Taking Aim at the President: The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Shot at Gerald Ford

Geri Spieler

St. Martin's Press, Dec 23, 2008 - History - 256 pages

Winner of the 2009 San Francisco Book Festival Award (Wild Card category)

"I'm not sorry I tried...if successful, the assassination...just might have triggered the kind of chaos that could have started the upheaval of change." --Sara Jane Moore in 1976

Journalist Geri Spieler met would-be assassin Sara Jane Moore while she was in prison; Taking Aim at the President is based on over two decades of interviews as well as independant research. Spieler follows Moore's actions from her childhood in a small West Virginia town to her release from prison in December 2007. Moore's life was never conventional, and along the way she entered and dropped out of the military, was married five times, and was both a political radical and an FBI informant. Focusing on the complex psychology and motivations of a quintessentially desperate housewife and the only woman to ever fire a bullet at an American president, Spieler delivers a nuanced portrait of an elusive person and a fascinating glimpse back at a turbulent period in American history.

Contents

• Acknowledgments: 9
• Prologue: 13
• The Girl Who Disappeared: 19
• The Unhappy Housewife: 31
• The Doctors Wife: 41
• Changing Times: 53
• San Franciscos Radical Underground: 69
• The Wouldbe Activist: 79
• The Accountant: 85
• Federal Stranglehold: 93
• Fired: 103
• The Spy: 113
• The Mission: 121
• Doubling: 129
• Hunted: 137
• Testing Security: 147
• The Unlikely Assassin: 153
• I Acted Alone: 159
• Guilty: 165
• Making a Statement: 177
• The Prisoner: 185
• Settling In and Becoming Queen: 195
• Solitary: 205
• Appendix: 223
• Bibliography: 237

About the author

Geri Spieler is an investigative journalist and award-winning speaker. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Forbes. She has a strong professional relationship with her subject, Sara Jane Moore, who she has visited and interviewed in prison for the last thirty years.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Taking Aim at the President: The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Shot at Gerald Ford
• Author: Geri Spieler
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2008
• ISBN: 0230621848, 9780230621848
• Length: 256 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Presidents & Heads of State; History / United States / 20th Century