October 3, 2024 • 31 mins
Did Lynette Fromme really intend to kill Gerald Ford, or was she just trying to draw attention to the environment or Charles Manson? Gerald Ford emerges from the wreckage of the Nixon administration to become the first president to not appear on a presidential ballot.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views
and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host,
producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it five.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
At twelve twenty five pm on September twelfth, one week
after Lynette From's assassination attempt, President Gerald Ford arrived at
Lambert Field in Saint Louis. He was scheduled to spend
five hours on the ground, during which time he would
do a television interview, make an appearance at a thousand
dollars a couple Republican fundraiser, and give a speech to
(00:38):
a regional White House conference on domestic and economic affairs.
The main event, though, was a speech to the National
Baptist Convention USA, the nation's largest black religious organization. Ford
was concerned about his lack of popularity among black citizens.
In the speech, he said, among other things, that black
(01:00):
Americans were quote competing in our society more than ever
before and quote America is better for it. He also
observed that quote equality in the true spirit of our
founding fathers is not yet a full reality for every American.
I am sorry to say. The speech was scheduled for
(01:21):
two pm at Keel Auditorium. At twelve fifty a three
year police veteran named Thomas kal Katera was on a
catwalk above the auditorium floor when he saw about thirty
feet away a man standing on a stairway leading down
from the third floor, about one hundred and fifty feet
(01:41):
from where Ford would be speaking in just over an hour.
He was holding something in his hand. Kl Katara thought
he might be a maintenance worker and called out to him.
The man looked at cal Kata. Cal Kata took in
the guy's appearance, white, thirty to thirty five years old,
six feet maybe one hundred and seventy five pounds. He
(02:02):
wore a medium length black wig, a white short sleeved shirt,
and dark trousers. Kaw Katara could now see that in
his left hand he held a forty five caliber automatic pistol.
Kl Katara started after him. The man ran, kal Katara
chased him across the crowded convention floor until the man
(02:23):
ducked into a room. Kaw Kata, close on his heels,
burst through the door to find the room empty. There
were several exit doors. The man could have taken any
of them. He had escaped. Two sixteen man mobile reserve
units were brought in to join the search of the
maze like auditorium. They performed a methodical search but failed
(02:47):
to find the man cal Katara had seen. Daniel P.
Horgan Keel, auditorium's assistant manager, was not surprised, quote, if
I wanted to hide, there's no way you could find me.
A few minutes later, there were reports of a man
on the roof of a parking lot just south of
the auditorium, but police found no one there other than
(03:09):
an elderly parking attendant. Also that day, six anonymous bomb
threats were phoned in, including four claiming to have put
explosives and kill auditorium. The police had already swept the building,
so this did not prove to be a big concern.
At five point thirty two, Air Force one departed Lambert
(03:29):
Field with Gerald Ford on board. Upon hearing the plane
had lifted off a plane closed, officer slumped in a
chair at the command post in police headquarters. Don't you
feel fifty pounds? Later, he said to no one in particular,
I'm Toby.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Ball, and I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and this is rip current.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
My follow Americans, Our long national nightmare is over.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Episode five thirty eight. The incident at Key Auditorium did
not cause a stir in nationally. The New York Times
referred to it in passing as Saint Louis police report
of a man allegedly carrying a handgun in a larger
(04:34):
article about Ford's commitment to continue engaging with crowds despite
Lynette's atempt in Sacramento. In a prepared statement, Ford said.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Only by going around the country to meetings like this,
by meeting people face to face and listening to what
they have to say, can you really learn how people
feel and what they think. Doing this is an important
part of my job. I have no intention of abdicating
that responsibility. I have no intention of allowing the government
of the people to be held hostage at the point.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Of a gun.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
On the same day, The Times ran an article titled
Felon admits guilt in threat on Ford. The four paragraph
article actually touched on two stories. The first was about
the guilty plea entered by thirty five year old Thomas d.
Elbert for leaving a phone message in mid August for
the Secret Service threatening the President's life. The last paragraph
(05:28):
related that the Sacramento County District Attorney had determined that
Sandra Good hadn't broken any laws by compiling a list
of people who had been supposedly sentenced to death by
the International People's Court of Retribution. This assessment that Sandra
did not pose a real threat echoes a question that
still remains about Lynette's attempt on Ford. How serious were
(05:49):
Lynette's intentions. The gun had not fired, was the bullet
unchambered by accident? Was she merely trying to get attention
without actually harming the president? Or was she really trying
to kill Ford and didn't pull it off. In the
following clip, television reporter Steve Swatt, sitting on a desk,
holds a black pistol in his hand and describes to
(06:09):
the camera how Lynnette's gun worked.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
This is the type of gun that was pointed at
the president, a forty five caliber automatic. The pistols magazine
or clip contained four cartridges, but merely loading the clip
into the gun is not enough to fire it. Ms
From allegedly tried to fire the gun without pulling back
a mechanism which forces a cartridge into the chamber. Had
(06:34):
this been done, would have fired.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
As a member of the Manson family, Lynette had become
familiar with guns. The following clip is from the film
Manson nineteen seventy three. The scene, shot after Manson's imprisonment
shows Lynette holding a rifle and talking to the camera.
Speaker 7 (06:56):
You have to make love with it.
Speaker 8 (06:59):
You have to know it.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
You have to know every part of it. And to
know you know it is to know it so that
you could pick it up any second and shoot. Later.
Ask whether they feared a police raid to confiscate their guns, Lynette,
along with Sandra Good and a third Manson girl, had
this response, if you want.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
It here it is, come and get it.
