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¶ More mechanically, Ford must confine himself to briskly traveling motorcades when moving within a city. At least for a time, the slow ride in an open car, as in his recent campaigning in New Hampshire, should be avoided. The protective vest for outdoor appearances, which he wore there, is a good idea, however uncomfortable it might be. For indoor appearances, a public now accustomed to metal detectors and inspection of handbags would not object to making such practices routine before entering a hall in which Ford is present.
¶ The Secret Service may already have as much money and as many agents as it can practically use. Generally, its protection of a President once he is on the move has been superb. But if it needs more money and manpower to check out security risks ahead of a visit and follow suspected dangerous people during a Ford appearance, it should be given such resources. Inevitably, delicate judgments would still have to be made. There is no way to tail or detain every marginally threatening person.
There seems no practical way for a free country to go about deliberately reducing the chances of producing lonely, disoriented individuals who lash out at a President to fulfill some antisocial personal need. The nation's recent political traumas, especially the Viet Nam War and Watergate, may have heightened passions about its leaders and dissatisfaction with its systems. Political rhetoric may have been inflated enough at times to be inflammatory. Certainly, any such excesses need to be curbed. But Gerald Ford in particular has clearly lowered the level of intensity in his public speeches; if anything, he threatens to lull his listeners to sleep rather than incite them to hostility.
And yet, two attempts to snuff out his life within three weeks. Moore and Fromme added to the modern chain of Bremer, Ray, Sirhan, Oswald—all tormented Americans driven to try to kill a public figure. It is a chain with links in U.S. life that reach all the way back to Richard Lawrence, who tried to kill Andrew Jackson, and John Wilkes Booth, who did kill Abraham Lincoln, the first President to be assassinated. Inevitably, the question arises: Is there something wrong with American society? Why does America seem to have so many kooks willing to kill to exorcise some private demon?
By now the answers have become almost as familiar as the questions; none are wholly satisfactory. One reason surely is the nature of the U.S. presidency, which makes one man an irresistible target for many of society's misfits. The President is not only the Chief Executive, Commander in Chief of the armed forces and leader of his party. He is also the symbol of the nation, the living repository of its power and integrity. Few other democracies invest such temporal and quasispiritual authority in one life. Most split them between a President or monarch and his Prime Minister.