Edwin Walker - Early Life and Military Career

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. During World War II, Walker commanded a subunit of the Canadian-American First Special Service Force in the invasion of Anzio, Italy in January 1944. In August 1944, Walker succeeded Robert T. Frederick as the unit's commanding officer. 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, 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 Dwight D. 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 a mandatory anti-Communist indoctrination program for troops. It's name, said Walker, was intended to suggest 'Anti-Red', (where the Free World troops were colored blue on maps)

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 US Presidents from FDR 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.

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. 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."