Speaker 8 (07:27):
That's very hurried because it won't be here. Wrong, your motherfuckers.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Her intention that morning is still an open question. From
biographer Jess braven.
Speaker 9 (07:40):
One, She's been kind of ambiguous about whether she wanted
to kill him or not. What seems the most plausible
explanation is that she wasn't sure. I mean, she hadn't
ruled it out, but hadn't decided that she was going
to do it for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
From herself hasn't been consistent in her statements in many ways, though,
it seems as though her intent is not as important
as this question, regardless of outcome. Why had Lynette chosen
to point a gun at the president?
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Why?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Gerald Ford? Again, the answer isn't completely clear and probably
includes several factors. One is her continued allegiance to Manson.
Manson hated Nixon for some reason. When Manson wrote Nixon's name,
he spelled it with two x's.
Speaker 9 (08:21):
From her point of view, he's the heir of Richard Nixon.
She hates Nixon wasn't the only one to really hate Nixon,
but she had a particular reason too, because Nixon had
said negative things about Manson. During Manson's criminal trial in
Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Nixon had mentioned Manson while talking about how the media had, however,
unintentionally made heroes out of criminals. A second reason could
be that Lynette was trying to bring Manson more attention.
She and Sandra Good had spent considerable time and effort
trying to persuade any official they could to allow them
to visit Manson while he was at the Fulsome State prison.
(08:57):
These attempts were unsuccessful. In nineteen seventy four, Manson was
transferred for seven months to the Vacaville Medical Unit of
the California Penal System for mental health treatment. He returned
to FULSOM in November of seventy four, but was assaulted
by two other inmates in May of seventy five. In June,
he was transferred to San Quentin for his own protection.
(09:19):
It may have seemed to Lynette that Manson was fading
from public consciousness. With this attempt, she could and did
bring Manson's name back into the news with another shocking
act of potential violence. Finally, as we saw last episode,
Lynette and Sandra had become fixated on environmental degradation. In fact,
this was the reason Lynette gave specifically that the redwoods
(09:41):
were endangered. Lynette initially claimed that environmentalism was behind her attempt,
but later she would say that she was trying to
draw more attention to Manson. But maybe the best way
to understand Lynette's targeting Afford is that he was a
symbol of the establishment that she and Manson both rejected.
Speaker 9 (10:00):
She didn't really have much of an impression about Ford
as a person. I mean, at one point she sort
of just referred to me as just sort of a robot.
I mean, she just sort of sees him as a
symbolic representation of the establishment in the country and industry,
and all the bad things going on in her view
in the country.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Looking back fifty years after the fact, it's hard to
imagine anyone trying to kill Gerald Ford. Of all the presidents,
he seems to have gone down in popular perception as
an honorable but forgettable president whose main achievement was soothing
the country after the trauma of Watergate. A second impression
(10:44):
might be chevy Chase's depiction of Ford as a hapless
klutz on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Let's take a look at the recent popularity pauls.
Speaker 7 (10:52):
Shall we.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
This is ironic as Ford was probably the most decorated
athletes ever to occupy the White House. Though he may
be the least remembered president since World War Two, he
inherited a unique and very difficult situation. Nixon's resignation didn't
end the problems of Watergate. Ford had to tread carefully.
(11:17):
Here is Ford at his swearing in ceremony.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our
constitution works.
Speaker 10 (11:32):
Our great Republic is a government of laws and not
of man. Here the people rule, but there is a
higher power, by whatever name, We honor him who ordains
not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.
(11:54):
As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more
painful and more poison than those of foreign wars, let
us restore the golden rule to our political process, and
let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Gerald Ford is the only person to ascend to the
presidency without being elected as either president or vice president.
How did this anomaly occur? Mostly due to the historic
corruption of the Richard Nixon White House. The Nixon administration
was so corrupt that his own Attorney General, Elliot Richardson,
(12:37):
had to force the vice president, a former governor of
Maryland named Spiro Agnew, to resign before Nixon was impeached.
The optics of impeaching Nixon and then immediately impeaching his
successor were not tenable. Agnew, among other things, had been
engaged in the most straightforward kind of political corruption, receiving
(12:59):
kickback contracts awarded to companies doing business with the state,
and even to Baltimore County when he served as county executive.
Any argument that this corruption did not extend to his
time as vice president was rendered moot by the testimony
of a man named Lester Mattz, who, as owner of
an engineering firm, had not only kicked back five percent
(13:22):
of agnew arranged contracts dating back to his Baltimore County days,
but it actually met with Agnew at the White House
and handed him ten thousand dollars in cash. Attorney General
Richardson had Agnew backed into a corner, and the Vice
President submitted his resignation to Nixon on October ninth, nineteen
(13:43):
seventy three. It's a fascinating story that you can hear
on the podcast bag Man. The next day, October tenth,
Nixon needed to move to name a new vice president.
His nominee would then need to be approved by Congress,
then controlled by the Democrats. Nixon himself was under legal
(14:04):
pressure as he was negotiating with Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox
over the release of tapes of Oval Office meetings. Though
Nixon did not believe that the collection of events that
we now know as Watergate threatened his ability to continue
as president, times were tense. In his speech announcing his
nomination afford to be the new president, Nixon laid out
(14:27):
the criteria he used to make his decision.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
Let me tell you what the criteria were that I
had in mind. First, and above all, the individual who
serves as vice president must be qualified to be president.
And second, the individual who serves as vice president of
the United States must be one who shares the views
(14:52):
of the President on the critical issues of foreign policy
and national defense, which is so important if we are
play our great role, our destined role to keep peace
in the world. And Third, at this particular time, when
we have the executive in the hands of one party
(15:15):
and the Congress controlled by another party, it is vital
that the vice President of the United States be an
individual who can work with members of both parties in
the Congress in getting approval or those programs of the
administration which we consider our vital for the national interest.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Nixon wanted to name John Connolly, who he greatly respected.
