Rawhide Down_ The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan - Del Quentin Wilber [63]
As a young military aide, Haig had helped plan Kennedy’s funeral, and he’d long suspected the Soviet Union or Cuba of playing a role in the killing. The former NATO commander also had firsthand experience with assassins: two years earlier, he had nearly been killed when terrorists bombed his motorcade in Brussels. Lately, such acts of political violence seemed to be happening with alarming frequency all over the world.
Upon their arrival at the White House, Haig and Goldberg hurried to Jim Baker’s office. Baker—along with Ed Meese, Lyn Nofziger, and Larry Speakes—had already left for the hospital, but the office of the chief of staff was serving as an unofficial headquarters for various officials involved in the response to the assassination attempt. His square jaw clenched, the tail of his trench coat flapping, Haig entered Baker’s office, marched toward his desk, and gruffly asked to be connected to the vice president. Aides looked confused. “How do we do that?” one asked.
When the White House switchboard eventually got Bush’s plane on the line, the connection was poor. Moreover, Air Force Two did not have scrambled voice communications; since anyone with a shortwave radio set could potentially listen to their conversation, Haig had to be vague when informing the vice president about the shooting.
Standing at Baker’s desk, Haig held the phone tight to one ear and put his free hand over his other ear to block out the noise in the office. When Bush came on the line, the secretary of state spoke loudly: “Mr. Vice President, this is Secretary Haig. We had a serious incident and I’m sending you a message by secure line. I recommend you return to Washington as soon as possible.”
Haig heard only static in reply.
“Do you read me, over,” Haig said, his voice rising. “This is Al Haig, over.”
Still there was no reply.
“This is Secretary Haig, over!”
Again Haig heard nothing but static.
“George, this is Al,” Haig bellowed. “Turn around! Turn around!”
Realizing that the bad connection made any communication with Bush impossible, Haig ended the call by saying, “I’ll have a message to you shortly.”
* * *
UNTIL NOW, THE vice president’s trip to Texas had been going exactly as planned. After his speech in Fort Worth, Bush returned to the airfield; at about 2:45, with Major Stetson Orchard at the controls, Air Force Two lifted off the runway.
Minutes later, as the plane flew toward Austin, Orchard and his copilot received a radio call from an air traffic controller. “Are you continuing to Austin or diverting to Washington?” the controller asked.
“We’re heading to Austin, as scheduled,” responded the copilot. He turned to Orchard with a raised eyebrow.
At that moment, one of the plane’s radio operators burst into the cockpit. “We just got a high-priority message,” he said. “You may not want to land in Austin.” The operator scurried off to find someone on the vice president’s staff.
Meanwhile, in an aft compartment of the plane, a Secret Service agent was getting a sketchy report about an assassination attempt over the radio headset plugged into his ear. He passed the information to the head of Bush’s detail, Agent Ed Pollard, who unclipped his seat belt and raced to Bush’s cabin. After knocking on the door, he entered and said, “Sir, we’ve just received word about a shooting in Washington. There is no indication that the president has been hit. Word is that two agents are down. That’s all we have right now. But I’m going to make some calls and see if I can get some more information.”
“Oh, no,” said Bush, stunned. “Where