Aug. 5, 1962 - Former Major General Edwin A. Walker said in an interview in today’s Dallas Morning News that the siege of Stalingrad (pictured) 20 years ago was a farce, trumped up to influence the American war effort. Mr. Walker, interviewed at his home in Dallas, said the Pentagon was told 12 years ago that the siege was an exaggeration by the Communist propaganda machine. He said he had been present at the briefing, which had been given by Lieut. Gen. John W. O’Daniel, who was stationed in Moscow for two years with the American military mission. The Dallas Morning News got in touch with General O’Daniel, now retired and living in San Diego, and reported that he had substantiated Mr. Walker’s account of the Pentagon briefing. General O’Daniel said he had spent three or four days in Stalingrad and that he had found no evidence that the Germans ever attacked with more than a regiment. “I felt that an American corps, with its customary artillery, could have taken Stalingrad in a couple of days,” General O’Daniel said. A Defense Department spokesman in Washington said there would be no immediate comment on Mr. Walker’s remarks.
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