Edwin Walker

[Michael Hogan]

BTW, do any of your many contacts know where I might obtain H.L. Hunt's LIFE LINE transcripts from Sep-Nov 1963?

Paul,

I think they may be housed at the Texas Tech Library in Lubbock, TX. Scroll down to the Melvin Munn collection

http://www.swco.ttu.edu/Guide/M.htm

Munn was the voice of Life Line Radio. He discussed the Kennedy Assassination and H L Hunt in a 1981 oral history:

http://www.swco.ttu.edu/abstracts/1774.htm

Perhaps of interest:

Billy James Hargis Papers: http://libinfo.uark.edu/SpecialCollections/findingaids/mc1412/2-3.asp

[Paul Trejo]

Paul, I may have missed it, but I haven't read anything in this thread negating the possibility that Walker only knew between April, 1963, and late November, 1963, that the DPD had taken a suspect into custody on the night of the shooting incident at Walker's home, and that said suspect had been released in reaction to the influence of a higher authority than anyone in Texas law enforcement? Do I have that right, isn't that a conservative summation of what you have posted strong support for?

Until proven otherwise, taking this approach seems likely, a DPD supervisory officer gives Walker a heads up that a guy who seemed a likely suspect had been picked up and then quickly kicked under circumstances Walker's source either could not or would not elaborate on, beyond what is in my first paragraph. Does Walker actually confirm that his source had given him the specific name, Lee Harvey Oswald, in April, 1963? I don't see this in a specific statement. I don't see how it would be in the interest of DPD or a DPD supervisor to incite Walker by providing him with Oswald's actual name until after 22 November. Why would DPD want to sic Walker on a guy who had been picked up and held briefly with no weapon in his possession, and with no time for DPD to question this suspect in depth or to perform a paraffin test, forensics on his clothing, etc? How would the information of Oswald being taken into custody in Dallas, expand to an extent that, within three hours, beginning no earlier than 10:00 pm, EST, the name of Oswald had reached RFK or JFK and one of them had issued a release order, which was immediately carried out by DPD?

If accurate, wouldn't an FBI underling have had to have been informed of it, no earlier than 10:00 pm EST, sent it up the FBI COC, and from there, onto a DOJ liaison who was fortunate enough to encounter both his boss, and then Bobby, awake and ready to direct the Dallas DA and police chief what to do. all wrapped up by 2:00 am, EST?

It's an interesting theory, Tom, but the evidence doesn't support a simple mistake on Walker's part, by my reading.

It's complicated because Walker is lying (according to me). Since he is lying (which is proved by his self-contradiction) it is doubly difficult to decipher exactly what he's trying to hide and what he's trying to say.

Here's a review of his claim: (1) That the DPD took Lee Harvey Oswald -- nobody else -- into custody before midnight after the shooting. (2) The Secret Service (or the CIA, or RFK or or the State Department or 'people in higher places than Dallas' -- again this identification changed with each version) ordered the DPD to release Oswald in the wee hours of the morning; and (3) That people associated with the DPD (and the titles of these folks change with each version) informed Walker about it WITHIN DAYS (or in some versions, did NOT tell him).

He doesn't claim it was anybody else. Now -- we know he's lying on many counts. The fact that he keeps changing his story is ample evidence. But the legal record shows that Walker also insisted that William Duff be arrested and questioned in regards to this shooting. William Duff was an ex-Marine, down on his luck, who came to live with ex-General Walker for a few months. Then he disappeared. Walker wanted to know where he was. Duff was questioned, cleared, and then disappeared again. Also, as Walker told Dick Russell (TMWKTM), he was told that Larrie Schmidt and his brother Bob Schmidt were his actual shooters. Walker did not divulge to Dick Russell the source of that rumor.

But let's look once again at Walker's letter to Senator Frank Church dated June 23, 1975: "Dear Senator Church: The Warren Commission found and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to assassinate [me] at [my] home on April 10, 1963. The initial and immediate investigation at the time of the incident reported two men at my home with a gun, seen by an eye-witness -- a neighbor. Within days I was informed by a Lieutenant on the Dallas City Police Force that Oswald was in custody by 12pm that night for questioning. He was released on higher authority than that in Dallas...Yours sincerely, Edwin Walker."

In this claim to Senator Church, Walker claimed not only the DPD, but an individual Lieutenant in the DPD was his informant.

Notice the similarity and the difference of this report with the one he told to the Deutsche NationalZeitung less than 24 hours after the assassination of JFK. In that story, there was no Lieutenant. In that story, however, Walker openly named RFK as the 'higher authority'.

Walker would repeat some variation of this story for the rest of his life.

Why? Nobody was paying any attention to this guy. After his Oxford period, a large number of Americans just wrote him off as wacko. What was Walker trying to convey with his Big Myth that the DPD told him that Oswald was his shooter shortly afterwards?

Naturally, the DPD never confirmed any of this. If anything, they treated the story as a sign of senility.

Naturally, too, the FBI would never confirm this -- their official story was that they learned Oswald was Walker's shooter from Marina Oswald in early December, 1963 -- PERIOD.

But the testimony from George DeMohrenschildt suggests that the FBI was lying -- just like General Walker. THEY WERE BOTH LYING. Perhaps they were trying to hide the same facts.

