On the Shelf

There has never been any question about the fighting qualities of Major General Edwin A. Walker, U.S.A. During World War II, Texas-born "Ted" Walker often blacked his face, led his troops on bloody night raids against German units in Italy. In the Korean war he won further combat distinction, and in 1957, commanding troops of the 101st Airborne Division and the National Guard, he handled the Little Rock school crisis with such no-nonsense determination as to earn even the grudging admiration of segregationists. Since then, as commander of the 24th Infantry Division in West Germany, Walker has been known as a stern taskmaster who required officers and enlisted men alike to sweat through daily calisthenics and often take a one-mile run. But last week the Pentagon abruptly relieved General Walker, 51, of his command. The reason: charges that Walker was indoctrinating his troops with political propaganda that emanated from the conservative John Birch Society.

The story accusing Walker was broken by the Overseas Weekly, an independent, American-owned newspaper that has won a big audience among U.S. soldiers in Europe with a mixture of sex and carefully documented exposes of officers abusing their rank. According to the Overseas Weekly, Walker was stuffing his troops with the rightist rantings of Birch Society Founder Robert Welch, once made a public speech in which he called President Truman "definitely pink" and TV's Edward R. Murrow a "confirmed Communist." A man of towering temper, Walker was so enraged when he heard of Murrow's appointment as director of the U.S. Information Agency that his staff officers feared to go near him all day.

Walker issued a denial, said his program had no connection with any outside society, then went into hiding to map his counterattack. Finally, shouting at the top of his lungs, Walker gave out a statement to newsmen: "We have Communists and we have the Overseas Weekly. Neither one is one of God's blessings to the American people or their soldier sons overseas. Immoral, unscrupulous, corrupt and destructive are terms which could be applied to either."

As the uproar mounted, President Kennedy called the Pentagon to see what all the shouting was about. Connecticut's Democratic Congressman Frank Kowalski, a West Pointer ('30) and retired colonel, demanded an investigation of West Pointer Walker (class of '31). Said he: Walker has done nothing wrong, he should be vindicated. If not, he should be given the works." And the Army decided to put General Ted Walker on the shelf until it could find out if his political views outbalanced his fighting talent.

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