Ford’s Presidential Brushes with Death

Sep 25

President Ford winces at the sound of the gun fired by Sara Jane Moore during he assassination attempt in San Francisco, California. September 22, 1975

Disaster nearly befell the presidency of Gerald Ford twice in September of 1975, when in separate incidents just 17 days apart, would-be assassins in California trained their guns on the president and pulled the trigger. On September 5, the assailant was Lynnette “Squeaky” Fromme, whose attempt took place in Sacramento. In San Francisco on September 22, Sara Jane Moore fired two rounds from her handgun, both of which missed their target.

Fromme, who was born in Sacramento, California, had toured as a member of a dance troop, the Westchester Lariats, which performed on the Lawrence Welk Show and at the White House. In her teens, she became involved with alcohol and drugs, which led her father to kick her out of the family home. Sitting on the curb one day, she was approached by cult figure Charles Manson, recently released from prison, who invited her to become one of the first members of the “Manson Family.”

Other young adults soon joined the group, which took up residence at the Spahn Ranch, where multiple Hollywood movies were filmed. The site was depicted in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” When Manson and some of his followers were arrested for the well-publicized murders of actress Sharon Tate and others, Fromme and fellow family members camped outside the courthouse, carving x’s onto their foreheads. Manson was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

After a series of bizarre incidents that included close association with several people accused of murder and an attempt to contact Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page to warn him of impending “evil,” Fromme traveled to Sacramento, claiming that she wanted to convince Ford to protect the California redwoods. Dressed in a red robe, she approached Ford and pulled the trigger of her Colt pistol, but the gun, from which she had previously ejected the round, did not fire.

At trial, Fromme refused to participate in her defense, and even though no shot had been fired, she was convicted of attempted assassination and sentenced to life in prison. Life behind bars was not peaceful for her, and she was transferred multiple times for assaulting a fellow inmate with a hammer and a successful escape attempt that kept her at large for two days before she was recaptured. She was paroled in 2008 and released in 2009, electing to relocate to New York.

The president’s response to Fromme’s assassination attempt was classic Ford. Secret Service agents bore him away from the scene, but he shouted at them to put him down, then continuing his walk through the park to the state capitol, where he met with California Governor Jerry Brown. It is said that Ford and Brown discussed political matters for a full half hour before Ford mentioned that had been the target of an assassination. Later, Ford testified as a defense witness in Fromme’s trial.

Sara Jane Moore was born in West Virginia and studied nursing and worked as an accountant. Divorced five times, she had born four children by the time she developed a fascination with Patty Hearst, a young newspaper heiress who had been kidnapped by a militant organization and later participated in some of their criminal activities. As ransom, Hearst’s father was forced to found an organization called People in Need, for which Moore served as a bookkeeper.

Moore’s attempt on Ford’s life took place after he had addressed the World Affairs Council in San Francisco. The assailant had been previously assessed by the Secret Service, which determined that she posed no significant threat to the president. Ford was walking to his limousine outside the St. Francis Hotel in Union Square when he stopped to wave to the crowd that had gathered nearby. Moore was positioned about 40 feet away.

As Ford waved to the crowd, Moore drew her .38 special revolver and fired a shot that barely missed its target. When she raised her arm to fire again, an ex-Marine grabbed her arm, causing her second shot to ricochet before striking a taxi driver, who survived his injury. Moore was apprehended immediately. The motive for her assault was not clear, although she later claimed that she had acted with hopes of precipitating a revolution.

Moore pleaded guilty to the charges of attempted assassination and was sentenced to life in prison. Like Fromme, while serving her sentence Moore escaped from prison but was later apprehended after only a few hours. In 2007, at the age of 77, Moore was released from prison, approximately one year after Ford’s death at the age of 93 years. At the time, Moore expressed relief that her attempt to kill Ford had not succeeded, saying that she now knew it was wrong to have tried. Today she is 95 years old.

What did the Secret Service learn from the attempts on Ford’s life? Perhaps not so much as one might think. After Fromme’s attempt, they announced “no major changes,” saying that it was the result not of defective policies but “a fanatical cult member getting a gun.” After the second attempt, Ford was outfitted with a bulky trench coat with a zip-in Kevlar lining that weighed 6 pounds, which is now on display at the Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids.

Many Americans were quite shaken by the attacks on Ford, especially since the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy were still relatively fresh in memory. Yet Ford’s calm reaction helped to dampen such shock waves. The only president to survive two assassination attempts, Ford said simply, “I don’t think any person as president ought to cower in the face of a limited number of people who want to take the law into their own hands.”