September 22, 1975: Gerald Ford becomes the 1st President to face 2 close assassination attempts. And they happen just 18 days, and 86 miles, apart.
Ford, for 25 years a Republican Congressman from Michigan, had been nominated for Vice President by President Richard Nixon, seemingly because he was liked by everybody in Washington and offended hardly anybody. He replaced Spiro Agnew, who resigned the office on October 10, 1973, due to his conviction for income tax evasion. On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned due to his role in the Watergate scandal, and Ford, who was planning to retire after the 1976 election if the Republicans didn't take Congress in 1974, which would have made him Speaker of the House, became the 38th President of the United States.
Ford started with a lot of goodwill, but, a month into his Presidency, he pardoned Nixon. This infuriated many people, and seemed to make him a lame duck before he even announced that he was running for a term of his own in 1976. A recession was underway, but people blamed him for it instead of Nixon (or the Democratic Party). Ford had nothing to do with causing the recession, but his efforts to fix it were, thus far, falling short.
On September 5, 1975, on his way to meet with Governor Jerry Brown at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of Charles Manson's "Family" cult, tried to shoot him, but had forgotten to properly load the gun, and no shot came out. Ford was taken to safety.
It had been 3 years since Governor George Wallace had been shot and paralyzed while running for President, 5 years since Pope Paul VI had faced an assassin with a knife, 7 years since Dr. Martin Luther King and Senator Robert F. Kennedy were shot and killed, 10 years since Malcolm X was shot and killed, and 12 years since President John F. Kennedy and NAACP executive Medgar Evers were shot and killed. Still, Ford said he would not stop meeting with the people.
He made another trip to California on September 22. He was in San Francisco, for a meeting of the World Affairs Council. He returned to the city's famed St. Francis Hotel, off Union Square. At 3:30 PM, he walked out of the hotel's Post Street entrance, and stopped short of his limousine to wave the crowd, when a shot rang out.
The shot missed Ford's head by about 5 inches. On the film, he can be heard yelling, "Hey!" A bystander named Oliver Sipple grabbed the shooter's arm as she pulled the trigger a 2nd time. Her shot hit John Ludwig, a taxi driver standing outside the hotel. He also survived.
San Francisco Police Captain Timothy Hettrich grabbed the shooter, and pulled her gun away. The Secret Service shoved Ford into his limo. Donald Rumsfeld, then his White House Chief of Staff, covered him, and the limo was sped back to San Francisco International Airport, where Air Force One was waiting. After waiting for First Lady Betty Ford to arrive, the plane returned to Washington.
Had either attempt succeeded, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller would have become President. Next in line was the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Carl Albert of Oklahoma.
The shooter was Sara Jane Moore. Born on February 15, 1930, in Charleston, West Virginia as Sara Jane Kahn, the former accountant had been married and divorced 5 times, with 4 children. She had no connection to either Fromme or Manson, but had become fascinated by another crime in San Francisco, the kidnapping of Patty Hearst.
The day before the shooting, the San Francisco Police Department arrested her on an illegal handgun charge. They decided to call the Secret Service, and they evaluated her, they confiscated her .44 caliber revolver and 113 rounds of ammunition... and they told the SFPD to let her go, as they believed she posed no danger to the President's visit the next day.
They were wrong. The next day, September 22, she bought a new gun, a .38 caliber revolver, a cheap one, a Charter Arms Bulldog -- a smaller version of the one David Berkowitz began using in New York the next year, becoming known as the .44-Caliber Killer and the Son of Sam. The sight on Moore's gun was 6 inches off. That's why, despite being only 40 feet away, she missed Ford. She pleaded guilty.
Before her sentencing, she said, "Am I sorry I tried? Yes and no. Yes, because it accomplished little except to throw away the rest of my life. And, no, I'm not sorry I tried, because, at the time, it seemed a correct expression of my anger." She was sentenced to life in prison.
Ford was defeated for a term of his own in 1976, and lived until 2006. A year earlier, Moore was released from prison after serving 32 years. At that time, she said, "I am very glad I did not succeed. I know now that I was wrong to try." As of September 22, 2022, she is 92 years old, and lives in Northern California.
