List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Assassination attempts and plots on the president of the United States have been numerous, ranging from the early 19th century to the 2010s. On January 30, 1835, Andrew Jackson was the first president to experience an assassination attempt when Richard Lawrence twice tried to shoot the seventh president in the East Portico of the Capitol after Jackson left a funeral held in the House of Representatives Chamber. The attempt failed when both of Lawrence's pistols allegedly misfired.[1]

Four sitting presidents have been killed: Abraham Lincoln (1865, by John Wilkes Booth), James A. Garfield (1881, by Charles J. Guiteau), William McKinley (1901, by Leon Czolgosz), and John F. Kennedy (1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald). Additionally, two presidents have been injured in attempted assassinations: former president Theodore Roosevelt (1912, by John Schrank) and Ronald Reagan (1981, by John Hinckley Jr.). In all of these cases, the attacker's weapon was a firearm. This article lists assassination attempts on former presidents and presidents-elect, but not on those who had not yet been elected president.

Many assassination attempts, both successful and unsuccessful, were motivated by a desire to change the policy of the American government.

legally insane. Historian James W. Clarke suggests that most assassination attempters have been sane and politically motivated,[2] whereas the Department of Justice's legal manual claims that a large majority has been insane.[3]
Some assassins, especially mentally ill ones, acted solely on their own, whereas those pursuing political agendas have more often found supporting conspirators. Most assassination plotters were arrested and punished by execution or lengthy detainment in a prison or insane asylum.

Since the vice president, the successor of a removed president, usually shares the president's political party affiliation, the death of the president is unlikely to result in major policy changes. Possibly for that reason, political groups typically do not coordinate such attacks, even in times of partisan strife.[4] Threats of violence against the president are often made for rhetorical or humorous effect without serious intent,[5] while threatening the president of the United States has been a federal felony since 1917.[6]

Presidents assassinated

Abraham Lincoln

Image of Lincoln being shot by Booth while sitting in a theater booth.
Shown in the presidential booth of Ford's Theatre, from left to right, are assassin John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, Clara Harris, and Henry Rathbone.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., at about 10:15 PM. The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was a well-known actor and a Confederate sympathizer from Maryland; though he never joined the Confederate Army, he had contacts within the Confederate Secret Service.[7] In 1864, Booth formulated a plan (very similar to one of Thomas N. Conrad previously authorized by the Confederacy)[8] to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners. After attending an April 11, 1865, speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for Black people, Booth decided to assassinate the president instead.[9] Learning that the president would be attending Ford's Theatre, Booth formulated a plan with co-conspirators to assassinate Lincoln at the theater, as well as Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward at their homes. Lincoln attended the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre.[10] As the president sat in his state box in the balcony watching the play with his wife Mary and two guests, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris, Booth entered from behind. He aimed a .44-caliber Derringer pistol at the back of Lincoln's head and fired, mortally wounding him. Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth, but Booth stabbed him and escaped. An unconscious Lincoln was examined by doctors and taken across the street to the Petersen House. After remaining in a coma for nine hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 AM on April 15.[11]

As he died, his breathing grew quieter, his face more calm.[12] According to some accounts, at his last drawn breath, on the morning after the assassination, he smiled broadly and then expired.[13][14][15][16][17] Historians, particularly author Lee Davis, have emphasized Lincoln's peaceful appearance when and after he died: "It was the first time in four years, probably, that a peaceful expression crossed his face."[18][13] Field wrote in a letter to The New York Times: "there was 'no apparent suffering, no convulsive action, no rattling of the throat...[only] a mere cessation of breathing'... I had never seen upon the President's face an expression more genial and pleasing."[19][20] The president's secretary, John Hay, saw "a look of unspeakable peace came upon his worn features".[21]

Beyond Lincoln's death, the plot failed: Seward was only wounded, and Johnson's would-be attacker did not follow through. After being on the run for 12 days, Booth was tracked down and found on April 26, 1865, by Union Army soldiers to a farm in Virginia, some 70 miles (110 km) south of Washington. After refusing to surrender, Booth was fatally shot by Union cavalryman Boston Corbett. Four other conspirators were later hanged for their roles in the conspiracy.

