Order Code RS20821
Updated April 5, 2006
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Direct Assaults Against Presidents,
Presidents-Elect, and Candidates
Frederick M. Kaiser
Specialist in American National Government
Government and Finance Division
Summary
Direct assaults against Presidents, Presidents-elect, and candidates have occurred
on 15 separate occasions, with five resulting in death. Ten incumbents (about 24% of
the 42 individuals to serve in the office), including four of the past six Presidents, have
been victims or targets. Four of the ten (and one candidate) died as a result of the
attacks. This report identifies these incidents and provides information about what
happened, when, where, and, if known, why. The report will be updated and revised if
developments require.
Concerns about the safety of Presidents have existed throughout the history of the
Republic, beginning with George Washington in 1794, when he led troops against the
Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania.1 The intervening years have witnessed a variety of
1 For background information and citations, see: U.S. Congress, House Select Committee on
Assassinations, Report: Findings and Recommendations, H.Rept. 95-1828, Part 2, 95th Cong., 2nd
sess. (Washington: GPO, 1979); U.S. Department of the Treasury, Background Information on
the White House Security Review (Washington: Department of the Treasury, 1995), pp. 51-101;
U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, Final Report (Washington:
GPO, 1969), pp. 122-124; James E. Kirkham, et al., Assassination and Political Violence: A
Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (Washington:
GPO, 1969), p. 22; U.S. President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F.
Kennedy, Report (Washington; GPO, 1964), pp. 504-515; James W. Clarke, American Assassins:
The Darker Side of Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982); Frederick M. Kaiser,
“Presidential Assassinations and Assaults: Characteristics and Impact on Protective Procedures,”
Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 11, Fall 1981, pp. 545-558, and “Origins of Secret Service
Protection of the President: Personal, Interagency, and Institutional Conflict,” Presidential
Studies Quarterly, vol. 18, Winter 1988, pp. 101-128; Philip H. Melanson, The Secret Service
(New York: Carroll and Graf, 2002); Facts on File Yearbook, 1994, p. 877, and 1995, p. 361;
“Police Shoot Man Near White House,” Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2001, pp. A1, A10; extensive
press coverage of the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, along with the
possible targeting of the White House or Capitol, on September 11, 2001, including U.S. News
and World Report, Special Report, Sept. 14, 2001, pp. 17-27, and Newsweek, Extra Edition [Sept.
(continued...)
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

---

CRS-2
incidents of actual and potential harm to Presidents (as well as immediate family members
and other high-ranking officials). These situations have included illegal entries onto the
White House grounds; incidents of violence and conflict near the President’s residence
or where he was visiting; unauthorized aircraft flying near the White House and, in one
instance, a plane crashing into the building; schemes to use airplanes to attack the White
House; other threats of attack, including bombings and armed assaults; feared kidnaping
and hostage-taking; assassination plots; as well as immediate, direct assaults against
Presidents.2 In addition to incumbents, Presidents-elect and candidates for the office have
been subject to assaults or threats.
This report identifies assassinations of and other direct assaults against Presidents,
Presidents-elect, and candidates for the office of President.3 There have been 15 such
attacks (against 14 individuals), with five resulting in death. The first incident occurred
in 1835, when a would-be assassin’s pistol misfired; the most recent occurred in 2005,
when a would-be assassin in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, tossed a grenade (which did not
explode) at the platform where President George W. Bush and the Georgian President
were speaking. The tally of victims reveals the following:
1 (...continued)
12, 2001], p. 32; and press coverage in 2005 and 2006 of an incident involving President George
W. Bush in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.
2 Illustrative of these are: apprehension about President Madison (and his wife) being taken
hostage, when British troops invaded Washington, DC, in 1814; rocks thrown at President Tyler
by an intoxicated painter; fears of kidnaping and assassination of Abraham Lincoln, beginning
with his journey to Washington, DC for the inauguration in 1861; shots fired at President Lincoln
by Confederate troops, when he was observing a battle between them and Union forces stationed
at Fort Stevens; allegations of a possible kidnaping of President Cleveland’s children, along with
unknown intruders at his summer vacation property, in 1894, while at the same time he was
threatened by Colorado gamblers who had traveled to Washington, and separately, by
sympathizers of Coxey’s Army, who wanted to “remove” Cleveland from office; stalking of
President Nixon, by the same person who later, in 1972, shot presidential candidate George
Wallace; a planned airplane attack on the White House, which literally never got off the ground,
because the pilot (and would-be assassin) was killed before the craft was airborne, in 1974; a car,
driven by a man wired with explosives, crashing through the White House gates, also in 1974;
discovery of a truck containing explosives outside a building that was being used as the “mobile
White House,” when President Clinton was visiting Belfast, Northern Ireland’s capital; a
shooting incident outside the White House fence on February 7, 2001, in which the assailant, who
was wounded, was charged with assaulting a federal officer; and on September 11, 2001, an
aborted attempt to use a hijacked commercial airliner possibly to crash into the White House or
the Capitol, as three other airplanes had been used to attack the Pentagon and the World Trade
Center in New York; along with hundreds of threats yearly against the President, his family
members, and high-ranking officials.
3 Speculation had long existed that President Zachary Taylor, who was a foe of extending slavery,
was poisoned by pro-slavery conspirators in 1850, a suspicion arising in part because his
symptoms at the time of his death resembled those of arsenic poisoning. A 1991 laboratory
analysis of Taylor’s remains, however, found only minuscule levels of arsenic, which could not
have caused illness, let alone death. The conclusion of the forensic anthropologist who
conducted the examination was that President Taylor died of natural causes, perhaps from
contaminated food he had eaten or possibly from the treatments — cathartics and laxatives —
he received for gastroenteritis and acute diarrhea. See William R. Maples and Michael
Browning, Dead Men Do Tell Tales (New York: Doubleday, 1994).

