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The candidates shrugged off the urgency of such protection. "I don't need it," said Jackson. "Not at this stage," observed Bentsen. "Perhaps later, in the heat of a campaign, I might accept them [the agents]." On the other hand, Udall's wife Ella said she certainly wanted her husband guarded.
Publicly, Ford at first remained adamant against curtailing his freewheeling travel and politicking. His voice husky after his scare in San Francisco, Ford declared on returning to the White House that he did not intend "to cower in the face of a limited number of people —out of 214 million Americans—who want to take the law into their own hands. We're going to stand tall and strong in this confrontation with people who don't represent all of us."
While the words exemplified Ford's courage, a quality no one has doubted Ford possesses, prudent White House aides predicted privately Ford will in fact curtail some of his travel plans and will move more circumspectly when he ventures out of Washington. The White House announced, however, that he will keep his speaking engagements this week in Chicago and Omaha.
Nothing could have demonstrated the President's need for current caution in public appearances more clearly than the astonishing ease with which Sally Moore—apparently reluctant but almost suicidally driven—maneuvered into a position from which she came so close to killing Ford. Tragedy was averted largely because another somewhat disturbed individual, but one impelled toward protection rather than destruction, casually drifted into the same crowd and wound up pressed beside Moore for nearly two hours. The street-side convergence of three people—the potential assassin, disabled Marine Veteran Oliver Sipple and Ford—showed how thin are the strands of chance upon which a President's life can hang (see box page 20).
The two assassination attempts also demonstrated how quickly the Secret Service can tumble from being lavishly praised to facing stern criticism. No margin of error is allowed in its duties. After Squeaky's loaded gun failed to fire because she had not pulled the slide to force a cartridge into the chamber, Agent Larry Buendorf keenly spotted the gun's glint and wrestled the weapon away from her before she could try again. He became a hero. The still unnamed agents who decided last week that Moore was no risk were shown, of course, to have been painfully wrong, and in a sense have become overnight bums.
As the debate continued over what should be done to reduce the dangers to the President and candidates, a few basic precautions seemed obvious:
¶ For the nation's welfare, as well as his own, Ford must be more careful, at least until the recent unavoidable attention to the attempts on his life fades. Although Sally Moore insisted that she did not get her idea to ambush Ford from Squeaky Fromme ("Squeaky is insane," Moore scoffed), the faddish emulation of sensational acts can be a real danger. Ford can cut the odds by traveling less frequently. When he does yield to his yearning for a "dialogue with the people," he should do so at less publicly scheduled times. He can more safely mingle with people if they are totally unaware that he might do so.