We do have evidence that links Nixon to the attempted murder of George Wallace. According to Colson: “Nixon expressed a fear that this guy (Bremer) might be a right-wing zealot or a Nixon supporter”. Nixon told Colson to get over to the FBI “to find out what they know”. Mark Felt (yes, the so-called Deep Throat) gave Colson details of where Bremer was living.

Colson returned to Nixon and told him the news. Nixon then said: “Wouldn’t it be great if they found left-wing propaganda in that apartment… Too bad we couldn’t get somebody there to plant it.”

Nixon later denied he said this and suggested Colson was lying. However, this conversation is captured on the tapes. It was Nixon who lied about this incident.

Immediately after this conversation Colson phoned Hunt. We have no tapes of this conversation. Both men claim that Colson asked Hunt to find out if there was any left-wing propaganda in Bremer’s apartment. Hunt claims that Colson said: “Every time there’s an assassination in this country the press blames the political Right. Weeks later the truth seeps out – like Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan, who were Lefties. Just once I’d like the truth to come out – if Bremer’s a Marxist himself.”

This does not make any sense at all. If there was any such propaganda the FBI would have found it. Why would they destroy it? According to Hunt's autobiography, Undercover, he accepted the assignment but it was called off soon afterwards.

It later emerged that Federal Bureau of Investigation officers found both left-wing and right-wing propaganda in Bremer's apartment. They also found a diary where Bremer wrote about his plans to kill George Wallace or Richard Nixon. The opening sentence was: "Now I start my diary of my personal plot to kill by pistol either Richard Nixon or George Wallace."

This let Nixon off the hook as it suggested that Bremer was after killing him as well. However, was this diary planted in Bremer’s apartment? Local reporters later claimed that the FBI left Bremer’s home for around 90 minutes before coming back and sealing it. During this time reporters and other unidentified figures took away papers from Bremer’s apartment.

There is another interesting aspect to this story. Barry Sussman, Bob Woodward's editor at Washington Post, claims in his book, The Great Cover-Up, that Woodward first made use of Deep Throat when writing about the Arthur Bremer case. Woodward found out details about Bremer for another journalist working on the story. Sussman concludes in his book that Deep Throat must have been a senior official in the FBI.

A few days ago Woodward wrote an article for the Guardian about his relationship with Mark Felt. It included the following passage:

On May 15, less than two weeks after Hoover's death, a lone gunman shot Alabama Governor George C Wallace, then campaigning for president, at a shopping centre. The wounds were serious, but Wallace survived. Wallace had a strong following in the deep South, an increasing source of Nixon's support. Wallace's spoiler candidacy four years earlier in 1968 could have cost Nixon the election that year, and Nixon monitored Wallace's every move closely as the 1972 presidential contest continued.

That evening, Nixon called Felt - not Gray, who was out of town - at home for an update. It was the first time Felt had spoken directly with Nixon. Felt reported that Arthur H Bremer, the would-be assassin, was in custody but in the hospital because he had been roughed up and given a few bruises by those who subdued and captured him after he shot Wallace.

"Well, it's too bad they didn't really rough up the son of a bitch!" Nixon told Felt.

Felt was offended that the president would make such a remark. Nixon was so agitated, attaching such urgency to the shooting, that he said he wanted full updates every 30 minutes from Felt on any new information that was being discovered in the investigation of Bremer.

In the following days I called Felt several times and he very carefully gave me leads as we tried to find out more about Bremer. It turned out that he had stalked some of the other candidates, and I went to New York to pick up the trail. This led to several front-page stories about Bremer's travels, completing a portrait of a madman not singling out Wallace but rather looking for any presidential candidate to shoot. On May 18, I did a page - one article that said, "High federal officials who have reviewed investigative reports on the Wallace shooting said yesterday that there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Bremer was a hired killer."

It was rather brazen of me. Though I was technically protecting my source and talked to others besides Felt, I did not do a good job of concealing where the information was coming from. Felt chastised me mildly. But the story that Bremer acted alone was a story that both the White House and the FBI wanted out.

In his book, The Taking of America, Richard E. Sprague argued that Donald Segretti and Dennis Cassini, supplied money to Bremer before he attempted to assassinate George Wallace. Others have claimed that Bernard L. Barker, one of the Watergate burglars, was used to pass this money to Bremer. Gore Vidal has also suggested that Bremer's diary was a forgery and had been written by E. Howard Hunt.

John, if Nixon expressed to his closest aides fear that Bremer might prove to be a right-wing zealot or Nixon supporter (which MIGHT make Nixon look bad since clearly Nixon was the political beneficiary of Wallace's incapacitation) is this not in fact uncontravertible PROOF that Nixon was innocent? Had he been witting of a plot he would not have expressed that concern.

And we have discussed before the clear error in Sprague's claim that money was passed to Bremer "by a group associated with Segretti and Cassini". As tou know, the statement Sprague made was a group "associated with Segretti, Cassini anf Gratz" (that is, me). But Sprague never identifies the group. I met Segretti but once and then went to rather great lengths to stop his dirty tricks; I'd never even heard of Cassini until I read Sprague's book. The only "group" with which both Segretti and I were jointly associated was the Committee to Re-Elect the President, and, possibly, the Young Republicans. Surely Sprague had no evidence that CREEP or the Young Republicans were giving Bremer money.

I should add that I have recently read more about Sprague's work in assassination research and from what I have read the man does indeed deserve credit for that work. But I find his book to be riddled with baseless charges and his strange claim about an unidentified group funding Bremer just exemplifies the errors in his book. There seems to be no reason he would not identify the "group" to which he refers (and, of course there is also the issue why if there was anything to that charge he did not report it to law enforcement).

Again, I think the Nixon remark you quote is clearly exculpatory rather than inculpatory, but he surely was (rightly) worried about the political damage to him if Bremer was a Nixon supporter. He might even have worried that a "rogue Nixon supporter" had arranged the shooting. But he clearly had no prior knowledge of it.

Did Nixon want false evidence planted that Bremer was a left-winger? Clearly, yes. Was planting that evidence a crime if it did not increase the evidence of Bremer's guilt or falsely point to another person? Probably it would have been a crime. And if the evidence might have tended to exonerate Bremer by indicating his insanity, it may have even rendered anyone involved an accessory after the fact to attempted murder, a rather serious crime indeed.

I agree with Tim on this one. The fact that Nixon wanted to plant info in Bremer's apartment is incredibly damaging. It does point towards his innocence in the actual shooting, however. I say point but not prove because he may have included Colson and Hunt in his plans to plant the information to throw Colson, who was taping Nixon and later tried to blackmail him, and his pal Hunt off Nixon's trail. They didn't call him Tricky Dick for nothing.

John,

I selected this telling passage from the Woodward 'Guardian' article you cited on your posting today (incidentally, this is my maiden voyage on the Education Forum and I'm quite happy to be aboard): "On May 18, I did a page - one article that said, 'High federal officials who have reviewed investigative reports on the Wallace shooting said yesterday that there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Bremer was a hired killer.'

It was rather brazen of me. Though I was technically protecting my source and talked to others besides Felt, I did not do a good job of concealing where the information was coming from. Felt chastised me mildly. But the story that Bremer acted alone was a story that both the White House and the FBI wanted out."

His reaction is all about him and his source, not of any concern for implying - on the front page - that the Nixonians hired Bremer. Yeah, MAYBE they did but where's the journalistic beef? Jim Hougan gave a whiff of allusion on this matter and handled it deftly in "Secret Agenda."
JohnG

Tim,

I regard Mr. Sprague as strictly minor league; indeed, after attempting to digest some of his speculation, he comes across as bush league (and we're not talking Dubya). I admire the work gone into research on his or anyone else's part. But it only hurts when so much of it is skewered to fit a premise and there's no there there.

I do, however, wish to point out that Nixon's not wanting an assassin's political leanings to reflect on him or his administration is not necessarily exculpatory, per se. After all, who would want to be downwind of that, especially in the absence of any attempt to conceal enmity on the part of the major media?

Enjoyed your comments.

Regards,
JohnG
(today marks the date of my initial offerings here)

John, read your biography and it sounds like you have had a fascinating career.

I don't agree with all of Weberman's conclusions but his "nodules" are packed with information. I just wish they all had an index or search feature.

