Ford survived two attempts on his life . . . in 17 days
SEP 22, 1975
GERALD FORD would live longer than any other US President, to the age of 93 years and 165 days.
And yet, if things had gone differently just months into his time at the White House, his existence would have been cut dramatically short.
As the man who served the remainder of disgraced Richard Nixon’s tenure, Ford was only in the hot seat for 895 days, but it was a tempestuous time to be leader of the free world.
He presided over the worst financial times since the Great Depression, outraged many by pardoning Nixon, and at times managed to split opinion as much as the current president does.
He certainly irritated both Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Jane Moore.
Squeaky, a follower of Charles Manson, pointed a Colt .45 at Ford in early September, 1975, but security men grabbed the weapon and apprehended her.
Just 17 days later, despite Ford having been told to keep farther away from crowds during his walkabouts, Moore fired a single round at the President but missed him as the sights of her .38-calibre were a bit off.
As she was about to fire a second shot, a retired marine, Oliver Sipple, grabbed the gun and deflected her shot, the bullet hitting a wall inches above the president’s head.
It ricocheted and wounded a taxi driver, but Moore was caught, tried and sentenced to life behind bars, although she was given parole seven years ago.
The 45-year-old Moore, who had five divorces behind her, had become involved in revolutionary politics in 1975, having previously been an upstanding citizen as a nursing student, army recruit and accountant.
Obsessed with Patty Hearst, who had been kidnapped then sympathised with her captors and became a terrorist herself, Moore was involved in all sorts of shady stuff at the time of the assassination attempt, not least being an FBI informant.
It was all rather a far cry from the more mundane life of an accountant, let’s say.
Clearly an impulsive lady, she had only bought the gun that morning, and was unaware that its sights were six inches off.
District Judge Samuel Conti pointed out that, if she’d had a gun of her own, one she knew well and had practised with before, President Ford would have been dead, victim of the only two female assassination attempts, both in the same few weeks.
Sara Jane – who is now 87 — pleaded guilty, saying: “Am I sorry I tried? Yes and no. Yes, because it accomplished little except to throw away the rest of my life. And, no, because at the time it seemed a correct expression of my anger.”
Described by Ford as “off her mind”, she once escaped prison, but later worked as an accountant behind bars.
‘ A retired Marine grabbed the gun and deflected her shot