Killing Reagan (21 page)

“It was in the shower,” he will later explain, “that I debated whether to detour to the Hilton or go up to New Haven. I was thinking, should I go over to the Hilton with my little pistol and see how close I could … well, see what the scene was like.”

Hinckley rinses off the soap and turns off the water.

His mind is made up. He is going to the Hilton.

He towels off and gets dressed in a pair of simple trousers, a shirt, and ankle-high boots. His wallet contains $129 in cash along with two library cards, a Texas driver's license, a chess club membership, and folded magazine photos of Jodie Foster. There is no guarantee he will fire his gun this afternoon, but if he does get close enough to squeeze off a round, John Hinckley wants Jodie Foster to know he is doing it for her. He sits down at a small wooden desk and composes a letter to his beloved: “Dear Jodie,” he writes. “There is a definite possibility I will be killed in my attempt to get Reagan. This is why I am writing you this letter now.

As you well know by now I love you very much. Over the past seven months I've left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times, I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. Besides my shyness, I honestly did not wish to bother you with my constant presence. I know the many messages left at your door and in your mailbox were a nuisance, but I felt that it was the most painless way for me to express my love for you.

I feel very good about the fact that you at least know my name and how I feel about you. And by hanging around your dormitory, I've come to realize that I'm the topic of more than a little conversation, however full of ridicule it may be. At least you know that I'll always love you.

Jodie, I would abandon the idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart and live out the rest of my life with you, whether it be in total obscurity or whatever.

I will admit to you that the reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you. I've got to do something now to make you understand, in no uncertain terms, that I'm doing all of this for your sake!

By sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope to change your mind about me. This letter is being written only an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel. Jodie, I'm asking you to please look into your heart and at least give me the chance, with this historical deed, to gain your respect and love.

I love you forever—John Hinckley.

He adds the time, 12:45 p.m., to his signature and then places the letter in an envelope. This will be left behind in his suitcase for investigators should he succeed in murdering the president.

John Hinckley stands and removes the Saturday Night Special from his suitcase, along with boxes of ammunition. Several types of bullets soon litter his bedspread. Hinckley has the choice of normal, round-nosed bullets or six rounds of an especially brutal bullet designed to blow a hole in the target by exploding on impact, spewing hot shrapnel.

Appropriately, these bullets are known as “Devastators.”

He chooses them.

Armed and dangerous, Hinckley then takes a cab for the short ride to the Washington Hilton. He is nervous and has to urinate, so he asks the driver to stop at the Holiday Inn across the street. Hinckley uses the restroom and then hurries back to the entrance of the Hilton. A small crowd of seven journalists and a dozen eager spectators await Ronald Reagan's arrival. A padded black rope has been hung across the sidewalk by hotel security to keep the crowd a safe distance from the president.

Pistol snug in his jacket pocket, John Hinckley joins the crowd.

The time is 1:46 p.m.

*   *   *

At almost the exact same time, Ronald Reagan and his fifteen-vehicle motorcade depart the White House for the Hilton. Reagan's 1972 Lincoln Continental, with its backward-opening “suicide doors,” is nicknamed Stagecoach. The president, whose Secret Service code name is Rawhide, a reference to the Westerns he loves, rides in the backseat with Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan.

Trailing behind are several limousines carrying members of the White House staff; the president's personal physician, Dr. Daniel Ruge; and a bevy of Secret Service agents. It is a 1.3-mile drive to the Hilton.

Press secretary James Brady is also in the caravan. At the last moment he decided to make the trip in order to hear what Reagan will say.

At 1:51 p.m., the presidential motorcade arrives at the Hilton.

*   *   *

John Hinckley stands in the crowd of spectators behind the security rope, watching the motorcade approach. The main entrance of the Hilton is behind him. The president will not enter through this door. Instead, he will use the canopy-covered VIP entrance just forty feet away.

The assassin feels an unlikely burst of excitement at the prospect of seeing Reagan in person. Hinckley pats the pistol in his right pocket.
1
Ample time at the rifle range has prepared him for what is to come. He knows the .22-caliber Rohm must be fired at close range for peak accuracy, and the spot where he now stands is well within the pistol's optimal range of ninety feet.

Hinckley surveys the scene, seeing ABC newsman Sam Donaldson, among others. More than two dozen Secret Service agents stand ready to protect the president. Hotel security and Washington police also crowd around the Hilton, including two police officers facing the crowd on the other side of the security rope. Hinckley notices that there are some Secret Service agents on nearby rooftops.

Suddenly, President Reagan's limousine glides past the security rope and comes to a halt just outside the VIP entrance. An agent steps out the front passenger door and hustles to open Reagan's door on the right rear side of the vehicle. Quickly, the president emerges into the afternoon drizzle, taking a moment to wave to the crowd.

DC police officers Herbert Granger and Thomas Delahanty are working the security rope and should be facing toward the crowd, looking for signs of trouble. Instead, they crane their necks to the left to see the president.

This is the perfect time for John Hinckley to shoot.

But he does not. Hesitating, he responds to the president's wave with a wave of his own. It is not an assassin's kiss but rather the goofball motion of a confused man.

“He was looking right at me and I waved back,” Hinckley will recall. “I was kind of startled.”

In the blink of an eye, Reagan is inside the building.

*   *   *

The time is 2:02 p.m. The president is introduced by Robert A. Georgine, the forty-eight-year-old head of the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department. Reagan bounds onto the stage to the strains of “Hail to the Chief” and then launches into his speech. As always, the nearsighted Reagan has removed one contact lens, which will allow him to read the printed text with one eye while scanning the crowd with the other.

Ronald Reagan enjoys public speaking. It comes easily to him. He begins his speech, as usual, with a joke.