I look forward to your continued posts!

Tim,

Much appreciated! Yeah, I HAVE been lucky and I'd rather be lucky than good...a "career" that in one sense is interesting only to me, it seems at times, but if I dwell upon things a bit then it becomes rather impressive, if I do say so myself. After all, we're talking about trying to live in interesting times (as long as they're not arresting times, right?). Not only that but I've had two company cars!

I've been real good in the investigative business and real lucky, if I may reiterate, as well. For some reason I always seem to meet the "right" people. There is a friend of mine who I would love to have join us here. He was in M.I. and in the same unit in Korea as I, only it was five years before me. He told me that he was assigned to do a hush-hush Intelligence Summary report on none other than Lee Harvey Oswald in...September NINETEEN SIXTY TWO !! The kicker was that the officer who assigned this told my friend that "The White House has an interest in this." No one elaborated on that, he said, and he didn't ask. So, maybe that's something for another link, so to speak, and another time. Of course, he and I both believe Oswald acted alone (cue the muffled guffaws).

Regarding Bremer/Wallace Nixon, John's take on "evidence linking Nixon" is an unfortunate choice of phrasing. As I mentioned, who would want to be downwind of Bremer appearing to be an admirer or supporter in the aftermath of the Wallace assassination attempt? On the contrary, one would want to distance oneself ASAP. I do not doubt the Left Wing/Right Wing Legend was interchangeable, as it was with LHO; and, can't you almost tap dance on the disingenuousness in Nixon's voice as he is quoted saying to Felt that it was "too bad they really didn't rough up..." Bremer?

As one gets along in years the concept(s) of propaganda becomes truly breathtaking, along with its pervasiveness. I'm thinking of Watergate and the movie "All The President's Men." My God! I hate myself for having taken the bait when the film was released, even though I should have known better. I'm sadder but wiser now.

I'm going to open/reopen discussion on the JFK link regarding Judyth Vary Baker next week. There's one very interesting tidbit I have to offer which I am confident no one has mentioned. I know there has been a lot about her on the 'Net the last couple of years (she got into a beef on a blog with David Lifton) and maybe some people think she has little credibility. Frankly, I think she has LOTS of credibility and I'm surprised not to have seen her name among the threads of correspondence.

Well, time flies when you're having fun. Thanks for getting in touch, Tim. I look forward to much more. I'll try to enlist my MI buddy. What a great site. Ain't we got fun!?
Yours Truly, John Gillespie

John wrote:

I've been real good in the investigative business and real lucky, if I may reiterate, as well. For some reason I always seem to meet the "right" people.

I am sure it is more than luck, John. Now I am a very rational, non-superstitious person but I do believe in things such as instinct and hunches and they can, I think, be a part of intellectual judgment. I think for a person with years of experience in investigating you can "develop" an instinct about, for instance, things that do not seem "right".

You will be in a distinct minority asserting that Oswald acted alone, but perhaps as you participate in the forum you may change your mind.

Part of the issues raised in the the assassination research community is what is a coincidence and what is a conspiracy. I remember wondering in 1964 if there was a connection between the deposition of Khruschev and the assassination of Kennedy. It seemed rather co-incidental to me that the leaders of the world's two great super-powers would both be removed from office within a year. Then last year I read in Trento's "The Secret History of the CIA" that it was Angleton's scenario that a group of hard-liners within the Politburo orchestrated both the assassination of Kennedy and the deposition of Khruschev. Perhaps I found Angleton's scenario persuasive in part because it was consistent with what I felt intuitively in 1964. Another reason why I suspected a left-wing plot early on was because the Paines' connections were to the left, not the right. That is brought up in Manchester's book. It seems rather clear that if there was a conspiracy, the Paines were connected to it in some way.

"Of course, he and I both believe Oswald acted alone (cue the muffled guffaws)."


Tim,

Tongue was firmly planted in cheek there. Thanks for responding. I don't have a home computer, so I'm limited to the occasional spaces I find while working and during lunch periods, etc. Right now I'm trying to digest the whole Harry Dean thread on the other link.

Regards and will post on JFK soon,
JAG

The first of Operation Sandwedge’s objectives was very successful: Edward Kennedy was not a presidential candidate in 1972.

The second major objective, stopping George Wallace from becoming a third party candidate, took longer. Wallace’s campaign came to an end when he was shot four times by Arthur Bremer on 15th May, 1972.

Researchers have usually concentrated on the links between Operation Gemstone and this assassination attempt. For example, soon after Richard Nixon heard the news he told Charles Colson that he was concerned that Bremer “might have ties to the Republican Party or, even worse, the President’s re-election committee”. Colson now phoned E. Howard Hunt and asked him to break-in to Bremer's apartment to discover if he had any documents that linked him to Nixon or his main political opponent in the presidential election, George McGovern. According to Hunt's autobiography, Undercover, Colson later phoned him to cancel this order.

However, it was Sandwedge that was the most important of these two dirty tricks operations. It was more likely that John Ehrlichman or Bob Haldeman would have been dealing with John Caulfield or Tony Ulasewicz over this matter. This was a much more professional operation and left few clues of its involvement in Nixon’s dirty tricks campaign. Ulasewicz explains in his book, The President’s Private Eye, that he had little respect for those involved in Operation Gemstone. He also outlined how he managed to distance himself from the White House during this period. The interesting question is: “Had Ehrlichman or Haldeman given Caulfield and Ulasewicz any instructions concerning Bremer, before or after the shooting of Wallace?

In 1998 Insight Magazine obtained the 5,413-page FBI report known as the WalShot Files - a 26-volume package spanning eight years from the day of the shooting of Wallace to 1980. This includes an interview with Vincent Femia, who was the deputy state's attorney for Prince George's County at the time. Fernia explains that Nixon stepped in to control the Bremer investigation shortly after the shots were fired. At the hospital, an FBI agent hung up a hospital phone, turned to Femia and barked, "That was the president. We're taking over. The president says, “We're not going to have another Dallas here.”

Prosecutor Arthur Marshall was interviewed by Timothy W. Maier in 1998: Marshall admitted that: "We had concern that someone else was involved," Marshall says. "The question I always had is how the Secret Service found out who he was as quick as they did. They were in his apartment within an hour."

Forty-five minutes after the shooting, the WalShot Files show, a Baltimore FBI agent called the Milwaukee FBI office identifying Bremer as the shooter based on personal identification found on Bremer. The Secret Service identified Bremer's address at 5:35 p.m., it claims, after tracing his .38-caliber handgun. But 25 minutes earlier, at 5:10 p.m., when two FBI agents entered Bremer's apartment, a Secret Service agent already was there. The Secret Service agent told the FBI he was on an "intelligence-gathering mission."

When Colson asked E. Howard Hunt to go to Bremer’s apartment he understandably argued that it would be too late as by this time the police would have arrived. It was obviously important that someone got to Bremer’s apartment before the FBI did. They did. How did they manage that? Was that “Secret Service” agent involved in Operation Sandwedge?

In 1974 Wallace told United Press International that "he hoped the Watergate investigation would turn up the man who paid the money to have him shot." Wallace later said he believed the White House plumbers unit might have been involved.

The WalShot Files say Wallace had received a letter from Bernard Barker, one of the men caught in the Watergate break-in. The alleged letter is said to have claimed Bremer was paid by G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt for shooting Wallace. All deny the allegation. According to the WalShot Files, the FBI and Barker claim the letter is a fraud.

Ulasewicz does not of course mention George Wallace in his book. Nor was he cross-examined about his investigation of Wallace during his role in Operation Sandwedge by the Senate Watergate Committee. This is surprising as Jack Caulfield admitted when he testified that the investigation of Wallace was part of Operation Sandwedge. As Ulasewicz says in his book, he was relieved when the Senate Watergate Committee showed no interest in Operation Sandwedge. All they wanted to know about was his work with Operation Gemstone. This of course only involved the cover-up when he paid hush money to the Watergate burglars. In fact, without James McCord’s testimony, Caulfield and Ulasewicz would never have been forced to testify before the Senate Watergate Committee and Operation Sandwedge would have remained a secret.

