Rawhide Down_ The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan - Del Quentin Wilber [64]
“Outside the Washington Hilton.”
A few minutes later, Bush got word that Haig was on the line, but after picking up the phone he had heard little but static. Soon Haig’s message emerged from Air Force Two’s secure teletype machine: “Mr. Vice President: In the incident you will have heard about by now, the president was struck in the back and is in serious condition. Medical authorities are deciding now whether or not to operate. Recommend you return to D.C. at the earliest possible moment.”
Sitting in a high-backed chair in his small wood-paneled cabin, Bush began to sort through his thoughts about Haig’s message. His first concern, of course, was for the president’s health and safety; he also hoped that someone was comforting Nancy Reagan. As he tried to imagine how his responsibilities might change due to the crisis, the vice president remained calm. He felt prepared for this day. Yes, there was a brewing crisis in Poland, and yes, there were several other urgent items on the administration’s agenda. But the vice president had attended many of the president’s most important meetings, and he’d kept up with all the information in his briefing books. Bush felt confident that, if called upon, he could navigate the conflicting advice of aides and allies and make the necessary decisions.
By now, others on Air Force Two, including members of the vice president’s staff and three congressmen, were learning about the assassination attempt from a television in the plane’s conference room. Sitting on a couch and crowded around the kidney-shaped desk installed by President Johnson, they watched news reports on a black-and-white set mounted on a bulkhead. Information was still incomplete and scattered; TV reception was poor anyway, and the screen filled with static whenever the pilots used their radios. But when Frank Reynolds, a respected anchor at ABC News, assured his viewers that Reagan had escaped injury, everyone in the small room felt great relief.
“Mr. Reagan was not hit,” Reynolds reported. “He was bounced around as the Secret Service agents maneuvered or flung—I think is probably the right word—flung him into the car to get him out of there.” Sitting to Reynolds’s right was Sam Donaldson, who had come to the studio straight from the scene of the shooting.
Reynolds was handed a note on a yellow piece of paper. “Here we have a report,” he said as the broadcast cut to a replay of the shooting. “The president was not wounded.” When the camera returned to Reynolds, Donaldson could be seen leaning toward the anchorman, studying the piece of paper. Then Donaldson pointed at a word and said quietly, “He was.”
The anchor paused and looked at the paper again. “He was wounded!” Reynolds said, slapping his right hand to his forehead. “My God. The president was hit?” The question was directed to a producer off camera. “He’s in stable condition. All of this information … The president was hit. He was hit in the left chest, according to this. But he is in stable condition.”
After another pause, Reynolds continued. “The information we have been telling you is incorrect. We must redraw this entire tragedy in different terms. The president was hit today. He was hit in the left chest. But we are told he is all right. He is at George Washington University Hospital.”
* * *
ACROSS THE STREET from the hospital, Dr. Benjamin Aaron, head of GW’s cardiovascular and thoracic unit, was at his desk, filling out paperwork. His office, on the tenth floor of the building where the medical center’s physicians worked when not operating or on rounds, was entirely free of decoration. On the wall behind him, the shelves were filled with slide carousels and various medical books, including Grant’s Atlas of Anatomy, a classic text that he had picked up in a remainder pile back in medical school. The only personal touches, if they could be called that, were on the desk: a black coffee mug decorated with a bright red heart and a paperweight in the shape of a duck.
Aaron had returned to his office at about two p.m. Except for a short nap,