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

President Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...

, both of which missed.

Background

Sara Jane Moore had been evaluated by the

Secret Service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...

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 .44 caliber is a family of large-caliber firearm cartridges and firearms, particularly revolvers. The most well-known is the .44 Magnum which uses a bullet that is actually .429 inches in diameter. Though less common than the smaller .38 caliber ...

revolver A revolver (also called a wheel gun) is a repeating handgun that has at least one barrel and uses a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold up to six roun ...

and 113 rounds of ammunition. President Gerald Ford was traveling to San Francisco to address a World Affairs Council.

Assassination attempt

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 The .38 Special, also commonly known as .38 S&W Special (not to be confused with .38 S&W), .38 Smith & Wesson Special, .38 Spl, .38 Spc, (pronounced "thirty-eight special"), or 9x29mmR is a rimmed, centerfire cartridge designed by Smith & ...

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

team pushed Ford into his waiting limousine where the Secret Service and

Donald Rumsfeld Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under Presi ...

lay on top of him. The limousine raced to

San Francisco International Airport San Francisco International Airport is an international airport in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County, south of Downtown San Francisco. It has flights to points throughout North America and is a major gateway to Europe, the Middle E ...

(SFO) where Ford boarded

Air Force One Air Force One is the official air traffic control designated call sign for a United States Air Force aircraft carrying the president of the United States. In common parlance, the term is used to denote U.S. Air Force aircraft modified and used ...

and, after being joined by the First Lady, flew back to Washington, D.C. Moore explained in a 2009 interview that her motive was to spark a violent revolution in order to bring change to America.

Aftermath

Sara Jane Moore

Moore pleaded guilty to charges of attempted

assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...

on December 12, 1975. The following month, on January 15, she was sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

. On December 31, 2007, at the age of 77, Moore was released on parole.

Oliver Sipple

Oliver Sipple was commended at the scene by Secret Service and the San Francisco Police for his actions; the media portrayed him as a national hero. Three days after the assassination attempt in San Francisco, Sipple received a letter from President Ford praising him for his heroic actions. All of the media publicity about him was not without controversy, however. Upon realizing that Sipple was gay, the media began broadcasting this information. That became the first time that Sipple's parents and family found out that Sipple was homosexual, as he had been hiding it from them. After learning about his sexual orientation, much of his family, including his parents,

disowned Disownment occurs when a parent renounces or no longer accepts a child as a family member, usually due to reprehensible actions leading to serious emotional consequences. Different from giving a child up for adoption, it is a social and interpers ...

him, and were subsequently estranged from him, but later were reconciled. Sipple died in 1989.

President Ford

First Lady Betty Ford greets President Gerald Ford for the trip back to Washington

After President Ford was rushed to the SFO tarmac in his limousine, he quickly boarded

. Before Ford could depart on his return trip to the nation's capital, however, the plane had to wait for his wife Betty, the

First Lady First lady is an unofficial title usually used for the wife, and occasionally used for the daughter or other female relative, of a non-monarchical A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state fo ...

, who was carrying out her own schedule of events on the

Peninsula A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on all ...

. In addition to the San Francisco incident, Ford had escaped unharmed from a previous assassination attempt in Sacramento, California, which occurred 17 days earlier on September 5, 1975. In response to the two occurrences in the same month, President Ford subsequently wore a

bulletproof Bulletproofing is the process of making an object capable of stopping a bullet or similar high velocity projectiles (e.g. shrapnel). The term bullet resistance is often preferred because few, if any, practical materials provide complete protectio ...

trench coat in public, beginning in October 1975. Ford, who had succeeded to the presidency upon the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974, ran for election in 1976. He lost to Jimmy Carter, by 297–240 in the electoral vote, and did not run for public office again. In 2006, Ford died from natural causes.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ford assassination attempt 1970s in politics 1970s in San Francisco 1975 crimes in the United States 1975 in American politics 1975 in California 1975 in politics 1975 in San Francisco Attempted assassinations of presidents of the United States Crime in San Francisco Crimes in California History of women in California LGBT history in San Francisco LGBT portrayals in mass media Politics of San Francisco Presidency of Gerald Ford San Francisco Police Department September 1975 events in the United States Union Square, San Francisco United States Secret Service Women and death World Affairs Councils