Stalker: The Reagan Shooting (2013)

- "Dear Jodie, there is a distinct possibility that I will be killed in my attempt to get Reagan." "I write this letter just an hour before I leave for the Hilton hotel." - I heard a noise and thought it was firecrackers. I didn't know they had shot me. And at that moment I coughed and a handful of bright red foamy blood came out. - Were you looking at a president who was dying? -Absolutely, yes, he was dying. -I think John Hinckley will be a threat for the rest of his life. I think he is a time bomb. - Seven days into Reagan's presidency...

A welcome home ceremony on the White House lawn... ♪♪ ♪♪ For 52 American hostages at the US Embassy in Iran, freed after 444 days in captivity. It's a celebration that may never have taken place if would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. had succeeded the first time he had Ronald Reagan in his sights. On Tuesday, January 20, 1981, Inauguration Day, President-elect Reagan addresses morning church services in front of the White House. Detective Thomas Kaschak was among the motorcycle police officers monitoring the crowd on the opposite sidewalk. One man seemed different. -If someone got ahead of him, he made sure to maneuver to be right there, always next to the rope. - Kaschak was suspicious. - Maybe there's something wrong.

Maybe something isn't right there. In fact, I wanted to reach out and stop him. -He asked his lieutenant who told him, the president is on his way. Let's not make a scene. Wait until later. Seventy days later, when Ronald Reagan was shot, Kaschak looked at a television screen and saw a familiar face. - I immediately recognized him as the person I saw in St. John's Church that morning. -Who was he? -John Hinckley. -John Hinckley, 25 years old, college dropout, homeless man who lives off his family's money. Years ago, in a phone call from a psychiatric hospital, Hinckley would confirm to our CNN producer, James Polk, then an NBC reporter, that he was indeed there that day. -Hinckley said he was in front of the church on the sidewalk that morning. -And he admitted to you that he was armed. -I asked him if he had a gun.

He said he did. I asked him: was it loaded? Yes, he said he. - Were you planning to shoot Reagan? -He said, yes, he was thinking about that. - At that same hour, American hostages in Iran were waiting to board a plane to freedom after 14 months of captivity. - They were on both sides of us. They pushed us, they hit us, they just yelled and screamed. "Death to America." - Alan Golacinski was director of security at the United States embassy in Tehran... when it was invaded by student protesters in November 1979. - At one point I thought they were going to burn me alive. - The Iranian revolutionaries would parade blindfolded hostages through the streets and the situation would get worse. - We went through execution drills.

Some of them were large scale, where they gathered about 20 of us, stood us up against the wall and we got ready, we aimed, we shot in Farsi, and then you heard a click. My fear was not that they would kill me, and certainly that was a fear. My biggest fear was that they would leave me in a dungeon for 20 or 30 years. -The Iranians hated President Carter, he said. The hostages would not be free until Carter left office that opening day. - They made us believe that this was the final revenge against Jimmy Carter. - In those last hours, even as the hostages were taken to the Tehran airport, uncertainty still reigned. - You know, until we got on that plane, there was... there was nothing certain.

I mean, this went all the way in terms of the Iranian government. - In Washington, when President-elect Reagan arrived at church, he was asked about the hostages in Tehran. Still waiting, he said. Kaschak continued to watch Hinckley as the crowd moved forward. -And he lost his balance, so to speak, when the crowd pushed on the rope and then, boom, the president was in. And I turned to look to try to find him again in the crowd and I didn't see him. So I don't know what happened to him at that time. -Our producer asked Hinckley why he didn't film. -He said the limo stopped too far away and there were too many people. - Ambassador Bruce Laingen was the high-ranking hostage in Iran.

He never knew of Hinckley's attempt to shoot Reagan before he could be sworn in as president until we told Laingen nearly 30 years later. - That could have changed everything. Even the attempt would have turned things upside down. - The worst case scenario is that the Iranians say that the agreement is canceled. - At noon, Reagan would take the oath of office. - I, Ronald Reagan, solemnly swear. - I, Ronald Reagan, solemnly swear. - During the ceremony, the plane took off from Tehran bound for home. -If he had not been sworn in that morning, the hostages would never have been freed. -Hinckley went to his house in the suburbs of Denver.