Connolly was a conservative Democrat who had been John F.
Kennedy's secretary of the Navy before leaving to become governor
of Texas. He was sitting beside Kennedy when Kennedy was
assassinated in Dallas and was wounded by the so called
magic bullet. He served for a year as Nixon's Treasury secretary,
(16:06):
and then resigned to support Nixon's nineteen seventy two re
election campaign with the organization Democrats for Nixon. Connolly met
the first two criteria, but advisors told Nixon that he
would not be confirmed in the House of Representatives. Disappointed,
Nixon looked at the remaining field of possibilities and decided
(16:27):
on Ford. Nixon had known Ford since nineteen forty eight,
when both men had been in the House of Representatives.
Ford joined a group of junior House members that Nixon
had helped to organize, called the Chowder and Marching Club.
Nixon had hinted to Ford before his runs for president
in nineteen sixty and nineteen sixty eight that he would
(16:48):
consider him as a running mate. He didn't follow through, though,
in fact, Nixon did not think highly of Ford's abilities.
Hr Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, believed that the House
members knew Ford well enough that the thought of him
as president would prevent them from impeaching Nixon. Secretary of
(17:09):
State Henry Kissinger was similarly underwhelmed, but Nixon had decided.
Two things made the choice cazier. First, Nixon didn't believe
that he'd have to leave office, so Ford would never
be president. Second, Ford said that he'd retire in January
of nineteen seventy seven, when the new president was sworn in.
(17:31):
Ford wouldn't run for president in nineteen seventy six, even
though Nixon wouldn't be eligible having served two terms. This
would allow Nixon's favorite John Connolly to have the inside
track to the Republican nomination. On October twelfth, Nixon nominated
Ford as his new vice president. On November twenty seventh,
(17:53):
the Senate approved him by a vote of ninety two
to three. On December sixth, the House followed suit. He
was sworn in immediately following his confirmation by the House
of Representatives.
Speaker 11 (18:07):
Mister President, Members of the Congress, and distinguished guests, I
have the high personal honor of presenting to you a
dear friend and former Holly, whom we shall oh miss,
(18:29):
but whom we all congratulate, the Vice President of the
United States.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Nine months later, on August ninth, nineteen seventy four, after
Nixon resigned from office, Ford was again sworn in, this
time as the thirty eighth President of the United States.
He would assume an office that had been severely damaged
by the corruption of the Nixon administration. In trying to
(18:57):
restore honor to the post, he would have to fail
a question of what to do about Richard Nixon after
the break. Gerald Ford became the President of the United
(19:17):
States after Richard Nixon resigned in the face of congressional
hearings that had revealed the corruption within his administration. If
this was not enough of a challenge, he was also
the first man to hold the office without being elected
on a presidential ticket.
Speaker 7 (19:35):
The nineteen seventies was a very difficult time to be president,
and Ford was in an unenviable situation inheriting what was
really a wounded presidency after Richard Nixon's resignation. My name's
Janik Mishkowski. I'm a presidential historian and I teach at
the Florida Institute of Technology. I've written a book on
(19:57):
Gerald Ford's presidency called Yer Old Ford and the Challenges
of the nineteen seventies. Nobody trusted the president anymore because
a president Richard Nixon had been caught lying and was
forced to resign in disgrace.
Speaker 12 (20:13):
Therefore, I shall resign the presidency affected that noon tomorrow.
Vice President Ford we'll be swelling in as president at
that hour in this office.
Speaker 7 (20:27):
So Ford inherited an office that really was tainted. And
you have to even go back further in time than that.
Lyndon Johnson had done a lot to damage the presidency
because of getting the country into the Vietnam War, lying
about the war itself, and the prosecution of the war,
and how badly the US was actually doing during the war.
Speaker 8 (20:51):
We fight because we must fight if we're to live
in a world where every country can shape its own destiny,
and only in such a world will our own freedom
be finally secure.
Speaker 7 (21:08):
In addition to all of that, you had the ongoing
Cold War, you had the ignominious withdrawal of America from
Vietnam when South Vietnam was finally defeated by North Vietnam
in nineteen seventy five, a damaged Republican Party because of Watergate,
and then the nineteen seventy four midterms were just a
disaster for the Republicans and for Gerald Ford, who was
(21:32):
leading the party. So it was a very very difficult
situation for Ford.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
But if you had to construct a person who would
embody the qualities that Middle Americans were looking for, and
a president. You could have done a lot worse than
Gerald Ford. Ford's background fairly screams establishment. During his childhood
in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he was both an Eagle scout
and the captain of the high school football team. He
(22:00):
went to the University of Michigan, where again he was
a football star. He graduated in nineteen thirty five. Three
years later he entered Yale Law School, graduating in nineteen
forty one. He enlisted in the Navy after the bombing
of Pearl Harbor. For eighteen months in nineteen forty three
(22:20):
and nineteen forty four, he was aboard the USS Materree
and was involved in several military actions. After the Navy,
he returned to Grand Rapids, where he won his first
race for Congress in nineteen forty eight. He served in
Congress from then until nineteen seventy three, when he was
named vice president. Despite his seemingly ideal background and ascension
(22:45):
to House minority leader in nineteen sixty five, Ford did
not have much of a national profile.
Speaker 7 (22:51):
The public knew him as a member of the Warren
Commission investigating John F. Kennedy's assassination. They knew him as
minority Leader of the House in the nineteen sixties and
then Vice president for eight months before ascending to the presidency.
