HW 54952— ee Ee OF at ten el et Ea en A EE rd OW aah net Me ea CLE ee eee MR AX tempt did not take long to become evi- dent on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers suddenly became reluctant to attack the fallen President’s proposals to cut taxes and federal spending. Said Richard Wirthlin, Reagan’s poll- ster: “The most avid readers of pub- lished polls are the 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate. The economic program is not going to get a free ride, but some of the closer votes may tilt our way.” eConfirmation of that view came, from Senator Gary Hart (D-Colo.), who noted: “Just before the assassination at- - tempt, a number of Democrats were getting ready to release critiques or blasts. Now they won’t do that.” The day after the shooting, on March 31, the GOP-dominated Senate beat back half a dozen attempts to soften the President’s budget cuts. While the outcome was assured even before the attack, the Republicans picked up sur- prising Democratic support. “There will be a positive reaction in Congress,” predicted Max Frieders- dorf, Reagan’s chief lobbyist. “Any time a leader is harmed in any way, there is always a natural sympathy. It will en- hance his relations with Congress. I think it will increase his popularity.” =White House aides made it clear that the administration would fully exploit Reagan’s condition -in order to get its programs through Congress. . Some lawmakers disputed the notion” that an outpouring of sympathy would smooth.the way-for- Reagan’s proposals, particularly the one for a 30 percent tax cut spread over three years. “He will be stronger politically be- cause now he is a national hero on top of being President,” said Representa- Nancy Reagan, arriving at hospital, was described as exhausted, unable to eat. y ee 3 ; shia SSVNVNPWT ALIVM © Page a7 TIMOTHY MURPHY USNS WR Cae ae # < ae way Spee 24 he oak ah Hs ca a os a aa ‘UPL ¥ In the burst of gunfire, three others took bullets as well as Reagan—White House press “aide James Brady, left, Secret Service Agent Timothy J. McCarthy, top right, and Washington pollceman Thomas K. Delahanty. All were expected to survive. tive Bill Alexander (D-Ark.). “But will Congress pass his tax cut because the President was shot? The answer is no.” If Reagan gained stature from the attempt to kill him, his White House team, and Secretary of State Alexander Haig in particular, were clear losers. “Serious flaws.” A series of mislead- ing announcements about whether the President had been wounded, and who was in charge in the interim, exposed what many analysts termed serious flaws in the executive branch. Confusion peaked when Haig went before television cameras soon after the shooting and declared he was con- stitutionally third in line for the Presi- dency and “in control” of the White House pending the return of Vice Pres- ident Bush from a Texas trip. As Haig spoke, his voice quavered, his face perspired and his arms trembled. His abrupt comments and shaky man- ner drew harsh private criticism from senior Reagan aides, who questioned the propriety of the statements. His announcement also triggered a behind- the-scenes dispute with Defense Secre- Caspar Weinberger over who was in control of U.S. armed forces. By executive order, military author- ity in times of extraordinary emergency passes from the President to the Vice President to the Defense Secretary. The flare-up came just a week after a flap between Haig and the White House over who would be the adminis- tration’s official “crisis manager,” a job Haig wanted but which went to Bush. The incidents led some Reagan advis- ers to press for the Secretary’s ouster, and such pressures are bound to grow. By contrast, Bush’s low-key conduct after the shooting won applause from members of the White House inner cir- cle, who praised his steady perfor- mance and deference’to Reagan. Bush filled in at nearly every official function at which the President would Secretary of State Alexander Halg, right, angered White House staffers. U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, April 13, 1981
have appeared. One day included an early morning White House staff meet- ing and a national-security briefing. Later there .were sessions with labor leaders, cabinet officers, members of Congress and, finally, talks with envoys from Poland and Turkey. ° Once the President leaves the hospi- tal, Bush and others are believed likely to retain control over many of the du- ties they inherited. For the Vice Presi- dent, this new eminence could pay big dividends if his boss decides against seeking a second term in 1984. Meanwhile, the White House strained to project an image of business as usual—a campaign credited by many with helping defuse public panic. Everything possible was done to de- pict Reagan as rapidly shaking off the effects of his wound, and also to convey the impression of a White House func- tioning smoothly and calmly. . No pictures of Reagan were allowed until he could presenta relatively robust appearance free of drainage tubes. On the morning after his operation, he made a point of signing a bill scrubbing an increase in federal milk-price sup- ports. A