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Billy James Hargis


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As I said once, I knew Dr Noebel in Madison and have the highest respect for him.

My pastor here in town once shocked me by stating he felt responsible for Jimmy Swaggart's sexual problems. Almost fell off my chair. "How can that be?" I asked. "Because we did not pray for him enough," he said. Obviously we all know how strong sexual desires can be and unfortunately many prominent Christian ministers succoumb (sp I know!) to such temptations. Obviously, Hargis was followed by Bakker and Swaggart (although they only had affairs with women to the best of my recall). But recently the head of the National Association of Evangelicals had to resign due to homosexual affairs.

Billy Graham has never even been accused of any sexual misconduct. He avoids any possible temptation (or false accusation) by never being alone with a woman.

Another friend of mine says pastors are tempted by not only sexual desires but also by power and money. I think the latter are particularly strong temptations for televangelists and the pastors of mega-churches.

It is of course unfair to judge Christianity based on the fact that even Christians and even prominent Christian pastors can and do fall into sin.

I have not read it but from the reviews I read there is an excellent book on Christians written by the daughter of Nancy Pelosi. As I recall she had gone into the project intending to write a book "slamming" the religious right but after spending considerable time with them she decided that her original impression was all wrong.

I digressed. Regardless of Hargis' extreme political views and his "fall from grace" there is no evidence linking him to the assassination of JFK and all this thread is is a distraction.

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As I said once, I knew Dr Noebel in Madison and have the highest respect for him.

My pastor here in town once shocked me by stating he felt responsible for Jimmy Swaggart's sexual problems. Almost fell off my chair. "How can that be?" I asked. "Because we did not pray for him enough," he said. Obviously we all know how strong sexual desires can be and unfortunately many prominent Christian ministers succoumb (sp I know!) to such temptations. Obviously, Hargis was followed by Bakker and Swaggart (although they only had affairs with women to the best of my recall). But recently the head of the National Association of Evangelicals had to resign due to homosexual affairs.

Billy Graham has never even been accused of any sexual misconduct. He avoids any possible temptation (or false accusation) by never being alone with a woman.

Another friend of mine says pastors are tempted by not only sexual desires but also by power and money. I think the latter are particularly strong temptations for televangelists and the pastors of mega-churches.

It is of course unfair to judge Christianity based on the fact that even Christians and even prominent Christian pastors can and do fall into sin.

I have not read it but from the reviews I read there is an excellent book on Christians written by the daughter of Nancy Pelosi. As I recall she had gone into the project intending to write a book "slamming" the religious right but after spending considerable time with them she decided that her original impression was all wrong.

I digressed. Regardless of Hargis' extreme political views and his "fall from grace" there is no evidence linking him to the assassination of JFK and all this thread is is a distraction.

Did you know that this posting rated 97 out of 100 using my Reich Wing Extremist word rating meter? That is about

the highest ranked rating since I developed the system about 16 years ago. Congrats, Tim. At least you didn't

stoop so low as to "succoumb" to temptation yourselves.

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  • 7 months later...

John, I'm glad you've revived this thread again. I hope we can ignore the irrelevant remarks about other Born Again Republicans and just focus on Billy James Hargis as an interesting individual who was as close to the JFK assassination conspiracy as General Edwin Walker himself.

What is vital about Hargis is that he supported the views of General Walker for many years. I am actively searching for solid evidence that Billy James Hargis was actually the SOURCE of most of General Walker's views.

For example, Peter Dale Scott cites William Turner's belief that Billy James Hargis was really the person who selected the books that Walker hysterically proposed for his Pro-Blue program. This is significant, because this is the origin of the clash between General Walker and JFK in April, 1961.

Also, after seeing many examples of General Walker's writing skills at his own typewriter, and comparing those examples with Walker's seven copyrighted speeches (six if we notice that two of them are virtually identical word-for-word) it might appear to some analysts that Billy James Hargis wrote (or re-wrote) those speeches.

Also, Billy James Hargis and General Walker gave national speaking tours together - and made a lot of money doing that.

So, Hargis could never have presumed that General Walker was heterosexual, since they knew each other for many years, and they shared a tour bus together -- coast to coast -- preaching that four Presidents had been communists and that the National Council of Churches was satanic and communist.

They made a lot of money pandering to the far-right -- but because Billy James Hargis (like many money-grubbing televangelists) proved to be a lying hypocrite, it raises the question about the degree to which General Walker walked his own talk.

Does anybody have any evidence that would support Turner's allegations about Walker's 1960 relationship with Billy James Hargis and the Pro-Blue reading list?

Is it possible that Walker met Billy James Hargis at the time when he was commanding Federal troops against Little Rock High School in Arkansas for Dwight D. Eisenhower? Billy James Hargis was an outspoken racial segregationist. Hargis was among the first to cry, "Impeach Earl Warren!" So I wonder if Billy James Hargis made the first move and contacted the General in charge, and tried to convert him to Segregationist Christianity.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
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There is Anecdotal Evidence pointing to Walker and Hargis having homosexual preferences.

The Pentagon also refused to co-operate with the filming of Director Stanley Kubrick’s black comedy masterpiece DR. STRANGELOVE, in which World War III is brought about by the maniacal General Jack (D.) Ripper, a character based upon General Edwin T. Walker. In the film, General Ripper believes his sexual dysfunction is the result of the "Communist plot" to add fluoride to America’s drinking water, thus sapping him of his "precious bodily fluids." The character of General Buck Turgidson, portrayed by George C. Scott, is a satirical portrait of General Curtis LeMay. Thus, while Attorney General Robert Kennedy failed in his attempt to send General Walker to prison, the Kennedy Administration was able to facilitate Walker’s eternal enshrinement on celluloid as the mad - and dangerous - General that he was.

http://www.americanm...ticles_426.html

As his media power waned, Hargis founded the American Christian College in 1971. Having denounced the Beatles as "godless", he sold his school with cleancut images of its choir, the "All-American Kids", which became a touring show. In 1976, however, Time magazine reported that a student couple, married by Hargis in the college chapel, discovered on their wedding night that both had lost their virginity to Hargis. A number of male choir members accused him of coercing them into sex, justifying his seductions by quoting the example of David lying with Jonathan. Hargis denied the charges, saying communists and Satan were conspiring against him. But Hargis was forced to resign from his college.

http://www.guardian....uaries.religion

"The All-American Kids" as an example of what clean-cut, moral American youth should be like. However, it wasn't long before stories began circulating that the main purpose of the "All-American Kids" was to keep Hargis provided with a steady supply of young sex partners. Those rumors were confirmed as fact in 1976 when Time magazine, which had been investigating the stories, found two former members of the choir--one male and one female--who had discovered on their wedding night that they had both been having sex with Hargis. Hargis vehemently denied the charges, but as a steady procession of former members of the "All-American Kids" choir, both male and female, came forward to corroborate the students' stories, and many others told their own stories of Hargis' sexual predations on both male and female members, he was forced to disband the "All-American Kids" and shut down American Christian College.

In spite of scandals such as these, Hargis still fervently pushed his ultra-right-wing fundamentalist Christian political beliefs, and published many books decrying Communist "influence" in everyday American life. He died in November of 2004.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0362920/bio

"Hargis had allegedly justified his acts by citing the Old Testament friendship between David and Jonathan and, just in case his victims were minded to consult biblical texts that were sympathetic, threatened to 'blacklist' them for life if they talked.

