Gerald Ford recalled seeing a hand holding a large pistol slipping through a crowd at the California statehouse in 1975 before a Secret Service agent lunged at Charles Manson disciple Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a newly-released 38-year-old video reveals.
The former US president calmly and carefully recalled the attempted assassination in the videotaped evidence that would later be used in Fromme’s trial. The roughly 20-minute interview taped in Washington was released by a federal court as the result of a motion filed by a historical group.
In it, Ford gestures gently with his hands and sips water as he answers questions from a lawyer about what began as a routine morning in September 1975, before Fromme pushed through a crowd on the street, drew a semi-automatic pistol and pointed it at him.
The gun was not fired, and Ford was unhurt.
In the taped evidence posted online by The Sacramento Bee ( http://bit.ly/178GA1E ), Ford recalls seeing a “weathered” woman in a brightly coloured dress as he walked towards the building, where he planned to meet the governor.
She “appeared to want to either shake hands or speak, or at least wanted to get closer to me,” Ford says.
He then saw a large gun coming through the crowd of well-wishers. But when asked if he saw the face of who was holding it, he answered: “No, I did not.”
The gun was about 60cm away from him, Ford said. “It was simply the hand with the weapon in it, at a height between my knee and my waist, approximately.” He then described a frantic moment when a security agent seized the suspect and Ford was rushed away.
It was simply the hand with the weapon in it, at a height between my knee and my waist, approximately
Fromme was sentenced under a law covering assaults on US presidents. She was released from prison in 2009.
The tape, which represents a historical footnote in the widely-publicised case, was released as a result of a motion filed by the Eastern District Historical Society.
The case was the first in history featuring oral evidence from a sitting president in a criminal trial.
Fromme was a college student before joining Manson’s “family”, where she reportedly got her nickname because of her voice. She was never implicated in the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and eight others, for which Manson is serving a life term in California.
Ford died at 93 at his California home on December 26, 2006.