Is there any evidence of any links between Operation Sandwedge and Arthur Bremer? There is only one. In Richard E. Sprague’s, The Taking of America, he has this to say about the attempted assassination of George Wallace:

In 1972 the Power Control Group was faced with another set of problems. Again the objective was to insure Nixon's election at all costs and to continue the cover-ups. Nixon might have made it on his own. We'll never know because the Group guaranteed his election by eliminating two strong candidates and completely swamping another with tainted leftist images and a psychiatric case for the vice presidential nominee. The impression that Nixon had in early 1972 was that he stood a good chance of losing. He imagined enemies everywhere and a press he was sure was out to get him.

The Power Control Group realized this too. They began laying out a strategy that would encourage the real nuts in the Nixon administration like E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy and Donald Segretti to eliminate any serious opposition. The dirty tricks campaign worked perfectly against the strongest early Democratic candidate, Edmund Muskie. He withdrew in tears, later to discover he had been sabotaged by Nixon, Liddy and company.

George Wallace was another matter. At the time he was shot, he was drawing 18% of the vote according to the polls, and most of that was in Nixon territory. The conservative states such as Indiana were going for Wallace. He was eating into Nixon's southern strength. In April the polls showed McGovern pulling a 41%, Nixon 41% and Wallace 18%. It was going to be too close for comfort, and it might be thrown into the House - in which case Nixon would surely lose. There was the option available of eliminating George McGovern, but then the Democrats might come up with Hubert Humphrey or someone else even more dangerous than McGovern. Nixon's best chance was a head-on contest with McGovern. Wallace had to go…

Arthur Bremer was selected. The first contacts were made by people who knew both Bremer and Segretti in Milwaukee. They were members of a leftist organization planted there as provocateurs by the intelligence forces within the Power Control Group. One of them was a man named Dennis Cossini…

What evidence is there that Bremer's attempt on Wallace was a directed attempt by a conspiratorial group? Bremer himself has told his brother that others were involved and that he was paid by them. Researcher William Turner has turned up evidence in Milwaukee and surrounding towns in Wisconsin that Bremer received money from a group associated with Dennis Cassini, Donald Segretti and J. Timothy Gratz.

According to William Turner he cannot remember discovering this information. Maybe, Sprague made a mistake. Was it another researcher who supplied him with this information? Or did Sprague make it up? That is of course possible, but if he did, why did he select Tim Gratz’s name? At this time, according to the public records, the only involvement Tim had in this matter was the statement he gave to Ulasewicz concerning Donald Segretti’s attempts to recruit him into Nixon’s dirty tricks campaign. If Sprague wanted to falsely implicate Nixon into the assassination attempt on Wallace, there were far better names to use. In fact, because of his public record of reporting Segretti, Tim was the last person anyone would have believed was involved in some sort of conspiracy against Arthur Bremer. Yet he decided to set up Tim Gratz. Why?

Then there is the question why Tony Ulasewicz was sent to interview Tim Gratz. It seems very strange that the chief field officer of Operation Sandwedge should be chosen for this task. What was Ulasewicz really doing when he interviewed Tim? Is it possible that this meeting was about something else? Is it possible that the meeting was also about providing Tim with a cover-story? Is it possible that information about Dennis Cassini and Tim Gratz being involved in some sort of Nixon conspiracy against Arthur Bremer had already leaked out. Is this the information that eventually found its way to Richard Sprague. Was Sprague’s task to give Tim a cover story? If so, Tim can consider himself lucky. Look what happened to Dennis Cassini?

John, while I suspect Sprague's mention of Tim was just sloppy journalism, which my reading of conspiracy literature confirms is widespread, I do have something to add in regards to possible Secret Service involvement. I came across this just the other day.

Nixon: an Oral History of his Presidency by Gerald and Deborah Strober. Page 263 (paperback Edition)

"Alexander Butterfield I was privy to something that has never come out: that there was a guy on the White House staff--a sort of catch-all guy; a former Secret Service agent who had been on Nixon's detail when Nixon was vice-president. They used him when Teddy Kennedy started getting some popularity, and Nixon was worried. They put him back on duty, on Teddy's detail. Of course, they thought Teddy was fooling around; they were going to get some information on him; he must have had a lady someplace. So he made weekly reports to Haldeman. I was aware of that. It's abuse of power, technically, and I imagine LBJ did worse things."

I think you'll agree this raises all sorts of questions. Who was this man? Could it be Bob King, Maheu's former partner, who'd been with Nixon during his vice-presidency? Watergate records indicate Nixon talked to King the day Hoover died. Just a coincidence? While King was never with the Secret Service as far as I know, he had been former FBI. If not King, then who? Could this man have been someone who'd been on JFK's detail as well? I think we need to figure out who this man was. Does anyone have a list of Nixon's detail? Teddy's brief detail in 72? I believe this could be important.

I think it's also important to determine what Butterfield meant by "catch-all" guy. What does a former Secret Serviceman, now "catch-all" guy, do? Could this man have been working in co-ordination with Ulasewicz and Caulfield?

Butterfield's statements, as with his statements regarding the White House tapes, could lead to the discovery of much mischief.

I have just read Dan T. Carter’s biography of George Wallace, The Politics of Rage. The book provides a detailed analysis of Nixon’s relationship with Wallace. Carter confirms that Nixon was petrified of the impact that Wallace could have on the next presidential election.

Nixon’s initial strategy was to destroy Wallace’s power base in Alabama. This included providing $400,000 to help Albert Brewer defeat Wallace as governor. This failed and Nixon had to change his strategy to one of blackmail. With the help of Murray Chotiner, Nixon discovered details of Wallace’s corrupt activities in Alabama.

In July 1969, Nixon pressurized the IRS into forming the Special Services Staff (SSS). The role of the SSS was to target Nixon’s political enemies. By 1970 the SSS had compiled a list of 4,000 individuals. Most of this list were on the left. However, Nixon now added George Wallace and several of his aides to this list. This included George’s brother, Gerald Wallace, who had indeed made a fortune on local projects. This included a $2.9 million contract for asphalt that went to Gerald's company even though he charged a $2.50 per ton over the going price. By August 1970, the SSS had 75 people working on what was known as the “Alabama Project”.

To show he meant business, one of Wallace’s closest aides, Seymore Trammell, was sent to prison for 4 years for corruption. Nixon then used Winston Blount, his Postmaster General, to begin negotiations with Wallace. A deal was eventually struck with Wallace. In return for calling off the SSS, Wallace would not become a third party candidate. On 12th January, 1972, Attorney General John Mitchell announced he was not going to prosecute Gerald Wallace. On 13th January, Wallace gave a press conference where he announced he would not be a third party candidate. The plan was that Wallace would create havoc in the Democratic Party but that eventually George McGovern would become the winner, a man that Nixon knew he could beat.

However, Wallace did much better than expected. Nixon now feared that Wallace would not keep his promise and would indeed become a third party candidate. Polls suggested that virtually all of Wallace’s votes would come from Nixon’s potential supporters. If Wallace stood, Nixon faced the prospect of being defeated by McGovern.

On 15th May, 1972, Bremer tried to assassinate George Wallace at a presidential campaign rally in Laurel, Maryland. Mark Felt immediately took charge of the case. According to Dan T. Carter, Felt had a trusted contact in the White House: Charles Colson. Felt gave Colson the news. Within 90 minutes of the shooting Nixon and Colson are recorded discussing the case. Already they are talking about finding a way to blame George McGovern for the shooting.

Meanwhile Colson phones E. Howard Hunt and suggests he breaks in to Bremer’s apartment. According to Hunt, he dislikes the idea but makes preparations for the trip. He claims that later Colson calls off the operation.

Colson also phones journalists at the Washington Post and Detroit News with the news that evidence had been found that Bremer was a left-winger and was connected to the campaign of George McGovern. The reporters are also told that Bremer is a “dues-paying member of the Young Democrats of Milwaukee”. The next day Bob Woodward (Washington Post) and Gerald terHost (Detroit News) publish this story.

Over the next few hours, Colson and Felt talk six times on the telephone. Felt gives Colson Bremer's address. At 5:00 p.m. Thomas Farrow, head of the Baltimore FBI, gives Bremer’s address to the FBI office in Milwaukee. Soon afterwards two FBI agents arrive at Bremer’s apartment block and begin interviewing neighbours. However, they do not have a search warrant and do not go into Bremer’s apartment.

