Encore: Presidential Assassinations | Ricochet | 5
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Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's mid-afternoon on Monday, March 30th, 1981. You're a nurse working in the emergency room of George Washington University Hospital. And as usual, today has been busy. You've seen patients suffering everything from strokes to broken bones.

You just finished some intake paperwork when the charge nurse walks over to your desk, a clipboard in hand. We're open in 5A. I put Rodriguez in there. You scan the patient intake list. Rodriguez, Carlos, 48, headache, blurred vision. All right, room 5A. As you scribble down some notes, a police officer walks by and you hear his radio crackled to life.

You can't make out the whole of it, but you catch something about a shooting at the Washington Hilton. And before you can ask the officer any more about it, he hustles through the swinging doors and out of the ER. You look over at the charge nurse. Oh, a shooting at the Hilton. You hear that? Yep. Let's get a room set up for a trauma patient just in case. But before you can do anything, you hear a phone ringing, and you can't believe where the sound is coming from.

There's a white telephone tucked away in the corner of the nurse's station. It was installed years ago to provide a direct line to the White House. And in all your time here, you've never once heard it ring. Until now. You and the charge nurse exchange an uneasy glance. She picks up. Hospital. Motorcade. She hangs up the phone, looking stunned. What'd they say?

The presidential motorcade is on its way. And then they hung up. Well, this can't be good. Did they say it was the president? Before she can answer, the white phone rings again. Hospital. Okay, but who's injured? What are the... But it's clear whoever keeps calling has hung up again. The charge nurse slams the phone down and turns to you, eyes wide. Three coming in with gunshot wounds. That's all I've got. But we have to assume one of them is the president.

Your head starts to spin with a million different thoughts, but then your training kicks in. You need to clear the emergency room and prepare to be overrun by police and Secret Service agents. The President of the United States is on his way to your hospital right now. There's a good chance you and your fellow emergency room workers are going to be called on to save his life.

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On a Monday afternoon in March of 1981, President Ronald Reagan was rushed by the Secret Service to George Washington University Hospital after taking a bullet to the chest. Over the course of the next few hours, the hospital staff would have to make split-second decisions that could determine whether the President of the United States would live or die.

The pressure was also on for members of the president's staff. They had to manage the crisis, reassuring the public and the world that everything was under control. And Reagan, a former actor, would have to give one of the best performances of his life, that of a 70-year-old man who could still lead the country despite having been gravely injured. The attempt on Reagan's life would come to define the first term of his presidency.

He would not only survive the shooting, but emerge from it as the most popular president in a generation. And he would use that popularity to usher in a new era of conservative political dominance.

On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th president of the United States. He had won a landslide election for the Republican ticket, defeating Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter, who had been battered in the polls by an energy crisis and a long-running hostage situation in Iran.

Reagan had campaigned on a pledge to balance the budget and lower taxes, but by late March of 1981, he had not gotten off to a strong start. His proposed cuts to many federal programs drew heavy criticism from Democrats, as did his efforts to intervene in a bloody civil war in the Central American nation of El Salvador. Reagan's critics argued that El Salvador, where a U.S.-backed dictatorship was battling leftist rebels, could become another Vietnam.

Many Americans agreed with those critics. And Reagan's approval rating, while still at 59%, was the lowest for any modern president only two months into a first term.

On March 21st, the embattled new president attended a gala benefit at Ford's Theater in downtown Washington, D.C. Performers that evening included Tony Bennett and Luciano Pavarotti, but Reagan's attention was drawn to a flag-draped set of box seats near the upper balcony. There, in 1865, John Wilkes Booth had shot President Abraham Lincoln. But unlike Lincoln, who had little protection, Reagan was surrounded that night by Secret Service agents.

The Secret Service had been formed shortly after Lincoln's death, but not to protect the president. Initially, it began as a small Treasury Department unit assigned to investigate counterfeiting. But by 1981, it had grown into a vast organization with more than 1,500 agents and a budget of $175 million.

The agency still investigated counterfeiting cases, but its mandate had expanded to protect not just the president, but all presidential candidates, as well as foreign heads of state and visiting dignitaries. The Secret Service agents on detail that night ensured that Reagan's evening at Ford's theater was uneventful. Then they began preparing for his next public appearance, just nine days later, on Monday, March 30th, at the Washington Hilton Hotel.