day.later, he conducted a staff meeting; and oh the next he was receiv- ing full national-security briefings. Command post. All the props of the - Presidency were assembled at the hos- pital. Rooms on Reagan’s floor were hastily transformed into “a miniature White House—a complete communica- tions command post, filing cabinets, desks; typewriters--and -other. office equipment, No one expects the shooting to make Reagan a prisoner of the White House, shunning public appearances for fear of another attempt on‘his life. Reagan wore a bulletproof vest on several occasions during: the canipaign but apparently has not used one since. He is expected to put one on again for occasions when he is deemed especially vulnerable. The Secret Service is.con- sidering additional agents for his guard detail and may keep more distance be- tween the President and crowds. But once Reagan has bounced back from his injury, aides predict, he will resume public appearances. He still plans a series of trips across the country to sell his economic program, plus an April 27-28 visit to Mexico to confer with President José Lépez Portillo. Whatever happens later, loyalists .of both parties agreed on one thing: For- mer actor Ronald Reagan on March 30 played in real life the role of hero more convincingly than in any movie he ever made. By WILLIAM L, CHAZE with the magazine's White House and congressional staffs U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, April 13, 1981 HW 54952 DocId:32989491 Page
49 Docld: 32969491 John Hinckley— A Misfit Who | Craved Fame. Estranged from family and friends, in love with a movie actress he never met, the man - accused of shooting Reagan is one of society’s losers. Behind the gun that shot the Presi- “dent was but a shadow of a man, a figure both strange and too familiar. Jéhn Warnock Hinckley, Jr., didn’t fit into society—but he fit the pattern. A loner. A drifter. Jobless. Soft look- ing. Barely known by those-whose lives ~ he touched, his passage marked by clut- ter and grime and confused: scribblings. “If you don’t love me, T'm going to kill the President,”’ he reportedly wrote to an actress he had never met. In many of these aspects, Hinckley was of a kind with the losers who stalk the leaders—like Lee Harvey Oswald who shot John Kennedy, like Sirhan Sirhan who shot Robert Kennedy, like Arthur Bremer who shot George Wal- lace. In fact, a photograph of Oswald - and a newspaper clipping about John Lennon, former Beatles’ rock musician shot to death on Dec. 8, 1980, were found in his Washington hotel room: Yet the man who is linked this time to the smoking gun had some unusual characteristics. John Hinckley was a child of wealth, privilege and influence. The son of an oilman, he was reared in a $300,000 home in Highland Park, an old-money enclave of Dallas with huge oak trees, - azaleas, pools and fountains. He played junior-high basketball. In the seventh and ninth grades, he was homeroom president. It wasn’t noted then, but his life had peaked already. Hinckley became less active in bas- ketball by the nintlf grade, recalls child- oley, because “some gan to be quicker.” Page 29 Asa high-sthool pupil, Hinckley was an “average student, neither the type to be in the National Merit Scholarship program nor at the bottom of the class,” said a classmate, Thomas Black- well. “He was noticeable, but he was not the outstanding type.” So‘obseure was Hinckley at Highland Pork igh, Schogl that Princi owe Sigl Sire “When this came up, f fis to took back to verify that he was a aduate.” Sigler and others who knew Hinck- ley speculate that his emotional prob- lems may stem from feelings of failure to measure up to expectations. A friend ‘asserts: “There are pressures in the family to achieve.” Hinckley’s father took a $120,000 in- vestment in 1970 and built an oil-and- . gas-exploration company that had reve- .. nues of 4.87 million dollars last year. His older brother, Scott, is vice president of iad” ber, Hinckley was arrested in Nashville his father’s firm. Ironicall#, Scott is a casual -friend of Neil . h, the_Vice President’sson, and fanplly mémbers aré own as staunch Re&gan supporters. The youth’s older sister, Diane, is the wife of a Dallas insurance underwriter and mother of two small children. “Everything fits perfectly except John,” observes a family friend. Hinckley, now 25, did try to succeed. He enrolled at Texas Tech University in 1973, studying business administra- tion. He made the dean’s honor list in 1977, but he couldn’t keep up the pace. He went to college for seven years, off and on, never One professor, Otto/Nelson, recalls Hinckley” do a report on Hitley's autobiography, Mein Kampf. Says Nelson: “He made an A minus.... I have to conclude that he read the. material: carefully and thought about it effectively.” Another teacher recalls: “There were usually empty chairs around him, as if he-con- sciously chose to sit apart.” Unnoticed figure. One méasure of Hinckley’s isolation: About two dozen high-school classmates were on the Texas Tech campus with him, and not one can recall having seen him. Hinckley’s decline showed in a physi- ° eAtudent chose'to . ° | Looking for a