HW 34952 By Athelia Knight and Neil Henry Washington Post Staff Writers The young loner charged with shooting President Reagan had a fixa- tion Aor teen-age movie star Jodie Foster, and attempted to assassinate e président in a grotesque attempt to get her attention, according to a letter found in his Washington hotel room. unemploved, in his/25 years made few friends, had senteveral affectionate letters to the actress he had never met, accord- ing to law enforcement sources. An unmailed letter was found in his hotel room here on the day he allegedly sshot and wounded Reagan. “I will prove my love for you... through a historic act,” Hinckley re- portedly wrote to Foster. The hand- scrawled, two-page letter indicated that Hinckley was going to shoot Reagan and that Hinckley himself might also be killed, according to sources. The letter also said that Hinckley had seen Foster’s photo- graphs many times and that he ad- ‘mired-and*loved: her. Foster, 18, left Hollywood last fall to begin studies as a freshman at Yale University. Officials at the university issued a statement by Foster late yes- terday in which she said that “I have never met, spoken to, or associated with him [Hinckley].” In that state- ment, Foster said the FBI had asked her to say nothing more about Hinck- Jey, who has been charged with at-, tempied assassination of a president and assault with intext to kill a feder- al employe. Othep’ sources said she had received seyéral of Hinckley’s Jet- ters. David Népier, a master at the school’s CalHoun College, told a re- porter ne Foster had received “a lot of strange letters from a lot of peo- ple.” Docld:32989491 Page 7 Aside from his obsession with Jodie Foster, Hinckley, the son of a , a man of few aims or ca been a member of the National So- cialist. Party of Americe’ for one year, ut was expe 0 t neo-Nazi organization in 1979, according to leaders of the Chicago-based group, _ because he was too extremist and vio- lent and they feared he was an under- cover agent. There are several events, some mundane and one chilling, that may have drawn the nondescript wanderer to the budding actress. Hinckley was a voracious reader of newspapers and magazines and might have seen Fos- ter’s picture in a recent Newsweek and read her short first-person ac- count of her venture to Yale in last October’s Esquire Magazine. Although Hinckley had no known relationships with women in recent years, he seemed to be attracted to young girls, It was learned yesterday” that in the two weeks before he to Washington, Hinckley spen of his time hanging around High School in suburb where he attempted to befri There is also a certain parallel be- tween Hinckley and a character in a movie in which Foster appeared in 1975. In that movie, “Taxi Driver,” Foster played a young runaway who ended up as a streetwalker in New York and made friends with a lonely, mentally. unstable cabbie played by Robert De Niro. For much of the movie, the De Niro character, Travis Bickle, stalked a political candidate ‘and was prepared to assassinate the politician before being scared off by a security agent. What is known of Hinckley’s letters to Foster does not make it clear whether Hinckley ever saw that movie. Paul Schrader, who wrote the screenplay for “Taxi Driver,” said the film was inspired by the life of Arthur Bremer, the Milwaukee busboy who attempted to assassinate presidential candidate George C. Wallace in 1972. “The pathology of the movie is very accurate,”:Schrader said yesterday. “I would get letters and visits from peo- ple. One man just walked in once and said, ‘I just wanted to find out how you found out about me’...I was frightened.” Travis Bickle struggled with loneli- ness, desperation and disillusionment, Love Letter Offers Clue To Motive in Shooting R ~ SMe ae tae and 30, John Hinckley in re- cent GH so in and out. of *°* AD Adm. __ college, roamed from Texas to Nash- see AD Inv. ___ ville to Denver, applied for jobs but <ec AD LES — increasingly bitter and nihilistic about American life and politics. He was under psychiatric care near never got them, constantly lied about ,5:, Dir.: his background, bought guns and grew Adm. Servs. Crim. Inv. ident. +& his parent’s home in Denver earlier ntell, SY) this year and was being treated with ~aboratory Valium. In the final days before his t egal