At around the same time, James Rowley, head of the Secret Service, orders one of his Milwaukee agents to break into Bremer’s apartment. It has never been revealed why Rowley took this action. It is while this agent is searching the apartment that the FBI discover what is happening. According to John Ehrlichman, the Secret Service and the FBI nearly opened fire on each other.

The Secret Service took away documents from Bremer’s apartment. It is not known if they planted anything before they left. Anyway, the FBI discovered material published by the Black Panther Party and the American Civil Liberties Union in the apartment.

Both sets of agents now leave Bremer’s apartment unsealed. Over the next 80 minutes several reporters enter the apartment and take away documents. There is also the extra opportunity for material to be planted in Bremer’s apartment.

The following day that the FBI discover Bremer’s 137-page written diary in his blue Rambler car. The opening sentence was: "Now I start my diary of my personal plot to kill by pistol either Richard Nixon or George Wallace." Nixon is now off the hook. He was initially suspected of being behind the assassination. Now the chief suspect is George McGovern.

Wallace survives the assassination attempt. Wallace believes that Nixon’s aides ordered the assassination. He now decides to become a third party candidate to gain his revenge on Nixon. Cornelia Wallace takes pleasure in telling Nixon when he arrives at the hospital that her husband will take him on in November. However, Wallace’s health has been severely damaged and reluctantly he has to pull out of the race.

In May, 1974, Martha Mitchell visited George Wallace in Montgomery. She told Wallace that her husband, John Mitchell, had confessed that Charles Colson had a meeting with Arthur Bremer just four days before the assassination attempt.

Wallace ordered his own investigation into Bremer. He told friends that he was convinced that Nixon’s aides had arranged the assassination. He quoted the case of Henry II and Thomas Becket. He believed that Nixon has said something similar to that of Henry II: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”

Wallace gave an interview to Jack Nelson of the Los Angeles Times. Wallace told Nelson that the man seen talking to Bremer on the Lake Michigan Ferry looked very much like G. Gordon Liddy.

On 13th December, 1992, Wallace's son, George Junior, gave an interview to the Montgomery Advertiser. He said that they had received information from several different sources that someone who worked directly for Richard Nixon was behind the shooting of his father.

If only we could get Bremer and Sirhan Sirhan on Jerry Springer...

That's one large LOL you are hearing from Beantown...

Regards,
JohnG

In 2000, WGBH Channel 2 (PBS) here in Boston produced, as part of The American Experience, a film on George Wallace. Here is the site. There are many links.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmm...view/index.html

This is an excerpt from the text (the Carter quoted here is not Jimmy). There are a couple of very interesting comments by Ehrlichman, below, among others:

NARR: Wallace had come close to costing Richard Nixon the election in 1968 -- and the president was not going to let it happen again. Red Blount, a Nixon cabinet member from Alabama, thought Brewer could beat Wallace and drive him out of presidential politics. All Brewer needed, Blount said, was a little help from his friends.

EHRLICHMAN: There came a time when the president received Red Blount and me to discuss the Wallace situation. Red carried a message from Governor Brewer, uh, the effect of which was that he’d be willing to run, given the proper inducements. Well, that was an easy call for the president. He said, "By all means, give him whatever inducements he needs."

NARR: Nixon ultimately provided some $400,000, in secret cash payments, nearly a third of Brewer’s campaign budget.

INGRAM: Criticized beyond belief after the fact, but to this day and to my death, I will defend it as one of the cleanest contributions you could get. They didn't want a job. They didn't want a contract. They didn't want, uh, uh, want anything. All they wanted was to beat Wallace. What can you do? What's wrong with that?

NARR: The Nixon’s plan seemed to be working. The incumbent Brewer, a moderate, was gaining momentum and had the support of Alabama’s black electorate. It seemed George Wallace’s time had passed.

PAUL HARVEY: Alright. Wallace, pointing to national politicians in publications out to get me, protesting that George Wallace has nobody for him but the people. is right now outgunned -- but he’s not yet out maneuvered.

TURNIPSEED: I never will forget, we had a meeting of all the faithful, all the staff and so forth, and the governor addresses everybody, and says, "Look, we got to do what we’ve got to do." We’ve got to play, he didn’t say the race card, but it was obvious what, what he wanted. And, and he says, we gotta just go all out on this issue.

INGRAM: We didn't think they could, I-- we were in the-- living in the dream world of thinking maybe this issue had kind of-- it's 1970. They've seen the diffic-- the troubles, the tragedies for both in large degree by Wallace's, uh, stand. Uh, maybe times have changed. But the campaign began and it was absolutely like nothing this state had ever seen.

Reporter: What about what you say about your opponent?

GEORGE WALLACE: I say nothing about my opponent.

Reporter: How about your supporters?

GEORGE WALLACE: I don’t know what my supporters say.

INGRAM: They had smear sheets saying that Brewer was a homosexual. His wife was a drunk. One daughter was pregnant by a black. It was just, uh, terrifying --

Reporter: Governor, uh, what do you know about these obviously doctored photographs showing Governor Brewer with Elijah Mohammed and, uh, Cassius Clay or Mohammed Ali?

CARTER: George Wallace announces that he’s going to run as a Democrat, not as a third party candidate. And it’s the third party candidacy that’s the threat to Nixon. So, in a sense Nixon gets what he wants. Is it a coincidence that a couple of days after this happens, the Justice Department announces that it’s not going to continue it’s investigation against Governor Wallace or against his brother? Well, we still don’t know the answer to that question. But it certainly raised, for a number of people at the time, disturbing questions about whether a deal had been made.

NARR: Only one person went to jail as a result of the I.R.S. investigation. By cooperating, Seymore Trammell had implicated himself. He was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to four years in federal prison.

NARR: In March of 1972, a young man living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, took the first step of a fateful journey. "Now I start my diary," Arthur Bremer wrote, "of my personal plot to kill by pistol either Richard Nixon or George Wallace."

CARTER: From uh, his earliest, pretty sad childhood, Arthur Bremer was this pathetic loner, isolated uh, he had no friends. He grew up, went to Milwaukee primary, secondary school. Uh, was always considered to be -- as people said -- weird, a weird individual who clearly was probably mentally ill.

NARR: "No one ever noticed me nor took interest in me as an individual with the need to receive or give love. In junior high school, I was an object of pure ridicule for my dress, withdrawal, and asocial manner." Dozens of times, I saw individuals laugh and smile more in ten to fifteen minutes than I did in all my life up to then."

CARTER: In his life, I think a turning point was when he had his first crush on a girlfriend. And, uh, at first she was interested, and then, when she turned him aside, then he became obsessed with this, with somehow getting her to notice him. And he did all kinds of strange things.

Arthur Bremer’s neighbor: In January, he was, when he had long hair, and then he went to extremes and he shaved it off, and he was, he shaved it completely bald.

Reporter: You mean he shaved his hair which was long at one time, until he was completely bald?

CARTER: He wanted her to notice him, and to a, he became obsessed with making a name for himself.

NARR: "Life has only been an enemy to me. I will destroy my enemy when I destroy myself. But I want to take part of this country that made me with me."

CARTER: Well, how are you going to make a name for yourself? I mean, this is part-time busboy, a janitor. Uh, he decided to kill somebody.

NARR: "What’s a good title for this manuscript? ‘A month in the life of nobody in particular.’" began with the Democratic primary in Florida. He quickly locked onto an issue that was dividing the nation -- the recent Supreme Court decisions affirming the use of busing to desegregate schools.

GEORGE WALLACE: This matter that they’ve come up with of busing little children to achieve racial balance is the most asinine, atrocious, callous thing I’ve ever heard of in the United States.

GEORGE WALLACE: I believe that if I win the Florida primary, that Mr. Nixon himself will step in and stop the busing of school children throughout the United States.

And I’ll bet you that when he was in Red China, he and Mao Tse Tung talked more about busing than anything else. If you want to know--

NARR: George Wallace carried every county in the state of Florida.

GEORGE WALLACE: The average citizen has spoken in the state of Florida. They are going to speak throughout the United States. I’m a serious candidate for the presidency on the Democratic ticket in the primaries. And it looks like we’re going to Miami with the greatest number of delegates. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. [cheers]

CORNELIA WALLACE: The Florida primary sent him out of there with a, just like on a rocket for the 1972 presidential elections.

