Rawhide Down_ The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan - Del Quentin Wilber [94]
Since arriving at the FBI’s Washington field office an hour and a half earlier, Hinckley spent most of the time sitting in a small white interview room containing a few chairs and a plain desk. Hinckley had been read his rights by the D.C. police, but FBI agents decided to read them to him again. Hinckley now agreed to talk, on condition that he could first speak to his parents. Agents made call after call in a fruitless attempt to get them on the phone.
Though unable to reach the Hinckleys at their home in Colorado, the FBI decided just before seven p.m. to make another attempt to get the suspect to open up.
The first agent to sit with Hinckley in the interview room was George Chmiel, who was among the field office’s most aggressive and thorough agents. Chmiel had been concerned all afternoon about possible accomplices, and he had been reluctant to agree with other investigators who believed that Hinckley was a troubled loner.
Pulling a chair close to the small desk and taking a seat, Chmiel brought his face to within six inches of Hinckley’s. “John,” he said, speaking softly, “I really need to know something. Were you acting alone or were others involved?”
Hinckley remained quiet for a few seconds. “No,” he said finally. “No one else was involved.”
Chmiel believed him.
After Chmiel left the room to brief his supervisors about his conversation with Hinckley, it was Agent Henry Ragle’s turn. Ragle, a dogged investigator who liked to wear tailored suits and starched shirts, recalled that, earlier, Hinckley had seemed curious about the Secret Service; as he was being taken into custody at police headquarters, Hinckley asked Ragle why the FBI and not the Secret Service was arresting him. Ragle explained that the Secret Service was charged with protection, but the FBI handled investigations into actual incidents. Now, thinking about how he might get his suspect to talk, Ragle decided that having a Secret Service agent in the interview room might encourage Hinckley to loosen up. Ragle asked Stephen Colo, the agent who was serving as liaison between the two federal agencies, to participate in the session. Colo was happy to oblige.
Ragle and Colo entered the interview room. The FBI agent began by telling Hinckley that the bureau still hadn’t been able to reach his parents; for now, Ragle said, he merely wanted to ask some background questions. When Hinckley didn’t object, Ragle launched a string of terse queries, most of them calling only for a yes or no.
Within minutes, Colo could see that the interview was going nowhere. Hinckley was defensive, perhaps because Ragle—who was more accustomed to questioning bank robbers—seemed to be grilling him. Colo took Ragle aside in a corner of the room and suggested that since he, Colo, had plenty of experience with disturbed people outside the White House, he might be able to get somewhere with Hinckley. Ragle agreed to let him try.
Colo took a seat directly across from Hinckley, who’d been brought a fast-food hamburger and a Coca-Cola. With Ragle sitting next to him, Colo used a personal history form as a guide and began asking a series of questions that delved into Hinckley’s background. Hinckley seemed to like the new approach and began to provide more complete answers. He wasn’t married, he said, but he had a brother and a sister, and his sister had two small children. He had studied at Texas Tech but dropped out because of medical problems; he had also attended writing school at Yale University. (The two agents heard this as “riding school.”) His parents had recently given him an ultimatum to “clean up his act