Coun. fateful trip across the country from pj, Insp. — Rec. Mgnt. be separating himself more and more Tech. Servs. — from his family and his past. The ac- Troining Los Angeles to Washington on a Greyhound bus, Hinckley seemed to quaintances he made’ when he staved ublic Affs. Off. . at a Denver motel for two weeks earli- slephone Rm. er this month said they had no idea irectot’s Sec’y — he was the son of a prosperous an influential local businessman. Hinckley was repeatedly described by childhood friends and by strangers whose paths he crossed during his aimless travels, as a loner, a quiet man, aman “so normal that he ap- peared to fdde into the woodwork,” as his Dalles high school classmate, Bev- erly ath, put it. _ Itves only when Hinckley acted or said the extraordinary that observers — hotel maids, janitors, acquaintances — took notice of the chubby, sandy- haired young man, clad usually in jeans and buttofi-down shirts, who sometimes gref” so animated during brief conven that his eye lids and shoulders would fidget. A maid at the Golden i r, ‘Hinckley stayed before coming ashington, said he had one pecu- liar“habit that indicated to her that he was a strange fellow. The maid said she told FBI agents about that habit and was directed by agents not to reveal what it was. The Washington Post A-/_ Washington Star-News — Daily News (New York) ——_ The New York Times —— The Wall Street Journal The Acianta Con SUS aT The Los Angeles Tines ou. Date F-[- Bl
i) D Lubbock? Tex., Where Hinc lasf"fall while attending Texas Tech, said he remembered, after seeing Hinckley’s face flash on the television Monday, speaking to him twice. Wynne said Hinckley showed “great hostility” toward the government, and felt “there were some political leaders, he thought should be eliminated. “He just basically had no eeu authoritarian control, seid according to the Lubbock Ava- e-Journal. - a Wwane said Hinckley’s attitude and personality were “strained,” and it WOCK. #4 year later, ‘i of the handguns were made by TICE tries i Miami, a small com- key lived / assembles cheap hand from parts manufactured by hm Industries. a West r . The frst handgun was Sect ole purchased by Hinckley from Pébna Daddy's Galaxy Pawn Shop if, Lub- e purc 0 .22-caliber revolvers from Sfidely Whiplash Pawn Shop also“ Lub- On Oct. 9, roughly a month after Hinckley bought the two/pistols, he was arrested at the Nashville airport after an officer there foticed what he believed was a barrel while seemed as though he “had something Hinckley was going through an elec- on his mind.” tric metal detector. When officer John “There was a nervousness about poe the suitcase he found him,” Wynne said. “Hyperactive, is that what you call it? He moved about a lot. He got more anxious, more hyper as the conversation wore on, like he wanted to do something.” o revolvers in their original. boxes. “The: plastic was still wrapped around the boxes,” Lynch said. “He told me they were good guns. He said he was going north to sell them or give them Texas Tech Unjersity history pro- 1 to some friends.” fessor Joseph Bing recalled Hinckley After posting $62.50 bond, Hinckley orily because He was the most quiet, ‘vanished from Nashville, never show- the most un6btrusive student he had ing up for his trial. Instead, he appar- lectured to in the fall of 1979, when Hinckley was enrolled in King's U.S. Economie History course. “T recall him mainly because he was so quiet and attentive,” King said. “While everyone else in the class ex- hibited a kind of camaraderie, he al- ways sat’alone on the left side of the room, surrounded by empty chairs. Even during humorous moments in class, he would continue to gaze at me attentively, taking notes.” Hinckley, King said, wrote an “excellent” review for the course of a book on American slavery. Texas Tech records show several mysterious breaks in Hinckley’s uni- versity career. He started in the fall of 1973 and attended in the spring of 1974, but there are no records for him during the summer and fell of 1974, He returned to the university in the spring of 1975, came back the follow- ing fall and attended in the spring of 1976, But he was not at the universi- ently returned to Texas, to Dallas, where four days later he bought two more guns. Yesterday in Dallas, Isaac Rocky) Géldstein, owner of Rocky's awns rom which