WEBVTT - S1 E1: It Didn’t Go Off 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:05.040 Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:09.160 and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those if the host, producers, 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:11.440 or parent company listener discretion. 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:12.360 Is it vie. 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.919 Are California. 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.280 Just before ten am on September fifth, nineteen seventy five, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.519 President Gerald Ford walked with a security detail on a 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.080 path through Capitol Park on the grounds of the California 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:41.840 Capitol Building in Sacramento. The path was lined with members 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.640 of the public. State policemen were president at intervals along 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:49.360 the route. A small woman wearing a bright red dress 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.440 maneuvered her way through the crowd and approached the President 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:53.239 as he passed. 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:54.960 She had a gun. 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.080 Her name was Lynnette from. 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.120 Good Evening in CALIFORNI you today. President Ford looked down 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:04.759 the barrel of a loaded automatic held by a red 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.319 haired woman in a long red dress. But the gun 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.120 didn't go off, and he's all right. The woman was 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.640 wrestled to the ground by a secret serviceman and the 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.319 President was hustled away. She is being charged with attempted 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.120 murder of the President. She is twenty six year old 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:21.840 Lynette Alice from nicknamed Squeaky. 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.120 Less than three weeks later, on September twenty second, a 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.039 woman named Sarah Jane Moore stood in a similar crowd 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:33.880 assembled across the street from the Saint Francis Hotel in 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:37.800 San Francisco. The President emerged from the side entrance and 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:42.400 walked towards his waiting limousine. Moore fired a single shot 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.480 before she was wrestled to the ground. 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:48.360 This is a CBS News special report. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:50.960 Here CBS News correspondent Walder Cronkait. 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:54.840 A woman fired a shot at President Ford in San 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.400 Francisco this afternoon, but a policeman deflected the pistol and 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.040 the President was not hit. The woman was in a 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.920 crowd across the street about thirty five or forty feet away. 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:06.440 As the President was leaving the Saint Francis Hotel to 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.480 enter his limousine to return to Washington. Witnesses heard the 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.600 sound and saw a puff of smoke. The woman, identified 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.640 by police as Sarah Jane Moore in her forties, was 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.919 immediately seized. When the shot was fired, the President was 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.440 shoved into his car and wished to the airport, where 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:23.640 Air Force one was waiting to fly him to Washington. 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.720 He was not hurt, and at the airport appeared calm 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:27.640 and unperturbed. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.800 In nearly two hundred and fifty years of United States history, 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.080 there are only two times that we know of that 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:42.200 a woman has tried to assassinate a US president. The 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.120 two attempts were separated by seventeen days and less than 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:47.040 ninety miles. 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.280 I'm Toby Ball and I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and this 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:54.639 is rip current. 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:03.040 I saw a woman start to go down and her 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.440 arm go back, and I saw the gun, the big 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:05.959 black gun. 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:07.320 I got it out of her hand, and she. 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:08.960 Kept saying, easy fellas, Easy fellas. 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:09.679 It didn't go off. 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:10.640 It didn't go off. 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.080 Episode one, it didn't go off. 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.840 So the idea for this podcast came as I was 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.520 doing research on a related topic, radical groups in the 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:29.400 nineteen seventies. I was going down these different rabbit holes, 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.680 and at the end of one I came across Sarah 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.440 Jane Moore and from there Lynette From. 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.080 I came to this story by way of Broadway. I 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.240 played Lynette Squeaky From in the original Broadway cast of 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:50.800 Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins Charlie Dahn. 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.120 As I dug into the research, I found that there 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:58.400 was a bigger story here than just a historical oddity. 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.560 This was the story of two women navigating the fringes 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.320 of radical society. How had they arrived at this place 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.360 in their lives? Why was California in nineteen seventy five 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:14.000 the setting for these attempts? Why target Gerald Ford? And 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:20.039 what can we learn from their stories? These assassination attempts 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.360 and the stories of the two women who tried to 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:26.800 kill President gerald Ford take place in the considerable shadow 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.560 of what we call the sixties. There's a public perception 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:36.480 about the sixties, Hippies, Woodstock, the civil rights movement, communes, Vietnam, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:41.240 campus protests. It's an umbrella that includes people and movements 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:46.040 that embodied different ways of reimagining what America was, could 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.279 and should be. And these movements continued on into the 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:54.559 early seventies. But the popular perception of the sixties only 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:59.279 reflects a certain segment of the population at that time. Many, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.440 even most Americans, found these new values and ideas threatening 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:09.480 or disturbing or simply un American. Much of the mainstream 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.480 press agreed with this assessment. 