During September of 1975, President Gerald Ford was the target of two assassination attempts.
On September 5, 1975, Ford was shaking hands with a crowd that had gathered near the California Capital in Sacramento. He was scheduled to give a speech to the state legislature on violent crime. Lynette Squeaky Fromme, a member of the Charles Manson Family, advanced closer and closer to the President as he moved through the crowd. Finally, Fromme got close enough to get a good shot at the President. As she was aiming, Larry Buendorf, a Secret Service agent, grabbed her gun before it was able to fire. Ford saw the gun and went pale. Fromme was lead away screaming ΓÇ£DonΓÇÖt get excited! It didnΓÇÖt go off. It didnΓÇÖt go off! Can you believe it didnΓÇÖt go off?ΓÇ¥ Later as the handcuffs were being put on she shouted repeatedly He is not a public servant! He is not a public servant!
Squeaky Fromme was an ardent critic of the Ford administration the active voice of the Charles Mansion Family at the time. Unlike the rest of the Mansion family, she was not put in jail for the 1969 murder of Sharon Tate. Fromme did have a number of previous arrests including attempted murder of a potential witness for which she spent 90 days in jail.
Psychologists at the trial blamed FrommeΓÇÖs attempt on an obsessive-compulsive commitment to Manson. Nevertheless, she was found sane and ordered to stand trial. Fromme was found guilty of attempted murder and ordered to spend the rest of her life in prison. She has remained in the Federal Correction Institution for Women at Alderson, West Virginia ever since. In 1987 over Christmas break, she escaped briefly. Guards found her two days later walking along a road a few miles from the prison.
The second attempt happened less then 20 days later. On September 22, 1975, President Ford was leaving the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. A crowd of 3,000 people had gathered to see him off. During this time, Sara Jane Moore had gotten within 40 feet of the President. She aimed her .38 caliber handgun at him. Nearby, an ex-Marine named Oliver Sipple spotted her and grabbed her arm. The gun went off but ricocheted away from the visibly shaken President. A cabdriver was hit in the groin and suffered minor injuries.
Ford took off in the waiting limousine. He went directly to the San Francisco International Airport and made a quick departure to Washington D.C.
Moore upon her capture became agitated and confused. She said she had to leave ΓÇ£in order to pick up my boy.ΓÇ¥ Moore then confessed to trying to kill the President saying that ΓÇ£If I had my .44 I would have caught him.ΓÇ¥
This had not been the first time Moore had been in trouble with the law. Formerly, she was a suburban housewife. Her five marriages had ended badly and she had left three of her children with her parents in West Virginia. After that, Moore joined several left-wing groups. Her highly impressionable state made her a perfect target for the FBI. They took her on as a double agent and praised her for saving the country. Moore continued this way until pangs of guilt led her to tell her left-wing counterparts about her work with the FBI. She was then shunned by both groups.
Moore believed one or both sides were actively trying to kill her. She felt she had to make penance by doing something dramatic. Fromme inspired her to seek out President Ford. Only a day before the attempted assassination, Moore was arrested by the police who had reason to believe she was carrying a concealed weapon. Moore had returned to her informing ways and was working with the Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms, as well as several local agencies. She was charged with concealing a weapon, a state misdemeanor and her gun was seized. Later that day, the Secret Service interrogated her but let her go because of her informer status. She was sentenced to life imprisonment.