Oliver Sipple was a decorated Marine in the Vietnam War, but it was apparently saving Ford's life that made him a well-known hero. The Secret Service officially commended him, and Ford sent him a thank-you letter.
But the popular San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen was tipped off to the fact that Sipple was gay, and had worked for Harvey Milk, then running for the City's version of a City Council, the Board of Supervisors. (Milk would lose that election, but won in 1977, before being assassinated in 1978.)
Caen asked Milk if he should reveal this information, and Milk said yes, because the wider public needed to see that gay people could be heroes. Caen did not ask Sipple, whose life went into a tailspin. His parents, in Detroit, refused to see him for years. He sued for invasion of privacy, and lost. He started drinking heavily, and died in 1989, only 47 years old.
As for the other injured man, John Ludwig, he'd already been through a lot, having fled Nazi Germany, only to end up in Shanghai, China when it was occupied by Imperial Japan, and he was shot by a Japanese soldier. He survived, working with the Chinese resistance at the age of 12, and was reunited with his family in San Francisco in 1948. He became a taxi driver. retired to Sacramento (the site of the 1st assassination attempt, something of an irony), published a memoir in 2004, and died in 2015, age 81.
About Captain Timothy Hettrich, who grabbed Moore's gun, the only information I can find is that he was still alive as of 2006.
UPDATE: Sara Jane Moore died on September 24, 2025, 2 days after the 50th Anniversary of her attempt, at the age of 95.
*
September 22, 1975 was a Monday. On ABC Monday Night Football, the Oakland Raiders beat the Miami Dolphins, 31-21 at the Orange Bowl in Miami. And these Major League Baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 6-4 at Yankee Stadium. Fred Lynn, soon to become the 1st player ever to win either League's Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year in the same season, and Deron Johnson each got 3 hits. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-5. Rick Wise outpitched a rookie named Ron Guidry. Thurman Munson hit a home run. The Red Sox went on to win the American League Pennant.
* A doubleheader was split at Jarry Park in Montreal. The St. Louis Cardinals won the opener, 6-4. Ted Simmons won it with a home run in the top of the 12th inning. The Montreal Expos won the nightcap, 8-5. After not playing in the opener, Lou Brock went 1-for-5.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 11-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Dave Parker hit a home run, and Willie Stargell went 3-for-3 with 2 walks, 2 RBIs, and 4 runs scored. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-4.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-6 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. For the Indians, Charlie Spikes and George Hendrick hit home runs. Frank Robinson, MLB's 1st black manager and not yet retired as a player, did not put himself into the game.
For the Brewers, George Scott went 4-for-5 with 2 home runs. Robin Yount went 1-for-5. Hank Aaron appeared as a pinch-hitter, but struck out. Scott's 2nd homer gave the Brewers a 6-5 lead in the top of the 9th, but the Indians loaded the bases in the bottom of the 9th, and Oscar Gamble singled home the tying and winning runs.
* The Kansas City Royals beat the Texas Rangers, 2-1 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 1-for-2 with 2 walks.
* The Houston Astros beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-1 at the Astrodome in Houston. Pete Rose went 1-for-3. Johnny Bench got the night off.
* The San Diego Padres beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-5 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Hector Torres won it with a home run in the bottom of the 11th inning. Willie McCovey drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, and was later replaced in right field by Dave Winfield, who drew a walk in his only plate appearance.
* The California Angels beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-0 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). The game went 16 innings, and Adrian Garrett won it with a 3-run home run of Rich Gossage. To be fair, it was the 7th inning for "The Goose," after Jim Kaat had pitched shutout ball into the 9th. Frank Tanana pitched 13 shutout innings for the Angels, and Don Kirkwood pitched the last 3.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Oakland Athletics, 2-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Rod Carew went 1-for-4. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-4.
* And the New York Mets, the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Cubs, the San Francisco Giants, the Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers were not scheduled.
No comments:
Post a Comment