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

When Sara Moore took aim at President Ford, I was yet to be born 5 years later in Europe. Even after living in the San Francisco Bay Area for a few years, I knew very little about the assassination attempt, until I came across this book that shed light onto the events from the many perspectives of the police, FBI, media, Sara Moore, her acquaintances and even the author. Equally fascinating to me was the unexpected content of the book. Geri Spieler introduces the reader to the many radical left movements in the Bay Area of the 70s that played a big part in Sara Moore's life. I don't know where else I would have been able to experience this historical time in such an authentic way. The second unexpected gain reading this book provided was the chance to see inside the heavily convoluted mind of Sara Moore, who when interacted with for only short periods of time, must have appeared completely normal. It made me aware of the many other 'Sara Moore's' that must be out there, that we interact with daily, and just maybe will, maybe will not cause harm one day. For the way this book brought my attention to topics that I would have otherwise missed, it gets my definite recommendation and 5 stars.

Full blow by blow description of the event and the planning involved. Remarkable journalistic project taking years of research. Should get a PhD for scholarly research as well a medal for putting up with Sarah. Ten stars!

In "Taking Aim at the President," author Geri Spieler has skillfully woven together the twin strands of the personal (a disaffected suburban housewife) and the political (the radical groups in 1970s San Francisco with which she becomes involved). Spieler met Sara Jane Moore shortly after her arrest and incarceration for shooting at President Gerald Ford outside a San Francisco hotel in 1975. There began a relationship of nearly 30 years, conducted through correspondence and occasional meetings in prison. Spieler did extensive research to uncover what brought Moore to that fateful day. What she delivers is the finely-told story of a woman who becomes unmoored from past and her family (Moore divorces her husband and abandons her children), and moves to San Francisco where she finds some sense of belonging in the radical Left. Moore vacillates in her allegiances, from the FBI for which she serves as an informant, to the political groups she had been assigned to infiltrate. Moore seems insecure, unstable, struggling to belong -- and through her story we get a vision of the era as equally unsettled, and unsettling. Forming the background are SDS, the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, the SLA and the Patricia Hearst kidnapping, and the FBI's COINTELPRO efforts to undermine these and other organizations. Spieler's book is a remarkable portrait of a woman and her times. It is sure to interest students of modern U.S. history and the radical Left.

Reading this book felt like I was reading a novel. The story line is fast paced and the characterization of Ms. Moore is quite in depth. The mystery surrounding her remarkable behavior is quite amazing. The fact that she came so close to actually assassinating President Ford, and that she was off by only 6 inches due to a faulty sighting mechanism is a detail that few knew at the time of her attempt. I also find it quite interesting that she was an informant for the FBI as well as Randolph Hearst. The story of her involvement in, and conversion to the radical underground of the time presents perhaps the most provocative and bizarre aspects of this fascinating story.

Taking Aim at the President: The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Shot at Gerald Ford It's interesting that there are more books and movies about the late sixties and seventies these days. Fortunately these materials are no longer about the hippies and drugs. How refreshing. And now we have yet another "look back" at the seventies. Except this "look back" is written from a personal relationship with the subject. For that reason alone, Taking Aim is in a league all it's own. This is a view of seventies San Francisco that is personal and all too real. Without the Spieler/Moore relationship, I'm not sure I would have cared about Moore's antics. Yet, because of it, I cared a lot. Seen through the eyes of this young mother accidentally linked up by chance to this odd-ball would-be assassin made the book a fascinating read. The crazy twists and turns of political San Francisco as the backdrop of Sara Jane Moore's distorted reality were well placed. The details about people and specific events are powerful. This is original work and information about San Francisco I never knew. If Spieler did her homework as well as it seems, I learned some surprising things about an era I thought I knew so well? I recommend this book. It covers brand new ground and reads well.