Arthur Bremer to be released

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Arthur Bremer to be released

Postby Jeff » Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:10 pm

Bremer Will Be Released From Prison This Year

By Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 23, 2007; 1:30 PM

Arthur Bremer, the man who attempted to assassinate Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace during his 1972 presidential campaign will be released later this year, Maryland corrections officials confirmed today.

The candidate was 52 years old on that May afternoon in Maryland -- 52 and surging in his third bid for the nomination, having won three Democratic primaries and expected to win in Maryland and Michigan.

Surrounded by a boisterous crowd of about 2,000 in the parking lot of the Laurel Shopping Center, Wallace had just concluded his remarks when a young blond-haired man in opaque sunglasses and dressed in red, white and blue shot him at close range, "the little black gun exploding like a birthday-party favor," Time magazine reported. Three persons traveling with the governor also were wounded.

From that day in 1972 when the bullets entered his chest and stomach -- one lodging near his spine -- until the day he died 26 years later, Wallace was paralyzed in both legs, lived in constant pain and suffered a variety of maladies as a result of his injuries.

Bremer, who had been stalking the candidate for weeks, was a 21-year-old loner from Milwaukee. Rejecting his insanity defense, a Prince George's County jury sentenced him to 53 years in prison.

He is scheduled to walk out of the Maryland Correctional Institute at Hagerstown in December, after serving 35 years of his sentence. A case management manager, Leonard Vaughan, said that Bremer is to be released under a state program that reduces the prison time for inmates who have a prison job and maintain good behavior.

Bremer, a clerk in the prison, could be released sooner, Vaughan said, since he earns more days off his sentence each month. He's been an inmate at the Hagerstown facility since 1979.

Details about where Bremer will live after his release were not available, although he will be required to check in regularly with a pardons and parole officer until the end of his sentence, May 15, 2025.

Thirty-five years ago he was a bus boy at the Milwaukee Athletic Club. In a diary he kept leading up to his attempted assassination of Wallace, he wrote that President Richard Nixon had been his initial target before he shifted his focus to the Alabama governor, whose outspoken views on racial integration made him one of America's most controversial political figures.

"It's worth death or a long trial and life in prison," Bremer wrote in the diary. "Life outside ain't so hot. I want to do something bold and dramatic, forcefull [sic] and dynamic. A statement of my manhood for the world to see."

Bremer came up for parole periodically, beginning in 1985; Wallace said he was not opposed to his assailant going free. In 1995, he wrote a letter to Bremer, saying that he had forgiven him and that he hoped the two could meet. Bremer never responded, never expressed remorse.

Two years later, shortly before Wallace's death, Bremer argued in an appeal for parole that he should be released from prison because Wallace and other segregationist politicians were "dinosaurs."

"They are extinct, not endangered, by an act of God," Bremer wrote.

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Manchurian Candidate Bremer's link to Sirhan.

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:34 pm

Timing. Reinforcing the meme of the 'Lone Gunman' just before the 40th/45th anniversaries of the CIA's murder of RFK/JFK.

TOO MANY BULLETS. Just like the shooting of RFK (who would've defeated Nixon in 1968) at the Ambassador Hotel in LA where Sirhan Sirhan was framed, there were too many bullets fired at Wallace (who would've helped defeat Nixon in 1972).

LINK TO HYPNOTIST. Plus Bremer's half-sister worked for the same evangelist Jerry Owen who helped handle Sirhan. CIA hypnotist William Joseph Bryan's secretary told an investigator that he got an "emergency" phone call just minutes after the shooting of Wallace.

FAKED DIARY. Gore Vidal wrote a long essay about Arthur Bremer's 'diary' which seemed to him to have evidence of forgery, too literate, deliberate miss-spellings. He thought maybe E. Howard Hunt had something to do with it. Oddly, Hunt planned to fly to Bremer's apartment after the shooting but gave conflicting accounts of this.

TRANCE BEHAVIOR. Bremer was described as having a sickly smile all the time and, like Sirhan, was detached and calm at the time of the shooting. A passage in Bremer's 'diary' has him 'writing' that he will intentionally be calm as he shoots to show the cops what kind of man he is. Did the forgers learn from the hypnosis of Sirhan that it could be detected?

This 1999 Probe Magazine article by LISA PEASE has more on Bremer and his probable accomplices along with diagrams of how Wallace's wounds don't match Bremer's five shots from the front.

Oddly, the webpage's graphics are scrambled-HMW

Pease article in entirety>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

http://www.ctka.net/pr599-bremer.html

From the May-June 1999 issue (Vol. 6 No. 4)
Bremer & Wallace:
It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again

"I have no evidence, but I think
my attempted assassination was part of a conspiracy."
— Governor George Wallace
By Lisa Pease

The story was both familiar and devastating. Another crazy gunman, portrayed as a withdrawn loner, had taken down another leading political figure in our country. On May 15, 1972, Arthur Herman Bremer pulled a gun and fired upon Governor George Corley Wallace during his campaign rally at a shopping center in Laurel, Maryland.

CBS photographer Laurens Pierce caught part of the shooting on film. A clip from this piece is included in the film Forrest Gump. Wallace is seen with his right side exposed as Bremer reaches forward through the crowd, plants the gun near Wallace’s stomach, and fires. Bremer continues firing four more shots, all in essentially the same forward direction, roughly parallel to the ground. Due largely to what was shown on the film, and to the apparent premeditation exhibited in his alleged diary, Bremer was arrested, tried and convicted.

To most people, this case was truly incontestable. This time, a deranged (though not legally insane) gunman had taken out a presidential hopeful. But as with the assassinations of the two Kennedy brothers and Dr. Martin Luther King, there appears to be more to the story.

Wallace alone was wounded in nine different places. Three other people were wounded by a bullet apiece. That makes twelve wounds. The gun found at the scene and presumed to be the only weapon used could only hold five bullets. Looks like someone brought magic bullets to Laurel that day.

Doctors who treated Wallace said he was hit by a minimum of four bullets, and possibly five. Yet three other victims were hit by bullets, and bullets were recovered from two of them. The New York Times reported that there was "broad speculation on how four persons had suffered at least seven separate wounds from a maximum of five shots," adding that although various law enforcement agencies had personnel on the scene, these agencies claimed that "none of their officers or agents had discharged their weapons."1 Curiously absent is the logical deduction: perhaps a second shooter was present.

Image
[Bear in mind that shots 1 and 2 in the above picture represent two wounds each since they were through-and-through wounds, bringing Wallace’s total wound count to nine. In addition, three other people were wounded, bringing the total wound count to 12.

Note too the low placement of the upper chest wound (4). Watch where this wound appears in the other two bullet scenarios published at right.]


Image
(Picture from the Washington Post, 5/17/72)

[Note that in the scenario described above, bullets would have had to enter Wallace from three directions: his right side, his front and from behind his left shoulder. How could one man, firing straight ahead, do that?]


Image
(Picture from Newsweek, 5/29/72)

[Note the odd trajectories posited by Newsweek. The bullet paths do not trace to a single firing position, and instead require the shooter to be both behind and somewhat above Wallace.

There were policemen on the roof of the shopping center, looking for snipers. Did they miss one? Did they include one?

And if the shoulder wound entered the chest first and then exited the shoulder, then there is the problem of the wound across the back of Wallace’s left shoulder blade. The CBS film of the shooting shows Bremer firing a gun, but does not show us how Wallace’s body was positioned following the initial shot. Wallace ultimately fell on his back. If he turned his back to the gun, allowing the bullet to graze his back left shoulder blade, how did a bullet enter his chest to exit his right shoulder?]


