Killing Reagan

by Bill O'Reilly

  “We were not victorious,” Kennedy will write of his mind-set going into the meeting; “nor were we defeated.”

  Kennedy and Carter meet in the Oval Office, at 4:35 in the afternoon. The senator will remember the meeting as lasting fifteen minutes, when in fact they speak for forty. The president is secure in the knowledge that he has more than enough delegates to win the nomination. Kennedy knows this but is hatching an audacious scheme to steal those delegates and make them his own. Kennedy’s plan is to force a shift in convention rules that will allow delegates the freedom to vote for anyone they want, rather than the candidate to which their state’s primary results bind them.

  By the time the meeting is done, Carter has made his intentions clear: there will be no debate.

  * * *

  Two months later, the end finally arrives for Ted Kennedy. His scheme hasn’t worked. His campaign staff works the convention floor in a frenzy, determined to find some last-minute way to avoid defeat. But it is not to be. Kennedy has lost his bid for the presidency.

  Unbowed, Kennedy gives a concession speech that sounds more like a call to arms. “The commitment I seek is not to outworn ideas, but to old values that will never wear out. Programs may sometimes become obsolete but the idea of fairness always endures,” Kennedy tells the convention. “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

  Kennedy is lucid and focused. Many will say it is the finest speech he has ever delivered.

  * * *

  Two nights later, as the convention closes, Ted Kennedy has scotch on his breath as Jimmy Carter invites him onto the dais in a display of party unity. Rosalynn Carter stands at her husband’s side, looking every bit the “Steel Magnolia” who has had so much influence in the White House. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill is on the crowded stage, as are a host of Democratic Party big shots.

  But it is the body language between Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter that the crowd watches closely. Kennedy wears a pin-striped suit and has a look on his face that his staff calls “the smirk.” The senator strides purposely to the lectern, making no attempt to heal any lingering wounds from the campaign. He shakes Carter’s hand in the most perfunctory manner possible, then immediately walks to the side of the stage, where he can look out over the Massachusetts delegation. As they roar their approval, Kennedy thrusts a triumphant fist into the air.

  Unbeknownst to Kennedy, Jimmy Carter follows him. He, too, puts up a victor’s fist for the Massachusetts contingent, hoping for a side-by-side display of party unity with his opponent. But as Carter’s fist goes up, Kennedy’s goes down. There will be no partnership in this campaign.7

  * * *

  In Ronald Reagan’s mind, defeating Jimmy Carter for the presidency was just a matter of time.

  After accommodating his closest Republican rival, George H. W. Bush, with the vice presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in New York City, Reagan had a united party at his disposal. Nevertheless, he campaigned hard, crisscrossing the country and denigrating Carter’s performance both at home and abroad. He had plenty of ammunition: high inflation, high unemployment, high gas prices, and voter outrage about the Iranian debacle.

  On November 4, 1980, the landslide is so great that Jimmy Carter concedes the election before the polls even close in California. He phones his Republican opponent at home to give him the news.8

  It is Nancy Reagan who answers the phone. Her astrologer has predicted that she and her husband are in for a long night of awaiting returns. But the stargazer is wrong. Therefore, the call at 5:35 p.m. is such a surprise that Ronald Reagan is in the shower. Nancy calls him to the phone. He steps out half-naked and reaches for the phone.

  “Standing in my bathroom with a wrapped towel around me, my hair dripping with water,” Reagan will later recall, “I had just learned I was going to be the fortieth President of the United States.”

  15

  NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

  OCTOBER 9, 1980

  12:02 P.M.

  Losing the election may have saved Jimmy Carter’s life.

  It is three weeks before the vote when John Hinckley finally makes up his addled mind. He will assassinate President Carter in order to impress actress Jodie Foster, with whom he has fallen deeply in love. Hinckley’s plan comes right out of the movie Taxi Driver.