When he was confronted by his colleagues, he allegedly admitted his guilt, blaming his behaviour on 'genes and chromosomes.'

http://dutroux.blogs...mes-hargis.html

General Walker was exposed as a closeted gay and accomplished Hypocrite when he was arrested in 1976 for soliciting sex from another man in a men's room in Dallas, Texas, and again in 1977 under similar charges, for which he was convicted. As for the Reverend Billy James Hargis, his secret personal failings were exposed in a 1976 issue of Time Magazine. The Time article noted how two of his students at his Bible College, who had been married in a ceremony officiated by the Reverend, confessed to each other on their Wedding night that neither were a Virgin; both the groom and his wife had lost their Virginity to Reverend Hargis. Several other young men, part of Hargis' "All-American Kids" youth choir also came forward to allege that Hargis had engaged in sex with them. Like Walker, Hargis has attained a place in popular culture as the inspiration of the lead character in radio personality Don Imus' satirical novel GOD'S OTHER SON.

http://www.americanm...ticles_477.html

General Edwin Walker was without doubt a fine military commander and expert military tactician. In addition, he was without doubt a sincere American Nationalist and strong anti-communist. While serving in the European theater, General Walker prepared and disseminated among his troops an excellent indoctrination against communism which was referred to as the "pro-blue" program. This program was very beneficial and much needed. It should have been made available to all troops of the United States everywhere.

Unfortunately, this excellent work was done by a man who was known to his enemies as being a secret homosexual. To destroy the effectiveness of Walker's pro-blue program, evidence was given to higher military authorities regarding his homosexual relationships with other men in and out of military service. Arch Roberts, then a Major serving under General Walker, was one of several persons named as being active in these homosexual contacts.

In the face of undeniable evidence, General Walker was forced to resign. After his return to the United States, he began giving lectures in which he stated that he had been removed solely because of the pro-blue program and that he had voluntarily refused to accept any retirement benefits. These papers, referred to previously, prove that Walker was forced to resign and waive all retirement benefits in return for an agreement by military authorities not to bring criminal charges against him which would have resulted in public disclosure of his homosexual behavior and that of others.

After his return to Dallas, Texas, General Walker decided to run for Governor of that state and became temporarily active in the Nationalist movement in that area. Gradually, he became shunned by other Nationalists who observed his living in obvious homosexual relationship with a young man that he referred to as his "adjutant". For several weeks, General Walker traveled with Billy James Hargis sharing the speaker's platform and often times sharing his bed as well. During this period and in subsequent years, Walker's mental abilities began to deteriorate and he began wandering aimlessly through the streets and parks of Dallas. On several occasions, he was arrested as a public nuisance or for soliciting homosexual contacts but released by police officers that did not want to discredit his previously fine reputation. Finally, in 1976, Walker was arrested and stood public trial for making homosexual solicitations to a Dallas park plain clothes security officer.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TSTT5qi46j4J:iamthewitness.com/doc/Deguello-Report.rtf+did+general+walker+have+a+affair+with+hargis&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Edited by Malcolm Ward
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Malcolm, I was aware of all the interesting histories that you shared on this thread. They're useful for those coming up to speed.

General Walker is, in my opinion, front and center in any list of suspects in Dallas on the day JFK was shot. Billy James Hargis was a close personal friend of Walker, and was also rich and influential.

I wonder if you're aware of any information about the specific, detailed relationship between Billy James Hargis and General Edwin Walker, e.g. the occasion on which they first met; or the influence of Hargis' reading on Walker's Pro-Blue reading program.

I'm not interested in scandals about their sexual orientation -- although I am interested in political hypocrisy.

I want to know, for example, if Billy James Hargis persuaded General Walker that he could become rich and famous as a speaker, and so he didn't need his Military Pension ($120,000 a year, adjusted for inflation). So Walker quit the Army and gave up his pension when he could just as easily have retired and collected his pension. It makes no sense for Walker to do something so rash -- unless he had that brain tumor that the Overseas Weekly speculated about, or unless Billy James Hargis promised him a lot of money (and support) for doing things his way.

(On a separate note, H.L. Hunt was also a supporter of General Walker when he quit the Army. Did Hunt and Hargis cooperate? What evidence do we have? Also, I can't find hard evidence of the amount of money and support that H.L. Hunt gave to General Walker. I really want to see that.)

How, for example, could Walker afford to leave the Army without a pension or any visible means of support, and immediately move into a spacious home in the nicest neighborhood in Dallas? I want to know.

I want to emphasize that I refuse to engage in any gay-bashing threads. If Walker was neurotic about being homosexual, that would have been related to his denial of the fact - he could have been living in denial. That is a psychological condition that could cause unexpected patterns of behavior.

Living in the closet is not good for the soul. If Walker was gay (and all the evidence I've read suggests that he was) then making a career in the Army was a pretty bad choice, since in the 1940, 1950, 1960 Army being gay would get a soldier dishonorably discharged immediately. The Army might ignore the fact during battles, as in WW2, or perhaps Korea, but never in peacetime.

If Walker didn't have a brain tumor, then he might have become stressed out by living in the closet. Walker was a war hero in the 1940's and 1950's. When he became a civilian he couldn't handle the pressures, apparently. If he had a brain tumor or a psychological breakdown (as two psychiatrists believed and testified under oath) then this does not disqualfy him from a Dallas conspiracy -- on the contrary -- it should enhance our suspicions.

But it is not only a gay Army General who must live in the closet -- a gay Fundamentalist Evangelist also had to live in the closet in the 1960's. Perhaps it was not only rightist politics that Walker and Hargis shared, but also this sad condition of "living in the closet." Perhaps they were soul-mates in this regard.

Their personal relationship (and not just generic anecdotes from above) is interesting to me. Aside from their reviews for their Midnight Ride, the archives of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History has no information about their personal affairs.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

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Paul,I would assume you know a lot of the stuff I am about to post.You may find the odd bit of info useful so will post anyway,and has you said previously,it helps bring others up to speed.

General Edwin A. Walker is known to most JFK assassination buffs as the man whom Oswald allegedly shot at in April 1963. The general’s right-wing connections are often noted, as is the fact that he was forced out of his command by the Kennedy administration for his political indoctrination of his troops. His activities during the race riots in Oxford, Mississippi in 1962 are also often mentioned, when he was arrested on four federal charges including insurrection.

His public statement at Oxford was as follows:

This is Edwin A. Walker. I am in Mississippi beside Gov. Ross Barnett. I call for a national protest against the conspiracy from within.

Rally to the cause of freedom in righteous indignation, violent vocal protest and bitter silence under the flag of Mississippi at the use of Federal troops.

This today is a disgrace to the nation in ‘dire peril,’ a disgrace beyond the capacity of anyone except its enemies. This is the conspiracy of the crucifixion by anti-Christ conspirators of the Supreme Court in their denial of prayer and their betrayal of a nation.

[source NYT, 9/30/62]

The Army ordered General Walker to undergo psychiatric testing.