NARR: Less than forty-eight hours after Wallace’s victory, President Nixon addressed the nation.

Nixon: I am sending a special message to the Congress tomorrow. I shall propose special legislation that will cause an immediate halt to all new busing orders by a federal court. A moratorium on new busing.

NARR: On March 23rd, George Wallace held a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Arthur Bremer was there. "I figured Wallace would be dead or dying now if I wanted it so. After he gave the liberals hell, he stood in the open and waved and smiled."

"The audience stood, some turned to leave, some to move in for a closer view. I moved in and for the first time, saw his face. He looked heavily wrinkled and ugly.

That would have been it."

JENKINS: I had sort of expected this sort of thing to happen sooner or later. Because when you heat up the, the political, uh, environment to the extent that Wallace does, you’re going to, uh, bring a lot of kooks out of the woodwork.

WALLACE, JR: He always had told me that he realized he might be shot running for president. That was very real to him. And he said, "I, I realized that might happen." But he always believed it would be a head injury and that he would die.

NARR: "May 13, 1972. Arrived at Dearborn Youth Center at 15 after six. The hall was packed."

CHESTNUT: You just can’t go around s-- preaching hatred, however you cloak it, however you dress it up, and somehow or another, it will not come back to bite you.

NARR: "Two 15-year old girls had gotten in front of me. Their faces were one inch from the glass that would shatter with a blunt nosed bullet. They were sure to be blinded and disfigured. I let Wallace go only to spare those two stupid, innocent delighted kids. We pounded on the window together at the governor. There’d be other times."

GEORGE WALLACE: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

NARR: The momentum from Wallace’s Florida win had continued to grow. He took a strong second in Wisconsin after only eight days of campaigning.

GEORGE WALLACE: We’ve come a long way from 8 years ago when, uh, the Democratic candidate called me something evil because I advocated that which he advocates now. And I think by the time we get to November, some of the leadership is going to be saying, you know, I just didn’t understand Wallace. He’s really a better fellow than I thought. I really didn’t know him so well.

NARR: Next was another strong second in Pennsylvania. Higher poll numbers. And overflowing crowds. Soon, the press predicted Wallace victories in some of the upcoming elections. On the morning of May 15th, Wallace departed for his last day of campaigning -- in the Maryland primary.

CORNELIA WALLACE: When we left the governor’s mansion that day, my husband had already started talking about-- he was nervous, he was just extremely nervous. He just kept saying, "I don’t think I’m going to go. "I just don’t think I’m going to make this trip." He said, "One more day of campaigning is not going to make any difference. If I haven’t won it now, I’ll, I can’t win it with one day of campaigning."

NARR: Wallace set aside his concerns and headed north for two final rallies. At the first rally, a news cameraman focused on a familiar figure -- dressed in red-white-and-blue. Arthur Bremer, standing close to the stage, asked one of the men guarding Wallace -- "Could you get George to come down and shake hands with me?’ But Wallace never mixed with the mostly hostile crowd. Instead, he and his entourage pushed on to Laurel, Maryland.
CORNELIA WALLACE: I came into the rally late at Laurel, Maryland. George was already speaking and it was a very calm crowd, very nice, congenial crowd. Everything just seemed really nice. So, he came down and he started shaking hands.

NARR: The Secret Service agent in charge asked Wallace not to go into the crowd. "That’s all right," Wallace said. "I’ll take the responsibility."

CORNELIA WALLACE: And then all of a sudden, I heard, da, da, da-da-da. And then time just stood still.

I thought they’d shoot him again. And so I jumped on top of him, trying to cover up his head and his heart and his vital organs, his lungs. And, uh, there just wasn’t anybody around him. Well, the Alabama bodyguard had been shot and blown out and knocked down. The Secret Service agent that was -- these two were supposed to protect his body -- got shot in the jaw and was vomiting and vomiting blood. So I just kept saying, uh, he, he was dazed and he didn’t speak, and I kept saying, "George, I’m going to take you home. I’m going to take you home. And we’re going home now." And, uh, finally, all of a sudden somebody was pulling me away from him. I kept begging him, I said, "Let-- don’t take me away from my husband now. Please don’t take me away from my husband now."

I was able to get in the ambulance and they put George in, and the Alabama state trooper Dothard in on another stretcher.

Emcee: Please move back, ladies and gentlemen! Let the ambulance get out of here!

Please move back! Get out of the way!!! Get out of the way!!! GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!

CHESTNUT: I think I was in a courtroom and somebody came in and said that Wallace had been shot. They were all around Selma that day, folk, who disliked George Wallace intensely, were praying that he’d recover. They didn’t want him dead, uh, and that they-- there was no rejoicing among black Alabamians that George Wallace had been shot. But there was a lot of, "The chickens have come home to roost." You heard that everywhere.

CARTER: Wallace, by the mid-1960s was certainly aware that he was a figure in danger. That is we’d had the assassination of Kenn-, the two Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, and he often talked about the danger that he had. But I think he always anticipated the kind of uh, political ideologue, somebody who opposed him, uh, uh, finding him at some moment and shooting him. George Wallace, the most intensely, ideological, political candidate of the 1960s, uh, ends up being shot by somebody who just wants to get his picture on the front page of "The New York Times."

KENNEDY: When my friend told me that he had been shot, and I don't know how to put this without it sounding, uh, really cruel, I was relieved in a way because it was over, and I didn't have to wake up another morning and think about, if this was going to be the day. And of course, you know, the fact that he lived was just, uh, wonderful. I mean, I would have given my life. I mean, I was just, it was wonderful that he lived. But the relief that, that it was over. That what you had feared was going to happen had happened, uh, just sort of rushed through me, and, uh, then I moved on and dealt with something else, see?

CORNELIA WALLACE: George was taken into the emergency room, the doctors

took a big safety pin and started pricking his leg and his skin didn’t flinch. They said, "Governor, move your legs." And, uh, they said it three or four times, and he didn’t. I said, "He’s hard of hearing, I said, he doesn’t hear well." I said, "George, move your legs." And he didn’t and then I looked up and they looked at me. And I knew he was paralyzed, they didn’t say anything.

KENNEDY: The doctor sat me down, as he did the other children, one on one, and told us that he was paralyzed. Well, um, that was like losing the '58 campaign, you-- he, he's not supposed to lose and he's not supposed to be this way. And how iron-- how ironic for as, as quick a man, uh, in step and in gesture and in everything else to be paralyzed for the rest of his natural life.

CORNELIA WALLACE: From that moment, I made another decision, that he would never see me cry. That I’d have to keep him cheered up and cheerful, that I couldn’t afford the luxury of, of mourning and weeping and letting my hurt and pain come out. And I think it was twenty years later, before I could ever really feel the pain and hurt of what had happened to my husband. Whenever I just talked about this with people. I just uh, I couldn’t talk about it anymore. And it’s still hard. It’s really hard.

NIXON: I know that all of us, uh, certainly wish that Governor Wallace in this very difficult time, uh, will have not only the very best medical care, uh, but that, uh, he can recover from the wounds that he has received.

CARTER: Within minutes after, uh, George Wallace was shot in Laurel, Maryland, the Secret Service had informed the White House.

CARTER: And, uh, Richard Nixon with several of his aides immediately begins running through, well, what are the political implications of this? How they can turn it to their advantage? And they come up with this, uh, extraordinary scheme. George McGovern is likely to be Nixon’s opponent in the upcoming presidential race. They’re going to plant McGovern material in Arthur Bremer’s apartment so that when the investigation goes forward, it will look somehow as though Arthur Bremer is a tool of George McGovern. The plan backfires, it fails because the, the F.B.I. gets there and they close off, uh, the apartment. The very idea that the President and his advisors are planning to do this, I think, in part, reflects not only the political machinations of the White House, but it also reflects the fear that Wallace instilled in the Nixon White House.

NARR: On July 7th, just seven weeks after the attempt on his life, George Wallace left Maryland’s Holy Cross Hospital.

Reporter off camera: How do you feel governor?

GEORGE WALLACE: I feel good, feel great.

NARR: With his campaign all but over he was headed to Miami, Florida, to address the delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Party officials had extended the invitation hoping to woo Wallace supporters. Wallace, in turn, hoped to find a place on the Democratic ticket.

