General Walker swore he had never heard of Lee Oswald before 11/22/63
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know Helmet Hubert Muench?
General WALKER. That name is not familiar to me. Can you give me anything to refresh me?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes. He is a West German journalist who wrote an article that appeared in the Deutsche Nationalzeitung und Soldatenzeitung, a Munich, Germany, newspaper.
General WALKER. No; I don't know him.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you ever talk to him?
General WALKER. Not that I know of.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you talk to him on a transatlantic telephone call in which you told him about the fact or the alleged fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was the person who made an attempt on your life?
General WALKER. I don't recall that name. Did he speak English? I don't speak German.
Mr. LIEBELER. Have you ever seen a copy of that newspaper?
General WALKER. Yes; I have.
Mr. LIEBELER. In fact, I suggest that you have seen the November 29, 1963, copy of that newspaper which had on its front page a story entitled in German "The Strange Case of Oswald", that told about how Oswald had allegedly attacked you.
General WALKER. November 29, that is correct.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now, where did that newspaper get that information, do you know?
General WALKER. I do not. There was all article in the paper that he probably got from me.
Mr. LIEBELER. Well, in fact, the issue of that newspaper has right on the front page what purports to be a transcript of a telephone conversation between you and some other person.General WALKER. Thorsten?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes. Hasso Thorsten, is that the man?
General WALKER. He called me in Shreveport.
Mr. LIEBELER. When were you in Shreveport?
General WALKER. He called me the morning of November 23, 1963, about 7 a.m.
Mr. LIEBELER. That is when you gave him this information about Oswald having attacked you?
General WALKER. I didn't give him all the information--I think the portion you are referring to, I didn't give him, because I had no way of knowing that Oswald attacked me. I still don't. And I am not very prone to say in fact he did. In fact, I have always claimed he did not, until we can get into the case or somebody tells us differently that he did.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have a record here that indicates when you were in Shreveport?
General WALKER. I don't know that I have a record here. I can tell you definitely when I was in Shreveport.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you?
General WALKER. Well, starting back to make the record clear, I had a speaking engagement in Hattiesburg, Miss., either the 18th or 19th of November. I went from there to New Orleans and stayed 2 or 3 days. I was in the airplane between New Orleans and Shreveport about halfway, when the pilot announced that the President had been assassinated. I landed in Shreveport and went to the Captain Shreve Hotel and stayed there two nights and returned to Dallas and was walking into my house, just about the time of the immediate rerun of the shooting of Oswald. I had been out of the city on speaking engagements.
Mr. LIEBELER. The question was, when were you in Shreveport, and when did you talk to this man?
General WALKER. I was in Shreveport the night of the 23d and the night of the 22d. Do you have a transcript of my conversation with Mr. Thorsten?
Mr. LIEBELER. Yes, sir.
General WALKER. Sir?
Mr. LIEBELER. I have what appears to be that; yes.
General WALKER. Where did you get that?
Mr. LIEBELER. It is apparently taken from the newspaper. The newspaper itself had a transcript printed right in it.
General WALKER. I believe the article you referred to in the newspaper was separate from the other article in the paper which evolved out of the conversation.
Mr. LIEBELER. Now so that there were in this particular issue of the newspaper two transcripts of a conversation between yourself and Thorsten, and also a story about how Oswald had allegedly fired at you, is that correct?
General WALKER. In the newspaper I remember two separate articles. One based upon the conversation we had between us, as he understood it, and then as a separate article which I consider that the newspaper had done on its own.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was the separate article about? Did that have any reference to the fact that Oswald had allegedly fired at you?
General WALKER. Yes. As I remember the article, it alleged that Oswald was the one that had fired at me, and that this had been known earlier, and that this had been known and that nothing was done about it.
And if something had been done about it at that time, he wouldn't have been the man that--it wouldn't have been possible for him to have killed the President.
Mr. LIEBELER. Well, now, did you tell anybody from this newspaper that Oswald had shot at you and that this had been known prior to the time of the assassination of the President?
General WALKER. No; I did not. I wouldn't have known it. It was much later that they began to tie Oswald into me, and I don't even know it yet.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you certainly didn't know it before November 22?
General WALKER. Or the morning of the 23d, certainly not. I was very surprised to see the article.
Mr. LIEBELER. So the best of your recollection is that you never provided them with the information?
General WALKER. I did not. I didn't know it at the time of this conversation at all. I didn't know it until I started reading the newspaper, which would have been later than then.
Mr. LIEBELER. I think that is right, so that you only had two conversations with these people, is that correct?
General WALKER. In connection with this incident, as I remember, there was a call back to verify something on the original conversation? I don't remember how the conversation came about. There were two telephone conversations; right.
Mr. LIEBELER. They both took place while you were down in Louisiana, the 23d and the 22d of November?
General WALKER. The first one was 7 o'clock in the morning the 23d, and it woke me up.
Do you believe Walker??Is the transcript of the conversation highlighted above available?
