Now let's review the detailed content of Walker’s copyrighted speeches of 1961-1962 as they might pertain to the WANTED FOR TREASON – JFK handbill of October-November 1963.
CITIZEN WALKER’S FIRST PUBLIC ADDRESS – 12 DECEMBER 1961
On December 12, 1961 Ex-General Edwin Walker (now Citizen Walker) gave his first copyrighted speech entitled, “Who Muzzled the Military?” at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium. He opened his speech with a list of 15 allegedly treasonous decisions made by Washington DC over the previous sixteen years. He claimed that these 15 treasonous decisions had already cost the US its sovereignty. These 15 were:
1. In 1945, Truman allowed the USSR three UN representatives, the US, only one.
2. In 1945, Truman accepted the current division of Germany.
3. In 1951, Truman proposed the International control of atomic energy
4. In 1951, Truman withheld atomic weapons from General MacArthur.
5. In 1948, Truman’s Berlin Airlift of supplies allowed Communism to control the ground in Berlin.
6. In 1951 Truman fired General MacArthur in Korea. That was the first muzzling. The second muzzling was letting Panmunjom and the UN Command (UNC) control the US Military in Korea.
7. In 1955, Eisenhower met “at the summit” with Khrushchev and Bulganin, resuming the Tehran, Yalta, Potsdam and Panmunjom technique of coexistence.
8. In 1956, Eisenhower helped Nasser take the Suez Canal, humiliating our Allies and pleasing the Kremlin.
9. In 1957, Eisenhower used Federal troops at a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The US Military was not consulted; also using Federal troops without a Governor’s explicit request is a violation of US Constitutional States Rights.
10. In 1957, Eisenhower signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, against the advice of the civilian Atomic Energy Commission as well as the US Military.
11. In 1959, Eisenhower allowed communists to seize Cuba. The New York Times and Look magazine helped to sell Castro.
12. In 1959, Eisenhower invited Khrushchev to visit the US in a “disgusting” exhibition.
13. On April 17, 1961, JFK ordered the betrayal of the Bay of Pigs invasion and JFK ordered the attack on General Walker by the Overseas Weekly – on the same day.
14. In 1961, JFK allowed the UN to declare war in the Congo, unilaterally. This disastrous precedent was a slap in the face to US sovereignty.
15. In 1961, JFK maintained a communist betrayal of the US Military by undermining Walker’s Pro-Blue soldier training in the most basic military factor of all: morale, determination, and a sense of purpose.
These views weren’t original to Ex-General Walker. We can trace their evolution in the speeches of General Douglas MacArthur, in the speeches of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and in the writings of Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society. Citizen Walker witnessed the unfolding of all their literature first-hand, within the context of his post-war military career.
Walker admired the eloquence of each of them, but especially of Robert Welch, with whom he maintained a personal relationship. Welch helped Walker to express himself, and ultimately, Walker faithfully echoed the literature published by Robert Welch.
Walker’s December 1961 speech lasted 90 minutes and received more than 20 standing ovations. Here are a few more key points in his speech:
(a) The Korean War “no win” policy alone was what lowered US soldier morale in the 1950’s. In 30 years of military experience, Walker had never seen a US Army with a clearer cause or a more obvious enemy than today – but with the lowest morale in history.
(Walker did not mention General MacArthur’s disobedient adventure into North Korea only to be mortifyingly defeated by a vast flood of Chinese troops. This probably affected US soldier morale in Korea, too.)
(b) Walker announced that he had agreed to testify before the coming Senate Preparedness Subcommittee scheduled for April 1962, and he hoped that the following US Army Generals would join him: Douglas Macarthur; Charles Willoughby; Edward Almond; Mark Clark; George Stratemeyer; James Van Fleet; Arthur Trudeau; Leslie Groves; Kirke Lawton; R.W. Grow; and Admiral Husband Kimmel.
(None of these Generals would actually appear.)
(c) Walker then presumed to speak for the US Military in general, claiming that “every senior military officer for the past ten years” expressed a desire to release atomic weapons from civilian control! Civilian over-control of atomic weapons is censorship of military responsibility, plans, and preparedness, he claimed.
(This was the same losing platform that General MacArthur presented to the US Congress in 1951. Walker shows that his doting audience was living in the past.)
(d) Walker also agreed with General Curtis LeMay – there is no good reason to prevent the US from launching a first nuclear strike against Russia. Rather, the US has long had secret plans coordinated between Army, Navy, and Air Force that would cut Russia down to size. These plans must provide for atomic weapons since Russia has atomic weapons. Yet, because of Cold War military censorship by mere civilians, the US Military could not proceed with any of those vital nuclear plans!
(This argument foretells some of the images in the dark comedy of 1964, Doctor Strangelove, a movie written partly in response to Walker’s popularity in the 1960’s.)