Just six days after his inauguration, he would sign up for gun practice at this basement

shooting

range. Later, at Hinckley's house, the FBI would find this silhouette with three bullet holes around his heart. - You're talking to me? You're talking to me? - At trial, the jury would be told that John Hinckley had seen the movie "Taxi Driver" at least 15 times. The disturbed taxi driver, like Hinckley, would practice at a

shooting

range as part of a plan to assassinate this presidential candidate. But, discovered by the Secret Service, he flees. Around the same time, the taxi driver becomes obsessed with this 12-year-old prostitute played by child actress Jodie Foster and offers to rescue her from her life on the street. - I don't know who's weirder, you or me. - Suck this. -Oh--oh--ooh---In the end, the taxi driver kills his pimp...

And other predators. He then becomes a hero when the young woman returns to her parents. In early March 1981, three weeks before shooting the president, John Hinckley would leave this note under Jodie Foster's dormitory door at Yale University. -Jodie Foster love, she just waits. I will rescue you very soon. Please cooperate. J.W.H. -At 18, Jodie Foster had enrolled as a freshman at Yale in the fall of 1980. Hinckley followed her there. He called her twice late at night. -Who is she? Oh no, who is this? - Is this Jodie? -Who is she? - This is John. - Juan who?

Oh no no You again. - Hinckley recorded the calls on tape. - Look, I can't really talk to you, okay? Do me a big favor. Do you understand why I can't have these conversations with people I don't know? You understand that it is dangerous and it is simply not done. It's not fair and it's rude. - Oh, well, I'm not dangerous. I promise you. - Well, I understand it but... it's the same thing. Well? - So you don't want me to call you again? - No, but it has been very nice talking to you. - A dozen days later, the defector who said he was not dangerous began harassing then-President Jimmy Carter.

Jerry Parr is the dark-suited Secret Service agent. This television footage was filmed at a campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio, on October 2, 1980. - It shows him in a crowd and he and I and the president are about seven or eight feet away. You could see a short guy back there. - A week later, Hinckley would be in Nashville, Tennessee, the day the president was holding a rally at the Grand Ole Opry. -Just a few miles away that same afternoon here at the Nashville airport, Hinckley would be caught for the first time with guns in his possession as he attempted to leave town.

However, he would slip through the cracks, be allowed to be free and fly that very night. When Hinckley put her bag on her belt in the door area, a suspicious image appeared on the screen. Airport policeman John Lynch. - The bag revealed a weapon. - Actually, three revolvers. When Lynch opened Hinckley's bag, a .38, a couple of .22s. He sees the weapons. Hinckley was arrested, taken to a downtown courthouse and released on bond. He notified the FBI, but the Secret Service was never informed. - We never made the connection. This task of protecting people is really difficult. - Just four days later, Hinckley visited this pawn shop in Dallas, Texas, and bought two new guns like this one.

Again, a pair of .22 revolvers plus bullets for only $99.00 with tax. It was this gun that Hinckley would use to shoot the president. Isaac Goldstein, pawn shop owner. - It hurts me that they bought my gun. It could have been bought anywhere. - That fall, Hinckley's well-off parents in this Denver suburb made him start seeing a psychiatrist. However, in November Hinckley would send this anonymous letter to the FBI. -"There is a plot afoot to kidnap Jodie Foster from the Yale University dorm in December or January. There is no ransom for her. She is kidnapped for romantic reasons.

No joke!" - By then, Hinckley's attention had shifted from Carter to Ronald Reagan, the newly elected president. Hinckley bought this postcard, Reagan with his wife Nancy, and wrote on the back: "Dear Jodie, don't you make a lovely couple? One day you and I will occupy the White House and the peasants will drool with envy. Until then, Please do do your best to remain a virgin. You're a virgin, right? - On December 10, President-elect Reagan was staying at Blair House. John Hinckley waited outside several times, but never managed to be there when Reagan came or went - William.

J. Casey to be Director of Central Intelligence - The next day, December 11, 1980, the new cabinet was announced at a press conference inside the Mayflower Hotel Hinckley was somewhere in the crowd with a gun waiting. - He was willing to shoot the president? - He said, "Reagan didn't show up, so nothing happened." - Hinckley went home for the holidays and checked into this basement shooting range for a few days. After Christmas. And again on the Monday following opening day. In the first week of March 1981, John Hinckley returned to Yale for the last time, clearly more disturbed. In this bedroom, he left that note for Jodie Foster. "Just wait, I will rescue you very soon." Then, on his last night here, an hour after midnight on March 6, he pushed this farewell message under the door of his room. - "Fuck, goodbye!

