Do you remember where you were when Reagan was shot? (decline, ally)
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In my mother's car listening to the radio while she was inside shopping at the Winchester, Virginia Montgomery Ward store. Heard a bulletin over our local WHPL-AM 610 breaking into a song they were playing...Christopher Cross "Never Be The Same".
At my uncle's house, in East Harlem, and got up late. I come out of the room I was sleeping in, and into the living room. Unc and fam are there, and Unc let's me know......
Unc: Hey, you know, Regan got shot!
Me: Whoa! (I'm 13, who learned about Kennedy!). They catch him?
Unc: Yeah! A 22-year-old white boy!
Me: OK.
The history buff I am, in addition to being a concerned American citizen, I'm watching this coverage over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over.........! But being told Reagan was OK, and also being the sports/college basketball buff, I'm like, "The President's good! Let's get this game on, tonite!" (NCAA Champ!).
With all that's said, a few things stand out about that incident......
1. The Black agent with the little *** gun, along the wall! Who was that cat? Was he secret service or DC police?
2. The pic of James Brady's head in a pool of blood, with the initial reports the he died, and then saying later he's still alive!
3. Al Haig's famous "I'm in charge!" I recently saw an interview with a Reagan biographer, who said that Reagan didn't like Haig? Well, why the heck did he appoint him?
Oh, yeah, and the late, great Frank Reynolds anchoring! They don't make dudes on the air like that, anymore!
I was a freshman in high school. I'd just come home and found the TV on, and they had broken into regular programming to report what was going on. I can still clearly envision the room in which the TV sat.
And I also remember Al Haig's "I'm in charge here" comment. I don't know his motivations, but I've never taken it to be some kind of sinister attempt to take control of the government. Instead, I assumed he meant it as an effort to offer reassurance; that the continuity of government was being maintained, and the country had a leader during the crisis. (Off hand, I don't recall what the Vice President was doing that caused Haig to assume authority.)
I was a freshman in high school. I'd just come home and found the TV on, and they had broken into regular programming to report what was going on. I can still clearly envision the room in which the TV sat.
And I also remember Al Haig's "I'm in charge here" comment. I don't know his motivations, but I've never taken it to be some kind of sinister attempt to take control of the government. Instead, I assumed he meant it as an effort to offer reassurance; that the continuity of government was being maintained, and the country had a leader during the crisis. (Off hand, I don't recall what the Vice President was doing that caused Haig to assume authority.)
I think Haig's blunder was the lack of consultation with government leaders 'on the ground' (I believe Bush was in the air, at the time of the shots).
Had he talked to folk like Tip O'Neal, Howard Baker, etc, and all would've gone over the Constitution with some legal scholars, that could've been resolved much better. But ol' Al just went up to the podium and started yappin'!
Reagan was shot? I had forgotten and had to look it up. A few things conspired to make that memory minimal. The INTERMINABLE press coverage of Brady, which impressed me as the press lionizing one of their own, even above the President of the U.S., and Haig's TOTALLY BIZARRE "I'm in control here." When H--- freezes over you are!
As to where I was at the time? I have no idea other than considering taking the first flight out of the country if Haig wasn't put in his place quickly. The whole event showed Washington in a bad light.
I was walking down the hall of my junior high school when I heard the news. One of my friends told me that Reagan had died and Bush was the new president. I was glad to find out he was wrong.
At home with my 1 year old. As everyone else who was an adult said, my reaction also was, "Oh, no, not again." There had by then been so many, "not agains".
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