Dallas 1963

by Bill Minutaglio

  A speech, written and delivered by one of Walker’s wealthy faithful, is thundering over the airwaves, pleading with Texans to vote for Walker—because it is the only way to stop Kennedy, to save America before it is too late:

  His “gang of Fabian socialists” are committing “wholesale treason”—“You had better be working too for the election of General Walker… before Red Chinese troops start pouring across the Rio Grande to occupy Texas.”3

  At his final campaign event—an address to the National Indignation Convention in Dallas—the untold story is that the right-wing organization is falling on hard times. Frank McGehee’s donations are drying up; he has to book a banquet room at a local Holiday Inn instead of renting the Dallas Memorial Auditorium.

  Speaking to five hundred people at the motel, Walker unleashes another furious attack on the president. Kennedy “is leading the country toward a totalitarian state,” he tells them. He predicts a ruinous future for Dallas, and all of America unless he becomes governor:

  “Your vote for Walker may be your last chance to vote for a free candidate—unless I am elected.”4

  On May 5, Texans go to the polls.

  At his home, his mother nearby, Walker tries to follow the tallies. He doesn’t appear upset by the early reports that he is losing—and the final reports showing he will place last among the six Democrats on the ballot. Still, he garners 138,000 votes, far more than political veterans had ever expected, and well ahead of the leading Republican vote getter in the GOP primary.

  There is gnashing in the extremist circles in Dallas: If Walker had only listened to Alger’s advice and run as a Republican, he would have been the party’s standard-bearer in the fall.

  Walker’s Dallas supporters had hoped that the general’s campaign would be the lightning rod for a sweeping movement against Kennedy—and maybe even a chance to turn back the tide on forced integration.

  In defeat Walker remains unbowed. Speaking to a still-energized assembly of faithful supporters in Dallas, he calls the people who voted for him “an army.” They are soldiers joined together to defeat a common enemy:

  “There is hope for our salvation as shown by the 150,000 free votes I received. An army of 150,000 patriots is a great force which must be extended.”

  As his “soldiers” listen and cheer, Walker’s argument is clear to them: He hasn’t earned enough votes to win an election, but he has enlisted enough warriors to start a revolution.

  JULY

  Shortly after waking up on July 17, John Kennedy is informed by aides that a Soviet MiG jet fighter has buzzed a U.S. government plane flying into West Berlin. He hopes this hostility is not a harbinger of the day ahead.

  It is a Tuesday morning, the day of a much-anticipated vote in the Senate on the president’s controversial plan to establish a “Medicare” program to ensure health care for older Americans who can’t afford health insurance. Resistance from conservatives has been fierce, and Washington is tense with anticipation—all one hundred senators are in town for the vote. Both sides are predicting victory.

  But before the Senate acts, Kennedy has a meeting with a delegation of business leaders from Dallas, led by Stanley Marcus, a man close to LBJ. The timing of Marcus’s visit is beyond inauspicious—his city is at the forefront of the public resistance to Kennedy’s Medicare plan.

  Just a few weeks earlier, Bruce Alger made national news by aggressively challenging Abe Ribicoff, Kennedy’s secretary of health, education, and welfare, accusing him of carrying a bill on behalf of a liberal lobbying group, Americans for Democratic Action.

  “This is an ADA bill as presently drafted,” Alger said. “As an ADA member, do you want to change it?”

  Ribicoff replied: “I am not a member of the Americans for Democratic Action.”

  “No?” said Alger, with mock incredulity. “I’ll have to check my sources.”

  “Go ahead,” said Ribicoff.

