Blair Coan

[7] Coan accused Wheeler and other congressional representatives elected as part of the movement of the Progressive Party (United States, 1924–34) who worked to undermine US Attorney Generals A. Mitchell Palmer and Harry M. Daugherty and took advantage of the Teapot Dome scandal to do so.

[1][3] According to historian Richard Gid Powers, "Coan was a former operative in the Daugherty Justice Department who had been involved in efforts to frame its critics during the Teapot Dome."

[8] In 1927, US Representative John B. Sosnowski stated "I would suggest you gentlemen read a book published by Blair Coan, entitled The Red Web", as part of a long list of findings presented during a public congressional hearing.

[13] In 2014, historians Michael Kazin, Rebecca Edwards, and Adam Rothman cited Coan among "counter-subversive anti-Communists concocting fanciful red web smears" including Daugherty, Richard Whitney, Nesta Helen Webster, Ralph Easley, and Hamilton Fish.

[3] In 1925, Coan described US Senator Burton K. Wheeler as center of an international Soviet conspiracy to take over the United States in his book The Red Web.