Speaker 8 (23:08):
His role was.
Speaker 7 (23:09):
Basically to shore up a foundering party as the walls
of Watergate were closing in, and so he was traveling
the country a lot. His images President was as a
nice guy, and he truly was a nice person. I
know this from having interviewed him getting to know him.
He was a very kind hearted, open hearted person.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
The immediate and unavoidable issue facing forward upon taking office
was what to do about Nixon. The situation was unprecedented.
A former president was facing a jury trial for alleged
crimes committed during his presidency. How would the country react
to the spectacle, How would an impartial jury be found?
(23:55):
And would a trial overwhelm the government's ability to accomplish anything.
Ford was clear that he had to quote get the
monkey off my back, he was going to pardon Nixon.
In the days leading up to the announcement, Ford had
a lawyer named Beton Becker visit Nixon in California to
see how he was holding up. The report was not good.
(24:19):
Becker later said, my initial impression was unhappily one of
freakish grotesqueness. Nixon's arms and body were so diminished so
as to quote project a headsize disproportionate to a body.
Becker further reported that at times Nixon was alert, and
(24:39):
at others he appeared to drift. This report seems to
have strengthened Ford's determination to pardon Nixon. He held a
meeting with congressional leaders to announce that he intended to
go ahead with a pardon. They were stunned. House speaker
Tip O'Neil said that he hoped it was not a
part of some deal with Nixon. Ford assured him that
(25:01):
it was not. Ford said that Nixon was a sick man. Depressed.
O'Neill responded that he saw his point of view, but
that it was too soon. Ford went ahead anyway. He
announced the pardon just passed eleven am on September eighth,
one month after Nixon's resignation. Public and congressional outrage was expected,
(25:25):
and it came here. Ford response to Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman
of New York, who had played a prominent role during
the impeachment hearings.
Speaker 13 (25:36):
Mister Ford, you stated that the theory on which you
pardoned Richard Nixon was that he had suffered enough. And
I'm interested in that theory because the logical consequence of
that is that somebody who resigns in the face of
virtually certain impeachment, or somebody who is impeached, should not
(25:56):
be punished, because the impeachment or the resignation and facem
impeachment is punishment enough. And I wondered whether anybody had
brought to your attention the fact that the Constitution specifically
says that even though somebody is impeached, that person shall
nonetheless be liable to punishment according to law.
Speaker 14 (26:15):
Missus Holtzman, I was fully cognizant of the fact that
the president, on resignation, was accountable for any criminal charges.
But I would like to say that the reason I
gave the pardon was not as to mister Nixon himself.
(26:39):
I repeat, and I repeat with emphasis. The purpose of
the pardon was to try and get the United States,
the Congress, the President, and the American people focusing on
the serious problems we have both at home and abroad.
And I was absolutely convinced then as I am now,
(27:01):
that if we had had this series, an indictment, a trial,
a conviction, and anything else that transpired after that, that
the attention of the President, the Congress, and the American
people would have been diverted from the problems that we
have to solve, and that was the principal reason for
migranting of the pardon.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
The press, too, was appalled by the pardon. The Washington
Post called it quote nothing less than the continuation of
the cover up. The New York Times says it was
quote a body blow to the president's own credibility and
to the public's reviving confidence in the integrity of its government.
(27:46):
Ford later admitted that he hadn't anticipated the ferocity of
the response, but it did seem to allow him room
to move forward with a limited agenda and was in
that respect a success. Over time, anger at this decision abated,
and the media consensus seemed to coaluce around the view that,
(28:06):
in fact, partoning Nixon had helped heal the nation. Ford
parted Nixon for the crimes the former president committed in
office at a time when the nation was consumed with
what seemed to be an increasing tide of crime, particularly
violent crime.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
There were a few big issues dominating Americans concerns in
the nineteen seventies, inflation certainly was one, the energy crisis,
the ongoing Cold War, but crime was a big issue also.
Newsweeklies like not only Time, which is still around today,
but Newsweek, US News, and World Report, which aren't around anymore,
They all had stories, often cover stories, on crime in
(28:49):
the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
In fact, just a couple of months before Ford's second
September trip to the West Coast, Time magazine featured this
concern about crime. The cover photo was an extreme close
up of a man in a balaklava pointing a gun
at the camera. The lead article began like.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
This, America has been far from successful in dealing with
the sort of crime that obsesses Americans day and night.
I mean street crime, crime that invades our neighborhoods and
our homes. Murders, robberies, rapes, muggings, hold ups, break outs,
the kind of brutal violence that makes us fearful of
strangers and afraid to go out at night. So said
(29:31):
President Gerald Ford last week, as he sent a special
message to Congress on a subject that has long plagued
the nation and frustrated several administrations, the nation's continuing crime wave.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Ford's second trip to California in September of nineteen seventy five.
Took place in the shadow of Lynett From's assassination attempt
and the perception that America was in the midst of
a national crime wave. This trip would again put forward
in harm's way. The story of this next attempt begins
nearly two years before Ford arrives in San Francisco with
(30:08):
an event that stunned and obsessed the nation and illuminated
the chasm between Middle America and the radical young.
Speaker 11 (30:17):
I want to get out of here, but I'm the
only way I'm going.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
To is if we do it their.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Way next time. On Rip Current.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Rip Current was created and written by Toby Ball and
developed with Alexander Williams. Hosted by Toby Ball with Mary
Catherine Garrison. Original music by Jeff Sanoff, Show art by
God and Charles Rudder. Producers Jesse funk, Rema O'Kelly and
Noams Griffin, Supervising producer Trelie Young, Executive producers Alexander Williams
(31:10):
and Matt Frederick Hear. Episodes of Rip Current early completely
add free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to
iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and visit our
(31:30):
website ripcurrentpod dot com
Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views
and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host,
producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it five.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
At twelve twenty five pm on September twelfth, one week
after Lynette From's assassination attempt, President Gerald Ford arrived at
Lambert Field in Saint Louis. He was scheduled to spend
five hours on the ground, during which time he would
do a television interview, make an appearance at a thousand
dollars a couple Republican fundraiser, and give a speech to
(00:38):
a regional White House conference on domestic and economic affairs.
