American POTUS: Rawhide Down - The Attempted Assassination of Ronald Reagan featuring Del Wilber

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Transcript

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 0:32

Welcome to American potus. I'm Alan Lowe. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm very happy to welcome our guests on this episode, Dell Quentin Wilber Dell is a very accomplished journalist and author. He currently serves as the Washington Investigations editor at the Associated Press. Prior to that, he held positions at newspapers like the LA Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. He's written two books, A Good Month for Murder, the Inside Story of a Homicide Squad. And the terrific book we'll discuss today, rawhide down the near assassination of Ronald Reagan. Dale, it's good to see you again. Thanks so much for joining us in American potus.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:09

Thanks for having me.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:10

I realized it's been, six years since you spoke at the Lincoln Library, uh, for us. And, I couldn't believe it was that long ago. Time really flies.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:18

Oh my God, you have no idea. So I'm going back to the Reagan library to talk week, uh, for the anniversary, the 45th anniversary of the assassination attempt. I was just thinking the other day, I was there 15 years ago, Jerry Par was still alive, he was with me. He's an agent that we'll talk about.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:35

Yeah.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:35

dinner that night with Nancy Reagan. I'll remember forever, we had chicken pot pie reading in this private place in the library with her and some of her friends. My wife was there,

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:46

Hmm.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:46

was there, and she turned to Jerry Parr and said, Jerry, thank you for giving me my life back.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:52

Wow. That's amazing.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:54

was 30 years after the event, and now

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:56

Wow.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 1:56

years removed from that. It's interesting too, like there are things that are really, really present for you that were really far in the past and they're things that were very near in the past that are very distant at the same time. It's time is tricky.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 2:10

right.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 2:11

It is, it is. So let's set some background for the story. Why was President Reagan at the Washington Hilton Hotel March 30th, 1981?

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 2:21

March 30th, 1981, a cloudy, rainy, chilly day in Washington. Very typical of late spring here. I'm in Washington, by the way, so very typical. And he was given a speech at the Washington Hilton Hotel for the building and construction's trade department of the a f Ffl CIO, which is a totally normal thing for presidents to do. Reagan, unlike many other Republican presidents, was actually really eager to do this because he was a card carrying member of the a Ffl CIO. He had been president of the Screen Actor's Guild so he had some union, bonafides that other presidents definitely didn't have in both parties. And he was. liked him. Remember the Reagan Democrats? And so he was excited. This was his crowd, right? Like they were gonna like him even if they didn't like all of his politics all the time. And he was very much a capitalist. His policies were not super labor friendly,, but they liked his positions on social issues and things like that. So they were very excited for him. And he took this speech very seriously. It's one of those speeches that could easily be a throwaway speech for a president. And going through the Reagan library, I found. He really cared about this speech. You could tell, because this was, Monday and the weekend before he had rewritten the speech by hand. And I found the handwritten rewrites, which you know, was really kind cool. Mary Massing wrote the speech and he went at it, he totally rewrote the whole thing. And he made it a lot better,

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 3:39

I remember years ago when I was at the Reagan library working there as an archivist. Uh, Martin Anderson was there, and he was looking through all these notebooks of Reagan. And when Reagan was writing his radio addresses and these handwritten, addresses this amazing, prolific writer really. And now even in the White House with this amazing team of speech writers there, he's putting his imprint on it. I think that's pretty impressive

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 3:59

he had note cards with every like, thing of every fact, and they were cataloged. He had been a prolific reader and you know, Reagan was known for stretching the truth, right? He would. Provide these great long anecdotes about war stories, all this stuff that were not true. Like people could not figure it out. They had no idea what he was doing. And then I believe, Luke Cannon, his most esteem biographer, finally got to the Warner Brothers archives

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:24

Hmm.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:24

went through it and found all of the screenplays that Reagan had read. That were never made,

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:30

Mm-hmm.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:31

of the stories that Reagan related as these dramatic war stories of a bomber, barely making it back to base had been a screenplay.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:38

Hmm.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:38

had read and it went to his head and those made it into those cards too.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:42

Yeah.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:43

Repeated anecdotes and jokes and stuff. He had,

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:45

Yeah.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:46

you know, people dinged him for not being incredibly intelligent and that was just not true. He had a fantastic memory from memorizing all those

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 4:54

Mm-hmm. I would say perhaps they weren't the truth, but they related truths to him. I think that's, that's what he saw. Yep.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 5:00

yeah.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 5:00

Yep, yep.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 5:01

Yeah.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 5:01

So, as the president exited the hotel that day, where was John Hinkley Jr. Standing. And why was he able to get that close to the president?

