Lincoln Writes to Trump and Remembers President Ford

by Abraham Lincoln  

Dear President Trump,

I’m relieved you survived another assassination attempt, your third, and honored that you invoked my name as another activist president who enraged wicked enemies and compelled them to attack. Alas, unlike you, I didn’t have a phalanx of dedicated secret service agents protecting me at the Ford Theatre just a few days after the end of our hellish Civil War. My negligent guard, a police officer, instead of blocking the entrance to our presidential box, had left and was drinking in a tavern next door.

In addition to celebrating your good health, I regret that I must ask you to stop blaming millions of fellow citizens, who have criticized you, for the criminal acts of disturbed and solitary gunmen. Even leaders much less controversial than you and I have been attacked. Presidents James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy perished, and gentlemanly Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan both survived. None of them nor I insulted women, political opponents, and leaders of our allies in remotely the ways that you have. Please try to behave in the manner of a proper commander in chief.

In a related matter, I post below a 1975 account by a lad of twenty-two who witnessed and dashed home to write about the first of two unsuccessful attempts on the life of Gerald Ford, who was blessed with “decency and integrity.” The nature of the job puts a president in danger, not what comes out of his mouth.

Sincerely,

Abraham Lincoln

Gerald Ford Assassination Attempt

By George Thomas Clark

Blinds were drawn over the windows on the east side of the Senator Hotel, keeping out the glare of the mid-morning sun.  Some of the windows facing south, overlooking Capitol Park, were uncovered.  I looked up at those innocuous openings that dot the hotel’s frontage and pictured a man with a gun lurking in the rooms behind them, having eluded a sweep by secret service agents.  I thought about Lee Harvey Oswald high up in a Dallas building.

In the park agents and police conferred by walkie-talkies as they stationed themselves.  Some faced the gathering crowd, acknowledging their identity, while others stood behind spectators and tried to assume a casual appearance.  A few stumbled through shrubbery lining the Capitol driveway from L Street and checked each branch that could hide an assailant.  One agent cranked his neck up and scoured trees.  These security measures must have prompted some to think about recent American history: since 1963 John F. Kennedy, Medger Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and George Wallace had been shot.  Five died and one was crippled.  It’s natural to think about political violence.

Most of the two or three thousand spectators probably didn’t expect anything unusual, though.  It was a nice morning.  A light breeze sifted through Capitol Park.  The temperature was warm, not the oven assured that afternoon.  I stationed myself along the walkway to the Capitol, about forty feet that side of L Street, purposely standing behind several short people so I could personally see a president for the first time.

“Here he comes,” several people shouted, and many applauded.

President Ford exited the Senator Hotel and, inside a phalanx of bodyguards, reporters, and photographers, crossed L Street.  When I saw his face the first time, it registered immediately, looking like his television image, but he seemed shorter than six feet, probably because he was surrounded by the largest agents.  The group walked rapidly, and Ford reached into the crowd and shook hands at random, always moving toward the Capitol, saying, “Nice to meet you.”  Passing nearby he looked behind the crowd and gave someone a smile and a nod and moved on.  One woman anxiously stretched out her hand and Ford touched it as he passed, bringing a near hysterical series of squeals from the woman, like the teenybopper kissed by a rock star, an unnatural, unhealthy sound, as if summoned by her illusion of touching an exalted being.  The wedge moved on.  Agents behind the crowd kept pace with the presidential escort.  One ran ahead of the wedge, his back bent, head at waist level, where a gun would be held, and examined the hands of people waiting to greet the president.

Ford was about twenty feet past me, toward the Capitol, when I decided to move behind the crowd and follow him.  Moments later, the loud, alarm-etched voice of an agent ordered, “Let’s go, everybody out of the way.”  As reconstructed by those within a yard of the president, a young woman had pried between two women and pointed a pistol at Ford.  She was immediately subdued by agent Larry Buendorf, who grabbed her arm and wrenched it behind her back, turning her away from the president before disarming her.  Like most in the crowd at that moment, I didn’t know exactly what had happened.  My first thought was to hit the deck but didn’t because I hadn’t heard any shots.  Instead, I ran up closer to the Capitol and saw Ford, pale and bewildered, being ushered by four or five agents toward the Capitol steps.  He was jogging, and inside the cordon of blockers he reminded me of Gerald Ford as a college football player.

Once apparent Ford was safe, the crowd’s attention shifted to the young woman in custody; she had been handcuffed and was being held by a tree near L Street.  One tall policeman squatted, in battle stance, cocked his stick, and said, “All right, back, everybody back.”  People nevertheless closed in to get a look at the woman, later identified as twenty-seven-year-old Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson.  She was wearing a floor length red velvet dress, with a matching bandanna around her waist, and carried a red handbag.  Upon being overpowered, she reportedly said, “Easy fellows, don’t pummel me, it didn’t go off, it didn’t go off.”

Subsequent investigation revealed Fromme carried a .45 caliber pistol in a leg holster underneath her dress instead of in her handbag as first believed.  The pistol was loaded with a clip containing four bullets, but she, probably because of inexperience with firearms, had neglected to pull a lever at the rear of the barrel that would have placed a bullet inside the chamber and readied it to fire.  Many witnesses have stated they heard a click as Fromme pointed the gun.  She probably would have been able to shoot Ford if the gun had been activated.  The .45 is a cumbersome weapon accurate only at short distances and therefore not employed by law enforcement agencies.  However, for point-blank targets it’s deadly and known for the wide hole it leaves upon exiting.

Following the assassination attempt, President Ford, ironically, spoke to the California legislature about crime.  He appeared calm as he called for mandatory sentences of a “pre-determined” length in order to “deter criminals” from violence.

Perhaps Ford will act in favor of an increasing number of American citizens who want handguns made illegal.  He said a fraction of the public, through crime, brings terror to millions of victims.

Autobiography of George Thomas Clark on Amazon