  But today the frenzied Hinckley has reluctantly decided to delay the killing. He is now running through the Nashville airport, late for his plane. Over the last month, Hinckley has stalked Carter at appearances in Dayton and Columbus, Ohio; Washington, DC; and now Nashville. In Dayton, he got within six feet of Carter but did not shoot because he was not in “a frame of mind in which I could carry out the act.”1

  That has not been the case in Nashville. President Carter arrived in the city less than an hour ago. He is now onstage at the Grand Ole Opry, speaking to 4,400 local residents. In two more hours, Carter will board Air Force One for the flight to his next campaign stop in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Hinckley’s frame of mind has nothing to do with his inability to murder Jimmy Carter today. The fact of the matter is Hinckley could not get close enough to squeeze off a shot. Security was too tight, so the would-be assassin decided to get out of town.

  The handle of Hinckley’s oversize gray suitcase is clutched in one fist as he bears down on the security checkpoint. He bought his first handgun just a year ago, and now owns several. Three of them—two .22-caliber pistols and one .38-caliber revolver—are inside his luggage. Hinckley is nervous. His heart races and he feels short of breath as he approaches the X-ray machine.2

  “I’m running late,” he yells, doing his best to bluff his way through without having his suitcase scanned.

  Laura Farmer and Evelyn Braun of the Wackenhut Security Corporation are unfazed. In fact, Sergeant Braun thinks that the pudgy young man looks extremely suspicious. Rather than passing him through, she instructs Mrs. Farmer to pay extra attention to the X-ray of Hinckley’s bag.

  John Hinckley reluctantly places the suitcase on the conveyor belt. The security officers notice that his hands are shaking.

  Laura Farmer studies the video screen as it reveals the contents.

  She signals to Nashville airport police officer John A. Lynch, who walks over and opens Hinckley’s suitcase. Not only does he find the three handguns, but Hinckley is also carrying fifty .22-caliber bullets and a set of handcuffs.

  Hinckley begins to argue, claiming that he is selling the guns, and insists that he is late for his plane.

  Airport police officer Lynch ignores him. “You have the right to remain silent,” he informs Hinckley, officially placing him under arrest.

  * * *

  The four years since his first summer in Los Angeles have been largely a haze for John Hinckley. He continued to wander, shuttling from one state to another in an attempt to find himself, often returning to Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, to take a few courses. His grades were Bs and Cs, and Hinckley has been in no hurry to graduate. At school, he woke up each morning and ate a half-pound hamburger from Bill’s Lot-A-Burger. Once fastidious about neatness, Hinckley has become a slob. He keeps no food in his simple apartment, where a fine layer of dust from the local sandstorms and a pile of white Lot-A-Burger bags cover the dining table.

  In Lubbock, Hinckley often walked into Acco Rentals to talk football with owner Don Barrett. Other days, he sat alone in silence by the pool at the Westernaire Apartments.

  But recently, John Hinckley has developed a new passion. He’s become enamored of Adolf Hitler and recently purchased a two-volume set of the German dictator’s ideological opus, Mein Kampf, for thirty dollars at a Lubbock bookstore. Hinckley even joined the American Nazi Party for a year. He proudly wore the official brown uniform, with its swastika armband and storm-trooper jackboots. But Hinckley was asked to leave the fascist group because he consistently advocated violence.

  “Rallies and dem
onstrations were not enough,” neo-Nazi leader Michael Allen explained. “He said he believed violence and bloodshed was [sic] the answer. He advocated illegal acts, and we believe in acting within the law. We don’t want his kind in our organization.”

  Another neo-Nazi official was blunter, saying that Hinckley was “violent, irrational and advocated terrorism.”

  But this is not the side of his persona John Hinckley wants Jodie Foster to see. Just one month ago, on September 17, Hinckley flew to New Haven, Connecticut, where the actress has begun attending Yale University. The image of her beautiful innocence in Taxi Driver continues to haunt Hinckley, who still watches the film on a regular basis. He is determined to win Jodie’s love, but the journey to Yale proved to be a setback. He wrote her letters and poems, and even managed to speak with her on the phone. But rather than find the attention romantic, Foster was disturbed. She told Hinckley he was rude and dangerous, and ordered him never to call her again.

  Initially, Hinckley was devastated. He attempted suicide by swallowing antidepressants but failed. Rather than try again, Hinckley vowed to renew his pursuit of Foster by imitating Travis Bickle’s strategy for romancing women: political assassination.