That morning, in his White House bedroom, President Reagan woke and picked out a blue pinstripe suit. At 70, he still maintained the lean, muscular physique he'd begun forming decades ago during his acting career. He considered himself an outdoorsman and enjoyed chopping wood and riding horses on his California ranch. He also appreciated the codename that the Secret Service had given him, Rawhide. That day, President Reagan had a speech scheduled for two in the afternoon.

It would take place at a luncheon with representatives of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of labor unions. And while Rawhide was still getting dressed, members of the Secret Service were arriving at the White House and getting ready for the day ahead. Imagine it's a cloudy, gray Monday morning in Washington, D.C., in March 1981. You're an agent with the Secret Service, assigned to President Reagan's protective detail.

It's early, around 7.30, but you're already downing a second cup of coffee in the command post just underneath the Oval Office in the basement of the White House. Good morning, sir. Your supervisor strides into the room. Agent Jerry Parr is a big man with a deeply lined face that makes him look older than his 50 years. Parr crosses the room to another desk and leans against the edge. Good morning. Now, let's go over your setup for the man at the Hilton today. The man is service shorthand for the president.

You've been with the service for eight years and four administrations. Presidents have come and gone, but your mission to protect the man stays the same. Well, sir, we're loading up around 1345 with an ETA between 1350 and 55. Stagecoach will pull up to the hotel's VIP entrance on T Street. From there, it's just a dozen steps from the car to the entrance, and then we're inside. Where's the rope line? Usual location for the Hilton, 30, 40 feet back from the turnwall. Okay, all sounds good.

One more thing. I'd like to take your position on today's detail, if that feels all right. You want to lead today? I do. It's been hectic since the inauguration. Lots of administrative stuff, paperwork. And everyone on the team has had a chance to work with a man except me. So frankly, I just want to get to know him better. You nod. You understand that it's important for Parr to develop a good working relationship with the new boss. And at the end of the day, it's his decision, not yours. Well, absolutely, sir. Sure thing. Good.

Thank you for the last-minute switch. And for taking care of all this. Parr drops a stack of reports on your desk and hurries out the door. You lean back in your chair, staring at the pile of paperwork that suddenly become your responsibility. But you don't really mind. You've got a lot of respect for Parr. He's been at this a long time. And he's earned the right to put himself on a presidential detail whenever he sees fit. And you can't forget that. In a way, your superior did you a favor.

For one afternoon, he took you out of the line of fire.

Secret Service agent Jerry Parr had previously protected President Jimmy Carter, and after the 1980 inauguration, transitioned into Reagan's personal detail. Parr had two decades of experience, and he knew that in order to protect the president, he needed to understand Reagan's idiosyncrasies. Being able to anticipate seemingly small things, like whose hand the president might suddenly shake, could help Parr make split-second decisions in the field.

So on March 31st, Parr decided to personally accompany the president to his speech at the Washington Hilton. At around 11 a.m., a Secret Service advance team arrived at the hotel to set up a perimeter and run through the final security checks. Reagan's visit had been planned six days earlier, and agents had already visited the Hilton over the weekend.

Still, the lead advance agent was careful to tour the route Reagan would walk from the arrival point at the hotel's entrance through the back corridors of the building to the ballroom where he would give his speech. He also went over a list of the 15 people expected to shake hands with the president before the speech. Then he began assigning more than two dozen agents to their various posts for the day.

Since the assassination of John F. Kennedy 18 years earlier, the Secret Service had increased its presence at every public presidential appearance. Agents would be stationed on nearby rooftops, throughout the hotel's hallways, and one floor down from the ballroom where Reagan would speak. One of the most critical posts was along the rope line outside the Hilton's entrance on T Street.

There, spectators would be just 40 feet from the president. D.C. police would help Secret Service agents keep the sidewalk cordoned off and scan the crowd for suspicious activity.

