Jeff Caplan’s Minute of News: A half century ago: TWO Assassination Attempts
Sep 17, 2024, 9:00 PM
Vice President Gerald Ford gets a wave from his wife Betty early Dec. 7, 1973, as he left their home in Alexandria. It will be his first full day in his new position following formal swearing-in ceremonies on Thursday evening in the House of Representatives chamber. (AP Photo/Bob Daugherty)
(AP Photo/Bob Daugherty)
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SALT LAKE CITY — Since Sunday we’ve repeatedly heard that this has never happened before. Two attempts on the life of a Presidential candidate. And while that’s true, everybody seems to be ignoring what happened in 1975.
Forty-nine years ago, President Gerald Ford was a year into the job. On a visit to Sacramento, California the president walked into the crowd outside his hotel. He later recounted that when he went to shake a hand, he found a gun pointed directly at him.
From point-blank range, an assassin pulled the trigger, but her gun misfired. That woman — Lynette Squeaky Fromme — was a member of the Manson clan. Yes. Charles Manson. If not for the misfire, President Ford would have been a murder victim. The Secret Service wrestled away the gun.
Then, 17 days later, President Ford was speaking in San Francisco and there was a copycat.
As the president was leaving his hotel again, a woman popped off two shots. The first missed, and a bystander tried to wrestle away the gun. The second shot went wild, and Ford was quickly ushered into his limousine,
The would-be assassin was another woman, Sarah Jane Moore. A somewhat confused radical who’s now 94 — she’s still alive — and was watching TV when Trump was shot in Pennsylvania. Did it hit differently for her?
“Somebody said the shooter has been — they didn’t think first that he was dead,” Moore told NewsChannel 5 in Nashville. “I think they used [neutralized] later. And as you get older and see things, they don’t shock you as much as they should.” She laughed then.
That nervous laughter, an echo from the history books — an echo from two assassination attempts against a president in just 17 short days.
Jeff Caplan is the host of Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News on KSL NewsRadio. Follow him on Facebook and X.
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