Dick Russell came closest to solving this mystery. He interviewed DeMohrenschildt's friends, Mr. and Mrs. Igor Voshinin, and they told Russell that after George DeMohrenschildt told them that Lee Harvey Oswald was Walker's shooter, she immediately told the FBI. That was on Easter Sunday, 1963.

Now -- if (and only if) that is the truth, then the protocol of the FBI would be to inform General Walker right away of these allegations, so that he could beware of people around him. They probably also told Walker that this was Top Secret, and to tell nobody else about it.

If (and only if) that is correct, then we have the truth behind Walker's Big Lie. The FBI knew it was Oswald -- and the FBI did not arrest Oswald, but (metaphorically speaking) "released him". They did not prosecute Oswald, even though they had this information from George DeMohrenschildt.

This also explains why Walker in his Warren Commission testimony is hostile toward George DeMohrenschildt, and accuses him of being part of the conspiracy to shoot Walker on 4/10/1963. It makes sense because George DeMohrenschildt told the FBI, but not the Dallas Police -- who would certainly have arrested Oswald and put him in prison. This was the right thing to do -- otherwise, Oswald was free to try to kill Walker again.

Walker -- now concerned about this loose cannon named Lee Harvey Oswald, would take the law into his own hands. Not alone -- he was very well connected in the paramilitary underground. He had connections in the Minutemen for dirty jobs like this. Guy Banister was one of those Minutemen.

Both Walker and Banister were also active members of the John Birch Society -- and now we enter into the plausibility of the account from Harry Dean -- that when the John Birch Society came into contact with General Walker's mission -- that's when the ball really started rolling.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited March 29, 2012 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

BTW, do any of your many contacts know where I might obtain H.L. Hunt's LIFE LINE transcripts from Sep-Nov 1963?

Paul,

I think they may be housed at the Texas Tech Library in Lubbock, TX. Scroll down to the Melvin Munn collection

http://www.swco.ttu.edu/Guide/M.htm

Munn was the voice of Life Line Radio. He discussed the Kennedy Assassination and H L Hunt in a 1981 oral history:

http://www.swco.ttu.edu/abstracts/1774.htm

Perhaps of interest:

Billy James Hargis Papers: http://libinfo.uark.edu/SpecialCollections/findingaids/mc1412/2-3.asp

Thank you, Michael, for this helpful research. I would not have guessed that Texas Tech would house the Melvin Munn collection. I sent their Southwest Collection staff a query, and am waiting for their response.

I'm especially interested in the SEP-NOV '63 transcripts for LIFE LINE because of a newspaper article in the Austin Statesmen on the day after the JFK assassination in which a Texan claimed that the rightist rhetoric in LIFE LINE had been increasingly hostile in the past several weeks.

I'd like to see that with my own eyes. H.L. Hunt was a financial backer of General Edwin Walker, and they were ideological soul-mates.

H.L. Hunt once financed the "Douglas MacArthur for President" campaign. That was a flop, but H.L. Hunt always hoped to elect a President that he could control -- or at least one that thought 100% as he thought. Hunt preferred military types for President.

I believe that Hunt may have been involved in convincing General Walker to resign from the Army and give up his pension with the promise that Hunt would finance his political career.

After resigning from the Army, General Walker had no visible means of support, yet he had a lot of money. He moved into a large house in a plush neighborhood in Dallas, and he took an office in a tall building that belonged to, as I recall, the American Oil Company.

Walker had money to fly around, and within months of resigning, he put down $1,000 (which is $10,000 adjusted for inflation) to register to campaign for Governor of Texas.

The John Birch Society was the main ideology that H.L. Hunt and General Edwin Walker had in common. But Walker was also a war hero, and I believe that H.L. Hunt was hoping that he might become another MacArthur, or at least capitalize on the American emotion that still persisted whenever anybody mentioned the name of General Douglas MacArthur.

So - the LIFE LINE radio program was written by H.L. Hunt personally and I want to see those transcripts to detect the increased levels of rhetoric. My reasoning is transparent -- if (and only if) General Walker was involved in a plot to kill JFK, then H.L. Hunt would also be implicated.

Also, since General Walker gave us a few slips of the pen (regarding his early belief that Oswald did not act alone) it might be possible that H.L. Hunt also gave us a few slips of the pen. I hope Texas Tech has those transcripts.

Finally, Michael, as for the segregationist preacher, Billy James Hargis, he seems to figure large in this same picture. There is a rumor that Hargis once wrote speeches for Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. Hargis was a political animal who used Bible Preaching and Red Scare tactics to make millions of dollars. His program was similar to LIFE LINE, but Hargis was able to pursue his Christian Crusade full-time, while H.L. Hunt only pursued LIFE LINE part time.

Like many money-hungry, high-profile Evangelists, Hargis eventually ran into scandals involving missing millions, and sexual scandals (including homosexual scandals) with students at Bob Jones University. Always -- underneath the political exploitation of Christianity -- we have found corruption and a high level of secrecy. Hmm.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo, MA

Edited March 29, 2012 by Paul Trejo

[John Dolva]

BTW, do any of your many contacts know where I might obtain H.L. Hunt's LIFE LINE transcripts from Sep-Nov 1963?

