Without those changes, an assassination of Barack Obama or a future president is likely. If that happens, a new Warren Commission will be appointed to study the tragedy. It will find that the Secret Service was shockingly derelict in its duty to the American people and to its own elite corps of brave and dedicated agents.
Epilogue
AFTER ASSASSINATING PRESIDENT Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth escaped capture for twelve days. But on April 26, 1865, federal forces cornered, shot, and killed him in a gun battle. Four of his fellow conspirators, including one woman, were tried and hanged.
Charles Guiteau, who fatally shot the newly elected President James Garfield on July 2, 1881, was hanged on June 30, 1882.
Leon Czolgosz, a factory worker who shot President William McKinley on September 6, 1901, was executed by electrocution. “I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people—the good working people,” he said before his death. “I am not sorry for my crime.”
Oscar Collazo, the surviving Puerto Rican nationalist who tried to assassinate President Truman, was convicted of first degree murder in March 1951. He was sentenced to death. A few weeks before he was to be executed in 1952, Truman commuted his sentence to life in prison. Truman said he didn’t want to provide Puerto Rican nationalists with a martyr. In 1979, President Carter pardoned Collazo, who then went back to Puerto Rico as a hero. He died in 1994.
In 1964, the Warren Commission confirmed FBI findings that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot President Kennedy. Two days after he shot Kennedy, Oswald was being transferred under police custody when Jack Ruby shot him to death.
Sirhan B. Sirhan was convicted of the murder of Robert F. Kennedy on April 17, 1969, and sentenced to death in a gas chamber. The sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 after the California Supreme Court invalidated all pending death sentences imposed in California prior to 1972.
Confined at the California State Prison, Sirhan told a parole board, “I sincerely believe that if Robert Kennedy were alive today, I believe he would not countenance singling me out for this kind of treatment. I think he would be among the first to say that, however horrible the deed I committed was, that it should not be the cause for denying me equal treatment under the laws of this country.”
After he paralyzed Governor George Wallace, Arthur Bremer was sentenced to sixty-three years in prison, later reduced to fifty-three years. After serving thirty-five years, he was released from a Maryland prison and placed on parole on November 9, 2007.
Bremer never explained why he shot Wallace, although in 1997, when the state denied his petition for parole, he railed against Wallace’s position favoring segregation. As a condition to his release, Bremer is prohibited from going near political candidates or events.
Nick Zarvos, the Secret Service agent whom Bremer shot in the throat as he protected Wallace, still has a raspy voice as a result of the shooting.
After the shooting, Wallace asked people to forgive him for his segregationist views. He died in 1998.
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was convicted in 1975 of attempting to assassinate President Ford. In 1979, she attacked a fellow inmate with the claw end of a hammer. On December 23, 1987, she escaped from the Alderson Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia, but was captured two days later. She is serving time in Texas at the Federal Medical Center. While she has been eligible for parole since 1985, Fromme has consistently waived her right to a hearing.
In December 1975, Sara Jane Moore pleaded guilty to attempting to assassinate President Ford. On December 31, 2007, she was released from prison on parole after serving thirty-two years of a life sentence. Moore has said that she regrets the assassination attempt, explaining that she was “blinded by her radical political views.” President Ford died on December 26, 2006.
After attempting to assassinate President Reagan, John W. Hinckley Jr., was found not guilty by reason of insanity on June 21, 1982. After his trial, Hinckley wrote that the shooting was “the greatest love offering in the history of the world.”
Confined to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, he was determined to be an “unpredictably dangerous” man who might harm himself, Jodie Foster, and any other third party. Nonetheless, on December 30, 2005, a federal judge ruled that Hinckley would be allowed visits, supervised by his parents, to their home in the Williamsburg, Virginia area. A request for further freedom was denied.
After a man threw a grenade at President Bush in Tbilisi, Georgia, the FBI examined three thousand photos of the crowd taken by a college professor. The bureau found a facial portrait of a man who matched the physical description of the person who threw the grenade. The Georgians distributed the photo to the media and posted it in public places. That led to a call to the police.
“Oh, yeah, that’s my neighbor, Vladimir Arutyunov,” the caller said.
With an FBI agent, the police went to the suspect’s residence on July 19, 2005. As they were approaching, the man fired on them and killed a Georgian police officer.
Arutyunov confessed, saying he did it because he thought Bush was too soft on Muslims. The man was sentenced to life in prison.
Secret Service Dates
1865 The Secret Service Division is created on July 5 in Washington, D.C., to suppress counterfeit currency. Chief William P. Wood is sworn in by Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch.
1867 Secret Service responsibilities are broadened to include “detecting persons perpetrating frauds against the government.” The Secret Service begins investigating the Ku Klux Klan, nonconforming distillers, smugglers, mail robbers, perpetrators of land fraud, and other violators of federal laws.
1870 Secret Service headquarters relocates to New York City.
1874 Secret Service headquarters returns to Washington, D.C.
1875 A new badge is issued to operatives.
1877 Congress passes an act prohibiting the counterfeiting of any coin or gold or silver bar.
1883 The Secret Service is officially acknowledged as a distinct organization within the Treasury Department.
1894 The Secret Service begins informal, part-time protection of President Cleveland.
1895 Congress passes corrective legislation for the counterfeiting or possession of counterfeit stamps.
1901 Congress informally requests Secret Service protection of presidents following the assassination of President William McKinley.
1902 The Secret Service assumes full-time responsibility for protection of the president. Two operatives are assigned full-time to the White House detail.
1906 Congress passes the Sundry Civil Expenses Act for 1907 that provides funds for Secret Service protection of the president. Secret Service operatives begin to investigate western land frauds.
1908 The Secret Service begins protecting the president-elect. President Theodore Roosevelt transfers Secret Service agents to the Department of Justice, forming the nucleus of what is now the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
1913 Congress authorizes permanent protection of the president and the president-elect.
1915 President Wilson directs the secretary of the treasury to have the Secret Service investigate espionage in the United States.
1917 Congress authorizes permanent protection of the president’s immediate family and makes it a federal criminal violation to direct threats toward the president.