GREENHAW: George went down and he looked pitiful. He looked like warmed over death. I mean, he looked horrible up there, suspended above this convention. I thought, my God, hey, if something slips and falls, he, he’ll be dead, you know. And what the hell is going on here? And he makes this kind of, uh, very awkward speech. I felt like, you know, he’s trying to explain himself to the Democratic party.

GEORGE WALLACE: I wanted it again to become the party of the average citizen in this country as it used to be.

GREENHAW: And it didn’t work.

EHRLICHMAN: Well, I think with most of us, he disappears. He ceases to have significance in the political race. He was not a factor in the election, and, um, we didn’t respond to him. He, he was just a non-entity.

CORNELIA WALLACE: He was very depressed at times I expended a lot of energy and effort in pumping him back up. And I said, look, you-- your life. Trying to help him to understand, to be grateful that he was alive. And it’s very easy for me to say, very hard for someone who’s going to be paralyzed. One time he just absolutely quit on us, wouldn’t get up, wouldn’t get out of bed. So I called my cousin who was an administrator of a V.A. hospital. And he said, "I’ll send you two nurses down there." And the first day they came in their uniforms and their caps and they were big women. And they, uh, came in the room, and said, "Good morning, Governor." He put, put the sheet up over his head, he just wasn’t going with them. [laughs] And uh, they said, "Well, it’s time to get up, Governor. Now what are you-- what are we going to do today, you’re going to get up or just stay in bed?" He said, "I’m going to stay in bed." And he pulled -- the sheet down and peeped out and he said, "I want to tell you two sergeants something." He said, "I’m the commander of the Alabama National Guard, the chief in commander," and said, "ain’t no two sergeants going to tell me what to do." With that, they jerked the sheet back, they grabbed him up, they put him in the wheelchair and for two weeks, they pushed him through life.

KENNEDY: My father had hoped for recovery. Uh, I think he had hopes that he would walk again, as we all did. But as the months and the years went by, uh, you know that, uh, I don't know if you call it a dream, I don't know what he called it, but it diminished. And, uh, you know, his injuries were such that it just was not going to be.

GEORGE WALLACE: I’ve had some mental stress and some anguish. And sometimes wonder, why did it happen to you? But I accepted the fact that I was not going to walk, save a miracle. And I’ve adjusted my life, I’ve accepted it. And, uh, so, I really don’t worry about it.

CORNELIA WALLACE: The thing I never told him or said publicly was that what I really loved about him was that strutty, feisty walk he had. I really loved that and it hurt me that I wouldn’t be able to see him like that again.

NARR: Wallace would remain governor of Alabama, winning re-election in 1974. But his national ambitions had not disappeared. With the fall of the Nixon presidency in scandal and the public’s disenchantment with Washington insiders, the stage seemed set for the governor to take another run.

JENKINS: You have to keep in mind that, uh, by that time, he had-- was in a wheelchair and had been paralyzed for four years, and, and the very fact that he was running from a wheelchair, uh, shows the tenacity and determination of the man.

NARR: As the first presidential candidate openly running from a wheelchair, Wallace was making history. Even as president, Franklin Roosevelt had disguised his own paralysis with carefully choreographed entrances. Thanks to a cooperative press and a vigilant secret service, there are images of FDR in a wheelchair. But times had changed. The press had a relentless fascination with images of Wallace seemingly helpless and dogged his candidacy with questions about his health.

Interviewer [off camera]: Is George Wallace well enough to run for the presidency?

CORNELIA WALLACE: He’s well, perfectly healthy and well.

GEORGE WALLACE: I can understand that people can question about my health. But Franklin Roosevelt was elected four times in a wheelchair and as Al Smith said one time, "You’re not electing an acrobat." If you needed an acrobat to be president, I would not be qualified but you don’t need an acrobat to be president.

Interviewer: He has been quoted as saying that he is in constant pain. Is he under medication anymore?

CORNELIA WALLACE: He takes, uh, Tegritol. It works on the central nervous system. But if it were any kind of, uh,thing I thought interfered with his line of work, uh—

Interviewer [off camera]: You wouldn’t let him take it.

CORNELIA WALLACE: I wouldn’t let him take it. He’d just have to suffer. [laughs]

GREENHAW: It was Cornelia’s efforts and thinking about, uh, FDR and pushing the FDR model on Wallace and his rehabilitation in 1976. Tried to get him up and ready to go and to get ready to campaign hard and strong and have him physically able where he could lift himself up.

BUCHANAN: But for someone like Wallace whose, whose appeal really is, he’s got a tremendous amount of animal energy and dynamism. If you can’t stand up there on that podium, uh, it is a tremendous disadvantage.

JENKINS: The Florida primary was the acid test for Wallace. It was early, I think it was a spring primary. Most of the national Democrats had decided to forego Florida because, uh, they knew that Wallace was very likely to take the state.

NARR: Aside from Wallace, only two Democrats entered the Florida race. One was also a governor, from a Southern state — Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter: The major person being tested in Florida is not myself, it’s Governor Wallace. He’s got to do at least as well or better in ‘76 in Florida, his best state, than he did in ‘72.

NARR: Even as Wallace sought to bring the issues that had driven his career to the fore...

GEORGE WALLACE: We haven’t been against people. We’ve been against big government trying to take over and write a guideline for you and tell you how to cross the street, what to do with your union and your business when you know how to do it yourself.

NARR: His campaign soon faltered over an aide’s stumble.

GEORGE WALLACE: Getting on the airplane, while they’re getting the airplane, uh, the people lifting me into the airplane dropped me. [laughs] And I thought that, uh, I might have a problem here because that knee bent too much. So I wanted to tell the news media about it , because they make a big thing, to-do about it.

Reporter [off camera]: Do you personally consider this to be a setback at all?

GEORGE WALLACE: Well, it’s, uh, it’s a disappointment, uh, you know. I think it would be a disappointment to anyone that sprained a ligament in their knee. And, uh, but we’re going to keep going, of course. Folks, thank you.

NARR: Unable to escape concerns about his health, Wallace lost to Carter in Florida and then again in North Carolina.

JENKINS: And this had the, the double effect of first eliminating Wallace from the, uh, 1976 race, and, second, uh, giving, uh, Jimmy Carter a tremendous surge as the person who stopped George Wallace.

BUCHANAN: But the reason Wallace, uh, could not do as well and did not beat Carter, quite frankly, was simply because he was handicapped. If he had not been handicapped, uh, Jimmy Carter would not have been president.

JENKINS: And in the end, uh, George Wallace endorsed Jimmy Carter. He did it to some extent out of spite. He, uh, he thought that this would be a way of getting back at the quote "Northern liberal Democratic establishment," by, uh, supporting a Southern governor. In effect, if I can’t have it, then we’re going to have another Southern governor do it.

NARR: Carter became the first Southern governor to win the presidency since before the Civil War. He had taken the Wallace mantle as an outsider, but not the message. The Wallace themes would find a powerful voice and his supporters a new hero in Ronald Reagan. He shared Wallace’s ability to connect with everyday Americans and he attacked many of the same targets. But Reagan projected a more positive view of the country’s future and that led to a movement that would come to dominate the nation’s politics for the last decades of the 20th century. George Wallace returned to Montgomery, as he always had after a failed presidential bid. But this time, he had only two more years of the governorship. And a marriage that had lifted him up after the shooting, now crashed around him.

GREENHAW: He began to accuse her of having affairs with state troopers. She accused him of talking to his old girlfriends on the phone all the time, uh, and trying to lure them over to the mansion. They, uh, tapped each other’s phones. And then sooner or later, you know, it just turned so nasty that, uh, that they filed divorce papers, and it was a, a nasty couple of weeks in the courtrooms, uh, and, and in the newspapers.

Reporter: A truck pulled up to the governor’s mansion in Montgomery, Alabama today and loaded aboard Mrs. Cornelia Wallace’s personal items. She was moving out. Couldn’t take it anymore, she said. The vulgarity, threats and abuse, as she put it. She and Governor Wallace have had marital troubles for some time. He has a lawyer working on a divorce. She said today that she has struggled to save her marriage but without success.