I love you six billion times. Maybe you don't like me a little bit? You have to admit I'm different. It would make all this worth it. John Hinckley, of course." -When Hinckley flew back to Denver, his father forced him to stay at this low-cost motel and he wasn't allowed to return home until he got a job. At the end of the month, he took a Greyhound bus back to Washington, D.C. On Sunday, March 29, Hinckley checked in for the night at the Park Central Hotel, a block from the White House. The next day, found in Hinckley's bed, this newspaper opened the president's daily schedule with Reagan's speech at the Hilton Hotel.

Soon... shots fired. -March 30, 1981, this would be the sixth time that John Hinckley, Jr. would stalk President Carter or President Reagan during the final months while he was armed and dangerous. This time he left no doubt. He planned to succeed. In his hotel room, John Hinckley left this love letter to actress Jodie Foster. He began...-"Dear Jodie, there is a distinct possibility that I will be killed in my attempt to catch Reagan. It is for this very reason that I am writing this letter to you now." -Two days later, at Yale, the freshman would tell reporters that she didn't even know who she was. - I have never met, spoken or associated in any way with John W.

Hinckley. - Still, Hinckley writes about his desire to win her love and ends his letter this way: - "I admit to you that the reason I am going ahead with this attempt now is because I can't wait any longer to impress you. This letter is written just an hour before leaving for the Hilton Hotel, Jodie. I ask you to look into your heart and at least give me the opportunity with this historical fact to earn your respect and love forever, John Hinckley. - Shelly Fielman was the NBC cameraman waiting outside the hotel that afternoon. - Not only was it a miserable day because it was raining, but when we got to the Hilton, there was a rope... a rope and that was for everyone. -You can see Fielman with her camera in front under the umbrella in this photo taken before Reagan arrived. - And the rest of the people are just spectators, people who were in the hotel.

And the young man back there, minding his own business, over my right shoulder, is a guy named Hinckley. - For Reagan, this was going to be a routine speech to a labor organization. - The government's first duty is to protect people, not manage their lives. -When the president came out, to the left of him in this photo, is Jerry Parr, now Reagan's top Secret Service agent. In the background, the press and the spectators. Look at the police. What are they looking at? - They're looking directly at him. - In Reagan. - Hmm. - Instead of... - In the crowd. - The president on CNN ten years later. - I heard a noise when we were leaving the hotel and heading towards the limo and I heard a noise and I thought it was firecrackers. - This is NBC's Fielman video played at Hinckley's trial.

You can see Reagan leaving the hotel at the endright of the screen. - Everything is so fast that it is almost a blur. - Six shots in less than two seconds. Sergeant Herbert Granger was in charge of the local police detachment. - This is me leaving. Here he simply waved. And as soon as he waved to the crowd across the street, there was a pop, pop. - Granger turned towards the sound. You can see Hinckley with the gun in this evidence photo. -He was like crouching and with his arms completely extended outside of the... rest of the crowd, just fully extending his arms and looking over the gun and going down with this movement, but each time shooting. - Did he ever say anything? - I never heard him say anything. - Prosecutors played the NBC cameraman's video for the jury in slow motion. -The policeThe officer was the first to be shot because he turned around. - A Secret Service agent who was next to the car tried to protect Reagan. - He jumps in front of the president, grabs him by the chest and he falls. -The NBC cameraman turned to his right and captured this image in a split second. - You saw both hands holding the gun. - Hinckley's hands still on the trigger. - Then I immediately rushed towards the gun. - Granger helped tackle Hinckley.

This is you reaching the top. - That's me, yes. -Secret Service agent Jerry Parr was already pushing Reagan into the car. - One of the Secret Service agents behind me grabbed me by the waist and threw me headfirst into the limo. - And as we enter, I enter on top of him. I'm sure I hit my radio or my gun or something hit him in the back. - And I told him, Jerry, get off, I think you broke my rib. And he got off very quickly. - Inside the limo, Parr checked to see if Reagan was okay. - I didn't know they had shot me. -I ran my hands under his coat and felt all over his belt with my hands. - You're looking for blood. - Looking for blood.

I took my hands out, there was no blood. I ran my hands under his arms, there was no blood. - And just then, I coughed and a handful of bright red foamy blood came out. -But he took a napkin out of his pocket. He took it out and spit it out. There was a lot of blood on my London Fog raincoat. And he said: I think I have cut the inside of my mouth. And I said, let me look. And it was quite profuse, bubbly and bright red. - Then I told him: I guess the broken rib has gone through a lung.

