidency, in March 1933, the Great Depression had devastated the nation, and many seriously doubted that the economic and political systems could survive. Two weeks earlier, Roosevelt had survived an assassination attempt by an unbalanced anarchist. As his New Deal programs took shape, the vilification and sometimes virulent opposition began. Populists like Huey Long and the anti-Semitic priest Charles Coughlin urged more radical action against the rich. The traditional Right accused Roosevelt of destroying capitalism and seeking dictatorial power. Denton, an award-winning author and investigative journalist, asserts that opposition to Roosevelt's policies went far beyond legitimate political actions and invective. She resurrects the so-called Wall Street putsch, in which wealthy businessmen supposedly plotted to overthrow the government. Although most historians have dismissed the plot as no more than wild talk, Denton provides some evidence that the plotters were quite serious. Her suggestion that these fascist wannabes are the direct antecedents of much of the current right-wing activism is a major stretch, but this is an interesting and timely reminder that economic crises threaten the survival of cherished political freedoms.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist

Two weeks before FDR's 1933 inauguration, an assassin fired five shots at him, narrowly missing. A year later, a retired general claimed several wealthy businessmen had asked him join a plot to overthrow the government. The media treated it as a joke, but historian and public policy expert Denton's research indicates otherwise. The failed assassin, an unemployed bricklayer, probably acted alone, and the "Wall Street Putsch" never went beyond preliminary plotting. Denton (The Pink Lady) surrounds these events with a stirring, laudatory history of FDR's first year in office, during which he revived a despairing nation's confidence, promoted legislation setting up a social safety net, which is still with us. But he also placed restrictions on banks and securities trading, denounced by businessmen in stunningly familiar words (they called him a Communist and a fascist). Many of FDR's innovations were repealed during the 1980s with what Denton sees as unpleasant consequences. Denton traces today's right-wing "paranoid style" to the nascent fascist movement that opposed Roosevelt, although she fails to promote these plots to more than historical footnotes. But Denton has written a well-researched, if nostalgic, account of an era when people looked to the government for help, and it obliged. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Pink Lady: The Many Lives of Helen Gahagan Douglas, 2009, etc.) follows critical moments in the career of four-term president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who, demonized by far left and far right, escaped an assassin's bullet and a bizarre coup plot. In this tale of a popular president, resentful Wall Street bankers and wacko wing-nuts, the author has found a story whose parallels to today are eerie--perhaps more starkly than they merit because of the prominence she awards them. She focuses on two episodes: the gunshots fired by Giuseppe Zangara at FDR in 1933 following a speech in Miami and the crack-brained coup attempt supposedly spearheaded by bond trader Gerald MacGuire, who was fronting for some conservative powerhouse businessmen who were unhappy with FDR's early financial moves. MacGuire had approached war hero Marine General Smedley Darlington Butler about his plot; aghast, Butler listened and then blew the whistle. Subsequently--and perhaps consequently?--FDR cracked down even harder on Wall Street and the banks. Denton's research, though wide and deep, suffers some because she could find out nothing of consequence about assassination threats from the close-mouthed Secret Service--though she does credit the FBI for cooperation. Additionally, she spends so many pages summarizing the political rise, personal life and early presidency of FDR that the title of the book sometimes seems misrepresentative. Demonstrates how political popularity has a bitter, resentful relative who acts as if elections are valid only when his side wins--and who sometimes packs heat.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.