{"id":20911,"date":"2017-03-30T10:25:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T14:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=20911"},"modified":"2022-03-30T14:37:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T18:37:54","slug":"on-this-day-president-ronald-reagan-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/on-this-day-president-ronald-reagan-shot.html","title":{"rendered":"On This Day: President Ronald Reagan Shot!"},"content":{"rendered":"

During his presidency, Ronald Reagan was called the \u201cTeflon President\u201d because he could shrug off criticism and avoid blame for the scandals that affected members of his staff. On 30 March 1981, Reagan showed he could shrug off something far more severe than blame: a would-be assassin, John Hinckley, Jr., fired six shots point-blank at the president as he was leaving the Washington Hilton Hotel after giving a speech. Somehow, despite the short distance, all six shots missed hitting the president directly.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait:<\/a>
Portrait: President Ronald Reagan. Credit: Executive Office of the President of the United States; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, one bullet ricocheted off the limousine and penetrated Reagan\u2019s left lung. Although Hinckley was using a deadly type of ammunition designed to explode upon impact, the bullet that entered Reagan did not explode, which surely would have killed him. It also stopped short of smashing into his heart, which also would have killed him. Instead of dying, the 70-year-old president survived the attempted assassination \u2013 and he did so with style.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: the immediate aftermath of the shooting of President Reagan. The president has just been hustled into the limousine while guards move in on the gunman. Credit: Ronald Reagan Library; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the presidential limousine pulled up to the emergency room of George Washington University Hospital, no stretchers were available \u2013 so Reagan walked right in, unassisted. When his wife Nancy rushed into the emergency room to join him, the president cracked: \u201cHoney, I forgot to duck.\u201d Once wheeled into the surgery room, Reagan looked up at the doctors and joked: \u201cPlease tell me you\u2019re Republicans.\u201d After surgery, with tubes in his mouth preventing him from speaking, Reagan scribbled a note: \u201cAll in all, I\u2019d rather be in Philadelphia.\u201d<\/p>\n

It truly seemed this president could not be seriously touched \u2013 not by criticism, not by scandal, not by bullets. Somehow, Ronald Reagan always rose above it all. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of three other individuals wounded in the attempted assassination. White House Press Secretary James Brady was hit by the first shot; the bullet entered his brain, causing permanent brain damage. The second shot hit District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty, who was shot in the back of his neck as he turned to protect the president. The fourth shot hit Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy in the torso; he was doing his job, spreading his body over Reagan to protect the president, when he was hit.<\/p>\n

The attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan was front-page news for the nation\u2019s newspapers, such as this one.<\/p>\n

\"Front<\/a>
Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, Georgia), 31 March 1981, page 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The two articles on this front page provide many details of the shooting.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, Georgia), 31 March 1981, page 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is a transcription of this article:<\/p>\n

Gunman Wounds Reagan in Assassination Attempt<\/p>\n

Press Aide Brady, 2 Lawmen Also Shot<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2013 President Reagan was wounded in the chest Monday by a gunman who tried to assassinate him with a burst of .22-caliber bullets from a \u201cSaturday night special.\u201d White House press secretary James S. Brady was critically injured in the blaze of gunfire.<\/p>\n

Reagan \u201csailed through surgery\u201d according to doctors who said he\u2019d be ready to make presidential decisions by today.<\/p>\n

But Brady was said to be fighting for his life, a bullet through his brain.<\/p>\n

Dr. Dennis O\u2019Leary said \u201ca really mangled bullet\u201d was removed from Reagan\u2019s left lung. He said the president\u2019s condition was stable, the prognosis excellent, and that the president would probably be hospitalized for about two weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cHoney, I forgot to duck,\u201d Reagan told his wife as he was wheeled into surgery. Then he told the doctors he hoped they were Republicans.<\/p>\n

A Secret Service agent and a policeman also were wounded in the mid-afternoon incident outside a Washington hotel where Reagan had just addressed a union convention. They were reported in serious condition but apparently not in danger.<\/p>\n

A youthful, sandy-haired gunman from suburban Denver was wrestled into handcuffs and arrested moments after the gunman leveled his pistol at the president and fired six times from near point-blank range. The Secret Service identified him as John Warnock Hinckley, 25, of Evergreen, Colo.<\/p>\n