  So it is that John Hinckley spent what little money he had on handguns and airfare, following the president of the United States around the country, hoping to put a bullet in his head.

  * * *

  Within an hour of his arrest in Nashville, John Hinckley stands before Judge William E. Higgins. The location is not a courtroom but a small office in police headquarters. He is being charged with possession of a firearm.

  A terrified Hinckley can only imagine what will happen next. He has never been in jail before. With President Carter just a few miles away at the Grand Ole Opry, it is logical that Judge Higgins or the FBI would question Hinckley about his guns and his intent. Even though it might appear to be a coincidence, the president’s presence in Nashville demands that those questions be asked.

  But on this day, John Hinckley is in luck. The FBI is so overwhelmed by Jimmy Carter’s visit to Nashville that every last agent has been tasked with ensuring his safety. So there is effectively no interrogation of Hinckley.

  Judge Higgins’s verdict is swift: John Hinckley will be punished to the maximum letter of the law. He is immediately ordered to pay a $50 fine, along with $12.50 in court costs. He also loses his guns.3

  John Hinckley walks out of Judge Higgins’s courtroom a free man. He immediately returns to the airport, where he takes the next plane to Dallas.

  * * *

  In 1980 the Secret Service has a computer file listing the four hundred individuals most likely to attempt a presidential assassination. There is also a secondary list of the more than twenty-five thousand people who might be capable of carrying out such a killing.

  Despite his troubles in Nashville, John Hinckley does not make either list.

  Four days after his arrest, Hinckley enters Rocky’s Pawn Shop at 2018 East Elm Street in Dallas. There, in a strip mall whose tenants include a bail bondsman and a dive bar, he purchases two snub-nosed pistols of the same model. Its official name is the RG-14 .22-caliber revolver. In police parlance, the gun is known as the Saturday Night Special.

  The intensity of John Hinckley’s quest for the love of Jodie Foster ratchets up. His compulsion has now overwhelmed him.

  16

  SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

  WASHINGTON, DC

  JANUARY 20, 1981

  11:47 P.M.

  Ronald Reagan stares at the elephant in the room. It stands thirteen feet tall and measures twenty-seven feet from trunk to tail. It took thirteen four-inch bullets to kill him. The Fénykövi elephant, as the regal animal is known, is poised for battle in the center of this festive rotunda. Its flanks are draped in patriotic red, white, and blue bunting, making it the very symbol of the Republican Party.1

  The other symbol of the party stands at a lectern bearing the official seal of the president of the United States of America. Ronald Wilson Reagan gazes out over the hundreds of supporters dressed in formal wear who have come to celebrate his inauguration. He wears white tie and tails. Nancy Reagan, on his right, is draped in a white satin sheath that took a team of dressmakers four weeks to embroider. Her full-length Maximilian mink coat and alligator handbag are backstage, watched over by the Secret Service. Unbeknownst to the crowd, Nancy’s outfit for the evening costs close to twenty-five thousand dollars.2

  This is the Reagans’ ninth inaugural ball of the evening. And with midnight just moments away, they still have one more to go. The festivities began the previous night, at the inaugural gala organized by Frank Sinatra. Johnny Carson was the emcee, introducing performances by Sinatra and comedian Bob Hope, who poked fun at Reagan’s Hollywood days by joking that the new president “doesn’t know how to lie, exaggerate or cheat—he’s always had an agent for that!”

  Tonight is even more glamorous. Priced at a steep five hundred dollars a ticket, seats are in such demand that the press will compare these formally dressed men and women to “drunken soccer fans” as they battle for their places at the table, where swordfish and chateaubriand are washed down with California wine and Kentucky bourbon. Hundreds of corporate titans have flown in from all over the country—so many, in fact, that their private jets have disrupted normal flight patterns at Washington’s National Airport this morning. As limousines clog the city streets, California socialite and longtime Nancy Reagan confidante Betsy Bloomingdale actually gets out of her stretch limo to direct traffic at Dupont Circle. A mink stole draped around her shoulders, the fifty-eight-year-old Bloomingdale doesn’t have time for gridlock.

