Edwin Walker Major General Edwin Anderson Walker , sometimes known as Ted Walker ( November 10 , 1909 – October 31 , 1993 ) , was a United States Army officer who fought in World War II and the Korean War , reaching the rank of Major General . He was known for his ultra - conservative political views and was criticized by U . S . President Dwight D . Eisenhower for promoting a personal political stand while in uniform . Walker resigned his commission in 1959 , but Eisenhower refused to accept his resignation and gave Walker a new command over the 24th Infantry Division in Augsburg , Germany . Walker again resigned his commission in 1961 after being publicly and formally admonished by President John F . Kennedy for publicly calling Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S . Truman " pink " in print , and for violating the Hatch Act by attempting to direct the votes of his troops . Kennedy accepted his resignation . In early 1962 Walker ran for Governor of Texas , and lost to John Connally . Later that year , Walker was arrested for leading riots at Ole Miss in protest against admitting a black student , James Meredith , into the then - all - white college . Attorney General Robert F . Kennedy ordered Walker committed to an insane asylum for a 90 - day evaluation in response to the riots , but psychiatrist Thomas Szasz protested and Walker was released in five days . Attorney Robert Morris convinced a Mississippi Grand Jury not to indict Walker . Walker was the target of an assassination attempt on April 10 , 1963 that has been linked to Lee Harvey Oswald . From the period of President Kennedy ' s assassination forward , General Walker wrote and spoke publicly about his belief that there were two assassins at his " April Crime " , the same assassin who killed the President , and another one never found , but probably hired by the President ' s brother , the Attorney General . Early life and military career . Walker was born in Center Point in Kerr County in the Texas Hill Country . He graduated in 1927 from the New Mexico Military Institute . He then attended the United States Military Academy at West Point , where he graduated in 1931 . Walker ' s background was as an artilleryman , but during World War II , he commanded a subunit of the Canadian - American First Special Service Force . Walker took command of one of the Force ' s three regiments while still in the United States , and commanded the 3rd Regiment throughout its time in Italy . Their first combat actions began in December 1943 , and after battling through the Winter Line , the Force was withdrawn for redeployment to the Anzio beachhead in early 1944 . After the fight for Rome in June 1944 , the Force was withdrawn once again to prepare for Operation Dragoon and in August 1944 , Walker succeeded Robert T . Frederick as the unit ' s second , and last , commanding officer . The FSSF landed on the Hyeres Islands off of the French Riviera in the autumn of 1944 , taking out a strong German garrison . Walker was in command of the FSSF when it was disbanded in early 1945 . Walker again saw combat in the Korean War , commanding the Third Infantry Division ' s 7th Infantry Regiment and was senior advisor to the Republic of Korea Army I Corps . Next Walker became the commander of the Arkansas Military District in Little Rock , Arkansas . During his years in Arkansas , he implemented an order from President Eisenhower in 1957 to quell civil disturbances during the desegregation of Central High School . Osro Cobb , the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas , recalls that Walker " made it clear from the outset . . . that he would do any and everything necessary to see that the black students attended Central High School as ordered by the federal court . . . he would arrange protection for them and their families , if necessary , and also supervise their transportation to and from the school for their safety . " At the same time , however , Walker repeatedly protested to President Eisenhower that using Federal Troops to enforce racial integration over States ' Rights was against his own conscience . So , although Walker obeyed orders and successfully integrated Little Rock High , he also turned more politically toward right - wing literature and radio programs , including that of segregationist preacher , Reverend Billy James Hargis , and H . L . Hunt , whose right - wing radio program , " Life Line " was the launching platform for Dan Smoot . The main teaching of all these rightists in 1957 - 1959 was the same as that of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy , i . e . , that Communists controlled key portions of the US Government and the United Nations . In 1959 , General Walker met right - wing publisher , Robert Welch who had just started up his John Birch Society with his principal belief that President Eisenhower was in reality a Communist . This revelation shocked General Walker , who took it to heart , because it harmonized with the segregationist preaching of Reverend Billy James Hargis , that the Civil Rights Movement for racial equality in America was a Communist plot . Therefore , on 4 August 1959 , General Walker submitted his resignation to the US Army . President Eisenhower denied Walker ' s request for resignation on 4 September 1959 , and instead offered General Walker a command over more than 10 , 000 Troops in Augsburg , Germany , specifically over the 24th Infantry Division . Walker promptly accepted that command , and just as promptly initiated plans to promote his " Pro - Blue indoctrination program " which