Taking Aim at the President The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Shot at Gerald Ford

by Spieler, Geri

• ISBN13: 9780230610231
• ISBN10: 0230610234
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-23
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Summary

"I'm not sorry I tried...if successful, the assassination...just might have triggered the kind of chaos that could have started the upheaval of change." --Sara Jane Moore in 1976 President Gerald Ford suffered two attempts on his life during his term in office. One by a young woman in Charles Manson's gang, Squeaky, and the other by a far more unlikely candidatean average looking middle-aged mother of five Sara Jane Moore. Journalist Geri Spieler traces Sara Jane Moore's path to that fateful moment. Born in a small West Virginia town to strict parents, Moore showed an early love of theater that would translate into her adult tendency to obscure her identity and mislead those around her. Skilled at deception, she was married to five times including twice to an U.S. Air Force Captain, to a respected doctor, and to an Academy Award-winning sound designer. Along the way she abandoned her children, faked amnesia, worked as an FBI informant, won the trust of Randolph Hearst, and became a double agent. Sara Jane Moore met all the major players and was present at all of newsworthy events of California in the 1960s and 70s. As such, her story presents a vivid snapshot of those turbulent years. Spieler gleaned fascinating insights on Sara Jane from visiting and corresponding with her in prison for almost three decades, from January 1976 to June 2003. A combination of Sara Jane's stories and Spieler's rigorous independent research, Taking Aim at the President is the bizarrely compelling, never-before-told story of this elusive characterthe only woman to ever fire a bullet at a U.S. president.

Author Biography

Geri Spieler is an investigative journalist and award-winning speaker.  She has written for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Forbes.  She has a strong professional relationship with her subject, Sara Jane Moore, who she has visited and interviewed in prison for the last thirty years.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. 9
Prologue	p. 13
The Girl Who Disappeared	p. 19
The Unhappy Housewife	p. 31
The Doctor's Wife	p. 41
Changing Times	p. 53
San Francisco's Radical Underground	p. 69
The Would-be Activist	p. 79
The Accountant	p. 85
Federal Stranglehold	p. 93
Fired	p. 103
The Spy	p. 113
The Mission	p. 121
Doubling	p. 129
Hunted	p. 137
Testing Security	p. 147
The Unlikely Assassin	p. 153
"I Acted Alone"	p. 159
Guilty	p. 165
Making a Statement	p. 177
The Prisoner	p. 185
Settling In and Becoming Queen	p. 195
Solitary	p. 205
Afterword	p. 217
Appendix	p. 223
Notes	p. 225
Bibliography	p. 237
Permissions	p. 239
Index	p. 241
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