Hinckley bought’the .22-caliber weapon alleged- ly used in Monday's shooting, took his phone off the hook and reportedly hired a bodyguard after anonymous callers threatened him and his busi- ness. Hinckley purchased two guns from ‘Rocky’s-and- the--salesman -who -gold- : anid journalism, and’ expiéssed ar in. terest in politics and reading’ them to him quit yesterday when the shop received an avalanche of phone cals Bot Goldstein and his son vid/Said they did not remember . inckley, and the only records they have of the suspect’s visits to the pawnshop were quickly confiscated by federal authorities, Hinckley lived in Lubbock over a ' seven-year period, but left little im- pression on the memories of people he came in contact ‘with, except for the — ty during either the fall semester of ttail of paper and records of apart- 1976 or the following spring semester. ments rented and guns bought. He came back in the summer of 1977 __ Only occasionally, as in his conver- and distinguished himself by main- sations with the Lubbock maintenance taining a B average and. making the man, were aspects of his life and his. Dean’s List. problems remptnbered. It was in Then there was Hinckley’s apparent ‘Texas that Hinckley first ‘met mem- fascination with guns, which seemed en of the National Socialist Part of to grow in proportion to his increas- 10 t : ingly lonely spiritual sojourn. In 1979 an autontabile journey in March 1978 and 1980 he purchased a total of six to St. Louis, where he participated in guns, three in Dallas, two in Lubbock a NSPA march to commemorate the and one elsewhere, all from pawn- birthday of George Lincoln Rockwell, shops that buy and resell an assort= founder ofthe American Nazi Party. ment of: musical instruments, jewelry, guns and’ encyclopedias. cause; he w ht, a litle under- stated,” said el C. Aifen, acting director of the group, rptalling the St. Louis march. “He wore uniforms like the rest of us — he was a stormtroo- per. Black boots, the swastika, khakis and the black helmet. But he was too militant. He wanted to destroy our enemies — blacks, Jews, Commu- “It got to the rant?” said party stormtrooper John Gaynor, “that we suspected Kin of ig, a federal agent. He was just too far out. He wanted to destroy people.” Hinckley, according to Allen, lasted only a year in the party. The same . Semester at Texas Tech duri i he studied German camps and Hitler’s was expelled from the party. If it wasn’t Hinckley’s sometime bizarre behavior that people remem- bered, it was the deceits, the occasion- al lies and half-truths. Two weeks after he was released by police in . Nashville, he was in Denver, looking for work. In noncursive, undramatic, under- stated handwriting’ on a job applica- tion to the Mountain News, Hinckley li ut job references and his academié standing. He desired, he wrote, a writing or circulation job pay- ing in excess of $4 an hour, and wrote that he had previously worked as a bookkeeper at a Dallas publishing house, a photographer in Los Angeles, and a salesman in Hollywood. He wrote that he had graduated from Texas Tech with a degrée in English The News, and the ver Post, to which he also app or a job, checked his credefitials “found an them false. a But it was at the G9 den Hours Motel _in Denver, where Hinc ey ved for ays before leaving town eight days ago, that the mysterious wanderer left the most mundane, yet memorable, impressions. The hotel, located on a noisy thor- oughfare across the street from a Ford dealership and a ‘oa is owned by the Chon family. Hinckley lived in-room AV on the sec- ond floor. On Marck 8, Hinckley drifted into the hotel requesting a “cheap place to stay,” according to the daughter of the owner. He said hé would pay by either day or week, and when the girl told him the weekly rate was $74.25, he paid the amount in cash. He was driving a white Plymouth Volare bearing Texas license “p W d expired: last year. ‘i by “He seemed committed to our
