Rawhide Down_ The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan - Del Quentin Wilber [97]
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AFTER LYN NOFZIGER’S second appearance in front of the media, he went looking for a doctor at the hospital who could speak to the press after the president came out of surgery. Nofziger ruled out Dan Ruge, the White House physician, because reporters might suspect him of downplaying the seriousness of the president’s condition. He also didn’t want to turn to the surgeons who had operated on Reagan: they might be too tired and too emotional to handle the harsh media spotlight. Several doctors at GW told Nofziger that Dr. Dennis O’Leary, a hospital administrator, had some experience with the press.
Nofziger found O’Leary in his office and introduced himself. “So,” Nofziger said, “who is going to do this, going to brief the press? There is a lot of media over there and somebody has got to talk to them.” Nofziger let his words hang for a moment as he stared at O’Leary.
“Who, me?” O’Leary asked. “You mean there is nobody else?”
“There’s nobody else.”
After persuading O’Leary that he was up to the job, Nofziger told him, “You have to be prepared to answer every stupid question these guys can dream up. And, by the way, be yourself.”
O’Leary, in fact, knew quite a bit about reporters. His father had been a correspondent for Sports Illustrated, and in his current job as dean of clinical affairs at GW Medical Center—an assignment that put him in charge of all patient-related issues at the center’s hospital and medical school—O’Leary dealt with journalists fairly frequently. Confident and poised, he didn’t back down from arguments and often deployed his dry wit as a weapon.
Before the press conference, O’Leary was briefed by the surgeons who had operated on the president. Then he asked Nofziger if there was anything he should be careful about mentioning.
“Just tell the truth,” Nofziger said.
During the five-minute walk from the hospital to the medical school, O’Leary sketched out his opening statement in his mind. It would be short and to the point, a straightforward description of Reagan’s current condition.
At 7:30 p.m., after a brief introduction by Nofziger, O’Leary stepped to the podium in Room 101 of Ross Hall, where he usually taught a class on hematology. But instead of respectful medical students, he faced scores of reporters, photographers, and television cameramen. The television lights nearly blinded him, but he could see that the noisy crowd was so big it barely squeezed into the spacious classroom. He felt as though he’d landed on Mars.
“The president is in the recovery room,” O’Leary began. “He is in stable condition and he is awake.”
The rest of the brief statement was accurate except in one instance. O’Leary said that the president “was at no time in any serious danger,” which was clearly incorrect. If Jerry Parr hadn’t decided to redirect the limousine from the White House to the hospital, Reagan would likely have died; if Reagan had arrived in GW’s emergency room even five or ten minutes later, his chances of survival would have been slim. But in O’Leary’s defense, he had not been told what had transpired during Reagan’s most perilous moments in the ER.
When responding to questions from reporters, however, O’Leary’s answers were sometimes wrong. To a shouted query about transfusions given to the president, O’Leary understated the amount of blood Reagan received by three units, an important difference. Then he understated the amount of blood loss by about 1.5 liters. If medical experts had heard the truth about how much blood Reagan had lost and how much had been replaced, they might have raised serious questions about the severity of the president’s injuries.
In response to another question, O’Leary said the bullet “was really not very close to any vital structure,” and added that it was