Well, he just turned around and said, George Washington Hospital, and we were on our way. - The first newsletter. - We interrupt... there has been a late event. Gunshots were reported outside the hotel where President Reagan spoke recently. Here's Bernard Shaw in our Washington office. - Bob, as you can understand, the details are very vague. We don't know precisely... - Bill-- - What happened... forgive me. Okay, my apologies. Details are very vague at this time. We don't know exactly what happened. We don't know the sequence. First of all, the president is safe. - At the hotel, John Hinckley, Jr. was buried under a pile of humanity. - It was like a pyramid but there is a hole in this bunch of people.

So I walked up to this hole and saw a picture of this guy, eyes wide open looking at me. - Granger was trapped inside that pile with Hinckley. She felt something under his leg. - I took out my leg and that took out the gun. - You can see the gun on the sidewalk in this photo. Three men lay nearby, shot by Hinckley. - The press secretary fell. They shot him in the head. -All three would survive, but press secretary Jim Brady could never return to his position in the White House. Officers took Hinckley to Granger's patrol car.

The back door wouldn't open. They shoved him into a second police car and, by nightfall, John Hinckley had disappeared into custody for the next 32 years. When the president's limousine stopped at the nearest hospital that day, Reagan wanted to go inside. He-he pulled up his pants and walked out. - This is a magazine artist's sketch of what happened next. He-he walked about 18 or 20 feet and collapsed. -And the nurse met me and I told her that he had a little trouble breathing and what she thought it was. And the next thing I knew, my knees started turning to rubber and I ended up on a stretcher and... - And I thought when he was lying there on the stretcher, I thought we'd lost him. - Dr.

Wesley Price was a resident in training at George Washington University Hospital on the afternoon of the shooting. He thought of looking out a window. - Yeah, there was a big group of black limousines zipping around Washington Circle, so I knew something was up. He-he He headed to the emergency room and saw the president of the United States. - When I entered, he was walking right in front of me, back to the trauma area. Well, they carried it inside. - Did he look like a sick man? -He was pale and definitely had a hard time breathing. Of course, we didn't even realize he was hurt.

But it was not clear what happened to him. He didn't look very well. The first blood pressure was extremely low. - As Reagan lay on the stretcher, the nurses removed his clothes. -He was wearing a suit like this for the first time he wore it. It was new and they cut it with scissors. -We turned him around to look at the back of his left side. There was an entrance... a bullet entry wound with no exit wound. The Secret Service was there. They told us there was a shooting. In fact, they didn't believe he had been shot. - They did something that I didn't do, which was look at his armpit.

It was a small slit, about half an inch long. -Once we saw the entry wound we knew, obviously, that he had been shot. - Behind, at the scene of the shooting, on the sidewalk, the military aide who always accompanies the president, carrying in this briefcase what is known as the "football", the secret codes to start a nuclear war. Richard Allen, Reagan's national security adviser, told us that the wounded president had the final sequence of shots. -He had a miniaturized version of the ball with everything he needed. He knew that he carried it in his body. I didn't know...that he was in a sock was new to me that day.

When they were taking off the president's clothes to prepare him for surgery, they took off his socks and the card came out, the little card, and he fell to the floor. - It's a good story and it almost happened that way, but not quite. An agent in the room said the small card was actually in Reagan's coat pocket. Someone threw it on a pile of ruined clothes in the corner, and the secret code to start World War III ended up on one of Reagan's shoes. But Reagan on the stretcher was in no condition to react to any sudden foreign attack, nor was his vice president, the first George Bush, who had flown to Texas that afternoon to give a speech.

At the White House, Secretary of State Alexander Haig called Bush, but his plane did not have a secure phone line. Allen says Haig was trying to explain the crisis. - George, George, it's Al, Al Haig. Al Haig! Turn around. Turn around! - But Haig couldn't tell the vice president why. In the emergency room, Secret Service agent Jerry Parr worried that Reagan might not live. -The blood pressure was so low or minuscule that I felt like he was slipping away from us. - I was going to die. - I was going to die. - You were looking at a president who was dying. - Absolutely.

