Early Life and Career
Walker was born in Washington, D.C. and raised near San Diego, California. He was the second Governor of Illinois to graduate from the United States Naval Academy. He served as a naval officer in World War II and the Korean War. A graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law, Walker served as a law clerk for Chief Justice of the United States Fred M. Vinson, and as an aide to Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II.
Walker later became an executive for Montgomery Ward while pursuing anti-machine Democratic politics in Chicago.
In 1970, Walker was campaign chairman for the successful U.S. Senate campaign of Adlai Stevenson III (son of Adlai II).
At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, there were violent clashes between police and protesters. The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence appointed Walker to head the Chicago Study Team that investigated the incident. In December, Walker issued his report, Rights in Conflict, better known as the "Walker Report". The Report became highly controversial, and its author well-known. Walker stated that while protesters had deliberately harassed and provoked police, the police had responded with indiscriminate violence against protesters and bystanders, which he described as a "police riot". The Report charged that many police had committed criminal acts, and condemned the failure to prosecute or even discipline those police.
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