Curious Bullet Trails

Two bullets were removed from Wallace. Wallace’s right arm was shot through in two places, leaving four wounds. Doctors speculated that the two bullets that caused these wounds continued on into Wallace’s chest and abdomen. The two bullets were recovered from the chest and abdomen wounds. But three wounds remained unaccounted for on Wallace at that point. The second chest wound was connected, perhaps by necessity, to the wound in the shoulder. In addition, Wallace took a grazing wound in the left shoulder blade.

One bullet was removed from Secret Service agent Nicholas Zarvos. He was shot in the right side of his throat; the bullet lodged in his left jaw. Another bullet was removed from the knee of campaign worker Dorothy Thompson. Curiously, the fact that a bullet was removed from Ms. Thompson was not made public until Bremer’s trial. Capt. Eldred C. Dothard of the Alabama State Patrol was wounded by a bullet grazing his abdomen. And one bullet was recovered from the pavement. If four bullets wounded Wallace, and two others had bullets in them, at least one of the bullets that wounded Wallace went on into one of the other victims. And if only one of them went into another victim, Dothard’s grazing bullet must have ended in Thompson’s knee or Zarvos’s throat. No single scenario seems to satisfy all wounds.

But the wounds are only the start of the curiousities in this case.
Ballistic Evidence (or Lack Thereof)

At Bremer’s trial, his court-appointed lawyer, Benjamin Lipsitz, got Robert Frazier of the FBI to admit to the following facts:

1. Bremer’s fingerprints were not found on the gun recovered at the scene.

2. The gun could not be matched to the victim bullets.

3. The bullets were too damaged to make such a comparison possible.2

In the CBS film, Bremer is clearly shown holding a gun without gloves. How is it that he failed to leave fingerprints? And matches between guns and bullets are routinely made. How is it that the bullets were so damaged in this case, and not damaged beyond identifiability in so many others? As for Frazier’s comment that the bullets were too damaged to be able to make comparisons, note that the day after the shooting, the Washington Post had reported that Zavros’ doctor stated that the bullet from Zavros’ jaw "was removed intact."

In addition, Frazier admitted that Bremer had been given paraffin casts, but tested negative for nitrates (found in gunpowder, among other substances), as had Lee Harvey Oswald in similar tests nine years earlier. However, a doctor who treated Bremer for his own wounds shortly after the shooting claimed he had washed Bremer’s hands with surgical soap, which would have removed all traces of gunpowder residue. It seems odd, however, that the authorities holding Bremer would allow evidence to be washed away.

The gun itself was not wrested from Bremer’s hand, but was found on the pavement by Secret Service agent Robert A. Innamorati. He picked it up from the pavement, and then "kept it secure until 9:00pm that evening,"3 at which point he turned it over to the FBI.

The gun was traced to Bremer because his car license was recorded in the files. But the owner of the shop did not remember Bremer. That may seem normal in most cases, but by nearly all other recorded accounts, Bremer was hard to miss. People described him as having a sickly, incessant smile, and a pasty white color that made him stick out from the crowd.

There were other guns at the plaza that day. The Washington Post reported that "At least two Prince George’s policemen were stationed on the shopping center rooftop, surveying for potential snipers, when Governor Wallace’s caravan arrived...."4 Many other policemen and Secret Service agents were in the crowd near Wallace during his appearance there.

Because of the numerous discrepancies and lack of hard physical evidence linking Bremer to the actual bullets that wounded the victims, at the opening of his trial, Bremer’s lawyer said, "I’m not trying to kid you. I don’t know whether he [Bremer] shot Wallace or not. I think some doctors will tell you even Arthur Bremer doesn’t know if shot Wallace." Lipsitz suggested instead that the bullets may have been fired by any of the dozens of policemen at the scene.

During the trial, Bremer was placed in the audience portion of the courtroom. Several witnesses could not identify him in the crowd as having been the gunman they claimed to have seen or tackled.
Second Suspect Rumors

The Maryland police originally issued a bulletin regarding a second suspect in the shooting. An all-points bulletin described the man as a white male, six feet three inches, 220 pounds, with silver gray hair, driving a 1971 light blue Cadillac.5 The bulletin was retracted soon after, however, and the police disavowed later that the bulletin had anything to do with the assassination attempt. Carl Bernstein, who along with Bob Woodward, wrote several of the pieces relating to the Wallace shooting, authored an article claiming to refute this and other rumors surrounding the case. According to Bernstein, a man had been seen changing his auto license tags from Georgia to Maryland plates. The car, a light blue Cadillac, was later found abandoned. The police reported that the incident was unconnected with the shooting.

There had been an earlier incident that bears noting. According to Dothard, two men with guns appeared at a Wallace rally nine days before the attempted assassination. One man apprehended was, without explanation, released. The other man escaped. Curiously, there is no record of the man’s arrest, or of anything about his companion.6
CBS and the Wallace Shooting

As mentioned earlier, CBS cameraman Laurens Pierce made a now famous film of the attempt on Wallace’s life. What’s odd is that this was the third time Pierce had caught Bremer on tape. Pierce had seen Bremer twice before shooting day—once at an earlier rally in Wheaton, Maryland, and once sometime before that. According to the New York Times (5/17/72),

Mr. Pierce, who has been traveling with the Governor since April 30, said in an interview that he was convinced he had seen the suspect before he encountered him Monday in Wheaton, because "the previous time I saw him he was fanatic almost in appearance, so I did a close-up shot."

Pierce dould not remember where this earlier occurance took place. At Wheaton, however, Pierce related that he went up to Bremer and told him he had filmed him at a previous ralley. Pierce claimed, "he shied away from me, as if to say, ‘No, no!’"7

Catching a would-be assassin on film before the shooting happened most recently in the Rabin assassination case. The alleged assassin was filmed for several minutes by himself, before the assassination took place.

What is especially odd is that, while Pierce picked Bremer out of the crowd, filmed him and talked to him, the Secret Service did not, despite his having crossed places with them before. During a Nixon appearance in Canada, Bremer stayed at a hotel that housed about three dozen Secret Service agents. In his diary, Bremer talks about watching them with his binoculars, and being caught by one of them on camera. In addition, according to William Gullett, the chief executive of Prince George’s County, Maryland, Bremer had been arrested previously in Milwaukee and charged with carrying a concealed weapon. The charge was later reduced to disorderly conduct. Milwaukee police, however, were unable to find any record of his arrest. In Kalamazoo, Michigan, at a previous Wallace appearance, a parking lot attendant had called the police because he saw Bremer sitting in a car, outside the place Wallace was later to appear, for the better part of the day. The police questioned Bremer, but when Bremer told them he simply wanted to get a good seat, they believed him and left him alone. Bremer had also walked away from his life a few months earlier, disappearing from two jobs without any word. Wallace campaign workers noticed Wallace and mentioned that he seemed strange. Lastly, Bremer’s family was listed as a problem family with social service agencies in Wisconsin. Despite all of the above, the Secret Service data bank had no record of Wallace.
Bremer’s Expenditures

Bremer spent at least two months traveling between Milwaukee, Canada, New York and Maryland before the Laurel incident. Yet Bremer never had any significant source of income. His last two jobs before he disappeared from Milwaukee mid-February of 1972 were as a busboy and a janitor. As the New York Times put it,

How did the former bus boy and janitor, who earned $3,016 last year, according to a Federal income tax form found in his apartment, support himself and manage to buy guns, tape recorder, portable radio with police band, binoculars and other equipment he was carrying, as well as finance his travels?8

Curiously, the New York Times appeared to have inflated the income figure. Both the Washington Post and Time magazine had previously reported that the Federal income tax form found in Bremer’s apartment showed a much lower figure: $1,611. The lower figure is likely the accurate one, given that Bremer made only $9.45 a day. And even then, he would have had to put in for overtime to reach that figure. Bremer could not have had that full sum available, as he had to pay rent and eat during that year. Assuming he spent money on little else, there is still an enormous problem here. Bremer was able to purchase a car for $795 in cash, fly to and from New York City, stay at the exclusive Waldorf Astoria hotel, drive to and from Ottawa, Canada, where he stayed at another exclusive hotel, the Lord Elgin (where the Secret Service were staying during Nixon’s visit), buy three guns, all of which cost upwards of $80, take a helicopter ride in NYC, obtain a ride in a chauffered limousine, tip a girl at a massage parlor $30, and so forth. As with the cases of Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray, this "loner" clearly had financial support from an outside source.