  “Since this is another socialized scheme, I assumed that the ADA would be for it,” countered Alger.1

  The Dallas Morning News quickly praised Alger as Ribicoff’s “chief tormentor.”2

  An editorial claims that JFK’s support of Medicare sounds suspiciously similar to a pro-Medicare editorial that appeared in the Worker—the official publication of the U.S. Communist Party.3

  And on the radio, H. L. Hunt’s Life Line fills the airwaves with dozens of assaults on Medicare, claiming that it would create government death panels:

  “This plan provides a neat little package of sweeping dictatorial power over medicine and the healing arts—a package which would literally make the President of the United States a medical czar with potential life-or-death power over every man, woman and child in the country.”4

  Given the vitriolic attacks by Alger and the Morning News on the health care proposals, Marcus and the other men from Dallas are lucky to even receive an audience with the president.

  It took Marcus’s skillful maneuvering, working through Lyndon Johnson, to finally get Kennedy to agree to a meeting. Marcus has been desperate for some kind of dialogue with the White House ever since Dealey’s eruption at JFK last October. He wants Kennedy to know that not everyone in Dallas subscribes to ultra-right orthodoxies, that the city is not run by extremists like General Walker or gangsters like Joe Civello—that Dallas is, at its core, an efficient, business-like American city that the president would come to love if he only spent more time there.

  Marcus is joined on his trip by the publisher of the rival newspaper in Dallas, the more moderate Times Herald, along with Erik Jonsson, the co-founder of Texas Instruments who has been tapped to become the next president of the Dallas Citizens Council.

  The three men have been watching with unconcealed dismay as rival cities in Texas scoop up millions and even billions in federal spending: Austin and Fort Worth are getting new federal centers and Houston has landed a plum prize with the Space Center, which is currently under construction.

  Vice President Lyndon Johnson leads Marcus, his old friend, into the Oval Office, where the president receives him and the other men from Dallas with reserved politeness. Marcus and the others explain that Dallas has eight thousand federal workers—more than any other city in the Southwest—and without a new federal center the government is forced to lease office space at high prices. Investing in a permanent facility could save the federal government millions in rental fees.

  Kennedy listens carefully. Then he explains coolly that the concerns about the federal budget have forced everyone to cut back on large expenditures. But his real point is obvious to everyone present: It is those in Dallas who have been the most vocal in demanding that Kennedy slash federal spending.

  Kennedy offers a face-saving gesture. He picks up the phone and arranges for the men to visit officials at the General Services Administration, which oversees federal office spaces. He assures them that convincing the GSA of Dallas’s merits is really the first important step toward getting the millions of dollars that Congressman Bruce Alger has so far failed to secure.

  By now, the president is ready to brush the men out of the Oval Office. But before he can do it, Marcus abruptly invites Kennedy to visit Dallas.

  Perhaps Kennedy can come for the opening of the grand State Fair in October, or maybe to see a football game? He can see firsthand what a fine city it really is.

  Kennedy studies the men, shakes hands, and promises to consider coming to Dallas one day soon.

  After Marcus leaves, Kennedy and Johnson return their attention to the dramatic Medicare fight unfolding in the U.S. Senate.

  The final vote is exceedingly close. And yet, in a stinging rebuke to the president, several Southern Democrats join Republicans to oppose Kennedy, and Medicare fails by two votes.

  Kennedy is devastated by the loss. He holds an impromptu press conference, and is as angry as the public has ever seen him. This is his worst day on Capitol Hill as president.

  Back in Dallas, the Morning News cheers the Senate vote, d
eclaring Kennedy’s initiative “a legislative corpse.”5

  The timing for Marcus couldn’t be worse. It almost seems like he is doomed in his hope of building a bridge from Dallas to Kennedy.

  Something is clearly changing for Edwin Walker in the wake of his ruinous, rambling discourse before the Senate and his hopelessly quixotic race for governor. Rock-ribbed conservative allies like Senator Strom Thurmond now refuse to return his phone calls. Bruce Alger, who had once pushed his way to the front of the line to praise Walker, now pretends not to notice the general when Walker shows up at Alger’s campaign events in Dallas. Even the uncompromising billionaire H. L. Hunt is distancing himself. He tells others that Walker had lost the governor’s race because “he was too unresponsive to my suggestions.”6

  Walker is learning that in a city like Dallas, winning is everything. Losers, especially ones who embarrass the city, are ostracized. And that, perhaps, explains why a city inspector named Bob Stapleton showed up at the general’s door.