The general’s case is strange indeed. But another fact, not often mentioned, makes his activities in 1961-3 even stranger. Going back to 1957, we find him in charge of *enforcing* the desegregation order in Little Rock, Arkansas. His public statements on the matter were limited to exhorting the public to uphold the will of the courts and desegregate peacefully. The following article details his biography up to that time.

============================================================================

New York Times, September 25, 1957, page 18

HE GUARDS THE PEACE Edwin Anderson Walker

LITTLE ROCK, Sept. 24 — Maj. Gen. Edwin Anderson Walker, who will be responsible for maintaining peace in Little Rock, was described by staff officers today as “tough, but fair.” A tall, lean-visaged Texan, General Walker came to Little Rock only seven weeks ago as commander of the Arkansas Military District. He is still a stranger to the city. Today, General Walker was at his desk in a downtown office building at 7 A.M. He had not yet received formal orders to take over the Arkansas National Guard, but he knew what was coming. Already orders carrying his signature were being processed for the deployment of National Guard units. He will command a combined force of regulars and Federalized Guardsmen.

He stands 6 feet 3 inches in height. He is a bachelor and has been considered a prize for hostesses wherever he has been stationed. He was born in Center Point, Texas, on Nov. 10, 1909.

General Walker’s favorite expression is “check,” a word he snaps to indicate a mission has been accomplished or that he understands his orders.

As a member of the Special Services group, he was required to be a paratrooper. At his test, he approached a subordinate and asked:

“How do you put this thing on?”

He received a fast five-minute briefing and climbed into an airplane. He jumped, landed safe and snapped to the test officer: “Check.”

General Walker is a combat officer. He has seen action in World War II and in Korea. He has carried out a number of unusual and hazardous assignments, particularly during World War II.

He started his military career as an artillery officer after he graduated from West Point in 1931. But he switched to commando operations during the war and led a special force of Canadians and Americans, in Italy and in France.

This outfit, trained for airborne, amphibious, mountain and ski operations, was called the Special Services Force.

General Walker led the Third Regiment, First Special Service Force, in its initial operation at Kiska during the Aleutians campaign. When the commandos were transferred to the Italian campaign, General Walker led the first Special Service Force in tough mountain fighting up the Italian peninsula and at Anzio beachhead.

A Surprise Landing

In August, 1944, his men made a surprise landing on the Hyeres Islands off the French Riviera and killed or captured a strong German garrison that could have jeopardized the Seventh Army landings on the mainland near by.

With the Hyeres occupied, his troops rejoined the main invasion force and moved up the Rhone Valley. Toward the end of the war he was detached from the commandos and placed in command of the 417 Infantry Regiment, a separate force attached to the Third Army. At V-E Day he was commanding a special task unit in Oslo.

Returning to the United States in January, 1946, General Walker served as assistant director of the combined arms department, Field Artillery School, Fort Sill, Okla. He was in charge of the Greek desk at the Pentagon during the Greek civil war and made an official visit to Greece and Turkey.

During the Korean War, General Walker commanded the Seventh Regiment of the Third Infantry Division and later was senior adviser to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. His last assignment before coming to Little Rock was as commanding general at the Twenty-fifth Artillery Division in Hawaii.

He holds the Silver Star and the Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster.

============================================================================

This is the man arrested on four federal charges in Mississippi in 1962?

Those charges were:

Section 111– For assault and resisting or other opposing Federal officers, including marshals, in the performance of their duty.

Section 372– For conspiracy to prevent a Federal officer from discharging his duties.

Section 2383– For inciting or engaging in an insurrection against the United States.

Section 2384– For conspiracy to overthrow or oppose by force the execution of the laws of the United States.

A conspiracy is defined legally as including two or more persons.

On October 7, 1962, Walker posted $50,000 bond and returned home to Dallas amid 200 cheering supporters carrying signs like “Welcome Home, General Walker,” “Win With General Walker,” and “President ’64.”

On January 21, 1963, a federal grand jury in Oxford, Mississippi adjourned without indicting Walker on any of the four counts against him.

The Justice Department dismissed the charges “without prejudice” after the grand jury failed to indict. The dismissal “without prejudice” meant that the charges could be reinstated before the five year statute of limitations expired.

Walker and his supporters then went on the offensive. On April 2, 1963, a group called the Citizens Congressional Committee filed a petition with the Senate Judiciary Committee requesting an investigation of the treatment of “America’s fearless patriot on the occasion of his incarceration at the instigation of the Department of Justice.”

Nine days later, on April 9, Walker was sitting at his desk at home when the famous shooting incident occurred.

Meanwhile, the American Medical Association was receiving “a volume of letters from individual physicians” charging Dr. Charles E. Smith, the Army psychiatrist — who commented on Walker’s mental state at the time of the Oxford violence — with unethical conduct: that he made an improper diagnosis without a personal examination. Dr. Smith was cleared by the AMA on July 4, 1963. He said that news stories of Walker’s “reported behavior reflects sensitivity and essentially unpredictable and seemingly bizarre outbursts of the type often observed in individuals suffering with paranoid mental disorder.” The society had received 2,500 letters from physicians alleging unethical conduct by Dr. Smith. Nevertheless, the board unanimously ruled in Smith’s favor.

Walker then took his case to court, filing a total of $23 million dollars in libel damages against numerous media outlets alleging that they had made “false statements” and that their “suppression of truth was motivated by malice and a desire to hurt and harm him in his good reputation and blacken his good name.” The statements in question were that he “led a charge of students against Federal marshals on the Ole Miss campus” and various other statements attributing to him a very active role in leading the insurrection such as “Walker assumed command of the crowd.” A jury in Fort Worth awarded an $800,000 judgment against the Associated Press, ruling that malice was intended.

The offensive was also being taken up by Republicans in Congress in an alliance with Southern Democrats, who wanted to embarrass Attorney General Robert Kennedy because of his civils rights activities. The House Judiciary Committee voted on September 1, 1964 by a margin of 18 to 14 to open an investigation of the Justice Department’s handling of cases including, but not limited to, those of Jimmy Hoffa, Roy M. Cohn, and former Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker. The vote among Republican and Southern Democratic committee members was 16-2; that of non-Southern Democrats was 2-12.

Meanwhile, a Louisiana jury awarded Walker $3 million in damages in another one of his libel suits.

His luck started to turn sour however, and finally on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 extending the constitutional protection of freedom of the press to libelous falsehoods about private individuals who willingly take part in public affairs. Such protections were already in place concerning libel against political officials, but this was a landmark case extending the applicability to private individuals who willingly venture into the public arena. Walker’s awards were overturned.

Chief Justice Warren explained, “Our citizenry has a legitimate and substantial interest in the conduct of such persons… Freedom of the press to engage in uninhibited debate about their involvement in public issues should be subject to derogatory criticism, even when based on false statements.”

Walker’s name occasionally surfaced in the press after this, usually in connection with anti-UN activities or in connection with the presidential campaign of George Wallace.

—————————————————————————–

APPENDIX

These articles concern the controversy about right-wing extremism in the military in the early Sixties, specifically related to General Walker and the Kennedy administration.

=============================================================================

New York Times, June 18, 1961, page 1

Right-Wing Officers Worrying Pentagon

by Cabell Philips

WASHINGTON, June 17 — The Pentagon is having its troubles with right-wingers in uniform.