The main event, though, was a speech to the National
Baptist Convention USA, the nation's largest black religious organization. Ford
was concerned about his lack of popularity among black citizens.
In the speech, he said, among other things, that black
(01:00):
Americans were quote competing in our society more than ever
before and quote America is better for it. He also
observed that quote equality in the true spirit of our
founding fathers is not yet a full reality for every American.
I am sorry to say. The speech was scheduled for
(01:21):
two pm at Keel Auditorium. At twelve fifty a three
year police veteran named Thomas kal Katera was on a
catwalk above the auditorium floor when he saw about thirty
feet away a man standing on a stairway leading down
from the third floor, about one hundred and fifty feet
(01:41):
from where Ford would be speaking in just over an hour.
He was holding something in his hand. Kl Katara thought
he might be a maintenance worker and called out to him.
The man looked at cal Kata. Cal Kata took in
the guy's appearance, white, thirty to thirty five years old,
six feet maybe one hundred and seventy five pounds. He
(02:02):
wore a medium length black wig, a white short sleeved shirt,
and dark trousers. Kaw Katara could now see that in
his left hand he held a forty five caliber automatic pistol.
Kl Katara started after him. The man ran, kal Katara
chased him across the crowded convention floor until the man
(02:23):
ducked into a room. Kaw Kata, close on his heels,
burst through the door to find the room empty. There
were several exit doors. The man could have taken any
of them. He had escaped. Two sixteen man mobile reserve
units were brought in to join the search of the
maze like auditorium. They performed a methodical search but failed
(02:47):
to find the man cal Katara had seen. Daniel P.
Horgan Keel, auditorium's assistant manager, was not surprised, quote, if
I wanted to hide, there's no way you could find me.
A few minutes later, there were reports of a man
on the roof of a parking lot just south of
the auditorium, but police found no one there other than
(03:09):
an elderly parking attendant. Also that day, six anonymous bomb
threats were phoned in, including four claiming to have put
explosives and kill auditorium. The police had already swept the building,
so this did not prove to be a big concern.
At five point thirty two, Air Force one departed Lambert
(03:29):
Field with Gerald Ford on board. Upon hearing the plane
had lifted off a plane closed, officer slumped in a
chair at the command post in police headquarters. Don't you
feel fifty pounds? Later, he said to no one in particular,
I'm Toby.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Ball, and I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and this is rip current.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
My follow Americans, Our long national nightmare is over.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Episode five thirty eight. The incident at Key Auditorium did
not cause a stir in nationally. The New York Times
referred to it in passing as Saint Louis police report
of a man allegedly carrying a handgun in a larger
(04:34):
article about Ford's commitment to continue engaging with crowds despite
Lynette's atempt in Sacramento. In a prepared statement, Ford said.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Only by going around the country to meetings like this,
by meeting people face to face and listening to what
they have to say, can you really learn how people
feel and what they think. Doing this is an important
part of my job. I have no intention of abdicating
that responsibility. I have no intention of allowing the government
of the people to be held hostage at the point.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Of a gun.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
On the same day, The Times ran an article titled
Felon admits guilt in threat on Ford. The four paragraph
article actually touched on two stories. The first was about
the guilty plea entered by thirty five year old Thomas d.
Elbert for leaving a phone message in mid August for
the Secret Service threatening the President's life. The last paragraph
(05:28):
related that the Sacramento County District Attorney had determined that
Sandra Good hadn't broken any laws by compiling a list
of people who had been supposedly sentenced to death by
the International People's Court of Retribution. This assessment that Sandra
did not pose a real threat echoes a question that
still remains about Lynette's attempt on Ford. How serious were
(05:49):
Lynette's intentions. The gun had not fired, was the bullet
unchambered by accident? Was she merely trying to get attention
without actually harming the president? Or was she really trying
to kill Ford and didn't pull it off. In the
following clip, television reporter Steve Swatt, sitting on a desk,
holds a black pistol in his hand and describes to
(06:09):
the camera how Lynnette's gun worked.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
This is the type of gun that was pointed at
the president, a forty five caliber automatic. The pistols magazine
or clip contained four cartridges, but merely loading the clip
into the gun is not enough to fire it. Ms
From allegedly tried to fire the gun without pulling back
a mechanism which forces a cartridge into the chamber. Had
(06:34):
this been done, would have fired.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
As a member of the Manson family, Lynette had become
familiar with guns. The following clip is from the film
Manson nineteen seventy three. The scene, shot after Manson's imprisonment
shows Lynette holding a rifle and talking to the camera.
Speaker 7 (06:56):
You have to make love with it.
Speaker 8 (06:59):
You have to know it.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
You have to know every part of it. And to
know you know it is to know it so that
you could pick it up any second and shoot. Later.
Ask whether they feared a police raid to confiscate their guns, Lynette,
along with Sandra Good and a third Manson girl, had
this response, if you want.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
It here it is, come and get it.
Speaker 8 (07:27):
That's very hurried because it won't be here. Wrong, your motherfuckers.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Her intention that morning is still an open question. From
biographer Jess braven.