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:17.080 When you read Time each week, you know more you understand. 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.800 From before World War II until the rise of the Internet, 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.880 Time magazine was a powerful cultural force. Their annual Person 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:26.640 of the Year. 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:27.880 Issue was a big deal. 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.760 This was the person or people Time deemed quote to 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.440 have done the most to influence the events of the year. 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:41.440 On January twelfth, nineteen seventy, Time magazine named Middle Americans 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.279 as its Men and Women of the Year for nineteen 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.680 sixty nine. Who were the Middle Americans? 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.880 The American dream that they were living was no longer 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.920 the dream is advertised. They feared that they were beginning 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.760 to lose their grip on the country. Others seem to 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.320 be taking over. The liberals, the radicals, the defiant young, 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:07.040 a communications industry that they often believed was lying to them. This, 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.400 they will say, with an air of embarrassment that such 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.279 a truth need be stated at all. Is the greatest 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.000 country in the world. Why are people trying to tear 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:15.479 it down? 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.719 Time Magazine took a sympathetic, though also critical view of 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:25.160 Middle Americans, those who saw the changes in the social, cultural, 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:29.040 and political landscape. Basically, the things we associate with the 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.919 sixties as threatening to create a country alien to the 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.960 one that they knew. There's racism, which shows itself in 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:40.279 concerns about the civil rights movement, but in other ways 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:40.800 as well. 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.200 The article says, the rising level of crime frightens the 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.320 Middle American, and when he speaks of crime, though he 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.080 does not like to admit it, he means blacks. And 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:56.400 then the idea of sacrificing their own children's education to 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:00.240 a long range improvement for blacks appalls them. 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.440 Time's comfort with a certain level of racism is jarring, 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.240 such as here talking about Middle Americans who voted for 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:13.160 the overtly racist, segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace. 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.360 They are not extremists of the right, despite the fact 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:19.640 that some of them voted for George Wallace in nineteen 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:20.240 sixty eight. 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:27.800 I say segregation, MA, segregation, the MA, and segregation forever. 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:33.120 But the Middle Americans' concerns go beyond the impacts of 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:37.200 the civil rights movement. They're worried that the radical young, 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:41.440 as Time calls them, fundamentally challenge their belief in the 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.840 goodness of America. 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.440 Middle Americans education does not dwell upon the agonizing moral 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.800 discrepancies of American history, the stories of the Indians or 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.480 the Blacks, or the national tradition of violence. He cannot 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.200 believe that the society he has come to accept as 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.280 the best possible on earth. The order he sees as 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.880 natural contains wrong so deeply built in that he does 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:07.560 not notice them. Middle Americans believe that the radical young 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.960 are operating on a fast misunderstanding of their nation. 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.560 Time uses shorthand to get this point across. 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:18.880 While the rest of the nation's youth has been watching 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:23.200 Dustin Hoffman and Midnight Cowboy, Middle America's teenagers have been 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:25.679 taking in John Wayne for the second or third time 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:30.240 in The Green Berets. 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.760 Midnight Cowboy is the story of a male sex worker 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.560 and his pimp trying to eke out a living in 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:38.720 the sedious corners of New York City. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:40.160 Oh Hey, I'm a hustler. 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:40.760 You didn't know that. 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.440 It received an X rating due to quote the homosexual 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:50.240 frame of reference and quote its possible influence on youngsters. 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.160 In contrast, The Green Berets was an anti communist, pro 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:59.800 Vietnam War movie. Critics observe that The Green Berets reduced 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.960 the ongoing war into a simple conflict of good versus evil. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:08.800 Successful nation Mikey Yeah, but very gustly. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.800 Roger Ebert gave it zero stars, but Middle America apparently 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:21.120 ate up the raw patriotism. We'll continue to use these 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:25.600 terms Middle America and the Radical Young as a shorthand 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.000 to broadly describe these two political and social groups in 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:32.360 the US in the late sixties and seventies. 