Failed Presidential Assassinations
The recent assassination attempt against Donald Trump is not the only failed attempt against current or former Presidents.
Andrew Jackson – 1835
Jackson attacks assailant with his cane
In January 1835, an unemployed house painter named Richard Lawrence pulled out a pistol and fired at President Andrew Jackson, who was attending a funeral. The gun misfired. Lawrence pulled out a second pistol. Jackson charged the assailant with his walking cane. The second gun misfired, and Jackson whipped the attacker with his cane before the attacker was arrested.
Lawrence, originally born in England, was mentally unstable and believed he was a long-lost heir to the British throne and that Jackson alone stood in the way of his claiming his crown. Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.
The 1830s was an era of extreme partisanship which may have affected Lawrence. Earlier in January, South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun reportedly declared that Jackson was “a Caesar who ought to have a Brutus.” At the end of his Presidency in 1837, Jackson was asked if he had any regrets. “Yes,” he replied. “I regret I was unable to shoot Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun.”
Teddy Roosevelt - 1912
Roosevelt’s Bloody Shirt
Teddy Roosevelt (“TR”) ascended to the Presidency in 1901 upon McKinley’s assassination. He won re-election in 1904 and declined to run again in 1908. TR challenged his successor, William Taft, in the 1912 Republican primaries. After Taft won the Republican nomination, Roosevelt mounted a third-party challenge. In the general election, Taft and TR split the Republican vote, allowing Woodrow Wilson to be elected President.
In October, 1912, Roosevelt was staying at a Milwaukee hotel where he planned to give a speech. Former saloonkeeper John Schrank followed Roosevelt into the hotel and shot him. The bullet lodged in TRR’s chest after hitting his steel eyeglass case and a 50-page copy of his speech. The crowd was ready to pummel the assassin when Roosevelt, who was still standing, directed the crowd to leave him to the police.
Schrank claimed that he was opposed to a third term. He also said that William McKinley’s ghost had visited him in a dream and told him to avenge his assassination by killing Roosevelt. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and remained institutionalized for the rest of his life.
Amazingly, Roosevelt, despite bleeding from the chest, gave his speech entitled, “Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual.” He started the speech with this comment: “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.” He spoke for over an hour! Click here to view the text of his speech. And click here for a short video from the history channel.
Doctors decided it was less dangerous to leave the bullet in place than to remove it, and TR carried the bullet within him for the rest of his life.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt - 1933
February 15, 1933: Seventeen days before Roosevelt’s first presidential inauguration, an Italian immigrant named Giuseppe Zangara fired five shots at Roosevelt in Miami, Florida. His shots missed the president-elect but mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak and injured four other people.
Cermak died 19 days later. This line is on his tomb: “I’m glad it was me, not you.” He allegedly said this after Zangara shot him.
Zangara pleaded guilty to the murder of Cermak and was executed in the electric chair on March 20, 1933. His final statement was, “Viva l'Italia! Goodbye to all poor peoples everywhere! ... Push the button! Go ahead, push the button!” Some believe that his motivation was anti-capitalist. Later, conspiracy theorists hypothesized that Cermak was the target and this was a gang kill related to Chicago mobsters.
The 1960 and 1993 TV series, “The Untouchables” had episodes where Eliot Ness tries to foil Zangara, focusing on the theory that this was a mobster hit job. Max Allan Collins’ 1983 novel True Detective also covered this incident as a mob hit.
Harry Truman - 1950
In 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists started an uprising supporting independence from the United States. The Federal government used military force to suppress this rebellion.
Two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, attempted to kill President Truman after the failed uprising. Truman lived in Blair House while the White House underwent major renovations.
The two approached different corners of Blair House. Before gaining entrance, the Secret Service and Capitol police engaged them in a gunfight. Officer Leslie Coffelt was mortally wounded, but not before he was able to kill Torresola, one of the attackers. Collazo was sentenced to death, which Truman changed to life in prison. President Carter released him in 1979.
Richard Nixon – “The Assassination of Richard Nixon” – A 2004 film
Starring Sean Penn, Don Cheadle, Jack Thompson, and Naomi Watts, this film was based on Samuel Byck’s plot to kill Nixon in 1974. Byck was a down-on-his-luck salesman who became obsessed with Nixon. After hearing about a helicopter pilot who did a fly-by of the White House, he decided to hijack an airplane and crash it into the White House. During the attack, Byck killed a policeman and a pilot before an officer shot and wounded him. Byck then committed suicide.
Click the nearby link to view the trailer.
Gerald Ford – September, 1975
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, wanted to bring attention to pollution and its effect on redwood trees. Ford was in Sacramento, California, walking towards the State Capitol building, shaking hands with onlookers. Ms. Fromme walked up to him and pulled a pistol. She was inexperienced with guns; the chamber was empty. She was convicted to life imprisonment and released in 2009, after Ford’s death.
Click here to view an interview with Squeaky Froome.
Just 17 days later, after a speech, Ford stopped to wave to the crowd while walking toward his limousine. From 40 feet away, Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at him, barely missing him. Moore claimed she wanted to spark a revolution. As with Fromme, she was convicted to life imprisonment and released in 2007, after Ford’s death.
Click here to view an interview with Sara Jan Moore.
Ronald Reagan – 1981
John Hinckley Jr. shot President Reagan in March 1981. Hinckley was seeking fame to impress actress Jodie Foster, with whom he had a fixation after watching her in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver. In that film, the lead character, played by Robert De Niro, planned to assassinate a Presidential candidate.
Hinckley learned that Reagan was speaking at a Washington DC Hotel. The morning of the assassination attempt, he wrote a letter to Jodie Foster:
“Over the past seven months I’ve left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times, I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. ... The reason I’m going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you.”
When Reagan emerged from the hotel, Hinckley was just a few feet away in a crowd of spectators. He fired all six shots in his revolver, wounding press secretary James Brady, police officer Thomas Delahanty, and secret service agent Timothy McCarthy. The last bullet ricocheted off the limo and hit Reagan in the chest.
The bullet lodged an inch from the President’s heart, and he lost more than half his blood volume.
Reagan acted with grace, courage, and humor. Lying on a gurney in the trauma bay, with a chest tube draining blood from his side, Reagan said to his wife, Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”
Just before the Doctors put Reagan under for surgery, he cracked: “I hope you are all Republicans.”
Dr. Joseph Giordano, a Democrat, replied: “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”
A snipped of his first speech to Congress after the incident - he quotes a letter from a second grader, and thanks the secret service man who placed himself between the shooter and himself:
click here
As for Hinckley, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. A judge released him from confinement in 2022.
Donald Trump – 2024
And just recently, former President and current Presidential candidate Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt.
The shooter was able to scale a rooftop with a clear view of Trump from under 200 feet away. The shooter, Thomas Crooks, fired eight shots, killing one man, wounding two others, and hit Trump in the ear. Secret Service sharpshooters killed the assailant.
After the shot, Trump stood and defiantly raised his fist.
As of this moment, Crook’s motives have not been established. The head of the secret service resigned after scrutiny of security lapses.
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There have been four successful assassinations and eight unsuccessful ones listed here. Being President is a dangerous job - doing the math, they have about a 25% chance of being attacked.