I never knew of the Nixon assasination attempt

[DanT]

Originally Posted by ENDelt260

Damn. Good thing you're not Gerald Ford, huh?

Gerald Ford seems like a cool guy. Apparently, he wasn't too fazed by the attempt.

[DanT]

Originally Posted by ENDelt260

How was the assassination attempt foiled? Did Ford trip and fall at just the right time, allowing the bullet to fly harmlessly above him?

(All I know about Gerald Ford I learned from Match Game re-runs.)

Here's a story on it I just found on the internet:


http://www.angelfire.com/home/freely...a/abramson.htm

From the Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1975:
Manson Girl Tries to Shoot President
Pulls Gun in Crowd at Sacramento

By Rudy Abramson
and William Endicott
Times Staff Writers

SACRAMENTO--President Ford narrowly escaped an assassination attempt today by a woman follower of convicted murderer Charles Manson.

The woman, identified as Lynette Alice (Squeaky) Fromme, 26, stepped from a crowd of onlookers and pointed a loaded .45-caliber pistol at the President's back from a distance of two feet as he was walking toward the capitol.

A Secret Service agent, walking a few feet behind Mr. Ford, grabbed the weapon and wrested [sic] it from the woman before it could go off.

The President was not injured.

The murder attempt occured shortly after 10 a.m. after the President, ringed by security agents, had walked from the Senator Hotel across the Capitol and was making his way down a sidewalk through Capitol Park.

He was waving and shaking hands with people in the crowd of about 500 when Secret Service Agent Larry Buendorf saw the woman's arm and the automatic pistol suddenly jut out from the crowd.


According to Presidential Press Secretary Ron Nessen, Buendorf grabbed the firearm with his right hand and grabbed Fromme's arm with his left to wrench the weapon from her.

The agent, Nessen said, suffered a slight cut between the thumb and forfinger of his right hand.

Agent Buendorf wrestled Fromme to the ground in the crowd and she was handcuffed.

During the scuffle the woman—wearing a long red dress and a red head bandana—was heard to shout: "It didn't go off! It didn't go off!"

Fromme, 5 feet 3 inches, weighing 120 pounds and red-haired, was taken by Secret Service agents to the Sacramento Police Department for questioning.

Nessen said the President, who "was not hurt in any way," had seen the gun, apparently after he turned toward his attacker upon hearing the scuffle behind him.

The President was immediately rushed to the east entrance of the Capitol, the nearest entrance.


Linda Worlow, a secretary in the Capitol who happened to be standing next to Fromme, described what happened:

"I was about to shake the President's hand. Then I saw the Secret Service man rush the crowd where I was standing.

I saw the woman with the gun and I hit the ground, so to speak. The woman appeared about ready to fire."

Worlow said she had seen Fromme a few minutes before the President arrived and said she was talking with a Sacramento policeman.

"I heard her ask him (the patrolman) what the President's route to the Capitol would be," Worlow told a reporter. "The policeman was evasive."

Earlier, Worlow said she had seen Fromme "kind of milling around in the crowd."

Nessen said the President,who arrived in Sacramento Thursday night, planned to continue his schedule today, despite the attempt on his life.


At 11:30 a.m.—1½ hours after the assassination attempt—Mr. Ford, appearing composed and relaxed, began his address to the special joint session of the California Legislature.

Ironically, his text was on the subject of crime in the United States.

Mr. Ford did not refer to the murder attempt before beginning his address. The only reference to the incident, an oblique one, came from Gov. Brown, who told the legislators:

"It's really a pleasure to introduce the President of the United States."

Mr. Ford received a standing ovation.

His address was the first time a President had spoken before a joint legislative session in California.

Before the attempt outside the capitol, Mr. Ford had addressed 1,000 California business leaders at a State Fair Host Breakfast at the Sacramento Convention Center.

He had returned to the Senator Hotel, located across the street from the Capitol, just before his short walk to meet with Brown in the governor's office.

The President's prepared remarks before the legislative session included these lines:

"Peace on 10th St. in Sacramento is as important to the people who walk and work there as peace in the Sinai Desert.