Paul,

I think they may be housed at the Texas Tech Library in Lubbock, TX. Scroll down to the Melvin Munn collection

http://www.swco.ttu.edu/Guide/M.htm

Munn was the voice of Life Line Radio. He discussed the Kennedy Assassination and H L Hunt in a 1981 oral history:

http://www.swco.ttu....tracts/1774.htm

Perhaps of interest:

Billy James Hargis Papers: http://libinfo.uark..../mc1412/2-3.asp

Thank you, Michael, for this helpful research. I would not have guessed that Texas Tech would house the Melvin Munn collection. I sent their Southwest Collection staff a query, and am waiting for their response.

I'm especially interested in the SEP-NOV '63 transcripts for LIFE LINE because of a newspaper article in the Austin Statesmen on the day after the JFK assassination in which a Texan claimed that the rightist rhetoric in LIFE LINE had been increasingly hostile in the past several weeks.

I'd like to see that with my own eyes. H.L. Hunt was a financial backer of General Edwin Walker, and they were ideological soul-mates.

H.L. Hunt once financed the "Douglas MacArthur for President" campaign. That was a flop, but H.L. Hunt always hoped to elect a President that he could control -- or at least one that thought 100% as he thought. Hunt preferred military types for President.

I believe that Hunt may have been involved in convincing General Walker to resign from the Army and give up his pension with the promise that Hunt would finance his political career.

After resigning from the Army, General Walker had no visible means of support, yet he had a lot of money. He moved into a large house in a plush neighborhood in Dallas, and he took an office in a tall building that belonged to, as I recall, the American Oil Company.

Walker had money to fly around, and within months of resigning, he put down $1,000 (which is $10,000 adjusted for inflation) to register to campaign for Governor of Texas.

The John Birch Society was the main ideology that H.L. Hunt and General Edwin Walker had in common. But Walker was also a war hero, and I believe that H.L. Hunt was hoping that he might become another MacArthur, or at least capitalize on the American emotion that still persisted whenever anybody mentioned the name of General Douglas MacArthur.

So - the LIFE LINE radio program was written by H.L. Hunt personally and I want to see those transcripts to detect the increased levels of rhetoric. My reasoning is transparent -- if (and only if) General Walker was involved in a plot to kill JFK, then H.L. Hunt would also be implicated.

Also, since General Walker gave us a few slips of the pen (regarding his early belief that Oswald did not act alone) it might be possible that H.L. Hunt also gave us a few slips of the pen. I hope Texas Tech has those transcripts.

Finally, Michael, as for the segregationist preacher, Billy James Hargis, he seems to figure large in this same picture. There is a rumor that Hargis once wrote speeches for Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. Hargis was a political animal who used Bible Preaching and Red Scare tactics to make millions of dollars. His program was similar to LIFE LINE, but Hargis was able to pursue his Christian Crusade full-time, while H.L. Hunt only pursued LIFE LINE part time.

Like many money-hungry, high-profile Evangelists, Hargis eventually ran into scandals involving missing millions, and sexual scandals (including homosexual scandals) with students at Bob Jones University. Always -- underneath the political exploitation of Christianity -- we have found corruption and a high level of secrecy. Hmm.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo, MA

Thanks for filling out the '59 event.

General Walker had no visible means of support, yet he had a lot of money.

There are quite a number of documents in the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission files that deal with a program against JFK's Civil Rights act of '63. (not as amended by LBJ) , a mullti pronged program aimed at defeating it built around state rights. Including the use of Radio. The JBS, the KKK, and the Southern Intelligence Network among others all had a role to play. (interestingly the version of KKK that sprung from the movie The Birth of a Nation ''05 (lauded in the controversial ridden The Red Badge of Courage movie Trailer of '51) was led by a 'righteous' 'christian' whose rape and murder of a white woman led to the end of that KKK version about '28. The Civil Rights movement revitalised it (it had also been revitalised in their America First, German Bund involvement prior to Pearl Harbour. (the KKK has gone through a number of iterations since formation)) and they were acting with near impunity at the time of, before and after JFK.

Ooops that was a digression from the point about one document in the MSC files that point at a person in Midland who ran a fundraiser for Walker, HQ based in one of the Oil towers in Dallas, the corridors frequented by a number of usual subjects, the money going to Walker to be used at his discretion..

He ended up somewhere around redbird from where he ran a cancer treatment clinic.

edit typos

Edited March 29, 2012 by John Dolva

[Paul Trejo]

Thanks for filling out the '59 event.

General Walker had no visible means of support, yet he had a lot of money.

There are quite a number of documents in the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission files that deal with a program against JFK's Civil Rights act of '63. (not as amended by LBJ) , a mullti pronged program aimed at defeating it built around state rights. Including the use of Radio. The JBS, the KKK, and the Southern Intelligence Network among others all had a role to play. (interestingly the version of KKK that sprung from the movie The Birth of a Nation ''05 (lauded in the controversial ridden The Red Badge of Courage movie Trailer of '51) was led by a 'righteous' 'christian' whose rape and murder of a white woman led to the end of that KKK version about '28. The Civil Rights movement revitalised it (it had also been revitalised in their America First, German Bund involvement prior to Pearl Harbour. (the KKK has gone through a number of iterations since formation)) and they were acting with near impunity at the time of, before and after JFK.