One person may have provided a key to this part of the puzzle. Earl S. Nunnery, trainmaster for the Chesapeak & Ohio Railway’s rail-auto ferry service through the Great Lakes region, told the Associated Press and confirmed to the New York Times that Bremer had taken his automobile from Milwaukee to Ludington, Michigan in April and again in May. But more importantly, Nunnery recalled the Bremer was not alone. He described Bremer’s companion as a well-dressed man, about 6' 2" tall, weighing 225 pounds, with curled hair that appeared heavily sprayed, that hung down over his ears. The companion appeared to have a New York accent. Nunnery said the man talked excitedly about moving some political campaign from Wisconsin to Michigan. Nunnery was so curious about which political candidate these two were discussing that he ventured a look at the car, hoping a bumper sticker might provide an answer. In the car of Bremer’s companion, he saw a third person with long hair, who could have been male or female.9 Interestingly, at the Wallace rally in Kalamazoo, Bremer had been seen talking to a slim, attractive woman accompanied by some "hippie types" who were distributing anti-Wallace literature.10

Despite this evidence, the FBI, police and media were busily painting Bremer as a loner, without accomplices.

Curiously, Bremer was not simply following Wallace. His Ottawa trip coincided with Nixon’s appearance there, and his diary is full of references to his wanting to kill Nixon. His stay at the Waldorf-Astoria in NYC corresponded to a night candidate Hubert Humphrey had planned to stay there. But Humphrey cancelled, and Wallace went back to Milwaukee, only to leave the next day on the auto-rail ferry for Michigan.
The FBI’s Strange Behavior

In a move reminiscent of the treatment of witnesses to the Kennedy assassination, the FBI busily instructed witnesses not to talk to the press.11 The FBI took possession of hotel records and instructed Waldorf-Astoria hotel employees not to divulge how much Bremer paid to stay there.12 They told Representative Henry Reuss and his aides not to divulge Bremer’s responses to a questionnaire he had responded to and returned to them.13
E. Howard Hunt and Bremer?

The belated desire for secrecy does not jibe with other actions taken by the Bureau. For example, right after the shooting, FBI people entered Bremer’s apartment in Milwaukee. But then, the FBI left for an hour and a half. Upon their return, they sealed off the apartment to all visitors. But why was the apartment left open for press and other visitors in the interim? Anyone could have walked off with, or more interestingly, planted incriminating evidence there. In fact, Gore Vidal, in the New York Review of Books, wrote a long essay in which he postulated that Watergate figure, expert forger and longtime Kennedy assassination suspect Everett Howard Hunt had penned Bremer’s infamous diary. He cited literary allusions and devices combined with misspellings that looked so phony as to have been made deliberately as reasons to disbelieve that Bremer was the original author. Hunt had claimed that Charles Colson had asked him to fly to Milwaukee after the assassination attempt to see what Bremer’s political leanings were.14 Colson maintained, however, that no such conversation took place, and claimed he had instead asked the FBI to look closely into the matter and to keep him posted on what they found. Colson argued that it would make no sense for him to ask the FBI to investigate, and then to send Hunt into the waiting arms of the FBI at Bremer’s apartment. Given Hunt’s proclivity to tell untruths, and given the plausibility of Colson’s position, it seems likely Hunt’s story emerged to cover his own interest in the case. In his autobiography, Hunt claims he went so far as to call airlines in an attempt to book a flight to Milwaukee that night. Hunt wrote,

Reluctantly, I began to pack a bag, adding to it the shaving kit that held my CIA-issue physical disguise and documents....I called several airlines and found that the only available flight would put me in Milwaukee about 11 o’clock that night.15

In the end, however, Hunt claims he decided not to go when he realized the place would be crawling with FBI by the time he got there. Was Hunt afraid that a flight he had booked, and perhaps taken, would be discovered, hence the cover story? In the end, we do not know whether Hunt flew there or not, and whether or not Colson or Hunt suggested the trip in the first place. But there is a curious footnote to this. Bob Woodward of the Washington Post received an anonymous tip that one of the Watergate suspects had gone to meet with Bremer in Milwaukee.16 While no evidence emerged to support that tip, it remains an intriguing item. Even Howard Simons, the Post’s managing editor, made the following comment to Woodward, Bernstein and other editors he had summoned. "There’s one thing we’ve got to think about," he said, regarding the Wallace shooting. "The ultimate dirty trick."17
Dirty Tricks in ’72

The suggestion of something more sinister in the shooting of Governor Wallace needs to be placed against the backdrop of all that was happening in 1972. Donald Segretti pulled off many dirty tricks on the Democrats during this year. For example, at a Muskie fundraiser, liquor, flowers, pizza and entertainers suddenly appeared, unrequested, cash on delivery. A reprint of an article dealing unfavorably with Edward Kennedy’s role in the Chappaquidick incident was distributed to members of Congress on facsimiles of Muskie’s stationery. Interestingly, the FBI found numerous phone calls from E. Howard Hunt to Segretti, implying that Hunt was perhaps directing Segretti’s efforts.

1972 was truly a low point in American democracy. This was the year of the "Canuck Letter," a letter supposedly written by an aide to presidential hopeful Edmund Muskie, in which the aide claimed Muskie condoned the use of the perjorative term "Canuck" regarding the many French-Americans living in New Hampshire. This letter was published by right-winger William Loeb before the New Hampshire primary. The following day, the same publication displayed a scathing personal attack on Muskie’s wife. On the next day, when Muskie abandoned his prepared speech and uncharacteristically took off after Loeb for these pieces, Muskie inexplicably lost his famous composure and broke down into tears. According to Bob Woodward, his famous source "Deep Throat" told him the Canuck Letter came right out of the White House. According to another source, Ken Clawson, the man who originally provided Bremer’s identity to the Post’s editors when no one was talking, admitted to having written the Canuck letter. Clawson was then employed by the White House. But even more intriguing is what Miles Copeland, longtime CIA heavyweight, had to say about Muskie’s subsequent breakdown and Hunt’s possible role therein:

On one occasion, Jojo’s [a pseudonym for a high-level CIA officer] office was asked for an LSD-type drug that could be slipped into the lemonade of Democratic orators, thus causing them to say sillier things than they would say anyhow. To this day, some of my friends at the Agency are convinced that Howard Hunt or Gordon Liddy or somebody got hold of a variety of that drug and slipped it into Senator Muskie’s lemonade before he played that famous weeping scene.18

Dirty tricks were used against George McGovern’s campaign as well. In All the President’s Men, Woodward claimed his source Deep Throat told him the following:

[Hunt’s] operation was not only to check leaks to the papers but often to manufacture items for the press. It was a Colson-Hunt operation. Recipients include all you guys—Jack Andersen, Evans & Novak, the Post, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune. The business of [McGovern’s choice for Vice President, Senator Thomas] Eagleton’s drunk-driving record or his health records, I understand, involves the White House and Hunt somehow. 19

On a more sinister note, Lou Russell was on James McCord’s payroll while employed to provide security for McGovern’s campaign headquarters. McCord paid Russell through Bud Fensterwald’s Committee to Investigate Assassinations (CIA).20 Another plant inside the McGovern campaign, Tom Gregory, was being run by Howard Hunt.21

1972 is most famous, however, for the Watergate break-in, which ultimately led to Nixon’s self-removal from office. The CIA played a heavy and interesting role in both the break-in and the subsequent revelations that led to Nixon’s removal. As Probe has written about in past issues, it appears the CIA operatives deliberately got themselves caught in the Watergate hotel so as not to blow other operations. Then, when Helms was removed, removing Nixon was seen as payback. Those who most contributed to exposing Nixon’s activities, such as Alexander Butterfield, James McCord, and Howard Hunt, all had relationships with the CIA. If the cumulative weight of the evidence is to be believed, it appears that the CIA ran the country’s election process in 1972, deciding which candidates would survive or fail, and participating in acts of sabotage.

