Presidential Deaths Part II: Assassinations

In the first part, I looked into "The Curse" that has claimed a president's life every 20 years from 1840 to 1960. There are rumors and speculation around whether Tecumseh or the Prophet cursed William Henry Harrison, the man who killed Tecumseh and several Native Americans in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Harrison would go on to become the 9th President of United States and trigger the start of "The Curse".

What does not involve any speculation and is 100% truth is the fact that several presidents have been targets of assassination attempts. There have been roughly 20 presidents who have had attempts on their lives over the years beginning with Andrew Jackson through Barack Obama. Though, there have been many attempts; only four attempts led to the demise of a president. Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James A. Garfield in 1881, William McKinley in 1901, and John F. Kennedy in 1963 would have their lives claimed by an assassin.

Now to journey down a dark path in presidential history.

Andrew Jackson came into office in 1829 and had a history of being a tough guy. He was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. Needless to say, Jackson drew his fair share of enemies. On January 30, 1835, one enemy would target him. Richard Lawrence was a painter and from years of being in that profession he might have been overexposed to chemicals leading to a bit of derangement. As he began to lose his mind, he blamed Jackson for many of his problems from his unemployment to his father's death. On that January day, Jackson was attending a funeral and when Lawrence saw his opening; he fired his first pistol at Jackson's back and then his second pistol. Both shots were misfires. In Jackson's style, he assisted in taking down Lawrence and even got in a few hits with his cane. Lawrence was brought to trial, where he was charged not guilty under the reason of insanity. Lawrence would then be placed in a mental institution for the next 26 years until his death in 1861. This assassination attempt would be the first and begin a trend of speculation around the assassins motifs. Jackson did have many enemies and one might have sent Lawrence after him.

The next attempt would come in 1861 ironically. Before John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln was targeted not once, but twice. He came into office at the dawn of the Civil War and his election was a factor in the South seceding. That hatred did not take four years to build, but a few weeks. On February 23, 1861, there was an alleged plot to assassinate Lincoln in Baltimore, MD en route to Washington, DC for his inauguration. Allen Pinkerton, the founder of Pinkerton National Detective Agency, played a key role in monitoring Lincoln's safe route to D.C. The plot is still up for debate by many, yet Lincoln was safely guided in Washington without anyone knowing in case there was an actual plot to assassinate him. Three years later in August 1864, there would be another attempt on Lincoln's life. While at the Soldiers' Home north of the White House, a shot was fired that caused Lincoln to lose his hat. A bullet hole was found in the hat and those who were there tried to keep the incident as quiet as possible. However, the third time would be the charm for those attempting to end Lincoln's life. On April 14, 1965; Good Friday; Lincoln along with his wife and two guests went to Ford's Theatre to watch "Our American Cousin". Leading up to that night, John Wilkes Booth along with other Southern sympathizers were working on a plot to get their revenge against the North and Lincoln. Booth was a student of the theater and a well-known actor and knew the ins and outs of Fords Theatre and the play to be shown. He came earlier in the day and set up his plan. At the precise moment in the play when there is laughter, Booth slid into the President's suite and fired a shot to back of Lincoln's dead. Booth would escape through the back of the theater while Lincoln would be brought across the street where he succumbed to the wound early the next day. Booth would be tracked down and shot later that month by Sergeant Boston Corbett. Booth would be the first successful attempt at claiming a president's life. He would not be the last.

It would be 16 years later when another attempt would be made. James A. Garfield was elected the 20th U.S. President in November 1880. Charles Guiteau was an ambitious job seeker and would constantly roam Washington D.C. and make frequent visits to the White House in 1881. All of his attempts were shot down and that would lead to anger and instability for someone who was not in the best mindset before his job venture. On July 2, 1881, Garfield was about to take a train trip when Guiteau shot him. Garfield would linger on throughout the summer and eventually succumb to infections on September 19, 1881. Guiteau was found guilty of the crime and was hanged on June 30, 1882.

The next strike would come in 1901 with William McKinley. McKinley was in Buffalo, NY for the Pan-American Exposition when Leon Czolgosz would shoot him twice on September 6, 1901. Czolgosz was an anarchist and like previous assassins/would-be assassins; he was not all there. McKinley would die eight days later. Czolgosz would be convicted and and sentenced to death by electrocution on October 29th.

Ironically, the man who took over for McKinley; Theodore Roosevelt; would be the next target of an assassin. However, it would come while Roosevelt was running for president in 1912 after he left office. While campaigning on October 13, 1912, Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee, WI by John F. Schrank. Living up to his tough persona, he not only survived the shot, but went on to continue his planned speech. Roosevelt would go to the hospital, but not have the bullet removed because he remembered what happened to McKinley when he had an operation. Schrank was another mentality insane individual who was summoned by McKinley's ghost to avenge his death. He would institutionalized until his death in 1943.