There was no known motive, no explanation for the savage burst of gunfire that exploded as the president stood beside his limousine, ready to step inside for the one-mile ride back to the White House.<\/p>\n

Roger Young of the FBI described the weapon as a \u201cSaturday night special\u201d and said it was purchased at a Dallas gun shop.<\/p>\n

Hinckley was booked on charges of attempted assassination of a president, and of assault with intent to kill a police officer. He was in custody Monday night.<\/p>\n

Young, the FBI spokesman, said there had been \u201cno problem\u201d with Hinckley\u2019s coherence when questioned by authorities.<\/p>\n

Hinckley was arrested last Oct. 9 at the Nashville airport for carrying handguns. The FBI said he was carrying three weapons that day \u2013 while then-President Carter was making a campaign appearance in the city.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s shooting occurred suddenly on an overcast Washington afternoon.<\/p>\n

One of Monday\u2019s eyewitnesses said the assailant, standing 10 feet from the president, \u201cjust opened up and continued squeezing the trigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 2:25 p.m. EST, six shots rang out, one hitting Reagan in the left chest, others felling Brady, a Secret Service agent and a policeman. Secret Service agents and police seized Hinckley \u2013 tossing him to the ground outside the Washington Hilton and pinning him to a wall.<\/p>\n

Anxious hours later, Reagan was pronounced in good and stable condition.<\/p>\n

Two and a half hours after emerging from surgery, Reagan joked with doctors in the recovery room, according to a White House statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the tubes in his mouth, he (Reagan) gave them a note that said, \u2018All in all, I\u2019d rather be in Philadelphia.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

At the White House, Vice President George Bush said, \u201cI can reassure this nation and a watching world that the American government is functioning fully and effectively. We\u2019ve had full and complete communication throughout the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Leary described Reagan as \u201cclear of head\u201d and said he \u201cshould be able to make decisions by tomorrow, certainly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not believe there is any permanent injury,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Leary served as spokesman for two surgeons who operated on Reagan at George Washington University Hospital. They made a 6-inch incision to remove the bullet that had penetrated about three inches into his left lung, missing his heart by several inches.<\/p>\n

Reagan\u2019s lung collapsed, and the surgeons inserted two chest tubes to restore it.<\/p>\n

They gave him blood transfusions, about 2\u00bd quarts in all, to replace the blood he lost.<\/p>\n

The wounded president walked into the hospital, \u201calert and awake\u201d if a bit lightheaded, O\u2019Leary said. At 70, the doctor said, Reagan \u201cis physiologically very young.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was never in any serious danger,\u201d O\u2019Leary said.<\/p>\n

But Brady was.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis condition is critical,\u201d the doctor said. He was shot in the side of the forehead, the bullet passing through his brain. \u201cHe obviously has significant brain injury and he is in critical condition,\u201d O\u2019Leary reported.<\/p>\n

He would not speculate on Brady\u2019s chances of recovery, but said that it is likely Brady, 40, will suffer permanent brain damage if he survives.<\/p>\n

Lyn Nofziger, the Reagan aide who has assumed the role of principal press spokesman, told reporters later Monday night that the \u201cprognosis is certainly better than it was earlier this afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brady came out of surgery at 8:15 p.m. EST, and Dr. Arthur Kobrine told Nofziger his vital signs were stable. Nofziger quoted the doctor also as saying that Brady\u2019s pupillary reflexes were normal, an encouraging sign.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Leary and Nofziger both said President Reagan would be able to handle the decision-making duties of his job Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Nofziger said there was no consideration of turning the duties of the office over to Bush under the constitutional provision for presidential disability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president will be fully capable of making decisions tomorrow according to the doctors,\u201d Nofziger said. \u201cIn the meantime the business of government is going on normally and we expect it will continue to.\u201d<\/p>\n

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said plans for Tuesday were \u201cbasically to continue the schedule the president has planned\u201d with Vice President Bush filling in for Reagan.<\/p>\n

The schedule included a Cabinet meeting, a session with congressional leaders and a working lunch with the prime minister of the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Asked if the president has turned over authority to the vice president, Speakes replied: \u201cThere has been no cause for that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Benjamin Aaron and Dr. Joseph Giordano, both of the George Washington University School of Medicine, operated on Reagan.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Leary said Reagan might be hospitalized for as long as two weeks, but called that only a guess.<\/p>\n

