When Arthur Bremer was convicted in August 1972 of the attempted assassination of Presidential hopeful George Wallace--the die-hard Southern Democrat--many questions remained unanswered. Although rumors festered of a conspiracy, since it was doubted by some that Bremer's cross-country pursuit of prominent politicians could have been financed with his meager income, the main question at the trial was: Was Bremer sane when he pulled the trigger?
The answer to that was pulled from his diary: a sad and lonely chronicle of failure and dejection, often obscene, and yet as clear a portrait of the inner workings of a presidential assassin as has ever been presented. The diary reveals not only a young man, 21 years old, broken by the failure of love in his life, but an individual unable to consolildate identity. It has been suggested that much of his detatchment came from the lack of interpersonal attention in his childhood. A compliant child, the fourth of five, he grew up with no spectacular achievements and only mundane failures to offset them. The personality revealed by Bremer's diary was used as a source for the character of Travis Bickle in screenplay of the movie Taxi Driver, which would later be used by John Hinckley in his presidential assassination fantasies. Throughout the diary Bremer makes it clear that he wants to die in the "most outrageous and contemptuous manner possible." He had a pervasive contempt for everyone and everything, was totally alienated and appeared to see redemption in discovering an audience for his perversity. Thus on March 1, 1972, his diary reveals his decision to kill President Nixon. What better way to show contempt for society than to kill its leader? He believes that the diary will have prominence in the days following the event: "This will be one of the most closely read pages since the Scrolls in those caves." Thus his identity is assured.
Unfortunately for Bremer's delusions of grandeur, Nixon was not so easy
to get at. Throughout Canada he stalked him, from one political whistlestop
to another. This picture shows him in Ottawa. His
dairy records one failure after another.
ALL MY EFFORTS & NOTHING CHANGED.
With repeated failures Bremer considered a reduced-status target, such as the mayor of Milwaukee, but rejected the impulse. "I want em all to know. I want a big shot & not a little fat noise. Tired of writting about it. About what I was gonna do, about what I failed to do, about what I failed to do again and again. Traveling around like a hobo or some kind of comincal character. I'm as important as the start of WWI. I just need the little opening & a second of time." He thought briefly of killing Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern--"Why not?. . . I have to kill somebody. That's how far gone I am."--but finally settled on Independence Party Presidential candidate George Wallace, after watching the "ultraviolence" in the movie A Clockwork Orange. "I decided Wallace will have the honor of--what would you call it? Like a novelist who knows not how his book will end--I have written this journal...You know, my biggest failure may well be when I kill Wallace. I hope everyone screams & hollers & everything! I hope the rally goes mad."
After that Bremer
studied Sirhan Sirhan and the assassination of Robert Kennedy, then began
stalking Wallace, appearing at rallies as some kind of Wallace groupie,
decked out in campaign buttons and assorted red, white and blue costumery.
This picture shows him at a Wallace rally in Wheaton, Maryland. He finally
gets his chance in Dearborn, Michigan, but pulls back at the last moment
when two fifteen year old girls get in his path. "I let Wallace go only
to spare these 2 stupid, innocent, delighted kids," he writes.
Then on a warm, muggy afternoon, May 15, 1972, George Wallace was speaking at an open air rally at a Maryland shopping center. Wallac had spent his political career as an avowed racist; he had, at the height of Southern intranscience during the Civil Rights movement, defied the President of the United States and the Supreme Court by refusing to desegregate the University of Alabama. Now he spoke from behind a special bullet-proof podium. He had many enemies. However, in this crowd, he sensed "his people." After he finished his speech, enthusiastic supporters pushed forward to greet him in person. He removed his jacket and began shaking hands. An extended hand suddenly appeared holding a .38 caliber revolver, which exploded just as suddenly, sending a bullet into his mid-section. As he fell backward, the shots continued amid screams of terror, as Bremer continued to fire four more bullets into his vicim's arm, shoulder and chest. Two security men and a woman bystander were also wounded before Bremer was wrestled to the ground.
Wallace would recover but remained paralyzed below the waist. His political career was put temporarily on hold. When he returned to politics, after a conversion experience, he was a changed man, who vowed to make amends to the African American community. He would twice more serve as governor of Alabama and would run for President again, briefly, in 1976. As a born-again Christian, Wallace wrote Bremer a touching letter forgiving him.
The trial was a model of "quick and speedy" (not uncommon for American political assassins) just 3 months after the event. Judge Ralph Powers was going on vacation; therefore the trial would go for five days only. Questions of where this assassin was coming from centered around his sanity. He was a mass of contradictions. Bremer's psychiatric evaluation had revealed a high intelligence and Rorschach test results stragely reminiscent of Sirhan's (which were, by the way, included in the book Bremer had he'd read about the Sirhan trial). The courtroom drama stretched into endless nights. One night Bremer's 113 page diary was read. Far from the American epic he'd envisioned, courtroom spectators giggled at his angst. Denied his glory, Bremer buried his face in his arms. His final self-condemning words to the jury, which convicted him in just an hour, were: "It was said society needs protection from people like me. Looking back on my life, I, uh, would have liked it if society had protected me from myself." He is still serving his 63 year sentence at the Maryland Correctional Institution Institute in Hagerstown.
The case was open and shut. But still, some say that it would have been nice to know where Bremer got the money to stalk these two candidates across the country. One source reported that he had over a thousand dollars in cash in the spring of 1972, although he had never worked more than menial jobs--and none of those lately. He also had a Browning automatic, in addition to the .38. According to Maryland law he was sane. But mysteries remain.
Bremer in custody.
Wallace on the ground.
Bremer case still a riddle because of judge's haste
WALLACE'S DRAMATIC TURN-AROUND
Sources: Clarke, James. American Assassins. Princton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1982. ;"Trials: Guilty and Sane." Newsweek 14 Aug. 1972: 22-23. Bremer, Arthur H. "Diary." 1972.; Olesker, Michael. "Bremer Case Still a Riddle." 11 Feb. 1998.< Available http://www.sunspot. net/columnists/data/olesker/0128olesker.shtml>