NARR: 1976 seemed to be the end of a long journey for George Wallace. But there was one transformation left, one built from the suffering of a broken body, from a rediscovered religious faith, from reflection upon a life.

CARTER: George Wallace’s life uh, had its ups and downs, but it was uh, it was pretty down after, after ‘76. Uh, he’s essentially finished as a national candidate, he leaves the governorship in 1978, and he’s a fundraiser for a medical school in Birmingham, but he spends much of his time, uh, alone. Um, he’s never been very close to his family, and he broods a lot. And he begins to think about, uh, his life. I think the way all good uh, Southern evangelicals or evangelicals do, "I’m at the end of my life, now what have I accomplished, what have I done, what have I done right, what have I done wrong."

GEORGE WALLACE: If I didn’t have what it took to treat a man fair regardless of his color, then I don’t have what it takes to be the governor of your great state.

TRAMMELL: I was outniggered and I will never be outniggered again.

GEORGE WALLACE: And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.

CARTER: And although Wallace would never admit that he was a hater -- he always says he wasn’t -- he realizes the consequences of his actions, in terms of those around him.

GEORGE WALLACE: And now they’ve created themselves a Frankenstein monster and the chickens are coming home to roost all over this country.

WALLACE, JR: His own suffering and purification that brings and the enlightenment that brings, and his realization that some things he had done and said could have caused others to suffer, bothered him, concerned him as a Christian.

CARTER: And so, one by one, he picks up the telephone and he begins calling his old enemies, the people who he had, uh, used as kind of punching bags in the 1960s. And asked for their forgiveness.

NARR: One of those Wallace called was a civil rights leader who’d been beaten bloody by Wallace’s state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.

LEWIS: Uh, he was very candid, very frank, I thought. He literally poured out his soul and heart to me. Uh, it was almost like a confession, like I was his priest. He was telling me everything. That he did some things that was wrong, and that he was not proud of. He, he kept saying to me, "John, I don’t hate anybody. I, I don’t hate anybody."

NARR: In 1982, Wallace returned to politics, running once again for the governor’s office.

NARR: Somehow Wallace’s pleas for forgiveness had struck a chord.

GEORGE WALLACE: And whether or not you’ve agreed with me at everything that I used to do, and agreed to, I know that you do not. I, too, see the mistakes that all of us made in years past.

Black woman: You know, God said you must repent. And he’s repented. Uh, Governor Wallace is a child of God now. You can believe that. He helped everybody, especially the black and the poor.

GREENHAW: Here’s George Wallace from a wheelchair running in ‘82. The guy wins with the black vote. He could not have won without it.

LEWIS: He wanted the black vote and he went out and campaigned for those votes. He made promises and a lot of black folks went out and voted for him and they supported him.

Black man: He said that, uh, he was wrong on segregation-- "I mistreated folk and I want a chance to repent." But the burden of proof now is on him, and, of course, only time will tell.

NARR: For the next four years, Wallace kept that promise. Appointing record numbers of blacks. And depending on a coalition of blacks and whites for legislative support.

WALLACE, JR: He had meetings, uh, in this very building in the governor’s office, among, uh, black leaders and sought to build bridges. And if he was the epitome of resistance, he became the epitome of change in the New South.

LEWIS: In a, in a very strange sense, he was somewhat reverting back to the old Wallace, maybe, just maybe to his true self.

Tammy Wynette: Governor George Wallace, we love him.

FLOWERS: I don’t think George changed later on in his life. I think he went back to the George Wallace that I used to know. He really was for the downtrodden. He really wanted to help the people that needed help. And he more or less dropped back into the old pattern of the real George Wallace.

WALLACE, JR: His health had deteriorated some during that term. And, uh, I don’t believe he believed he could give a full measure of himself, uh, had he run again. Uh, he actually had two speeches with him as he went to the capitol, and no one knew which one he planned to give. One was that he would seek the office again. One was that he would retire.

GEORGE WALLACE: I would like to be part of the future myself. And during the past few days I have done much evaluation and much soul searching. And some of you younger may not realize that I paid a pretty high price in 1972. Those five bullets gave me a thorn in the flesh, as it did for Apostle Paul. And I prayed that they should be removed but they were not. I realized in my own mind that all I’m doing is very good at the present time. As I grow older the effects of my problem may become more noticeable. I feel that I must say that I’ve climbed my last political mountain. But there’s still some personal hills that I must climb. But for now, I must pass the rope and the pick to another climber and say, "Climb on. Climb on to higher heights. Climb on ‘til you reach the very peak. Then look back and wave at me, for I, too, will still be climbing." My fellow Alabamians, I bid you a fond and affectionate farewell. You are very kind. Good-bye. Good-bye.

JENKINS: Well, [chuckles] uh, anything good out of the Wallace years? It-- I’m afraid I can’t think of a single thing. [chuckles]

INGRAM: Much that has transpired in, in government in, on the federal level in recent years was what Wallace had espoused. Not on, on, so much on race. That's, that's the same people focus on that. But he was against big government. He was for strong military. He was concerned about, uh, welfare abuse. And that's what we talk about now.

BUCHANAN: He has never gotten credit for being the, the figure he was and having the influence he did upon subsequent politics, uh, Nixon and Agnew, the Reagan movement, uh, frankly the Buchanan movement, the Perot movement, and the others.

CARTER: He’s the man who’s not visible. He’s the invisible founding father in this whole process. The very people who profited from Wallace’s ideas are the people who don’t want to recognize him. He’s simply not respectable.

CHESTNUT: I have no problem forgiving George Wallace. I will not forget George Wallace because we must deal with the reality of Wallace. How is it that a demagogue, insulting twenty million black people daily on the television, can rise to the heights that Wallace did? Forgive, yes. Forget, never.

WALLACE, JR: The man I see is not the man that many people see when they think of George Wallace. I see a man who’s walked with his Lord and his, his faith and his forgiveness of the man who shot him five times and his expression of love for that man. And I truly believe the greatest story of him has to do with that personal side, rather than anything political.

INGRAM: I think, uh, uh, [sighs] I think in this conversion of Wallace, uh, he's cramming for final exams. He knows death is not too far away, and he wants to be on the right side, and, uh, I wish him the best. I, I feel sorry for him. To see this dynamic, energetic man just be a pathetic, deaf, almost blind, paralyzed, uh, and in constant pain. Its-- I, I don't want that-- I don't wish that on anyone.

WILLIAMS: The things that he have gone through, it was enough to change him. And I do believe he has changed.

Regards, JG

Just came across something very interesting in The Haldeman Diaries. It turns out that on the day Wallace was shot--May 15, 1972-- Nixon started on an even sleazier project than planting McGovern literature in Bremer's apartment. He also called Connally (Sec. of Treasury and therefore head of the SS) into his office and told him to give SS protection to Shirley Chisholm and... Ted Kennedy. Based upon Butterfield's statements, this means that Nixon used the Wallace shooting in order to plant a spy in the Kennedy camp. Even worse, he used John Connally, who was shot along with Kennedy's brother and would presumably have Kennedy's trust, as cover for this sleazy move. This is a new defintion in low, as far as I'm concerned.

Perhaps someone with a book on Wallace can confirm whether or not the SS detail assigned to him stayed with him after the shooting. If not, it makes perfect sense that this same detail was assigned to Kennedy. If so, although Butterfield believed this agent was put back on duty especially for Kennedy, the possibility exists that the spy in Kennedy's camp mentioned by Butterfield had previously been with Wallace... hmmm...

While digging through some old editions of the Maryland State Medical Journal, I came across an interview with Dr. Jonas Rappeport, the psychiatrist who testified about Bremer's sanity. When asked if Bremer was part of a conspiracy, he gives a surprising reply (at least for me). He says "Nope, even with all the material Dan Rather collected for the CBS-TV News series on assassination in America, I still don't."

Does anyone know what material Rather collected and exposed on this program? Or where we can find transcripts of this program?

Another interesting tidbit is that, when discussing Bremer's childhood, he mentions that Bremer had an IQ of 92, but that later, when discussing tests that he personally ran on Bremer, he says he had an IQ of 114, well above average (and roughly the same as Oswald's). This is a tremendous leap! It kinda made me wonder if there wasn't something to this MKULTRA/Manchurian Candidate stuff after all.