---

CRS-3
! Of the 42 individuals serving as President, ten (or about 24%) have been
subject to actual or attempted assassinations. Four of these ten
incumbents — Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley,
and John F. Kennedy — were killed.
! Four of the past six Presidents have been targets of assaults: Gerald R.
Ford (twice in 1975), Ronald W. Reagan (in a near-fatal shooting in
1981), William J. Clinton (when the White House was fired upon in
1994), and George W. Bush (when an attacker tossed a grenade, which
did not explode, towards him and the President of Georgia at a public
gathering in Tbilisi, in 2005).
! Two others who served as President were attacked, either as a President-
elect (Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933) or as a presidential candidate
(Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, when he was seeking the presidency after
being out of office for nearly four years).
! Two other presidential candidates — Robert F. Kennedy, who was killed
in 1968, and George C. Wallace, who was seriously wounded in 1972 —
were also victims, during the primaries.
! In only one of these 15 incidents (the Lincoln assassination) was a broad
conspiracy proven, although such contentions have arisen on other
occasions.4 Only one other incident involved more than one participant
(the 1950 assault on Blair House, the temporary residence of President
Harry S Truman); but no evidence of other conspirators emerged from
the subsequent investigation or prosecution.
! Of the 15 direct assaults, 11 relied upon pistols, two on automatic
weapons, one on a rifle, and one on a grenade. All but two of the attacks
(both against Gerald Ford) were committed by men.
! All but one of the 15 assaults occurred within the United States.
The following table identifies the direct assaults on Presidents, Presidents-elect, and
candidates for the office of President. It specifies the date when the assault occurred, the
victim, his political party affiliation, the length of his administration at the time of the
attack or whether he was then a candidate or President-elect, the location of the attack, its
method and result, and the name of the assailant, along with the professed or alleged
reason for the attack.
4 Regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the 1964 Warren Commission
inquiry concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. U.S. President’s Commission, Report,
p. 22. A 1979 congressional investigation determined, however, that the President “was probably
assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The Committee is unable to identify the other gunman
or the extent of the conspiracy.” House Select Committee on Assassinations, Report, p. 1. In
addition, a conspiracy was initially suspected in President McKinley’s murder, in 1901, because
his assailant was a self-described “anarchist,” the designation applied to assassins of European
leaders in the same time period. Extensive investigations by the U.S. Secret Service, as well as
Buffalo and New York State law enforcement agencies and prosecutors, however, found no
evidence that McKinley’s assailant was aided by anyone else.

