Arthur Herman Bremer and George C. Wallace

On May 12, 1972 Arthur Bremer, 21, shot George Wallace in Laurel, Maryland. Bremer had attended other Wallace rallies, but only this time did he get a clear shot. He can be found on films of those rallies. Wallace was paralyzed for life.

Some theorize that there could bave been Nixonian involvement in the shooting of George Wallace. The greatest objection to these theories is that Wallace was not running for president as an independent candidate. After his brother Gerald was investigated for channeling kickbacks to George, Governor Wallace decided to run in the Democratic primary. Nixon had a special IRS project to audit enemies, and part of it was the Alabama Project, in which 75 IRS agents worked at getting dirt on Wallace and his circle.

Nixon worried that Wallace would break his word and had Colson run an operation to take the U.S. Constitution Party off the California ballot. It had backed Wallace in 1968. There was a back channel for communications between Hubert Humphrey and Wallace, and Nixon must have known about it. Then the federal investigation against his brother were dropped. Wallace was still keeping the third party open, but there is no evidence he would deploy it. He had learned that Nixon played hardball. Despite the case for a conspiracy is outlined belief for those who are interested.


It is said that Bremer wanted to become famous by shooting someone of importance. He began a diary in March, 1972 and wrote that he planned to assassinate either Richard Nixon or Wallace. There was no evidence Bremer stalked the president, except once in Ottawa. A second Bremer diary turned up in 1980. Gore Vidal, who had studied the novels of E. Howard Hunt ventured the guess that the diaries were written by Hunt.

It is said that Bremer must have financed his travels and car purchase with $1611 he had saved. This included stays in the Waldorf Astoria and two other top hotels, a plane trip from Milwaukee to New York, a helicopter trip, and renting of a limo. He purchased three guns, a tape recorder, a police radio, and binoculars. He made at least one massage parlor visit. The F.B.I. seized the Waldorf’s recore of his stay and told personnel there not to talk about what Bremer spent there.When arrested, he had less than $2. Bremer told his brother he had been paid by accomplaces to shoot Wallace. $10,000 was found in the floor boards of the Bremer house.

Witnesses commented Bremer seemed to be in a fog of somesort, he had a’spine-tingling" smirk,27 or’silly grin “ In November, a policeman found him pulled over in a no parking zone in Fox Point, an upscale Milwaukee suburb. Bremer seemed incoherent as though he was on drugs of some sort. There were bullets on the car seat. Bremer had a hypnoptist friend named Michael Cullen.

His .38 caliber gun had five bullets, and four bullets actually hit actually hit Wallace that day. The doctors hypothesized that possible a fifth bullet hit Wallace as well. Three other people suffered wounds. At the very least, seven shots were fired, assuming two somehow did double duty. The New York Times noted that four people suffered at a minimum seven separate entry woulds though five shots were fired. A bullet was removed from a woman and another from a secret service agent. The gun found there did not bear Bremer’s prints, and several of the bullets could not be linked conclusively to the gun. CBS footage showed him with a gun, but he was not wearing gloves. The bullet taken from the agent’s jaw was not damaged though police spokesmen said the bullets were all crushed. The gun itself was picked up off the pavement by an agent and not placed in evidence until 9 P.M.

When Nixon learned of the shooting, he instructed Chuck Colson to find a way to blame the McGovern campaign for the shooting. Nixon added, “Wouldn’t it be great if they found left-wing propaganda in that apartment… Too bad we couldn’t get somebody there to plant it.” Nixon said Colson was lying, but these remarks were taped. Of course, left wing and right wing propaganda was found in Bremer’s apartment. The next day Bob Woodward and the Detroit News carried stories that Bremer was a left-winger. Woodward had a way of breaking important stories. It is true that he worked Very hard and lived five minutes away from the Washington Post so that he could log a lot of time there. He came from a Republican family and served 5 years in the Navy as a communications officer and had a top secret clearance.

Aboard the Wright, he served under Rear Admiral Robert O. Welander, who would later be involved in the Pentagon ring that was spying on the Nixon White House. In Washington, Woodward was on the staff of Admiral Thomas Moorer, who was also involved with that ring. The evidence is clear that Lt. Robert Woodward gave top secret briefings to ranking brass and the White House and National Security Council personnel, including Alexander Haig. He also took top secret documents to General Alexander Haig, then working for Henry Kissinger. For some reason, Woodward has repeatedly deined the Haig connection. At the time, he supecised an office of 30 navy signals people who handled very secret communications channels, and he also advised Admiral Moorer. Some have assumed that he was working for the Office of Naval Inteligence, but he denies this and the claim that he gave briefings or delivered materials to the White House. However, journalists have come up with audiotape interviews that dispute his last denial.