James A. Garfield

A black-and-white drawing of a crowd of people, some of whom are angry, the two foremost of whom are bearded and wearing top hats
President Garfield with James G. Blaine after being shot by Charles J. Guiteau

The assassination of James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, began at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., at 9:20 AM on Saturday, July 2, 1881, less than four months after he took office. As the president was arriving at the train station, writer and lawyer Charles J. Guiteau shot him twice with a .442 Webley British Bull Dog revolver; one bullet grazed the president's shoulder, and the other pierced his back.[22] For the next eleven weeks, Garfield endured the pain and suffering from having been shot, before dying on September 19, 1881, at 10:35 PM, of complications caused by iatrogenic infections, which were contracted by the doctors' relentless probing of his wound with unsterilized fingers and instruments. He had survived for a total of 79 days after being shot.

Guiteau was immediately arrested. After a highly publicized trial lasting from November 14, 1881, to January 25, 1882, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. A subsequent appeal was rejected, and he was executed by

Ambassador to France. He attributed the president's victory in the election to a speech he wrote in support of Garfield.[24]

William McKinley

A black-and-white drawing of a crowd of people, one of whom is being watched by all the others, all standing under a draped banner
Leon Czolgosz shoots President McKinley with a concealed revolver. Clipping of a wash drawing by T. Dart Walker.

The assassination of United States president William McKinley took place at 4:07 PM on Friday, September 6, 1901, at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York. McKinley, attending the Pan-American Exposition, was shot twice in the abdomen at close range by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, who was armed with a .32-caliber revolver that was concealed underneath a handkerchief. The first bullet ricocheted off either a button or an award medal on McKinley's jacket and lodged in his sleeve; the second shot pierced his stomach. Although McKinley initially appeared to be recovering, his condition rapidly declined due to gangrene setting in around his wounds and he died on September 14, 1901, at 2:15 AM.

Members of the crowd, started by

Auburn Prison
on October 29, 1901. Czolgosz's actions were politically motivated, although it remains unclear what outcome, if any, he believed the shooting would yield.

Following President McKinley's assassination, Congress directed the Secret Service to protect the president of the United States as part of its mandate.

John F. Kennedy

John and Jacqueline Kennedy, and the Connallys in the presidential limousine minutes before the assassination

The assassination of

U.S. Marine and American defector[26] Lee Harvey Oswald from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. He was shot once in the back, the bullet exiting via his throat, and once in the head.[27] Governor Connally was seriously wounded, and bystander James Tague received a minor facial injury from a small piece of curbstone that had fragmented after it was struck by one of the bullets. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where President Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 PM. Oswald was arrested and charged by the Dallas Police Department for the assassination of Kennedy and for the murder of Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit, who was shot dead in a residential neighborhood in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas just hours later. On Sunday, November 24, while being transferred from the city jail to the county jail, Oswald was fatally shot in the basement of Dallas Police Department Headquarters by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby
. Ruby was convicted of Oswald's murder, albeit his conviction was later overturned on appeal. In 1967, Ruby died in prison while awaiting a new trial.

In September 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Kennedy and Tippit were both killed by Oswald, that Oswald had acted entirely alone in both murders, and that Ruby had acted alone in killing Oswald. Nonetheless, polls conducted from 1966 to 2004 found that up to 80% of Americans surveyed have suspected that there was a plot or cover-up to kill President Kennedy.[28][29] Conspiracy theories have persisted to the present day.

Presidents wounded

Theodore Roosevelt

Three-and-a-half years after he left office,

lynched had Roosevelt not shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed.[30] Roosevelt assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and to make sure no violence was done to him.[31]

Roosevelt, as an experienced hunter and anatomist, correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung, and he declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt.[32][33] He spoke for 84 minutes before completing his speech and accepting medical attention. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose."[34][35][36] Afterwards, probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pulmonary pleurae. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life.[37][38] He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail. Despite his tenacity, Roosevelt ultimately lost his bid for reelection to the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson.[39]

At Schrank's trial, the would-be assassin claimed that

legally insane and was institutionalized until his death in 1943.[40]

Ronald Reagan

Tim McCarthy
, who was shot in the stomach.

On March 30, 1981, as Ronald Reagan returned to his limousine after speaking at the Washington Hilton hotel, would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. fired six gunshots toward him, striking him and three others. Reagan was seriously wounded by a bullet that ricocheted off the side of the presidential limousine and hit him in the left underarm, breaking a rib, puncturing a lung, and causing serious internal bleeding. Although "close to death" upon arrival at George Washington University Hospital, Reagan was stabilized in the emergency room, then underwent emergency exploratory surgery.[41] He recovered and was released from the hospital on April 11.[42] Besides Reagan, White House press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and police officer Thomas Delahanty were also wounded. All three survived, but Brady suffered brain damage and was permanently disabled; Brady's death in 2014 was considered homicide because it was ultimately caused by this injury.[43]