Is it too far fetched to suggest they may have had an interest in controlling the political fortunes of others that year, even by such drastic means as assassination? From what we know of their presence in the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, such as suggestion can hardly be called far-fetched. Therefore, we must ask that most ugly of questions: is there evidence of CIA involvement in the Wallace shooting?

According to newspaperwoman Sybil Leek and lawyer-turned-investigative-reporter Bert Sugar, the answer is yes.
Sinister Connections

According to Leek and Sugar, while Bremer was at the Lord Elgin hotel in Ottawa, he met with a Dennis Cossini. Famed conspiracy researcher Mae Brussell and Alan Stang identified Cossini as a CIA operative. Cossini was found dead from a massive heroin overdose in July, 1972, just two months after the Wallace shooting. Cossini had no history of drug use.

Cossini’s address book contained the phone number of a John J. McCleary. McCleary lived in Sacramento, California, and was employed by V & T International, an import-export firm. McCleary drowned in the Pacific ocean in the fall of 1972. His father, amazingly, drowned around the same time in Reno, Nevada.22

If the CIA was somehow involved, that could explain both E. Howard Hunt’s immediate interest in the case, as well as the role of CBS in filming Bremer in the act of shooting. CBS and the CIA shared a particularly close relationship. CIA involvement might go far in explaining the following connections as well.

Bremer’s brother, William Bremer, was arrested shortly after the Wallace shooting for having bilked over 2,000 Miami matrons out of over $80,000 by signing them up for non-existant weight-loss sessions. Curiously, Bremer’s lawyer was none other than Ellis Rubin, the man who had defended many anti-Castro activists and who defended the CIA men who participated in the Watergate break-in.23

Even more curious is Bremer’s half-sister Gail’s relationship with the Reverend Jerry Owen (ne Oliver Brindley Owen), who figures prominently in the RFK case. Owen’s bible-thumping show was cancelled from KCOP in Los Angeles when evidence surfaced showing he had a possibly sinister relationship with Sirhan Sirhan just prior to the assassination of Robert Kennedy. After the assassination, Owen had gone to the police with a strange tale of having picked Sirhan up as a hitchhiker. But other witnesses claimed Owen had given Sirhan cash, and had more of a relationship with Sirhan that he had admitted. Los Angeles County Supervisor Baxter Ward wrote a letter to his colleagues detailing an interesting experience he had with Owen:

In the summer of 1971 as a broadcaster, I attempted unsuccessfully to contact Owen for an interview. In the spring of 1972, while I was campaigning for political office, Jerry Owen left word at my campaign headquarters that he would like to see me the following day. The call was placed just hours after Governor Wallace had been shot. Owen did not keep the appointment the following day.

A short time after the hearing I conducted last May [1975] into the Senator Kennedy ballistics evidence, Jerry Owen called again, saying he would like to see me to disclose the full story behind the conspiracy.

He came the following day, and I obtained his permission to tape record his conversation. In my opinion, he provided no information beyond what he had stated in 1968 to the authorities and to the press. However, there was one addition: when I questioned him as to why he did not keep our appointment the day after Governor Wallace had been shot, Owen volunteered that he was personal friends with the sister of Arthur Bremmer [sic]....Owen stated that Gale Bremmer [sic - his half sister was Gail Aiken] was employed by his brother here in Los Angeles for several years and had then just left Los Angeles for Florida because she was continually harassed by the FBI.24

Links to the RFK case, which appears to be awash in CIA involvement, do not end here. In fact, Bremer had checked out two books on Sirhan from the Milwaukee Public Library in 1972 and had made comments about them in his journal. But perhaps the most interesting connection yet is the one discovered by Betsy Langman. Langman flew from her New York home to Los Angeles to talk to Dr. William Bryan, suspected hypnotist of Sirhan in the RFK assassination saga. On the pretext of doing an article on hypnosis, she encouraged the egotistical Bryan to elaborate at length on his ventures with "Boston Strangler" Albert Di Salvo, "Hollywood Strangler" Henry Bush, and about hypnosis in general. But when she brought up the subject of Sirhan, Bryan became suddenly curt and short-winded, charging out of the office declaring "This interview is over!"

A sympathetic secretary of Bryan’s joined Langman for coffee across the street, and dropped an interesting item. As Bill Turner and Jonn Christian recounted it in their book on the RFK case,

According to the secretary, Bryan had received an emergency call from Laurel, Marlyand, only minutes after George Wallace was shot. The call somehow concerned the shooting.25

Could Bremer have been hypnotized to shoot Wallace?
The Specter of Hypnosis

Bremer’s behavior both before and after the shooting was strange, to say the least. The media shared only tantalizing clues:

According to one Federal officer, who asked not to be identified, Mr. Bremer "seemed incredibly indifferent to what was going on around him, even the things that affected him. He was blasé, almost oblivious to what was going on. He seems like a shallow, mixed-up man, but not an ideologue."26

Some witnesses commented, as others had about Sirhan, of Bremer’s "spine-tingling" smirk,27 or "silly grin."28 In November of the previous year, Bremer had been questioned by the police while parked alone in a no-parking zone in Fox Point, a wealthy Milwaukee suburb. On the seat, he had several boxes of bullets. When the policeman asked why he had a gun, Bremer turned it over. According to a Newsweek account, the policeman later testified that Bremer was "completely incoherent" although the terms "drunk" or "drugged" are nowhere to be found.29 This was the incident referred to earlier, where Bremer was originally arrested for having a concealed weapon, but later released after paying the fine for the lesser charge of "disorderly conduct."

Finally, there is the report from Leek and Sugar that Bremer had a friend named Michael Cullen who was a hypnotist and a master of behavior modification and psychological programming. In light of the evidence, the hypothesis of mental manipulations cannot be dismissed out of hand.
Aftermath

The question of conspiracy goes hand in hand with the old one of Cui Bono? Who benefits? 1972 was a year in which the Vietnam war was dividing the country. On the one hand, George McGovern was pulling votes from the more moderate Hubert Humphrey in large part because he was willing to speak out against the carnage there. McGovern could never have won in a direct fight with Nixon, as history proved. But with Wallace splitting the conservative vote, McGovern had a chance of becoming president. Clearly, those who supported the Vietnam engagement gained when Wallace was taken out of the running by the bullets in Laurel, Maryland.

Wallace lived to be 79. Bremer is still alive and incarcerated. He is not yet 50. According to Patricia Cushwa, chairman of the Maryland Parole Commission, "There seems to be no rhyme or reason to what he [Bremer] does." Not surprising, considered the defense and prosecution pyschiatrists had portrayed Bremer as a schizophrenic. What was surprising was how the jury could find this man, who could not even answer whether he had shot Wallace or not, legally sane. His original crime, it seems, was being born defenseless into a family that was unable to care for him. He grew up in a dysfunctional environment. He was given neither love nor guidance growing up. Either he grew into a criminal, or was twisted into one by forces as yet unknown. What does Bremer think now, after all this time? "Everyone is mean nowadays....[We’ve] got teenagers running around with drugs and machine guns, they never heard of me....They never heard of the public figure in my case, and they could care less. I was in prison when they were born. The country kind of went to hell in the last 24 years."30 Make that 36.