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 5:10

Well, you know, John w Hinckley Jr. Troubled young man, had mental illness. He had grown up the son of a pretty wealthy family in Texas, later Colorado, and he had become. As his life progressed, kind of failure, he was a toll failure, failed outta school, was not doing well, wanted to be a songwriter. Went to Hollywood a couple times, failed at that. When he was out there. I believe in 1976, he becomes obsessed with the movie Star, Jodi Foster, Reagan's elected in 80. The shooting is March 30th, 19, one in 1980, the fall of 80. he goes out to Yale a couple times, new Haven, Connecticut, where Jodi's a student, she'd given up on Hollywood to be a student, Ms. Foster.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 5:52

Hmm.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 5:52

And he stalks her there, Calls her on the phone visits or dorm room slips, notes under the door, freaks her out big time. He's rejected, by the way, humiliatingly, so it's in the book, but he totally humiliated, goes home, says I'm gonna give songwriting one last shot. some money from his parents. His mom drops him off at the airport, flies out to la, gets some digs up on like Hollywood Boulevard or something. Can't make it work. And so he says, you know,, it's time for me to end it all. He takes a bus back, late March, takes a bus from LA to DC to transit to another bus to go to New Haven, where his plan is to kill himself in front of Foster, kill, foster, and then himself, or kill Foster.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 6:33

Hmm.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 6:34

He

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 6:34

Mm-hmm.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 6:34

it has to end this. It's too much. And he wakes up that morning and he gets a McDonald's sandwich and he gets the Washington Star newspaper. And on page A four is the president's schedule. And he sees that the president's giving this 2:00 PM speech at the Washington Hilton Hotel

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 6:51

Hmm.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 6:51

he thinks, you know, I'm gonna see how close I can get with my little gun to the president. This is significant because, he had stalked Carter. And he had gone to the inauguration, but didn't get very close to Reagan on Inauguration day. But he had stalked Carter in the 1980 campaign. He went to Nashville for an event, left as Carter got there, couldn't bring himself to do anything. In fact, the gun he had was discovered by airport security and confiscated, and he was fine. 62 50. For trying to sneak it through security. know. And let go. And then, and then, no. Can you imagine? But the more interesting one is in Dayton, Ohio, he took a bus to Dayton, Ohio, where Carter did an event. He got within an arms reach of Carter, but he'd left his guns at the bus depot. so he didn't shoot Carter. And so anyway, this is his chance. You're gonna see what happens. And so he gets up there and he sees Reagan go in and then he leaves and comes back. The Hilton Hotel, was built in the, late fifties, was designed to attract the president of the United States. They built this grand ballroom and they created a special entrance for the president that's on T Street. The main entrance is on Connecticut Avenue. If you know anything about Washington, T Street is a cross street. And that's where the presidential entrance is, the VIP entrance. That VIP entrance is set off from another T street entrance that's maybe 50 feet away.

8:11

And so the Secret Service for over a hundred times has dropped the president off and backed the car up and pointed it out towards T Street, forcing the president to walk in the open about 30 feet from the door to the car, which is 15 feet from the rope line.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 8:26

It's not a press line. Like there you'll see videos and they'll see Sam Donalds and everyone hurling questions at the president. But were back there including like union members, whatever, and they're all there to see the president, but they're not screened.

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 8:40

Hmm.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 8:40

no one would get that close unless you go through a magnetometer and get

alan-lowe_1_03-26-2026_160558 8:44

Right.

squadcaster-1552_1_03-26-2026_160558 8:44

and all that. But they weren't screened. And so coming outta the hotel. First comes Jim Brady, and then, Tom Delahantys up. He's a police officer. He is up by the front. Reagan comes out and,, it's 2:27 PM and there's Hinkley in the crowd and he can't believe his luck. The president is literally 15 feet from him