Speaker 9 (07:40):
One, She's been kind of ambiguous about whether she wanted
to kill him or not. What seems the most plausible
explanation is that she wasn't sure. I mean, she hadn't
ruled it out, but hadn't decided that she was going
to do it for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
From herself hasn't been consistent in her statements in many ways, though,
it seems as though her intent is not as important
as this question, regardless of outcome. Why had Lynette chosen
to point a gun at the president?
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Why?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Gerald Ford? Again, the answer isn't completely clear and probably
includes several factors. One is her continued allegiance to Manson.
Manson hated Nixon for some reason. When Manson wrote Nixon's name,
he spelled it with two x's.
Speaker 9 (08:21):
From her point of view, he's the heir of Richard Nixon.
She hates Nixon wasn't the only one to really hate Nixon,
but she had a particular reason too, because Nixon had
said negative things about Manson. During Manson's criminal trial in
Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Nixon had mentioned Manson while talking about how the media had, however,
unintentionally made heroes out of criminals. A second reason could
be that Lynette was trying to bring Manson more attention.
She and Sandra Good had spent considerable time and effort
trying to persuade any official they could to allow them
to visit Manson while he was at the Fulsome State prison.
(08:57):
These attempts were unsuccessful. In nineteen seventy four, Manson was
transferred for seven months to the Vacaville Medical Unit of
the California Penal System for mental health treatment. He returned
to FULSOM in November of seventy four, but was assaulted
by two other inmates in May of seventy five. In June,
he was transferred to San Quentin for his own protection.
(09:19):
It may have seemed to Lynette that Manson was fading
from public consciousness. With this attempt, she could and did
bring Manson's name back into the news with another shocking
act of potential violence. Finally, as we saw last episode,
Lynette and Sandra had become fixated on environmental degradation. In fact,
this was the reason Lynette gave specifically that the redwoods
(09:41):
were endangered. Lynette initially claimed that environmentalism was behind her attempt,
but later she would say that she was trying to
draw more attention to Manson. But maybe the best way
to understand Lynette's targeting Afford is that he was a
symbol of the establishment that she and Manson both rejected.
Speaker 9 (10:00):
She didn't really have much of an impression about Ford
as a person. I mean, at one point she sort
of just referred to me as just sort of a robot.
I mean, she just sort of sees him as a
symbolic representation of the establishment in the country and industry,
and all the bad things going on in her view
in the country.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Looking back fifty years after the fact, it's hard to
imagine anyone trying to kill Gerald Ford. Of all the presidents,
he seems to have gone down in popular perception as
an honorable but forgettable president whose main achievement was soothing
the country after the trauma of Watergate. A second impression
(10:44):
might be chevy Chase's depiction of Ford as a hapless
klutz on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Let's take a look at the recent popularity pauls.
Speaker 7 (10:52):
Shall we.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
This is ironic as Ford was probably the most decorated
athletes ever to occupy the White House. Though he may
be the least remembered president since World War Two, he
inherited a unique and very difficult situation. Nixon's resignation didn't
end the problems of Watergate. Ford had to tread carefully.
(11:17):
Here is Ford at his swearing in ceremony.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our
constitution works.
Speaker 10 (11:32):
Our great Republic is a government of laws and not
of man. Here the people rule, but there is a
higher power, by whatever name, We honor him who ordains
not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.
(11:54):
As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more
painful and more poison than those of foreign wars, let
us restore the golden rule to our political process, and
let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Gerald Ford is the only person to ascend to the
presidency without being elected as either president or vice president.
How did this anomaly occur? Mostly due to the historic
corruption of the Richard Nixon White House. The Nixon administration
was so corrupt that his own Attorney General, Elliot Richardson,
(12:37):
had to force the vice president, a former governor of
Maryland named Spiro Agnew, to resign before Nixon was impeached.
The optics of impeaching Nixon and then immediately impeaching his
successor were not tenable. Agnew, among other things, had been
engaged in the most straightforward kind of political corruption, receiving
(12:59):
kickback contracts awarded to companies doing business with the state,
and even to Baltimore County when he served as county executive.
Any argument that this corruption did not extend to his
time as vice president was rendered moot by the testimony
of a man named Lester Mattz, who, as owner of
an engineering firm, had not only kicked back five percent
(13:22):
of agnew arranged contracts dating back to his Baltimore County days,
but it actually met with Agnew at the White House
and handed him ten thousand dollars in cash. Attorney General
Richardson had Agnew backed into a corner, and the Vice
President submitted his resignation to Nixon on October ninth, nineteen
(13:43):
seventy three. It's a fascinating story that you can hear
on the podcast bag Man. The next day, October tenth,
Nixon needed to move to name a new vice president.
His nominee would then need to be approved by Congress,
then controlled by the Democrats. Nixon himself was under legal
(14:04):
pressure as he was negotiating with Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox
over the release of tapes of Oval Office meetings. Though
Nixon did not believe that the collection of events that
we now know as Watergate threatened his ability to continue
as president, times were tense. In his speech announcing his
nomination afford to be the new president, Nixon laid out
(14:27):
the criteria he used to make his decision.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
Let me tell you what the criteria were that I
had in mind. First, and above all, the individual who
serves as vice president must be qualified to be president.
And second, the individual who serves as vice president of
the United States must be one who shares the views
(14:52):
of the President on the critical issues of foreign policy
and national defense, which is so important if we are
play our great role, our destined role to keep peace
in the world. And Third, at this particular time, when
we have the executive in the hands of one party
(15:15):
and the Congress controlled by another party, it is vital
that the vice President of the United States be an
individual who can work with members of both parties in
the Congress in getting approval or those programs of the
administration which we consider our vital for the national interest.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Nixon wanted to name John Connolly, who he greatly respected.