Docld: 32969491 “He was just a clean-cut, good-living kid. He didn’t seem to drink or smoke and never had omen in the at the hote)an “next door to the one Hinckley stayed in. He looked like a young man who was simply down on his luck, a poor waif who drifted in from the city, the ‘Aucourts recalled. Each night he went to bed before 9 p.m., and awoke be- fore 9, and immediately in the morn- ing he would go downstairs to the front desk to peruse the Rocky Moun- tain News. He always wore tennis shoes, jeans and a beige jacket, and each day. when he was asked where he was off, to so early in the moring, he replied “to work.” “talked to him maybe two, three times a day,” Ginger Aucourt said. “We talked about’ Texas, country an western music, things we had in com- mon. He didn’t talk much about him- gelf, his family, politics or religion.” And though he appeared impover- ished, and walked about the hotel with head bowed down and hands shoved-into~his-pockets, he never .ad- mitted to these people that his family was prosperous and only 20 miles away. During his stay at the hotel, he made 34 phone calls, none of them long distance. The Aucourts said Hinckley spent most of ‘his time in his hotel room with the shades tightly drawn. He bought food at the nearby McDonald’s and ate in his room. Each morning, when the Aucourts tidied his room, they found McDonald’s wrap- pers in the trash bin, a tape recorder on the night table next to his bed. several record albums and a few tapes featuring music by John Lennon and the Eagles rock group. Page 61 “All day long, the shades were drawn. He never talked about his past or his family. He always pulled the coverlet over his bed, and the room was always orderly and clean,” said Stacey Aucourt. He said he didn’t have much mon- ey, so last Sunday Aucourt invited him over for a spaghetti dinner. Say- ing he had been tied up at work. Hinckley, who told them he worked for a local record shop, arrived for the dinner two hours late. On Monday morning Ginger Au- court saw Hinckley get into his white Plymouth. He waved to her. She thought the lonely stranger was going to work as usual. Instead, he began the long journey to Washington. Also contributing to this article were Washington Post staff writers Jonathan Neumann, Ted Gup, Dan ’ Balz, Martha Hamilton and Jay Mo- q thews. .
“A Drifter Withgs Purpose - Reagan Shooting Suspect Washingtos Post Staff Writers John W. Hinckley Jr., the man ac- cused of sng Present Reagan, arrived if Washington shortly after noon last Sunday, stepping down from the 5:30 a.m. Greyhound express bus from Pittsburgh into a seedy terminal on New York Avenue NW. That trip had taken seven hours, the last leg of a cross-country journey that began four days earlier in Los Angeles and ended at this side-door entrance to the-nation’s capital, where Hinckley disembarked — a chubby, glassy-eyed drifter in need of a shave, according to those who say they saw him By Mike ne Eugene Robinson Over the next 27 hours, as best as can be reconstructed, Hinckley, 25, lunched on a cheeseburger at the ter- minal’s restaurant, found a room in an unobtrusive downtown hotel a few blocks away and ate breakfast quietly near the window of the ground-floor coffee shop as the Monday morning rush-hour traffic moved by outside. He watched silently but with some curiosity as the hotel maid placed fresh towels and pillow slips in his room at about 1:15 that afternoon. And just over an hour later, using a schedule published in the newspaper as a guide, Hinckley tried to gun down the president outside a hotel about a mile from his own, according to law-enforcement gources. , “He seemed like’ he had a chip on his shoulder agairfst the whole world,” recalled Linda , & Waitress at the bus terminal’s Burger King restaurant, who said she served Hinckley a cheese Whopper, without onions, and an order of fried onion rings shortly after his arrival Sunday noon. “He was real nasty about the way he ordered,” she said yesterday. When she asked the man in the short beige jacket and blue jeans if he wanted to eat his food in the restaurant, she said, he replied brusquely, “I told you it’s to eat here,” pulled a $5 bill from his pocket and threw it on the counter. . The woman who cleaned the s room Hinckley stayed in at the Park Central Hotel — Room 312 — at the mah who answered simply, “What?” when she knocked on his door, in no way seemed extraordinary. “There was nothing special about him,” she said yesterday. Crossed Country on Bus Hinckley’s journey east actually began with a flight west. On Wednes- day, March 25, he abandoned his 1973 white Plymouth Volare near his parents home in a Denver suburb and flew to Los Angeles. Law enforce- ment