Edwin Walker - Assassination Attempt

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 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 HSCA 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.