At 1.50 p.m. that afternoon, Reagan arrived in his three-car motorcade. The president's car was codenamed Stagecoach. The six-and-a-half-ton black Lincoln Continental was covered in armor plating and featured bulletproof windows. It was led by a decoy car, a tan-colored Lincoln, and followed by an armored Cadillac codenamed Halfback. This follow car carried six agents armed with handguns, shotguns, and even submachine guns.

When the cars arrived, a crowd of people had already gathered at the rope line on T Street to watch the president stride from his car to the hotel. Standing among them was a 25-year-old named John Hinckley Jr. Wearing a beige jacket and glasses, the youthful-looking Hinckley blended into the crowd. He'd arrived in D.C. the night before, after traveling from a Denver suburb where he lived with his parents. The Hinckley family had done well in the oil business, and John grew up surrounded by wealth.

In 1976, Hinckley had seen the film Taxi Driver and become transfixed by the film's main character, Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro. In the film, Bickle is obsessed with a female staffer on a political campaign. But when she spurns his affections, Bickle tries to assassinate the candidate.

Hinckley saw the film several times, and over the next four years, he started to model himself after Travis Bickle. He bought several guns and practiced at target ranges. He kept a journal in which he declared that he was in love with teenage actress Jodie Foster, who had also appeared in the film. As far as Hinckley was concerned, he had become a living, breathing embodiment of De Niro's character.

So when Hinckley arrived in Washington on Sunday, March 29th, his intention was to stay the night, then continue in the morning to Connecticut, where the 18-year-old Foster was attending Yale University. For a little over a year, Hinckley had been writing Foster letters and even once reached her by phone at her dorm. But she'd spurned all his advances. Desperate and depressed, Hinckley wanted to confront Foster at Yale.

But on the morning of Monday, March 30th, he saw a newspaper article noting that President Reagan would be making a public appearance just a few blocks from Hinckley's hotel. To Hinckley, this felt like the perfect opportunity. Just five months earlier, he toyed with the idea of shooting then-President Jimmy Carter. He felt that a political assassination would help convince Jodie Foster of his love for her.

So when Hinckley arrived at the rope line on Monday afternoon, he was carrying a .22 caliber revolver loaded with six bullets, specially designed to explode on impact. Inside the Hilton, Reagan wrapped up his speech to members of the AFL-CIO and was escorted out. It was around 2.25 p.m., and the president moved through the service corridors of the hotel, accompanied by a platoon of Secret Service agents, including lead agent Jerry Parr.

Parr stayed close behind Reagan as he walked out the hotel's VIP entrance toward his waiting motorcade. Parr scanned the tops of nearby buildings, then turned his attention to the crowd of around 25 spectators who stood along the rope line. All his fellow agents were at their posts, and everything appeared to be in order. A local D.C. police officer, Thomas Delahanty, was keeping an eye on the crowd, too.

Reporters clamored for a quote as Reagan passed by, closely shadowed by his press secretary, James Brady. Another Secret Service agent named Tim McCarthy opened the back door of Stagecoach for the approaching president. Across the street, another small crowd had gathered, and Reagan paused briefly to wave to them. At that moment, Hinckley crouched and fired his gun. Six shots erupted in quick succession.

The first shot struck Press Secretary Brady in the head. The second hit Officer Delahanty in the back. A third shot sailed wide. The fourth bullet struck Secret Service Agent McCarthy in the chest. And two more shots would follow. Hearing the gunfire, Agent Parr instinctively hurled himself into Reagan's body. Parr and Reagan both tumbled into the limo's back passenger seat. On the sidewalk, people fell to the ground and screams pierced the air.

Agents rushed to tackle Hinckley, who was still squeezing the trigger of his now-empty gun. Another agent slammed shut the rear door of the limo, and it sped away from the curb. Just seconds had passed since Hinckley fired his first shot. His attempt to assassinate the president was over, and his bullets had struck at least three men, who now lay wounded on the sidewalk. But in all the chaos and confusion, no one yet knew whether the president had been hit. ♪

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Seconds after John Hinckley fired six shots at President Reagan, Secret Service agent Jerry Parr sat alone with the president in the backseat of the limousine codenamed Stagecoach. As the vehicle sped through the D.C. streets, Parr checked the president's body for signs of a bullet wound and found none. But Reagan had blood on his lips and complained he was having trouble breathing. Agent Parr now had a critical decision to make.