authoritiesthere subsequently recovered the car. He took Westerh Airlines Flight 45 from Denver tp’ Salt Lake City, then changed to Wéstern Flight 257 for the final leg of the trip to Angeles. He was traveling under his own name, with the flight coupon made out for “J. Hinckley,” according to airline offi- cials The following day, Marc} 26, Hinckley boarded a Greyhound’ bus in Hollywood and theri changed buses in downtown Los Angeles, pulling out of the station at 1:15 p. m. for theride ' across the country. There are two Greyhound routes - eastward — one going south through El Paso and requiring no change of buses, the other, northerly with a transfer in Pittsburgh. Hinckley chose the northern route, the first leg of which retraced his journey of the day before and took him across the Sierra Nevada back to Salt Lake City. In the Utah capital, a young man boarded the bus, sat next to Hinckley and rode with him the rest of the way 4o.Washington. The man gave a state-. ment to federal authorities after watching the shootings on televison. He is now being held in protective custody by the FBI, which has de- clined to release his name, law en- forcement officials said. Rocking and swaying, the bus took ‘ Hinckley over the Rockies to Chey- enne, across the plains to Chicago and to the industrial’ heartland of Cleve- land, where he changed buses. He changed again in Pittsburgh, anc rolled on to Washington. The trip costs $117.80, one way. There is no indication, Greyhound representatives say, that there was anything unusual about the behavior of Hinckley or the young man he rode with during the three days they spent on the road. - Hinckley’s bus was scheduled to pull into the Greyhound station at 12:15 p.m., a well-worn terminal situ- ated on New York Avenue between the skeleton of steel that will eventu- ally become the new D. C. Convention Center and a clump of bars and store- fronts housing two-bit peep shows and musty striptease houses. . : HW 54952 Docld:32989491 Page 82 - The bus apparently was on time. Hinckley li in the bus station, leaning o e for a while and then sitting down on a blue plastic seat, recalled a security guard at the termi- nal who said yesterday that he recog- nized the man pictured in the news- papers. . Sometime between 1 and 1:30 p.m., Hinckley walked across the terminal to the restaurant, ordered his food and ate it sitting alone in the back, Ross, the waitress remembered. He “looked like one of the D.C. street. people,” she said. Sometime later that day, Hinckley checked into the Park Central Hotel at 18th and: G streets NW, an 1I- story brick building constructed in 1929 as an apartment house and con- verted into a hotel five years ago. The Park Central — small rooms, narrow hallways and a facade dotted with air conditioners in every window — is moderately priced by Washine- ton standards. Single rooms like the one Hinckley stayed in rent for be- tween $42 and $52 a night. Ironically, the hotel is located just across the busy intersection from the headquarters of the Secret Service at 1800 G St. NW, and only a block away from the Secret Service’s Wash- Ington field office at 19th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. The hotel’s advertisement on page 998 of the D.C. yellow. pages trumpets its location as, “Just off Penna. Ave. ? Blocks from the White House. AAA Approved. Hotel Rooms. Suites. Tele- vision. Air Conditioned.” Hofel officials have declitied to sav what time Hinckley checked in or to describe his movements in any other way. :¢ AD Adm. ___ .¢ AD Inv. ce ADLES t. Dir.: dm. Servs. ‘im. Inv. ent, _ tell. — aboratory ___ sgal Coun. ___ an. & Insp. 2c. Mgnt. _ rch. Servs. aining lic Affs. Off. | sphone Rm. __ 2ctor's Sec’y .. The Washington Post _fi Washington Star-News —— Daily News (New York) WW The New York Times The Wall Street Journa) ou The Atlanta Constivwtpa, The Los Angeles Times mee: ma Date _ ef G/] -— An unremarkable man who blended easily into a crowd, he went unnoticed by several Australian tourists who were staying down the hall from him. At around 8:30 Monday morning. the day of the assassination attempt, he apparently had breakfast in Kay’s Sandwich Shoppe, which is in’ the same building as the hotel but entered only by first going outside the hotel lobby. ‘ in recalls see- Kay’s owner Barry Sfein 6 Fet 90. i i