Notes

1. New York Times, 5/17/72.

2. Washington Post, 8/2/72.

3. Washington Post, 8/1/72.

4. Washington Post, 5/16/72.

5. Sybil Leek and Bert R. Sugar, The Assassination Chain (New York: Corwin Books, 1976), p. 251.

6. Washington Post, 5/20/72.

7. New York Times, 5/17/72.

8. New York Times, 5/22/72.

9. The fullest account of Nunnery’s comments appears to be the New York Times of 5/22/72.

10. New York Times, 5/22/72.

11. New York Times, 5/22/72.

12. New York Times, 5/22/72.

13. Washington Post, 5/19/72.

14. Washington Post, 6/21/73.

15. E. Howard Hunt, Undercover (New York: Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1974), p. 217.

16. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), p. 326.

17. Bernstein and Woodward, p. 326.

18. Miles Copeland, The Real Spy World (London: Sphere Books Limited, 1978), p. 299.

19. Bernstein and Woodward, p. 133.

20. Jim Hougan, Secret Agenda (New York: Random House, 1984), pp. 255, 304.

21. Hougan, p. 140.

22. Sybil Leek and Bert R. Sugar, p. 254.

23. Turner and Christian, p. 267.

24. Memorandum from Baxter Ward to fellow supervisors, 7/29/75, published in the Appendix of The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: The Conspiracy and Coverup, by William Turner and Jonn Christian.(New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1978 & 1993, originally published by Random House, 1978), p. 374.

25. Turner and Christian, p. 227.

26. New York Times, 5/17/72.

27. Newsweek, 5/29/72.

28. New York Times, 8/2/72.

29. Newsweek, 5/29/72.

30. AP Online, 9/20/98.
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Postby sunny » Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:35 pm

Very interesting. I wonder if he'll have anything to say.

This is going to sound weird, but when I'm reminded of the Wallace shooting, I think of my little book Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang! I brought it home from a book fair that day, and my Mother wrote something in it to memorialize the day. For what purpose, I don't know, but she was always doing stuff like that.

Some years later, I met Wallace at a Blessing of the Fleet-

http://www.fleetblessing.org/ He seemed really small and pathetic to me and I felt sorry for him. Smiling and friendly, tho.
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Ian Fleming and kids. Thom Hartmann's oddities.

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:59 pm

This mays seem off-topic but it is about how spooks carefully manage perceptions.

sunny wrote:This is going to sound weird, but when I'm reminded of the Wallace shooting, I think of my little book Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang! I brought it home from a book fair that day...


Appropriate.
British spook Ian Fleming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang back when spooks were trying to get kids interested in military vehicles by associating Air Force capabilities with the cars they saw everyday.

When the VW Bug was associated with peaceful hippies this was too visible an anti-war image on the everyday streets and therefore was countered by using Disney (CIA for Kids!) to create an aggressive testosterone-fueled fighting, racing, and even bull-fighting VW Bug called 'Herbie.'
The same automobile power allegory was used again in Disney-Pixar's 'Cars' with a comical VW Bus being protected by the jeep, 'Sarge,' the one just recalled by Mattel for having dangerous lead components. Poetic justice.

Psychologists did advice Detroit on the aggressive appearance desired in SUV's and when Ahnuld wanted his own Hummer after Gulf War I he was provided one and fueled the remilitarization of American streets.

Back to assassination psy-ops-
To recharge the credibility of the LAPD we are going to get more 'OJ dunnit' cues soon.
This is to counter the history of the LAPD helping CIA cover up their murder of RFK by using CIA/LAPD Officer Manuel Pena to control the Special Unit Senator and frame-up the patsy, Sirhan Sirhan.

This year's release of the news story about a hit attempted on Congressman Dennis Kucinich back in the 1970s is also intended to reinforce the meme of the Lone Gunman, preferably Mafia as Air America Radio's Thom Hartmann and Lamar Waldron promoted in their co-authored book, 'Ultimate Sacrifice.'

Look out for Thom Hartmann's assassination bullshit over the next year on AAR.
I think that's why he's there establishing himself in the primetime morning slot.
Check out Thom Hartmann's New Age-y background. Something's odd about him...

Excellent investigative journalist Jim DiEugenio takes apart Hartmann's and Waldron's 'Ultimate Sacrifice' here-

http://www.ctka.net/ultimate_final.html
One of the most puzzling things about Ultimate Sacrifice is that some have actually taken it seriously. Peter Scott has said it is well documented. My question to Peter: Well-documented with what? Frank Ragano and Ed Partin? If you don't analyze the footnotes you might be impressed. Unfortunately for my mental health, I did so I'm not impressed. Vince Palamara has gone on Amazon.com to praise the book as one of the best ever written on the case. Vince is supposed to be an authority on the Secret Service. Did he not notice what the authors did with Edwin Black's seminal essay on Chicago? That people like this, and others, could be bamboozled by a dreadful and pretentious pastiche shows how rudderless the research community has become.
.....
In light of that evidence I remember thinking: Lamar Waldron has an agenda the size of a football stadium.

After reading Ultimate Sacrifice I think I was wrong. Lamar Waldron has an agenda the size of the Grand Canyon.
.....
If one examines the text, the first of many curious aspects becomes evident. The longest part of the volume is the middle section, which is not actually about C-Day. It is really about the Mob's motivation, planning, pretexts, and precedents for killing JFK. And this is really the subject of the last section also. So by my rough estimate, about 2/3 of the book is not about what the author's trumpet as their great discovery. The larger part of the book is actually a kind of concentration and aggrandizement of all the Mob-did-it books rolled into one. As we shall see, this book is actually a new (and fatuous) spin on an old and discredited idea, namely Robert Blakey's Mob-did-it theory. The reader can see this just by browsing through the footnotes, which I did for this review. The familiar faces are all there: John Davis, Dan Moldea, Blakey, the HSCA volumes, David Scheim, even, startling enough, Frank Ragano. They are all quoted abundantly and, as we shall see, indiscriminately. I can literally say that this book would not exist in its present (bloated) form without that gallery of authors.


on edit 3/1/09:
Sure enough Thom Hartmann shoveled sewage in 2008 by blaming the JFK and MLK murders on the mob, not the USG alphabeters in CIA and FBI.

Hartmann is a spook or very very compromised.
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Re: Ian Fleming and kids. Thom Hartmann's oddities.

Postby MinM » Sat Mar 14, 2009 9:41 am

Hugh Manatee Wins wrote:This mays seem off-topic but it is about how spooks carefully manage perceptions.

sunny wrote:This is going to sound weird, but when I'm reminded of the Wallace shooting, I think of my little book Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang! I brought it home from a book fair that day...


Appropriate.
British spook Ian Fleming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang back when spooks were trying to get kids interested in military vehicles by associating Air Force capabilities with the cars they saw everyday.

When the VW Bug was associated with peaceful hippies this was too visible an anti-war image on the everyday streets and therefore was countered by using Disney (CIA for Kids!) to create an aggressive testosterone-fueled fighting, racing, and even bull-fighting VW Bug called 'Herbie.'
The same automobile power allegory was used again in Disney-Pixar's 'Cars' with a comical VW Bus being protected by the jeep, 'Sarge,' the one just recalled by Mattel for having dangerous lead components. Poetic justice...

:threadhijacked: Speaking of Mattel® :

Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel
Image
Amazon.com Review

Five Questions for Jerry Oppenheimer, author of Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel

Mattel is a beloved and iconic toy company – what first inspired you to write an expose of the “secret side” of the company?
All of my previous books have been about iconic people and dynasties – The Kennedys, Clintons, Hiltons, Martha Stewart, Barbara Walters, Jerry Seinfeld. But for my ninth book I decided to write about an iconic institution, one that was a household name whose products had a profound impact on generations. Mattel fit the profile – especially since it was in the headlines for the massive toy recalls in 2007, and with the iconic Barbie doll’s 50th anniversary looming this year.