Standard protocol for any assassination attempt was to take Reagan to the White House, where his safety was assured. If the shooter was part of a larger conspiracy, then this choice made the most sense. But if the president was injured, a local hospital could provide immediate care. And Reagan was gasping for breath. Parr had wiped the blood away from Reagan's lips, but when he looked again moments later, more blood was there. In that moment, Parr made his decision.

Instead of the White House, he suggested they go to the emergency room. Reagan agreed. Parr made the call over the radio. Rawhide was headed to the hospital. Reagan arrived at George Washington University Hospital just three minutes after the gunshots were fired. He emerged unsteady from the presidential limo, but walked through the hospital doors on his own. Just inside the entrance, he collapsed into the arms of Parr and another agent.

Hospital staff and doctors scrambled to figure out what exactly had happened to the president. Reagan's skin was pale and ashen. His blood pressure had dropped dangerously low. Still, there were no visible gunshot wounds. Staff thought he might have suffered a heart attack. They lifted Reagan onto a gurney and cut away his suit with scissors.

Still conscious, Reagan continued to complain of difficulty breathing. Then the hospital's senior physician found a small, barely visible bullet hole in Reagan's side. Further examination revealed that one of Reagan's lungs had collapsed and his chest cavity appeared to be filling with blood.

The ER surgeon cut into Reagan's chest with a scalpel and inserted a tube to help drain the blood. X-rays were taken, but as they were being developed and the minutes ticked by, it became clear that Reagan's internal bleeding was worse than they had realized. He was losing blood as fast as it could be pumped into him.

Dr. Benjamin Aaron, head of GW's cardiovascular and thoracic unit, decided to move Reagan out of the ER trauma unit and into an operating room. Parr and other Secret Service agents followed as the president was wheeled into the OR. At the same moment, Reagan's press secretary, James Brady, was being wheeled into an adjacent operating room.

Brady had been shot in the forehead, just above his left eye. Even as the hospital's neurosurgeon began to prep Brady for surgery, he believed that the press secretary's odds of survival were slim. Nearby, in the GW trauma ward, doctors were also treating Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, who had opened the limo door for the president.

When the shots were fired, McCarthy threw himself in front of Reagan and was struck by a bullet in the chest. The fourth gunshot victim, D.C. Police Officer Thomas Delahanty, was taken to another nearby hospital where doctors treated him for a bullet wound in the back of his neck.

Meanwhile, news of the shooting was already on every television station as live anchors attempted to sort through conflicting information. TV cameras had captured the shooting on tape, but there was confusion about how serious Reagan's injuries were. Reagan's chief of staff, James Baker, had raced to the hospital following news of the shooting. One doctor warned him that Reagan might be bleeding to death. Baker rushed to the president's side, fearing the worst.

But Reagan put his chief of staff's mind at ease. Just before he was wheeled into surgery, Reagan winked at Baker and asked, through his oxygen mask, who's minding the store?

It was 3.30 p.m., and more than an hour had passed since the shooting. Reporters were clamoring for information, and Baker knew confusion could lead to panic. He was determined to keep a handle on the situation. Any statements from the White House needed to be candid while also carefully downplaying the extent of the crisis.

But Baker had another difficult decision to make, whether to invoke the 25th Amendment, which transfers authority from an incapacitated president to their vice president. Reagan's vice president, George H.W. Bush, had been summoned back to Washington from Texas, but was still in midair.

So, in a janitor's closet at the hospital, Baker conferred with Reagan's chief legal counsel, Ed Meese. Reagan had lost a lot of blood. His surgery could last several hours, leaving the country with no functional head of state. Still, the president had been alert outside the operating room and even cracked jokes.

Baker and Meese decided that even though the president would be unconscious during surgery, they would not invoke any transfer of authority, at least not yet. They would ask for frequent updates on the president's condition and cross that bridge if they came to it. Back at the White House press room, reporters were demanding clarity on the afternoon's events. Reagan's press secretary, James Brady, was himself in surgery in critical condition.

And with Brady incapacitated, other members of the White House communications team tried to step in. But they were less skilled at handling the press. And as reporters peppered them with questions, they seemed off balance and evasive.

