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==Assassination attempt==
==Assassination attempt==
Moore was 40 feet away from the President<ref name="Chronicle-Tucker">{{cite news |first=Jill |last=Tucker |title=Kenneth Iacovoni -- special agent |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/29/BAG9LM27J51.DTL |format=HTML |work=San Francisco Chronicle |page=B-7 |date=[[2006-10-29]] |accessdate=2007-01-03 |language=English }}</ref> when she fired a single shot at him.<ref name="This-Day-in-History">When you refer to the same footnote multiple times, the text from the first reference is used.</ref> The bullet missed the President because bystander [[Oliver Sipple]] grabbed Moore's arm and then pulled her to the ground, using his hand to keep the gun from firing a second time.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.randomhouse.com/features/americancentury/imperialpres.html |title=The Imperial Presidency: 1972 - 1980 |accessdate=2007-01-03 |last=Evans |first=Harold |year=1998 |format=HTML |work=The American Century |publisher=Random House |language=English }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lambda.net/~maximum/sipple.html |title=Remember...…Oliver Sipple (1941-1989) |accessdate=2007-01-03 |format=HTML |language=English }}</ref> Sipple said at the time: "I saw [her gun] pointed out there and I grabbed for it. [...] I lunged and grabbed the woman's arm and the gun went off."<ref>Sipple quoted in the Seattle Times, 23 September 1975, "Ford 'won't cower' after shooting"</ref> The single shot which Moore did manage to fire from her .38-caliber revolver ricocheted off the entrance to the hotel<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.almanacnews.com/morgue/2003/2003_01_29.obit.html |title=Obituaries: David Richardson Wendell |accessdate=2007-01-03 |date=[[2003-01-29]] |format=HTML |work=The Almanac |publisher=Embarcadero Publishing Company |language=English }}</ref> and slightly injured a bystander.<ref name="Secret Service">{{cite web |url=http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/ustreas/usss/t1pubrpt.html |title=Public Report of the White House Security Review |author =United States Secret Service |accessdate=2007-01-03 |date= |format=HTML |publisher=United States Department of the Treasury |language=English |quote=Just seventeen days after the Fromme incident, Sara Jane Moore fired a bullet at President Ford in San Francisco. As President Ford exited a downtown hotel, Moore, standing in a crowd of onlookers across the street, pointed her pistol at him. Just before she fired, a civilian grabbed at the gun and deflected the shot. The bullet missed Ford but slightly injured a bystander. Moore was a known radical and a former FBI informant. }}</ref>
Moore was 40 feet away from the President<ref name="Chronicle-Tucker">{{cite news |first=Jill |last=Tucker |title=Kenneth Iacovoni -- special agent |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/29/BAG9LM27J51.DTL |format=HTML |work=San Francisco Chronicle |page=B-7 |date=[[2006-10-29]] |accessdate=2007-01-03 |language=English }}</ref> when she fired a single shot at him.<ref name="This-Day-in-History">When you refer to the same footnote multiple times, the text from the first reference is used.</ref> Moore missed Ford the first time because the gun she was using, the .38 revolver, was not the gun she had been practicing with and was confiscated by the San Francisco police the day before. Moore bought the .38 the same morning she went after Ford, but the site was off by six inches. FBI investigators measured where the bullet hit the cement column from where she was standing. Agent Richard Vitamanti, lead investigator, said had Moore been using her own gun, history would have been different. It was her attempt at a second shot to correct her aim that Sipple grabbed her arm. <ref> http://www.gerispieler.com / The bullet missed the President because bystander [[Oliver Sipple]] grabbed Moore's arm and then pulled her to the ground, using his hand to keep the gun from firing a second time.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.randomhouse.com/features/americancentury/imperialpres.html |title=The Imperial Presidency: 1972 - 1980 |accessdate=2007-01-03 |last=Evans |first=Harold |year=1998 |format=HTML |work=The American Century |publisher=Random House |language=English }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lambda.net/~maximum/sipple.html |title=Remember...…Oliver Sipple (1941-1989) |accessdate=2007-01-03 |format=HTML |language=English }}</ref> Sipple said at the time: "I saw [her gun] pointed out there and I grabbed for it. [...] I lunged and grabbed the woman's arm and the gun went off."<ref>Sipple quoted in the Seattle Times, 23 September 1975, "Ford 'won't cower' after shooting"</ref> The single shot which Moore did manage to fire from her .38-caliber revolver ricocheted off the entrance to the hotel<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.almanacnews.com/morgue/2003/2003_01_29.obit.html |title=Obituaries: David Richardson Wendell |accessdate=2007-01-03 |date=[[2003-01-29]] |format=HTML |work=The Almanac |publisher=Embarcadero Publishing Company |language=English }}</ref> and slightly injured a bystander.<ref name="Secret Service">{{cite web |url=http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/ustreas/usss/t1pubrpt.html |title=Public Report of the White House Security Review |author =United States Secret Service |accessdate=2007-01-03 |date= |format=HTML |publisher=United States Department of the Treasury |language=English |quote=Just seventeen days after the Fromme incident, Sara Jane Moore fired a bullet at President Ford in San Francisco. As President Ford exited a downtown hotel, Moore, standing in a crowd of onlookers across the street, pointed her pistol at him. Just before she fired, a civilian grabbed at the gun and deflected the shot. The bullet missed Ford but slightly injured a bystander. Moore was a known radical and a former FBI informant. }}</ref>