Connolly was a conservative Democrat who had been John F.
Kennedy's secretary of the Navy before leaving to become governor
of Texas. He was sitting beside Kennedy when Kennedy was
assassinated in Dallas and was wounded by the so called
magic bullet. He served for a year as Nixon's Treasury secretary,
(16:06):
and then resigned to support Nixon's nineteen seventy two re
election campaign with the organization Democrats for Nixon. Connolly met
the first two criteria, but advisors told Nixon that he
would not be confirmed in the House of Representatives. Disappointed,
Nixon looked at the remaining field of possibilities and decided
(16:27):
on Ford. Nixon had known Ford since nineteen forty eight,
when both men had been in the House of Representatives.
Ford joined a group of junior House members that Nixon
had helped to organize, called the Chowder and Marching Club.
Nixon had hinted to Ford before his runs for president
in nineteen sixty and nineteen sixty eight that he would
(16:48):
consider him as a running mate. He didn't follow through, though,
in fact, Nixon did not think highly of Ford's abilities.
Hr Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, believed that the House
members knew Ford well enough that the thought of him
as president would prevent them from impeaching Nixon. Secretary of
(17:09):
State Henry Kissinger was similarly underwhelmed, but Nixon had decided.
Two things made the choice cazier. First, Nixon didn't believe
that he'd have to leave office, so Ford would never
be president. Second, Ford said that he'd retire in January
of nineteen seventy seven, when the new president was sworn in.
(17:31):
Ford wouldn't run for president in nineteen seventy six, even
though Nixon wouldn't be eligible having served two terms. This
would allow Nixon's favorite John Connolly to have the inside
track to the Republican nomination. On October twelfth, Nixon nominated
Ford as his new vice president. On November twenty seventh,
(17:53):
the Senate approved him by a vote of ninety two
to three. On December sixth, the House followed suit. He
was sworn in immediately following his confirmation by the House
of Representatives.
Speaker 11 (18:07):
Mister President, Members of the Congress, and distinguished guests, I
have the high personal honor of presenting to you a
dear friend and former Holly, whom we shall oh miss,
(18:29):
but whom we all congratulate, the Vice President of the
United States.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Nine months later, on August ninth, nineteen seventy four, after
Nixon resigned from office, Ford was again sworn in, this
time as the thirty eighth President of the United States.
He would assume an office that had been severely damaged
by the corruption of the Nixon administration. In trying to
(18:57):
restore honor to the post, he would have to fail
a question of what to do about Richard Nixon after
the break. Gerald Ford became the President of the United
(19:17):
States after Richard Nixon resigned in the face of congressional
hearings that had revealed the corruption within his administration. If
this was not enough of a challenge, he was also
the first man to hold the office without being elected
on a presidential ticket.
Speaker 7 (19:35):
The nineteen seventies was a very difficult time to be president,
and Ford was in an unenviable situation inheriting what was
really a wounded presidency after Richard Nixon's resignation. My name's
Janik Mishkowski. I'm a presidential historian and I teach at
the Florida Institute of Technology. I've written a book on
(19:57):
Gerald Ford's presidency called Yer Old Ford and the Challenges
of the nineteen seventies. Nobody trusted the president anymore because
a president Richard Nixon had been caught lying and was
forced to resign in disgrace.
Speaker 12 (20:13):
Therefore, I shall resign the presidency affected that noon tomorrow.
Vice President Ford we'll be swelling in as president at
that hour in this office.
Speaker 7 (20:27):
So Ford inherited an office that really was tainted. And
you have to even go back further in time than that.
Lyndon Johnson had done a lot to damage the presidency
because of getting the country into the Vietnam War, lying
about the war itself, and the prosecution of the war,
and how badly the US was actually doing during the war.
Speaker 8 (20:51):
We fight because we must fight if we're to live
in a world where every country can shape its own destiny,
and only in such a world will our own freedom
be finally secure.
Speaker 7 (21:08):
In addition to all of that, you had the ongoing
Cold War, you had the ignominious withdrawal of America from
Vietnam when South Vietnam was finally defeated by North Vietnam
in nineteen seventy five, a damaged Republican Party because of Watergate,
and then the nineteen seventy four midterms were just a
disaster for the Republicans and for Gerald Ford, who was
(21:32):
leading the party. So it was a very very difficult
situation for Ford.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
But if you had to construct a person who would
embody the qualities that Middle Americans were looking for, and
a president. You could have done a lot worse than
Gerald Ford. Ford's background fairly screams establishment. During his childhood
in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he was both an Eagle scout
and the captain of the high school football team. He
(22:00):
went to the University of Michigan, where again he was
a football star. He graduated in nineteen thirty five. Three
years later he entered Yale Law School, graduating in nineteen
forty one. He enlisted in the Navy after the bombing
of Pearl Harbor. For eighteen months in nineteen forty three
(22:20):
and nineteen forty four, he was aboard the USS Materree
and was involved in several military actions. After the Navy,
he returned to Grand Rapids, where he won his first
race for Congress in nineteen forty eight. He served in
Congress from then until nineteen seventy three, when he was
named vice president. Despite his seemingly ideal background and ascension
(22:45):
to House minority leader in nineteen sixty five, Ford did
not have much of a national profile.
Speaker 7 (22:51):
The public knew him as a member of the Warren
Commission investigating John F. Kennedy's assassination. They knew him as
minority Leader of the House in the nineteen sixties and
then Vice president for eight months before ascending to the presidency.
Speaker 8 (23:08):
His role was.