motive, authorities found evidence that Hinckley wanted to win the love of young actress Jodie Foster. cal way. The kid with a gentle gaze and engaging smile gradually changed into young » man with glassy eyes apartment. building, Mark while unstopping Hinckley once, found “there were junk-food bags and empty ice-cream cartons sit- tirlg around all over the cabinets.” His parents, meantime, moved to an- other plush home on the edge of a golf course in the exclusive Denver suburb of Evergreen. His mother played ten- nis and did volunteer work. His father joined ‘a Bible-study class. They ar- ranged psychiatric help for their son but seldom talked of him to others. Early warning? There had been one earlier brush with the law. Last Octo- and fined $50 after trying to board an airliner with three handguns. Presi- dent Carter was in town that day. The Hinckley family—described as “just destroyed” by the shootings—has gone into seclusion and sent condo- lences to those wounded. They have hired’ the firm of Edward Bennett Wil- liams, one of the nation’s best-known trial lawyers, to defend their son. Authorities looking for clues to Hinckley’s behavior focused on letters he wrote to actress Jodie Foster, best known for playing a teen-age prostitute in “Taxi Driver,” a film about a dement- ed loser who stalks a political figure. An unmailed letter Hinckley wrote to Foster reportedly said: “I would abandon this idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart and live out the rest of my life with you, whether it be in total obscurity or whatever. I will admit to you that the reason I’m going ahead with this at- tempt now is because I just cannot wait any longer to impress you. “Jodie,” the letter closes, “I’m asking you to please look into your heart and at least give me the chance with this his- torical deed to gain your respect and love. [love you forever, John Hinckley.” Hinckley failed in that attack, as in so much else. Now the boy brought up in a mansion is at a federal correctional facility in North Carolina, in a room with sink, toilet, single bed, one bullet- proof window—and no TV or radio. Meanwhile, a shaken society tries to figure out what to do with someone who thought that the killing of a Presi- dent could win him the love of a stranger. QO By JOHN S. LANG with bureaus in Houston, Denver, Chicago and Los Angeles U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, April 13, 1981
Did Secret Service Drop its Guard? As soon as the gunfire died away, inquiries began. A key question was whether the President’s protectors had done everything they could. The shooting of Ronald Reagan only 1% miles from the White House un- derscores a truism of the times: It is not possible to fully. protect a President un- less he is willing to become a recluse. Even so, the latest attack—the third attempt, in six years to gun down a Chief Executive in a public place—is prompting a hard look at the Secret Service, the elite corps that guards the President. Congress, the Secret -Ser- vice’s parent Treasury Department and-the agency itself are asking these questions— a How was the man charged as the assailant, John W. Hinckley, Jr., able to’ get within 15 to 25 feet of Reagan as ‘the Chief Executive left a Washington hotel? u Why didn’t agents spot Hinckley onthe scene as a potential threat to the Agent Timothy McCarthy fles wounded’on the sidewalk outside the Washington Hilton shortly after he attempted to shield Reagan from gunfire with his own body. : 32989491 Page 30 President, as some onlookers claim to have done? w Should the Secret Service have known about Hinckley because of his earlier arrest on a firearms charge in Nashville during a presidential visit? . « Has security become lax on rou- tine presidential travel in Washington? Whenever the President leaves the White House, agents scour his route . step by step-in advance, checking streets for danger points, securing “building corridors and reviewing crowd-control procedures. Still, there inevitably are gaps in the defensive measures because ‘ ‘politi- cians wani-to be near ihe people,” says Richard Davis, a former assistant Trea- sury secretary ‘who had authority over the Secret.Service. Davis notes that ev- ery President relishes contact with the public, whether he stops to chat, shakes hands or merely waves. Hotel entrances, where crowds gath- er to see a visiting Chief Executive, are special points of vulnerability. The se- curity arrangements at the Washington Hilton .on March 30 appear to have t y | been typical. Reporters wait- ay ing to question Reagan as he left a speaking engagement inside were directed to stand behind a rope stretched across the sidewalk. The public was also‘allowed into the area, and the gun- man moved up alongside reporters and cameramen close to the hotel exit used by the President. Agents insist that in these settings, there is little they can do to keep by- standers away. “We would like to move people back farther, but those we pro- tect and the media would not allow it, and it’s not realistic in a democracy,” says John W. Warner, Jr., a. Secret Ser- vice official. Several eyewitnesses reported after the shooting that