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.880 Lynette From and Sarah Jane Moore's stories are very different 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:42.160 in many ways, but they share two fundamental similarities. Both 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.400 women had lived much of their lives in the culture 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.640 of Middle America, but their experiences there were difficult, and 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:53.280 then they suddenly, disorientingly became part of the most extreme 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:57.040 frontiers of the radical Young. For Sarah Jane Moore, this 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:01.280 meant immersing herself in the revolutionary philosophy the underground militants 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:05.200 in the Bay Area, including San Francisco. For Lynette From, 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:08.600 it meant joining a commune led by a guru whose 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.040 name would become synonymous with the darkest fears that Middle 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:16.960 America had about the Radical Young. Charles Manson on this 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.040 season of Rip Current, we'll look at Lynette From and 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:24.080 Sarah Janemore's lives in Middle America, their transformations as they 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.120 entered the world of the Radical Young, and the social 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.040 and political forces that led them to try to kill 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:34.200 the President of the United States in September nineteen seventy five. 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:39.600 If you think American society of the twenty first century 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.200 or the twenty twenties was dangerous and. 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.040 Violent, it's nothing. 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:47.640 Compared to what California was in the nineteen seventies. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.240 Many, many people all of the world are due to 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:51.240 be assassinated. 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:53.000 This is just at the beginning. 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:57.120 What starts as a hippie love called transmigraphied into a 0:10:57.720 --> 0:10:59.679 violent criminal enterprise. 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:01.040 Of course, would have been imber. 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.720 The people will be shot on prevent any. 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:04.880 Primate, any plague. 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:09.160 The worst thing in that underworld is to be an informant, 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:10.360 a snitch. 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:13.199 These people aren't just a bunch of mouths. 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.560 They're perfectly willing to die for what they're doing. 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:18.720 I'm not saying i'd try to take a shot. 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.280 I didn't take a shot without a show in the chamber. 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:22.640 I had two feet from him. 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.680 I could have shot twice. I was the person in 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.640 the intent was exactly as I stated in court, to 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:29.560 wilfully and know. 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.760 Any assassinate Gerald off Or the Pressman of the United. 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:41.000 States, Gerald Ford, the thirty eighth President of the United States, 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:43.840 arrived in Sacramento for the last stop of a two 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.920 day fundraising trip to the West coast. He had already 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:48.640 raised money in Seattle and Portland. 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:54.080 It was September the fifth, nineteen seventy five, and it 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.400 was to be a red letter day in the city 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:01.240 of Sacramento. The President of the United States, Gerald R. Ford, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:02.800 was to pay us a visit. 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.360 This is senior US District Court Judge William Shubb speaking 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.720 at a twenty thirteen panel discussion of Lynnette From's trial. 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.000 The town was all a bustle. 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:15.840 In the morning. 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.840 The President was scheduled to speak to a large group 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:24.400 of California business leaders at the annual host breakfast to 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:29.079 be held in the newly constructed Sacramento Community Center. 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.400 Traditionally, the governor had always come and spoken to the breakfast. 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:36.720 Jerry Brown was in his first year as governor in 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:37.720 nineteen seventy five. 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.040 The people in chacrament all the people in California and 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:41.439 out in the West, can make the difference. 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.760 You don't even governor about eight or nine months at 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:44.800 this time, as a matter. 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.160 Of fact, are you get out and vote on Tuesday. 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:52.680 And invited him to come and speak, and he didn't respond. 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:57.440 He kind of put him off, and it angered the sponsors. 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.560 My name is Dan Walders. I'm a political columnist for 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.040 a non fuck with journalism group called Calmatters dot Org. 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:09.600 I'd been a journalist for over sixty years, and in 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:13.480 nineteen seventy five I had just begun covering the capitol 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:18.200 for the Sacramento Union. They were mostly Republicans. They kind 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.400 of angered him that this kind young snotnoas kid governor 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.440 wasn't coming in positive them. So that the head of 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:26.360 the committee at that time was a man by the 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.000 name of Carlisle Reed, who happened to be the publisher 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.720 of the Sacramento Union, and he was well connected in 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.120 Republican circles. So he decided, basically, I'll teach that young 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.040 son of a bitch a lesson. I'll get the president 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.000 to come to Sacramento instead and show him up, and 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.280 they did. He pulled strings and got a commitment from 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:46.600 Jerry Ford he would come and speak to the host breakfast. 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.520 Ford received a warm welcome from the group of businessmen 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.200 and gave a speech guaranteed to appeal to their political sensibilities. 