Speaker 7 (23:09):
Basically to shore up a foundering party as the walls
of Watergate were closing in, and so he was traveling
the country a lot. His images President was as a
nice guy, and he truly was a nice person. I
know this from having interviewed him getting to know him.
He was a very kind hearted, open hearted person.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
The immediate and unavoidable issue facing forward upon taking office
was what to do about Nixon. The situation was unprecedented.
A former president was facing a jury trial for alleged
crimes committed during his presidency. How would the country react
to the spectacle, How would an impartial jury be found?
(23:55):
And would a trial overwhelm the government's ability to accomplish anything.
Ford was clear that he had to quote get the
monkey off my back, he was going to pardon Nixon.
In the days leading up to the announcement, Ford had
a lawyer named Beton Becker visit Nixon in California to
see how he was holding up. The report was not good.
(24:19):
Becker later said, my initial impression was unhappily one of
freakish grotesqueness. Nixon's arms and body were so diminished so
as to quote project a headsize disproportionate to a body.
Becker further reported that at times Nixon was alert, and
(24:39):
at others he appeared to drift. This report seems to
have strengthened Ford's determination to pardon Nixon. He held a
meeting with congressional leaders to announce that he intended to
go ahead with a pardon. They were stunned. House speaker
Tip O'Neil said that he hoped it was not a
part of some deal with Nixon. Ford assured him that
(25:01):
it was not. Ford said that Nixon was a sick man. Depressed.
O'Neill responded that he saw his point of view, but
that it was too soon. Ford went ahead anyway. He
announced the pardon just passed eleven am on September eighth,
one month after Nixon's resignation. Public and congressional outrage was expected,
(25:25):
and it came here. Ford response to Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman
of New York, who had played a prominent role during
the impeachment hearings.
Speaker 13 (25:36):
Mister Ford, you stated that the theory on which you
pardoned Richard Nixon was that he had suffered enough. And
I'm interested in that theory because the logical consequence of
that is that somebody who resigns in the face of
virtually certain impeachment, or somebody who is impeached, should not
(25:56):
be punished, because the impeachment or the resignation and facem
impeachment is punishment enough. And I wondered whether anybody had
brought to your attention the fact that the Constitution specifically
says that even though somebody is impeached, that person shall
nonetheless be liable to punishment according to law.
Speaker 14 (26:15):
Missus Holtzman, I was fully cognizant of the fact that
the president, on resignation, was accountable for any criminal charges.
But I would like to say that the reason I
gave the pardon was not as to mister Nixon himself.
(26:39):
I repeat, and I repeat with emphasis. The purpose of
the pardon was to try and get the United States,
the Congress, the President, and the American people focusing on
the serious problems we have both at home and abroad.
And I was absolutely convinced then as I am now,
(27:01):
that if we had had this series, an indictment, a trial,
a conviction, and anything else that transpired after that, that
the attention of the President, the Congress, and the American
people would have been diverted from the problems that we
have to solve, and that was the principal reason for
migranting of the pardon.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
The press, too, was appalled by the pardon. The Washington
Post called it quote nothing less than the continuation of
the cover up. The New York Times says it was
quote a body blow to the president's own credibility and
to the public's reviving confidence in the integrity of its government.
(27:46):
Ford later admitted that he hadn't anticipated the ferocity of
the response, but it did seem to allow him room
to move forward with a limited agenda and was in
that respect a success. Over time, anger at this decision abated,
and the media consensus seemed to coaluce around the view that,
(28:06):
in fact, partoning Nixon had helped heal the nation. Ford
parted Nixon for the crimes the former president committed in
office at a time when the nation was consumed with
what seemed to be an increasing tide of crime, particularly
violent crime.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
There were a few big issues dominating Americans concerns in
the nineteen seventies, inflation certainly was one, the energy crisis,
the ongoing Cold War, but crime was a big issue also.
Newsweeklies like not only Time, which is still around today,
but Newsweek, US News, and World Report, which aren't around anymore,
They all had stories, often cover stories, on crime in
(28:49):
the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
In fact, just a couple of months before Ford's second
September trip to the West Coast, Time magazine featured this
concern about crime. The cover photo was an extreme close
up of a man in a balaklava pointing a gun
at the camera. The lead article began like.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
This, America has been far from successful in dealing with
the sort of crime that obsesses Americans day and night.
I mean street crime, crime that invades our neighborhoods and
our homes. Murders, robberies, rapes, muggings, hold ups, break outs,
the kind of brutal violence that makes us fearful of
strangers and afraid to go out at night. So said
(29:31):
President Gerald Ford last week, as he sent a special
message to Congress on a subject that has long plagued
the nation and frustrated several administrations, the nation's continuing crime wave.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Ford's second trip to California in September of nineteen seventy five.
Took place in the shadow of Lynett From's assassination attempt
and the perception that America was in the midst of
a national crime wave. This trip would again put forward
in harm's way. The story of this next attempt begins
nearly two years before Ford arrives in San Francisco with
(30:08):
an event that stunned and obsessed the nation and illuminated
the chasm between Middle America and the radical young.
Speaker 11 (30:17):
I want to get out of here, but I'm the
only way I'm going.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
To is if we do it their.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Way next time. On Rip Current.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Rip Current was created and written by Toby Ball and
developed with Alexander Williams. Hosted by Toby Ball with Mary
Catherine Garrison. Original music by Jeff Sanoff, Show art by
God and Charles Rudder. Producers Jesse funk, Rema O'Kelly and
Noams Griffin, Supervising producer Trelie Young, Executive producers Alexander Williams
(31:10):
and Matt Frederick Hear. Episodes of Rip Current early completely
add free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to
iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and visit our
(31:30):
website ripcurrentpod dot com
Host
Toby Ball
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.