Moore had been evaluated by the Secret Service earlier in 1975, but they had decided she presented no danger to the President.<ref>{{cite news |first=James |last=Carney |title=How To Make The Secret Service's "Unwanted" List |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988864,00.html |format=HTML |work=TIME Magazine |publisher=Time Warner |date=[[1998-08-03]] |accessdate=2007-01-03 |language=English }}</ref> She had been picked up by police on an illegal handgun charge the day before the Ford incident but was released. Police kept the .44 pistol and 113 rounds of ammunition.
Moore had been evaluated by the Secret Service earlier in 1975, but they had decided she presented no danger to the President.<ref>{{cite news |first=James |last=Carney |title=How To Make The Secret Service's "Unwanted" List |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988864,00.html |format=HTML |work=TIME Magazine |publisher=Time Warner |date=[[1998-08-03]] |accessdate=2007-01-03 |language=English }}</ref> She had been picked up by police on an illegal handgun charge the day before the Ford incident but was released. Police kept the .44 pistol and 113 rounds of ammunition.

Revision as of 19:55, 24 September 2007

Sara Jane Moore (born Sara Jane Kahn[1] on February 15, 1930[2] in Charleston, West Virginia[1]) attempted to assassinate US President Gerald Ford on September 22, 1975 outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, just seventeen days after Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme had attempted to assassinate Ford.[3]

Assassination attempt

Moore was 40 feet away from the President[4] when she fired a single shot at him.[3] Moore missed Ford the first time because the gun she was using, the .38 revolver, was not the gun she had been practicing with and was confiscated by the San Francisco police the day before. Moore bought the .38 the same morning she went after Ford, but the site was off by six inches. FBI investigators measured where the bullet hit the cement column from where she was standing. Agent Richard Vitamanti, lead investigator, said had Moore been using her own gun, history would have been different. It was her attempt at a second shot to correct her aim that Sipple grabbed her arm. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).[5] Sipple said at the time: "I saw [her gun] pointed out there and I grabbed for it. [...] I lunged and grabbed the woman's arm and the gun went off."[6] The single shot which Moore did manage to fire from her .38-caliber revolver ricocheted off the entrance to the hotel[7] and slightly injured a bystander.[8]

Moore had been evaluated by the Secret Service earlier in 1975, but they had decided she presented no danger to the President.[9] She had been picked up by police on an illegal handgun charge the day before the Ford incident but was released. Police kept the .44 pistol and 113 rounds of ammunition.

A former nursing school student, Women's Army Corps recruit, and accountant, Moore had five husbands before she turned to revolutionary politics at the age of 45.[2][10]

Moore's friends said she was obsessed with Patty Hearst.[11] After Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, her father Randolph Hearst created the organization People in Need (P.I.N.) to feed the poor, in order to answer S.L.A. claims that the elder Hearst was "committing 'crimes' against 'the people.'"[11] Moore was a bookkeeper for P.I.N. and an FBI informant[2][8][11] when she attempted to assassinate Ford.

Moore pleaded guilty[12] to attempted assassination and was sentenced to life in prison[13][14]. She is currently serving at the federal women’s prison in Dublin, California.[4][15] She is scheduled for parole on September 21, 2007.