Another Roosevelt would draw the ire of an assassin in 1933. While in Miami, FL on February 15, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt was shot at five times by Giuseppe Zangara. Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak did not escape unscathed like FDR and four others. Zangara was found guilty and executed on March 20, 1933. Some feel that Cermak not FDR was the actual target.

The man who followed FDR, Harry S. Truman would become the next target. In 1950, Puerto Rico was not in the best state of affairs with massacres and problems and two pro-independence activists set out to gain attention for their nation. Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola came up with a plan to assassinate Truman on November 1st. What would happen would be possibly the craziest event in presidential assassination history. At the time, the White House was being refurbished and Truman was over at Blair House. While Truman was inside, a violent gun battle ensued between the two men and the Secret Service outside. Truman never stepped outside or was involved at all. However, one policeman; Leslie Coffelt; was mortally wounded. Before he died, though, Coffelt killed Torresola. Collazo survived and was later pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.

There is a long comparative between presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Another that is hardly if ever mentioned is the fact that they had more than one attempt on their lives. Before taking office, Kennedy was in Palm Beach Florida when on December 11, 1960; he became a target of an assassin. Richard Paul Pavlick was a former postal worker, who intended on crashing his 1950 Buick into Kennedy's vehicle in a suicide bomb attack. Pavlick's vehicle was covered with dynamite. However, like an assassin associated with John Wilkes Booth's plot a century earlier, Pavlick changed his mind when he saw Kennedy with his family. He would be arrested a few days later when he was pulled over and the dynamite was discovered. He was spend the next six years in between prisons and mental institutions before his release. However, almost three years later, another assassin would target Kennedy and he would not hold back. Kennedy was in Dallas, TX in November 1963 preparing for his reelection campaign while touring Texas. On November 22, 1963, he was fatally wounded by a sniper's bullet while going through Dealey Plaza. Lee Harvey Oswald would be arrested not much later; however he did not live much longer as he too was fatally shot while being taken to the Dallas County Jail on November 24, 1963 by Jack Ruby. After nearly a year, the Warren Commission would link Oswald to the shooting, but there still remains doubt if Oswald acted alone and if he was set up by someone or someones.

The man who Kennedy defeated in 1960; Richard Nixon; would become the next target. On February 22, 1974, Samuel Byck had planned to assassinate Nixon by hijacking an airplane and flying it into the White House. When he got on the plane, he became inpatient and shot the pilot and copilot before takeoff before he was shot.

Gerald Ford was not in office long, but had more assassination attempts than almost everyone before him. The first attempt would come on September 5, 1975 when one of Charles Manson's followers, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme would tried to shoot Ford while reaching for a handshake. The firing chamber was empty and Fromme would be restrained and sentenced to a life in prison. She was released last summer on August 14, 2009. It would not be long before another attempt occurred. While in San Francisco, CA on September 22, 1975, Sara Jane Moore fired at Ford from close range. A bystander, Oliver Sipple, saw what was happening and knocked into Moore causing her to miss. She would be sentenced to life in prison and paroled on December 31, 2007 after 30 years in prison. The third and last attempt on Ford's life came on July 27, 1976 by Chester Plumber. Plumber, a D.C. taxi driver, climbed the White House fence with a pipe and charged towards the White House before being fatally shot. Three attempts and three survivals. Both Fromme and Moore were paroled after Ford had died in December 2006.

Jimmy Carter followed Ford and he would be the next target. While in Los Angeles, CA on May 5, 1979, there was a plot in motion to kill Carter. Harvey would be arrested before Carter appeared and told officers that alongside Osvaldo Ortiz; they were hired to create a diversion to allow for Mexican hit men to assassinate Carter. Charges were soon dropped.

Ronald Reagan was leaving a speaking appearance in Washington, D.C. on March 30, 1981 when he was shot at by John Hinckley, Jr. Reagan and three others would be wounded in the incident. Hinckley's agenda was to impress young actress Jodie Foster. Among the men hit besides Reagan were James Brady, Tim McCarthy, and Thomas Delahanty; a cabinet member, Secret Service agent, and D.C. police officer, respectively. Brady would be disabled while Reagan would survive after surgery.

The man who came close to replacing him in 1981 after this incident would be elected in 1988 and become the next target shortly after leaving office four years later. On April 13, 1993, George H.W. Bush was in Kuwait, Iraq to speak at Kuwait University. Sixteen men had smuggled a car bomb into the city with the intent of killing Bush. These men were supposedly linked to Saddam Hussein. Their plot would be sniffed out when Kuwaiti officials discovered the bomb and arrested the men.

