Rawhide Down_ The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan - Del Quentin Wilber [38]
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THE CROWD OUTSIDE the VIP doors continued to grow. The reporters and cameramen who had attended Reagan’s speech were now leaving the public entrance to the hotel on T Street, about thirty feet beyond the rope line, and working their way through the waiting spectators. Some of the journalists were hoping to get video or photographs of Reagan as he left the Hilton. Others wanted to toss questions at the president—this would be as close as they got to him all day. And a few were on the so-called body watch, the morbid duty of tracking the president’s every move so that if something terrible happened they could report it immediately.
Sam Donaldson, ABC’s brash and outspoken White House correspondent, was on the body watch, but he also hoped to ask Reagan about the situation in Poland. Donaldson nudged his way through the crowd behind the rope line, slipping past three officials from Iowa who were in town for meetings with federal officials, an office worker who had just finished his lunch, and a cocktail waitress reporting for her shift at the hotel. By the time Donaldson reached the rope, he was standing near two union leaders awaiting Reagan’s departure. One told the other: “Let’s count his wrinkles.”
Two or three journalists and cameramen began shoving their way through the spectators. “Press, press, let us through!” a reporter shouted, trying to get to the front of the rope.
“No, we were here first!” screamed an agitated young man in a beige jacket who was standing near the two union officials. “You ought to get here on time,” he yelled at the journalists. He turned to the other spectators. “They think they can do anything they want! Don’t let them do that!”
There were now more than thirty people clustered behind the rope line. Three police officers, including Herbert Granger and Thomas Delahanty, stood between the spectators and the president’s projected path from the VIP entrance to the limousine. One Secret Service agent moved to a spot between the rope line and the VIP entrance; a second agent stood at the curb near the limousine, keeping an eye on the crowd in case anyone tried to maneuver around the rope line and run toward the president. Meanwhile, five agents on Reagan’s working shift formed a cordon around the limousine.
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REAGAN EMERGED FROM the elevator after the quick ride from the holding room on the ground floor. Seconds behind him, David Fischer, the president’s body man, and Rick Ahearn, his advance man, ran up the wide spiral staircase. They wondered aloud why Reagan didn’t just take the stairs. “It’s such a short ride,” Fischer said.
With each stride toward the VIP doors, Reagan accumulated a larger entourage. Just ahead of the president, Mike Deaver and Jim Brady walked out the exit. When Deaver spotted the clutch of reporters standing behind the rope line, several of whom were already shouting questions at the president, he steered the burly press secretary toward them. “Go deal with it,” he said.
Stepping through the Hilton’s doors, Reagan saw the same reporters who had caught the attention of his deputy chief of staff. He would not be taking any questions, though—not today. Lately he and his advisors had been trying to be more disciplined; answering random questions from journalists rarely served their purposes. But the president did plan to make one dramatic gesture. With his back to the reporters, he would step onto the edge of the limousine’s door frame and boost himself up to wave to the spectators across the street.
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JERRY PARR SLID a step behind the president as they moved away from the VIP entrance and strode across the slick hotel driveway. Glancing up, Parr saw dark scudding clouds; then he scanned the crowd of reporters and spectators