Ayton - Plotting to kill the president: assassination attempts from Washington to Hoover

Plotting to Kill the President is a corrective to the many history books and biographies that have ignored or overlooked numerous threats American presidents have faced; some serious enough to have placed the chief executive within a hairsbreadth of assassination. Many stories within this study have remained largely hidden from the public; some are buried in newspaper archives and others in government reports, presidential memoirs, bodyguard memoirs, Secret Service agents memoirs, Library of Congress records, National Archives documents, and presidential libraries.

From the time of Americas first president there have been groups of organized plotters or individuals, acting out of personal or political reasons, who have been determined to assassinate the chief executive.

During the period covered by this book, three American presidents were assassinated (Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, and William McKinley) and, according to official publications, only one other president, Andrew Jackson, survived an assassination attempt.

Plotting to Kill the President addresses these historical events but also reveals the numerous never-before-told incidents when the presidents life was put in danger, including stories of attempted stabbings, shootings, and bombings.

Unknown to the general public, most of Americas presidents have survived near lethal approaches in which would-be assassins have

Most of the would-be assassins researched for this book were individuals bent on achieving infamy. A central and overriding motive for many presidential assassins and would-be assassins has been a craving for notoriety after living a life built on constant failure. The assassins believed their acts would propel them into the history books and they would be recognized as important people.

Plotting to Kill the President reveals many previously unknown or little-known assassination attempts against American presidents that have occurred from the inception of the republic to the time of the Great Depression. Most shocking are the revelations about the assassination attempts against Presidents Arthur, Hayes, Cleveland, Harrison, Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, and Hoover, which are revealed here for the first time. Chester A. Arthur was the victim of two assassination attempts. The first attempt was made at the Butler Mansion in Washington DC , and the second attempt occurred at the White House. A gunman stalked President-elect Hayes and plotted to kill him during the inauguration ceremonies at the Capitol. Harrison and Cleveland were the victims of previously unknown assassination attempts by lone gunmen. A serious assassination plot to kill William McKinley was hatched four years before his actual murder in 1901. A plot to blow up William Howard Tafts train was foiled by local law enforcement officers, and a gunman stalked Taft with the intention of killing him. A man who had stockpiled bombs, dynamite, and nitroglycerine in his hotel room in Hoboken, New Jersey, confessed he was plotting, along with fourteen others, to assassinate Woodrow Wilson. In 1919, an insane man, armed with a .32-caliber pistol, stalked Wilson, intending to kill him and save the world.