The attempted assassination of Donald Trump saw history swivel on the turn of a head. If Trump hadn’t turned his head a fraction of an inch, I would now be writing his obituary. Already the iconography around the incident is being framed, with the image of Trump waving his fist, surrounded by his Secret Service detail, recreated to resemble the raising of the flag by American troops on Iwo Jima.
Much is being made of Trump’s defiance in the face of mortal danger although his actions pale in comparison with those of Theodore Roosevelt, another president who survived an assassination attempt whilst campaigning for re-election.
Proving yet again the slim margin separating survival from death, Roosevelt’s life was saved when the bullet shot into his chest was slowed both by an eyeglass case and the 50-page speech he was carrying in a jacket pocket. If his speech had been a few pages shorter, his brevity could have proved fatal.
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While its velocity was dramatically slowed, the bullet still entered Roosevelt’s body. Despite this, he refused to go to hospital and instead gave a 90-minute speech which he began by saying, “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.”
Ronald Reagan had similar good luck in 1981. He was shot while walking to his car and his bodyguard, acting instinctively, unceremoniously pushed the president headfirst into the back of his limousine, landing on top of him. Reagan shouted at the man to get off, thinking he’d caused an injury to his chest. Realising the president had been shot, the quick-thinking agent saved his life by ordering the driver to go to the hospital.
Much is being made of Trump’s defiance in the face of mortal danger although his actions pale in comparison with those of Theodore Roosevelt, another president who survived an assassination attempt whilst campaigning for re-election
Just as Trump’s survival gathers its own mythology so it was with Reagan who, while being examined by medics about to operate on him, removed his oxygen mask and joked, “I sure hope all of you out there are Republicans.”
Abraham Lincoln wasn’t so fortunate, with his love of the theatre proving to be his downfall after he was shot in Ford’s Theatre in Washington. DC. Uncharacteristically for him, Lincoln had been reluctant to attend that evening but felt obliged for fear of disappointing those in the audience expecting to see him.
After Lincoln, the assassination of President John F Kennedy is most remembered, and like Lincoln, Kennedy unwittingly played a part in his demise that fateful day in Dallas.
Realising he was behind in the polls in the southern states in his campaign for re-election he insisted - against his Secret Service agents’ wishes – that he travelled in an open-top car instead of his usual bullet proof vehicle so the public could see both him and his wife, Jackie.
Indeed, the list of ‘coincidences’ between Lincoln and Kennedy’s assassinations have become the stuff of urban legend. Both presidents were shot on a Friday whilst in the presence of their wives. Both were particularly concerned with civil rights, making them many enemies. Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy who told him not to go to the theatre, while Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln who warned him against going to Dallas. And both presidents were elected to Congress in ‘46 and later to the Presidency in ‘60. The list goes on, and in today’s world where coincidences don’t exist, they would fuel a million online conspiracy theories.
Addressing the nation, President Biden claimed violence had no part in American political life; however, US presidential history proves him wrong. In 1835, Andrew Jackson became the first president to experience an assassination attempt, surviving after both his assassins’ pistols misfired.
The four presidents who fell to assassins’ bullets were Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881, William McKinley in 1901 and Kennedy in 1963. A further three were shot but survived: Roosevelt in 1912, Reagan in 1981 and now Donald Trump in 2024. There were other failed attempted assassinations where thankfully nobody was injured.
Some of you will have noticed that I haven’t mentioned the names of any of the perpetrators of these attacks. This was deliberate as, in many cases, those who carry out these heinous acts do so in a sick quest for, if not fame, then infamy.
I refuse to aid them and believe they should remain in death what they were in life, inadequate nonentities. So instead of using their names we should force them into anonymity by referring to them only as nameless assassins.