they had seen Hinck- ley pacing nervously near the hotel exit—behavior that agents are trained to regard as suspicious. But no agent spotted the man and moved in on him. The Secret Service brands these re- ports as mistaken. Agency spokesman Warner declared that people saw not Hinckley but “someone else—a strange person who frequents the area. We had him under surveillance.” The danger list. Another question troubling some is why Hinckley was not listed in a computerized Secret Service file on about 25,000 persons, many of whom are mentally ill and have threatened public figures. About 400 of those on the list are considered particularly dangerous. Their where- abouts are checked periodically. Hinckley was arrested last October 9 -in-the-Nashville-airport for pos: sessing three handguns on the same day that President Jimmy ‘Federal Bureau of Investigation did not inform the Secret Ser- vice of the case. Dr. Frank Och- berg, the state of Michigan’s - mental-health director and a Se- cret Service consultant, says that, had the agency known about the Nashville incident, “agents would have investigated and might have identified OvB1S TWH XOWC -*! lows Presidents.” * >* But Secret Serviée officialgsay that even if they had known about the firearms case, Hinck- ley probably would not have been put under surveillance.and have learned that he had come to-Washington in late March. As to whether agents uncon- sciously let down their guard in Washington, where presidential travel is routine, former’ Trea- sury official Davis believes that U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT 27 Carter visited the city, but the. Hinckley as a ‘stalker’ who fol-~ agents would not necessarily- { t i » i
sole om nee mata te “it’s possible.” He adds: “Trips to the Washington Hilton are so repetitive it’s like a milk run.’ Despite the questioning of their work before the shooting, Secret Ser- vice agents are given high marks for their actions once bullets started to fly. They followed the book to the letter: The agent closest to the President -quickly.shoved him into his limousine, while another agent, Timothy McCar- thy, stepped into the line of fire, stop- ping with lis own body a bullet that” might have-hit Reagan. McCarthy is the first agent ever wounded while _ guarding a President. Other agents ‘forced the gunman to the ground. When the Secret Service men no- _ ticed that Reagan was coughing up ‘blood, they rushed him to a nearby hospital. The agents in the presidential limousine are being faulted by some, however, for allowing the President to walk into the emergency room despite his injury. - Protection experts say that although ‘presidential security will always have its limits, more can be done. For one thing, Chief Executives could wear bulletproof garments in ~ . public. President Ford used such a vest after he faced gun-wielding women twice within three weeks in 1975. But he found the heavy clothing cumber- some and-soon gave it up... Reagan wore a bulletproof jacket several times during the 1980 cam- paign after threats were made against him, but he is not known to have done so since taking office. Too much work? Secret Service manpower could be increased, though the 1,550-member force has already grown substantially in recent years. Be- sides protecting Presidents and their . families, agents guard ex-Presidents, foreign embassies and visiting heads of state, and are responsible for investi- gating counterfeiting and forgery. The catalog of potential President killers is almost surely far from com- plete. Experts note that most of those who have attempted to assassinate po- litical figures in recent years did not appear on Secret Service lists. A scien- tific panel will complete a study this summer that is expected to lead to some new Secret Service criteria for . identifying dangerous people. But most experts agree that no lists ‘or added precautions can make Presi- dents completely safe. John F. Kenne- dy, who was assassinated in 1963, once summed it up this way: “If anyone wants to do it, no amount of protection is enough. All a man needs is a willing- ness to trade his life for mine.” O By TED GEST 28 DoclId: 32989491 Page 31 9 Others Who Faced Assassins = < ste yo” oe ~ . Ld s “ ~ i rT 7 a. STE hn ter ein aN fs tal aint NL AND LT A ORS LO NE TP ON na get AS SS Chaat nee BO Cet Neda dn If Ronald Reagan’s medical prognosis is correct, he will be the first sitting President to survive a gunshot wound. Nine of the 38 Presidents before him were attacked by armed assailants. Four Presidents died. For a look at earlier as- sassination attempts and the assailants: Andrew Jackson: Richard Lawrence, a psychotic who thought himself King Richard III of England, aimed two pistols at Jackson in the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 30, 1835. Both pistols misfired, and Jackson was unhurt. Ruled insane, Lawrence was committed to an asylum for life. Abraham Lincoln: John Wilkes Booth, an actor who favored the South in the Civil War, entered an unguarded box at a Washington theater and shot Lincoln in the head. The President died the next day, April 15, 1865. Booth was killed when soldiers