(e) The civilian control of nuclear weapons was “subversion of US interests,” charged Walker, and he blamed a “class of men” who believe in Peace, Internationalism and “One World.” They have rendered US sovereignty and independence obsolete because US sovereignty depends on the US ability to make war.
(Walker here ignores the fact that Washington DC held the largest arsenal of weapons that the world had ever seen.)
(f) This “class of men” allegedly planned that the US would never again make a firm claim of sovereignty or independence. Their byword was “inter-dependence.” Their slogan came from President Eisenhower himself: “There is no longer any alternative to peace.” Eisenhower’s slogan canceled the US Military and the Independence which it defends, claimed Walker.
(It is one thing to lay down arms unilaterally, and entirely another thing to hope for an end to war. Yet Walker would not consider this fact, thereby rendering his speech a mere polemic.)
(g) Genuine Anticommunism cannot be obtained from ordinary US media, claimed Walker, because a communist conspiracy controls US media to promote a policy of coexistence with the enemy! But coexistence is a stranger to military tradition and to common sense, so that the communist conspiracy must seek to undermine any unity between the military and the public.
(The way that the communist conspiracy sought to undermine unity between the military and the public, according to Walker, was a government movement to destroy Walker’s Pro-Blue program. Walker was apparently oblivious to the ego-centric nature of his claim here.)
(h) For Walker, the Fulbright Memorandum of June 1961 proved that Washington DC was afraid that the US military might educate the US public. That Memorandum said:
‘If the military is infected with the virus of right-wing radicalism, the danger is clear. If such a military believes the public is on their side, the danger is double. If such a military educates the public so that the heat rises, the danger is great.’
At the same time, Washington DC knew that most US citizens would reject any censorship of education of the public by the military, claimed Walker, so that DC sought to conceal this censorship by using “secret documents” such as the Fulbright Memorandum.
(The valuable insight for US history is that William Fulbright’s June 1961 Memo to US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, had the US Radical Right clearly in mind – including Walker. The Memo underscored their blatant lack of university education.)
(i) The communist conspiracy in the US State Department is afraid of Walker himself, said Walker, and of other US military leaders who would educate the troops and the public with the specifically MacArthur-McCarthy-Welch brand of Anticommunism. The State Department specifically targeted Walker himself because he had rejected the 38th parallel in Korea, and the terms of US “surrender” there.
(Walker was incorrect to imagine that the US State Department feared him personally. Yet he was correct to see that the State Department had the political movement of MacArthur-McCarthy-Welch in its crosshairs. The State Department correctly recognized Walker as a spawn of Robert Welch. Also – Walker showed that General MacArthur’s disobedient crossing of the 38th parallel in Korea was the true starting point of the JBS movement. Walker appealed to all who defended MacArthur’s decision and demand that the White House hand over control of nuclear weapons to the Pentagon.)
(j) The best hope of conservative Americans, announced Walker, was in the forthcoming Senate Subcommittee hearings on Military Preparedness. Senators John Stennis and Strom Thurmond – both Southern gentlemen – organized the Senate hearings to review JFK’s judgment in the 1961 so-called firing of General Walker. The hearings were scheduled for April 1962.
(Walker held out a high hope that these hearings would exonerate him and make him more politically powerful than ever. His audience in Dallas loved the idea. It energized his base. Walker evidently hoped take up MacArthur’s old bid for the US Presidency on behalf of the US right wing.)
(k) Walker added an advertisement for the JBS by promoting their favorite film, the documentary Operation Abolition, originally produced by the FBI. The JBS held “film parties” in the houses of ordinary members, inviting the public to watch the film and to buy JBS books and magazines.
Citizen Walker ended by quoting Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes! If God is for us, who can be against us?” The crowd leaped to its feet in a prolonged ovation as Walker casually walked from the podium and disappeared off stage.
Walker’s publishing company sold reprints of this speech as a pamphlet with the following banner on the front page: “TRULY, ONE OF THE GREATEST AMERICAN SPEECHES OF ALL TIMES.”
COMPARISON:
Finally – when we compare the details of this speech with the WANTED FOR TREASON – JFK handbill, we find one direct comparison that stands out:
FROM THE 15 ITEMS IN THIS SPEECH:
#9. In 1957, Eisenhower used Federal troops at a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The US Military was not consulted; also using Federal troops without a Governor’s explicit request is a violation of US Constitutional States Rights.
FROM THE WANTED FOR TREASON – JFK handbill:
#5. He has illegally invaded a sovereign State with federal troops.
This latter point referred to the fact that JFK had sent Federal troops to Ole Miss University in 1962, to force the university to accept Black US Veteran James Meredith as a student.
Both of these points were identified as “treasonous” by Citizen Walker. Both of these points were examples of the Washington DC commitment to the Supreme Court’s so-called Brown Decision to racially integrate US Public Schools. The Brown Decision was a communist plot by Chief Justice Earl Warren, according to the US Radical Right.
This direct match is relevant in our current focus upon the WANTED FOR TREASON – JFK handbill.
Regards,
--Paul