How did you gather all the information that you discuss in the book?
I gathered everything that was in the public record about Mattel, going back to its earliest days to the present, more than 60 years worth. That kind of organization is important for a biography such as the one I planned to write about Mattel. Then I began doing the legwork, tracking down former and present Mattel employees and executives, and interviewing them on the record about their experiences at Mattel, about the company’s corporate culture, and cast of characters. Then came the immense job of organizing all of that material and research and writing what I hope readers will enjoy and from which they will learn.

What was the most shocking revelation you uncovered in the course of writing Toy Monster?
There were many jaw-droppers and shockers that surfaced during my research. One especially was the vicious feud between Jack Ryan, the Father of Barbie, and Ruth Handler, the co-founder of Mattel, over who conceived and developed the company’s best-known and biggest-selling toy, Barbie.

The book reveals many little-known facts about the company history of Mattel and the odd corporate culture. What, in your opinion, is the most misconstrued assumption in popular opinion that you address in Toy Monster?
During the course of my research, I discovered that Jack Ryan was the key person to bring Barbie in to the world, but that Handler, after Ryan’s death, dismissed and denigrated his major contributions, taking all credit for the iconic doll. After Ryan committed suicide, Handler wrote an autobiography and etched her story in stone that Barbie was all her idea from start to finish, and that myth has since been perpetuated. For the first time Toy Monster gives Ryan’s side of the previous untold story, and flips the birth of Barbie 180 degrees.

What’s the one thing you’d like readers to take away after reading Toy Monster?
Don’t be fooled by those wonderful playthings. Behind the scenes the big business of toys is a highly competitive battleground, and is far from fun and games.

Toy Monster Cast of Characters

Mattel, the world’s largest toy company, has brought joy to generations of children for more than six decades, with such iconic toys as Barbie and Hot Wheels. Throughout their reign, Mattel has had a curious, eccentric – if not totally off-the-wall – cast of characters running the business, from creating toys to advertising and marketing them. In Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel, you’ll meet:

# Jack Ryan, the “Father of Barbie”
A brilliant Yale engineering school graduate who went from designing weapons of mass destruction for the Cold War Pentagon to bringing Barbie to life. He even molded real-life women in Barbie’s image-- the long legs, the thin waist, the Pamela Anderson-esque breasts--and there were many in his “swinging” world as both a technologist and a playboy. As a close friend recounts, “When Jack talked about creating Barbie, or improving Barbie…it was like listening to somebody talk about a sexual episode…a sexual pervert…”

# Ruth Handler, the “Mother of Barbie”
The driven, ambitious, and cutthroat co-founder of Mattel, who after Ryan’s bizarre death claimed all credit for inventing Barbie. Handler waged a deliberate campaign to diminish, if not altogether erase Ryan’s importance as the Father of Barbie, and take full credit as the billion dollar doll’s inventor. While embarrassed about Ryan’s sexual proclivities – and even more about the huge royalties she had to pay him for his lucrative inventions – it was Handler who almost brought Mattel to its corporate knees by helping to “cook the books” and was ousted from the company. The 61-year-old grandmother avoided imprisonment in a plea bargain deal, and was sentenced to 2,500 hours of community service and a $57,000 fine.

# Jill Elikann Barad
A glamorous real-life Beverly Hills Barbie who skyrocketed from a lowly job in Mattel’s novelty-development department to CEO after brilliantly marketing Barbie through the Milky Way. Barrad’s efforts generated billions of dollars for the company before she was axed after making what is considered one of the worst corporate acquisitions in history. During her rise and before her fall, she earned a reputation as a fearsome diva for firing on a whim and promoting people based on how they looked and dressed. Notes a Mattel colleague, “Jill believed you are what you wear. Her comment would be, ‘Well, what does she know? Look at what she wears. Look what she looks like.” She was Hollywood personified, even having had a role in the mobster film “Crazy Joe”.

# Roger Sweet
A genius designer who developed one of Mattel’s hugely successful boys’ toys, He-Man, as well as a toy line called Masters of the Universe. When the money rolled in to Mattel coffers – at one point He-Man was outselling even Barbie – he was crowned one of the toymaker’s stars. But when Mattel oversold the toy to stores whose shelves were sagging under He-Man’s weight and sales went into the proverbial toilet, so did Sweet, who was forced out. Fearful he had been blacklisted in the industry, Sweet wound up driving a forklift at Home Depot.

# Bob Eckert
Eckert became the big cheese at Mattel as CEO after a long career at Kraft Foods. A shrewd, but mild-mannered Midwesterner who is compared to the likeable Chevy Chase character Clark Griswold in “National Lampoon’s Vacation”, he was at the helm during the Toy Terror summer of 2007 when millions of Mattel toys made in China had to be recalled because of dangerous lead in the paint. The media, the U.S. Congress, and furious parents scandalized Mattel. Also during his reign, Eckert saw Barbie’s sales and popularity plummet when an upstart series of sexy dolls – the Bratz Pack – hit the toy scene, leading to the Barbie vs. Bratz toy trial of the century.
http://www.amazon.com/Toy-Monster-Big-W ... 0470371269
Image
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/0 ... 56281.html

Jack Ryan (designer)
Image
Ryan graduated from Yale University, worked for Raytheon as an engineer, and then moved to Mattel where he worked in research and development.

Jack Ryan worked at the Pentagon as an engineer designing Sparrow and Hawk missiles. Mattel hired him for his "space-aged savvy" and knowledge of materials. [1]

Evidence of his "space-aged savvy" can be seen in the designs of many of the toys he created for the Mattel line like for instance, the V-RROOM! X-15 velocipede (commonly referred to as a tricycle) which was named after the North American X-15 rocket-powered aircraft that were made for the USAF, the NASA, and the USN. His name also appears on the patent documents of the V-RROOM! bicycles of the 1960's as well as the V-RROOM! toy engines that simulated real motorcycle engine sounds. [2]

Ryan was a Yale graduate who worked as an engineer at military equipment manufacturer Raytheon before "money lured him away to head Mattel's department of research and development".[3]

Jack Ryan was a “Yale-educated electrical engineer at Mattel who was a whiz at designing toys.“ and refers to Ryan being at Mattel in July 1957. [4]

At Mattel, Ryan also designed the mechanics of the Chatty Cathy dolls. Ryan worked at Mattel for 20 years. [5]...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_%28designer%29
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Re: Arthur Bremer to be released

Postby MinM » Tue May 15, 2012 2:59 pm


So I wonder how Bremer is celebrating the 40th anniversary?
George Wallace’s assassination attempt: FBI agent reflects, 40 years later
Image
(1972 PHOT BY MABEL HOBART) - Alabama Gov. George Wallace addresses voters from behind a lectern.
Five minutes after this photo was taken, Arthur Bremer shot him.


By Aaron Kraut, Published: May 9 The Washington Post

Stan Orenstein was heading to his Olney home when he received the radio call around 6 p.m. May 15, 1972.

Alabama Gov. George Wallace, the front-runner in the next day’s Maryland Democratic presidential primary, had been shot four times at close range at a campaign rally in Laurel and was being transported to Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring.

Orenstein, an FBI agent at the Montgomery County office, was to report to the hospital immediately and take charge of the investigation into the attempted assassination of one of the nation’s most visible and controversial political figures.

Nearly 40 years after the failed attempt of the gunman Arthur Bremer, to kill Wallace, Orenstein, 75, recounted the aftermath of an event that changed the course of American political history.

Known for his staunch resistance to the civil rights movement, Wallace won the Maryland primary. But his once-promising presidential campaign was effectively ended by Bremer’s bullets, which left Wallace paralyzed from the waist down.

