Threats to Ex-Presidents

[Paul_in_Qatar]

I am reading “Write it when I’m Gone,” a bunch of off-the-record stuff from Gerry Ford. He seems to have been a nice guy.

DeWitt says that the threat level against ex-presidents is quite low and the USSS operates more as a very nice travel and logistics agency for ex-presidents.

Does anyone recall a threat to or attempt on an ex-president of the US?

[Koxinga]

Saddam Hussein vs. George H.W. Bush comes to mind.

[aceplace57]

Carter stepped into a major conflict between the U.S. and Haitian Gen. Raoul Cedras. President Clinton had paratroopers getting into planes while Carter was in the middle of negoating with Cedras.

In September 1994, President Carter was asked by Haitian Gen. Raoul Cedras to try to mediate the government crisis and avoid a U.S. military invasion of Haiti. President Carter relayed this information to President Clinton, who asked him to undertake a mission to Haiti with Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell.

Sen. Nunn said. The delegation finally reached an agreement by late afternoon on Sept. 18–five hours past the noon deadline set for them by the Clinton administration. By then, U.S. troops were on their way to Haiti.

President Carter said he felt discomfort when Haiti’s army chief, Brig. Gen. Philippe Biamby, accused the U.S. delegation of “acting” as peaceful mediators at the same time U.S. paratroopers were en route to Haiti.

“They refused to go any further with the talks,” President Carter said of the Haitian leaders. “I made a very emotional address because I thought we had lost.”

http://www.cartercenter.org/news/documents/doc218.html

I have much more about this in a book about Carter. CNN was airing footage of the planes loading while Carter was talking with these guys. They saw this on CNN! Carter and the others could have been taken hostage and the secret service couldn’t save him. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed. Cedras agreed to leave Haiti and the crises was resolved.

[Shagnasty]

I am friends with a Secret Service family. The father and family had to pick up and move after Reagan was shot because he was one of the ones on duty at the time and the stress level was way too high. They got sent to California to guard ex-president Gerald Ford. If there is any ex-president that shouldn’t get many threats, it would be Gerald Ford but it wasn’t true. He got threats all the time which are par for the course but also a few half-assed attempts at him, his family, or his property. That is the problem with SS Presidential Detail. They have to take it all seriously because they don’t know which ones are real and their own life is at risk. They also don’t like the general public to know how often threats and attempts happen to expose any weaknesses they may have.

Most people don’t even realize how many assassination attempts happen to sitting presidents. There are one or more publicized real attempts for every sitting president since LBJ with more that were probably never revealed as well as thousands of threats.

I don’t believe the assertion in the OP. People will be lining up forever to harm George W. Bush or his family for example.

[Koxinga]

@Shagnasty

I don’t believe the assertion in the OP. People will be lining up forever to harm George W. Bush or his family for example.

Which is ironic, seeing as he’ll be the first former president whose protection is limited to ten years.

[Typo_Knig]

@Koxinga

@Shagnasty

I don’t believe the assertion in the OP. People will be lining up forever to harm George W. Bush or his family for example.

Which is ironic, seeing as he’ll be the first former president whose protection is limited to ten years.

1. I wish people would stop trying to harm political figures. All you do is get them sympathy. For example, Reagan after he was shot. For example, every POTUS after he’s died, particularly if he was assassinated. Don’t hurt political figures - let them live long enough to see that history considers them idiots. That really gets politicians!

2. My enmity for GWB knows no bounds, but I firmly believe that lifetime Secret Service protection should be restored to him, and all successive presidents, soonest. And to their families as necessary. Even if the world’s nutcases and loser loners won’t listen to my first point (and stop even trying to hurt the pols), it does our society no good if ex-Presidents, or their family members, are harmed.

[aceplace57]

I’ve wondered how many serious threats were uncovered against Nixon after he resigned. Given the passions of Watergate, it’s amazing there weren’t any reported attempts on his life.

[Generally_Giap]

how many serious threats were uncovered against Nixon after he resigned

The Weather Underground seriously considered and studied the assassination of ex-president Nixon, and gave it up because they considered his security too tight.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@Generally_Giap

The Weather Underground seriously considered and studied the assassination of ex-president Nixon, and gave it up because they considered his security too tight.

OK, I’ll bite.
Cite, please?

[Markxxx]

I don’t doubt there are many threats to ex-presidents, or politicans in general but I wonder how many are credible. By that I mean made by someone with the means and intellegence to carry them out.

Granted you don’t need a lot of intellegence, as opposed to opporutnity as Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and John Hinkley proved

[Generally_Giap]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Generally Giap View Post
The Weather Underground seriously considered and studied the assassination of ex-president Nixon, and gave it up because they considered his security too tight.

OK, I’ll bite.
Cite, please?

Quite a proper question, and one that I just spent two miserable hours searching on Google and Bing without any germane hits.

It would have happened after the release of the movie ‘The Weather Underground,’ I would have had to have been plotted between 1974 and 1980 (or earlier) when Nixon was living in New York City.

I know I read it in a mainstream newspaper, based on a surfaced member of the Weather Underground or the May 13th Communist Organization (a splinter of the W.U.).

That being said I certainly would have expected it to surface in The New York Times archive, and I didn’t find it there tonight.