attempted to arrest him 11 days later. James Garfield: As Garfield strolled through a Washington, C., railroad station on July 2, 1881, he was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a radical member of the President’s own Republican Party. Garfield died more than two months Jater. Guiteau was convicted of murder and hanged. William McKinley: Leon F. Czolgosz, an anarchist, shot McKinley in the chest and stomach at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., on Sept. 6, 1901. McKinley died eight days later. Convicted of murder in a one-day trial, Czolgosz was electrocuted at an Auburn, N.Y., state prison. _ Theodore Roosevelt: John N. Schrank, who claimed he was instructed by the ghost of McKinley,;-shot-Roosevelt in the chest on Oct. 14, 1912, as the ex-President was cam- paigning for another term. Roosevelt recovered. Schrank was ruled insane and died in a mental hospital in 1943. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Giuseppe Zangara, blaming capital- ists for his stomach pains, fired a pistol at then President- elect Roosevelt in Miami, Fla., on Feb. 15, 1933. Roosevelt escaped harm, but Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was killed. Zangara was tried and executed within days. Harry S. Truman: On Nov. 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican na- tionalists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, tried to shoot their way into Blair House, Truman’s temporary resi- dence. The President was unharmed. Torresola and a guard died. Truman commuted Colldzo’s death sentence. John F, Kennedy: Rifle fire mortally wounded Kennedy in a Dallas, Tex., motorcade on Nov. 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald, a pro-Castro radical, was arrested, but he was later fatally shot by Jack Ruby, a saloon owner. There is still dispute over whether Oswald was the lone assassin. Gerald Ford: On Sept. 5, 1975, in Sacramento, Calif., drug- cult member Lynette Fromme pointed a pistol at Ford, but she was disarmed. Seventeen days later in San Francisco, Sara Jane Moore, a political activist, shot at the President but missed. Both women are serving prison terms. Meee
swam a a* ~ POLICE EQUIPME “DISCO S iy Bs r ty a LR A ) z 7 . A ™ tf. x ¥ b ‘ a tees + BER ale There’s no trick to buying a cheap gun like the one that wounded Reagan. Despite an import ban, they continue to flood in from abroad. In many parts of America today, a license to drive is a license to buy a pistol—-few questions asked. That fact was illustrated once again in the attempted assassination of Presi- dent Reagan. The gun fired at the President was a .22-caliber revolver i pirchased over the counter’in Dallas. Around the U.S., a survey shows, handguns are being -purchased with ease; including cheap foreign-made models imported despite federal legis- lation intended to keep them out of the country. Police records show that handguns are among the hottest-selling consum- er items in the United States. The cus- tomer increasingly is the law-abiding citizen, convinced that the police can no longer protect him or her from vio- lent criminals. Officials in the Miami area; for exam- ple, report a huge upsurge in firearms registration—and 31 cases in which armed victims struck back at assailants last year. “The sheep in the herd real- ize that the shepherd is sitting bound’ and gagged on the hillside,” says Dade County Medical Examiner Joseph Da- vis. “So the sheep are fighting back.” Says Fulton County, Ga., District At- torney Lewis Slaton: “Atlanta is aw armed camp. We’ve got guns all over the place.” Adds Denver Detective John Mamuzich: “People are selling guns out of the trunks of their cars. It’s as easy as selling a used lawn mower.” Nationwide, the situation is this: » Private citizens now own about 50 million handguns, by the estimate of -U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, April 13, 19814 = ame re Saturday-Night Specials— Plentiful and Easy to Get eel a Cain’ Sel rey the federal Bureau of Alcohol; Tobacco and Firearms—roughly 1 for every 3 persons age 16 and older. a Some 20,000 Americans were mur- dered or accidentally killed or commit- ted suicide with handguns last year. 2 Gun-control laws vary from place to place. But many are based on the federal Gun Control Act of 1968 re- quiring ‘little more than proof of age and residence—usually, a driver's li- cense—plus a seldom checked pledge that the buyer is not a felon, a mental patient or a drug addict. ~ u Despite the 1968 federal Iaw, the components of small, cheap pistols known as Saturday-night specials are pouring in.from overseas. The law for- ‘bade the importation..of such guns— but it failed to cover weapons shipped’ to this country as disassembled parts. - Result: Gun merchants in West Germa- ny, Belgium, Brazil, Italy, Finland, France and Britain send the makings to US. plants for assembly. . The strands come together in the saga of the gun believed to have been used to shoot the President, as outlined by federal law-enforcement officials: The parts of this pistol were manu- factured by Roehm Firearms Company in Sontheim-Brenz, West Germany, and shipped to R.G. Industries in the