019 (Rev. &-26-7a) .@ the matter ~ By EDWARD EDELSON Sclence Editor The psychology behind attempts to assassinate a President hasn't changed since a house painter named Richard Lawrence tried to shoot Andrew Fackson in 1835. Lawrence had no political motive and was suffer- ng from a serious mental imbalance. He explained he assassination attempt by charging that President fackson had tried to kill his father. The pattern of a nonpolitical attempt by a dis- urbed person continues to this day, experts say. | “There have been 11 assassination attempts since . 835, and all of the assdesins but-one were overtly nd grossly psychotic.” says-Br! Erhahuel Tanay, a forensic psychiatrist at Wayne State University in etroit. A LETTER WRITTEN by John Warnock Hinckley ty who has been charged with the shooting of resident-Reagan, raised the possibility that a vio- ence-filled film might also have played a role in his iction. = In the letter, addressed to actress Jodie Foster but 1ever mailed, Hinckley said that he.was going to-do iomething that might get him'killed and that hé did 10t care what happenedtohim. . Among other roles, Foster appeared as a 13-year- Id prostitute ‘in ‘the ‘Robert ‘De -Niro--film- “Taxi- driver.” DeNiro played a New York cabby who Notted an attempt on the life of a political candidate nd killed several persons. a Wathorities $ave said ‘that television ane ahi : depictions of violence could trigger violent acts in some unbalanced individuals. _ “TELEVISION intoxication” was used as an un- successful defense in the trial of a youth, Ronny Zamora, who was found guilty in a Florida case of beating an elderly neighbor to death. Love of TV police shows was cited as a defense in the recent case of “Robert,” the 9-year-old bank robbery suspect. The pattern of assassination has been different in other countries, where most assassinations have political motivations, Tanay says. “Only psychotics in this country attack Presidents,” he says. The one exception was the attempt by Puerto Rican nationalists on the life of President Truman at Blair House in Washington in-1050: Their ennounged motive was to gain independence for Puerto Rico. Assassins—A torment of mind is falling in life or on a downhill course, unable to relate to women, obscure or unknown, and had near or actual delusions of persecution and/or grandeur. In all except one instance a handgun was used.” Only two women have attempted presidential assassinations—Sarah Jane Moore and Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, both of whom tried to shoot President Ford within a 17-day period in 1975. Both are serving life seritences in the same prison. . "'* Another characteristic of assassins is that they ‘often’ shift‘from one target to‘anotheér, Tanay said. ‘8ésebh"Zangdra' -WHo tried to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, first planned to kill President Hoover. ARTHUR BREMER, who shot presidential candi- date George Wallace, initially stalked President Nixon. Lee Harvey Oswald shot at Gen. Edwin C. Walker before-he assassinated President Kennedy. Tanay noted that Hinckley was arrested last Oct. 9 in Nashville when he tried to. board a plane with ‘threé pistols and ammunition. President Carter was ‘in-Nashville that day and Reagan had just canteled a “planned camphign stop.”* ” 2 Exec AD Adm. __ Exec AD Inv. txec AD LES Asst. Dir.: Adm. Servs. Crim. Inv. —_ Ident. — — Intell. Laboratory Legal Coun. Plan. & Insp. —— Rec. Mgnt? Tech. Servs. —— Troining —_ Public Affs. Off. Telephone Rm .— Directo: s Sec’y The Washington Post ee Washingion Star-News Daily News (New York? 3 a The New York Times Tin Wail Street dearest oo, - The Athata Camata.t of oo. Tre Les Amie les Phas Aside from that attempt, Tanay says, “these are not political activities. There is a need for the assassin to find a symbolic figure to attack.” AMERICAN ASSASSINS have been remarkably Similar, . David .N._Daniels,.a psychiatrist at Stanford University; describes thé pattern‘in a book, “Vaalence and the Struggle for Existence”:- = #They have been white, smaller than average size; * | WW 54952 DocId:32989491 Page 91 _ (“)
