Arthur Bremer was released from prison yesterday, after serving 35 years of a 53 year sentence for the attempted assassination of George Wallace. Bremer became the inspiration behind the character Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.
After the shooting, Nixon obsessed about it on his audio tapes. It has also recently come to light that he tried to portray Bremer as a McGovern supporter.
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Not particularly recently that the Nixon administration’s attempt to plant evidence that linked Bremer with leading Democrats were revealed – it was first in print in 1975.
Hi David,
But the Nixon tapes where he talks of smearing McGovern only came out five years ago didn’t they?
There’s a confused timeline. In 1975, J. Anthony Lukas’ book “Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years” claimed that Chuck Colson had asked Howard Hunt to plant Democrat campaign literature in Bremer’s apartment. G. Gordon Liddy’s book “Will” in 1980 said that Howard Hunt had told him to plant documents to link Bremer to the radical left.
Colson was interviewed in 1988 and was asked whether Nixon had the original idea. He said he could not remember but if it was on the White House tapes it must be true. Interviewed for the BBC TV series ‘Watergate’ in 1993, Colson went a bit further, saying that Nixon had expressed concern that Bremer might turn out to be a Nixon supporter. After finding out from Mark Felt (not then known to be Deep Throat) that nothing was known about Bremer’s politics, Nixon said “wouldn’t it be great if they had left-wing propaganda in that apartment?”. Colson said he had excused himself and called Howard Hunt.
Colson’s notes of that meeting were disclosed in the book of the BBC series and had the claim that Bremer being left-wing was “our story”.
The tapes involved were part of the 1996 settlement between Stanley Kutler and Public Citizen with the Nixon Estate and were released in November 1996. The transcript of the 15 May 1972 meeting between Nixon and Colson was printed on page 38 of Kutler’s book “Abuse of Power” in 1997 and showed that the exchange went like this:
Nixon: Is he a left winger, right winger?
Colson: Well, he’s going to be a left winger by the time we get through, I think.
Nixon: Good. Keep at that, keep at that.
Colson: Yeah. I just wish that, God, that I’d thought sooner about planting a little literature out there. [Nixon laughs] It may be a little late, although I’ve got one source that maybe -
Nixon: Good.
Colson: – you could think about that. I mean, if they found it near his apartment that would be helpful.
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