Downstairs in the White House Situation Room, Reagan's cabinet members watched the press conferences with a growing sense of alarm. Any wrong answer about Reagan's condition could create doubt and panic among the public. And any wrong answers about the presidential line of succession and invoking the 25th Amendment could be worse. Imagine it's 3.45 p.m. on March 30, 1981.

You're a member of President Reagan's cabinet, and you've just walked into the Situation Room in the White House, where other cabinet members and senior advisors have convened. As you slide into your seat at the long conference table, your eyes turn to a television mounted on the wall. On screen, Deputy Press Secretary Larry Speakers is clearly floundering. He's just upstairs in the press room, getting grilled by frantic White House reporters.

He deflects question after question about Reagan's condition, the status of the shooter, and the most pressing issue, who's currently running the government. Larry looks like a deer in headlights. Across the conference table, Secretary of State Al Haig shakes his head. God, we're supposed to be reassuring the public. This guy's not reassuring anyone. Right now, he's the best we got. He's not even supposed to be up there. I thought we agreed. Anything said publicly has to be discussed in this room first.

God, this is a train wreck on national television. You and Haig don't see eye to eye on much. To you, the former army general is too melodramatic and hot-headed to be secretary of state. But for once, you agree with him on this. Speak's press conference is going off the rails and fast.

Haig is so agitated, he leaps to his feet. He paces in front of the television, mocking the deputy press secretary. I can't say, I can't say, God, all these non-answers. They're making us look weak. We've got to change this narrative. Al, I agree, but how do you propose we do that? Get out of here.

Well, if no one else is going to repair this catastrophe, then by God, I will. How do you get to the press room?

And before anyone can stop him, Secretary of State Haig marches out of the room. You look around at your fellow cabinet members, and each of them shares your same concerned look. Haig is former military. He knows how to command a room. But agitated as he is, there's no telling what he might say.

Just after four o'clock in the afternoon, Secretary of State Al Haig rushed upstairs from the Situation Room to take over the press podium. To Haig, a veteran military man, the floundering press conferences were worse than bad PR. They were a national security threat. The U.S., the Soviet Union, and their allies were locked in the Cold War, and Haig worried that any sign of a power vacuum in the White House could be seen as an open invitation to America's enemies.

But when Haig finally arrived in the press room, he was out of breath and red-faced. National Security Advisor Richard Allen, who had followed him up from the Situation Room, thought he might collapse. Instead, Haig launched into an impromptu press conference, struggling to keep his voice stern yet calm. He was determined to reassure the world that the United States government had everything under control.

But then a reporter asked who was actually making decisions for the executive branch of government. Haig's response only served to confuse matters. He told the reporters, as of now, I am in control here in the White House, pending return of the vice president.

But this was far from true. According to the U.S. Constitution, authority passed from the president to the vice president to the speaker of the House and then to the president pro tempore of the Senate. As secretary of state, Haig was fifth in line. He made a very public gaffe on national television. Back at GW Hospital, Reagan's surgeon, Dr. Benjamin Aaron, continued to probe for the bullet that had lodged somewhere in the president's lung.

Two hours into the surgery, Aaron was growing concerned. Although Reagan was stable, he'd lost 40% of his blood, and Aaron was no closer to finding and extracting the bullet. A new X-ray arrived in the OR, and Aaron consulted the image. Finally, he spotted the bullet. It was in Reagan's left lung, as he thought, but lower than where he'd been searching. Dr. Aaron took a deep breath. He was going to have to probe again.

He reached back down into the president's chest and his fingers pressed on the president's lung, softly squeezing to try and find the bullet. Any wrong move and the bullet could burrow deeper, causing further damage. Dr. Aaron knew time was running out and that one wrong move could spell disaster. With the country in crisis and the administration in chaos, the president's life was in his hands.

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to go head-to-head for the last chicken wing. Shop Game Day Faves on Instacart and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three grocery orders. Offer valid for a limited time. Other fees and terms apply. Just after 5.30 p.m. on March 30, 1981, in an operating room at George Washington University Hospital, Dr. Benjamin Aaron gently probed around the tissue of Ronald Reagan's lung until he felt the edges of a hard piece of metal.

