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Speaker 1: This summer, a lone gunman on a rooftop reminded us

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Speaker 1: that American presidents have long been the targets of assassins.

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Speaker 1: Nearly fifty years ago, President Gerald Ford faced two attempts

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Speaker 1: on his life in less than three weeks. September fifth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, Sacramento, California, in a crowd outside the

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Speaker 1: Capitol Building, a woman pulls a gun on President Ford.

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Speaker 2: President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the

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Speaker 2: victim of an assassin.

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Speaker 1: Today, a woman dressed in a long red skirt pointed

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Speaker 1: a forty five caliber pistol at the President.

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Speaker 2: And I saw a woman start to go down and

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Speaker 2: her arm go back, and I saw the gun. September

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Speaker 2: twenty second, San Francisco, on the steps of the Saint

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Speaker 2: Francis Hotel, another woman tries to kill the president.

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Speaker 1: A woman fired a shot at President Ford in San

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Speaker 1: Francisco this afternoon. She was right at the front of

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Speaker 1: the robe and forty feet away.

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Speaker 2: When he walked out.

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Speaker 1: President waved of the crowds and they had cheered him,

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Speaker 1: and that's when it happened. I yelled the she's got

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Speaker 1: a gun. In two hundred and fifty years of US history.

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Speaker 1: These are the only two times we know of that

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Speaker 1: a woman has tried to assassinate a sitting president.

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Speaker 2: The two events were separated by seventeen days, in less

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Speaker 2: than ninety miles, and the two assassins had never met.

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Speaker 1: One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.

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Speaker 1: She is twenty six year old Lynette Alice from nickname Squeaky.

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Speaker 2: I always felt like Glynnette was kind of his right

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Speaker 2: hand woman, all her good curson, a very good person.

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Speaker 1: The other a middle aged housewife, an aspiring radical working

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Speaker 1: undercover for the FBI in the violent Revolutionary Underground, identified

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Speaker 1: by police Sarah Jane.

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Speaker 2: Because she didn't look like a radical, she could enter

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Speaker 2: into these areas that other people couldn't.

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Speaker 1: A spy. Basically, I was the person in the intent

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Speaker 1: was exactly as I stated in court, to wilfully and

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Speaker 1: know any assassinate Gerald R. Four, the President of the

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Speaker 1: United States.

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Speaker 2: This season on the podcast Rip Current, we ask why

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Speaker 2: these women. She was a gentle quiet I thought, he's

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Speaker 2: loving girl. Why did they want to kill President Ford?

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Speaker 1: Being the appointee of President Nixon.

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Speaker 2: It's understandable to me that in their minds he should

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Speaker 2: also be the object of their hatred, and why this time,

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Speaker 2: this place. One does not have to condone everything in

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Speaker 2: hate Ashbury to know that it exists. Back then, there

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Speaker 2: were lots of communes, There were lots of guru varieties.

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Speaker 2: Manson told his followers that this would be a blood

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Speaker 2: bath in the streets of every American city. What starts

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Speaker 2: as a hippie love called transmographied into a violent criminal enterprise.

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Speaker 2: Five persons, including actress Sharon tape Or found dead. And

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Speaker 2: realize that we're dealing with very violent underground groups. Our

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Speaker 2: corporate enemies of the people will be shot on at

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Speaker 2: any time and at any play. The goals were anarchy,

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Speaker 2: a lot of anarchy. The revolutionary groups would get their

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Speaker 2: power the bloodiest and most massive gun battle in the

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Speaker 2: history of Los Angeles.

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Speaker 1: Random violence, political violence.

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Speaker 2: There was just no let up as to the fasts insect,

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Speaker 2: the praise U find the life of the people.

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Speaker 1: These people aren't just a bunch of nuts. They're perfectly

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Speaker 1: willing to die for what they're doing. Someplace else that

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Speaker 1: would have been like a big deal, but not in California.

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Speaker 1: The story of one strange and violent summer this season

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Speaker 1: on Rip Current.

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Speaker 2: Listen to RIP Current September fifth, on the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 2: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen into your favorite shows.