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:04.480 In recent years, a disproportionate percentage of new jobs has 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:10.360 come from the public sector rather than the private the 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.880 result has been the creation of a bureaucracy that contributes 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:21.320 very little to America's prosperity and productivity. It simply shares it. 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.000 His message of reducing regulatory burden was well received by 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:31.480 the largely Republican audience. Here is an unidentified attendee reacting 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:32.320 to Ford's speech. 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.400 Well, I think the President gave a very determined statement 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.480 on which he stated that we're raither going to become 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:44.000 free Americans again and cause our economy to grow, or 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:45.680 we're going to go further and further in the direction 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.600 of a planned, a socialistic type economy. 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.880 Following the speech, Ford returned from the convention Center to 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.600 the Senator Hotel for a brief rest before heading to 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.280 the state Capitol to meet with Governor Brown and address 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:03.080 the state legislature. Here's Ford testifying about that day months later. 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:05.800 And what time did you leave the hotel? 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.080 Approxtantly ten am that morning? 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.440 As I understand, you crossed the street and you were 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:16.280 proceeding along the walkway. 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:19.160 Towards the state capital. Is that correct? 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.720 That is correct. I left the hotel, walked across L 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:30.000 Street and up a walkway from L Street to the 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.280 entrance to the State Capitol on my way to meet 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:33.760 the government. 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:40.040 And as you were walking you were exchanging cordialities. 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:41.520 With the people and shaking their hands. Is that correct? 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.280 That is correct? As I went along the walkway, the 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:50.160 crowd had been assembled on my left as I walked 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:55.080 toward the Capitol, and they were held back by a rope. 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.640 And as I walked toward the Capital, I was shaking 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.800 hands and speaking to people in this group on the 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:02.960 left hand side. 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.160 As Ford moved along the route, he was accompanied by 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.600 Secret Service agents, city and state police officers, and a 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.880 group of journalists and camera operators, including Sacramento Television Channel 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:16.480 ten reporter Roger Lindberg. 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.920 Beginning our series of reports on today's events in Sacramento 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:21.680 with a near assassination of the president. 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:22.920 Here is Roger Lindberg. 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.920 Roger, Well, it is the sort of thing that you 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.880 hear about, but you never really believe you will ever see. 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:35.240 Roger Lindberg, former KXTV reporter back in seventies. So my 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.720 assignment at the time was to be with the president 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:43.680 leaving the hotel, which was across the street from the Capitol, 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.880 and then go with him into the Capitol building. You 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:53.160 have to cross a major street, and then you walk 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.680 through this garden that is on the eastern side of 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.880 the Capitol building, and then you go up the step 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.920 into the Capitol. We come in the back door, not 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.280 the front of the Capitol. So that was my assignment 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.520 was to just be with him accompany him. I had 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.000 a camera crew with me at the time. It was 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:14.360 a big scrum. There were a lot of a lot 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.160 of cameras, a lot of reporters Secret Service. 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.560 President Ford was smiling and shaking hands as he moved 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:23.680 across from the Senator Hotel. 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:24.960 Towards the Capitol Building. 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:27.840 It was crossing the street, walking up a path that 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:30.160 led to the back entrance of the Capitol. 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.159 I remember it was an incredibly nice day. It was 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:37.800 bright and sunny, typical California day. We walked across the 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:44.240 street with him. We entered the park on the northern side, 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.080 and we were walking along a path at meanders between 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:50.560 big trees and rose garden, etc. 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:53.879 There was a moment of confusion at the entrance to 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.480 the park. The security plan called for the Sacramento City 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.320 Police to aid the Secret Service and escorting the President 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.439 from the Senator Hotel to the park entrance. At the 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.280 entrance the city police were to give way to State 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.119 police officers who would accompany the President and his secret 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.080 Service detail through the park and to the back door 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:14.800 of the Capitol, But when the group reached the park 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:17.879 entrance there were only three uniformed state police officers on 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.439 the scene. A decision was made for one of the 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.600 city police officers to accompany the President and his entourage 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:29.320 into the park. Waiting amid the crowd was Lynette From. 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:54.200 After the break, the security accompanying President Ford as he 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.399 walked from the Senator Hotel to the California State Capitol was, 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:02.600 by today's standards, almost comically. Video of his walk appears 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.080 to show less than a dozen agents around the president. 