riot-scarred Liberty City area of Mi- ami. There, in a converted church sur- rounded by barbed wire, the parts” were assembled into a weapon: A six- shot .22-caliber model known as an RG14, with a 134-inch barrel and a re- tail list price of $39.45. An unidentified wholesaler bought the weapon and sold it to Rocky’s Pawn- shop in Dallas. There, say the records of proprietor Rocky Goldstein, it was bought Octeber 13 by a young man who showed a Texas driver’s license, filled out the simple federal form and’ paid ~ John W. Hinckley, Jr., went to Rocky’s of - Dallas for a West German-designed .22- callber pistol stmilar to the one below, ac- cording to police. about $45 each for it and a matching weapon. The gun now belonged to John Warnock Hinck- . ley, Jr., who is accused of using it in the March 30 attack on President Rea- gan; his press secretary, James Brady, and two lawmen in Washington. Four days before he bought the pistols in Dallas, Hinckley _was arrested in Nashville, charged with carrying three guns, fined $50 plus court costs and released—a fact not recorded on the Dallas gun form and not re- quired. The charge was a misdemeanor. Citizens from coast to coast can buy handguns just about as easily. Virginia and Colorado, for example, follow the Texas practice of requiring some apparent proof of identity and signature of the federal form, There’s no waiting period. California requires a 15-day wait so authorities can make background checks—but Californians can cross the state line to Arizona, where there is no wait. Scoffing at the law. Localities that do have strict gun-control laws—New York City; Washington, D.C.; Detroit; Cleveland, and Columbus, Ohio, among them—often see their efforts frustrated for similar reasons. People travel ‘to -a~suburb.or nearby county where the legal buying is easy or get ijlegal firearms bootlegged in from places such as Texas and Virginia. = _ While opinion polls. show that most Americans want tougher gun control, millions are acting otherwise. Even in the aftermath of the Reagan attack, House and Senate leaders say there is no chance Congress will pass any sweeping control law this year. The most that is likely to happen is that lawmakers may try to close some of the more glaring loopholes in the 1968 law. One proposal getting men-- tion: Tighten rules on imports to cut off the trade in disassembled parts. Anpth- er possibility: Much stiffer federal pen- alties for those who use guns in the commission of crime. But such propos- als are still in the talking stages, with no indication when action might come. Meantime, Americans are buying guns with little more inconvenience than a trip to the grocer’s. 0 By DAVID NAGY with the domestic bureaus of the magazine 293 HW 54952 Bocld: 329399491 Page 32 ns eR Se
| ‘ ae |. i I, { { | { HW 54952 TS A a atte ie na cen RM cl i Pht §Y cat i PIER N LG ll ak NG ae Nt LOE an a ON The President as Patient mS, _ —Behind the Scenes Luck helped, but.it was the Chief Executive himself who turned out to be a vital cog m the race by doctors and nurses to save him: ry e Ronald Reagan emerged from a week of ordeal with a gunshot wound in his lung, a 6-inch incision across his chest—and a reputation as a world- champion patient. The President was expected to make a complete recovery. By April 3, ‘he had progressed to the point that White House officials forecast he might re- turn to the Oval Office—at least part time—within two weeks of being shot. For the next six to eight weeks, the nation’s First Patient is to increase his activities gradually to regain-his physi- cal strength. If all goes well, doctors say he will be able to ride horseback in two to three months. “The prognosis is excellent,” said Dr. Dennis O’Leary, dean of clinical affairs at George Washington University Hos: pital soon after surgery. “He is physio-- logically a very young man. There should-be no-complications or perma- nent injuries.” A bright side. Reagan is considered a lucky case—lucky that the .22-caliber bullet missed his heart by several inch- es and lucky that he reached the hospi- tal emergency room quickly. He was also lucky, doctors say, that at age 70, he had no underlying health problems that could have exacerbated his wound or slowed his recovery. More than luck pulled the President through, however. Talks with the doc- tors and nurses on the surgical and in- ‘tensive-care teams make that clear. They told the behind-the-scenes story of what happens when the President of the USS. is rushed to a big-city hospital. George Washington University Hos- pital, three fourths of a mile west of the White House, is an older teaching insti- tution with up-to-date facilities. "At 2:35 p.m., on March 30, Reagan walked in the door of its emergency room with the aid of Secret Service men, then fell to one knee. He was pale, lightheaded. He was coughing up blood and gasping for breath. Not until attendants stretched him out in the re- suscitation bay of the emergency room and cut away his clothes did everyone realize that he-had been shot. 30 DoclTd:32969491 Page 33 The bullet had bounced off a rib and lodged in the lower left lobe of the left lung, causing significant bleeding