While Reagan was in the operating room, his aides made a point of emphasizing the banter with which he went to surgery, as reassuring evidence that he hadn\u2019t been grievously wounded.<\/p>\n

He winked, according to Nofziger, then saw three top staff members and said, \u201cWho\u2019s minding the store?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when he got into the operating room, he looked at the doctors and he said \u2018Please tell me you\u2019re Republicans.\u2019\u201d According to O\u2019Leary, the surgeons told him \u201ctoday everyone is a Republican.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the operation progressed, the doctors gave Mrs. Reagan a preliminary report that matched their final prognosis: stable and good.<\/p>\n

At about the same hour, Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr. said he was told that Reagan\u2019s \u201crecovery is considered to be certain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker told the Senate his information came from Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev., a close friend of the president, who was at the hospital with Mrs. Reagan.<\/p>\n

All afternoon, the message was the same: reassurance that the president would recover, repeated statements that the government was functioning despite the attempted assassination.<\/p>\n

The gunman leveled his pistol at Reagan from amid a crowd of newsmen and bystanders as the president left the hotel after addressing the AFL-CIO Building Trades Council.<\/p>\n

The shots also felled Secret Service agent Timothy J. McCarthy, 31, and policeman Thomas Delahanty, 45. A Secret Service spokesman said McCarthy was in \u201cstable condition on the plus side.\u201d He was shot in the chest. Delahanty was wounded at the base of his neck. He was reported in serious condition.<\/p>\n

At the time, Bush was flying to Austin, Tex. His plane turned back, landing outside Washington at dusk. Bush was flown to the city aboard a helicopter under extraordinary security precautions.<\/p>\n

Key Cabinet members and Reagan aides conferred at the White House. With Bush in flight and Reagan in the hospital, Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. told reporters \u201cAs of now I am in control here in the White House pending the return of the vice president.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, Georgia), 31 March 1981, page 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is a transcription of this article:<\/p>\n

Suspect Said Troubled Man; Neo-Nazi Link<\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n

John Warnock Hinckley Jr., arrested Monday in an attempt on the life of President Reagan, recently had been under psychiatric care and had been arrested while carrying handguns in Nashville, Tenn., on a day former President Carter visited the city.<\/p>\n

A former classmate said Hinckley was \u201cnot a flamboyant type\u201d when they attended a suburban Dallas high school together and \u201ccertainly not the type\u201d to shoot a president.<\/p>\n

But little was known about Hinckley\u2019s activities in the years after high school \u2013 except sporadic attendance at Texas Tech University \u2013 and hints emerged Monday of a troubled man and his weapons.<\/p>\n

The head of a neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Party of America, said Hinckley was a party member who quit in 1979 because \u201che felt that we were not sufficiently militant for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agreed mutually NSPA was not his cup of tea. He wanted us to go out and commit unlawful acts. We sort of carried on a debate about it,\u201d said Harold Covington of Raleigh, N.C.<\/p>\n

The federal government Monday night formally charged Hinckley with attempting to assassinate President Reagan and assaulting a Secret Service officer. He was held without bail by U.S. Magistrate Arthur L. Burnett pending a preliminary hearing set for Thursday at 10 a.m. EST.<\/p>\n

Roger Young, an FBI spokesman in Washington, said the weapon used to shoot the president and three others was a .22-caliber \u201cSaturday night special\u201d purchased at a Dallas gun shop.<\/p>\n

Young said there had been \u201cno problem\u201d with the suspect\u2019s coherence when questioned by authorities. Young refused to elaborate on a possible motive for the shooting.<\/p>\n

The operator of a Denver pawn shop said a man identifying himself as John W. Hinckley Jr. of suburban Lakewood pawned a guitar and a typewriter on March 11 and said he was \u201cgoing out of town.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young man was shabbily dressed and \u201clooked like a man down on his luck,\u201d said Brent Morris, the clerk at G.I. Joe\u2019s Pawn Shop.<\/p>\n

In Evergreen, Colo., attorney Jim Robinson said in a statement from the suspect\u2019s parents that young Hinckley has been under recent psychiatric care.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis evaluation did not alert anyone to the seriousness of his condition,\u201d the statement said. Robinson added that Hinckley\u2019s parents were \u201cheartbroken,\u201d but would stand by their son.<\/p>\n

