Edwin Walker

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Major General Edwin Anderson Walker (November 10, 1909 - October 31, 1993) was a member of the U.S. Army known for his right wing political views and for being a target of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Contents

[edit] Early life and military career

Edwin Walker was born in Center Point, Texas and graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute in 1927. He then attended United States Military Academy, where he graduated in 1931.[1] During World War II, Walker commanded a subunit of the Canadian-American First Special Service Force in Italy. In August 1944, the FSSF landed on the Hyeres Islands off of the French Riviera, taking out a strong German garrison.

Walker again saw combat in the Korean War, and next became the commander of the Arkansas Military district in Little Rock, Arkansas. During his years in Arkansas, he implemented the order of President Eisenhower to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock.

In 1959, General Walker was sent to Germany to command the 24th Infantry Division. In 1961, however, he became involved in controversy. Walker was accused of distributing right-wing literature from the John Birch Society to the soldiers of his division. He was also quoted by a newspaper, the Overseas Weekly, as saying that Harry S. Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Dean Acheson were "definitely pink", a slang term for communist. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara relieved Walker of his command, while an inquiry was conducted. Walker resigned from the Army on November 2, 1961.

Even before his resignation, Walker had organized protests in September 1961 against the enrollment of African-American James Meredith at the segregated University of Mississippi. The following year, Walker ran for Governor of Texas, but finished last among six candidates in a primary election that was won by John Connally.

[edit] Assassination attempt

It was around this time that Walker began to give attention to Lee Harvey Oswald. In February 1963, Walker was making front page news by joining forces with evangelist Billy James Hargis in an anti-communist tour called "Operation Midnight Ride."

Oswald began to put Walker under surveillance, taking pictures of Walker's home and nearby railroad tracks, perhaps his planned escape route. Oswald mail-ordered a rifle using his alias Hidell (he had already ordered a pistol in January). He planned the assassination on April 10, ten days after he was fired from Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. He chose a Wednesday evening because the neighborhood would be relatively crowded because of services in a church adjacent to Walker's home; he would not stand out and could mingle with the crowds if necessary to make his escape. He left a note in Russian for Marina with instructions should he be caught.[2] Walker was sitting at a desk in his dining room when Oswald fired at him from less than a hundred feet (30 meters) away. Walker survived only because the bullet struck the wooden frame of the window, which deflected its path. However, he was injured in the forearm by fragments.

At the time, authorities had no idea who attempted to kill Walker. Marina saw Oswald burn most of his plans in the bathtub, though she hid the note he left her in a cookbook, with the intention of bringing it to the police should Oswald again attempt to kill Walker or anyone else. Oswald's involvement was unknown until the note and some of the photos were found by the authorities following the assassination of JFK. The bullet was too badly damaged to run conclusive ballistics tests, but neutron activation tests later proved that the bullet was from the same manufacturer as the one that killed Kennedy.

[edit] Associated Press v. Walker

Angered by negative publicity he was receiving for his conservative political views, Walker began to file libel lawsuits against various media outlets. One of these suits, titled Associated Press v. Walker went all the way to the United States Supreme Court,[3] but the court ruled against Walker and found that the Associated Press was not guilty of reckless disregard in their reporting about Walker. The court, which had previously said that public officials could not recover damages unless they could prove actual malice, extended this to public figures as well.

[edit] Miscellany

  • Walker, then 66, was arrested on June 23, 1976 for public lewdness in a restroom at a Dallas park and accused of fondling an undercover policeman.[4] He pled no contest and was fined $1,000.[citation needed]
  • Walker was cited as inspiration for the Air Force General James Mattoon Scott character in the film Seven Days in May, although Walker himself is mentioned by name in the film.
  • By resigning instead of retiring, Walker was unable to draw a pension from the Army. The Army restored his pension rights in 1982.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Handbook of Texas: "Center Point, Texas." Retrieved March 16, 2007.
  2. ^ [A photcopy of Walker's note. Retrieved March 16, 2007.
  3. ^ Associated Press v. Walker, 389 U.S. 28 (1967).
  4. ^ United Press International, "General Walker Faces Sex Charge: Right-Wing Figure Accused in Dallas of Lewdness", New York Times, July 9, 1976, Time Magazine, Monday, Jul. 26, 1976

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../e/d/w/Edwin_Walker_d37c.html"
In other languages