and collapsing the lung. Attendants moved fast. A tube was quickly inserted in his chest.to expand . the lung and drain off blood pooling inside the chest cavity. Reagan never went into shock, but his blood loss was so great that emer- gency surgery was essential. He was given a transfusion of 2% quarts of blood—nearly half the normal volume of blood in the body. Roughly 40 min- utes after arriving at the hospital, Rea- gan was in the operating room. “The President was never in serious danger,” said O’Leary. “‘At no point in time was he even remotely close to extremis”—-a medical term for death. The 2-hour operation began with a -6-inch horizontal incision just below the left nipple. Two ribs were stretched apart to open up the chest. The team, headed by Dr. Benjamin Aaron, first made sure there was no bleeding from other organs such as the © liver, kidneys, spleen, stomach. Then the doctors turned to the lung and removed the bullet. They looked at the heart and examined major arter- ies. Finding everything in order, they sewed up their patient and transferred him to the recovery room. Dr. Dennis O'Leary shows reporters how bullet entered the President’s body. DON CARL STEFFAN = RA are eS Sete rice Ln beet ee nas Although the. operation is considered a major one, Rea- gan’s surgery was neither ex- traordinary nor rare. “It’s a standard type of proce- dure,” explains Dr. W. Gerald Austen, chief of surgery and cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. “We see it all too frequently.” It was not an easy night, however. Concern mounted in the recovery room. Reagan was breathing with the help of a respirator, but tests to moni- tor oxygen in his blood were disturb- ing. X-rays showed that blood clots were obstructing his airways. By 9 p.m., doctors decided to per- form a bronchoscopy—a procedure in which a fiber-optic instrument is in- serted in a tube already in the patient’s windpipe so that doctors can locate the - blood clots and remove them. - Slight setback. Reagan was on mor- phine to relieve the pain. His head was raised; he was alert and in good humor. But the attempted bronchoscopy failed because of a kink in the tube. Throughout the night, nurses took turns removing blood clots through a tube with a suction device. Fortunate- ly, Reagan’s lungs began to improve. By 2 a.m., X-rays showed that his lungs were close to normal, and an hour later he was taken off the respirator. At 6:15 a.m., the patient was moved to the intensive-care unit, jammed with nurses in yellow uniforms and banks of dials and TV -screens that monitor vital signs of the very sick. Fifteen hours later, Reagan was moved again—this time to-a $234-a- >: Bultet’s _-. Path U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, April 13, rse//
| Dear Ab Ronde uw, THERE AINT NO REPUBLICANS OR DEMOCRATS NOW.WE ARE ALL FAMILY 1 GET WELIMQUICK RON... fied "e A firm that rents uniforms hung this banner ¥ HW 54952 Docld: 329399491 WE NEED YOU/ America PS WE GANT AFFORD 10 LOSE A CUSICSER across street from Reagan's hospital. day private room with beige walls, two blue easy chairs, a rust-colored sofa and a television set hung on the wall. Meanwhile, the White House took over a corridor for use of Reagan’s secretary and the Secret Service. Despite those accommodations, the hospital's guiding principle was to treat Reagan like any other patient so that no medical mistakes would be made in the tense atmosphere. To-the hospital staff, Reagan was a model patient. “What impressed me-- was that-he was willing to do anything that would make him get better fast- er,” says nurse Maureen McCann. For instance, the key to recovery from lung surgery is physiotherapy to exercise the lungs. Every 4 hours, Rea- gan had to turn over on his stomach. The nurses clapped his back to vibrate his body and shake the secretions in his lung in order to prevent pneumonia. This was very important because Rea- gan had been hospitalized for pneumo- nia many years ago. “Someone like you saved my life,” Reagan told McCann. “She sat by my bédside and kept saying, ‘Breathe, breathe, breathe.’ ” Vibrating the back can be very painful over a fresh surgical incision. ““He never com- plained,” says McCann. Physiotherapy also includes forced coughing to bring up sputum. In anoth- er exercise, Reagan used a deep- breathing device which involved suck- ing on a tube to measure the strength of his lungs. In between exercises, medications and examinations, Reagan talked and talked. He told nurse Debbie Augsbach about growing up in a small town and about his father. He reminisced about how President Truman could walk U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, April 13, 1981 - ete oe oa te a Page om the White-House without Se- cret Service men. He wondered if he now might wear a bulletproof vest whenever he is in crowds. rhymes with a doctor. He was con- cerned about the brand-new blue pin-striped suit he had been wear- ing. He got a newspaper, skipped the assassination stories, noted the finding of another black child’s body in Atlanta and turned to the comics. The entertainer. Throughout the President’s stay in the hospital, his sense of humor stood