In the history of this great nation, 4 Presidents have been assassinated and nearly all of them have had actual attempts made against them.
Andrew Jackson
January 30, 1835: At the Capitol Building, a house painter named Richard Lawrence aimed two flintlock pistols at the President, but both misfired, one of them while Lawrence stood within 13 feet (4 m) of Jackson and the other at point-blank range. Lawrence was apprehended after Jackson beat him down with a cane. Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a mental institution until his death in 1861.
Theodore Roosevelt
October 13, 1912: Three and a half years after he left office, Roosevelt was running for President as a member of the Progressive Party. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, John F. Schrank, a saloon-keeper from New York, shot Roosevelt once with a revolver. A 100-page speech folded over twice and the metal glasses case in Roosevelt’s breast pocket slowed the bullet. Amidst the commotion, Roosevelt yelled out “Quiet! I’ve been shot.” Roosevelt insisted on giving his speech with the bullet still lodged inside him. He later went to the hospital, but the bullet was never removed. Roosevelt, remembering that William McKinley died after operations to remove his bullet, chose to have his remain. Schrank said that McKinley’s ghost had told him to avenge his assassination. Schrank was found legally insane and was institutionalized until his death in 1943.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
February 15, 1933 (one month before being sworn in for his first term in office): In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara fired five shots at Roosevelt. Four people were wounded and Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was killed. Zangara was found guilty of murder and was executed March 20, 1933. Some researchers believe Cermak, not Roosevelt, was the intended target that day, as the mayor was a staunch foe of Al Capone’s Chicago mob organization.
Harry S. Truman
In 1950, two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists attempted to kill Truman, resulting in the murder of one White House police officer and the death of one assassin; Truman was not harmed.
John F. Kennedy
December 11, 1960: While vacationing in Palm Beach, Florida, President-elect John F. Kennedy’s life was threatened by Richard Paul Pavlick, a 73-year-old former postal worker. Pavlick’s plan was to serve as a suicide bomber by crashing his dynamite-laden 1950 Buick into Kennedy’s vehicle, but the plan was disrupted when Pavlick saw Kennedy’s wife and daughter bidding him goodbye. That attack of conscience foiled the opportunity, with Pavlick’s arrest by the Secret Service coming three days later after he was stopped for a driving violation, with the dynamite still in his car. Pavlick spent the next six years in both federal prison and mental institutions before being released in December 1966.
Richard Nixon
First assassination attempt
April 14, 1972: Milwaukee, Wisconsin native Arthur Bremer arrived in Ottawa, Ontario on April 10 and spent five days in Canada’s national capital in an effort to shoot and kill President Nixon, who was visiting the country during this time. On April 14, Nixon made a public appearance in a limousine at Parliament Hill, which Bremer attended, carrying a loaded revolver in his pocket. The presence of Vietnam War protesters and Canadian nationalists, however, led to increased security surrounding the President, and Bremer had great difficulty getting within firing range of Nixon. He did manage finally to get close enough, but the President was traveling by in his limousine with the windows closed, and Bremer was unsure whether any bullets would go through the glass of Nixon’s limo. As a result, he didn’t open fire and the President sped past unharmed. The following month Bremer shot U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate George Wallace, lodging a bullet in his spine and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down for life.
Second assassination attempt
February 22, 1974: Samuel Byck, planned to kill Nixon by crashing a commercial airliner into the White House. Once on the plane, he was informed that it could not take off with the wheel blocks still in place. He shot the pilot and copilot before killing himself. The events surrounding this assassination attempt were portrayed in the film The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
Gerald Ford
First assassination attempt
September 5, 1975: In Sacramento, California, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, drew a Colt .45 caliber pistol on Ford when he reached to shake her hand in a crowd. There were four cartridges in the pistol’s magazine but the firing chamber was empty. She was soon restrained by a Secret Service agent. Fromme was sentenced to life in prison.
Second assassination attempt
September 22, 1975: In San Francisco, California, Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at Ford from 40 feet (12 m) away. A bystander, Oliver Sipple, grabbed Moore’s arm and the shot missed Ford. Moore was sentenced to life in prison. She was later paroled on Monday, December 31, 2007 from a federal prison after serving more than 30 years.
Jimmy Carter
May 5, 1979: Ten minutes before Carter was about to speak at the civic center mall in Los Angeles, Raymond Lee Harvey was arrested carrying a pistol. He later told authorities that he and another man were hired to create a diversion so that Mexican hit men armed with sniper rifles could kill Carter. Charges against him were dismissed for lack of evidence.
Ronald Reagan
On March 30, 1981, following a speaking engagement in Washington, D.C., Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr. as Reagan was returning to his limousine. He recovered quickly due to prompt medical attention.