Ooops that was a digression from the point about one document in the MSC files that point at a person in Midland who ran a fundraiser for Walker, HQ based in one of the Oil towers in Dallas, the corridors frequented by a number of usual subjects, the money going to Walker to be used at his discretion..

He ended up somewhere around redbird from where he ran a cancer treatment clinic.

John, when I filter through the Edwin Walker Collection at the Briscoe Center for American History I occasionally encounter newspapers and pamphletts from racist rightists.

Edwin Walker was a close companion of segregationist Evangelist, Billy James Hargis. Hargis was a college dropout who was given a doctorate in Laws from Bob Jones University, which insisted on racial segregation until 1975.

Hargis would continually accuse the NAACP of Communism. This charge was present in virtually all of his sermons in the 1960's.

The Edwin Walker archive contains some of these sermons and pamphlets by Billy James Hargis, and related material. For example, the notion that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Communist was widely circulated amongst rightists like Walker (relying on the publications of J. Edgar Hoover) during this period. Racial slurs and racial jokes were common in that literature.

Hargis was also an anti-Semite -- no big surprise -- and we find some evidence that Walker was also an anti-Semite in some of the pamphlets that he kept (e.g. he appears to have subscribed to the Charles Hodgson newsletter for several years). Yet also, in some of his own writings, we find evidence of anti-Semitism, when he uses the euphemism, "Anti-Christ" when referring to powerful figures that he regarded as Jewish (e.g. in the Supreme Court). Also, when speaking the the Deutsche NationalZeitung reporter the day after JFK was assassinated, he spoke of the attorney Abt whom Oswald requested for representation, as, "a New York Jew who handles all the Communist cases."

So far it seems to me that Walker's anti-Semitism came from the literature of semi-literate sectarian Christians like Billy James Hargis, Carl McIntyre and Fred Schwarz, and his racist attitudes towards blacks seems to come from the segregationist attitudes of the 1960's South, generally, but especially as embodied in Billy James Hargis as amplified by J. Edgar Hoover.

It is fairly clear that Walker favored segregation -- because he frequently spoke at the many Citizen's Councils in the South, which were originally named White Citizen's Councils; and although they changed their name, they never pretended to change their politics.

I don't see any direct connection between Walker and the KKK in those days, though. True, Walker was an iconic figure in the paramilitary militia, the Minutemen, led by Robert DePugh, and the Minutemen reportedly had lots of KKK members. (Right-wingers tended to mix fairly freely in the South -- not always, but often.)

Walker made extra efforts to disassociate himself from the American Nazi Party led by George Lincoln Rockwell. In 1962, during the Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Military Preparedness, ex-General Walker explained why he quit the Army. Near the end of those proceedings, George Lincoln Rockwell entered the courtroom dressed in full Nazi attire, loudly praising General Walker.

Walker was humiliated as Rockwell was ejected from the courtroom. When a Washington reporter nagged Walker about it after that session, Walker punched him in the eye. World War 2 was still fresh in America's mind in 1962; no matter how bad Blacks, Jews or Communists might be -- nothing was worse than a Nazi.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited March 30, 2012 by Paul Trejo

[Jim Root]

Just to add a few points.

1st. Walker came from a family of some wealth that lived in Kerr County, Texas. His family background includes wealthy cotton buyers, well know actresses (both screen and theater) and family connections that go in many directions. Financial support for Walker was available and I doubt he was ever a pauper.

2nd. I do not believe you will find any report of Walker suggesting that Oswald shot at him until he first mentions this in his telephone interviews with the German magazine that occured just hours after the assassination of JFK (when Oswald's picture was on every television screen in the nation). Interestingly, then it seems to become important to Walker at that point to present this story to the public. Interestingly also, each of us must accept the position that Oswald did shoot at Walker as Walker and the Warren Commission suggests or believe that Oswald did not shoot at Walker. Following our heads or tails position on this point we must ask either, "How did Walker know this was true (Oswald shooting at him) immediately after the assassination of Kennedy?" or ask, "Why did Walker put this story out that the Warren commission embraced so readily?" I suggest that it is because Walker had met Oswald in October of 1959 while Oswald was on his way to Helsinki. I have proven that this is a possibility via airline records that are available and it would explain why the Warren Commission did not produce the passenger list, which were available at the time but seem to have never seen the light of day, for Oswald's travel to Helsinki. If Walker had meet Oswald and given him information that helped Oswald defect to the Soviet Union it would explain why Oswald speculated later that Walker was the leader of some organization that did not want to see peace between the US and the USSR. Oswasl spoke about certain groups in both countries that did not want peace while at Spring Hill College in the time period between the attempt on the life of Walker and the assassination of JFK.

3rd. Oswald said (and I do not have the direct quote in front of me), the reason I'm being arrested is because I went to the Soviet Union, I'm a patsy! While most people want to look at only the last three words the whole Oswald statement in context can be interputed very differently, especiall when it is matched with his speech at Spring Hill College and his statements to George DeMohrenschildt about Walker. The day before Oswald arrived in Helsinki the American ambassador sent a secret message to the State Department outlining how to receive a visa into the Soviet Union within 24 hours. Oswald followed those directions and did receive a visa within 24 hours of application. Is this a coincidence or a guiding hand? If Oswald felt guilt over the failure of the Paris Summit, as he spoke about at Spring Hill College, and the role he played in the downing of the U-2 that led to this failure, we suddenly have motive for Oswald to attempt to kill Walker and perhaps to kill Kennedy. The question is did the people that controlled when Airforce 1 would land and therefore the distance the motorcade would travel know that they had their patsy in place who had a rifle, who had a motive and was ready to kill?