A number of officers of high and middle rank are indoctrinating their commands and the civilian population near their bases with political theories resembling those of the John Birch Society. They are also holding up to criticism and ridicule some official policies of the United States Government.

The most conspicuous example of some of these officers was Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, who was officially “admonished” for his activities by the Secretary of the Army earlier this week.

General Walker’s offense was in saying that a number of prominent Americans, as well as elements of the newspaper and television industries, were tainted with Communist ideology.

He did this in the course of a continuing effort that the general said was “designed to develop an understanding of the American military and civil heritage, responsibility toward that heritage and the facts and objectives of those enemies who would destroy it.”

General Walker was the commander of the Twenty-Fourth Infantry Division in Germany at the time…

The problem for the Pentagon arises out of the fact that a number of its higher ranking officers have participated in or publically lent their support to a variety of so-called forums, schools, and seminars, ostensibly focused on the issues of national security. However, many of those groups — at least incidentally — are preoccupied with radically right-wing political philosophies.

Stress on Anti-Communism

The chief ingredient of these philosophies is often a militant anti-communism. The argument is that Communist subversion today is rife among the schools, the churches, labor unions, Government offices, and elsewhere.

In this argument, liberalism is equated with socialism and socialism with communism. Thus it opposes most welfare legislation, many programs for international cooperation such as foreign aid and disarmament conferences…

The genesis of this program goes back to the so-called “cold war policy” evolved by the National Security Council in the summer of 1958…

Cold War Widened

President Eisenhower and his top policy leaders decreed that the “cold war” could not be fought as a series of separate and often unrelated actions, as with foreign aid and propaganda. Rather, it must be fought with a concentration of all the resources of the Government and with the full understanding and support of the civilian population. It was decided, in particular, that the military should be used to reinforce the “cold war” effort.

This was the substance of the still-classified “cold-war policy” paper of the National Security Council…

Of the hundreds of military bases here and abroad, only a score have become involved in these programs to the point that they have caused alarm among the new civilian team in the Pentagon. Officials suspect, however, that the trend is somewhat more widespread than their reports currently indicate. They are quietly trying to find out how widespread it is.

A typical example about which they do know is a seminar labeled Project Action.

This was held at the Naval Air Station, Wold-Chamberlain Field, Minneapolis, on April 28 and 29 of this year. Capt. Robert T. Kieling is the commanding officer of the station. He was a co-sponsor of the program in collaboration with a committee of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Chamber of Commerce.

The official announcement described the program as follows:

“The purpose of Project Action is to inspire the citizens of this area to take an active part in the war against the danger that threatens our freedom and American way of life.”

“The program of talks and presentations by nationally-known leaders for the cause of democracy will bring to light facts and figures concerning the rising crime rate, juvenile delinquency, drug addiction, the general degradation of morals, the complacent attitude toward patriotism, and the tremendous gains the Communist conspiracy is making in this country…”

The United States Naval Air Station is making facilities available for the seminar at the request of the Twin Cities Council for American Ideals…

Among the scores of letters concerning Project Action that reached the Pentagon in the following days was one from a newspaper editor. It said in part:

“Perhaps someone can clear up for us our lack of understanding as to just how co-sponsorship of such activities fits in with the Navy mission, or the overall military mission, for that matter. It must be admitted that the local Project Action is politically partisan in a very real sense, although the partisanship is not that of the party label type.” …

Among numerous other incidents that have been brought to the attention of the Defense Department is the “Fourth Dimensional Warfare Seminar” held in Pittsburgh on April 15. Among those listed as giving “assistance and support” to the program were Lieut. Gen. Ridgely Gaither, Commanding General, Second Army, and Maj. Gen. Ralph C. Cooper, Commanding General of the Twenty-First Army Corps, and their respective staffs…

“This sort of thing, if carried far enough among susceptible people, can breed a wave of vigilantism and witch-hunting,” one Pentagon official said. “Even Mr. Hoover of the F.B.I., whom nobody would call ‘soft on communism,’ deplores these self-appointed counter-spies.” …

Reinforcing his point, he took from his desk a memorandum from Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, which has been circulated as “guidance” throughout the services. In part, it said:

“After the President has taken a position, has established a policy, or after appropriate officials in the Defense Department have established a policy, I expect that no member of the department, either civilian or military, will discuss that policy other than in a way to support it before the public.” …

=============================================================================

New York Times, September 8, 1961

McNamara Refuses to Identify Individual Censors in Pentagon

But He Gives Senators a List of Security Staff –Thurmond Voices Criticism of Policy on Anti-Red Speeches

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara refused today to give the name of the person in the Pentagon immediately responsible for deleting anti-Communist statements from speeches by an Army general.

He did provide a roster of the twelve-man security and review staff, which clears speeches. But he declined to identify particular individuals in the section who had made specific deletions.

The demand for this information was made by Senator Strom Thurmond, Democrat of South Carolina, at the close of hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee on his resolution for a full investigation of charges that military officers have been “muzzled.” …

It was also learned today that Gen. Edwin A. Walker, deposed last spring from his command in Europe because of the nature of his troop indoctrination program, had pleaded the military equivalent of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against self-incrimination during the investigation of his case by the Army Inspector General…

The entire transcript of the proceedings involving General Walker, which runs to more than 900 pages, is in the process of being declassified by the Department of Defense…

Senator Thurmond’s inquiry today related to a speech prepared for delivery last March by Gen. Arthur G. Trudeau, Chief of Army Research. In testimony today it was indicated that the excisions had the effect of softening the general’s blunt criticism of Soviet policies and tactics.

Mr. McNamara said that the justifications for the changes was that negotiations were then going on with the Russians for release of the downed RB-47. It was regarded as impolitic at the time, he explained, to provoke the Russians unnecessarily…

=============================================================================

New York Times, November 19, 1961, page 1

KENNEDY ASSERTS FAR-RIGHT GROUPS PROVOKE DISUNITY

Attacks Birch Society and ‘Minutemen’ at a Party Dinner in Los Angeles

Spread of Fear Scored

President Says Real Threat Comes From Without, Not Within

by Tom Wicker

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 18– President Kennedy spoke out tonight against the right-wing John Birch Society and the so-called Minutemen in a speech at a Democratic Party dinner here.

The President mentioned neither group by name but left no doubt whom he meant.

[in Atlanta, Senator Barry Goldwater, Arizona Republican, attacked the "radicals in the White House." At a news conference, he called President Kennedy the "wagon master" who is "riding on the left wheel all the time."]

The President, in his talk at the Hollywood Palladium, also made his first public response to Edward M. Dealey, publisher of the Dallas Morning News. Mr. Dealey attacked the President at a White House luncheon for “riding Caroline’s tricycle” instead of being “a man on horseback.”

Some ‘Escape Responsibility’

“There have always been those fringes of our society who have sought to escape their own responsibility by finding a simple solution, an appealing slogan or a convenient scapegoat,” Mr. Kennedy said.

Now, he continued, “men who are unwilling to face up to the danger from without are convinced that the real danger comes from within.”

“They look suspiciously at their neighbors and their leaders,” he declared. “They call for a ‘man on horseback’ because they do not trust the people. They find treason in our finest churches, in our highest court, and even in the treatment of our water.”