Yes, he was dying. - They said I was about to go into shock. And he had also lost more than half of the blood in my body. - It was probably around 40 percent, something like that. - That? -Yes. Yes, he lost a lot of blood. - Forty per cent? - If at least. - In war, this is like bleeding to death. - Yes. Exactly correct. That's the term we would use, it's bleeding out. - Seen here in 1981, Dr. Joseph Giordano was head of the trauma unit. He drained the blood flooding Reagan's lungs and replaced it with transfusions. -He had gone to the White House, I'm sure it would have been 10, 15 minutes before he would have received more definitive treatment, and I think that would have made a difference. - He would have died in the White House. - I would have died.

Yes. - It was Giordano, a Democrat, who answered the question Reagan asked him in the operating room. -He looked at me and said: I hope they are all Republicans. And I said: Yes, Mr. President, today we are all Republicans. - An hour after the shooting, doctors took Reagan down a hallway to the operating room. His wife, Nancy, walked alongside, holding the president's hand. - I said to myself, boy, this better turn out right. -At the same moment that President Reagan was being taken to the operating room, his senior cabinet officials called a crisis meeting in the Situation Room in the basement of the White House. - Just there. - Oh, look at that little recorder there. - National Security Advisor Richard Allen put a tape recorder on the table. - I'm sitting here and the recorder is in front of me. - As the tape played, cabinet officials became concerned that the Soviet Union may have been behind the shooting. - We never knew if it was just one person at that time.

We didn't know. - Fred Fielding, White House counsel. - The cold war was still quite cold. - In Poland, an uprising in the shipyards made the Soviets nervous. - There were a larger number than usual... twice as many, in fact... of Soviet submarines off our coasts. - On the tape, Secretary of State Alexander Haig asked Allen: He had a complete copy of the football, which was the size of a menu, let's say a plastic menu. - A backup of those secret codes to start a nuclear war. - Well, it's somewhere on the table. It could even be that long folder here. - Secretary of State Haig led the meeting. - Constitutionally, Haig was wrong.

He ranked third behind the vice president, after two leaders in Congress. - But for the most part, when Haig was... when Al Haig was like that... I mean, I guess we just tolerated Haig. - Haig, now deceased, would soon make a worse mistake when he asked this question to spokesman Larry Speakes in the White House press briefing room. -Who runs the government now? - Speakes did not answer that question. But Haig ran to the press podium to respond. -Who makes government decisions at this time? Who makes the decisions? - Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of State, in that order. - Again incorrect.

Then Haig spoke the words that haunted him for the rest of his life. - From now on, I am in control here in the White House... - Allen, standing next to Haig, says that he seemed anything but in control. -His voice was broken, high-pitched, full of tension. There behind the stands his knees were shaking and his elbows were shaking. - Back in the Situation Room, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said that the nearest Soviet submarine was close enough and that a missile could hit the White House in 11 minutes. He brought the B-52 bomber pilots closer to their planes. - Haig got angry.

He simply told reporters that the alert status remained unchanged. The irony is that when this dispute began, it had already been two hours after the shooting. And if this had been a foreign plot with a missile fired from that nearby submarine, everyone in this building behind me would have been dead long before the meeting began. At the hospital, doctors need a second x-ray to locate the bullet inside the president's chest. They drew this diagram of what they found. - And the entry of the bullet was just below the left armpit. He went down, hit a rib and then came back up.

It is not uncommon for bullets to ricochet off bones. - Here's a second closer look. - In the end, where he ended up was very... that's very close to the heart, right? - Very close to the heart. Exactly correct. This is the heart wall, and this is the trajectory of the bullet after bouncing off the wall. - How close to the heart? - It's probably about an inch or so. - Another doctor performed the surgery. It took an hour to reach the bullet and remove it from the president's chest. -He had some difficulty finding it in the lung, but he did it.

And then he took it out and they dropped it right into a cup, a sample cup. - When Vice President Bush returned from Texas, the president was already out of surgery and out of danger. In the recovery room, Reagan wrote notes on a clipboard, including this comical line from W.C. Fields suggested for his own tombstone: "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." Just 12 days later, the president left the hospital hand in hand with Nancy. Next to him, the Secret Service agent who, according to the doctors, saved his life by taking Reagan to the hospital. - I always say that Jerry Parr was the only person who made a decision that really made a difference. -Jerry Parr had signed up for the Secret Service at a college job fair because of a movie he saw when he was only 8 years old. - Well, it was a movie about the Secret Service.