In an interview in 2004, former President Ford described Moore as "off her mind" and said that he continued making public appearances, even after two attempts on his life within such a short time, because "a president has to be aggressive, has to meet the people."[16]

In Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's musical Assassins, Moore is portrayed as a flaky accident-waiting-to-happen who can't wield a gun properly; in the Gun Song (the only song she sings outside of the Assassins as a group) when she "squeezes her little finger to change the world" along with the boys, hers goes off although theirs do not, and in Everybody's Got the Right the Proprietor reminds her "Don't forget that guns can go boom," when she accidentally aims hers at him. Along with Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, she serves as a bit of comic relief before major events in the musical, such as Guiteau's assassination of James Garfield.[17]. The interactions between Moore and Fromme presented in the musical, which include smoking marijuana and firing off pistols at a bucket of fast food, are entirely fictitious, however.

Quotes

  • “I do regret I didn't succeed, and allow the winds of change to start. I wish I had killed him. I did it to create chaos.”[18][19]
  • “I didn’t want to kill anybody, but there comes a point when the only way you can make a statement is to pick up a gun.”[10][1]
  • “The government had declared war on the left. Nixon's appointment of Ford as vice president and his resignation making Ford president seemed to be a continuing assault on America.”[20]
  • “I know now that I was wrong to try. Thank God I didn't succeed. People kept saying he would have to die before I could be released, and I did not want my release from prison to be dependent on somebody, on something happening to somebody else, so I wanted him to live to be 100.”[21]

References

  1. ^ a b c "CBS Evening News for Thursday, Sep 25, 1975" (HTML). Vanderbilt Television News Archive. Vanderbilt University. Retrieved 2007-01-03. Cite error: The named reference "Vanderbilt" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c "Making of a Misfit" (HTML). TIME Magazine. Time Warner. 1976-10-06. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) Cite error: The named reference "Making of a Misfit" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b "1975 : President Ford survives second assassination attempt" (HTML). This Day In History. The History Channel. Retrieved 2007-01-03. Cite error: The named reference "This-Day-in-History" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Tucker, Jill (2006-10-29). "Kenneth Iacovoni -- special agent" (HTML). San Francisco Chronicle. p. B-7. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) Cite error: The named reference "Chronicle-Tucker" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  5. ^ "Remember...…Oliver Sipple (1941-1989)" (HTML). Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  6. ^ Sipple quoted in the Seattle Times, 23 September 1975, "Ford 'won't cower' after shooting"
  7. ^ "Obituaries: David Richardson Wendell" (HTML). The Almanac. Embarcadero Publishing Company. 2003-01-29. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ a b United States Secret Service. "Public Report of the White House Security Review" (HTML). United States Department of the Treasury. Retrieved 2007-01-03. Just seventeen days after the Fromme incident, Sara Jane Moore fired a bullet at President Ford in San Francisco. As President Ford exited a downtown hotel, Moore, standing in a crowd of onlookers across the street, pointed her pistol at him. Just before she fired, a civilian grabbed at the gun and deflected the shot. The bullet missed Ford but slightly injured a bystander. Moore was a known radical and a former FBI informant. Cite error: The named reference "Secret Service" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ Carney, James (1998-08-03). "How To Make The Secret Service's "Unwanted" List" (HTML). TIME Magazine. Time Warner. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ a b Hernandez, Ernio (2004-04-05). "Assassins Shooting Gallery, Part III: Garrison as Fromme and Baker as Moore" (HTML). Playbill. Playbill, Inc. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) Cite error: The named reference "Playbill" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  11. ^ a b c "Timeline: Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst" (HTML). American Experience. Public Broadcasting System. 2005-02-16. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) Cite error: The named reference "American Experience" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  12. ^ "December 12, 1975 in History" (HTML). BrainyHistory. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  13. ^ Nevas, Steve (news anchor) (1976). Ten O'Clock News broadcast (Television news). Boston, MA: WGBH.
  14. ^ "January 15, 1976 in History" (HTML). BrainyHistory. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  15. ^ "Ford Assailant Blocks Prison Key Crackdown" (HTML). San Francisco Chronicle. 2000-08-12. p. A-21. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ King, Larry (2004-06-08). "Interview with former President Gerald Ford and former first lady Betty Ford" (HTML). Larry King Live. CNN. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ "Assassins" (HTML). The Guide to Musical Theatre. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  18. ^ Keerdoja, Eileen (1976-11-08). "Squeaky and Sara Jane" (HTML). Newsweek. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ "Putting the Ass Back in Assassin" (HTML). Suck.Com. 2001-02-12. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ Lee, Vic (2007-01-02). "Interview: Woman Who Tried To Assassinate Ford" (HTML). ABC-7 News. KGO-TV. Retrieved 2007-01-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. ^ "Former President Ford lauded, laid to rest" (HTML). CNN. 2007-01-04. Retrieved 2007-03-22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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