Jim Root

[Paul Trejo]

<snip>

2nd. I do not believe you will find any report of Walker suggesting that Oswald shot at him until he first mentions this in his telephone interviews with the German magazine that occured just hours after the assassination of JFK (when Oswald's picture was on every television screen in the nation). Interestingly, then it seems to become important to Walker at that point to present this story to the public. Interestingly also, each of us must accept the position that Oswald did shoot at Walker as Walker and the Warren Commission suggests or believe that Oswald did not shoot at Walker. Following our heads or tails position on this point we must ask either, "How did Walker know this was true (Oswald shooting at him) immediately after the assassination of Kennedy?" or ask, "Why did Walker put this story out that the Warren commission embraced so readily?" I suggest that it is because Walker had met Oswald in October of 1959 while Oswald was on his way to Helsinki. I have proven that this is a possibility via airline records that are available and it would explain why the Warren Commission did not produce the passenger list, which were available at the time but seem to have never seen the light of day, for Oswald's travel to Helsinki. If Walker had meet Oswald and given him information that helped Oswald defect to the Soviet Union it would explain why Oswald speculated later that Walker was the leader of some organization that did not want to see peace between the US and the USSR. Oswasl spoke about certain groups in both countries that did not want peace while at Spring Hill College in the time period between the attempt on the life of Walker and the assassination of JFK.

<snip>

Jim Root

Jim, it isn't just me or Harry Dean or Loran Hall or Gerry Patrick Hemming or Dick Russell who claims that General Walker had direct or indirect interaction with Lee Harvey Oswald between May and October of 1963. General Walker's archives contain several items that suggest this. Here is a letter from Walker to Senator Frank Church in 1975 -- but it refers to the week of the 10 April 1963 shooting that we are talking about. I'd like to hear your opinion about this letter in particular:

-------------------------------- ATTACHMENT ---------------

To: Senator Frank Church

U.S. Senate Office Bld’g

Washington, D.C.

June 23, 1975

Dear Senator Church:

The Warren Commission found and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to assassinate the undersigned at his home, at 9pm. on April 10, 1963. The initial and immediate investigation at the time of the incident reported two men at my home, one with a gun, seen by an eye-witness – a neighbor. Within days I was informed by a Lieutenant on the Dallas City Police Force that Oswald was in custody by 12pm that night for questioning. He was released on a higher authority than that in Dallas. There were two men, not a "Lonely Loner". Please inform me if the CIA was involved in this attempted assassination?

Yours sincerely,

Edwin A. Walker

--------------------------- END ATTACHMENT ----------------

There's the letter, Jim. Edwin Walker himself tells the Senator that he obtained knowledge that Oswald was his shooter "within days" of the shooting. I realize there are more puzzles than this one involved within the content of this letter, but I would ask you, please, to offer your opinion about this one key point -- that Walker knew about Oswald "within days" of the April shooting.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 3, 2012 by Paul Trejo

[Jim Root]

<snip>

2nd. I do not believe you will find any report of Walker suggesting that Oswald shot at him until he first mentions this in his telephone interviews with the German magazine that occured just hours after the assassination of JFK (when Oswald's picture was on every television screen in the nation). Interestingly, then it seems to become important to Walker at that point to present this story to the public. Interestingly also, each of us must accept the position that Oswald did shoot at Walker as Walker and the Warren Commission suggests or believe that Oswald did not shoot at Walker. Following our heads or tails position on this point we must ask either, "How did Walker know this was true (Oswald shooting at him) immediately after the assassination of Kennedy?" or ask, "Why did Walker put this story out that the Warren commission embraced so readily?" I suggest that it is because Walker had met Oswald in October of 1959 while Oswald was on his way to Helsinki. I have proven that this is a possibility via airline records that are available and it would explain why the Warren Commission did not produce the passenger list, which were available at the time but seem to have never seen the light of day, for Oswald's travel to Helsinki. If Walker had meet Oswald and given him information that helped Oswald defect to the Soviet Union it would explain why Oswald speculated later that Walker was the leader of some organization that did not want to see peace between the US and the USSR. Oswasl spoke about certain groups in both countries that did not want peace while at Spring Hill College in the time period between the attempt on the life of Walker and the assassination of JFK.

<snip>

Jim Root

Jim, it isn't just me or Harry Dean or Loran Hall or Gerry Patrick Hemming or Dick Russell who claims that General Walker had direct or indirect interaction with Lee Harvey Oswald between May and October of 1963. General Walker's archives contain several items that suggest this. Here is a letter from Walker to Senator Frank Church in 1975 -- but it refers to the week of the 10 April 1963 shooting that we are talking about. I'd like to hear your opinion about this letter in particular:

-------------------------------- ATTACHMENT ---------------

To: Senator Frank Church

U.S. Senate Office Bld’g

Washington, D.C.