One man or woman or child becomes just as dead from a switchblade slash as from a nuclear missile blast. We must prevent both."

The attempt on Mr. Ford's life occured just two blocks from 10th St., which runs adjacent to the Capitol building.

An hour and a half after the attempt on the President's life, an unidentified woman called United Press International in San Francisco to say a 60-pound bomb was set to go off minutes later—at 11:55 a.m., in the Capitol building while Mr. Ford spoke there.

The woman referred to a letter received recently by San Francisco news media with the letterhead of the "Red Guerilla Family," following an explosion in a San Francisco office building. The group has claimed responsibility for a number of Bay Area bombings in recent months.

[DanT]

As President, Gerald Ford got a reputation for being clumsy, even though he was actually a very highly-accomplished athlete in his youth:
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_...rald_Ford.html

II Early Life
Print Preview of Section

Ford was born as Leslie Lynch King, Jr., in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1913 his mother, Dorothy, left her husband (they divorced in 1914) and took her son to live with her parents in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At a church function, she met Gerald R. Ford, whom she married in 1916. Although he never formally adopted Dorothy's son, Ford gave her child his name—Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. That name became the future president's legal name in 1935.

Ford, whom family and friends called Junior, worked in his stepfather's paint and varnish store, achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, and became star center for the South High School football team. Ford's skill as a football player won him a scholarship to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1931.

While at Michigan, Ford was an average student but a star football player. After his graduation in 1935, both the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League offered him a contract. Instead, Ford entered Yale University to study law. To finance his studies, he signed on as the coach of the boxing team (although he had never boxed before), and as an assistant coach for the varsity football team. Ford graduated from Yale in 1941 and, after a short time in New York City, returned to Grand Rapids to open a law firm with a friend from the University of Michigan, Philip R. Buchen.

[DanT]

Here's an excerpt from the www.wikipedia.org entry on Gerald R. Ford:

Personality
Despite his athletic history, Ford gained a reputation for being clumsy when he was President. Television footage often showed him stumbling down the stairs, bumping his head on the doorway of Air Force One, or walking into other people. This stereotype was greatly popularized by a series of skits on Saturday Night Live featuring Chevy Chase. Many of Ford's supporters have since denounced this stereotype as unfair, saying the President was no more clumsy than any normal person—except his blunders were just far more visible and popularized. Ford took this kidding gracefully and later wrote a book about humor and the Presidency. He even became friends with Chevy Chase. The people who worked in the White House during the Ford administration universally praised the President and First Lady as warm, gracious and down to earth people who helped restore confidence after the scandal of Watergate.

[Uncle_Ted]

Originally Posted by DanT

While at Michigan, Ford was an average student but a star football player. After his graduation in 1935, both the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League offered him a contract. Instead, Ford entered Yale University to study law.

OK, there's something fishy about this -- he was an average student but attended Yale Law? He must've really crushed the LSAT!

[Ultra Peanut]

Originally Posted by ENDelt260

How was the assassination attempt foiled? Did Ford trip and fall at just the right time, allowing the bullet to fly harmlessly above him?

(All I know about Gerald Ford I learned from Match Game re-runs.)

[C-Mac]

Originally Posted by ENDelt260

How was the assassination attempt foiled? Did Ford trip and fall at just the right time, allowing the bullet to fly harmlessly above him?

(All I know about Gerald Ford I learned from Match Game re-runs.)

Chevy Chase owes his career to Ford.

[Calcountry]

Originally Posted by C-Mac

Chevy Chase owes his career to Ford.

Yep, he would always start SNL by falling down.

A take on Ford falling when he went skiing and the like.

[C-Mac]

Originally Posted by bunnytrdr

Yep, he would always start SNL by falling down.

A take on Ford falling when he went skiing and the like.

I think that was the last time he was funny also......he's a politital nutcase nowadays.

[go bo]

Originally Posted by bunnytrdr

Yep, he would always start SNL by falling down.

A take on Ford falling when he went skiing and the like.

heck, ford even fell coming down the stairs from a plane...