“They equate the Democratic Party with the welfare state, the welfare state with socialism, and socialism with communism. They object quite rightly to politics’ intruding on the military — but they are anxious for the military to engage in politics.” …

Mr. Kennedy chose a region in which the John Birch Society has some of its strongest support to make his third and sharpest attack on what he called tonight “the discordant voices of extremism.”

In the first two speeches, at Chapel Hill, N. C., and Seattle, he also warned against left-wing and pacifist extremists. His remarks tonight were directed to far-right groups and individuals.

The reference to “armed bands of civilian guerillas” appeared to be directed at the Minutemen, individual groups of which are being organized and armed in some parts of the country. The organization is reputed to be particularly strong in California.

Los Angeles is regarded as almost the heartland of the Birch Society. Two Republican Representatives from its urban districts, John H. Rousselot and Edgar W. Hiestland, are avowed members. …

=============================================================================

New York Times, November 19, 1961, page 54

RIGHTISTS PICKET KENNEDY SPEECH

3,000 Parade in Los Angeles in Orderly Demonstration

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 18– Raucous picketing took place outside the Hollywood Palladium where President Kennedy spoke.

For nearly an hour, 3,000 persons paraded, carrying signs and chanting and singing their protests over a variety of issues.

The demonstration, which started rather mildly five hours before the President spoke, was suddenly stepped up by an apparent influx of rightists.

Some of the signs carried by men and women wearing red, white, and blue paper hats, read: “Unmuzzle the Military,” “Clean Up the State Department,” “Veto Tito,” “Disarmament is Suicide,” and “CommUNism is Our Enemy.”

The marchers sporadically chanted “Test the Bomb,” and, “No Aid to Tito.” They sang, among other things, “God Bless America” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

A much smaller contingent of pacifist marchers was elbowed out. Most of these carried signs urging the end of all atomic testing…

=============================================================================

New York Times, November 19, 1961, page 54

Eisenhower Travels Aloft With Kennedy

SHERMAN, Tex. Nov. 18 (AP) — President Kennedy and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower rode together to Perrin Air Force Base near here by helicopter today after attending the funeral of Sam Rayburn at near-by Bonham.

Senator Carl Hayden, Democrat of Arizona, was also on the helicopter.

Mr. Kennedy and General Eisenhower stood together talking by the side of the aircraft for about two minutes. Mr. Kennedy gestured repeatedly with his left hand and appearing to be explaining something to General Eisenhower. General Eisenhower listened intently and shook his head affirmatively several times.

They shook hands. Mr. Kennedy then walked briskly to his plane and General Eisenhower got into an Air Force automobile.

=============================================================================

New York Times, November 24, 1961, page 1

Eisenhower Says Officers Should Stay Out of Politics

Assails Extremists In TV Interview

Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower last night urged officers of the armed services to shun partisan politics.

Speaking as a General of the Army, he declared it was “bad practice –very bad” for an officer, even when testifying under oath before a committee of Congress, to express opinions “on political matters or economic matters that are contrary to the President’s.” …

The former President was blunt in discussing the recent “rise of extremists” in the country.

“I don’t think the United States needs super-patriots,” he declared. “We need patriotism, honestly practiced by all of us, and we don’t need these people that are more patriotic than you or anybody else.”

His definition of extremists embraced those who would “go back to eliminating the income tax from our laws and the rights of people to unionize… [and those] advocating some form of dictatorship.” It also included those who “make radical statements [and] attack people of good repute who are proved patriots.”

At that point, Walter Cronkite of the C.B.S. news staff, who conducted the interview, asked about the “military man’s role in our modern political life.” He did not cite, but obviously referred to, the case of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, who stirred up a controversy that led to his “admonishment” for the political nature of the indoctrination of his troops. General Walker lated resigned from the Army.

“I believe the Army officer, Navy officer, Air officer,” General Eisenhower said, “should not be talking about political matters, particularly domestically, and never in the international field, unless he is asked to do so because of some particular position he might hold.” …

The general declared there was hope for disarmament and better East-West relations. As the Russian standard of living improves, the Russian people will begin to understand that there is another way of life, he said…

Source:

http://ciagents.com/...edwin-a-walker/

BELOW: General Edwin Walker, who had a history of conflict with President Kennedy, was the architect of the conspiracy that killed him. It was generously financed by Dallas oil billionaire H.L. Hunt and nurtured by sympathetic elements in the U.S. military and the FBI. Robert Morningstar has identified the symbol of Walker's racist militia organization, the Minutemen, on the sleeves of two policemen photographed near the TSBD shortly after the assassination. The younger of the two men (on the right in this collage) Morningstar thinks is Officer J.D. Tippit. Tippit may even have been the so-called Badgeman who fired a shot at Kennedy from the grassy knoll.

Luck of the draw or deliberate frameup?

As we have seen above, eyewitness observation leads ineluctably to the conclusion that those who conspired to assassinate President Kennedy had placed two men on the sixth floor of the Depository, one black and one white. This had apparently been done deliberately to create the possibility of either individual being identified afterwards as ‘the’ assassin.

There is evidence that the conspirators had long been keeping their options open as to whether a ‘Communist’ or a negro would finally take the blame. In the course of his work, PFC Eugene B. Dinkin, a U.S. army cryptographic code operator stationed in France with access to materials of the utmost sensitivity, had learned by about September 1963 that the military was planning to assassinate the president, probably acting in cahoots with an extreme rightwing group. Dinkin’s story was first revealed by Robert Mitchell in YIPster Times in 1977. Dinkin told Mitchell that he had sent cablegrams alerting the CIA on November 6 and November 7, 1963, but that the army had attempted to silence him by detaining him in Walter Reed military hospital and treating his allegations as the delusions of a mentally unbalanced individual. Mitchell not only verified Dinkin’s story but also uncovered evidence that the Warren Commission had known about it.

Dinkin subsequently told researcher Dick Russell that his effort to prevent the assassination began on October 22, 1963, when he sent a letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy disclosing what he had learned about the plot. In this letter he showed considerable awareness of the conspirators’ intentions:

I did offer in this letter a warning than an attempt to assassinate President Kennedy would occur on November 18th, 1963; that if it were to succeed, blame would then be placed upon a Communist or a Negro, who would be designated the assassin.

As we have seen in preceding pages, a negro somehow become an active participant in a plot to assassinate the country’s pro-civil rights leader. How a negro was prevailed upon to become involved, we can only guess, but the evidence suggests the possibility that it was not until a few minutes before the assassination - when he left his position in the southeast window - that he even knew that he had been selected to fire the shots. Of course, chance could have played a role. It is not absurd to suggest, for example, that shortly before the arrival of the motorcade, the two men tossed a coin to decide which man would fire the shots. In such a case, this would mean that it was simply left up to fate whether, in the end, the assassin would be a black man or a 'Communist.' But a more plausible scenario is that the negro was subjected to last minute pressure to be the assassin. If this was the case, the conspirators must have decided by November 22 that they wanted the assassination blamed on a negro rather than a Communist.