June 23, 1975

Dear Senator Church:

The Warren Commission found and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to assassinate the undersigned at his home, at 9pm. on April 10, 1963. The initial and immediate investigation at the time of the incident reported two men at my home, one with a gun, seen by an eye-witness – a neighbor. Within days I was informed by a Lieutenant on the Dallas City Police Force that Oswald was in custody by 12pm that night for questioning. He was released on a higher authority than that in Dallas. There were two men, not a "Lonely Loner". Please inform me if the CIA was involved in this attempted assassination?

Yours sincerely,

Edwin A. Walker

--------------------------- END ATTACHMENT ----------------

There's the letter, Jim. Edwin Walker himself tells the Senator that he obtained knowledge that Oswald was his shooter "within days" of the shooting. I realize there are more puzzles than this one involved within the content of this letter, but I would ask you, please, to offer your opinion about this one key point -- that Walker knew about Oswald "within days" of the April shooting.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Paul

Great question and I can only speculate on what was in the mind of General Walker at the time of that particular letter.

1). No Dallas police officier or record from that night suggests that this is true. We only have Walker's unsubstantiated statements both verbal or printed made after the death of Kennedy.

2).Walker then contradicts himself when he suggests that there was "two men" which if you read the police reports and listen to the news broadcasts of the time was the information that the police were acting upon. Why would Walker contridict himself in this letter, one man arrested vs two seen?

3). Walker asks if the CIA was involved in the assassination attempt. Did he have reason to believe that the CIA may have been involved? I ask this question because I believe he knew Oswald was an intelligence asset and had been tasked with assisiting Oswald to enter the Soviet Union as GPH suggests.

Paul;

Have you read the documents where Walker is trying to figure out who and why he was persecuted after the Overseas Weekly article? I found those very interesting.

Jim Root

[Paul Trejo]

BTW, do any of your many contacts know where I might obtain H.L. Hunt's LIFE LINE transcripts from Sep-Nov 1963?

Paul,

I think they may be housed at the Texas Tech Library in Lubbock, TX. Scroll down to the Melvin Munn collection

http://www.swco.ttu.edu/Guide/M.htm

Munn was the voice of Life Line Radio. He discussed the Kennedy Assassination and H L Hunt in a 1981 oral history...

Michael, you were so right. That's where they were -- and they sold me the issues I needed. I'd asked ten different sources. You found them. Great work.

Many thanks,

--Paul

[Paul Trejo]

...

1). No Dallas police officier or record from that night suggests that this is true. We only have Walker's unsubstantiated statements both verbal or printed made after the death of Kennedy.

2).Walker then contradicts himself when he suggests that there was "two men" which if you read the police reports and listen to the news broadcasts of the time was the information that the police were acting upon. Why would Walker contridict himself in this letter, one man arrested vs two seen?

3). Walker asks if the CIA was involved in the assassination attempt. Did he have reason to believe that the CIA may have been involved? I ask this question because I believe he knew Oswald was an intelligence asset and had been tasked with assisiting Oswald to enter the Soviet Union as GPH suggests.

Jim, you're right that no police record suggests this. I personnally believe Walker is lying, either in his conscious mind or in his unconscious mind. (For decades General Walker blamed Jesse Curry for covering up the fact, as shown in his writings.)

(1) But actually we have other records of this account -- for example, the Warren Commission raised the question of the German newspaper Deutsche NationalZeitung because on 29 November 1963, it prints the same story with a twist -- that RFK was the one who set Oswald free. The reporter claimed he got the report from Walker less than 24 hours after JFK was killed. (With one exception; the twist about RFK came from the editor, Dr. Gerhard Frey.) Then the story appeared in the JBS American Opinion in February, 1964. Then the story appeared in the National Enquirer on May 17, 1964.

Almost certainly Edwin Walker was the source of all three stories.

(2) As for Walker contradicting himself -- when one reviews the ten or so articles Walker produced on this topic, there are more and more contradictions. (I shared this was David Lifton back in January, as I recall, and he was speechless.)

(3) Walker asked if the CIA was involved because - and this comes through in all his different accounts - he was really convinced that RFK was trying to kill him.

We cannot forget that Walker played a key role in the Oxford, Mississippi riots of late 1962, and this was also during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The White House did not sleep that weekend. RFK was hopping mad. RFK didn't just arrest Walker, he held him for psychiatric examinations in an insane asylum.

That turned out to be a blunder on RFK's part, because it made Walker into a martyr among liberals as well as rightist extremists. So, in only five days, Walker was out on the street.

When Walker faced a Grand Jury in Mississippi for his role in the Oxford riots, they refused to indict him, and on January 21st, 1963, Walker was a free man.

As you might know, Grand Jury records are sealed, and after three years are destroyed. There is no way to know why the Grand Jury let Walker go today, to the best of my knowledge. He had two great lawyers helping him -- Robert Morris and Clyde J. Watts. They must have been good -- and Walker probably stretched the truth, waved the flag and showed all his WW2 medals. He walked.

In my humble opinion, we must consider the possibility that Walker's conscience bothered him about his causing a riot in which hundreds were injured and two were killed -- and then walking away. He wanted to be punished according to military justice, I believe, and so he began to live in a world of fantasy. This is my personal hunch -- he started to go paranoid.

He thought RFK was after him because he really should have been convicted, if the truth were known about Oxford. This turned into a general paranoia. Just a hunch.