*   *   *

John Hinckley hears laughter coming from the ballroom. He has left the security rope to step inside the Hilton and wander around the lobby. “Should I? Should I?” he asks himself repeatedly, feeling the heft of the Saturday Night Special in his pocket. He is having second thoughts about killing Ronald Reagan. If he were to leave right now and go back to his hotel room, nobody would be the wiser. He could burn his letter to Jodie Foster and slide the .22-caliber back into his luggage. Rather than die in a hail of Secret Service bullets or spend the rest of his life in prison, John Hinckley could simply walk away. “I just wasn't that desperate. I just wasn't that desperate to act,” he will later state. “Also, it was raining. And I wasn't going to stand around in the rain.”

Hinckley makes up his mind: he will go back to the spectator area and wait. If Reagan does not appear in ten minutes, Hinckley tells himself, he will leave.

The time is 2:19 p.m. Ronald Reagan has five minutes left in his speech.

*   *   *

Meanwhile, less than two miles away, Nancy Reagan is lunching at the Georgetown home of Michael Ainslie. The president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation is hosting the First Lady and the wives of several Cabinet members after a brief morning tour of the Phillips Collection museum of art.

But at 2:20 p.m., Nancy Reagan suddenly tells Secret Service agent George Opfer she is not feeling well. It's nothing specific, just a general feeling of anxiety. The worried First Lady says her good-byes and is driven back to the White House.

*   *   *

John Hinckley is back in the spectator area outside the Hilton. He works his way to the very front of the crowd, so that the black rope presses against his belly and his right shoulder is against the hotel's façade. Three Washington police officers stand on the other side of the rope, facing him. Hinckley later remembers that they, as well as Secret Service agents, turned away from the crowd when President Reagan appeared.

The would-be assassin notices immediately that the Secret Service has moved Ronald Reagan's limousine to facilitate an easier departure from the hotel. Rather than being parked just outside the VIP entrance, it is now standing so close to the security rope that the right rear bumper almost touches the spectator area. Ronald Reagan will enter the Lincoln not forty feet but just ten feet away from where John Hinckley now stands.

All at once, Hinckley is jostled. Newsmen are pushing to get a better position in order to ask Reagan questions. Hinckley is outraged, shouting to the other spectators that the media should not be allowed to push their way to the front of the crowd. But then it becomes clear to him that the press is providing a vital distraction.

Everyone is paying attention to the media.

No one is paying attention to John Hinckley.

*   *   *

Ronald Reagan finishes his speech at 2:24 p.m. The applause is polite, which disappoints him, for it is not the robust ovation he was hoping to hear. “Speech not riotously received,” he will later write in his diary. “Still it was successful.”

As part of his daily routine, Reagan places a checkmark next to each item on his agenda once it is concluded. The speech to the Building and Construction Trades Department having just earned its checkmark, the president leaves the stage and immediately follows his Secret Service escort to the car. Press secretary James Brady stands just inside the VIP door with Michael Deaver as Reagan approaches. A wave of Secret Service agents rushes past Brady, taking up their positions near the limousine. Agent Tim McCarthy is tasked with opening the right rear door for Reagan.

James Brady steps out of the VIP entrance before his boss, walking next to Deputy Chief of Staff Deaver. The president has chosen not to take questions, so Brady will now speak with the reporters himself. “Deal with them,” Deaver says tersely as he heads toward the car that will ferry him back to the White House.

James Brady steps closer to the crowd, as Ronald Reagan walks out the hotel door. Secret Service agent Jerry Parr follows one step behind. It is his job to protect the president, so he now moves slightly to Reagan's left, placing his body between him and the crowd of spectators. If something were to happen within the first few steps outside the VIP door, Parr would immediately force Reagan back inside the safety of the hotel.

The first fifteen feet to the presidential limousine pass without incident. Parr is no longer thinking about pulling Reagan back. Now he is focused on moving the president forward into the car.

Agent McCarthy opens the right rear door of the limo. Like Press Secretary James Brady, McCarthy attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. In a light blue suit, the former college football player is just shy of thirty-two. Brady stands ten feet from him, walking quickly to the security rope to meet with the press. McCarthy stands ready to close the door behind Reagan, unsure if the president will linger to wave to the crowd before getting inside the car.

The time is 2:27 p.m.

*   *   *

John Hinckley sees Ronald Reagan clearly. He also sees the small crowd of agents—“body men,” in Secret Service parlance—accompanying the president. Hinckley notices James Brady moving toward the rope line. Things are happening very quickly.

The president raises his right arm and waves to the crowd. A woman calls out from the spectator area as if she knows him. A friendly Reagan motions in her direction. Normally the president wears a bulletproof vest when appearing in public, but the walk from the door to the car is so short that the Secret Service did not think he needed it today.

John Hinckley braces his right arm against the rough stone wall, dropping his hand into his pocket. Quickly, he pulls the gun out.

Later Hinckley testifies that his head tells him, “Put the gun away.”

But he does not.

Tomorrow, the worldwide media will take one look at this loner and describe him as a deranged gunman, as if he has no idea what he is doing. But John Warnock Hinckley is a cold-blooded killer, a man who has trained himself in the art of murder.

Just as he has done so many times at the firing range, Hinckley grasps the butt of the pistol with two hands for maximum stability. He bends his knees and drops into a shooter's crouch, then extends both arms and pulls the trigger.

The first bullet hits James Brady square in the head, just above the left eye. He falls face-first to the sidewalk, his blood dripping through a sidewalk grate.

The second shot strikes Washington Metro police officer Thomas K. Delahanty in the neck, ricocheting off his spine and lodging against the spinal column. He falls to the ground in agony, screaming.

The third shot goes wild, hitting no one.

The fourth shot strikes Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy in the torso. He, too, falls to the sidewalk, seriously wounded, a bullet lodged in his liver.