Six Shots at a Nation's Heart

April 13, 1981 TIME Cover: Moment of Madness
What Happened and Why Can It Never Be Stopped?

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President's Lincoln, Reagan protested: "Jerry, get off me. You're hurting my ribs. You really came down hard on top of me." The agent apologized and helped Reagan sit upright on the rear seat. The car was speeding down Connecticut Avenue toward the White House. Said Parr later: "I ran my hands over his body, under his arms, his back." He detected no wound. The limousine was less than 15 seconds away from the Hilton when Reagan said again that his ribs hurt. "He complained of having some problems with his breathing," said Parr. "He was getting an ashen color. Then he started to cough up some blood. My first impression was that somehow a rib had broken and punctured a lung." Reagan had the same mistaken idea. He later said: "It hurt, but I thought it was a broken rib."

Parr ordered the driver to turn right and rush toward George Washington University Hospital, 1½ miles from the Hilton. By radio Parr advised the Secret Service command post at the White House: "Rawhide is heading for George Washington." Rawhide is Reagan's apt Secret Service code name. His limousine is called Stagecoach.

As Reagan's car pulled up to the hospital's emergency entrance, Parr opened the right rear door and called for help. Two more agents, following in the battlewagon, helped the President walk toward the entrance. Reagan had gone about 45 ft., said Parr, when he sagged. "He was perhaps going into shock, but I never sensed it was life threatening. He was just pale, shook up." Only after the agents had lifted Reagan onto the table in the trauma unit and scissored off his coat and shirt did anyone realize that the President had been shot.

The first reports all said that the President had escaped harm. Nancy Reagan learned of the shooting minutes after she returned to the White House from a luncheon meeting. Her own Secret Service escorts told her that her husband was at the hospital, but they too were unaware that he had been wounded. She reached the hospital only minutes after his limousine.

The White House staff first learned of the shooting when David Prosperi, one of Brady's assistants, ran to a Hilton telephone. He reached the White House and demanded to talk to Assistant Press Secretary Larry Speakes, shouting: "This is an emergency!" To Speakes, Prosperi cried: "The President has been shot at! And Brady's been shot!" Speakes quickly told Staff Director David Gergen. James Baker, the White House Chief of Staff, was sitting in his office when Gergen rushed in at 2:30 p.m. to shout: "Brady's been hit!"

Peter Teeley, press secretary to Vice President George Bush, immediately placed a radiotelephone call to his boss, who had just left Fort Worth-Dallas airport aboard Air Force Two after speaking to the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. He was on his way to Austin to address the Texas legislature. Teeley told Bush that the President was not hurt.

Baker rushed to tell Presidential Counsellor Ed Meese the news; Meese too had heard it. He had punched a button on a Secret Service computer that tracks the President; it showed that Reagan was at the hospital. Both hurried to the White House residence to inform Nancy but discovered that she was already on her way to the hospital. Back in his office, Baker took a