0-19 (rev, 5-26-70), By JOSEPH VOLZ Washington (News Bureau)—John Warnock Hinckley Jr., the 25-year-old rifter accused of attempting to kill President Reagan, wrote to movie star Jodi ter that he would kill the President if she refused to love him, the Daily News learned yesterday. Foster, 18, is widely known for her role as a prostitute in the 1976 movie “Taxi Driver,”, a film that dealt in part with a plan to assassinate a populist politician. Sources close to the investigation "said that Foster received several letters from Hinckley, including one that com- plained.that Reagan was somehow ob- structing the career of the young movie Star, gL The News learned that FBI agents first interviewed Foster last November after“an anonymous letter threatening the movie star’s life was received at” FBI headquarters. At the time, bureau ‘officials were not aware-of ‘Hinckley: Foster told agents at the time she had no idea who would want to harm her. The FBI did not learn of the Hinck- ley death threat letter until agents searched his hotel room in Washington and his most recent motel room in Denver after the shooting. _ FOSTER REPORTEDLY did not re- ceive any letters signed by Hinckley until the last few weeks, but sources Said she did not discuss them with FBI agents until yesterday. Foster is now a student at Yale University in New Haven. An unmailed letter; found during a Search of Hinckley's room at the,Park Ce utral Hotel, near the White House, indicated that Hinckley “might go out and do something to get himself killed,” a Justice Department source said. Federal law enforcement sources Said Foster had received several letters | HW 54952 Docld:32989491 Page 92 ee ee een from Hinckley in the last few weeks, including one that told of his plans to kill the President. There was-no indica- tion that Hinckley and Foster had ever met, the sources added. In Hinckley’s room, officials repor- tedly also found photos of Foster, a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald, President John F. Kennedy's assassin, holding a gun, and written material on past assas- sinations. HINCKLEY, WHO IS undergoin, pyschiatric tests in the brig at the Quantico (Va.) Marine Base, 40 miles south of Washington, wrote in the unmailed letter that he did not care what happened to him, the sources said. Investigative sourctes said that Hinckley was infatuated with Foster and was out to prove his love—and that .the infatuation grew into an obsession. In “Taxi Driver,” lead actor Robert De Niro tells Foster, who plays a 13-year-old prostitute: “If you don’t love me, I'm going to kill the: Presi- dent.” | According to the Cable News Net- work in Atlanta, Hinckley wrote to Foster and said: “If you don’t love me, I'm going to kill the Président.” In New Haven, Foster issued a state- ment through Yale that said: “The FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office have asked me to say nothing about John W. Hinckley. But I do wish to say that I have never met, spoken to or associated with him. 1 will have no further com- ment at this time. Inquiries should be | addressed to the FBI.” INVESTIGATORS WERE intrigued by the similarity between Hinckley's actions and those of De Niro in “Taxi Driver.” But at the end of the film, De Niro decides against shooting the politi- cian and instead kills some lowlifes, including pimps, in an orgy of shoot- ing. The blonde Foster is not the typical ingenue. She has specialized in “bad girls,” which might have appealed to Hinckley, sources said. . In one film, for example, she plays “The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane,” who kills her family and neigh- bors. She currently is starring in an off-canipus production in New Haven of a play, “Getting Out.” Her role: a prostitute. Exec AD Adm. __ Exec AD Inv. __.. Exec AD LES — Asst. Dire: Adm. Servs... Crim. Inv. _ Ident. Intell, Laboratory ____ . | Sn Hinckley, in applying unsuccessfui. nsp _ ly for jobs with two Denver newspa. °° ~~ Pers falsely listed Yale, Foster's'' ——-- School, as a college he had attended. In vs. —. truth, he was a Texas Tech dropout. —_——. Attorney General William French { Smith told congressional leaders yes: R . terday that Foster was much on Hinck. "™+ = ley’s mind. PSYCHIATRISTS began interview. ing Hinckley. at Quantico in an attempt to determine his mental competency. Justice Department spokesman Tom -DeCair said Hinckley was housed in a 6-foot by 10-foot cel] with a cot and a toilet and was being administered the tranquilizer Valium. Hinckley is to appear before U.S. Magistrate Arthur L. Burnett tomorrow morning at 10 to determine if he should be released on bail. r The Washington Post Washington Star-News — so Daliy News (New York? sai The New York Times —_ Tne Wall Street Journal The Atha Constiiutnen The Loe Angeles Times Date __
