Assassination!: The Brick Chronicle of Attempts on the Lives of Twelve US Presidents (26 page)

Later that same year, he was questioned by the Secret Service after he was reported commenting that someone ought to kill President Nixon. Byck denied making such a statement, and a psychiatrist who had treated him told investigators that Byck was a “big talker who makes verbal threats and never acts on them.”

By early 1973, now estranged from his wife and children, Byck began thinking of ways to end his life in a symbolic and violent way. He found inspiration in a newspaper article about a man who also hated Nixon and who had lashed out at society by shooting six people from the top of a Howard Johnson’s hotel in New Orleans.

Over the next year, Byck made trips to Washington, DC, where he was arrested for picketing in front of the White House without a permit. On two additional occasions, he was questioned by the Secret Service, but not arrested. On Christmas Eve of 1973, he donned a Santa suit and stood in front of the White House with an “Impeach Nixon” sign.

In early 1974, the forty-four-year-old Byck read up on past assassins and made a series of rambling tape recordings in which he laid out his grievances about his family and personal life, vented his anger at the corrupt SBA and their denial of his loan, and expressed many condemnations of the Nixon administration.

He also matter of factly described his plans for what he called “Operation Pandora’s Box,” in which he planned to hijack an airliner, force the pilots to fly it low over Washington, DC, then shoot the pilots dead and crash the plane into the White House, killing Nixon and as many of his Watergate cohorts as possible.

Wanting to ensure his motives were understood, and hoping to avoid being dismissed as some mere lunatic assassin, Byck sent copies of his tape recordings to people he admired, including scientist Jonas Salk, composer Leonard Bernstein, Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut, and newspaper columnist Jack Anderson.

In the early morning hours of February 22, 1974, Byck drove from Philadelphia to the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. He was armed with a homemade suitcase gasoline bomb and a .22 caliber pistol he stole from a friend. As he drove, he made final recordings in which he noted that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s patriot.”

Byck entered the airport at 7 AM and walked to the gate of a plane that was just starting to board for a 7:15 AM departure to Atlanta. Approaching airport police officer Neal Ramsburg, Byck shot him twice in the back, instantly killing him. He then jumped over a security chain and ran down the boarding ramp onto the plane.

Pilot Reese Lofton was going through a preflight checklist, and copilot Freddie Jones was cleaning his pipe, when a panting, sweating Byck stormed into the cockpit. “I’ve got this bomb,” he announced. He demanded the plane take off, and then shot copilot Jones in the head, mortally wounding him.

Airport police officer Charles Troyer was at an airport coffee shop when he heard gunfire. Running toward the panicked scene at the gate, he found officer Ramsburg lying in a pool of blood. Determining he was dead, he took Ramsburg’s holstered .357 Magnum revolver and headed for the plane.

Pilot Lofton started the engines but informed Byck that the plane’s door would have to be closed for takeoff. Byck shouted at the crew for the door to be closed. Two flight attendants then exited the plane to close the door from the outside.