Twenty-eight years ago today, Ronald Reagan exited the Washington Hilton Hotel after speaking to some AFL–CIO representatives. It had been a fairly routine presidential appearance, but what happened next was far from routine.
Reagan was fired upon by would–be presidential assassin John Hinckley Jr. A bullet pierced the president's lung, missing his heart by less than an inch. He was rushed to George Washington University Hospital, where he underwent surgery and spent the next two weeks recovering from his wound. Three other people, including the president's press secretary, still lay wounded on the ground, as the presidential limousine made its way to the hospital.
In hindsight, it's hard to tell if Reagan secured his second term that day. His economic policies suffered something of a setback in the 1982 midterm elections, but he went on to be re–elected by a landslide in 1984. The way he handled the attack on his life, just shy of 10 weeks into his presidency, may have had a lot to do with it.
The impression he made on the public during the most trying of personal circumstances — saying to his wife, "Honey, I forgot to duck" or saying to his surgeons, "Please tell me you're all Republicans" — was decidedly endearing.In the previous 20 years, Americans had become accustomed to the shootings of public figures — the murders of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King in the 1960s, the attempts on George Wallace and Gerald Ford in the 1970s and the slaying of ex–Beatle John Lennon a few months before Reagan was shot, among others — but the attack on Reagan shocked most Americans.
His gentle, good humor in the aftermath of an horrific experience was reassuring, even for those who disagreed with him.
3 comments:
What I remember most about Reagan getting shot, is that My dad had just told me earlier about the curse of presidents being first elected in a year ending in zero. I told him, "Ah no one will try to kill Reagan". He said, "You never know, the curse is a historical fact." Thank goodness he was wrong.
Well, Otin, I've heard the story about the curse, but I wouldn't call the curse a fact.
What IS a fact, though, is that every president who was elected in a year ending in a zero between 1840 and 1960 died in office.
But that curse ended with Kennedy.
Reagan was shot, but he survived his time in the White House. And the president who was elected in 2000 didn't even come close to dying in office -- the worst that I'm aware of is that he got a couple of shoes thrown at him.
And, actually, the curse said nothing -- as I recall -- about applying to presidents who were FIRST elected in a year ending in a zero. Most of them were, but President McKinley (who was assassinated in 1901) was first elected in 1896 and then was re-elected in 1900.
And Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to his third term in 1940. He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage three months into his fourth term.
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