10 Close-Calls Of Civilians Trying To Assassinate An American President

Abraham Lincoln. James A. Garfield. William McKinley. John F. Kennedy.

These four men are the only presidents who have been assassinated in the course of American history. However, many of the other 42 have had close encounters with death during their own presidencies. Motivated by various reasons, these would-be assassins were foiled by misfiring guns, police, bystanders, and—thankfully for the presidents—bad luck.

Below are the stories of ten close-call assassination attempts. Discover how a 50-page speech saved Theodore Roosevelt, how airplane wheel blocks spared Nixon, and how Gerald Ford almost fell victim to a member of the Charles Manson family.

12. Andrew Jackson

On January 30, 1835, Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United Sates, was leaving the funeral of a House representative when he was jumped by Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter. Jackson’s would-be killer raised a gun and pulled the trigger, but it misfired. He produced a second pistol, but against all odds, this too misfired. According to rumor, Jackson flung himself at his attacker and beat him with his cane. Lawrence was put on trial and found not guilty by reason of insanity. It was revealed that the painter believed himself to be Richard III, a 15^th century English king. Lawrence spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital.

11. Theodore Roosevelt

Politician and professional rancher, Theodore Roosevelt served as the 26^th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. After losing the presidential nomination of the Republican Party in 1912 to William Taft, Roosevelt ran for the presidency under the banner of the newly established Progressive Party—or the Bull Moose Party. Prepared to give a speech in Milwaukee on October 14, Roosevelt was entering his car on his way to the venue when he was shot. The attacker was quickly apprehended, but instead of going to the hospital, Roosevelt went ahead and delivered his speech, attributing his survival to his metal glasses case and the 50-pages of speech folded in his pocket which slowed the bullet down considerably. The bullet remained lodged in his ribs until his death in 1919.

10. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Although he had been elected as the 32^nd president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt had not been sworn into office yet when Giuseppe Zangara—an unemployed bricklayer—attempted to take his life. On February 15, 1933, after Roosevelt finished giving a short speech in Miami, Zangara opened fire shouting, “Too many people are starving!” Chicago mayor Anton Cermak died as a result, and several others were badly wounded, but the soon-to-be president escaped without injury. Zangara was found guilty and spent ten days on death row before being sent to the electric chair. Ten years later, Soviet officials claimed to have uncovered a Nazi plot to murder Roosevelt; however, there is no evidence to confirm that Zangara was acting on the Nazi’s behalf.

9. Harry S. Truman

In the fall of 1950, the White House was undergoing renovations, forcing Harry S. Truman and his wife to temporarily relocate to Blair House on Pennsylvania Avenue. On November 1, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola attempted to storm the building with the 33^rd president of the United States inside. They never made it past the entryway. White House police officer Leslie Coffelt took down Torresola before resulting to fatal injuries himself. Collazo and Torresola belonged to the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, a group of extremists fighting for full independence from the United States. Coffelt received the death penalty, but Truman—who appeared completely unfazed by the incident—took pity on the man and got it reduced to a life sentence.

8. Richard Nixon

After multiple failed attempts to start his own business, Samuel Byck applied for a loan from the Small Business Administration, but was turned down. Angry and depressed, he redirected his anger on Richard Nixon, the 37^th president of the United States. In 1974, Byck murdered a police officer outside of Baltimore-Washington International Airport and broke onto a flight to Atlanta. His plan: to hijack the plane and crash it into the White House, taking out Nixon in the process. Byck stormed the cockpit and yelled at the pilots to take off, but it was impossible to do so without first removing the wheel blocks. With his plan foiled, he shot both pilots, killing one of them. Police shot Byck twice through the window before he could kill himself to avoid being arrested.   

7. Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford, the 38^th president of the United States, survived two assassination attempts during his presidency. On September 5, 1975, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a drug-addled Charles Manson devotee seeking the crazed man’s approval, took a shot at Ford in a crowded Sacramento park while he was on his way to give a speech. The gun misfired and she was quickly apprehended by the Secret Service.

Less than three weeks later, Sara Jane Moore, an unstable former FBI informant with ties to left-wing radical groups, attempted to do what Fromme could not. Her shot went wild, however, because of the intervention of a bystander, Vietnam veteran Oliver Sipple. Both Fromme and Moore were paroled shortly after Ford’s death in 2006.   