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.160 The scene does not seem very secure. Inside the park, 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.280 about a dozen State Police officers were stationed along the path. 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.920 In the minutes before Ford's appearance. Lynette From approached one 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.800 of the officers. She asked the officer if the president 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:20.560 was going to take that path on his way to 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.719 the State House. The officer was evasive in his answer, 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:26.399 but a crowd of several hundred people were lining the 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:28.480 path from the park entrance to the east steps of 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:30.679 the Capitol, and it seemed clear that this would be 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:34.639 his route from wore a flowing sleeveless red dress with 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:37.600 the hem down at her ankles. Beneath the robe, she 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.639 carried an M nineteen eleven Colt forty five pistol in 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.399 a holster on her left leg. The presidential entourage made 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:46.879 its way through the park, with Forde shaking hands and 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.960 speaking with people lining the path. A man in the 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.000 crowd described to a television reporter what he saw next. 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:56.919 I was about fifteen feet from where the president was 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:01.480 moving down the line of people shaking hands, and he 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:03.880 reached out to shake hands with a young woman. And 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:07.399 just about that time there was another person, a redheaded woman, 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:08.720 moved toward him. 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.119 When he reached the halfway mark in the path, the 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:16.199 crowd suddenly shifted violently, and President Ford flinched back, his 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:19.320 hands thrust in front of him. Ford saw what few 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.320 others could. A woman dressed in a long red skirt 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.320 pointed a forty five caliber pistol at the president. 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.960 Here is Gerald Ford again from his testimony, Where. 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:32.920 Was Lynette from when you first observed her? 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:38.280 If you recall approximately halfway between L Street and the 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:45.359 State Capitol, I noticed a person in the second or 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:54.439 third row in a brightly colored dress, who appeared to 0:20:54.640 --> 0:21:00.399 one who either shake hands or speak, or at least 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.840 wanted to get closer to me. 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:06.960 Do you recall anything about the condition of her face 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:11.080 when you first observed her? Was it flushed, pale, weathered? 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:12.959 I know you've used the term weather before. Is at 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:13.560 your recollection? 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:18.560 It looked weathered, but there were many faces that the 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.760 brightness of the dress attracted my attention, and then the 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.040 process of noticing the dress. I thought her face did 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:26.720 appear to be. 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:31.280 Somewhat weather, though four doesn't mention it, and photographs taken 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:33.959 at the scene, Lynette is wearing a strange hat that 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:36.840 matches the red of her dress. The hat is made 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.400 of fabric and a shape like a cone, though most 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:41.639 of it is folded down like a limp, which's capped 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.320 to the right of her face. Her appearance was so 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.040 unusual that even as Ford moved through a crowd of people, 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:47.880 she stood out. 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:53.679 I would say that she was three to four feet 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.080 from me when I first noticed her. She appeared to 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.320 want to come forward. I had the impression she did 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:05.600 come forward. I didn't see the precise movement. I stopped 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:09.919 because I had the impression she wanted to speak to 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:14.760 me or shake my hand, And as I moved to 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:18.120 either shake hands or speak to her, I then noticed 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:23.000 the gun as I indicated it in her hand was 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:24.679 approximately two feet. 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:28.320 From where exactly, if you recall, was the barrel of 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:29.720 the weapon point. 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:31.520 I could not tell. 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:37.679 The weapon was large. It covered all or most of 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:41.879 her hand as far as I could see. And I 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:48.960 only saw it instantaneously because almost automatically, one of the 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:54.960 Secret Service agents lunged, grabbed the hand and the weapon, 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:58.399 and then I was pushed off by the other members 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:00.360 of the Secret Service detail. 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:02.640 Do you know who it was that grabbed a hold 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:04.119 of her arm? 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:09.960 It was one of the Secret Service detail, mister Larry boondor. 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:14.680 My position at the time was right at his left shoulder. 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:20.120 So he's walking along shaking hands. I'm concentrating on his hands. 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:22.600 Don't want to have anybody grabbed too long, take his 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:23.479 watch whatever. 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:27.719 We tried to interview Larry Bundorff, who was long retired 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:30.440 from the Secret Service, but the Secret Service Press office 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:34.240 turned down our interview request. Boondorf was next to Ford, 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:36.600 keeping an eye on the hands reaching for the president. 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:39.480 He would not have been expecting when that thrusting forward 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:41.440 a gun, but he acted immediately. 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:46.040 As he's shaking hands. Suddenly I see this hand come 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:48.760