included a reading list of materials from Billy James Hargis and the John Birch Society . The " Pro - Blue " program was an anti - Communist indoctrination program for troops . Its name , said Walker , was intended to suggest ' Anti - Red ' , ( where the Free World troops were colored blue on maps ) . The Pro - Blue program was based upon Walker ' s experiences in Korea , in which he saw hastily mobilized and deployed soldiers " bug out " in the face of communist units with inferior equipment and often smaller numbers . American soldiers , unprepared for the psychological battlefield , needed to know why they had to beat the enemy as well as the how . Throughout 1960 , the " Pro - Blue " program was very successful in Germany , although General Walker also came into hostile conflict with a US Army newspaper there named the " Overseas Weekly " . Their conflict blew up every few months , until on 16 April 1961 the " Overseas Weekly " published a front page scandal about General Walker , accusing him of brainwashing his troops with John Birch Society materials , supplied to him by evangelist Billy James Hargis . Because the John Birch Society regularly printed that all U . S . presidents from Franklin D . Roosevelt forward had been Communists , this was perceived as too politically controversial for a US General to advocate . Walker was quoted by the " Overseas Weekly " as saying that Harry S . Truman , Eleanor Roosevelt , and Dean Acheson were " definitely pink . " Additionally , a number of soldiers had complained that Walker was instructing them to vote in the forthcoming USA election by using the " Conservative Voting Index " which had a bias toward the Republicans . Later , the alleged " instruction " by Walker to soldiers as " how to vote " would be disproven , as the basis for the allegation was an article in the division newspaper which provided information as to how to fill out absentee ballots , a practice which is still current in the U . S . Army to this day . The very next day , on 17 April 1961 General Walker was relieved from his command by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara while an inquiry was conducted , and in October Walker was reassigned to Hawaii to become assistant chief of staff for training and operations in the Pacific . Instead , Walker chose a second time to resign from the Army on 2 November 1961 . This was following an investigation into the allegations put forth by the Overseas Weekly which found no evidence of wrongdoing by Maj . Gen . Walker . The Secretary of the Army , with no " crime " having been committed ( as defined by the Uniform Code of Military Justice ) , chose to " admonish " the general , an action which could not be appealed by Walker but did allow for the appearance of impropriety . The Secretary also stated that Walker would not be permitted to take command of VIII Corps , as the President had seen fit to withdraw his name for promotion . In protest , and choosing a political career over his 30 - year military career , Walker did not retire but " resigned " his post , thereby voluntarily forfeiting his officer ' s pension . This time the US President accepted his resignation . Walker said : " It will be my purpose now , as a civilian , to attempt to do what I have found it no longer possible to do in uniform . " Political career . As a civilian in December 1961 , Walker embarked on a career of right - wing political speeches , along with segregationist evangelist Billy James Hargis . Walker enjoyed enthusiastic crowds all over the United States , who frequently gave him a dozen standing ovations at every speech . His message of anti - Communism was popular , but because he also pressed the McCarthyist belief that Communists were " inside " the United States government , he mainly attracted the extremists among the American right - wing . Yet his home base was Dallas , Texas , then considered a conservative city . Walker received considerable support from the citizens of Dallas , in particular from oil billionaire and right - wing publisher , H . L . Hunt , who supported Walker ' s first election campaign for governor of Texas . In February 1962 , Walker entered the race but finished last among six candidates in a Democratic primary election that was won in a runoff election by John B . Connally , Jr . , the choice of Lyndon B . Johnson . Other contenders were the sitting Governor Price Daniel , highway commissioner Marshall Formby of Plainview , Attorney General Will Wilson , and Houston lawyer Don Yarborough , the favorite of liberals and organized labor . Though he had followed military orders to compel the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock , Walker organized protests in September 1962 against the use of federal troops to enforce the enrollment of African - American James Meredith at the racially segregated University of Mississippi at Oxford , Mississippi . On 26 September 1962 ex - General Edwin Walker went on several radio stations to broadcast this message : Mississippi : It is time to move . We have talked , listened and been pushed around far too much by the anti - Christ Supreme Court ! Rise . . . to a stand beside Governor Ross Barnett at Jackson , Mississippi ! Now is the time to be heard ! Thousands strong from every State in the Union ! Rally to the cause of freedom ! The Battle Cry of the Republic ! Barnett yes ! Castro no ! Bring your flag , your tent and your skillet . It ' s now or never ! The time is when the President of the United States commits or uses any troops , Federal or State , in Mississippi ! The last time in