9:06

hinkley sees this chance, he's like, oh my gosh, I can actually pull this off. There's no one between me and Reagan. He pulls out his gun and unleashes six shots in 1.7 seconds. 1.7 seconds is the time it takes me to say 1.7 seconds and. The first shot hits Jim Brady in the head. He falls to the ground. The second shot hits Tom Delehanty. In the back. He's a Peti police officer. He had turned to face Reagan, which is a no-no. The third shot goes high because by that point, Hinckley's trying to track Reagan from right to left, because by that point in time, Gary Par 50-year-old had secret Service detail, who wasn't even supposed to be there that day. He had asked to swap shifts with a guy named. Johnny Guy to get to know Reagan better is throwing Reagan into the backseat of the limousine. This is a 1972 Lincoln Continental. The doors open backwards, armored doors went backwards, which saves Reagan's life, but always terrified the secret service agents because they were worried they'd leave him open one day. Arrive and knock a door up, blow a door open by hitting a fire hydrant or something. So the third shot goes high, hits a building across the street. The fourth shot Tim McCarthy's at the edge of the door, hits him in the abdomen. He falls the ground. He took a blocking stance. He took a bullet for the president, not wearing a bulletproof vest. The fifth shot hits the window of the limousine, a sixth shot. No one knows what happens till later, hits the side of the car. Flattens into the shape of a dime, flips through, a crack between the door and the doorframe about an inch and a half wide. And strikes Reagan about five inches below his left armpit, four or five inches below his left armpit, Reagan and par land in a tumble in the car. The door slam shut at the wheels driven room. A secret service agent who thought is, oh my God, I hope Tim's okay. Timmy's his buddy Tim McCarthy, and if he slams down the gas, he's gonna run him over and kill him.'cause that thing weighs 13,000 pounds. He does it anyway. He is like, I gotta get the president outta here. They take off heading down T Street, then up towards Connecticut Avenue. And by the way, I don't know if you've ever seen a presidential motor kid before, but they're very long. 15, 16, 20 cars. The presidential motor kid. At this moment's, one car, just the limousine, Reagan has one agent protecting him and one agent driving and they're tearing down Connecticut Avenue away from the scene. It's utterly silent in the back limousine, by the way.'cause there's so much armor. They can't hear the gunshot, they can't hear the screams and the yelling. There's so much screaming and yelling. If you watch the YouTube videos, they hear none of that. They're just taken off, leaving, heading down Connecticut Avenue, which is a straight shot, by the way of the White House.'Cause they've closed it for the president already, but there's no traffic. Although at one point in time, drew and Ru Dodges a woman pushing a baby carriage across the street, which she shouldn't have been doing. He almost hit her. That's where we are at. 2:27 PM.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_162833 11:47

Now, as you said, they didn't know until later that the president had actually been hit by that sixth bullet. Uh, what did Parsi that made him divert the car to George Washington University Hospital?

