Attempted assassination of Gerald Ford in San Francisco

Moore pleaded guilty to charges of attempted assassination on December 12, 1975.[6] The following month, on January 15, she was sentenced to life imprisonment.[7] On December 31, 2007 at the age of 77, Moore was released on parole.[8]

Oliver Sipple was commended at the scene by Secret Service and the San Francisco Police for his actions;[9] the media portrayed him as a national hero. Three days after the assassination attempt in San Francisco, Sipple received a letter from President Ford praising him for his heroic actions.[9]

All of the media publicity about him was not without controversy, however. Upon realizing that Sipple was gay, the media began broadcasting this information. That became the first time that Sipple’s parents and family found out that Sipple was homosexual, as he had been hiding it from them. After learning about his sexual orientation, much of his family, including his parents, disowned him, and were subsequently estranged from him, but later were reconciled. Sipple died in 1989.

President Ford with his wife Betty aboard the return flight to Washington DC from San Francisco later on the same day as the assassination attempt

After President Ford was rushed to the SFO tarmac in his limousine, he quickly boarded Air Force One. Before Ford could depart on his return trip to the nation’s capital, however, the plane had to wait for his wife Betty, the First Lady, who was carrying out her own schedule of events on the Peninsula.[3]

In addition to the San Francisco incident, Ford had escaped unharmed from a previous assassination attempt in Sacramento, California, which occurred 17 days earlier on September 5, 1975. In response to the two occurrences in the same month, President Ford subsequently wore a bulletproof trench coat in public, beginning in October 1975.

Ford, who had succeeded to the presidency upon the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974, ran for election in 1976. He lost to Jimmy Carter, by 297-240 in the electoral vote, and did not run for public office again. In 2006, Ford died from natural causes.