The attempted assassination of Donald Trump is unfortunately far from the first against an American president. Four presidents have been assassinated (Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James A. Garfield in 1881, William McKinley in 1901, and John F. Kennedy in 1963), but our history has seen numerous other unsuccessful shootings targeting the nation’s chief executive: against Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford (twice), Ronald Reagan, and now Trump.
The first of these unsuccessful attempts came against Andrew Jackson in 1835. An unemployed house painter named Richard Lawrence came at Jackson with a pistol while the president was in the U.S. Capitol attending the funeral of South Carolina representative Warren R. Davis. Lawrence pulled the trigger and attendees heard a crack, but the pistol misfired. Jackson turned on Lawrence and swung his cane at the assailant, who took out another pistol, which also misfired. A melee ensued with Jackson screaming, “Let me alone! Let me alone! I know where this came from,” suggesting that Jackson’s Whig enemies had sent the assassin. Among those who tried to subdue Lawrence was Davy Crockett, who later said of the incident, “I wanted to see the damndest villain in the world and now I have seen him.” Jackson was unharmed but became more paranoid as a result of the close call. It was a contentious period in American politics; the New York Evening Post deemed incident “a sign of the times.” Lawrence spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.
The next three shootings of presidents were unfortunately successful ones; it’s remarkable to consider now that these three assassinations took place over just 36 years, from 1865 to 1901. (What must Americans have thought of “our democracy” then?) The next failed attempt did not come until Teddy Roosevelt’s ill-fated effort to reclaim the presidency in 1912 as a third party candidate. In October of that year, Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee—the site of this year’s Republican convention—when a man named Joseph Schrank shot the former president in the chest. Roosevelt was fortunate that his folded 50-page speech was in his chest pocket and slowed the bullet. The bullet did pierce Roosevelt’s chest but did not penetrate too deeply. The crowd attacked Schrank, but Roosevelt asked that they not harm him, which probably saved Schrank’s life. Roosevelt then went ahead with his speech, famously saying, “it takes more than that to kill a bull moose.” This event has perhaps the most similarities to the Trump shooting, as both Trump and TR were ex-presidents looking to return to the White House, and both Trump and Roosevelt showed defiance after being bloodied.
TR’s cousin Franklin was president-elect in February 1933 when an anarchist named Giuseppe Zangara fired five shots at him and Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak in Miami. The would-be assassin missed Roosevelt but hit Cermak and four other people. Roosevelt was likely saved by Miami housewife Lillian Cross, who pushed Zangara’s arm as he was firing. A gravely wounded Cermak told Roosevelt, “I’m glad it was me instead of you.” He died on March 6, two days after hearing Roosevelt’s inaugural address over the radio. Zangara was executed by electric chair two weeks later.
Roosevelt’s successor Harry Truman survived an even more murderous assassination attempt in November 1950. Truman was staying at Blair House (across from the White House) when two Puerto Rican nationalists, who had come from New York for the express purpose of killing Truman, started a gun battle on Pennsylvania Avenue. One policeman and one of the gunmen were killed, and three more officers were wounded. Truman, hearing the commotion, looked out a second-story window to see what was happening, but retreated when an officer shouted at him, “Get back! Get Back!” The incident had an impact on the way that Truman and his wife Bess viewed the presidency. She grew more worried about her husband’s safety, and he felt more trapped in the White House bubble. As he wrote in his diary, “The S.S. say that there are more crackpots around and the ‘Boss’ and Margie are worried about me so I won’t take my usual walk. It’s hell to be President of the Greatest Most Powerful Nation on Earth.”
In 1975, Gerald Ford survived not one but two shooting attempts—both in California—in a two-week period. In Sacramento, Charles Manson follower Squeaky Fromme pulled a pistol from an ankle holster and attempted to shoot Ford. Quick-thinking Secret Service agent Larry Buendorf shouted “Gun!” and managed to insert part of his right hand inside the weapon, preventing the hammer from striking the firing pin. Buendorf, with his hand bleeding, wrestled Fromme to the ground as she screamed, “It didn’t go off. Can you believe it? It didn’t go off.”
Ford’s security detail was nervous about Ford returning to California two weeks later. Ford overruled their objections, saying, “I’m not going to be a captive in the White House. We’re going back.” As it turned out, the Secret Service was right to be worried. This time Ford was in San Francisco when another woman, Sara Jane Moore, fired at Ford with a .38 caliber pistol. Moore’s attempt failed because former Marine Oliver Sipple saw the gun and pushed it, changing the bullet’s path. Ford, meanwhile, was covered by two members of his security detail and chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld. Ford, who was used to being under a pile from his days playing football, said, “C’mon Rummy, you guys get off. You’re heavy.”
Before the Trump attack, the most recent shooting of a president was John Hinckley’s attack on Ronald Reagan in 1981. Reagan was early in his first term and was leaving a speech at the Washington Hilton (now referred to as the Hinckley Hilton by Washingtonians), when Hinckley opened fire, hitting Reagan press secretary Jim Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and DC police officer Thomas Delahanty. Reagan’s protective detail threw him to the floor of his limousine and, thinking he was unharmed, took off back for the White House. Like Ford, Reagan did not like being under a pile and thought the agents had broken his rib. When the president coughed up blood, agent Jerry Parr recognized that Reagan had been hit as well and immediately redirected the limo to George Washington Hospital. This decision saved the president’s life. Even so, it was a close call. A paramedic thought upon seeing a gray-colored Reagan, “My God, he’s code city,” ER lingo for someone who isn’t going to make it.
Looking back at this memorable but sobering history reveals a number of patterns. First, for all the skill and bravery of the Secret Service agents who protect presidents, sometimes they need help from ordinary citizens. Lillian Cross and Oliver Sipple stepped in at key moments and prevented even worse outcomes. In addition, sometimes luck is involved—as in the speech in Roosevelt’s pocket, the twin misfirings of Joseph’s gun, or Trump’s coming “within inches of having his face shot open,” as a senior law enforcement official told the New York Post. These shootings sometimes happen in times of great national tumult, such as the Great Depression or post-Watergate 1970s. (We’re not living in tranquil times ourselves.) Shootings can lead to an outpouring of sympathy for the targeted president, but they do not automatically yield political success. Teddy Roosevelt lost his 1912 race, and Ford was voted out of office about a year after the attacks on him.
The biggest lesson, though, is that American politics has long been contentious, and we all need to watch our public rhetoric. Bob Dole would say on the campaign trail that Bill Clinton was “my opponent and not my enemy,” a formulation worth remembering. Framing our policy differences, however serious, in hysterical terms, as too many Americans have been doing for too long, raises the prospect of extremists or mentally damaged people taking matters into their own hands. We should all hope that yesterday is as bad as it gets.
Photos: GraphicaArtis/Getty Images (top left) / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel File photo Oct. 14, 1912, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (top right) / The White House/Getty Images (bottom left) / Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images (bottom right)
