<Photo: The resigned General Edwin Walker on the morning after his deadly racial riot at Ole Miss University in September 1962. This morning Walker was arrested and sent to a US Army mental hospital in Springfield Missouri for evaluation.>
It's been more than two months since our last blog post here. This was partly due to the latest variant of Coronavirus in my family, partly due to laptop issues, and partly due to the end of Phase One of our blog.
During the past several years, Jason and I have focused on Phase One, in which we wrote with a focus on the Warren Commission (WC) testimonies of Dallas residents whom we believe to have had the most glaring motive, means, and opportunity.
Yet all of that is done, now, because we've finally covered the main Dallas suspects who also testified for the WC. Phase Two now begins, where we'll focus on the contents of General Walker's personal papers stored at the University of Texas at Austin.
During three semesters in the 2010's, in independent study with the legendary historian, Professor H.W. Brands, I explored all 90 boxes of the personal papers of the resigned General Walker. Phase Two of this blog will switch to a focus on the personal papers of the resigned General Edwin Walker stored at the Briscoe Center for the Study of American History within UT Austin.
We'll begin in August by examining the opinions of two psychiatrists who testified before the Grand Jury in Oxford, Mississippi, who suspected that General Walker suffered from paranoia. Although Walker was acquitted, and whenever a suspect is acquitted it is normal for a Grand Jury to destroy all the transcripts of the hearings -- in this case General Walker himself requested a copy of the transcripts for his personal papers.
So, we have those transcripts today, and what they shine a spotlight on Walker's mental condition. After the deadly racial riots at Ole Miss University on September 30, 1962, JFK and RFK made an angry decision to send General Walker to an insane asylum for a 90-day evaluation. The ACLU got Walker released after three days.
Contrary to popular belief, medical experts were divided on the question of whether General Walker was insane -- so two psychiatrists on one side clashed with two psychiatrists on the other side of the debate. Their debate is of genuine interest, we'll argue, for readers seeking clues about General Walker's bizarre behavior with regard to the presidency of JFK starting in 1961.
Thank you,
--Paul Trejo
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