If this is way events unfolded, the decision to use a negro shooter offers powerful insight into the nature of the conspirators' motives for wanting to do away with Kennedy. If the assassin had been identified, by the evening of November 22, as a negro rather than alleged ‘Communist’ Lee Harvey Oswald, the South would surely have erupted in a giant wave of anti-black violence that the federal government might have taken weeks to bring under control. When one takes into account the extreme volatility of the South at the time when conventional race relations began being challenged by the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there can be no reason to doubt that such a catastrophe would have been regarded by the most intransigent southern racists as a desirable outcome, one paving the way towards the complete restoration of Jim Crow - possibly even with the tacit consent of most Kennedy liberals.

Is there any evidence to support the suggestion that the assassination was intended by its perpetrators to ignite a racial conflagration? Surprisingly, there is, and comes from someone who actively endorsed the coverup. In Plausible Denial, Mark Lane recounts the following, striking exchange he had with the ACLU’s A.L. Wirin:

On December 4, 1964, when I debated in Southern California with Joseph A. Ball ... [of the Warren Commission and] A. L. Wirin. ...Wirin made an impassioned plea for support for the findings of the commission.... He said, his voice rising in an earnest plea:

‘I say thank God for Earl Warren. He saved us from a pogrom. He saved our nation. God bless him for what he has done in establishing that Oswald was the lone assassin.’

The audience remained silent. I asked but one question: ‘If Oswald was innocent, Mr. Wirin, would you still say, “Thank God for Earl Warren” and bless him for establishing him as the lone murderer?’ Wirin thought for but an instant. He responded, ‘Yes. I still would say so.’ (p. 52)

Mark Lane assumes that Wirin was alluding to the outbreak of hostilities with either the USSR or Cuba. (p. 53) But the word ‘pogrom’ is an inappropriate one to refer to an event of this order. Since pogroms are large-scale outbursts of violence against Jews or other minorities, the only real conclusion one can draw from Wirin’s choice of words is that he was alluding to the prevention of a domestic catastrophe. Wirin’s remarks, which clearly defy justice, can be interpreted as a de facto admission that Lee Harvey Oswald had to be fingered as Kennedy’s assassin in order to avoid the identification of the real assassin. If the identification of the real assassin would have triggered a ‘pogrom,’ then the assassin obviously had to have been a member of a minority group.

It is to be greatly regretted that Lane did not ask Wirin who the victims of such a pogrom would have been. The word ‘pogrom’ normally refers to outbreaks of violence directed at Jews, and there is at least one Jewish figure – Jack Ruby – who might well have been one of Kennedy’s assassins. However, the overall political environment in Texas and the other southern states in 1963 was fuelled by racist opposition to Kennedy’s civil rights policies rather than antisemitism. When one factors in what PFC Dinkin had learned, the most reasonable conclusion is that the TSBD shooter had been a black man and that an outbreak of anti-negro violence, rather than war with the Soviet Union, was the actual catastrophe that Hoover, LBJ and the Warren Commission were seeking to avert at all costs.

My conclusion, therefore, is that the group that actually plotted and carried out the assassination was the Dallas branch of a radical rightwing group (such as the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society, Conservatism USA, Young Americans for Freedom, or the Minutemen) which was even more opposed to Kennedy’s civil rights policies than it was to Communism. As D-Day loomed, the plotters had decided to lay the blame on a negro precisely in the expectation that the revelation of his identity would trigger massive racial violence. In my judgment, the evidence suggests that the identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin was a sudden turnaround that almost certainly came as a great surprise to most people involved in the assassination itself. Once the assassination had achieved its goal and a dying president was rushed to Parkland Hospital, decisive intervention by the U.S. military that had nurtured the local racist conspiracy was required to ensure that a black man was not blamed. Beginning at 12.45, when the first description of a suspect was given out over police radio, therefore, the hunt was on for a white suspect.

http://elderlynegro....om/custom3.html

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Malcom, yes I was aware of those accounts, as most of them came up in the separate thread that John Simkin started in the FORUM on General Walker some time ago. One point I would make about those legacy posts is that they all fail to mention the role of Billy James Hragis.

Also, here's something about General Walker's role in the Ole Miss riots of 1962 that wasn't mentioned in those posts. While he was guiding students to revolt (which is the phrase in all the newspapers that he sued them over) he was encountered twice by an Episcopelian priest named Duncan Gray, Jr.

Reverend Duncan Gray Jr. pleaded with General Walker repeatedly to stop the violence and to send these people home, because they had no business there, and anybody could discern from the TV and radio broadcasts the previous week that General Walker was regarded as the leader of that protest against racial integration at Ole Miss. The first time, General Walker only insulted the priest and walked away.

The second time was on the memorial to the Confederate soldier, upon which General Walker had climbed and was giving his pep talk. Reverend Gray also climbed upon the memorial to tell people that violence was not the way, and to go home and stop the violence, and to again plead with General Walker to stop the violence. This time General Walker addressed the whole crowd when he insulted the priest, so some of the students pulled the Reverend down to the ground and kicked him until some sympathetic students dragged him off to the Y Building. I know this is true and correct because I myself called Reverend Gray (who is now 85 years old) and confirmed this story with him.

The Grand Jury heard Walker's side of the story in November, December and January, however, and they did not subpoena Reverend Gray for his testimony. Walker's side was that he was trying to stop the violence, and he was one one to call out, "violence is not the way!" No wonder the Grand Jury acquitted Walker.

(You might ask how I know what happened at a Grand Jury, when all Grand Jury records that end in acquital are sealed forever. The answer is that Edwin Walker kept some of those records, and they can be found in his archives at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.)

Anyway, my question is about when Walker became an activist segregationist. We know that he obeyed Eisenhower in 1957 to racially integrate Little Rock High School. We know that he was torn, emotionally at that time over the States rights issue of forcing racial integration, and that he attempted to resign from the Army in 1959, duiring Eisenhower's term.

During 1959, Walker contacted the John Birch Society and sent a long letter to Robert Welch himself (although he didn't join the JBS until early 1960).

My next question is this: did Billy James Hargis have anything to do with Walker's conversion to the John Birch Society? Walker didn't show blantant signs of racism during his Army career. The first time he really came down hard on African-Americans was during the James Meredith case at Ole Miss. Was this due to the influence of Billy James Hargis?

So, I strongly suspect that the segregationist preacher, Billy James Hargis was trying to influence General Walker from 1957 all the way through 1962. If so, that would be five years of brainwashing.

The trouble is, I don' t have any material proof at this time. That's what I want.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
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  • 4 weeks later...

I am still keen to find information linking Billy James Hargis and General Edwin Walker in 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1960.

I suspect that Bill James Hargis influenced General Walker to resign from the Army in 1959, when Eisenhower rejected that resignation and assigned Walker to Augsburg, Germany, to be commander of the 24th Infantry Division.

Surely, this was a radical step for any U.S. Army General to make -- to resign instead of retiring, and thereby forfeit his military pension; why would he do this in 1959? We cannot blame Kennedy, because Eisenhower was President in 1959.

The only issue that General Walker ever had with the U.S. Government at this time was his twinge of conscience when he used U.S. Army forces to racially integrate Little Rock High School in 1957. Now, he carried this out efficiently, as a proper U.S. General would.