He sliced into lung tissue just above the object and plucked out a .22 caliber bullet. Oddly, the bullet had been smashed into a flat disc. Dr. Aaron knew instantly that this bullet had been a ricochet. Soon he would be proven correct. Although the bullet had been designed to explode on impact, it didn't detonate. Instead, it deflected off the armor-plated hull of the presidential limo and into Reagan's torso, hitting him about five inches below his left armpit.

Within minutes, Dr. Aaron was sewing up the presidential's incision, and the surgery was declared a success. A George Washington Hospital administrator, Dr. Dennis O'Leary, gave a press conference that evening. In straightforward language, he assured the nightly news audience that the president was going to survive. He downplayed the severity of Reagan's injury and claimed that the president was, at no time, in any serious danger. By now, Vice President George Bush had finally arrived in Washington.

And seated at the Situation Room conference table, watching O'Leary on TV, he leaned back in his chair and said, This guy is good. The next morning, members of Reagan's staff circled around his hospital bed. Reagan sat up and used his presidential pen to sign the Dairy Bill, a pressing piece of legislation that would halt subsidies to the dairy industry, making good on one of his campaign promises to cut federal spending.

Thirteen days later, on April 11th, Reagan was released from the hospital. Looking thin and still pale, he turned his slow walk out of the hospital into a photo opportunity. One of the attending doctors suggested he take a wheelchair, but Reagan refused, saying, I walked in, and I'm walking out. But John Hinckley Jr. had little chance of walking out of anywhere.

A few hours after attempting to assassinate the president, Hinckley found himself in an interview room at an FBI field office. Under questioning, he confessed he was attempting to impress the actress Jodie Foster and that he had no political motivation. Investigators were stunned by the admission. And revelations about Hinckley's motives would only grow stranger as days went on, providing an opening for Hinckley's legal defense.

Imagine it's April 1981. You're a lawyer with a Washington, D.C. law firm, Williams & Connolly. In your short career at the well-respected firm, you've defended all sorts of high-profile clients, from corporate executives to politicians, even a former CIA director. But you've never had to represent anyone like your latest client, John Hinckley Jr.,

You and your colleague, Vincent Fuller, are driving through the grounds of the Quantico Marine Base in Northern Virginia, where Hinckley is being detained. Hinckley's wealthy parents hired Williams and Connolly to handle his defense. But after just meeting with the guy, you're not sure you want any part of it. Why the hell would the bosses assign us to defend that whack job? I mean, he's admitted to everything and more.

Fuller slows the car to a stop at a guard station and rolls down his window.

Two guards briefly inspect the vehicle before waving you through. Well, see, what the world doesn't know, or at least they don't know yet, is that John Hinckley Jr. is insane. You let out a sigh. You knew this is where the defense was heading. Not guilty by reason of insanity, but that defense hasn't worked in a long time. Oh, God, this is about the latter, isn't it?

After searching Hinckley's D.C. hotel, federal investigators turned up an unmailed letter from Hinckley to the actress Jodie Foster. Your office received a copy of it just this morning. Of course it's about the letter. I mean, he wrote, if you don't love me, I'm going to kill the president.

He and Foster aren't dating? From what I can tell, they haven't met each other at all. The man was obsessed with a teenage movie star. That's crazy. Yeah, sure. But plenty of people are obsessed with movie stars. Yeah, but not many of them have tried to kill the president as a declaration of love. Look, I think we're very likely to be able to get a panel of psychiatrists to testify he's insane. Yeah, but what if we do?

You swallow your frustration and stare ahead at the road. Fuller has more seniority than you, so you have no choice but to follow his lead.

But you're skeptical that this tactic is going to work. Insanity is a hard thing to prove. And whether you can prove it or not, you can't imagine any jury in America quitting a man who was just caught on camera trying to kill the president. While attorneys Gregory Craig and Vincent Fuller began exploring the options for Hinckley's legal defense, President Reagan slowly recovered from his wounds.

On April 28th, he gave his first speech to Congress since the shooting. The applause lasted over three minutes. The vision of a 70-year-old president back at work only weeks after being shot became an indelible part of Reagan's appeal.

