“Brief and respectful.” That’s how informed sources described to CNN the phone call between Joe Biden and Donald Trump a few hours after the attack in Pennsylvania on the former president.
Political violence in the US has hit the White House tenant several times before Donald Trump. Four of the 46 American presidents have been assassinated: the first was Abraham Lincoln in 1865, then it was James Garfield’s turn in 1881, followed by William McKinley in 1901. But what shook America the most was certainly the killing of John Kennedy on November 22, 1963, while riding in the presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. A crime that extinguished the hopes of a different world, becoming an “endless mystery,” the most investigated assassination of the century, still shrouded in numerous conspiracy theories that conflict with the official conclusion that the 35th president of the United States was killed only by Lee Harvey Oswald. Not even the recent declassification of almost all the documents has completely dispelled the doubts.
Five years later, on June 5, 1968, it was his brother Robert Francis Kennedy’s turn in the midst of a triumphant presidential campaign. He was eliminated after a rally in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The then senator passed through the kitchen, indicated to him as a shortcut to the press room, and was shot three times by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian who fired a .22 revolver. Five other people were wounded. On March 30, 1981, just over two months into his presidential term, it was Ronald Reagan’s turn: he was leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, where he had spoken to 5,000 members of the AFL-CIO union, when a deranged man, John Hinckley Jr., opened fire on the new president, puncturing his left lung with a bullet. Reagan was injured when one of the bullets ricocheted off the limousine, hitting him under the armpit.. Press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and police officer Thomas Delahanty were also shot in the attack. Reagan’s injuries weren’t noticed until he started coughing up blood. He was taken to George Washington University Hospital and underwent surgery. Doctors said he nearly died during the operation. Before going under the knife, Reagan found the courage to joke with the medical team: “I hope you’re all Republicans.” He was released about 10 days later. Hinckley Jr. was charged with attempted murder but found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was released from St. Elizabeth’s Insane Asylum in Washington two years ago. At the time, he said he wanted to kill Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster, with whom he had a crush after seeing her in “Taxi Driver.” Other American presidents who have narrowly escaped assassination attempts include Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt and Gerald Ford.