Hinckley, 25, is a son of Denver businessman J. W. \u201cJack\u201d Hinckley, president of Vanderbilt Energy Corp., an oil and gas exploration company. The family moved to Colorado in 1974. Hinckley was born in Ardmore, Okla., according to hospital officials there.<\/p>\n

FBI agents interviewed Hinckley\u2019s parents in Evergreen, a bedroom community where they live about 20 miles due west of Denver.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post reported one of its reporters telephoned the Hinckley home an hour after the shooting and broke the news to Joanne Hinckley that her son was the suspect. She reacted with disbelief, saying, \u201cThis is a joke.\u201d She said she had been watching television coverage of the shooting, and repeated, \u201cThis is a joke, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

But when asked if her son was in Washington, she replied, \u201cI don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t know.\u201d Her voice cracked and she hung up.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just sort of blended into the crowd,\u201d said Tom Blackwell, who graduated, along with Hinckley, from Highland Park High School in suburban Dallas in 1973.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t a flamboyant type or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FBI and police in Evergreen initially said Hinckley had no known criminal record. However, the FBI later confirmed he was arrested Oct. 9 in Nashville, Tenn., while carrying three handguns.<\/p>\n

FBI agent Richard Knudsen, in Nashville, confirmed Hinckley\u2019s arrest by airport police, but declined to provide further details. President Carter was visiting Nashville on the day Hinckley was arrested. Then-candidate Reagan was scheduled to stop in Memphis on that day, but canceled his visit.<\/p>\n

Four days after that incident, Hinckley bought a pair of .22-caliber revolvers at Rocky\u2019s pawn shop in downtown Dallas. Agents of the FBI and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms seized records of the sale Monday, a few hours after Reagan was shot.<\/p>\n

Isaac Goldstein, owner of the shop, said Hinckley used a Lubbock address in buying the weapons. The FBI declined to say whether one of them had been used in Monday\u2019s shooting.<\/p>\n

Blackwell said the last time he saw Hinckley was at graduation time, when Hinckley and his family were moving to Colorado. Little was known about his activities in the years since high school.<\/p>\n

Hinckley entered Texas Tech University at Lubbock in the fall of 1973 as a business administration student. School officials said he last attended the school in the spring and first summer semester of 1980. Steve Lindell, assistant manager of university news and publications, said Hinckley had not earned a degree.<\/p>\n

NBC News reported that Hinckley once worked as a disc jockey at a country music station in Denver under the name John Warlek.<\/p>\n

The Texas Department of Public Safety listed Hinckley\u2019s birthday as May 29, 1955, although initial Secret Service reports listed it as May 29, 1958.<\/p>\n

His driver\u2019s license described him as 5 feet, 9 inches tall, weighing 180 pounds, with blue eyes and blond hair.<\/p>\n

Dr. E. A. Sigler, principal at Highland Park High, recalled having seen Hinckley as a student, but remembered \u201cnothing special about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was shocked to find out that he was one of my former students,\u201d Sigler said.<\/p>\n

Reporters and photographers swarmed through the school, but little information was available. Sigler said he could not release Hinckley\u2019s confidential records.<\/p>\n

The 1973 high school yearbook listed Hinckley as a member of the Spanish Club, the Student Government Club and the Rodeo Club.<\/p>\n

Bill Lierman, a former teacher at Highland Park and sponsor of the Rodeo Club when Hinckley was there, said, \u201cHe was very quiet, very reserved. He didn\u2019t give anyone any trouble\u2026 (he was) not a rowdy. He was a typical kid\u2026 fairly popular, best I can remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim Francis, operations manager of the Brighton Co., a Dallas oil firm, and a fundraiser for Gov. Bill Clements, was Hinckley\u2019s basketball coach from the 4th<\/sup> through 6th<\/sup> grades.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a kid, he was a beautiful-looking blond-headed little boy, a wonderful athlete,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what may have happened since then to him, but he was really a leader. He was one of the best athletes on the team, and the best basketball player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note:<\/em><\/strong> An online collection of newspapers, such as GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>, is not only a great way to learn about the lives of your ancestors \u2013 the old newspaper articles also help you understand American history and the times your ancestors lived in, and the news they talked about and read in their local papers, as well as more recent events.<\/p>\n

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