  Walker listens as the inspector politely informs him that neighbors are complaining about the general conducting business in a residential zone. The inspector mentions people coming in and out, and the numerous boxes of publications for Walker’s publishing company, American Eagle, being shipped from the house. He writes up a citation and presents it to Walker for his signature.

  Glaring at the man and his papers, Walker steps menacingly from his house. He crunches the piece of paper in his fist, hurls it at the city official, and finally chases the man past the high-flying American flags on his front lawn.

  As the man retreats, Walker returns inside. Before too long, he is contacted by the Dallas Morning News. Walker is still livid:

  “If every woman wearing a dress is a secretary, the world is overloaded with secretaries. If every typewriter in a house makes it an office, we are overloaded with offices.”

  And now the petty bureaucrats from Dallas City Hall are knocking on the door of his home, his national headquarters?

  Walker adds: “If they are as liberal as Khrushchev or Kennedy with their ideas of property rights, then I don’t want to see them.”7

  Walker is outraged that the Morning News would report such a trivial incident but refuse to print the “important message” he had just cabled to a national meeting of state governors.

  Even though he hadn’t been elected governor of Texas, he was anxious to let the public know that he still stood for the rights of the individual states, and that he had warned every governor in the Republic that President Kennedy was planning to surrender control of the U.S. military to the United Nations.

  The more he mulls things, the angrier he becomes, and he decides that maybe the time has come to create his own patriotic news service. He invites a pair of sympathetic journalists to his home and explains to them that his new organization will be like the Associated Press, except that it will only report news that is friendly to conservative positions.

  One man is incredulous at Walker’s proposal, telling him that it could cost as much as “a hundred million dollars.”

  Walker uses his finger to draw a line down his desk. He asks the man what side he stands on:

  “It is not possible to straddle the fence.”8

  SEPTEMBER

  James Meredith, a twenty-nine-year-old Korean War veteran who has applied to the University of Mississippi, meets all requirements for admittance, save one. He is black. The case has gone all the way to Chief Justice Earl Warren’s Supreme Court, which ruled that Meredith cannot be denied entrance on the basis of his race.

  The Dallas Morning News has reacted with outrage, accusing the Supreme Court and the Kennedy administration of “an effort to force Reconstruction II on a region which resents that force.”1 The News is increasingly adopting the rhetoric of the grassroots ultra-conservative movement: “To inflict civil wrongs in the name of civil rights is not the path of the patriot or the peaceful.”2

  In Mississippi, Governor Ross Barnett is refusing to back down. He has traveled to the campus to physically block Meredith from registering. Surrounded by state police and flashing news cameras, Barnett shouted: “We will not surrender to the evil and illegal forces of tyranny!” A crowd of white protesters yelled: “Go home, nigger!”3

  Now the standoff is in its second week. President Kennedy and his brother, the attorney general, are negotiating directly with Barnett on the telephone. Kennedy, like Eisenhower before him, is not anxious to use federal troops to enforce integration in the South.

  Barnett refuses to budge and Attorney General Robert Kennedy jabs back at the governor, telling reporters, “Mr. Meredith will be registered.”

  Inspired by Barnett’s resistance, a large crowd of pro-segregationists gathers at the edge of campus on September 27. Crosses are burned and students at a pep rally shout, “Hotty, toddy, we want a body.”4 The white resistance has learned its lessons since Little Rock. This time the mob is much bigger. And it is heavily armed.

  The standoff represents the most serious challenge to federal authority since the Civil War. Governor Barnett, belatedly recognizing the seriousness of the situation, begins desperately negotiating in secret with the Kennedy brothers to reach a face-saving settlement. And General Edwin A. Walker of Dallas decides that this is a moment he should and will seize—it is the perfect cause to use to personally confront John Kennedy, and to rescue Dallas and the rest of the South from enforced integration.