  Indeed, so many women have worn expensive furs to these inaugural balls that the press will report coatracks looking like “giant furry beasts.” The Washington caterer Ridgewells will serve four hundred thousand hors d’oeuvres at the various parties tonight. Lavish consumption is on display, something Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter would never have allowed.

  Throughout the night, Ronald Reagan remains unfazed. “I want to thank all of you,” he tells the crowd at the Smithsonian. His voice is growing hoarse after hours of speeches, but though he is just weeks away from turning seventy years old, the new president shows no signs of fatigue. “Without you there wouldn’t be this successful inaugural.”

  Four years ago, Jimmy Carter did not feel it appropriate to celebrate his inauguration with even one formal ball, let alone ten. No partying for the man from Plains. Instead, Carter’s 1977 inaugural address was somber, pointing out America’s limitations as a nation. The tone of pessimism and defeat that marked Carter’s first day in office came to define his entire presidency.

  If Ronald Reagan’s first day in office is any indication of what is to come, the United States of America is in for a far more upbeat presidency. He and Nancy spent last night at Blair House, the official state residence where presidents-elect sleep the night before their inauguration.3 The first couple is rested and ready to take full advantage of the celebration.

  The Reagans have been in Washington for a week, adapting to the capital’s routine after more than a year living out of suitcases on the campaign trail. With their new life comes intense public scrutiny. A litany of personal facts is finding their way into the media. Given his age, many wonder about Reagan’s health. Despite a medical history that includes a shattered femur suffered in a celebrity baseball game thirty years ago, the worst of his maladies right now is minor arthritis in his right thumb and chronic hay fever. He continues to work out each night, using a small exercise wheel before taking an evening shower. To some doctors, for a man about to enter his eighth decade, Reagan is an amazing physical specimen.

  In fact, the biggest physical problem Reagan has right now might be his hair color. It has become a national mystery. The president says he does not dye his dark hair, but many are skeptical.4

  There is no question that Ronald Reagan is a vain man. He is almost deaf in his r
ight ear, thanks to standing too close to gunfire while filming a series of movies about the Secret Service in the late 1940s. But Reagan refuses to wear a hearing aid. Also, he can get testy at times. Some of his campaign staff whisper about Irish rages. In one case, candidate Reagan became so annoyed with his speechwriters that he took off his glasses and threw them against the wall. Such outbursts are rare, but Reagan’s closest confidants know that when they see his jaw tighten, it is time to back off.

  The Reagans are often pedestrian in their tastes. Reagan’s favorite Christmas carol is “Silent Night,” and his favorite song is the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” He enjoys lasagna and hamburgers for dinner, followed by a dessert of brownies or carrot cake. When watching television, the Reagans prefer The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, shows built around wholesome values.

  Ronald Reagan’s political hero is no longer Franklin Delano Roosevelt; he’s been replaced by former Republican president Calvin Coolidge. “He [Coolidge] wasn’t a man with flamboyant looks or style, but he got things done in a quiet way,” Reagan will write of the man whose picture he will hang in the White House Cabinet Room. “He came into office after World War I facing a mountain of war debt, but instead of raising taxes, he cut the tax rate and government revenues increased, permitting him to eliminate the wartime debt.”

  This kind of analysis surprises observers in Washington, many of whom don’t think that Ronald Reagan has a first-rate intellect. He has long studied the nuances of domestic and foreign policy and possesses a stunning ability to recollect the most minute facts for the purposes of a speech or debate. But Reagan often hides his knowledge in order to present himself as a simple man of humble opinions, an image he believes makes him more appealing to regular voters.

  Yet Reagan does not pander. While many politicians use religion as a campaign theme, the Reagans rarely go to church, and the new president does not make an issue out of his belief in God. However, his spirituality does influence him. On October 11, 1979, Reagan sends a letter to a writer for a pro-life Catholic magazine, in response to an article about Reagan’s views on abortion. “To answer your questions; I have a very deep belief that interrupting a pregnancy means the taking of a human life. In our Judeo-Christian tradition, this can only be justified as a matter of self-defense.”