It should also be remembered that in May, 1974, Martha Mitchell visited Wallace in Montgomery. She told him that her husband, John N. Mitchell, had confessed that Charles Colson had a meeting with Arthur Bremer four days before the assassination attempt.

Maybe Arthur Bremer will join the Forum. After all, if he types his name in at Google he will soon arrive on the Forum:

David Dishneau, Associated Press (9th November, 2007)

After 35 years in prison, the man who shot and paralyzed Alabama Gov. George Wallace during his racially charged 1972 presidential campaign is scheduled to be released Friday into a society more diverse and more restrictive on guns.

The state's automated victim-notification system sent e-mails announcing the impending release of Arthur H. Bremer, 57.

Wallace, a fiery segregationist during the 1960s, was wounded on May 15, 1972, during a campaign stop in Laurel, Md. He abandoned his bid for the Democratic nomination, spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair and died in 1998.

Bremer, a former Milwaukee busboy and janitor, was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 53 years. He has been held at the medium-security Maryland Correctional Institution near Hagerstown, about 70 miles from Baltimore, since 1979, earning his mandatory release through good behavior and by working in prison.

Bremer's diary, found in a landfill in 1980, made it clear he was motivated by a desire for attention, not a political agenda. He had also stalked President Nixon.

A prison system spokesman declined to say where Bremer would go once he got out. The head of the state's parole commission has said there will be restrictions on Bremer's activities, including a requirement to avoid political candidates and events.

"My father forgave him and my family has forgiven him. That's consistent with God's law," George Wallace Jr. said in Montgomery, Ala. But he added: "Then there is man's law. I doubt the punishment has fit the crime."

Peggy Wallace Kennedy, the governor's daughter, said of Bremer: "I think he's getting out 17 1/2 years too early."

The Alabama governor made his famous "stand in the schoolhouse door" in 1963, decrying the enrollment of two black students at the all-white University of Alabama in a standoff against the Justice Department and the National Guard.

By 1972, he had tempered his racist rhetoric and adopted a more subtle approach, denouncing federal courts over the forced busing of children to integrate schools orders and pledging to restore "law and order," a phase sometimes regarded as a coded appeal to white racists.

But Wallace recanted his segregationist stand later in his career and won his final term with the help of black votes. The kind of fiery racial rhetoric he employed is history. And a black man is one of the leading candidates for the presidential nomination in 2008.

In another measure of how things have changed, the 1993 Brady Bill, named for the White House press secretary wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan, requires background checks to prevent felons and mentally ill people from buying guns.

Four months before the attempt on Wallace's life, Bremer was arrested and underwent a psychiatric evaluation after firing bullets into a ceiling at a shooting range, and was fined for disorderly conduct.

Had the Brady Bill been in place, "it might have been something to stop him from buying a gun," said Paul Helmke, president of the Washington-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Helmke said that the law has stopped 1.4 million people from buying guns, but that the national database is missing 90 percent of the mental health records and 20 percent of the felony records because states are not required to supply them.

Bremer was partly the inspiration for the deranged Travis Bickle character in the 1976 film "Taxi Driver." The movie, in turn, fascinated John Hinckley, who tried to kill Reagan in a twisted attempt to impress the film's co-star, Jodie Foster.

Interesting, but surely only another one of those 'coincidences' that seem to be the mainstay of covert ops.

Read this interesting entry from Skolnick... http://www.theconspiracy.us/vol12/cn12-06.html

The Nixon camp was very worried about the Wallace campaign. Polls at the time showed that if Wallace stood as a third party candidate it would have split the conservative vote and McGovern would win. Most of the dirty tricks campaign was to get McGovern the nomination. When that had been achieved, the only thing that stood between Nixon and victory was Wallace. That is why Tony Ulasewicz was brought in by Nixon. That is why it is so significant that Ulasewicz met Tim Gratz and why his name was then linked with Arthur Bremer.

Is it possible that Arthur Bremer was a victim of MK/ULTRA?

I think it is very likely that Bremer, Hinkley, and many other 'lone'-assassins were subjected to mind-control at some point and under such control to carry out their assigned tasks for the Deep Government - or some faction of it.

There are several layers of mind-control 'work' and I think the term 'MK/ULTRA' should be regarded in the same was as 'Mockingbird' - a term that encompasses both the actual operation by those names, and the MANY other operations and background research that were a part of them, or as a result of them - some known and many not known [or not known fully].

Many special forces undergo 'desensitization' films - with graphic violence, death and gore - to better enable them to carry out their missions and not be detered by inflicting pain, death, torture, nor showing any mercy or humanity.

The MMPI test was originally designed in parallel if not for the mind-control 'crowd' in order to identify those persons who'd be more successful subjects. It is interesting that when I was in grade and high schools, this test was given to all students.

Then there was the drug and sensory deprivation/alteration angles used along with first dissolving parts of the original personality and building up a new 'personna'. Sometimes this 'new' personna was only transient - triggered by a pre-programmed 'trigger word or object' Sometimes these new states were drug-dependant and not necessarily psychmimetic drugs.

There is almost no doubt, at this point, that some programs were developed to 'program' persons to carry out a variety of missions - and that in doing so would not be using their normal voluntary 'will' or personality - but a pre-programmed one - often leaving them with no memory of what they had done and/or why.

Again, it might be well-worth seeing this film on the Shock-doctrine which shows the nexus of the 'medcial' and the 'political' for change and control.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc

Bowert's book is a good starting place, as is the book Acid Dreams [at one time the CIA was the largest distributor of LSD in the US - for experiments and for street use [various additives would be put in batches to city X and the reactions noted, etc.]

I'd also say that most TV has been designed along principles learned by mind-control research - both in content, subliminal messages, alpha rhythms [see below] and the fast-paced cuts - all designed to cause certain mental states and susceptabilities to the messages emplanted.

Research has also found that many of the sugars, sugar-substitutes and other food additives have the effect of more political/social compliance and less independant thinking. Some of this may just be the poor-health effects, part may well be more sinister.

I once as an undergraduate went to see a very special film - not easy to describe. An independant filmmaker was interested in the power of control over mind and perception with the use of projected 16mm films. They were well aware of mind-control research and based their film on some of it. They gave a talk before showing the film and then gave a long and strong warning, asking anyone who thought they did not want to see the film to leave now - as once it started they would find themselves unable to leave - even if they wanted to. The film began. The images were fairly random, but the timing of the images - and their repetition was not. The cuts of the images were designed to produce high alpha brainwave states. One first found one thinking about the film and its images; next one found it harder and harder to think about the film and more of a sense of immersion IN the film; I noticed my eyes were tearing and that I was  having a difficult time blinking. Mercifully the film was short. When it ended there was a stunned silence, followed by more than a handfull shouting abuse at the filmmaker for subjecting them to 'whatever it was they had just been subjected to'! I was very shaken. I had studied subliminal message  use. He claimed not to have had any in the film - but had there been and had someone repeatedly been exposed to a film like this [it would work on TV or computer, as well], I do believe almost any subliminal message could have been inplanted in susceptible individuals.

My own view is that like Operation 40, wealthy individuals were allowed to buy into the MK/Ultra program. I suspect that this explains the assassination attempts on JFK, RFK, MLK and George Wallace. As Nixon had discovered how JFK was assassinated, it made sense to him to use the same method to get rid of Wallace.

John, according to prison officials interviewed in 1998, he spent his time in conversation with coke machines and other inanimate objects.

He'd surely fit right in....

I suspect he had been interrogating the coke machine over what it knows about Oswald's alibi.

You wrote in Post #1


All sources I've read say the diary was found in his car - not his apartment (for whatever difference that makes!)

Was it planted?

I'm pretty sure it was either planted, or altered. As late as July 24 (and perhaps beyond), all relevant officials and investigators were telling the press that they had no evidence that Bremer had ever stalked Nixon. If his diary was already in hand, and it stated flatly that Nixon was the main target, this denial rings hollow.

As for those who gained access to the apartment in between FBI visits... I've come across one claim it was members of the "dirty tricks" arm of Scientology posing as reporters for a bogus wire service. It sounds like something Hubbard's circus might orchestrate, but it would necessarily also put Scientology at the head of the conspirator's list, and I can't give it a lot of credence sans any evidence to back it up.