such a situation I was on the wrong side . That was in Little Rock , Arkansas in 1957 - 1958 . This time - - out of uniform - - I am on the right side ! I will be there ! This is his televised public statement on 29 September 1962 : This is Edwin A . Walker . I am in Mississippi beside Governor Ross Barnett . I call for a national protest against the conspiracy from within . Rally to the cause of freedom in righteous indignation , violent vocal protest , and bitter silence under the flag of Mississippi at the use of Federal troops . This today is a disgrace to the nation in ' dire peril , ' a disgrace beyond the capacity of anyone except its enemies . This is the conspiracy of the crucifixion by anti - Christ conspirators of the Supreme Court in their denial of prayer and their betrayal of a nation . After a violent , 15 - hour riot broke out on the campus , on September 30 , in which hundreds were wounded , two people were killed and six federal marshals were shot , Walker was arrested on four federal charges , including sedition and insurrection against the United States . He was temporarily held in a mental institution on orders from President Kennedy ' s brother , Attorney General Robert F . Kennedy . RFK demanded that Walker receive a 90 - day psychiatric examination . However , the Attorney General ' s decision was promptly challenged by famous psychiatrist Thomas Szasz , who insisted that psychiatry must never become a tool of political rivalry . The American Civil Liberties Union joined Thomas Szasz in a protest against the Attorney General , completing this coalition of liberal and right - wing leaders . The Attorney General had to back down , and Walker spent only five days in the asylum . Walker posted bond and returned home to Dallas , where he was greeted by a crowd of some two hundred supporters . After a federal grand jury adjourned in January 1963 without indicting him , the charges were dropped . Because the dismissal of the charges was without prejudice , the charges could have been reinstated within five years . Assassination attempt . According to the Warren Commission , around this time , Walker got Lee Harvey Oswald ' s attention . Oswald ' s wife , Marina Oswald , said that Oswald , a self - proclaimed Marxist , considered Walker a " fascist " and the leader of a " fascist organization . " A front page story on Walker in the October 7 , 1962 , issue of the " Worker " , a Communist Party newspaper to which Oswald subscribed , warned " the Kennedy administration and the American people of the need for action against [ Walker ] and his allies . " Five days after the front page news on January 22 , 1963 that Walker ' s federal charges had been dropped , Oswald ordered a revolver by mail , using the alias " A . J . Hidell . " In February 1963 , Walker was making news by joining forces with evangelist Billy James Hargis in an anti - Communist tour called " Operation Midnight Ride " . In a speech Walker made on March 5 , reported in the " Dallas Times Herald " , he called on the United States military to " liquidate the scourge that has descended upon the island of Cuba . " Seven days later , Oswald ordered by mail a Carcano rifle , using the alias " A . Hidell . " According to the Warren Commission , and to the later House Select Committee on Assassinations Oswald began to put Walker under surveillance , taking pictures of Walker ' s Dallas home on the weekend of March 9 – 10 . Furthermore , people involved with Oswald in those and prior weeks admitted to have been criticizing General Walker with Lee Harvey Oswald included Dallas engineer , Michael Paine , oil geologist , George De Mohrenschildt and oil engineer , Volkmar Schmidt . Oswald planned the assassination for April 10 . Oswald ' s wife Marina said that he chose a Wednesday evening because the neighborhood would be relatively crowded because of services in a church adjacent to Walker ' s home , and he would not stand out and could mingle with the crowds if necessary to make his escape . He left a note in Russian for his wife Marina with instructions should he be caught . Walker was sitting at a desk in his dining room when Oswald fired at him from less than a hundred feet ( 30 m ) away . The bullet struck the wooden frame of the window , which deflected its path . Walker was injured in the forearm by fragments . According to Dallas Police Department records , neighbors of Walker witnessed two men at the scene of the crime , running into a car and speeding away . To the end of his life , Walker believed that there was another man serving as Oswald ' s accomplice , and he spent decades attempting to learn the identity of that accomplice . A police detective , D . E . McElroy , commented that " Whoever shot at the general was playing for keeps . The sniper wasn ' t trying to scare him . He was shooting to kill . " Marina Oswald stated later that she had seen 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 . Marina later quoted her husband as saying , " Well , what would you say if somebody got rid of Hitler at the right time ? So if you don ' t know about General Walker , how can you speak up on his behalf ? " Before the Kennedy assassination , Dallas police had no suspects in the Walker shooting , but Oswald ' s involvement was suspected within hours of his arrest following the assassination . ( The note Oswald left for Marina on the night of the attempt was not found until early December 1963 . ) The bullet was too badly damaged to run conclusive ballistics tests , but neutron activation tests later determined that it was " extremely likely " the