Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
When Ronald Reagan was Shot
Some of you may have seen this already; the Dallas Morning News published this four days ago, but if you’ve got a Sunday morning free to read, this is gripping. It’s a really well-researched account of George H. W. Bush’s role in the days after Reagan was shot.
Whenever I see a good, in-depth article like this called a “longread” by the paper it’s in, I sigh–this was once the length of any good piece of investigative reporting. Its very hard to say anything new or useful about something like this in fewer words.
Anyway, that was your daily middle-aged kvetch about kids these days and their short attention spans. Lots in this piece I’d never known before, and lots of details struck me as evidence of how much has changed since then. This is an event I remember vividly, but to many Americans alive now, I guess it’s just history, something that happened before they were born:.
In the middle of Haig’s Briefing Room operetta, a disturbing piece of intelligence was passed to Weinberger. The two Soviet subs that normally patrolled an area off the East Coast called “the box” had multiplied and become four submarines.
It was the end of the month. The two new subs were merely taking over the patrol area. The first two would soon depart.
But Weinberger took no chances. He requested the “fly times.” Distance of an adversary’s subs was measured in the amount of time it would take a missile to fly to Washington.
The answer came back that one sub had significantly shortened its fly time. The Soviet captain could obliterate Washington in 10 minutes and 57 seconds. “At that range, it wasn’t a ballistic trajectory,” said Allen, “it was a lob shot.”
Weinberger ordered 249 bomber crews in the Strategic Air Command to get to their alert rooms. Should they need to get airborne, the move would save three minutes. About 4:25 p.m., Haig returned, having just told the press “there were absolutely no alert measures that are necessary at this time or contemplated.”
Hearing the new reality, he lit into Weinberger. “Cap, I’m not a liar,” he said.
“I said there had been no [alert].”
“Well, I didn’t know you were going up there,” Weinberger replied. “Once you get the additional information, which I got about the one sub being closer than is normal, then it seemed prudent to me to save three or four minutes.”
I find it hard to imagine anyone in that position now having such a commitment to keeping the public truthfully informed as to light into the Secretary of Defense for having allowed him to tell the public something untrue–even when that was entirely inadvertent And I also remain amazed that Haig didn’t know the constitutional order of succession:
A retired four-star general, Haig had once been the second-highest-ranking person in the Army. But in the Situation Room, he seemed completely unaware that Weinberger outranked him. The secretary of defense also carries the title of deputy commander in chief. In the National Command Authority, he is superseded only by the president.
“The moment until the vice president actually arrives here, the command authority is what I have,” Weinberger explained, “and I have to make sure that it is essential that we do everything that seems proper.”
Haig chuckled smugly and mumbled something about the Constitution. “Hmmm?” Weinberger asked.
“Well, you better read the Constitution,” Haig repeated.
Anyway, enjoy. Anyone else out there who remembers it? What do you remember?
Published in Culture, Domestic Policy, Education, Elections, General, Guns, History, Military, Policing, Politics
When I got to my girlfriend’s apartment that evening, she was fit to be tied. (That, for good and for ill, was her default state anyway.) She was sitting crosslegged on the floor in front of the TV rocking back and forth and hugging a pillow. She had been drinking the hard stuff – the orange pekoe cut black, not the Red Zinger herbal.
“This,” she said “is Seven Days in May.”
“This,” I said “is the eve of the end of March. Besides, Bush will be there in a little bit. It’s going to be okay.”
That is not how I had felt when I watched the “I’m in charge here” news conference, but for some reason other people losing it helps calm me down.
Later she said “I never thought I would ever be glad to see George Bush.”
I remember the news announcing that James Brady had died and then having to go back and say he hadn’t. I remember Frank Reynolds, the ABC anchor being visibly angry at the screw up.
Claire,
Forgive me, I don’t want to be so personal but your comment is very personal. You seem to be asking what difference can a generation make. At this very moment on Ricochet you have your answer. Take a look at the films on John’s post about the making of the H Bomb. Check out the video about operation redwing. MLH’s dad participated in operation redwing in 1956.