11:59

Well, you know, he's in the back of the car and he checks Reagan. He puts him back in the seat and checks around under his suit, code, checks, whatever, makes sure he is breathing okay. Par tells Run Rudy on the radio and say we're heading back to Crown, the code name for the White House. So they're heading back to Crown because that's the most secure place to go and far is pretty confident that. Everything will be okay. And then Reagan starts complaining about pain in his side, his back, and his chest and his side. And maybe he broke one of his ribs when he threw him in the car And R is, concerned about that. And then Reagan reaches into his right pocket and pulls out a paper napkin and he took the motel and dabs his lips and Frothy blood is all over it. And that causes par a lot of concern because he took a 10 minute medicine course and secret service and that was not like, Hey, we're gonna teach you medicine in 10 minutes. How do you keep someone alive for 10 minutes? And one of the things they said to look out for was bright fathy blood. That meant it came from the lungs. So far as the media thought is, holy shit, excuse my language, I punctured a lung with a rib. Ugh, damnit. They could treat that somewhat they have a great medical unit at the White House, right? But how serious is this? Par is weighing his options, do I divert to the hospital? By the way, this kicks off a whole era of increased presidential security, where now they, at every hospital, anywhere on the President's path, wherever he is going, there's a Secret Service agent ready to lock it down. They didn't have that. Then there was like an off-duty administrative guy at the hospital by chance, but he would take him into a position where there's no security that he's aware of. And if this is like a decapitation strike or something, certainly whoever the gunmen are might have someone station at a hospital to finish the job. But if he takes it to the White House and it's super serious and he dies there, his ass is grass. So, but if he's wrong and it's nothing, he takes him to the hospital and everything's fine. The stock market could crash. These are all the thoughts going through his head, That's a lot, right? He says, screw it, we're gonna the hospital, let's get to the hospital, and they get there in three minutes. Great moment. Mary Ann Gordon, a female agent, one of the first six female agents on the Secret Service, was in charge of the motorcade that day and she gets into the backup limousine with Dr. Daniel Ruggie, the whitest physicians in the back, and tells the guy driving it, follow that limousine and they take off after it. And eventually they get up enough speed, they pass the presidential limousine, get in front of it to act as a battering ram if they need to blow through anyone in the light. So they take off, they get to the hospital. And, they get there within three minutes. And they pull up the emergency entrance, par races into the back of the limousine and says, Hey, you know, let's get outta here. You know, let's get you in. And, Reagan refuses to take any assistance from Par, refuses. I'm gonna do it myself. Gets up, itches up his pants dramatically, you know, Reagan's not doing very well by the way. And they walk in 20, 30, 40 feet. And I interviewed a paramedic who I used to cover when I covered the DC police fire department, and this paramedics there watching and he's like, oh my God, Dale, I thought the president was code city. Code city means you're gonna die. His eyes rolled in the back of his head, his legs went limp. He fell into the arms of his agents and they had to carry him to the trauma bay. They put him in the trauma bay. And, at that moment,, they're rushing to help him. And there's several things that saved Reagan's life this day. One Jerry Pars Quick reactions and quick thinking, if he's a split second late, getting him into the car, the bullet hits the president's head,? If he goes to the White House, the president's dead. So those are really important. Now comes, the second reason he's alive is that they have totally revamped trauma care at the hospital. In the seventies, if you were shot in the streets of DC and you got the same wound in Vietnam, you had a better chance of surviving in Vietnam if you were a US Army soldier than on the streets of DC Because it was chaotic. They didn't know what they were doing. Historical aside, Orlando Laier. Was blown to bits in Washington. He is a former Chilean ambassador in September, 1976, him and two Americans are in a car. They're blown to bits in Sheridan Circle. They're rushed to the hospital. He's long dead. The woman bleeds out and dies. And the guy in charge of trauma care at GW just got the job, watched all that happen, and said, this is a disaster. No one knew what they were doing. It was haphazard. We have to fix this. By the way, that bomb on Orlando's car was planted in my driveway. I live in Orlando's house by total chance Weird, right? I have all of his files from this thing in one of my closets. And I had learned after I bought the house, like, oh, how do you feel about a murder habit happened here. And I was like, oh my God, triple homicide. No, no, they Orlando. I'm like, no, that wasn't here. I had that whole file. No, it was, and I went through and everything's redacted. The address redacted was, my address. Yep. The bomb was planted in my driveway. Anyway, that's an aside. But what's interesting is that. They didn't have very good trauma care. And George Orano, who just died this last year, God bless'em, went up to University of Maryland, shock Trauma Center, learned ins and outs of it. Protocols. Don't think, don't think, do these things for every patient. Don't think, insert this line, cut off these clothes, give the person this oxygen, drain this, very technical stuff. But they didn't want people waiting around, what should I do, doctor? No. It's pretty standard care to stabilize a person. He brings this to gw and, they practiced for years, Reagan comes in. If Reagan had beaten Ford and then beaten Carter in 1976, and this was March 30th, 1977, Reagan dies. Reagan dies. He does not make it. Okay, he's dead. But because they got better at all this stuff and the secret service improved, its training Reagan lives.'cause here he gets on the trauma, they cut off his suit, brand new suit given them by Nancy Reagan, by the way. Not always a first thing to do, but they cut it right off. No waiting. There's a nurse there. She can't detect his blood pressure. It's too low. When they finally do detect it, he's in shock territory. He's in shock, right? Which is not good for someone who's 70 years old by the way.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_162833 17:58

They didn't know he was shot at that point. What did they think was wrong?