Hinckley was immediately arrested, and later said he had wanted to kill Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster. He was deemed mentally ill and confined to an institution. Hinckley was released from institutional psychiatric care on September 10, 2016, 35 years after the incident and 12 years after Reagan's death from pneumonia complicated by Alzheimer's disease.[44][45]

Assassination attempts and plots

Andrew Jackson

Illustration of Jackson's attempted assassination
  • January 30, 1835: Just outside the Capitol Building, a house painter named Richard Lawrence attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson with two pistols, both of which misfired. Later somebody tried the two pistols and both worked fine. Lawrence was apprehended after Jackson beat him severely with his cane. Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a mental institution until his death in 1861.[46]

Abraham Lincoln

  • February 23, 1861:
    National Detective Agency
    played a key role in protecting the president-elect by managing Lincoln's security throughout the journey. Although scholars debate whether the threat was real, Lincoln and his advisers took actions to ensure his safe passage through Baltimore.
  • August 1864: A lone rifle shot fired by an unknown sniper missed Lincoln's head by inches (passing through his hat) as he rode in the late evening, unguarded, north from the White House three miles (5 km) to the Soldiers' Home (his regular retreat where he would work and sleep before returning to the White House the following morning). Near 11:00 PM, Private John W. Nichols of the Pennsylvania 150th Volunteers, the sentry on duty at the gated entrance to the Soldiers' Home grounds, heard the rifle shot and moments later saw the president riding toward him "bareheaded". Lincoln described the matter to Ward Lamon, his old friend and loyal bodyguard.[47][48]

William Howard Taft

William Taft and Porfirio Díaz, historic first presidential summit, Ciudad Juárez
, Mexico, October 16, 1909
  • In 1909, William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz planned a summit in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a historic first meeting between a U.S. president and a Mexican president and also the first time an American president would cross the border into Mexico.[49] Díaz requested the meeting to show U.S. support for his planned eighth run as president, and Taft agreed to support Díaz in order to protect the several billion dollars of American capital then invested in Mexico.[50] Both sides agreed that the disputed Chamizal strip connecting El Paso to Ciudad Juárez would be considered neutral territory with no flags present during the summit, but the meeting focused attention on this territory and resulted in assassination threats and other serious security concerns.[51] The Texas Rangers, 4,000 U.S. and Mexican troops, U.S. Secret Service agents, FBI agents, and U.S. Marshals were all called in to provide security.[52] An additional 250-member private security detail led by Frederick Russell Burnham, the celebrated scout, was hired by John Hays Hammond. Hammond was a close friend of Taft from Yale University and a former candidate for U.S. vice president in the 1908 presidential election who, along with his business partner Burnham, held considerable mining interests in Mexico.[53][54][55] On October 16, the day of the summit, Burnham and Private C.R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered 52-year-old Julius Bergerson holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route.[56] Burnham and Moore captured and disarmed Bergerson within only a few feet (around one meter) of Taft and Díaz.[57][58]
  • In 1910, President Taft visited his aunt,
    Boston, Massachusetts. Before leaving nearby Worcester, Massachusetts by train, he threatened Torrey, who claimed the stranger "did not want anything to get into the papers, and if it did he would come back and kill me." Torrey reported the plot to the local police, who shared the allegation with the Worcester Police and the Secret Service. The man was never identified.[59]

Herbert Hoover

  • On November 19, 1928,[60] President-elect Hoover embarked on a ten-nation "goodwill tour" of Central and South America.[61] While crossing the Andes Mountains from Chile, an assassination plot by Argentine anarchists was thwarted. The group was led by Severino Di Giovanni, who planned to blow up his train as it crossed the Argentinian central plain. The plotters had an itinerary but the bomber was arrested before he could place the explosives on the rails. Hoover professed unconcern, tearing off the front page of a newspaper that revealed the plot and explaining, "It's just as well that Lou shouldn't see it,"[62] referring to his wife. His complimentary remarks on Argentina were well received in both the host country and in the press.[63]

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Giuseppe Zangara after his arrest
  • On February 15, 1933, seventeen days before Roosevelt's first presidential inauguration, Giuseppe Zangara fired five shots at Roosevelt in Miami, Florida. Zangara's shots missed the president-elect, but Zangara did mortally wound Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak and injured four other people. Zangara pleaded guilty to the murder of Cermak and was executed in the electric chair on March 20, 1933. It has never been conclusively determined who was Zangara's target, but most assumed at first that he had been shooting at the president-elect. Another theory is that the attempt may have been ordered by the imprisoned Al Capone, and that Cermak, who had led a crackdown on the Chicago Outfit and Chicago organized crime more generally, was the true target.[64][65]
  • The Soviet
    Tehran Conference in 1943.[66]