bullet was a Carcano bullet manufactured by the Western Cartridge Company , the same ammunition used in the Kennedy assassination . Oswald later wrote to Arnold Johnson of the Communist Party USA , that on the evening of October 23 , 1963 , he had attended an " ultra right " meeting headed by General Walker . Walker orchestrates verbal attack on Adlai Stevenson . The famous attack in Dallas , Texas on the person of United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson on " UN Day , " 24 October 1963 was orchestrated by Walker . In mid - October 1963 Walker rented the same Dallas Memorial Auditorium in which Adlai Stevenson would speak . He advertised his opposing event as " US Day " and he invited members of the John Birch Society , the National Indignation Convention , the Minutemen and other right - wing organizations that were fundamentally opposed to the existence of the United Nations . On the night before Stevenson ' s speech , Walker held his " US Day " rally and instructed his audience to " buy all the tickets " they could afford to the Stevenson speech , and to fill the auditorium with rightists . Walker then instructed his audience to heckle Stevenson mercilessly , and to bring Halloween noise - makers , and bring their own prepared speeches to recite in the hallways , and generally disrupt the speech in any way that they could . Walker also instructed his followers to hoist a banner on the ceiling of the Auditorium , and fold it , and tie it with a long string , so that when the string was pulled , it would unfurl . On one side of the banner was printed , " US out of UN ! " and on the other side was printed , " UN out of US ! " This banner was to remain folded until after Stevenson began speaking . Walker himself did not attend the planned disruption , nor did he take credit for the orchestration . The events in the Auditorium proceeded exactly according to plan , so that Stevenson quit speaking before his presentation was finished , and rushed out to his limousine . On his way there , he was spat upon by some protesters , and one protester struck him in the head with her placard . The spitter and the hitter were both arrested . Walker was not charged although his role was well known at the time . " 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 was in response to coverage of his participation in the University of Mississippi riot , specifically that he had " led a charge of students against federal marshals " and that he had " assumed command of the crowd . " Several newspapers were named in the lawsuit , and Walker and his lawyers stood to win up to $ 30 million if they won every suit . A Texas trial court in 1964 found the statements false and defamatory . At this point Walker and his lawyers had won over $ 3 million in lawsuits . The Associated Press appealed the decision , as " Associated Press v . Walker " , all the way to the United States Supreme Court , and in 1967 the Supreme Court ruled " against " Walker and found that although the statements may have been false , 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 . Walker , from 1962 through 1967 , displayed a full - size billboard on his front lawn with the standard John Birch Society slogan , " Impeach Earl Warren " ( no citation provided ) . Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren was a key figure in the decision of " Brown v . Board of Education " which mandated the racial integration of all U . S . public schools . Warren was also the Supreme Court judge who heard Walker ' s case against the Associated Press . Walker and his lawyers walked away with nothing . Later life . By resigning instead of retiring , Walker was unable to draw a pension from the Army . He made statements at the time to the " Dallas Morning News " that he had " refused " to take his pension . However , he had made several previous requests for his pension dating back to 1973 . The Army restored his pension rights in 1982 . 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 . He was arrested again in Dallas for public lewdness on March 16 , 1977 . He pled no contest to one of the two misdemeanor charges , was given a suspended , 30 - day jail sentence , and fined $ 1 , 000 . Walker died of lung cancer at his home in Dallas in 1993 . He was never married and he left no children . Culture . Walker ( along with Air Force General Curtis LeMay ) was cited as inspiration for the Air Force General James Mattoon Scott character in the film " Seven Days in May " ; in fact , Walker himself is mentioned by name in the film . While General Scott is portrayed by Burt Lancaster as smooth and formidable in the film , Walker was usually seen as abrasive and strident . When Walker testified before Mississippi U . S . Senator John Stennis ' s subcommittee investigating " the muzzling of the military " in 1962 , Walker testified , Alaskan Senator Bob Bartlett then asked , Walker then replied , William F . Buckley , Jr . , had considered Walker a potential leader of the Right but gave up on Walker in this period . Walker is also cited as inspiration for General Jack D . Ripper in Stanley Kubrick ' s " Dr . Strangelove " Walker is portrayed by Cameron Mitchell as a supporting character in the 1985 film " Prince Jack " . The movie includes a dramatization from Walker ' s perspective of Lee Harvey Oswald ' s attempt to shoot him . Oswald ' s attempted assassination of Walker is incorporated into the storyline of " 11 / 22 / 63 " , a novel by Stephen King about a time traveler who attempts to prevent the assassination of John F . Kennedy on November 22 , 1963 .