Bill Clinton would be the next president to draw an attack. On September 12, 1994, Frank Eugene Corder flew a Cessna into the White House lawn while trying to hit the White House. Clinton was not at the White House and only Corder would perish. The next month on October 29, 1994, Francisco Martin Duran would fire close to 30 shots at the White House thinking Clinton was one of the men outside of the White House at the time. Clinton was actually inside at the time. Three passers-by would tackle Duran and a suicide note was found and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. The last attempt would come nearly six years after leaving the White House. In November 2006, al Qaeda operative Ramzi Yousef was said to have planned to assassinate Clinton in Manila, Philippines. Nothing ever happened and no one really knows if the plan was aborted or if there was one at all.

Many of the presidents of the latter half of the 20th century and early 21st century have been targets and that included George W. Bush. On February 7, 2001, Robert Pickett shot at the White House and Bush from outside one side's fence. Pickett failed and was sentenced to three years in jail. The next potential threat came on the morning of September 11, 2001, when George W. Bush was in Longboat Key, Florida. There was a suspicious van near where he was staying, but there was never anything completely conclusive regarding the threat. Early in his second term, on May 10, 2005; he would be targeted once again. While Bush was in Tbilisi, Georgia giving a speech with the president of Georgia; Vladimir Arutyunian threw a live Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade towards where Bush and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili were standing. The grenade did not explode and Arutyunian would be convicted in January 2006 and given a life sentence. The final assassination attempt came on November 19, 2008 when Asa Seeley was reported to have threatened Bush's life. Seeley was spotted and arrested at a Baltimore train station with a rifle and charged with weapons offenses.

If things seemed bad before, the candidacy and election of the first major party African-American candidate only rose the bar in terms of threats. That is not a bar you ever want to see risen. Deaths threats towards Barack Obama began roughly two years before he was even president. There is no doubt a bit of racial tones behind some of the threats if not a lot of them. The first major incident occurred on July 15, 2008 when Jerry Blanchard was indicted for threatening to kill Obama while he was at a Charlotte, NC Waffle House. Blanchard was later questioned after he was turned in for his comments. He denied those comments, but did link Obama to the Antichrist. Then came word for a hotel that they heard similar things from Blanchard and was identified at a gun shop. They put him in custody for the safety of Obama. Not too much later on July 31, 2008, Raymond H. Geisel was charged with making threatening statements against Obama. Geisel, from Miami, FL, was at a bails-bonds training class and mentioned not only shooting Obama, but soon to be ex-president, Bush. Ammunition was found along with body armor and a hatchet in his hotel room. They kept Geisel in custody for the next month. One of the biggest threats came the following month in Denver, CO during the Democratic National Convention. Three men: Tharin Gartrell, Shawn Adolf, and Nathan Johnson came to Denver to kill Obama. On August 24, 2008, Gartrell was arrested after his truck was found to have weapons and narcotics in it. The other two would be arrested not long after. The men would turn on each other and authorities looked to play down the event. Another larger one occurred in Tennessee in October 2008. Paul Schlesselman and Daniel Cowart were two white supremacists and they had planned to murder 88 African Americans in a Tennessee school. They would complete their plan with targeting Obama. The two were arrested on the October 22nd after they mentioned part of what they were doing to someone. The two were found to have guns and revealed that they were going to steal more. The same month at a Scranton, Pennsylvania Sarah Palin rally it was reported that someone yelled "Kill Him" regarding Barack Obama.

Zachary Taylor and Warren Harding were two of the four men who died in office not by an assassin, but there have been discussions regarding the potential of a poisoning of either. Those claims have been pretty much disapproved.

It goes without saying that being the President of the United States or even a candidate for the office; you have a large target from those who dislike you or would be classified as not all there. If you take most of the men and women who have threatened or taken the life of the president, their mental stability was off. They were deranged. They were angry. They were confused. They were shouting out for attention. Whatever the reason, four men did not survive. However, numerous others either dodged a literal bullet or a threat was taken serious enough early on to prevent the potential for something to happen. This along with "The Curse" are the darker sides of being president and are not mentioned too often and relegated to the box in the closet or the folder in the drawer that only comes out when the next incident occurs.

As we have seen in just two years between running for office and being in office, President Obama has been garnering a record number of potential threats on his life and with enough unstable individuals out there; there is a good chance we will here of something in the next two plus years minimally.

The one thing worth saying to wrap this up: no matter how much you might dislike someone; is taking their life truly going to solve your problem? That is tough to say as we find ourselves looking at a Southern sympathizer to a disgruntled job seek to an anarchist to a individual upset with international affairs. Those are just some of the people who fall into a special category: the assassins. Life is unpredictable and several of our nation's presidents have found that out first hand with the men and women chronicled.