Paul;

Have you read the documents where Walker is trying to figure out who and why he was persecuted after the Overseas Weekly article? I found those very interesting.

Jim Root

Yes, Jim, those are the Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Military Preparedness and Education, in which General Walker attempted to explain why he was stripped of his command over the 24th Infantry Division in Augsburg, Germany. It is bizarre to read his fears that the Overseas Weekly was persecuting him from his first day in Germany to the last.

Walker made it clear that he hated that magazine -- and only time will tell what really happened. The fact that he never married -- so was probably homosexual in the Military in the 1960's in Germany -- this might have been the original source of the persecution complex. (And Freud said paranoia begins with keeping homosexuality in the closet.) Lots of research can go down this road -- but what benefit this might be in unraveling the JFK assassination is still unclear.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited April 6, 2012 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

This weekend I submitted my final paper to UT Austin Professor of History H.W. Brands. Dr. Brands is a specialist in Cold War History. The topic of my paper was General Edwin Walker.

Of all the new and interesting items I learned while writing this paper, perhaps the most interesting item was the question of the Grand Jury in Mississippi that acquitted General Walker for his role in instigating the Ole Miss riots of late 1962 in which hundreds were wounded and two were killed.

From the evidence, it seemed clear to me that Walker was guilty as sin, but the Grand Jury set him free. I set my sights on getting my hands on the Grand Jury records.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington D.C. told me I was out of luck -- even if Walker had gone to trial, Grand Jury records are sealed to the public, and one would have to sue to obtain them. However, since Walker never went to trial, legal protocol allows that all Grand Jury records in cases that never go to trial are to be destroyed by burning after ten years.

Lucky for me the Dolph Briscoe Center for the Study of American History (on the UT Austin campus) has the most complete Edwin Walker Collection in academia. I found what I believe are clearly three transcripts from that Grand Jury! One transcript is from Dr. Smith, the psychiatrist that ordered the confinement of Walker for psychiatric examination. The second transcript is from Dr. Gutmacher, an independent psychiatrist who also believed that Walker should be examined for paranoid tendencies. The third transcript is from Walker himself, being examined by what appears to be his defense attorney - perhaps Clyde Watts. The essence of this testimony is that Walker pleaded innocence on the grounds that he was trying to calm the crowd and bring peace to the riots.

But that was in direct contradiction to the news accounts about Reverend Duncan Gray, Jr. who begged Walker to calm the crowd and bring peace to the riots, and Walker repeatedly rejected his pleas. Further, when Walker climbed the Confederate statue to address the rioting students, Reverend Gray also climbed the statue to plead for calm and peace. At this point, Walker addressed the crowd, exclaiming, "This man is an Episcopalian priest, and he makes me ashamed to be an Episcopalian!" Then the students pulled Reverend Gray off the statue, threw him to the ground and began kicking him. Luckily some friends saved Reverend Gray from that fate and he was not seriously injured.

Who was telling the truth; Walker or Gray? Luckily for me, Reverend Gray is still alive (and is now the retired Bishop Gray) at 85 years of age. He was willing to talk with me and he completely confirmed the news stories I had read about him; I asked for his opinion about Walker's plea to the Grand Jury that he was trying to calm the rioting students, and Bishop Gray said, "Walker was lying."

Bishop Gray was not aware that a Grand Jury had been held. Bishop Gray, a credible eye-witness, was not called to testify before the Grand Jury. I asked Bishop Gray how General Walker could be acquitted so quickly by the Grand Jury, and he told me, "You are too young to realize how bigoted an all-white Grand Jury in Mississippi could be -- since the trial was about segregation, Walker practically had a free pass the minute the first gavel came down."

So, that's how Walker got away with attacking JFK at Ole Miss. The attack was vicious, and neither JFK nor RFK was able to hold General Walker down or in prison. Less than a year after Walker's acquittal, JFK would be assassinated in Walker's home town of Dallas.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo, MA

Edited May 7, 2012 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

...Have you come across the account where Walkers driver died in a possibly odd way and his surveillance of troops at station was a problem. Was that in the Overseas article?

John, thanks for the reference to the account of Walker's driver who committed suicide. Chilling. However, this was not mentioned in the Overseas Weekly news that attacked Walker on 16 April 1961.

The content on Walker in that issue consisted of three articles, and all three were strictly about the John Birch Society materials that Walker pushed onto his 13,000 troops and their 10,000 dependents in the 24th Infantry Division in Augsburg, Germany in 1960-1961. Whoever wrote those articles was smart enough to know that this would get Walker fired from his post within 24 hours. It worked like a charm.

HOWEVER -- Walker's conflict with the Overseas Weekly went far deeper than that, and their smashing salvo of attacks on Walker was the sound of their patience breaking after 18 months of head-butting with General Walker. Walker attacked their magazine starting at the very beginning of his Command in Augsburg. More than once he sought to have them banned. He formally requested this in writing -- saying the Overseas Weekly was immoral. He objected to their pin-up girls on every fourth page, apparently.

Before the Overseas Weekly published their attack on Walker, one of their reporters, Herr Naujocks, spied on Walker. The first thing Naujocks noticed was that Walker was conspicuously absent from most of the Division social gatherings. Walker didn't have a wife like the other brass, and he rarely mixed with the other brass outside of work. He seemed to have a secret life. What could it be? So, Naujocks followed Walker around and compiled a dossier. What were his secret rendevous?

