Attempted assassination of Gerald Ford in San Francisco


President Ford wincing at the sound of Moore’s gunfire
during the assassination attempt in San Francisco

Location: On Post Street in front of St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, California, United States
Date: September 22, 1975; 40 years ago; 3:30 p.m. (PDT)
Target: Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States
Attack type: Attempted assassination by gunshot
Weapons: .38 Special revolver
Deaths: 0
Injured: John Ludwig
Perpetrator: Sara Jane Moore
Defenders: Oliver Sipple, Timothy Hettrich, San Francisco Police Department, United States Secret Service

On September 22, 1975, Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford in San Francisco. Moore fired two gunshots at President Ford, both of which missed.

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Background

Moore had been evaluated by the Secret Service earlier in 1975, but agents decided that she posed no danger to the president. She was detained by police on an illegal handgun charge the day before the assassination attempt but was released. The police confiscated her .44 caliber revolver and 113 rounds of ammunition.

President Gerald Ford was traveling to San Francisco to address a World Affairs Council.

Assassination attempt


This photograph was taken one second after the
assassination attempt. From this vantage point,
Ford is standing directly behind the man wearing
the spotted necktie.


The bulletproof trenchcoat that Ford began wearing
in public in October 1975 due to two assassination
attempts targeting him during the previous month

At 3:30 p.m., after speaking to the World Affairs Council, Ford emerged from the Post Street entrance of the St. Francis Hotel in Union Square, then walked toward his limousine. Before boarding the vehicle, he stopped and waved to the crowd that had gathered across the street.

Sara Jane Moore was standing in the crowd 40 feet away from Ford when she fired two shots with her .38 Special revolver. The first shot missed Ford's head by 5 inches and passed through the wall above the doorway Ford had just walked out of. A bystander named Oliver Sipple heard the sound of the first shot and dove at Moore, grabbing her shooting arm before she pulled the trigger a second time. The second shot struck John Ludwig, a 42-year-old taxi driver standing inside the hotel, in the groin. Ludwig survived.

San Francisco Police Capt. Timothy Hettrich grabbed Moore and wrestled the gun from her hand. Many other officers immediately joined in subduing Moore. In the meantime, the president’s Secret Service team pushed Ford into his waiting limousine where the Secret Service and Donald Rumsfeld lay on top of him. The limousine raced to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) where Ford boarded Air Force One and, after being joined by the First Lady, flew back to Washington, D.C.

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Sara Jane Moore

Occupation: Accountant
Criminal status: Paroled on December 31, 2007
Criminal charge: Attempted assassination of U.S. president Gerald Ford
Penalty: Life sentence (served 32 years)

Sara Jane Moore (née Kahn; born February 15, 1930) is an American criminal who attempted to assassinate US President Gerald Ford in 1975. She was given a life sentence for the attempted assassination and was released from prison on December 31, 2007, after serving 32 years. Moore and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme are the only two women to have attempted to assassinate an American president; both of their attempts were on Gerald Ford and both took place in California within three weeks of one another.

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Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme


Fromme as a high-school
junior in 1965

Lynette Alice "Squeaky" Fromme (born October 22, 1948) is an American criminal who was a member of the Manson family, a cult led by Charles Manson. Though not involved in the Tate–LaBianca murders for which the Manson family is best known, she attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975. For that crime, she was sentenced to life in prison. She was paroled from prison on August 14, 2009, after serving approximately 34 years. She published a book about her life in 2018.

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Attempt to contact Jimmy Page

Prior to a Led Zeppelin concert in Long Beach in 1975, Fromme knocked on the hotel door of Danny Goldberg, vice-president of the band's record label, Swan Song Records. Fromme, described as frantic and with a nervous tic marring her face, asked to meet with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page to warn him, claiming to have foreseen the future and wishing to warn Page of imminent "evil" which she believed might take place that night at the concert. Goldberg stated that she could not see Page until the following night, to which Fromme responded "tomorrow night will probably be too late". After a long discussion, Goldberg agreed to deliver a message to Page if she wrote it down. Fromme was subsequently escorted away against her will and the note was ultimately burned and never read. A week later, Goldberg saw Fromme on the television news after she had attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford.

Assassination attempt on President Ford
Main article: Attempted assassination of Gerald Ford in Sacramento


The Colt M1911 .45-caliber pistol used in Fromme's
attempt to assassinate President Gerald Ford

On the morning of September 5, 1975, Fromme went to Sacramento's Capitol Park, ostensibly to plead with President Gerald Ford about the plight of the California redwoods, dressed in a red robe and armed with a Colt M1911 .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol. The pistol's magazine was loaded with four rounds, but there was no round in the chamber. When Fromme pointed the gun at Ford she was immediately restrained by Secret Service agent Larry Buendorf. She managed to say a few sentences to the on-scene cameras while being handcuffed, emphasizing that the gun "didn't go off". In 1980, Fromme told The Sacramento Bee that she had deliberately ejected the round from her weapon's chamber before leaving home that morning, and investigators later found a round on her bathroom floor.

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