18:00

Well, they had told him, You might've had a heart attack. Maybe a rib, punctured a lung and he has internal bleeding. They had no idea. They wouldn't know for another several minutes they'd been shot. He was just in bad shape,? Like he was totally screwed up. And so they're checking him and she barely gets a blood pressure. Another one, inserts a long IV that goes from his right arm all the way to his heart inserts that then looks up. I said, huh, what are these guys with guns and earpieces and stuff that's weird. Looks down and sees it's Reagan, and she is like, oh my God. She goes and gets smelling salts off the shelf, gives herself some smelling salts they do all that and they stabilize him. He get blood pressure, still know it's wrong. Another Doctor Wesley Price comes up and checks his, breathing his heart sounds, and, taps on his chest, his right side totally clear, like a drum. The left side's like a hard piece of wood, meaning it's filled with blood. That left chest cavity is just filled with blood. And then an intern shows up who had, by the way, been a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, did crazy stuff, knew all about wounds. He walks up, he looks down and sees a tiny little slit in Reagan inside. He goes, I think that's a gunshot wound. Like what? And they all looked down. It's a tiny little slit.'cause remember it hit him edgewise, this dime-sized projectile. And it was, and what happened was it had gone into his chest tumbled end over end, chewing up arteries and veins and stuff. That's what's causing all the bleeding. And his lungs have a lot of capillaries and blood vessels and, chewed it all up. So that's why he is bleeding eternally. But you didn't know that'cause no blood got out'cause it's just a little slit. And so anyway, that's where they're at, right? That, that moment they're like, oh God, what do we do? And so Dr. David GenZ comes down, he became head of the Maryland Shock Trauma Center. George Murano's there, we gotta drain the blood. And usually from the chest, usually you drain the blood, the lung inflates, and everything's fine. You don't even take bullets out of people. And they do that. And the problem is, that doesn't stop the bleeding, the blood just keeps coming and coming and coming over the course of this Reagan, who again, 70 years old, would lose more than half his blood volume and he gets shot obviously, and be in shock., And those three things a doctor told me when he was looking at a textbook from 2011 or 2010, the modern day textbook, chances of survival, something like, you know. Less than 50%. It may even be worse than that. It was not guarantee he'd lived.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 20:14

so the president was facing a situation where survival certainly was not guaranteed, but for those of us around back then, we remember he showed a lot of grace under pressure. Can you remind us, perhaps, of some of the quips? He said while undergoing this horrible trauma, I.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 20:27

Oh yeah. You know what's interesting about this day is I went into the book thinking, oh. It almost changed history, right?'cause Reagan lived, it's not like the Kennedy assassination. And what I came out realizing was this was a day that changed history almost as much as if Reagan had been killed. And part of that was because Reagan formed a bond with the American people who got real insights into him as a person,? As you know, the ding against Reagan was that he was overly scripted, But the script went out at 2:27 PM right? And so you got real. Into who he was as a person and a leader. And so, they're treating him, they're gonna decide to take him to surgery, right? And they have to take him to surgery because the blood won't stop. And as they're taking him to surgery, they're wheeling him down and he sees his three top advisors, baker Mason, Deaver. And he says to them, who's minding the store? Meaning, I hope it's not Al Hague. And then they, get into the operating room and he can tell everyone's nervous around him and he wants everyone to calm down. And so he gets up dramatically on an elbow when he says, uh. I hope you're all Republicans and puts some oxygen mask back on, lay down, and Joe Giordano, God bless him, leans over and says, today, Mr. President, we're all Republicans. And Joe Giordano's a fierce liberal by the way.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 21:34

Yeah.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 21:35

And so, you know, that was really instructive. And, then Reagan, lives obviously, and he gets into the recovery room and he exchanges notes with his nurses that were all really funny. Like, all in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 21:45

Right.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 21:46

Shoot that scene over again from the hotel? Can you send me to LA where I could see the air I'm breathing. You know, he is equipping, joking, right? When he sees Nancy Reagan in the emergency room,? She comes in the trauma bay and she sees his suit cut up and blood and this tube in her husband's side, and she's clearly distraught. The first thing he says to us, honey, I forgot to duck reprising a famous Jack Dempsey line in his championship vs in the 1920s he told his girlfriend, Hey, I forgot to duck when he got knocked out. Right to joke and all that stuff. We're learning that this all gets out, by the way, and what the American people learn about Reagan. One, grace under fire to courage. Three, he cared more about how Nancy Reagan was doing at that moment than himself. He made that joke to reassure her.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 22:30