It also influenced the man who once uttered the words “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” to reverse his views on race. In 1982, he admitted he had been mistaken about segregation during a fourth run for Alabama governor.

“I think in the ensuing years until his death, he always fell back on his experience in Maryland. It changed his life,” said Orenstein, who a few days later interviewed a recovering Wallace in a Holy Cross hospital room. Wallace died in 1998.

“When Bremer shot him, I firmly believe it made a sea change in his attitude,” Orenstein said.

It was the fifth shooting of a prominent American political or civil rights figure in a decade — the previous four claimed the lives of President John F. Kennedy, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leaders Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

At the time of Wallace’s shooting, Bremer’s motive was unclear. Orenstein and his team raced to confirm Bremer was not a part of a larger conspiracy.

The investigation revealed Bremer, a Milwaukee man, wore Wallace campaign buttons and shouted to get the governor’s attention at a rally earlier that day at Wheaton Plaza. But a hostile crowd heckled Wallace and threw tomatoes at him. Because of the reaction, he refused to leave the podium to shake hands, denying Bremer the opportunity.

A few hours later at the Laurel Shopping Center, Wallace did shake hands against the advice of his Secret Service detail.

About 4 p.m. that day, Bremer emptied his gun into Wallace’s abdomen and chest. One bullet lodged in his spinal cord. Three other people — a Secret Service agent, an Alabama state trooper and a campaign volunteer — were unintentionally hit and wounded. Bremer was tackled to the ground and put in a headlock by Prince George’s County Police Cpl. Mike Landrum, who pushed him through an angry crowd for about 60 yards to a police cruiser.

“It happened so quickly. My strongest impression was how quickly events can change,” said Landrum, 68, now retired and living in Calvert County. Landrum remembered pointing out Bremer to a Secret Service agent before the rally. Prince George’s County police turned him over to the FBI early the next morning.

Orenstein arrived at the hospital to a chaotic scene. President Richard Nixon ordered the FBI to lead the investigation with Secret Service assistance. Secret Service agents and the press swarmed the building. Montgomery County police set up a security detail to protect Wallace and his party.

“We knew the Secret Service was distraught, frustrated. They had another protectee that got shot,” Orenstein said. “I knew there was going to be a lot of uncontrollable activity. This was big.”

Wallace underwent an operation that night. Don Black, a Montgomery County police sergeant working the Silver Spring midnight shift, drove to the hospital well after the news broke. The press converted the basketball court at the nearby Boys and Girls Club on Forest Glen Road into a command center. Close to 75 phone booths lined the gym, Black said.

“This was the first time that we placed police officers as guards at a private place,” Black said. “For the first few days, we’d pat people down.”

Black drove Wallace’s wife, Cornelia, and the family back to the Howard Johnson Inn in Wheaton.

A few days later, Orenstein and colleague Bill Campbell interviewed Wallace. Orenstein, who was assigned to the FBI’s Mobile, Ala., division in 1962 upon becoming an agent, had experience with Wallace. From 1963 to 1965, he visited Wallace whenever the U.S. Department of Justice opened a case against the state government. In 1963, Wallace gained notoriety for his “stand in the schoolhouse door,” when he attempted to halt the enrollment of black students at the University of Alabama by standing in front of a school auditorium.
Image
Federal marshals and Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach confronted him, and he stepped aside.

“I think it was strictly politics with him. He didn’t get any particular joy out of being brutal to black people and he wasn’t involved in that,” Orenstein said. “But the shooting changed his attitude toward black people.”

Orenstein entered the hospital room with an eight-photo spread, including Bremer’s arrest photo and similar-looking men from Orenstein’s previous bank robbery investigations. Wallace recognized Orenstein from Alabama and, after a few minutes of casual conversation to make sure the governor was lucid, the agents presented him with the photo array.

Wallace immediately picked out Bremer, and after dozens of interviews with witnesses from the Wheaton and Laurel rallies and the recovery of Bremer’s diary, the FBI was confident that Bremer acted alone. According to his diary, he acted out of a desire for fame, not for political reasons, and had targeted Nixon at an April rally in Ottawa, Canada. He was sentenced to 53 years in jail. In November 2007, at age 57, Bremer was released from the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown after serving 35 years.

Orenstein went back to working bank robberies and kidnappings before he retired from the FBI in 1986. He now lives in South Carolina. Next week, on the anniversary of the shooting, he’ll again look back at his incidental second meeting with Wallace.

“This situation was just unprecedented. There I was, going to Holy Cross Hospital, and there he was again,” Orenstein said. “It was a fascinating time and an incredible coincidence.”


http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/geo ... story.html


Washington Post story is via fruhmenschen's "blog".

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Re: Arthur Bremer to be released

Postby MinM » Sun Dec 06, 2015 11:00 pm

The Washington Post tracks down Arthur Bremer...

ImageWashington Post ‏@washingtonpost: Arthur Bremer shot Gov. George Wallace to be famous. A search for who he is today http://wapo.st/1XKRnd8

Actually nothing in the piece indicates that he wanted to be famous now or then. They do bring up the theory that E Howard Hunt was the real author of Assassin's Diary only to shoot it down. It also fails to mention that George Wallace didn't buy that Bremer was a lone nut.
Alabama Gov. George Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer at a campaign rally in Laurel, Md., in May 1972. He kept a diary of the 10 weeks he spent stalking, first, President Richard Nixon, then Wallace. (Alamy)

The online auction catalogue read like a prank, like a bad flashback, and it upended my morning. Then my year: Arthur Bremer’s gun was for sale.

A year ago this week, the Rock Island Auction Co. in Illinois took bids for the five-shot, snub-nosed .38 revolver that Bremer used to shoot Gov. George Wallace of Alabama on May 15, 1972, during a presidential primary campaign rally at the Laurel Shopping Center in suburban Maryland.

“Very fine ... minor edge and high spot wear with some scratches and scrapes on the side of the cylinder where it hit the ground when it was wrestled away from [Bremer]. ... A very unique and somewhat ‘infamous’ historic revolver.”

Somewhat? You don’t have to remember the attack that left Wallace paralyzed from the waist down to consider this weapon a startling relic of those tormented years, 1963 to 1981, when assailants opened fire on three presidents, two presidential candidates and two national civil rights leaders.

To prove the weapon was genuine, the gun was accompanied by a macabre scrapbook: pages photocopied from the Prince George’s County Police case file; Bremer’s receipt from a gun store in Milwaukee showing he paid $94.48; 18 frames of the television footage that captured Bremer lunging with the revolver and the first lady of Alabama throwing herself over the felled governor with a bloody hole in his torso.

The high bidder was an anonymous collector from outside the Washington region who had an idea of how much a piece of Arthur Bremer is worth: He paid $28,750.

County police learned of the auction after it was over. They had no idea the gun had strayed into private hands and are now trying to get it back.

“This item of evidence has historic significance not only to the police department but to our nation’s history,” says Capt. Marc Alexander, an investigator for police Inspector General Carlos Acosta.

[From the archives: Wallace is shot]

I had thought we were all done with Bremer. His attempted escape into oblivion began the moment he was tackled by bystanders and police in the shopping plaza. He would speak just three sentences in public, at his 1972 trial in Upper Marlboro, and that would be it for more than 40 years.

After serving 35 1 / 2 years of a 53-year sentence, with 17 1 / 2 years knocked off for good behavior, he was released from prison in 2007. The news caused hardly a stir, even though he was one of few national attempted assassins in modern times to be set free.

[Arthur Bremer is released from prison]

A church-supported group helped Bremer settle in Cumberland, tucked in the mountains of Western Maryland, where he has lived in law-abiding obscurity ever since. He is 65.

Yet there’s something about Bremer — and us — that won’t let him slip away completely. He dwells at the blurry edge of memory, summoned back into focus whenever a turn in history or culture reminds us of his relevance.