Following the assassination attempt, Reagan's popularity soared in the polls, and Reagan seized on that popularity to make good on his campaign promise to lower taxes. In August of 1981, just five months after the shooting, he signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act, one of the largest federal tax cuts in U.S. history.

It was the first major legislative achievement for what the president's supporters called the Reagan Revolution, a conservative revamping of the nation's economy based on lower taxes, deep cuts to federal domestic programs, and deregulation of business and industry. But Reagan wasn't the only one finding success. A year later, in 1982, jury selection began for the trial of John Hinckley Jr.,

And on June 22nd, after seven weeks of testimony, the jury delivered a shocking verdict: not guilty by reason of insanity. It was only the second time in U.S. history that a would-be presidential assassin had been acquitted with an insanity defense. The first time had happened nearly 150 years prior in 1835, when a man attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson.

But despite his acquittal, Jackson's assailant spent the rest of his life confined to mental institutions. And now Hinckley seemed likely to do the same. A federal judge ordered him committed indefinitely to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. He would stay there until doctors determined he was no longer a danger to himself or others. Hinckley's not guilty verdict caused an uproar.

Many considered Hinckley's acquittal and subsequent punishment far too lax, and in response, in 1984, President Reagan signed the Insanity Defense Reform Act, making it more difficult to use the defense in federal court. Long after the shooting, Reagan's poll numbers remained high.

In 1983, a Democratic congresswoman complained that Reagan had become too popular to be blamed for anything, calling him the Teflon president. Nothing would stick. Many of his rivals attributed much of his political strength to surviving an assassination attempt so early in his first term.

And in 1984, Reagan was re-elected in a landslide. Using the momentum of that decisive victory, Reagan and congressional Republicans passed a second tax reform bill in 1986, slashing the top tax rate to its lowest level in 60 years.

President Ronald Reagan had survived the attempt on his life, as did all four men struck by Hinckley's bullets. Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy and D.C. Police Officer Thomas Delahanty both recovered from their wounds. Delahanty retired in the fall of 1981 on full disability.

James Brady returned to work at the White House in the fall of 1982, but he would never fully recover from his injuries. The bullet that had pierced his skull left him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. He was unable to resume most of his daily duties, which were handled by deputy press secretaries until the end of Reagan's administration.

In the coming decade, Brady and his wife Sarah started a campaign to institute a waiting period for any handgun purchase. Known as the Brady Bill, the legislation met significant opposition from the National Rifle Association and its congressional supporters, but was finally signed into law by President Clinton in 1993. Ronald Reagan died in 2004 after living with Alzheimer's disease for 12 years.

Twelve years after that, John Hinckley was released from St. Elizabeth's Hospital and allowed to live under restrictions with his mother in Virginia. In June of 2022, Hinckley was granted unconditional release back into society. The judge wrote that Hinckley posed no threat to himself or others. Ronald Reagan is the last president to have survived an attempted assassination.

Since then, efforts to protect the president have grown even more elaborate and more expensive. The Secret Service now has over 3,000 agents in an annual budget of $2.4 billion. Much of that money is still spent to fight counterfeiting, as well as a new threat, cybercrime. But the agency has also thwarted over a dozen presidential assassination attempts before they got anywhere near their intended targets.

Still, for everyone who assumes the office of president, the threat of attack is constant. At any moment, a single act of violence has the power to cast the nation into turmoil, reshape the political landscape, and alter the course of history.

In our next season, on April 10th, 1912, the RMS Titanic embarked on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City with more than 2,000 passengers and crew on board. The ship was a marvel of modern engineering, with an interior designed to be as elegant as the world's most glamorous hotels. But only a few days into the journey, the Titanic would collide with an iceberg in the North Atlantic, leading to one of the worst maritime disasters in modern history.

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If you'd like to learn more about these events, we recommend the book Raw Hide Down, The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan by Del Quentin Wilbur. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written by George Ducker, edited by Dorian Marina, produced by Alita Rozansky.

Our managing producer is Matt Gant. Our senior managing producer is Tanja Thigpen. And our senior producer is Andy Herman. Executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman and Marsha Louis for Wondery.

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