Mm-hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 22:30

He didn't say, oh my God, I'm scared. I'm terrified. I'm shot. Oh my God, it's awful. He wanted to reassure her, the doctors, he was looking to reassure them, Hey guys, calm down. It's okay. And if you really think about what I found interesting was that famous line, I hope you're all Republicans. Um, what I found really funny about that was I found a nurse technician and Jerry Parr. Who heard him say it in the emergency room first, and then he uses that same line again in the operating room. And it struck me. It fell flat in the emergency room. He puts it in his pocket, he uses it again. Like, oh, that's a man who's very self-aware of the moment. That moment, you know?

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 23:09

right.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 23:10

And, how did he know to do that? Well, he was an actor.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 23:13

Mm-hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 23:14

movies, 50 odd movies, has two best scenes in his two best movies. Hospital like deathbed scenes.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 23:21

Yeah.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 23:23

Kings Row and Newt Rocky, all American do best scenes hospital life death, Betsy. And so that's what he knew to do. You know, and American people hear that. And we had suffered through malaise and Carter and American ineffectual, the Iranian hostage crisis and we're up against the Soviet Union and people wanted tough cowboy, right? So he delivered that day.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 23:44

He delivered with the image. How did that connect to political success thereafter in your analysis?

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 23:49

Oh, well, you know, as Luke Cannon told me, and David Broder, he was kind of untouchable after that because he built this bond with the American people as more than sympathy, Or empathy or whatever the people felt towards this guy who went through this. It was like, oh. Here's a guy who kind of laughed in the face of death. You can't fake it when you've been shot and almost killed. You cannot fake it. He didn't. And he courageously fought through it very bravely and no one would forget it. And I think David Broder, or Lucian, I forget which one says, basically he was politically untouchable after that, now, he did have his ups and downs, his approval rating went up and down. His likability never did

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 24:23

Mm-hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 24:24

He was always very, people liked him after that in a way that other politicians just have not ever been able to really replicate. The last few presidents we've had, everything is so polarized. The last one he got shot on the campaign trail and, you know, half the country, doesn't like him. Half the country does.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 24:39

Right.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 24:40

This was different and it was a different era.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 24:43

Uh, let's step back quickly into the surgery. You mentioned Giordano, but also there's a Dr. Aaron who plays a very

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 24:50

Mm-hmm.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 24:50

In this, uh, during the surgery. Where does he and the surgical team, where do they finally find the bullet? Mm-hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 24:56

So Reagan's life came within an inch, a split second, and a split second decision. We've gone through the split second and split second decision, right? Jerry parr an inch, so they go into surgery also because they did an x-ray and they found the bullet was lodged an inch from Reagan's heart.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 25:12

Hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 25:12

They go into surgery and Ben Aaron is a chest surgeon, believe Navy veteran, did his surgical stuff in the Navy. Super smart. Totally by the book guy. Most disciplined person I've ever met in my life. He's like, I did decide not to eat lunch anymore. So for 30 years he never ate lunch

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 25:28

Hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 25:28

ever. Maybe he was hungry. He just never did it. He trained himself not to be hungry, wow, good for you man. I wish I had that discipline.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 25:34

me

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 25:35

And eventually he's hunting for the bullet. He wants the bullet for two reasons. One, he is worried it could slip into an artery and shoot in the present brain and kill him cause other damage. He's also worried about the political implic implications of a Dr. Olivia bullet in the president. Even though they leave 90% of bullets in patients because they're sterile, they get blasts outta the gun, the germs get burned off and they're sterile when they hitch it. So typically, they leave a bullet in you. In this case, you know, gotta get the bullet. So you see all those things on TV where they're like hunting for the bullet, trying to find the bullet. It's all bullshit. In fact, that's why James Garfield freaking died. He didn't die from the bullet. He died from them digging around in his wound. Right? That was before they understood sepsis or germs theory. So he's hunting for this bullet. He can't find the bullet. One of the craziest moments, Aaron worked very hard. To ensure he had his normal team with him that day. He did not want random people. Everyone was trying to get in on it, right? It's the biggest case they've ever seen. He kept his normal team. He had his fellow, and then he had a surgical intern. Surgical interns, like, you know, 30-year-old guy, David Adelberg.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 26:41

Hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 26:41

He woke up that morning to like a gallbladder operation for odd, right?