0-19 (Rev. 8-20-79) , @ A ‘nobody’ becomes z ‘somebody’ - By ALTON SLAGLE . John Warnock Hinckley Jr. was nothing special. He was just one of ‘those quiet individuals who goes through life unnoticed. Perhaps that was his trouble. ’. His older brother was a “somebody”; he had joined their dad in a multi-million dollar oil business. His younger sister was a “somebody,” too; she had acquired a husband and a fancy home. John, meanwhile, just drifted. In 1974, Hinckley was a handsome, blond youth, quiet, well-mannered, a graduate from a high s hool in the exclusive Dallas suburb of Highland Park. He had just turned:19, and his life was one of mansions, backyard swimming pools, home Coke machines and school activities. Not particularly scholarly or athletic, he was, said a teacher, “quiet, very reserved,” and “didn’t give anyone any ouble.” , Three weeks ago, John Hinckley, his body now pudgy, his face florid, his clothing shabby, walked into G.I. Joe’s Pawn Shop in Denver to hock a six-string electric guitar and a Smith-Corona typewriter for $50. A clerk said he looked “like & man down on his luck,” a man, it is now charged, who was to end a cross-country bus trip by attacking the life of the President of the United States. SOMEWHERE IN THOSE SEVEN years, he took a bizarre turn. As he drifted aimlessly about the country, in and out of college and occasional odd jobs, apart from his family, the quiet boy of 1974 apparently became a psychologically tormented 25-year-old loner, who was ejected from the American Nazi Party as a troublemaker, who lived with virtually no belongings in filthy, garbage-strewn rooms, who rejected his father’s money and his mother’s smothering love and who turned his back on his strict Christian heritage. Hinckley had been given every advantage. What went wrong? In high school, Hinckley belonged to the b, the Spanish Club, the Student Government Club. “He was not a rowdy, ais Rodeo Club-sponsor-Bill, Lieberman. Principal A.E. Sigler recalled “nothing special” about the boy. END NAMED GREGG@-KALINA called John“mellow- ::afollower;-not a leader, and basically fairly lazy .,. not a guy to’pick a fight,” a boy with a protective mother who “babied him.” “He just wasn’t a great personality, a jock or intellectual or anything that distinguishing,” said Craig McDaniels, another classmate. .’ Perhaps that-was the problem. ———— Hinckley, the middle of three children, had no place—he simply didn’t belong in his family’s life or, perhaps, he didn’t allow himself to. He drifted around the country, and he drifted into radical right-wing politics. He also became enamored of guns. After he finished high school, his father moved the family to .the wealthy Denver suburb of Evergreen, about 20 miles from the downtown headquarters of his eee ty eet a successful oil and gas exploration firm. John -decided, instead; igrate to Lubbock, Tex., a quiet, dusty, cotton and cattle town of 160,000 people on the tabletop-flat west Texas plains. He enrolled in Texas Tech University, planning to study business administration, later switching to liberal arts. But his favorite seemed to be history—Nazi history. IN THE SECOND SUMMER session of 1978,.Dr. Otto Nelson taught him a course in modern Germany. Nelson said Hinckley was particularly attentive and diligent when the subject turned to Hitler and the Auschwitz death camp. And he avidly read Hitler's “Mein Kampf”—not “the kind of book a student would pick up to get a historical view of-Germany,” Nelson said. Last Spring, Hinckley reportedly signed up for a course in modern European social movements entitled “Socialism, Communism, Anarchism-and Fascism.” But he never appeared in class. Pr. Joseph_King taught him U.S. economic history in the fall of 1979 and - recalls fn was attentive-above average. “I remember him distinctly,” King said. “I remember he didn’t look like his new pictures; he looked like his early photos.” King said his student took careful notes, always sat alone and “never really laughed at my jokes.” Wo54952 Docld:32989491 Page 93 Exec AD Adm. __ Exec AD Inv. —_ Exec AD LES __.. Asst. Dir.: Adm. Servs. Crim. lav. — Ident. Intell. _ Laboratory Legal Coun. ___ Plan. & Insp. Rec. Mgnt. —. _ Tech. Servs. Troining — Public Affs. OH. Telephone Rm. Ditector’s Sec’y .. The Washington Post —— Washington Star-News ——.-——_— Daily News (New York) - —_- The New York Times _— ——— The Wall street Journel ——___- The Adianta Constitution The Los Angeles Time~ —————— Date —_— IF