Now ask yourself “If I was living in a world without H Bombs and I saw those films for the first time, how normal would that make you feel?” Stupid lefty social critics have made a career out of laughing at the normal 1950s. How ridiculous. A technological change so profoundly powerful that one couldn’t possibly know what effect it would have. There was nothing normal about the 1950s. People having experienced the insanity of WWII, 50 million dead plus the Holocaust, felt some kind relief that ordinary family life could be lived again. Actually, this was really a rather abnormal way of looking at the family. Too bad you need to lose something completely before you really get what it’s worth. Those same stupid lefty critics are today wrecking the family ripping apart the social fabric of this country because they think they know something. They know nothing and Gd may yet give them a lesson that they won’t forget. I hope and pray not.
College campuses filled with adult children concerned about micro-aggressions and safe spaces. Meanwhile, the world is exhibiting micro-genocides and absolute tyrannies on a weekly basis and..meh! Now that’s really not normal.
Regards,
Jim
Regards,
Jim
Larry – You’re exactly right. To borrow a phrase from Al Gore, there was “no controlling legal authority.” The proper thing to do (in hindsight, of course) was to lie – to say the VP was in control on Air Force Two. But Haig was making a power play and he came off foolish. He was always threatening to take his ball and go home.
Haig was furious at Speakes, but hell, the man’s boss was bleeding on the sidewalk outside the Hilton.
When the President is incapacitated every cabinet officer is only responsible for their own department. Haig was also furious at Weinberger for doing his job. And as I said, as a recently retired four-star now in a civilian job, Haig could not legally have a say in the operations of the military anyway.
Since you actually knew the guy, how much was Bob Woodward’s depiction of the man in Veil accurate? For that matter, how much of Veil was accurate in the whole?
Hi, Douglas,
Yes, I worked closely with Bill Casey — and I knew Bob Woodward. Bob mentions me four times in Veil — and everything he says that involves me is wrong. And that so-called deathbed interview with Bill Casey never actually happened…..
We’re a long way from having a professional media, aren’t we?
One thing that’s fun to do around a dinner party is to ask people to tell us about any time they have seen an article about something they know well or someone they knew well or something that was written about them personally. My experience doing this type of discussion shows that the journalists get things wrong much more often than not and the important things that make the article worth publishing are worse yet.
I heard the news in Brother Joel’s class, when the head of my high school, Brother Augustine, made an announcement over the loudspeaker. I stayed glued to the coverage for the rest of the day when I got home and remember seeing the solemn (and, as it turned out, premature) “In Memoriam” montage to Brady. When they had to backtrack on that, later, the news anchor’s embarrassment telegraphed more like extreme irritability and I remember thinking how unseemly that looked. (“Could you try to look happy, at least, that the man is still alive?”) I think it was Jennings, but I can’t swear to it.
As we sat there, flipping stations, hungry for updates, I too remember the Reagan quips’ filtering out and I was so impressed and grateful for the President’s cool head and sense of humor, even when literally under fire. “His life is in danger,” I thought, “and his first priority is to put everyone else around him, and by extension, his nation, at ease.” Remarkable. (People scoffed at having an “actor” in the White House – but there’s a lot to be said for the “show must go on” mentality.)
It just so happened that I was in the exact same classroom when Brother Augustine announced that the Pope had been shot. For a long time, after that, just an unexpected squawk from the PA system could set my pulse racing.
Yah, it happened more than 30 years ago: basically ancient history. I barely learned about it in school; might have been a side note at the end of a year of American History.
There is a GREAT Al Haig story from liberal Democrat friend-of-the-Kennedy’s Mort Sahl
Sahl tells a story about going to some charity event and finding himself at the same table as Haig. Sahl said that knowing Haig’s politics he assumed he would despise Haig. But Haig oroved to be a charming, entertaininf companion. After the event was over, Haig invited the oeople st the table back to his hotel room for drinks and cigars … Including Sahl.
Back at Hiag’s room, Haig proceeded to distribute drinks and Cuban cigars. sahl says he commented: “General Haig! How do you reconcile your politics with smoking Castro’s cigars?!?!?”