---

CRS-4
Direct Assaults on Presidents, Presidents-Elect, and Presidential Candidates
Length of
Administration at
Time of Attack,
Candidate, or
Method of Attack
Assailant and Professed or
Date
Victim
Political Party
President-elect
Location
and Result
Alleged Reason
01/30/1835
Andrew Jackson
Democrat
5 years, 11 months
Washington, DC
Pistol, misfired
Richard Lawrence, declared
insane; said Jackson was
preventing him from
obtaining large sums of
money and was ruining the
country
04/14/1865
Abraham Lincoln
Republican
4 years, 1 month
Washington, DC
Pistol, killed
John Wilkes Booth, killed
before being captured;
loyalty to the Confederacy;
revenge for its defeat; pro-
slavery stand
07/02/1881
James A. Garfield
Republican
6 months
Washington, DC
Pistol, killed
Charles Guiteau, convicted;
disgruntled office-seeker and
supporter of opposition
faction in Republican Party
09/06/1901
William McKinley
Republican
4 years, 6 months
Buffalo, NY
Pistol, killed
Leon F. Czolgosz,
convicted; anarchist
ideology and class
antagonism
10/14/1912
Theodore Roosevelt
Progressive
Candidate (had been
Milwaukee, WI
Pistol, wounded
John Schrank, declared
(Bull Moose)
President from
insane; had vision that
1901-1909)
McKinley wanted him to
avenge his death

---

CRS-5
Length of
Administration at
Time of Attack,
Candidate, or
Method of Attack
Assailant and Professed or
Date
Victim
Political Party
President-elect
Location
and Result
Alleged Reason
02/15/1933
Franklin D.
Democrat
President-elect,
Miami, FL
Pistol, bullets missed
Giuseppe Zangara, convicted
Roosevelt
3 weeks prior to
the President-elect
of murdering Cermak; hated
inauguration
(but fatally wounded
rulers and capitalists
Chicago mayor Anton
Cermak standing
nearby)
11/01/1950
Harry S Truman
Democrat
5 years, 6½ months
Washington, DC
Automatic weapons,
Oscar Collazo, convicted of
shots fired at Blair
the murder of the police
House, then the
officer and attempted
temporary residence
murder of the President and
of the President, who
the two wounded policemen,
was inside and
and Griselio Torresola,
unharmed (but a
killed at the scene; both
White House police
espoused Puerto Rican
officer was killed and
independence
two others wounded)
11/22/1963
John F. Kennedy
Democrat
2 years, 10 months
Dallas, TX
Rifle, killed
Lee Harvey Oswald, killed
before trial; motive
unknown
06/05/1968
Robert F. Kennedy
Democrat
Candidate and
Los Angeles, CA
Pistol, killed
Sirhan Sirhan, convicted;
U.S. Senator
opposed candidate’s stand
on Israeli-Arab conflict
05/15/1972
George C. Wallace
Democrat
Candidate and
Laurel, MD
Pistol, wounded
Arthur Bremer, convicted;
Governor of
motive unknown
Alabama
09/05/1975
Gerald R. Ford
Republican
1 year, 1 month
Sacramento, CA
Pistol, misfired
Lynette Alice Fromme,
convicted; member of
extremist “Manson family”

---

CRS-6
Length of
Administration at
Time of Attack,
Candidate, or
Method of Attack
Assailant and Professed or
Date
Victim
Political Party
President-elect
Location
and Result
Alleged Reason
09/22/1975
Gerald R. Ford
Republican
1 year, 1½ months
San Francisco, CA
Pistol, missed target
Sara Jane Moore, convicted;
asserted goal of bringing
about “the upheaval of
needed change,”
revolutionary ideology
03/30/1981
Ronald W. Reagan
Republican
2½ months
Washington, DC
Pistol, wounded
John W. Hinkley, Jr., found
not guilty by reason of
insanity; committed to a
mental institution
10/29/1994
William J. Clinton
Democrat
1 year, 9 months
Washington, DC
Semi-automatic
Francisco M. Duran,
assault rifle, shot at
convicted of attempted
White House while
assassination on April 4,
President was inside
1995
05/10/2005
George W. Bush
Republican
4 years, 4 months
Tbilisi, Republic
Grenade thrown at
of Georgia
President Bush and
Republic of Georgia
President at a public
gathering; attacker
convicted of
attempted
assassination (and
killing a police
officer when the
attacker was arrested
later); motive
unknown.
Source: Kirkham, et al., Assassination and Political Violence, p. 22; Kaiser, “Presidential Assassinations and Assaults,” p. 547; Facts on File Yearbook, 1994, p. 877, and 1995, p.
361; and 2005-2006 press coverage of the incident in Tblisi.

---