* " ANOTHER, LUBBOCK RESIDENT, canis. maintenance manager of @ e re the University Arms, where Hinckley o ived, remembers the suspect in the attempted assassination of the President. Wynne recalls a conversation during last’ year’s political campaign in which Hinckley showed hostility toward government and had no allegiance to authority. “We were talking about Reagan,” Wynne said. “He was trying to defend Ed, Clark, the National Libertarian candidate. He said, ‘If I had to make a choice, I would pick Clark, but none of them know what they're doing. They’re all too old.” Wynne said the youth’s attitude was strained, as if he had something on his mind and wanted to tell his problem to someone. Hinckley was nervous and hyperactive, he said. Mark Swoffard, who helped manage one Lubbock apartment complex where Hinckley lived if 1979, recalls him as “so damn strange,” a man who was always alone and never talked to anyone. He said the $175-a-month apartment was “a mess,” with “garbage piled up all over the cabinets and even in the bookshelves.” Other than garbage, he said, “it looked like no one lived there.” HINCKLEY’S PHOTO IN LA VENTANA, the Teeh yearbook, listed no club memberships or activities. But he W ctive in one area. Last September, at Lubbock Pawnshop, he bought a .22-caliber pistol. As Hinckley drifted in and out of university life, he alternated classes with odd jobs—a salesman in Hollywood, a bookkeeper in Dallas, a bartender in Denver. He decided to be a reporter. Last October, in Denver, he applied for work at both the Denver Post and The Rocky Mountain News, citing a college degree he lackéd—Texas Tech, '80, English and journalism, with gome time at Yale—and job experience .he may or may not, have had. - ‘Under w hobbies” on. his job applications, he listed “reading, sports, politics. 1 Hewas fot hired: aie oat sare s —- * Indeed, he had a stint with politics. In 1978, he met Michael C. Allen, president-elect of the Nazi-style National Socialist Party of America, during a neo-Nazi march in St. Louis. The next year, he joined the party. . BUT IN THAT, TOO, there was disappointment. “He felt the party was not sufficiently militant for him,” said H, vington, the president, “He felt we should be waging armed struggle against the government.” And, said Allen, Hinckley “wanted to shoot people and blow things up.” He was, in a word, “a nut.” The party expelled him, and the reaming continued. Last Oct. 9, Hinckley showed up in Nashville on the day President Carter was holding a “town hall” meeting at the Grand Ole Opry. Ronald Reagan had just canceled a campaign stop there: Hinckley tried to leave aboard an American Airlines jet with three handguns—two . i i4s and a .38-caliber pistol, along With 50 rounds of ammunition. The metal-detector-used-by-airport: security caught him, and he was arrested. An airline spokesman, people frequently are caught trying to smuggle guns aboard -planes. He was merely fined $50 plus $12.50 in court costs and was released. His name was not added to the list of 400 people that the Secret Service considers potential assassins or even to the list of 25,000 believed to be likely assassins. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN, say experts—in retrospect..The signs were there. “John had been under psychiatric care,” said a spokesman for his heartbroken family. “However, the evaluations did not alert anyone to the seriousness of his condition. ” DrStuart Berger, 3 New York forensic psychiatrist, Said Hinckley “seems severely distur Berger described the would-be assassin as “isolated and withdrawn from his pastor and his friends,” a young man who “didn’t fall into the mold... a mid-child with no place in the family (who) seems to have become increasingly psychologically disorganized over the past few years. His parents were very conservative, supporters of Reagan. John was ostracized from his family. To eompensate for his failure, he became fanatically right-wing and perceived the Reagan administration as going to the left... as a threat to national security.” His family, on the other hand, continued as stdunch Republicans, contributing heavily to George Bush’s unsuccessful presidential! campaign, then avidly supporting Reagan. John Hinckley’s brother, Scott, was to have visited Neil Bush, who is Vice President Bush’s son, and his wife, Sharon, for dinner last night at their Denver home. Neil Bush works in Denver for Standard Oil of Indiana. IN FURTHER-IRONY, NEIL served in his older brother George's unsuccess- ful campaign for Congress from Texas and throughout mitch of 1978 ‘lived in Lubbock. Both Bush brothers say, however, that if they ever ‘met the elusive John ;Hinckley, they weren't aware Of it sgsocc aed TAA! a De Oba ga ee 20 | Page 94 HW 54952 DBocld: 32999491