  From his base of operations in Dallas, Walker makes a nationally broadcast radio speech. His audience is estimated in the millions: “It is time to move. We have talked, listened, and been pushed around far too much by the anti-Christ Supreme Court. Rise… now is the time to be heard. Ten thousand strong, from every state in the union. Rally to the cause of freedom, the battle cry of the Republic… bring your flag, your tent, and your skillet. It’s now or never.”

  Walker apologizes for his earlier role in integrating Central High School in Little Rock: “The last time, in such a situation, I was on the wrong side. That was in Little Rock, Arkansas… this time I am out of uniform and I am on the right side. And I will be there.”5

  Walker’s followers begin to gather ammunition and weapons. The FBI issues urgent memos to its field staff, warning that armed men under Walker’s control are going to Mississippi to resist federal troops.

  Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon stands on the floor of the Senate and denounces Walker as a “fascist-minded ex-general” who is trying to lead an armed rebellion against the U.S. government.6

  In Dallas, the regional secretary of the NAACP, Clarence Laws, calls Walker “irresponsible and dangerous.”7

  When reporters phone Walker’s home, his staff tells them: “We are just telling them what patriots should do at a time like this. Someone stood at Concord.”8

  President Kennedy and Governor Barnett speak three times by telephone over the next two days. The mob surrounding the University of Mississippi grows larger and more menacing, and the governor is concerned that his state police cannot guarantee Meredith’s safety. Kennedy knows that the time has come to act. With great reluctance, he issues an executive order to federalize Mississippi’s National Guard. He also orders five hundred U.S. Marshals to Oxford to ensure that Meredith can be enrolled.

  Meanwhile, Walker is flying in a private plane to Mississippi. Groups of armed men are driving to Oxford to join him: Two hundred from Mobile, Alabama. Busloads from California. Caravans from Florida, Oklahoma, and other states. Another forty-five college students from the University of Texas at Austin.

  Among those heeding Walker’s call to arms is one of his adjutants, Ashland F. Burchwell, a handsome twenty-two-year-old who had been one of Walker’s soldiers in Germany. Burchwell, who often volunteers for duty at the general’s Dallas mansion, has loaded his car with necessary supplies for the trip to Mississippi: a fully loaded .357 Magnum pistol, a fully loaded .303 army-style rifle, three .22-caliber pistols, one switchblade, and three thousand rounds of ammunition. He
also has blankets and changes of clothing.

  Dallas police spot Burchwell speeding on his way out of town. As they look over the car, they realize that he is transporting a small arsenal to join the general in Mississippi. Burchwell is arrested and detained in Dallas.

  Once Walker arrives in Mississippi, he holds a press conference at the airport. Facing the television cameras, the general announces: “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 and the use of Federal troops.”9

  Walker promises reporters that “thousands and possibly tens of thousands of people from Florida to California” are on their way to support him.10

  On September 30, heavily armed U.S. Marshals arrive on campus with James Meredith. Dressed mostly in civilian coats and ties, the marshals are wearing white helmets and orange armbands identifying them. They carry loaded .38s, although they are under strict orders from President Kennedy not to fire their weapons unless Meredith’s life is at stake.

  The marshals mistakenly believe that their show of force will quell the crowd, just as Walker’s own troops had experienced at Little Rock five years earlier. They manage to get Meredith onto campus, but soon find themselves pinned down by the ever-swelling ranks of protesters.

  By evening, twenty-five hundred people are surrounding the campus, chanting “Go to hell, JFK,” and “Yankee Go Home.” Some are waving Confederate flags. Others are dressed in Confederate uniforms. Many are carrying weapons. The crowd believes that Meredith is inside the Lyceum, the administration building, and they are trying to storm the building, shouting “Give us the nigger!”

  The marshals form a defensive line, standing shoulder-to-shoulder facing the crowd. By now, many of the marshals have donned orange vests stocked with tear gas canisters.