The smell of cordite mixed with the exhaust of idling cars on the sidewalk outside the St. Francis Hotel. Moore, a 45-year-old former FBI informant with erratic political affiliations, stood in a crowd of onlookers. As President Ford turned to enter his limousine, she raised her Smith & Wesson and fired once. Former Marine Oliver Sipple, standing beside her, grabbed her arm as she pulled the trigger. The bullet deflected, striking a wall about six feet from Ford and ricocheting into the stomach of a taxi driver, who survived. Secret Service agents swarmed Moore and wrestled her to the concrete.
Her motive was a confused amalgam of radical protest. She later stated she wanted to create chaos to awaken the country from political apathy. The attempt, coming so soon after Charles Manson follower Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme’s failed attempt on September 5, forced an immediate and drastic overhaul of presidential security protocols. The proximity of the events suggested not a pattern of organized conspiracy, but a dangerous new era of isolated, ideologically fluid individuals targeting the presidency.
Moore pleaded guilty and served 32 years in prison before her release in 2007. The Ford assassination attempts, often overshadowed by the tumult of the 1960s and the Watergate scandal, marked a transitional point in American public life. They demonstrated that the presidency itself had become a symbolic target for personal grievance and amorphous dissent, a reality that would permanently alter the relationship between the public and the office.