Harry S. Truman

  • Mid-1947: During the
    State of Israel, the Zionist paramilitary organization Lehi was alleged to have sent a number of letter bombs addressed to the president and high-ranking staff at the White House. At the time, the incident was not publicized, but Truman's daughter Margaret Truman disclosed the alleged incident in her biography of Truman published in 1972; the allegation was previously disclosed in a memoir by Ira R. T. Smith, who worked in the mail room. Per accounts, the Secret Service was alerted by British intelligence after similar letters had been sent to high-ranking British officials and Lehi claimed credit; the mail room of the White House intercepted the letters intended for President Truman and the Secret Service defused them. [67]
  • November 1, 1950: Two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, attempted to kill President Truman at the Blair House, where Truman was living while the White House was undergoing major renovations. In the attack, Torresola injured White House policeman Joseph Downs and mortally wounded White House policeman Leslie Coffelt. Coffelt returned fire, killing Torresola with a shot to the head. Collazo wounded an officer before being shot in the stomach. Collazo survived with serious injuries. Officer Coffelt would die of his wounds 4 hours later in a hospital. Truman was not harmed, but he was placed at a huge risk. Collazo was convicted in a federal trial and received the death sentence. Truman commuted Collazo's death sentence to life in prison. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter further commuted Collazo's sentence to time served.[68]

John F. Kennedy

Richard Nixon

Gerald Ford

  • September 5, 1975: On the northern grounds of the
    Ford when he reached to shake her hand in a crowd. She had four cartridges in the pistol's magazine but none in the firing chamber, and as a result, the gun did not fire. She was quickly restrained by Secret Service agent Larry Buendorf. Fromme was sentenced to life in prison, but was released from custody on August 14, 2009 (two years and eight months after Ford's death in 2006).[77]
  • September 22, 1975: In San Francisco, California, only 17 days after Fromme's attempt, Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at Ford from 40 feet (12 m) away.[78] A bystander, Oliver Sipple, grabbed Moore's arm and the shot missed Ford, striking a building wall and slightly injuring taxi driver John Ludwig.[79] Moore was tried and convicted in federal court, and sentenced to prison for life. She was paroled from a federal prison on December 31, 2007, after serving more than 30 years—one year and five days after Ford's natural death.

Jimmy Carter

  • May 5, 1979:
    transient status, and Ortiz was alternately reported as being held on a $100,000 bond as a material witness[80] or held on a $50,000 bond being charged with burglary from a car.[82] Charges against the pair were ultimately dismissed for a lack of evidence.[83]
  • John Hinckley Jr. came close to shooting Carter during his re-election campaign, but he lost his nerve. He would later attempt to kill President Ronald Reagan in March 1981.[84][85]

George H. W. Bush

  • April 13, 1993: According to Kuwaiti authorities, and an FBI investigation
    Counterterrorism Center concludes the assassination plot was likely fabricated by Kuwaiti authorities;[89] however, at the time the FBI established that the plot had been directed by the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS), and the CIA had received information suggesting that Saddam Hussein had authorized the assassination attempt to get revenge against the U.S., to punish Kuwait for working with the U.S., and to keep other Arab states for intervening in Iraq any further.[90] The day before the attack, on April 12, 1993, the then U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and future 64th U.S. secretary of state, Madeleine Albright
    , went before the U.N. Security Council to present evidence of the Iraqi plot with the hope of gaining international support.