Grinning while firing up a Cubano, Haig replied: “I don’t like to think of it as ‘Smoking Castro’s Cigars’…. I perfer to think of it as ‘Burning His Crops To The Ground!”
I don’t remember much about the shooting – I was in grade school at the time, probably 5th grade? I only remember that the principal had turned out the lights in the hallways as a sign of respect.
I remember the shooting vividly. I was driving my 1973 Pontiac Catalina on Commonwealth Avenue through Newton, Massachusetts and listening to the radio when the WBCN announcer interrupted a rock tune with the news. A friend and I were returning to our college dormitory from a job interview at a company along the Boston area’s Route 128 high-tech corridor. I pulled the car over and we listened to the ensuing news reports for a very long time.
I silently prayed that President Reagan would survive.
I recall the Haig comment differently from most. At the time, and ever since, I interpreted Haig to be asserting control over the briefing room. It seemed to me that Haig was concerned about the bedlam in the White House Press Room, not placing himself ahead of Vice President Bush.
As a software professional, I can assure you, you’re wasting your time reading about anything involving software in Wired, so you can imagine how it goes in the New York Times.
I was 21 at the time and heard about the shooting gradually, if that makes any sense. For that reason I didn’t experience any shock or surprise, even though I had become a Reagan fan.
Let me explain “gradually.” I had taken the day off of work and was replacing the brakes on my car in the rain. An attractive young lady showed up who was selling magazines. While we were talking she said, “By the way did you know our president was shot? Well, shot at anyway.” I thought she was talking about the president of her organization.
Later, my mother arrived and said, “Did you hear? Somebody shot Reagan.” I’m immediately realized what the young lady had meant and said, “No, I think he was shot at – not shot.”
My mother replied that Reagan had indeed been shot, but walked into the hospital not knowing he had been hit.
I concluded it wasn’t that bad and he would be fine. Remember that the White House itself was downplaying the seriousness of it. I fell for their routine and wasn’t worried.
Two more memories:
1. A tearful Lyn Nofziger reciting all of the jokes Reagan cracked after he had been shot.
2. The Al Haig press conference.
The White house staff must have been relieved when Vice President Bush finally arrived.
FYI, great interview on the John Batchelor show (which someone at Ricochet turned me on to) March 1, 2015 with the author of a book about the Reagan assassination attempt, “Rawhide Down,” Del Quentin Wilber.
http://johnbatchelorshow.com/podcasts/3115-author-rawhide-down-near-assassination-ronald-reagan-del-quentin-wilber
Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan
I must admit that I don’t remember seeing any of this on television. And it happened a few years before I swore off of television news. I certainly heard about the Al Haig remarks but had always figured it was much ado about nothing – Al Haig being clumsy in a tense situation and other people hating on Al Haig. I know that I said and did some slightly strange things a year earlier when a professor dropped dead while he and I were talking in the hallway. Until now I thought it was something like that.
As far as a television goes, it was not like in 1963, after JFK was shot and killed, and I (with our family) spent the weekend glued to the television set. I am surprised (and interested) to learn of all the television memories people have of the Reagan shooting.
I was a medical student just starting a rotation at Lakeside VA in Chicago.
When we heard the news, a couple of the VA employees commented ” too bad they didn’t kill the M-F”. My first real taste of just how hated he was going to be by the Left.
Slightly off topic but this reminds me of 9-11. We were gathered in the employee breakroom watching the first tower burn from an “accidental plane crash”. When we all watched the second plane crash, it was immediately apparent that we had been attacked and were at war. The first thing out of a co-workers mouth was “I can’t believe that idiot Bush is President”. Given the magnitude of that hatred, I am convinced that the votes for the use of force followed by the denunciations of the war by Kerry, Hillary, Murtha, etc really amounted to treason because they were blinded by hatred of GWB.
I was 25 at the time and at work. Everyone was aghast as much about Haig’s statement as about Reagan being shot. Though we did not know the severity of the wound at the time.
Fellow coworkers didn’t feel unsafe with Bush waiting in the wings, and those included a former USMC machine gunner who had been on the front at Chosin.
The following Sunday, as normal, lunch at my parents then dinner at in-law’s, it was agreed that Haig had to go.