I’ve had trouble accepting his silence for some time, ever since I read his journal, “An Assassin’s Diary,” which included about half of the 261 fevered pages he wrote in the 10 weeks leading up to the shooting. It was a long, loquacious cry for attention and legacy. The book made a small splash when it came out in 1973. Then it, too, disappeared for years, until, in­cred­ibly, the missing half of the diary was coughed up by the earth itself — like the revolver popping out of nowhere onto the auction block.

How could the voice of that diary just switch off? I wanted to hear how Bremer, now approaching old age, would reflect on his dark journey. Perhaps he could tell us about remorse and redemption. The price of infamy. And he might fill the blank pages of his life after he pulled the trigger.

I took the auction as a license — an excuse — to search for Bremer...

Bremer — or the idea of Bremer — started ricocheting almost immediately.

Paul Schrader was a young writer wrestling with alienation that summer after the shooting as he banged out the script for what would become the Martin Scorsese film “Taxi Driver” (1976), starring Robert De Niro as an existential loner who plans to shoot a candidate. It is not the Arthur Bremer story, Schrader emphasizes, but there are points in common, including a diaristic narration.

He wrote the script after Bremer’s deed, but “the diary had not yet been published, so I just kind of imagined it,” Schrader says. “And when the diary actually came out, I was surprised at the number of places where it lined up with what I imagined.”

A free-associative line connects Bremer to John Hinckley Jr. through “Taxi Driver.” Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 to impress actress Jodie Foster, who starred in “Taxi Driver.” A copy of Bremer’s diary was found among Hinckley’s possessions.

[Judge considers release of John Hinckley]

Bremer became scriptwriters’ shorthand to sound a note of smart, slightly daft black humor.

“Neighbors” (1981), starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd: “We might have had a wonderful relationship. But then, as Arthur Bremer once said: ‘How many things go right in this crazy world?’ ”

I first read Bremer’s diary a few years ago when I became aware that he lived about two hours from my house. The cover has a Day-Glo portrait modeled on the chilling news photo of the grinning face in the crowd, ready to strike.

Bremer is a temperamental narrator of picaresque misadventures. He forgets the bag with his guns on an airplane, and — hearing his name over a loudspeaker in an airport restroom — retrieves the bag from the pilot himself. He loses the Browning 9mm for good when it falls deep into the chassis of his Rambler as he’s concealing it from Canadian border guards.

Play Video1:19
4 pop culture references to Arthur Bremer

Arthur Bremer attempted to assassinate former Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972. Since then, he's been a pop culture staple. (The Washington Post)

In “Assassins,” the 1990 musical by Stephen Sondheim, the John Wilkes Booth character calls to the audience: “Is Artie Bremer here tonight? Where’s Artie Bremer?!”

[Chasing the ghost of John Wilkes Booth through the streets of Washington]

Bremer also turned up on a Nixon White House tape released in 1997. The president wanted to cast suspicion for the crime on McGovern supporters.

“Is he [Bremer] a left-winger or a right-winger?” Nixon asked White House hatchet man and special counsel Charles Colson on the night of the shooting.

“Well, he’s going to be a left-winger by the time we get through, I think,” Colson said.

“Good,” Nixon said, chuckling. “Keep at that. Keep at that.”

Bremer’s disembodied presence over the years gave him a Forrest Gump-like quality — then he appeared in “Forrest Gump.” The makers of the 1994 movie inserted the television clip of Bremer shooting Wallace as part of Forrest’s journey through chaotic times.

A woman, middle age gave me an anti-war/anti-Nixon leaflet. I glanced it over & handed it back to her, politely. ... The hippie-types also tryed to give me this stuff. ... Were the cops really afraid of these people?! Was Nixon afraid, really scared, of them?! They’re nothing. They’re the new establishement. To be a rebel today you have to keep a job, wear a suit & stay apolitical. Now T H A T ’S R E B E L L I O N !

— April 22, 1972


Bremer is accompanied by a federal officer following his arraignment. He was sentenced to 53 years, but was released after 35, in 2007, with time off for good behavior. He has since lived in Cumberland, Md. (Weyman Swagger)

Today the diary has an additional resonance: Bremer the diarist was a media-obsessed meta-assassin whose journal we could mistake as a treatment for a reality TV show that might be called “Going After the Governor.” The porous relationship between the screens of our devices and our identities is a media landscape that Bremer explored before there was anything personal about a computer.

In many ways, he ventriloquizes the Great American Unhinged Voice that also howls through the works of doomed road-trip writers such as Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Hunter Thompson. Bremer can’t control the voice, though. His observations are entertaining but seldom penetrating. Yet the work is still riveting, even given our repugnance, because the reader knows that, in the end, the narrator will break the frame of the page and come to lethal life.

The diary also reads like a series of over-sharing Facebook posts. Self-deprecating confessions and humble-bragging, laced with hyper-awareness over how his words will be read and “shared,” make it clear: Arthur Bremer wanted us to “like” him.

After a month on the road, he buried the first 148 pages under a viaduct in Milwaukee. Wrapped in foil and tape inside a plastic briefcase, they chronicled March 2 to April 3, 1972, and, for a time, were lost.

The final 113 pages, April 4 to May 13, were found in Bremer’s car, parked at the Laurel Shopping Center. Bremer’s attorney, the late Benjamin Lipsitz, read them aloud at trial, thinking the diary might convince the jury that Bremer was insane.

Lawrence Freundlich, editor in chief of Harper’s Magazine Press, visited the jail to make a publishing deal for this section of the diary to cover legal expenses. He doesn’t recall specific sums but says his offer was in the range of a $10,000 advance and 10 percent royalties. He wrote the figures on a yellow legal pad and held it up to the visitors window so Bremer could see. Bremer countered with something like $12,000, 12 percent, Freundlich recalls.

“Bremer looked nutty as a fruitcake to me,” Freundlich tells me. “Then he comes up with this utterly sensible proposal.”

The book was published in 1973.

“Bremer’s brief vivid diary ... takes us, with no effort, inside a killer’s mind — and we find ourselves at home there,” Garry Wills wrote in his review for the New York Times. “His is the voice, not of evil’s banality, but of its plausibility. One fears with and for him in his scrapes.”

Fiction writer Ann Beattie told the Times that she counted Bremer’s diary among books that influenced her as a young writer. Gore Vidal paid Bremer the compliment of declaring that the diary could not have been written by a mere “busboy.” In the New York Review of Books, he spun out a conspiracy theory that E. Howard Hunt — who helped plan the Watergate break-in and was a thriller writer himself — wrote the diary.

“Bremer’s diary is a fascinating work — of art? ... There are startling literary references and flourishes,” Vidal wrote. “No matter who wrote the diary we are dealing with a true author.” ...

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Re: Arthur Bremer to be released

Postby guruilla » Mon Dec 07, 2015 2:19 am

According to A Clockwork Orange author, Anthony Burgess, the Nadsat language which he invented for his novella “was meant to turn A Clockwork Orange into a brainwashing primer. You should read the book and at the end you should find yourself in possession of a minimal Russian vocabulary—without effort, with surprise.” (http://www.anthonyburgess.org/about-ant ... ork-orange) The ultra-violence of Kubrick’s film version was blamed by the media for inciting a string of copycat crimes: a woman was raped by assailants performing “Singing in the Rain,” gangs of thugs in England dressed up as droogs, a sixteen-year-old obsessed with the film beat a sixty-year-old tramp to death. Most strikingly of all, Arthur Bremmer, the attempted assassin of George Wallace, wrote in his diary on May 1st, 1972: “saw Clockwork Orange, & thought about getting Wallace all through the picture—fantasing [sic] myself as the Alek [sic] on the screen come to real life. . .” May 14th he shot Wallace, paralyzing him for life.


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