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 26:45

Yeah.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 26:45

And he gets roped into this. And as Ben Aaron is hunting for the bullet in Reagan's chest trying to find it, which is very hard, it's this lung tissue is very squishy.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 26:53

Hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 26:54

Aaberg reaches his hand in the chest cavity gently cups the president's beating heart in his hand and holds it aside.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:00

Oh

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:01

A 31-year-old surgical intern, 31, not green by the Secret Service, is literally holding the beating life of the president in his hand. Eventually they devise a system where they use a probe to put in there to feel around and they find the bullet and take it out.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:16

Hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:16

Then they sew him up and he goes to recovery.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:19

Yeah. That really, really amazing story in so many ways, uh, unlucky that the bullet ricocheted the way it did, but lucky in

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:27

Yep.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:28

so many other

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:28

Yep. Absolutely.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:30

the dynamics that day back at the White House in the situation room. worthy of many episodes of American potus. What led, secretary of State Al Hague to make his famous statement to the press that day that he was in charge at the White House?

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:45

Well, he actually didn't say that. He said I was in control.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:47

in control

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:48

I'm in control. Yes. People always do that. I, it's so interesting.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:51

I've now fallen into that trap, Dale. So he was in control at the White House. What led to that?

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 27:56

Um, things were kind of chaotic at the White House. They're in the situation room, they're worried about the president. Many people liked him a lot, Jim Brady. They all thought was gonna die. In fact, they had learned he was dead, but he hadn't died. Um, I know precisely what happened. It take too long to recite here, but I know precisely what happened in the situation room.'cause Dick Allen, national Security Advisor. Who also just passed away. Dick Allen took a tape recorder into that room and hit record and it ran for four and a half hours and he gave me the tapes. And so you can hear Hague being very confused about succession. He really wanted to be in charge. He did not get along with the Reagan people at all. Vice President Bush, by the way, was in Texas on Air Force two. Air Force two did not have secure voice communications. And so two graduate students in Alabama listened in via like shortwave radio. And so there was not a lot of, secrecy. They sent up a secure teletype about what happened. And so there was no one really in Washington running things. The three guys, the Troika, the three top advisors to Reagan went to the hospital. And so it was left to, uh, egg. And so he raced upstairs and Dick Allen, you could hear him chasing after him on the tape recorder, terrified of what he's gonna say. And there's this moment where he is addressing the press, botching presidential succession, clearly muddying in the waters, looking kind of crazy. And he had just had like quadruple bypass surgery not long before this. Alan and he never got along, but Alan thought this was something weird. And he is watching him and he tells me he is looking at him and his legs are shaking, HEGs legs are shaking behind the podium. He goes, oh my God, he's gonna collapse. What do I do? Do I drag him off the stage? Do I give him aid? Do I pick up the breathing for him? Could you imagine that happening? And so,

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 29:32

Right?

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 29:33

There was a lot of infighting. This was one of those days I think HIG made it what, into mid 82.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 29:38

Mm-hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 29:38

day he was forced to resign, but he was not a good fit. And he lasted like another year. But it was not good. There was a lot of friction. He should not have said that, um, people were in charge of different lanes, right? So even if the vice president came back, he wouldn't have been in charge of the military. The vice president is not, I guess they could designate it a certain way, but Command authority actually resided with Ka Weinberger, the defense secretary. So if the president's incapacitated at that moment in time, if they don't execute the 25th Amendment to the vice president, the Defense Secretary actually has the authority To launch missiles in response to Russia. And they were concerned, on these tapes, it's crazy. You'd be like, well, what do we do about these two subs?

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 30:18

mm-hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 30:18

were two Russian subs that were two minutes closer to being able to lo a warhead on Washington than normal. Is this connected? What is this? They didn't know They were worried in the days before this that the Soviets were gonna move on Poland, the solidarity movement. But they were not having very good satellite coverage because the cloud coverage. So they didn't really know what was happening in Poland. Is this all part of it? And only as the day goes on, only literally it's got John Hinkley. And they figure out the motive was he was trying to impress a movie star. I mean, could you come up with a more American assassination attempt? And Hinkley? is free, by the way, living in Williamsburg. People are always asking me, why didn't you make a bigger deal, Hinkley? And I'm like, he's not the jackal. He was a troubled young man. Clearly mentally ill. That's what the jury found. He was not guilty by reason of insanity, that did this because security sucked. You know, Jerry part told me the reason he got shot is complacency, man. We went to that place 110 times in the last 10 years, and we did the same thing every time. Pulled the same book off the shelf, did the same thing. If this had been Boston or Baltimore or Atlanta or some other city, there's no way that rope line would've been that close, And I would've had a different outcome, you know?