And the main character was called Brass Bancroft. - Played by? -Ronald Reagan. - Okay boss. - Thank you. Sit down. -I told him once after the assassination attempt. And he told me: Well,It really was the cheapest movie I've ever made. - In the film, Brass Bancroft travels to Mexico to dismantle a counterfeiting ring. - It was a terrible movie, if you look for it. It's still a terrible movie. -Brass Bancroft is shot in the heart and his life is saved when a book in his pocket stops the bullet. -The cheapest movie he has ever made, but eventually, it could have saved his life. - It could have saved his life, right, 42 years later. - Next, today's Reagan limousine. - We never realized that this was going to end up saving... helping save the president's life. ♪♪ ♪♪-Ronald Reagan owes his life, at least in part, to his presidential limousine, now on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan.

Codenamed Stagecoach, the limousine is armored and weighs six tons. - This is the first time I've seen the car probably since the incident. It actually looks bigger than I remember. But it's the same car. - Secret Service Agent Jerry Parr took us back in history. Unlike most cars, this limousine's rear passenger door opens rearward, not forward. - And it was good that it opened up that way because it opened up to the murderer, - which was Hinckley. - Otherwise, any of John Hinckley's last three shots could have killed Reagan. Officer Tim McCarthy extended his body to take the first bullet as Parr pushed the president toward the limousine. - We never realized that this was going to end up saving... helping save the president's life. - The rear window stopped the next shot.

Certainly, the door blocked the window draft. He did it. Sure. - And where did that go? - The window shot was around here somewhere. - The armored glass remained firm. You can see where that shot hit. This evidence photo. The last bullet hit here, in the right rear of the car. - There's armor under that, steel, and it flattened out like a dime. As we were going to the car, somehow... he flattened out and bounced and hit him as we were going this way. - So just this little three-inch space? - Maybe a little three-inch space, yeah, about that, somewhere in there. - This is an enlarged photo of the bullet extracted from the president's body. - That's the bullet that slipped through that crack. - It is. - A chance happened here, just a fraction of a second from being safe. - Then we heard the shots.

I grabbed his shoulder and started pushing him down. As his arms come out, one of the bullets hits the side of the car and bounces off his armpit, right here. - Is this the one here? - Right here. - Security changes would follow. It wasn't until after the shooting that the government spent the money to buy magnetometers to monitor the tourists who passed by the White House day after day. - And what we learned from installing magnetometers in the White House was that a lot of very old ladies from all over the country who were on tour carried guns. - A year after the shooting, John Hinckley, Jr. went to trial.

His lawyers did not dispute the facts. - I had no defense. It wasn't... it wasn't me, because it was clearly John Hinckley. - On the other hand, the defense pleaded insanity. At the time, federal law required prosecutors to prove otherwise. - It is impossible to prove someone sane in a court of law, certainly beyond a reasonable doubt. - The jury found Hinckley not guilty by reason of insanity. - That court was shocked after that verdict. -Hinckley was committed to a government psychiatric hospital, where, 32 years later, he remains most of the time. But the courts have begun to give him more freedom, periodic visits to Williamsburg, Virginia, a stay in this tourist community, where his mother lives, a sentry box to keep unwanted visitors away, but still under surveillance by the Secret Service. -He is never free in the sense that no one observes him. - Nearly two years ago, the hospital asked the judge for permission to eventually release Hinckley to live full-time in Williamsburg.

Prosecutors are resisting with no end in sight to the ongoing judicial fight. -I think John Hinckley will be a threat for the rest of his life. I think he is a time bomb. - In the Ford Museum, just behind the Reagan limousine, is the convertible in which President John F. Kennedy was shot to death in 1963, with the hardtop restored after that assassination. Beginning with Abraham Lincoln at the end of the Civil War, nine presidents in and out of office have been targeted by gunfire, four of them assassinated. It has been 32 years since the last shots were fired against an American president, the longest interval between assassination attempts.

With every death, every near miss, protection has improved. But for the Secret Service, for any president, it remains a risk that comes with the oath of office. - May God help you. - So help me God. - I congratulate you, sir. - I think we have to live to the limit. We have to be willing, like them, to lose our lives. We have to give our lives for that. It's like a trade-off, whoever answers first. - And you say that presidents live by that same code. - I think everyone knows it. - Each and every day the Secret Service has to be very, very good.

And some days you have to be very lucky. ♪♪ ♪♪