6. Jimmy Carter

On May 5, 1979, Jimmy Carter was scheduled to give a speech in Los Angeles at the Civic Center Mall. The Secret Service were quick to apprehend a man called Raymond Lee Harvey who was standing outside the building with a starter pistol loaded with blank rounds. Harvey claimed to be a part of a larger four-man plot to assassinate the 39^th president of the United States. He and another man were expected to create a diversion with their starter pistols, while two men with rifles took down Carter in the ensuing confusion. He identified Osvaldo Espinoza-Ortiz as one of his co-conspirators. Espinoza-Ortiz was taken into custody and denied the whole thing before finally admitting to the plot. Detectives found a gun case and three rounds of ammunition in a room at a nearby hotel, seemingly confirming Harvey’s story.

5. Ronald Reagan

In the early afternoon of March 30, 1981, Ronald Reagan was walking to his limousine from the Washington Hilton when John Hinckley Jr. opened fire. The 40^th president of the United States was shot in the chest and suffered from internal bleeding and a punctured lung. Press Secretary James Brady took a bullet to the head, an injury that left him partially paralyzed and with extreme brain damage. Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy and police officer Thomas Delahanty were also wounded in the attack. When asked about motivation, Hinckley admitted that he hoped his actions would impress actress Jodie Foster. He was found insane and committed to a psychiatric hospital.  

4. Bill Clinton

During his eight years in office, Bill Clinton was the target of numerous assassination plots, three of which all happened in 1994. The most notable attempt on his life, however, occurred in November 1996. The 42^nd president of the United States was staying in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. While his motorcade was en route to the event, intelligence agents picked up a message hinting at a possible attack on the president. The motorcade immediately rerouted. American agents later found a bomb planted under a bridge that Clinton had been expected to drive over. Further investigation revealed that the bomb was the work of Osama bin Laden.

3. George W. Bush

On February 7, 2001, George W. Bush, the 43^rd president of the United States, survived an attempt on his life when Robert Pickett opened fire on the White House. Pickett was an accountant with the IRS before being fired in 1988 for incompetence and poor attendance. He spent years trying to get reinstated, but when that failed, he redirected his anger on the newly inaugurated president. Bush was in the residential area of the White House at the time and came out of the attack unharmed. A Secret Service officer took down Pickett who was later sentenced to three years at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester.    

George W. Bush survived a second assassination attempt on May 10, 2005. Believing that the president was being “too soft” on Muslims, Vladimir Arutyunian chucked a Soviet-made hand grenade at the man while he was delivering a speech in the Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia. The grenade did not detonate, because the would-be assassin had tied a red handkerchief around the weapon, ultimately preventing the safety lever from detaching. Arutyunian was sentenced to life in prison.  

2. Barack Obama

Obama was involved in multiple security incidents and some threats extended to his family. Its been reported that he received 4 times the threats as other presidents. While there was an increase in plots by white supremacists and other racist groups, the secret service was able to catch most attempts while the accused were still plotting against the president.  What was thought to be a credible threat in Denver by Shawn Robert Adolf, Tharin Robert Gartrell and Nathan Dwaine Johnson who drove a truck filled with weapons and narcotics to an Obama rally. Secret Servie later downplayed the chances of them successfully going through with the plot due to drug use. In Tennesse, two men Paul Schlesselman and Daniel Cowart intend to go on a murder spree to kill predominantly African-American school children and then drive their vehicle to go shoot the President.  They were caught because they were bragging about other crimes they had committed. 

1. Donald Trump

Prior to Trump becoming president on June 18, 2016, at a rally in Las Vagas, Micheal Steven Sandford attempted to grab a pistol of a police officer. Standford approached a police officer who was about 30 feet away from Donald Trump and started to speak with him when he attempted to grab the officer's gun but it got stuck in the holster. After being arrested Stanford claimed the he intended to kill Trump to stop him from becoming president.There were two ricin letters that were mailed to Trump but both were intercepted before they were received. The first October 2018 by William Clyde Allen III, a U.S. Navy veteran and the second in September 2019 by a Canadian resident Pascale Ferrier.