Rawhide Down_ The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan - Del Quentin Wilber [9]
An agent’s job is grueling, primarily because it requires an extraordinary ability to focus and a tremendous tolerance for boredom. Parr spent hours standing in the vacant stairwell of a hotel because the president was speaking in a nearby ballroom; he guarded a steaming cornfield because the president was scheduled to fly overhead. He suffered through stomach-shredding flights in thunderstorms on windowless cargo jets because an armored limousine had to reach Ohio or California or Alabama ahead of the president. And he routinely walked next to the president out in the open, in the so-called kill zone, where at every second he had to be prepared to throw himself in front of a bomb or bullet.
In 1979, Parr was tapped to become the lead agent of President Carter’s detail. Though he no longer stood post in cornfields, he still spent plenty of time in the kill zone, and now it was his job to supervise the more than one hundred intense and highly trained men and women who shielded the world’s number one target. He did everything possible to ensure that they remained vigilant; as a consequence, many had trouble leaving work at the White House gates. At home, they inspected shadows in their garages; in restaurants, they insisted on sitting in the booth that faced the door so they could immediately spot a gunman. Burnout was common. But Parr loved his job; though the work was taxing, he found it gratifying.
On January 20, 1981, Parr defied the odds and led the inaugural procession to and from the Capitol. In the morning, he rode in the front seat of the presidential limousine that carried President Carter, President-elect Reagan, and two lawmakers from the White House to the inauguration. During the ceremony, on a temporary stage on the west steps of the Capitol, Parr sat just a few rows behind Carter. After the ceremony ended, Parr watched the outgoing president walk somberly away. Then Parr turned his head and with it the focus of his attention to the new president. As Reagan left the stage, Parr fell in right behind him.
Every president presents different challenges, but in the two months since the inauguration Parr had had little trouble adjusting to the habits and routines of his new charge. Yet, as he poked around his office on this gray March morning, Parr realized that he and the president still didn’t know each other well. Other senior agents had spent a lot of time with Reagan on the campaign trail or during the transition, but Parr had protected Carter in the months before and after the election. Since the inauguration, a number of agents had begun to form bonds with Reagan, who clearly enjoyed bantering with those protecting him. But Parr had been so busy with administrative duties that he hadn’t spent much time shadowing the president.
Checking the day’s schedule, Parr saw that Agent Johnny Guy, one of his deputies, was due to accompany Reagan to his speech at the Washington Hilton hotel that afternoon. Thinking that the trip might provide a good opportunity to get to know the president a little better, Parr went looking for Guy to tell him that he would take his place.
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AS MORNING LIGHT leaked into his drab hotel room, John W. Hinckley Jr. lay in bed, awake and anxious. The night before, he had gone to bed early, enormously tired after a grueling cross-country bus trip. But he hadn’t slept much, perhaps an hour at most. He’d been depressed for weeks, maybe months; for a while, he’d seen a psychiatrist, but it hadn’t helped. And now he couldn’t shake the feeling that the fabric of his life was finally rending.
Hinckley had arrived in Washington the previous afternoon. He’d found the Park Central in a phone book where the hotel advertised its “Low Rates, AAA approved,” and checked in as a “visiting student.” At $47 for the night—Hinckley paid cash—Room 312 wasn’t bad, with a television and decent furniture, but its brown carpet, brown-striped