However, at this same time Billy James Hargis was an ambitious young segregationist Christian preacher with a radio program and made scads of money on the right-wing lecture circuit.

I have this theory (and I need more evidence) that segregationist Reverend Billy James Hargis began to work on General Edwin Walker as early as 1957. By 1959 Hargis finally convinced Walker to submit his resignation to the U.S. Army. (Walker was the only U.S. General to resign in the 20th century.) Part of Hargis' argumentation was probably based on his close personal relationship with Texas billionaire H.L. Hunt. That would probably be enough to impress any two-star General.

Anyway, Eisenhower rejected Walker's resignation and sent him to Augsburg, Germany.

It seems that Hargis and Walker used this opportunity to put the infamous 'Pro-Blue' Troop Indoctrination program into practice. Including a fair amount of books from the John Birch Society (which preached that Eisenhower was a Communist) and perhaps some books from Billy James Hargis himself (all at taxpayer expense), the 'Pro-Blue' program raised eyebrows in Europe.

Now, WIlliam Turner (also a member of this Forum) wrote in 1971 (Power on the Right) that General Edwin Walker used a reading list that was influenced by segregationist Reverend Billy James Hargis. Peter Dale Scott repeated that story in 1993 (Deep Politics and the Death of JFK). I fervently hope to find the root of that report.

In any case, JFK and RFK were offended by confirmed reports (4/16/1961) that the John Birch Society got a foothold in the U.S. Army, selling books there and teaching young soldiers not only that President Eisenhower was a Communist, but that President Truman, also was a Communist, as well as President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Naturally, they also taught that JFK was a Communist.

We should not be surprised to learn that JFK and the Joint Chiefs of Staff dismissed General Walker from his command in Augsburg Germany on 4/17/1961 the very next day after the report became public in the Overseas Weekly newspaper in Europe.

Although many Texans and right-wing conservatives came to the aid and support of General Walker, too many Americans were aware that the John Birch Society was composed of kooks who lived in 'nut country'. So Walker got too little support to keep his post. He was offered another post in the Pacific, but he turned it down.

On November 1, 1961, General Edwin A. Walker officially resigned from the U.S. Army (when he could just as easily have retired with 30 years of heroic and highly decorated service behind him, and kept his well-earned pension).

When Walker left the Army, he headed straight for Dallas, Texas, the headquarters of so many right-wing extremist groups. Without any income - with no visible means of support - he moved into a spacious home in a lovely neighborhood in Dallas, and kept in close contact with H.L. Hunt and segregationist Billy James Hargis.

Walker began writing speeches. Soon he would begin his first speaking tours with Hargis.

Some of my questions are, how long had they been planning this? How close was their personal relationship? How much money did they receive from H.L. Hunt for this? Remember that only some weeks later, Walker would come up with the cash to register with Texas State to run for Governor against John Connally. With no income? Excuse me, but something is amiss here.

And how far did Walker's resentment of JFK carry him at this particular time?

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited by Paul Trejo
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Here's a possibility:

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/

Hargis>Edward Bundy>Richard B, Cotten>Shreveport>?

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Here's a possibility:

http://mdah.state.ms...rchives/sovcom/

Hargis>Edward Bundy>Richard B, Cotten>Shreveport>?

John, thanks for the link to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, which has ten links to documents by or about segregationist Reverend Billy James Hargis.

I examined all of those documents. One of the documents was a duplicate of another, leaving nine distinct documents, which may be briefly described as follows:

1. 08Apr60: Clarion-Ledger, Miss. article by segregationist Tom Ethridge defending Billy James Hargis.

2. 03Aug60: Women's Church Committee of Vicksburg, Miss. Topic: Subversion in Religion, and a commitment to engage speakers like Billy James Hargis.

3. 17Nov60: Church Committee of Independent Women Meeting at Hotel Heidelberg, Miss. to hear Billy James Hargis.

4. 02Feb62: Billy James Hargis, THE WEEKLY CRUSADER, "Unmasking Martin Luther King" as a Communist.

5. 19Jul62: Madison County Herald, Miss. Topic: Hargis, Walker, Bundy and Welch spoke in Jackson about Reds in the Churches.

6. 18Jun64: Letter from Erle Johnston, Jr., Director of the so-called Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities to a Attorney John Satterfield, advising him that he gave Richard Cotten permission to reproduce Billy James Hargis' pamphlet, 'The Occupation of Ole Miss.'

7. 12Dec65: Dr. Carl McIntire denounces the National Council of Churches as Socialist in a book review, citing Bundy and Hargis as model Christians who correctly advocate segregation.

8. 05Jan65: Letter from Erle Johnston, Jr., Director of the so-called Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities to a reader, sending her a copy of THE WEEKLY CRUSADER - Unmasking MLK as a Red.

9. 12Dec66: El Nuevo Herald, Miami Beach, article by Gary Gerlack attacks Billy Graham who advocated the National Council of Churches.

All these documents tell a tiny part of his story. They all confirm Hargis' lifelong commitment to racial segregation in the USA, and his career-long accusation that the National Council of Churches serves the Communist cause by suggesting that racial segregation is non-Christian.

They also correctly link Billy James Hargis to Dr. Carl McIntire, who was Billy James Hargis' mentor in his crusade against the NCC. They also correctly name Major Edgar Bundy as a major writer in these attacks against the NCC.

However, as we can see, the documents do not link Billy James Hargis and General Walker together before 1961, as I earnestly sought.

Only three of the ten documents deal with dates before 1961. These are documents by supporters - a Mississippi segregationist journalist, and a Women's Church Group that advocated segregation of the Churches.

Two documents are from 1962 -- one is by Hargis himself, an attack on Martin Luther King, attempting (like J. Edgar Hoover) to prove that MLK was a Communist. (General Walker's personal papers also include numerous clippings from publications that portrayed MLK as a Communist. This is already well-documented.)

The other document from 1962 is by a Florida journalist who advocated Hargis, Walker, Bundy and Welch and their attacks on the NCC and other alleged Communists.

What this shows, once again, is that the McCarthy era Red Scare never really died in 1955, and the American Southland was recruited as the carrier of the McCarthy Red Scare throughout the 1960's.

Yet I already knew this, John, as did many of us in the Forum. I am still earnestly seeking evidence to link Billy James Hargis to General Edwin Walker in 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1961.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

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Paul, did you ever find anything here?

http://libinfo.uark..../mc1412/2-3.asp

Has your research ever looked into this man?

http://www.spartacus...k/USAwoodRE.htm

Michael, I appreciate the link to the University of Arkansas Special Collections of the Billy James Hargis papers.

In some future research into this topic, this fine Collection will become invaluable, I'm sure. However, for my current purposes, it is not much help because this Collection contains nothing in the way of correspondence with General Edwin A. Walker.

I would hope that this Collection is incomplete -- i.e. there may be some other University with more papers than this. Yet the Dolph Briscoe Center's Collection of Edwin Walker papers contains virtually nothing of the personal correspondence between Billy James Hargis and General Walker, although these men knew each other for many years, and would go on the road together for weeks at a time. (There is one 1965 dinner invitation from Hargis to Walker, but that hardly counts as politically important.)

I wonder if there is another Billy James Hargis Collection somewhere.