As soon as Nixon was told of the Wallace shooting, he had the F.B.I. take control of the case. The president was preoccupied with the matter for days, initially demanding reports every 30 minutes.

It was odd that the Secret Service broke into Bremers apartment and removed items. The F.B.I. was surprised to find them there and almost fired on them. There was an 80 minute period when the apartment was unsealed. Some reporters entered and took some items. Among them were people from Transcontinental International Press Services., an agency of the Church of Scientology’s extremist wing, the Guardians. Someone could also have planted the ACLU and Black Panther literature that was found there later. An ACLU attorney was there and claimed he saw womeone with a press pass planting Black Panther and Angela Davis material.

In May, 1974, Martha Mitchell visited Wallace and said that her husband said that Charles Colson had met Bremer four days before the shooting. We know from the Nixon tapes that Colson ran numerous 20 black bag projects out of Boston. He said to Nixon, "I did things out of Boston," “15 or 20 black projects." "We did some blackmail and... my God, uh, uh, uh, I'll go to my grave before I ever disclose it." In The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon, Anthony Summers mentions a William Gilday who said Nixon people recruited him in Boston to carry out various schemes including murder. Among the people to be killed were Senator Edward Kennedy and Governor George Wallace. Nixon may have been in an unusual position to recruit c riminals for his schemes.

According to Mrs. Mitchell, ''Nixon is involved with the Mafia. The Mafia was involved in his election.'' The comment, of course, was dismissed as the raving of a drunk. But this writer has learned that alcohol loosens tongues more ofteh than it prompts people to lie. Charles Colson has said that the mob got "their hooks into Nixon early” and that it owned Nixon intimate Charles Beebe Rebozo. One of Nixon’s earliest advisors was Murray Chotiner, who often defended mobsters. In 1968, Murray won Nixon the support of Jimmy Hoffa, Carlos Marcello of New Orleans, and Mickey Cohen of Los Angeles. Cohen had been helping Nixon since 1946 when he donated $5000 and gave Nixon’s campaign office space. In 1950, he donated $75,000. Cohen said people back East told him to donate, meaning Frank Costello and Myer Lansky. Beebe Rebozo, Nixon’s close friend, was a partner of Lansky in his Hotel Nacional in Havana. In the 1950s, Nixon and Rebozo gambled in Havana and Rebozo covered the vice-president’s losses. The two also made real estate investments together. Through Rebozo, Nixon met other mobsters.

Bill Bonanno, former consiglieore for Joe Bonnanno said Nixon would ''would never have gotten anywhere'' without mob help and added that Nixon worked for years with Florida’s Santos Trafficante's in casino licensing, real estate, and anti-Communist activities. In 1960, the New Jersey and Florida mobs gave the Nixon campaign $500,000. As president, Nixon stopped mob wiretapped and intervened in different ways to help 20 mob figures. Chief of Staff Alexander Haig worried about Nixon’s ties to sinister elements and ordered an investigation through the Army’s Criminal Investigative Unit.

Wallace then had his own investigation and told Jack Nelson that Bremer had been seen with a man who looked like G. Gordon Liddy on a Lake Michigan ferry. The governor said he thought he saw Liddy standing behind Bremer. The bureau advised the Wallace family to drop the matter. George Wallace, Jr. gave an interview to the Montgomery Advertiser on December 13, 1992 in which he said someone close to Nixon was connected to the shooting. We know that Nixon on May 20, 1972, Nixon called Anthony Provenzano's top guy, Joseph Trerotola, an expert money launderer. We do not know about what they said.

Richard E. Sprague turned up some evidence that Donald Segretti and Dennis Salvatore Cossini passed some money to Bremer, and others have claimed that Bernard Barker, one of the Watergate burglars, actually passed the money to Bremer. Cossini was a C.I.A. agent, posing as a Marquette journalism student, used to infiltrate student groups, and was linked by tim Heinam, a Marquette student, to Bremer. After the shooting, Cossini headed to Toronto, where he was found dead of a drug overdose or “hot shot.” He was not known to use drugs.

Film producer Cibacuyo Aguay Banar( a.k.a. "Ciba, who interviewed Wallace, said that burglar Frank Sturgis was Bremer’s control officer on the road and that the two of them stayed at the Lord Elgin Hotel in Ottawa when Nixon was there. Ciba claims the money for Bremer came from Robert Vesco’s drug trade money and was routed in part through Congressman William O. Mills of Maryland.

Bremer had a reputation of being very odd, and prisonerofficials later said he was know for talking to Coke machines and inaminate objects. His behavior was often sisAssociated with behavior and his movements could be robotic. There was a quick five day trial in which his lawyer said it is likely Bremer did not even know he shot Wallace. Bremer maintained his silence on the matter from that day up to now. He is now free.