George H. W. Bush
April 13, 1993: Sixteen men, in the alleged employment of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, smuggled a car bomb into Kuwait with the intent of killing Bush as he spoke at Kuwait University. The plot was foiled when Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and arrested the suspected assassins. Bush had left office in January 1993. On June 26, 1993, the U.S. launched a missile attack targeting Baghdad intelligence headquarters in retaliation for the attempted attack against Bush. The Iraqi Intelligence Service, particularly Directorate 14, was accused of being behind the plot.
Bill Clinton
First assassination attempt
September 12, 1994: Frank Eugene Corder flew a single engine Cessna into the White House lawn, apparently trying to hit the White House. The President and First Family were not home at the time. Corder was the only casualty.
Second assassination attempt
October 29, 1994: Francisco Martin Duran fired at least 29 shots with a semi-automatic rifle at the White House from a fence overlooking the north lawn, thinking that Clinton was among the men in dark suits standing there (Clinton was in the White House Residence watching a football game). A tourist named Harry Rakosky tackled Duran before he could injure anyone. Duran was found to have a suicide note in his pocket and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
George W. Bush
First assassination attempt
February 7, 2001: While President George W. Bush was occupied in the White House Residence, Washington, DC, Robert Pickett, standing outside the perimeter fence, discharged a number of shots from a weapon in the direction of the White House. Eileen O’Connor, CNN Correspondent, reported: ‘the U.S. Park Police said that the type of handgun that was – that was confiscated, if it was an unobstructed view to the White House, could – a bullet could have reached the White House. But there are a lot of trees, a lot of bushes between this sidewalk, where the suspect was, Robert Pickett, and the White House, so that there were obstructions, mainly trees and bushes’[18]. Following a standoff of about ten minutes, the incident ended when a Secret Service officer shot Pickett, resulting in an injury which required hospital surgery. Pickett was found to have a history of emotional problems and employment grievances. Lacking conclusive evidence that Mr. Bush was a personal target (although the accused had indeed written to the President on the subject of his grievances), a court in July 2001 sentenced Pickett to three years in jail in connection with the incident.
Second assassination attempt
May 10, 2005: While President George W. Bush was giving a speech in the Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia, Vladimir Arutyunian threw a live Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade towards the podium where he was standing and where Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and their two wives and officials were seated. The grenade was live and had its pin pulled, but did not explode because a red tartan handkerchief wrapped tightly around the grenade kept the firing pin from deploying quickly enough.
Arutyunian was arrested in July 2005, and killed an Interior Ministry agent while resisting arrest. He was convicted in January 2006, and was given a life sentence.
In addition to the successful assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy, it is an understanding that these men undertook upon seeking the office that Presidents of the United States are never 100% popular with the entire electorate. It is also understood, that in the age of international travel, no outdoor venue that any US President visits can be 100% secure.
Even if the Secret Service of the United States believed that Palin’s comments about Obama’s associations prompted the death threats against Obama, I doubt that they would warn her against making those comments. And even if they were to, I find it inconceivable that the US Secret Service would release this information to the press.
The Secret Service takes seriously their responsibility of protection of the President, Vice President, their families, and other members of the executive branch but they are careful not to interfere with the political process. Palin’s comments were and are legitimate political issues that the people are entitled to know about.
I find it disturbing that the President Elect of the United States has had in his past, and for all we know currently, intimate associations with an individual who has admitted his guilt in domestic terrorist actions against this nation. William Ayers stated, “guilty as hell, free as a bird” after his acquittal of charges related to the domestic terrorist activities of the Weather Underground.
Barack Hussein Obama has sat on the boards of at least 2 organizations with William Ayers. Barack Hussein Obama began his political career in the living room of William Ayers. Barack Hussein Obama has refused to directly answer the nature of his relationship with Ayers. Ayers has refused to answer any questions about his relationship with Obama. The records of their interactions on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge have been kept at a distance from the public. And We The People are supposed to NOT be curious about Obama’s relationship with Ayers.
So it could be understood that Palin’s wording about Obama’s relationship with Ayers as being “palling around” would rightfully get a segment of the electorate worked up. And if some of the more unscrupulous characters within our electorate decide to threated the man with the middle name Hussein over these comments, that is their cross to bear. Don’t punish the messenger for the message.
And for the record, someone will eventually make a credible attempt at assassinating this guy and no one other than the idiot who makes that attempt will be responsible for his/her actions. It is called personal responsibility. My fear is that the attempt would be successful and we’d be stuck with Biden as our President.
Sitting around decompressing after a long week surrounding the death of a family member, I was surfing the net and came across a website that has been tracking Iraq War casualty rates. It got me to thinking about Obama and his “opposition” to the Iraq War. I wondered how Obama’s beloved home of Chicago compares to a war zone this month. ![[del.icio.us]](http://gribbitonline.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
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