List of United States presidential assassination attempts

There have been many multiple assassination attempts on presidents of the United States; there have been 17 attempts to kill sitting and former presidents as well as presidents-elect. Four attempts on sitting Presidents have succeeded: Abraham Lincoln (the 16th president), James A. Garfield (the 20th president), William McKinley (the 25th president) and John F. Kennedy (the 35th president). Two other presidents were injured in attempted assassinations.

Assassinations

Abraham Lincoln

The Abraham Lincoln assassination took place on Good Friday, 14 April 1865 at approximately 10 p.m. President Abraham Lincoln was shot by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre with his wife and two guests. Lincoln died the following day—15 April 1865—at 7:22 a.m., in the home of William Petersen.

James A. Garfield

The James A. Garfield assassination took place in Washington, D.C., at 9:30 a.m. on 2 July 1881, less than four months after Garfield took office. Charles J. Guiteau was the assassin. Garfield died 11 weeks later, on 19 September 1881.

William McKinley

The assassination of William McKinley took place on 6 September 1901, at the Temple of Music, in Buffalo, New York. President William McKinley, attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, was shot twice by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist. McKinley died eight days later, on 14 September.

John F. Kennedy

The assassination of John F. Kennedy took place on Friday, 22 November 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). John F. Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Although Kennedy was not formally declared dead until later that day, he effectively died instantaneously. The ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963–1964 concluded that Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza. The United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976–1979 determined that Kennedy's murder was probably the result of a conspiracy that included Oswald.

Attempted assassinations

Andrew Jackson

30 January 1835: At the Capitol Building, a house painter named Richard Lawrence aimed two flintlock pistols at the President, but both misfired, one of them while Lawrence stood within 13 feet (4 m) of Jackson and the other at point-blank range. Lawrence was apprehended after Jackson beat him with a cane. Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a mental institution until his death in 1861.

Theodore Roosevelt

13 October 1912: Three and a half years after he left office, Roosevelt was running for President as a member of the Progressive Party. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, John F. Schrank, a saloon-keeper from New York, shot Roosevelt once with a revolver. A 100-page speech folded over twice and the metal glasses case in Roosevelt's breast pocket slowed the bullet. Amidst the commotion, Roosevelt yelled out "Quiet! I've been shot." Roosevelt insisted on giving his speech with the bullet still lodged inside him. He later went to the hospital, but the bullet was never removed. Roosevelt, remembering that William McKinley died after operations to remove his bullet, chose to have his remain. Schrank said that McKinley's ghost had told him to avenge his assassination. Schrank was found legally insane and was institutionalized until his death in 1943.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

15 February 1933 (one month before being sworn in for his first term in office): In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara fired five shots at Roosevelt. Four people were wounded and the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, was killed. Zangara was found guilty of murder and was executed 20 March 1933. Some researchers believe Cermak, not Roosevelt, was the intended target that day, as the mayor was a staunch foe of Al Capone's Chicago mob organization.

Harry S. Truman

In 1950, two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists attempted to kill Truman, resulting in the murder of one White House police officer and the death of one assassin; Truman was not harmed.

John F. Kennedy

11 December 1960: While vacationing in Palm Beach, Florida, President-elect John F. Kennedy's life was threatened by Richard Paul Pavlick, a 73-year-old former postal worker. Pavlick's plan was to serve as a suicide bomber by crashing his dynamite-laden 1950 Buick into Kennedy's vehicle, but the plan was disrupted when Pavlick saw Kennedy's wife and daughter bidding him goodbye. That attack of conscience foiled the opportunity, with Pavlick's arrest by the Secret Service coming three days later after he was stopped for a driving violation, with the dynamite still in his car. Pavlick spent the next six years in both federal prison and mental institutions before being released in December 1966.

Richard M. Nixon

First assassination attempt

14 April 1972: Milwaukee, Wisconsin native Arthur Bremer arrived in Ottawa, Ontario on April 10 and spent five days in Canada's national capital in an effort to shoot and kill President Nixon, who was visiting the country during this time. On April 14, Nixon made a public appearance in a limousine at Parliament Hill, which Bremer attended, carrying a loaded revolver in his pocket. The presence of Vietnam War protesters and Canadian nationalists, however, led to increased security surrounding the President, and Bremer had great difficulty getting within firing range of Nixon. He did manage finally to get close enough, but the President was traveling by in his limousine with the windows closed, and Bremer was unsure whether any bullets would go through the glass of Nixon's limo. As a result, he didn't open fire and the President sped past unharmed. The following month Bremer shot U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate George Wallace, lodging a bullet in his spine and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down for life.

Second assassination attempt

22 February 1974: Samuel Byck, planned to kill Nixon by crashing a commercial airliner into the White House. Once on the plane, he was informed that it could not take off with the wheel blocks still in place. He shot the pilot and copilot before killing himself. The events surrounding this assassination attempt were portrayed in the film The Assassination of Richard Nixon.

Gerald R. Ford

First assassination attempt

5 September 1975: In Sacramento, California, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, drew a Colt .45 caliber pistol on Ford when he reached to shake her hand in a crowd. There were four cartridges in the pistol's magazine but the firing chamber was empty. She was soon restrained by a Secret Service agent. Fromme was sentenced to life in prison.

Second assassination attempt

22 September 1975: In San Francisco, California, Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at Ford from 40 feet (12 m) away. A bystander, Oliver Sipple, grabbed Moore's arm and the shot missed Ford. Moore was sentenced to life in prison. She was later paroled on Monday, December 31, 2007 from a federal prison after serving more than 30 years.