Bill Clinton

George W. Bush

Barack Obama

  • December 2008: A United States Marine, 20-year-old Kody Brittingham, wrote that he had taken an oath to "protect against all enemies, both foreign and domestic." In a signed "letter of intent," he identified President-elect Obama as a "domestic enemy" and the target of Brittingham's planned assassination plot.[104] A search of his barracks uncovered a journal containing white supremacist material.[105] In June 2010, Brittingham was sentenced to 100 months in federal prison.[106]
  • April 2009: A plot to assassinate Obama at the
    press credentials was found. The man confessed to the Turkish security services details of his plan to kill Obama with a knife. He alleged that he had three accomplices.[107]
  • November 2011: 21-year-old
    Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez was influenced by conspiracy theories and fringe religious viewpoints to attempt to murder Obama. Having traveled from his native Idaho, he hit the White House with several rounds fired from a semi-automatic rifle. No one was injured, but a window was broken.[108] He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.[109]
  • 20112012: The far-right terrorist group FEAR plotted to carry out a series of terror attacks which included assassinating Obama.[110] The plot was foiled when four members of the group were arrested on murder charges and one, Michael Burnett, agreed to co-operate with authorities in return for a lighter sentence.[111]
  • October 2012: A mentally ill man named Mitchell Kusick was arrested after confessing to his therapist that he intended to kill Obama with a shotgun at a campaign stop in Boulder, Colorado.[112]
  • April 2013: Another attempt was made when a letter laced with ricin, a toxin, was sent to Obama.[113]
  • June 2013: Two white supremacists, Glendon Scott Crawford and Eric Feight, were arrested for a plot to kill Muslim Americans and other perceived enemies of Israel with a homemade "radiation gun", described by Crawford as "Hiroshima on a light switch".[114] It later emerged that Crawford had suggested using the device against President Obama as well as several other targets.[115]
  • October 2018: A package that contained a pipe bomb was sent to former President Obama at his home in Washington, D.C. The package was intercepted by the Secret Service.[116][117]

Donald Trump

  • June 16, 2016: Michael Steven Sandford, a British national, attempted to grab the gun of a police officer at a Trump rally in Las Vegas, Nevada. After his arrest, he stated that he had aimed to assassinate Donald Trump with the gun. He was sentenced to twelve months and one day in prison,[118] but was released and deported to the United Kingdom after eleven months.[119]
  • September 6, 2017: Gregory Lee Leingang, a 42-year-old man from North Dakota, attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump in Mandan, North Dakota, while Trump was visiting the state to rally public support. Leingang stole a forklift from an oil refinery and drove toward the presidential motorcade. After the forklift became jammed within the refinery, he fled on foot and was arrested by the pursuing police. While interviewed in detention, he admitted his intent to murder the president by flipping the presidential limousine with the stolen forklift, to the surprise of authorities, who suspected he was merely stealing the vehicle for personal use. The man pleaded guilty to the attempted attack, stealing the forklift, related charges and several other unrelated crimes on the same day. Consequently, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. His defense attorney noted a "serious psychiatric crisis".[120][121] Leingang's choice of a forklift as a weapon was unique among presidential assassination attempts.
  • November 2017: A man affiliated with the
    Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), whose name was not revealed, was arrested by the Philippine National Police in Rizal Park, Manila, for reportedly planning to assassinate Trump during the diplomatic ASEAN Summit. In the week prior to the failed killing, the Secret Service already suspected a planned assault on the president because of the general presence of ISIL in the Philippines and because of threats by many people against the president on social media. Before the landing of Trump's airplane, the Secret Service discovered a credible terrorist threat from a man who threatened to kill the president on social media, quickly tracking down and arresting the terrorist. The government disclosed the incident to the public after a year of silence in a television documentary.[122][123]


Joe Biden

Deaths rumored to have been assassinations

Zachary Taylor

On July 9, 1850, President

4th of July celebration.[125][126] Almost immediately after his death, rumors began to circulate that Taylor was poisoned by pro-slavery Southerners, and similar theories have persisted into the 21st century.[127] In 1991 a neutron activation analysis conducted on samples of Taylor's remains found no evidence of poisonings due to insufficient levels of arsenic.[128] Political scientist Michael Parenti questions the traditional explanation for Taylor's death. Relying on interviews and reports by forensic pathologists, he argues that the procedure used to test for arsenic poisoning was fundamentally flawed.[129][130]

Warren G. Harding

In June 1923, President

heart attack or a stroke at 7:35 PM on August 2, 1923. The formal announcement, printed in The New York Times of that day, stated: "A stroke of apoplexy was the cause of death." He had been ill exactly one week.[132]

Naval physicians surmised that Harding had suffered a heart attack. The Hardings' personal medical advisor, homeopath and Surgeon General Charles E. Sawyer, disagreed with the diagnosis. His wife, Florence Harding, refused permission for an autopsy, which soon led to speculation that the president had been the victim of a plot, possibly carried out by his wife, as Harding apparently had been unfaithful to the first lady. Gaston B. Means, an amateur historian and gadfly, noted in his book The Strange Death of President Harding (1930) that the circumstances surrounding his death led to suspicions that he had been poisoned. A number of individuals attached to him, both personally and politically, would have welcomed Harding's death, as they would have been disgraced in association by Means' assertion of Harding's "imminent impeachment".

See also

References

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  5. .
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