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 31:25

Looking at the worldview, the world situation at that time reminds me. working at the Reagan library when I was at Bush, we had scenarios, and one of'em, I do believe, was this scenario. What decisions would you make in the sit room in the hospital with the press and so forth? Because we've gotta remember, they didn't know what was going on elsewhere. This could have been something much, much bigger. Uh, thankfully it was not. But of the, broader world, after this attempt and after Reagan's back at the White House, uh, what effect do you think it had on his worldview, especially toward the Soviets?

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 31:59

Oh, he came convinced by this, he'd been spared by God for a reason,

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 32:03

Mm-hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 32:03

Like he knew how close it was, and he assumed he'd been spared by God to prevent the threat of nuclear war. And so he did a lot of good stuff. He did a lot of arms control, worked with Gorbachev, and, set the stage for the fall at the Berlin Wall, won the Cold War. And so I think he felt he'd been spared by God for a reason. He was not particularly religious in some respects. Like he didn't go to church every Sunday, but he was pretty religious. He believed in God. He wrote his first diary entry was, I have to forgive the guy who shot me. You

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 32:31

Hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 32:31

know, and, and he did. Which I find extraordinary because there are not many occupants of the White House, I think would want to do that. Maybe Biden,'cause Biden's a good Catholic, you know, done it. I.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 32:43

I remember the old story about Andrew Jackson when the fellow tried to assassinate him and the. The pistol misfired and Jackson went over and beat him with a cane that, so that was the.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 32:51

Oh, that's it. Like that's what, you know what? Frankly, that's what most, you know, there's no fault. I think most people would probably take that step.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 32:59

Absolutely. Yes. Well de again,, a great conversation

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 33:03

Yeah.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 33:03

and an amazing time in our history to think of all these what ifs, uh, including a 30 something year old holding a president's beating heart in his hand. Our nation's history in that person's hand at that moment. Really a fascinating book. We're all hide down. I encourage everyone to read it. And if you read it, read it again, which I did and really enjoyed it. A second and a third time. are you working on right now? What's next for you?

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 33:26

I'm on book leave for another couple weeks. I'm not close to finishing yet, but I'm really, really trying. Um,, I'm writing a narrative nonfiction account, a Lindbergh kidnapping.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 33:34

Hmm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 33:34

Trying to explore books that about things that people know in the back of their head, like, oh, I knew that happened, but don't know much about. And so, you might know that there was a ladder and that, the kid was still alive. That in actuality it's a rip snorter of a story about a police investigation and a murder and a kidnapping and the spectacle of the first true crime of the century. Right. So the title of the book is American Spectacle. And you have scam artists, you have, spiritualists, you have,

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 34:04

Mm.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 34:04

A carpenter turned, kidnapper, turned murderer. You have the most famous man who's ever lived and his writerly wife. You have all these elements, working with each other towards,, kind of the ultimate American story. Fame, celebrity, murder, kidnapping, the media, newspapers, I don't know how I'm gonna keep it to a hundred thousand words. I'm gonna try

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 34:29

So, not to put pressure. When do you think we'll see that in print?

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 34:33

my gut May of 2028. That's what I hope

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 34:36

Yeah,

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 34:37

I

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 34:37

we'll be waiting. Exciting. Well, Dale, always great to talk with you. Really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much.

squadcaster-953g_2_03-26-2026_164442 34:43

do too. Thank you, man. I really appreciate it.

alan-lowe_2_03-26-2026_164442 34:45

And thanks to all of you for listening. Please email me at American potus host@gmail.com. That's American potus host@gmail.com with your thoughts and questions. And make sure you check out not only all of our American POTUS episodes, but also our American FLOTUS episodes produced in partnership with our friends at the First Ladies Association for Research and Education. Thanks so much. I'll see you next time on American potus.