While our city does not have the equivalent of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinner, it did stage an annual luncheon meeting for U.S. presidents.
Years ago, this was a newspaper town, with scores of daily and weekly publications generated by members of the Fourth Estate belonging to the bygone San Francisco Press Club.
Like the WHCA party, this luncheon was a celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment sponsored by The World Affairs Council.
An assassination attempt was part of our legacy, too.
Just 17 days before President Gerald Ford came to our city in 1975, he had already been the target of a distaff assassin in Sacramento.
On September 5th of that year, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme aimed a Colt .45-caliber handgun and fired point blank. Fortunately, a heroic secret service agent jumped her just in time to ruin the shot.
Many readers will recall that Squeaky had been a member of the murderous Charles Manson family before making this bid for posterity. She rightly spent the better part of her life in federal prison. We press hounds were given our credentials, and the event was without drama . . . until the president stepped outside.
Given that experience, Ford’s advisors insisted that he move his San Francisco Press Club engagement down the street to the St. Francis Hotel, which they judged would be a safer venue.
We press hounds were given our credentials, and the event was without drama . . . until the president stepped outside.
There waiting for him by his limo was Sara Jane Moore with a primed .38-caliber revolver fired twice at close range. An alert bystander struck her arm to keep the bullets from hitting Ford, although some minor collateral damage was reported to hotel property. John Ludwig, a taxi driver struck by the ricocheting bullet, also lived to tell the tale.
When local reporters reconvened at the Press Club, I was introduced to Oriana Fallaci, who had published Interview with History in Italian a few years earlier. By then, her excoriating conversation with Henry Kissinger was already legendary.
Ford was popular in San Francisco, she observed, because of two reasons: his conditional amnesty for Vietnam War draft-dodgers and for being married to Betty Ford.
Betty destigmatized addiction and championed women’s rights, which both were causes embraced by our citizens.
As for Gerald, he was “gun shy” about speaking with this infamous Italian journalist, particularly about the subject of democracy.
He was never elected to vice president or president. He was appointed under the terms of the 25th Amendment to become vice president under Richard Nixon, and he assumed the throne when Nixon resigned in disgrace. All of this was just fine with Ms. Fallaci.
“Why do the people humiliate themselves by voting?” she asked. “I did not vote . . . ever. That’s because I have dignity. I would spit on my own face if I were to vote for any candidate seeking high office.”
Indeed, democracy did in Ford as he lost his bid for commander in chief to Jimmy Carter the next November and never returned to San Francisco.
Assassination attempts notwithstanding, we don’t expect President Trump to ever come here, either, as he has expressed his disdain for this city on many occasions.