Jimmy Carter

5 May 1979: Ten minutes before Carter was about to speak at the civic center mall in Los Angeles, Raymond Lee Harvey was arrested carrying a pistol. He later told authorities that he and another man were hired to create a diversion so that Mexican hit men armed with sniper rifles could kill Carter. Charges against him were dismissed for lack of evidence.

Ronald Reagan

On 30 March 1981, following a speaking engagement in Washington, D.C., Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr. as Reagan was returning to his limousine. He recovered quickly due to prompt medical attention.

George H.W. Bush

13 April 1993: Sixteen men, in the alleged employment of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, smuggled a car bomb into Kuwait with the intent of killing Bush as he spoke at Kuwait University. The plot was foiled when Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and arrested the suspected assassins. Bush had left office in January 1993. On 26 June 1993, the U.S. launched a missile attack targeting Baghdad intelligence headquarters in retaliation for the attempted attack against Bush. The Iraqi Intelligence Service, particularly Directorate 14, was accused of being behind the plot.

Bill Clinton

First assassination attempt

12 September 1994: Frank Eugene Corder flew a single engine Cessna into the White House lawn, apparently trying to hit the White House. The President and First Family were not home at the time. Corder was the only casualty.

Second assassination attempt

29 October 1994: Francisco Martin Duran fired at least 29 shots with a semi-automatic rifle at the White House from a fence overlooking the north lawn, thinking that Clinton was among the men in dark suits standing there (Clinton was in the White House Residence watching a football game). A tourist named Harry Rakosky tackled Duran before he could injure anyone. Duran was found to have a suicide note in his pocket and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

George W. Bush

First assassination attempt

7 February 2001: While President George W. Bush was occupied in the White House Residence, Washington, DC, Robert Pickett, standing outside the perimeter fence, discharged a number of shots from a weapon in the direction of the White House. Eileen O'Connor, CNN Correspondent, reported: 'the U.S. Park Police said that the type of handgun that was that was confiscated, if it was an unobstructed view to the White House, could a bullet could have reached the White House. But there are a lot of trees, a lot of bushes between this sidewalk, where the suspect was, Robert Pickett, and the White House, so that there was obstructions, mainly trees and bushes'. Following a standoff of about ten minutes, the incident ended when a Secret Service officer shot Pickett, resulting in an injury which required hospital surgery. Pickett was found to have a history of emotional problems and employment grievances. Lacking conclusive evidence that Mr. Bush was a personal target (although the accused had indeed written to the President on the subject of his grievances), a court in July 2001 sentenced Pickett to three years in jail in connection with the incident.

Second assassination attempt

10 May 2005: While President George W. Bush was giving a speech in the Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia, Vladimir Arutyunian threw a live Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade towards the podium where he was standing and where Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and their two wives and officials were seated. The grenade was not operative and did not explode.

Arutyunian was arrested in July 2005, and killed an Interior Ministry agent while resisting arrest. He was convicted in January 2006, and was given a life sentence.

Presidential deaths rumored to be assassinations

Zachary Taylor

On 4 July 1850, President Zachary Taylor was diagnosed by his physicians with cholera morbus, a term that included diarrhea and dysentery but not true cholera. Cholera, typhoid fever, and food poisoning have all been indicated as the source of the president's ultimately fatal gastroenteritis. More specifically, a hasty snack of iced milk, cold cherries and pickled cucumbers consumed at an Independence Day celebration might have been the culprit. By 9 July, Taylor was dead.

In the late 1980s, author Clara Rising theorized that Taylor was murdered by poison and was able to convince Taylor's closest living relative, as well as the Jefferson Co., KY Coroner, Dr. Richard Greathouse, to order an exhumation. On June 17, 1991 Taylor's remains were exhumed from the vault at the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, in Louisville, KY. The remains were then transported to the Office of the Kentucky Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. George Nichols. Nichols, joined by Dr. William Maples, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, removed the top of the lead coffin liner to reveal remarkably well preserved human remains that were immediately recognizable as those of President Taylor. Radiological studies were conducted of the remains before small samples of hair, fingernail and other tissues were removed. Thomas Secoy of the Department of Veterans Affairs (and a direct descendant of Lewis Cass), ensured that only those samples required for testing were removed and that the coffin was resealed. The remains were then returned to the cemetery and received appropriate honors at reinterment. The samples were sent to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where neutron activation analysis revealed traces of arsenic at levels several hundred times less than necessary for poisoning to have occurred.

Warren G. Harding

In June 1923, President Warren G. Harding set out on a cross-country "Voyage of Understanding," planning to meet ordinary people and explain his policies. During this trip, he became the first president to visit Alaska. Rumors of corruption in his administration were beginning to circulate in Washington by this time, and Harding was profoundly shocked by a long message he received while in Alaska, apparently detailing illegal activities previously unknown to him. At the end of July, while traveling south from Alaska through British Columbia, he developed what was thought to be a severe case of food poisoning. He gave the final speech of his life to a large crowd at the University of Washington Stadium (now Husky Stadium) at the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. A scheduled speech in Portland, Oregon was canceled. The President's train proceeded south to San Francisco. Arriving at the Palace Hotel, he developed pneumonia. Harding died of either a heart attack or a stroke at 7:35 p.m. on 2 August 1923. The formal announcement, printed in the New York Times of that day, stated that "A stroke of apoplexy was the cause of death." He had been ill exactly one week.

Naval physicians surmised that he had suffered a heart attack; however, this diagnosis was not made by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Charles E. Sawyer, who was traveling with the presidential party. Mrs. 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. 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 lent themselves to some suspecting he had been poisoned. Several individuals attached to him, 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." Although Means was later discredited for publicly accusing Mrs. Harding of the murder, enough doubts surround the President's death to keep reputable scholars open to the possibility of murder.

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