out. His one- liners revealed the Hollywood per- former with a vaudevillian’s heart. For all the humorous quips that drew laughs, however, there were just as many: that flopped, said the staff, Doctors know that humor is im- portant in responding to stress and in speeding up the recovery pro- cess. In the recovery room, Reagan’s one-liners—written on a pad—not only showed that the patient was in good spirits but reassured the medical team as to his general conditiori. “It was a time of high anxiety,” re- calls Dr. Jack E. Zimmerman. “The X- ray and oxygen studies were bother- some. He knew we were worried, but it was hard to get overwhelmed when you have a patient putting out one- liners. It gave everybody reassurance that the patient was doing all right.” According to a New York City inter- nist, Dr. William M. Hitzig, laughing and joking have-a metabolic effect on the body. Humor, Hitzig explains, changes the salivary glands to produce more juice. It stimulates hormones from the pituitary, hypothalamus and adrenal glands—even the ex glands. For the medical staff, one of the lightest moments came when nurse McCann resolved a major mystery. She was combing Reagan’s hair, parting first one side, then the other and quiet- ly examining the roots. “Now,” the President said, “‘you can tell the world I don’t dye my hair.” Meanwhile, the business of the Presi- dency went on. The day after surgery, Reagan signed a bill limiting dairy sup- ports. He worried about his signature, made wobbly by intravenous tubes in his arm. He met with aides. He read memos. He made decisions. When a question arose over whether Secretary of State Alexander Haig should cancel his trip to the Middle East, it was the President who decided he should go. “The world has not stopped just be- cause of this,” said Reagan. Oo By ABIGAIL TRAFFORD eae eof At one point, Reagan swapped old | A President Who Enjoys a Josh It was a stream of wisecracks and jests from a wounded Ronald Reagan that reassured Americans most in the wake of an attempted presidential assassination. Even with a bullet in his chest, he was making such quips as these— u To his wife Nancy: “Honey, I forgot to duck.” a To the surgeons who were about to operate on him: “Please tell me you’re all Republicans.” When tubes in his throat kept him from talking during the hours that followed surgery, Reagan turned to a pencil and pad. a Told that a nurse would spend the night in his recovery room,-he wrote: “Does Nancy knowP” a= Said another note: “IfI’d gotten this much attention in Holly- wood, I would not have left.” m= One of the President’s notes read: “As Winnie Churchill said, ‘There is no more exhilarating feeling than being shot without results,’ ” a After undergoing a particularly painful medical procedure, Rea- gan paraphrased the epitaph of comedian W. C. Fields: “Allin all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.” When Reagan could talk again, he rattled off these one-liners— a To daughter Maureen: “One of. my new suits is ruined.” au To his three highest White House aides: “Who’s minding the store?” and “Well, I guess I really screwed up the schedule today.” ws Toan aide who told him that he would be happy to know the gov- ernment was running normally in his absence: “What makes you think I'd be happy about that?” a Toanurse who told him to keep up the good work: “You mean this may happen several more times?” a On learning that he would not be well enough to throw out the first ball to open the major-league‘ baseball season on April 8:“Iama . right-hander, and it is the left side that hurts.” Reagan cracked most .of his jokes before learning that his press secretary, James Brady, had been critically wounded in the assassination attempt. Tears filled his eyes when he was told of Bra- dy’s plight. “Oh, damn;” the Pres- ident said. “Oh, damn.” 31
. _ anna Teed + “oe Exec AD Adm. 0-19 (Rev. 8-20-79) @ @ wee Exec AD Inv. 2 ed at Exec AD LES _._ Asst. Dir.: Adm. Servs. Crim. Inv. Ident. Intell. Laboratory Legal Coun. __ Plan. & Insp. __ * Rec. Mgnt. —__. Tech. Servs. _— a ; Training Public Affs. Off. _ Telephone Rm. — Director's Sec’y — Shop armed Hinckley, city gang - Guns used by a Chinatown gang were bought in 1978 at the Dallas pawnshop where John W. Hinckley Jr. purchased the pistol with which he allegedly shot President Reagan and three others, investigators disclosed yesterday. , _ City cops and agents of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and | ; Firearms have traced 32 handguns bought by a member of the Flying Dragons gang in January and June 1978 to Rocky’s Pawn Shop. Hinckley purchased two .22-caliber guns at the same shop last Oct. 13 for $47 each. One of those pistols was used in Monday’s assassination attempt. The guns—all of them .22 or .38-caliber—bought for the Flying * Dragons were linked to a gambling raid and shootout involving a rival gang, the Ghost Shadows, the officials said. ~—Jerry Schmetterer The Washington Post ——_—____—- Washington Star-News Daily News (New York) The New York Times The Wall Street Journal _____——. . The Atlanta Constitution ______ The Los Angeles Times nue FrQ-B) (( FBI/DOS HW [§4952 Docld: 32989491 oe