ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 15, 1997 TAG: 9704150063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CALGARY, ALBERTA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
But when Arthur Bremer wanted to shoot, a phalanx of Ottawa police officers got in the way.
The man who shot former Gov. George Wallace had stalked Richard Nixon a month earlier while the then-president was visiting Ottawa.
A Royal Canadian Mounted Police video, obtained by the Calgary Herald newspaper under Canada's Access to Information Act, shows a young, clean-cut Arthur Bremer grinning in a business suit and sunglasses on Parliament Hill 25 years ago Monday.
An RCMP officer stands perhaps six feet away, unaware he is so close to Bremer, a 21-year-old busboy who had driven from Milwaukee in hopes of assassinating the president during Nixon's three-day trip.
Bremer followed Nixon for two days in Canada's capital. But the video shows that Bremer, who dreamed of gaining fame like such assassins as Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth, never got close enough.
As Nixon prepared to leave Parliament Hill after addressing the House of Commons, the video shows, Bremer stood outside Centre Block near Ottawa's Eternal Flame on April 14, 1972.
As the president's motorcade approached, Bremer's line of fire suddenly became blocked by Ottawa police officers lined three deep to guard the path of Nixon's motorcade. The president passed, waving and safe.
``As a football coach reviews his game films, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reviewed their film coverage of this event,'' the video narrator says.
``The film positively confirmed that Arthur Herman Bremer, who later in the United States shot Gov. George Wallace, was present on Parliament Hill on the afternoon of the second day. It is now considered very likely that Bremer would have shot President Nixon then had he had the opportunity.''
Bremer's plan was foiled because security was beefed up to counter anti-Vietnam War and Canadian nationalist protesters.
But a month later, on May 15 in Laurel, Md., Bremer lunged in a crowd and shot Wallace, the Alabama governor whose segregationist politics were stirring up the Democratic presidential primary race.
Wallace was left paralyzed and Bremer was sentenced to 53 years in prison.
Bremer, who pleaded insanity at his trial, wrote in his diary that he had targeted both Wallace and Nixon for assassination.
That prompted the RCMP to look anew into Nixon's visit.
The Maryland Parole Commission ruled in February that Bremer, 46, not be freed anytime soon for public safety reasons.
Workers at the Maryland Correctional Institution describe Bremer as a quiet, well-behaved inmate who sometimes talks to himself and inanimate objects.
He is due to be released in 2025.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 linesby CNB