I did find a couple interesting items -- Billy James Hargis' papers include a document entitled, Red-ucators at Harvard University (1949-1952). This was a not-so-subtle claim that Red Communists taught at Harvard. This is interesting because General Edwin A. Walker would also attack Harvard University as Communist in many of his speeches.

Also, in a book by Kent and Phoebe Courtney, when Walker's career was challenged by some who wondered how a man with such a low education could attain the rank of a two-star General in the US Army, the Kennedy White House responded by advising that future ranking officers of the US Miltary should be required to have a college diploma (which Walker didn't have). Walker's reply, according to the Courtneys, was that the Kennedys wanted to send all US Army officers to Harvard, which is a college of Communism, in order to brain-wash the Army brass to make them all Communists.

Walker's proof was that the Kennedys themselves graduated from Harvard, and many of the high-ranking men in the Kennedy Administration graduated from Harvard, and "everybody knows" the Kennedy Administration is full of Communists.

This circular illogic was standard for the John Birch Society and for the extreme right that concentrated in the South (but was by no menas limited to the South). My point is that Billy James Hargis held the same views, and read similar literature in the early 1950's, that is, during the McCarthy Red Scare.

So, circumstantial evidence of similar themes does appear -- but that is not enough to link the two men personally before 1961. Nevertheless, I appreciate the citation, Michael. It will come in handy in the future.

As for the other gentleman you cited, Robert E. Wood, yes I'm aware of his right-wing leadership in the early 20th century that extended into the 1960's. He founded the Manion Forum. (It is well-known that both Hargis and Walker were subscribers to the Manion Forum newsletter, as proved by the contents of their their personal papers.) The Manion Forum still exists today, although quite a bit more tame than in its earlier, segregationist days.

Also, Robert E. Wood founded the American Security Council (ASC), which is the citizens' equivalent of the National Security Council (NSC) which is a branch of the US Government. The typical scenario would be for every Commander of the US military to join the ASC upon retirement, and offer advice to Industrial Contractors for military weapons.

General Edwin Walker chose to avoid the ASC, for some reason -- possibly because in retirement the Generals would become more personal and would gather in parties that included their wives. But Edwin Walker never married, and was shunned in conservative circles because he was so awkward at family events.

As I said before, I will not engage in gay-bashing in any thread -- but the possibility of homosexuality in the lives of General Edwin Walker and Reverend Billy James Hargis must become a political issue as well as a historical issue insofar as it affected their behavior. It must be raised -- respectfully -- because it might explain so much. Hargis (who admitted being fascinated with homosexuality) and Walker (who in later life admitted homosexual acts) had to become superb liars in a world that would have shunned them both quickly and forcefully if their gender preferences had come out of the closet in the 1960's.

Therefore, as I surmise, Walker and Hargis preferred the company of each other to the company of the ASC.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

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Paul, I'm not sure if you saw this or if it would be useful:

Boxes 1-5

This series includes materials pertaining to Billy James Hargis and the Christian Crusade. Included are biographical materials, including obituaries, newspaper clippings, and monographs by Hargis and Fernando Penabaz. This series also includes materials gathered by the FBI on Hargis and the Christian Crusade, available through the Freedom of Information Act; the fourth of these ten files could not be obtained. Other materials include scripts from Hargis’s radio show, and many of his writings. This series also includes materials pertaining to staff and associates of the Christian Crusade, including correspondence, writings, and newspaper clippings. Of particular note are the materials pertaining to General Edwin Walker, who resigned his commission in the United States Army and joined Hargis in the crusade against communism. After 1969 the Christian Crusade’s newspaper The Weekly Crusader was superceded by the large format newspaper Christian Crusade Weekly, issues of which are located in Series 4

http://libinfo.uark....ds/mc1412/1.asp

Michael, I appreciate the link to the University of Arkansas Special Collections of the Billy James Hargis papers.

In some future research into this topic, this fine Collection will become invaluable, I'm sure. However, for my current purposes, it is not much help because this Collection contains nothing in the way of correspondence with General Edwin A. Walker.

I would hope that this Collection is incomplete -- i.e. there may be some other University with more papers than this. Yet the Dolph Briscoe Center's Collection of Edwin Walker papers contains virtually nothing of the personal correspondence between Billy James Hargis and General Walker, although these men knew each other for many years, and would go on the road together for weeks at a time. (There is one 1965 dinner invitation from Hargis to Walker, but that hardly counts as politically important.)

I wonder if there is another Billy James Hargis Collection somewhere.

I did find a couple interesting items -- Billy James Hargis' papers include a document entitled, Red-ucators at Harvard University (1949-1952). This was a not-so-subtle claim that Red Communists taught at Harvard. This is interesting because General Edwin A. Walker would also attack Harvard University as Communist in many of his speeches.

Also, in a book by Kent and Phoebe Courtney, when Walker's career was challenged by some who wondered how a man with such a low education could attain the rank of a two-star General in the US Army, the Kennedy White House responded by advising that future ranking officers of the US Miltary should be required to have a college diploma (which Walker didn't have). Walker's reply, according to the Courtneys, was that the Kennedys wanted to send all US Army officers to Harvard, which is a college of Communism, in order to brain-wash the Army brass to make them all Communists.

Walker's proof was that the Kennedys themselves graduated from Harvard, and many of the high-ranking men in the Kennedy Administration graduated from Harvard, and "everybody knows" the Kennedy Administration is full of Communists.

This circular illogic was standard for the John Birch Society and for the extreme right that concentrated in the South (but was by no menas limited to the South). My point is that Billy James Hargis held the same views, and read similar literature in the early 1950's, that is, during the McCarthy Red Scare.

So, circumstantial evidence of similar themes does appear -- but that is not enough to link the two men personally before 1961. Nevertheless, I appreciate the citation, Michael. It will come in handy in the future.

As for the other gentleman you cited, Robert E. Wood, yes I'm aware of his right-wing leadership in the early 20th century that extended into the 1960's. He founded the Manion Forum. (It is well-known that both Hargis and Walker were subscribers to the Manion Forum newsletter, as proved by the contents of their their personal papers.) The Manion Forum still exists today, although quite a bit more tame than in its earlier, segregationist days.

Also, Robert E. Wood founded the American Security Council (ASC), which is the citizens' equivalent of the National Security Council (NSC) which is a branch of the US Government. The typical scenario would be for every Commander of the US military to join the ASC upon retirement, and offer advice to Industrial Contractors for military weapons.

General Edwin Walker chose to avoid the ASC, for some reason -- possibly because in retirement the Generals would become more personal and would gather in parties that included their wives. But Edwin Walker never married, and was shunned in conservative circles because he was so awkward at family events.

As I said before, I will not engage in gay-bashing in any thread -- but the possibility of homosexuality in the lives of General Edwin Walker and Reverend Billy James Hargis must become a political issue as well as a historical issue insofar as it affected their behavior. It must be raised -- respectfully -- because it might explain so much. Hargis (who admitted being fascinated with homosexuality) and Walker (who in later life admitted homosexual acts) had to become superb liars in a world that would have shunned them both quickly and forcefully if their gender preferences had come out of the closet in the 1960's.

Therefore, as I surmise, Walker and Hargis preferred the company of each other to the company of the ASC.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

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