Naujocks was caught spying in the headquarters office (allegedly looking for medical evidence that suggested Walker had a brain tumor). Walker sued the Overseas Weekly in a local German Court, and won some small award. He demanded that Naujocks be fired. Rather than fire Naujocks, the editors of the Overseas Weekly decided to hit Walker where it hurt most -- and that's when they came up with their 16 April 1961 trilogy that got Walker kicked out of Augsburg the very next day.

These issues are bound up in secrecy at many levels. Even if the U.S. Army knew the real truth about all this, they surely didn't want the truth to become public knowledge. Walker had been bickering with a U.S. overseas newspaper instead of watching the Berlin Wall.

Did Walker have a secret life in Germany? Was it related to a gay lifestyle that had to be kept secret at all costs? Was it related to new contacts with former Third Reich officers who were hired to help military intelligence in those days? Was one of those contacts (as Jim Phelps avers) Dr. Gerhard Frey? Was it both? Was Walker's driver about to reveal Walker's secrets?

All this is the topic of cloak-and-dagger mysteries -- it is endlessly intriguing. But the facts that we are allowed to see only clearly reveal the fact that Walker was prudish enough to attack a U.S. military newspaper for 18 months on the grounds that it published pin-up girls to the troops. Perhaps also, the Overseas Weekly was seen as competition to his Pro-Blue indoctrination program that he established with the help of Kent Courtney and Billy James Hargis.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited May 7, 2012 by Paul Trejo

[Malcolm Ward]

Paul Trejo,"This weekend I submitted my final paper to UT Austin Professor of History H.W. Brands. Dr. Brands is a specialist in Cold War History. The topic of my paper was General Edwin Walker."

It sounds good Paul.You have worked hard on General Walker.I hope your paper is well received,as it should be.

[John Dolva]

I agree. Very educational.

I hope it gets published or posted. If so it'd be great to get a ref to an abstract or a link..

[Paul Trejo]

Paul Trejo,"This weekend I submitted my final paper to UT Austin Professor of History H.W. Brands. Dr. Brands is a specialist in Cold War History. The topic of my paper was General Edwin Walker."

It sounds good Paul.You have worked hard on General Walker.I hope your paper is well received,as it should be.

I agree. Very educational.

I hope it gets published or posted. If so it'd be great to get a ref to an abstract or a link..

Thanks Malcom and John, for your encouraging words.

I do have some links to share regarding General Walker and Lee Harvey Oswald.

The key to my paper was the Dolph Briscoe Center for the study of American History, and its Edwin Walker Collection of over 80 boxes of materials.

(By contrast, the National Archives and Records Administration, NARA, mostly placed FOIA restrictions in my way, and blocked access to many media archives involving General Walker. For example, the Grand Jury records that acquitted General Walker for his role in the Ole Miss riots of 1962 were bluntly denied to me by NARA. Also, any film footage of the Ole Miss riots, including interviews of eye-witnesses, were simply denied by NARA. I'm not done dealing with them, however.)

The Dolph Briscoe Center allowed me to make JPG and PDF files of many of these documents -- including what I believe are nearly 100 pages from the Grand Jury records! (Usually these are sealed forever, or destroyed when they end in acquittal, but Edwin Walker himself kept some of them, it appears, so I will share them with the Forum.)

I have more than 1,000 images taken from the Dolph Briscoe Center, and they can be viewed publicly at www.pet880.com in my preliminary, unfinished but functional web page for General Edwin A. Walker. This amounts to a virtual mini-tour of the Briscoe archives for Walker.

One of the most interesting themes I found in the Briscoe Archives was the theme of Walker's obsession with his 10 April 1963 shooting. This was already suggested in the Warren Commission report, but it continued throughout his life. Here are 14 links from my web page that illustrate this point.

http://www.pet880.com/images/19631129_Deutsche_NZ.jpg

http://www.pet880.com/images/19640505_FBI_on_Natl_Enq_1.jpg

http://www.pet880.com/images/19640505_FBI_on_Natl_Enq_2.jpg

http://www.pet880.com/images/19640517_Natl_Enq_1.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19640517_Natl_Enq_2.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19670404_EAW_Oswald_released.pdf

http://www.pet880.com/images/19680612_RFK_released_Oswald.pdf

http://www.pet880.com/images/19691212_Curry_Boo_Boo.pdf

http://www.pet880.com/images/19750623_Church_Oswald_released.pdf

http://www.pet880.com/images/19760508_EAW_on_Oswald_1.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19760508_EAW_on_Oswald_2.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19770724_Hate_Flyer_1.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19770724_Hate_Flyer_2.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19780903_EAW_to_Blakey.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19811212_Walker_on_JFK_1.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19811212_Walker_on_JFK_2.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19811212_Walker_on_JFK_3.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19830909_EAW_Oswald_released_1.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19830909_EAW_Oswald_released_2.JPG

http://www.pet880.com/images/19920119_EAW_on_LHO.pdf

http://www.pet880.com/images/19930901_EAW_to_Janet_Reno.JPG

Walker was convinced that JFK/RFK had tried to kill him. All his life he believed that. There's my evidence. I'd like to know what you and other members of this Forum think of these documents from General Walker's archives.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo