Brief History of Ex-General Edwin Walker: Part Two

By Paul Trejo

Part Two -- Leading the Riots at Ole Miss University: American History has so far overlooked one of the most intriguing military and civilian figures of the 20th century, the resigned Major General Edwin Anderson Walker, who was the only U.S. General to resign his commission in the 20th century. Few historians recall that Walker was responsible for leading Federal Troops to racially integrate Little Rock High School in Arkansas for President Eisenhower in 1957, and also for leading riots to racially segregate Ole Miss University in Oxford, Mississippi against President Kennedy in 1962. Few historians recall that Edwin Walker first resigned his command under President Eisenhower in 1959, after he was converted to the John Birch Society, or that Eisenhower denied that resignation and gave Major General Edwin Walker his greatest commission -- a command over 10,000 Troops and their dependents in Augsburg, Germany, defending the Berlin Wall. A mythology has arisen that Walker was "fired" from his Germany command by JFK because of his Bircher opinions, when actually Walker was relieved of his command by the Joint Chiefs because of a long history of scandals with the US Army newspapers in Germany, who were more likely spying on Edwin Walker because he had never married and was presumably gay. JFK offered Walker another position in Hawaii, but Walker submitted his resignation to the US Army a second time in November 1961, and this time the US President accepted it. For the first time in his adult life, Edwin Walker was a civilian, and his clash with the political climate of the Civil Rights movement in 1961-1963 presents a surprising slice of American history that has received almost no publicity in the past half-century. This is more surprising because the name of Edwin Walker appears more than 500 times in the Warren Commission volumes investigating the assassination of JFK, since Edwin Walker was briefly a suspect in the JFK assassination. History student Paul Trejo has studied with eminent historian H.W. Brands in his research of the personal papers of Edwin Walker at UT Austin to provide a rare glimpse into the life and times of Ex-General Edwin Walker -- the only US General to resign in the 20th century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Trejo
• Release date: Dec 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311585776

Paul Trejo

BA degree from University of the State of New York (1987).MA degree from California State University at Dominguez Hills (1989)Member of the Hegel Society of America for nearly 20 years.Author: An English Edition of Bruno Bauer's 1843 'Christianity Exposed' (Edwin Mellen Press, 2002).

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A Brief History of Ex-General Edwin Walker (Part Two)

Paul E. Trejo, MA

First Edition

Published by Paul Trejo at Smashwords

Copyright © 2012 by Paul E. Trejo

All World Rights Reserved

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

5.0. TRAGEDY AT OXFORD

QUIET BEFORE THE STORM

RAIN CLOUDS GATHER

STORM CLOUDS ENCLOSE

THUNDER CLAPS

FIRST RAINDROPS

LIGHTNING STRIKES

THE DOWNPOUR BEGINS

THE SUN TURNS TO DARKNESS

COMES THE FLOOD

HAIL FALLS LIKE STONES

BLINDNESS IN THE STORM

THE REVEREND LOOKS HEAVENWARD

THE BISHOP SPEAKS

HERE COMES THE SUN

6.0. EDWIN WALKER AND THE GRAND JURY

WALKER AND THE PSYCHIATRISTS

OUTRAGE OF THOMAS SZASZ

OUTRAGE OF THE ACLU

HOME FROM HOSPITAL

WALKER AND THE GRAND JURY

PROBLEMS WITH THE SOURCES

TESTIMONY OF DR. SMITH

TESTIMONY OF DR. GUTMACHER

TESTIMONY OF FORMER GENERAL EDWIN WALKER

GOVERNMENT CASE DISMISSED

7.0. MIDNIGHT RIDE OF HARGIS AND WALKER

THE WALKER-HARGIS RELATIONSHIP

BILLY JAMES HARGIS

PREPARING THE MIDNIGHT RIDE

HARGIS AND WALKER – ON THE ROAD

REFLECTIONS ON THE MIDNIGHT RIDE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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PREFACE TO PART TWO

After an upsetting failure to redeem his professional dignity within the context of the Senate Subcommittee on Military Preparedness in April 1962, and after losing his bid for the office of Governor of Texas in May 1962, Edwin Walker entered the low point of his popularity and for all intents and purposes within mainstream politics, his career was over. Everything changed, however, in September 1962, when the racial integration of public schools became a national issue once again at Ole Miss University. At this point, Edwin Walker chose to re-enter the political theater.

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5.0. TRAGEDY AT OXFORD

QUIET BEFORE THE STORM

In the course of his failed gubernatorial campaign Walker had made a new best friend, Robert Allen Surrey, a partner in the Johnston Printing Corporation in Dallas. Surrey joined Walker to form the American Eagle Publishing Company in 1962, which had the mission to transform Walker’s speeches into pamphlets for sale. Their start-up capital came from Walker’s sale of his campaign speeches and his prepared statements to the Senate Subcommittee.

Walker added this new business venture to his existing organization named Friends of Walker, operated from his Dallas residence at 4011 Turtle Creek Drive and managed by his volunteer coordinator, Julia Knecht. Most of his chapters were in Texas, with a few in Louisiana and various Southern cities, with fewer than a thousand dues-paying members.

Walker’s volunteers answered the phone, delivered mail, printed literature, picked up visitors at Love Field airport and tidied his house because they genuinely admired the General, and some believed he might one day be President of the USA.

Walker boldly wore his politics on his sleeve so he erected a full-size billboard on his front lawn to display a different political message bi-monthly. For example: US Out of UN Now! – Impeach Earl Warren! – Dump Estes! – Sodom, Gomorrah, or Wallace!

Having lost his bid for governor, and having lost serious credibility as a political figure because of his mediocre performance in the Senate Subcommittee hearings where he had invested so much political capital, Walker began to pick up the pieces. His immediate political future was limited to campaigning for George Wallace and building up his newfound American Eagle Publishing Company. This activity occupied the bulk of his time during the summer of 1962. Walker kept his eyes open for new opportunities.

RAIN CLOUDS GATHER

Walker’s newest opportunity came in September 1962 when James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran, sued the University of Mississippi at Oxford over its tradition of racial discrimination. A Fifth Circuit Court decided in favor of Meredith and the Supreme Court upheld its injunction on 10 September 1962. At that point Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett broadcast on 13 September 1962 that he would never surrender to the Supreme Court and he rallied his constituency to step up its efforts to Impeach Earl Warren.

The FBI immediately began receiving reports of militant rightist activity in the South to assist Ross Barnett. On 15 September 1962 the FBI investigated the Georgia KKK, the Louisiana KKK and the Missouri KKK because informers told the FBI about their plans to descend upon Ole Miss with weapons.

With Meredith’s first attempt to register in May, 1962, Governor Ross Barnett, responding to his angry constituency, had verbally refused to allow Meredith to enroll. With Meredith’s second bid for enrollment in September, 1962, Meredith and Federal marshals encountered a mob of local white citizens angrily shouting: Go home nigger! To prevent violence, this time Governor Barnett physically barred Meredith from his goal, fully aware that JFK was now bound to use some variety of force to enforce the high court ruling.

Informers in Tennessee told the FBI that about a thousand men from Memphis and six carloads from the National States’ Rights Party were on their way to Oxford. From Alabama, 200 members of the Citizens for the Preservation of Democracy began their journey from Mobile and Montgomery. They publicly broadcast the slogan:

Every white, red-blooded Southerner should be there! This is the hour of decision!

The Florida Citizens’ Council sent 500 volunteers. The Louisiana Citizens’ Councils pledged thousands of men. However, the head of Oxford’s own Lafayette County Citizens’ Council, sheriff Joe Ford, pleaded with outsiders to stay away from Oxford.

Edwin Walker, awakened from his defeated repose by these raucous events, evidently decided that this was his calling – he had been on the wrong side at Little Rock Central High, and now he could be on the right side at Ole Miss. He decided to throw himself into this fray.

STORM CLOUDS ENCLOSE

Watching these events from Dallas and recollecting his experiences in Little Rock five years previously, Walker pondered whether and when JFK would actually send Federal troops to integrate Old Miss by force as Eisenhower had done with Little Rock Central High. On 25 September 1962, when JFK announced that he would send Federal troops to Oxford Mississippi to be on alert readiness, Walker sprang into action. He composed an Open Letter to President Kennedy and the very next day he sent it through regular mail. I reproduce the entire letter here:

EDWIN A. WALKER

4011 TURTLE CREEK BLVD.

DALLAS 19, TEXAS

September 26, 1962

The President

The White House Washington, D.C.

Mr. President:

It is obvious to millions of concerned and informed Americans that idle talk and rocking chair action can not cope with the Russian-Cuban threat. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, our highest military tribunal, have informed your administration that Cuba is a threat to the United States. The actions of the State Department are completely incompatible with military judgment and with our policy and traditions, upon which all freedom-loving countries rely for their protection and security. America is now the laughingstock of the world to both friend and foe. Our military men watch a German lad die with utter disgust for a policy of centralized Sovietized paralysis that censors their every move. There is widespread bewilderment throughout the nation at the audacity of Castro-Cuba and our obsequious policy of vying for favor in assisting our enemies, which is now realistically exposed and shorn of enchantment.

The Monroe Doctrine is more than an expression of National Policy. It is an expression of unity in cause and purpose in the Union of States. Harboring and shielding Communist Cuba in our midst is a direct threat to the State of the Union. Americans, civilian and military – regulars, reserve, and guard, including state and local police –