reviews

SF Gate.com Steve Weinberg, Special to The Chronicle

On Sept. 22, 1975, a seemingly unremarkable 45-year-old named Sara Jane Moore shot at President Gerald Ford in San Francisco. She missed, but only by about 6 inches. Wrestled to the ground and disarmed, Moore insisted she was not insane, refused a trial and pleaded guilty.

Because I am 60 years old, I remember the assassination attempt well and figured decades ago that I knew enough vital information about the shooting and about Moore herself to move on to other topics. Spieler's book shows the error of my thinking. It provides two fascinating, disturbing threads that I'd either long forgotten or never knew.

Drawn to San Francisco, she became radicalized politically during the early 1970s. Moore seemed to sincerely believe in the critiques of numerous groups at odds with authority. Yet, simultaneously, she became an undercover informant for the San Francisco Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Talk about truth being stranger than fiction!

Brothers Judd Book Review

Ms Spieler's story benefits greatly from the deeply dysfunctional social milieu in which Sara Jane Moore found herself in the Bay Area of the 70s. People recognized that she was unreliable but still she was able to navigate this world. More troubling, her handlers in law enforcement realized how unstable she was but continued to use her and failed to prevent her assassination attempt even though SFPD Inspector Jack O'Shea specifically warned that she might be planning such an attempt.

Ms Spieler wraps her arms around what Sara Jane Moore's motivations were. She provides what will likely be the authoritative account of the assassination and Moore's life. And if this window on the '70s reminds us of why we loathe them so, it also fills in some gaping holes in our historical knowledge. It's an altogether worthwhile read.

Good Books

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 independent research. . 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.

From Alan Weisman
author of Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather

It is the obligation of the thoughtful journalist to tell us something meaningful that we don't already know. In Taking Aim at the President, Geri Spieler is more than up to the task. The byzantine tale of Sara Jane Moore's double, triple and quadruple lives, with so many bizarre groups -- including the federal government -- exploiting her vulnerabilities, is the stuff of Hollywood fiction. The fact that it's all true, and told with precision by Spieler, raises Sara Jane's story to something significantly more than a footnote to history.

From Publishers Weekly

Moore assumed varied personas, a skill she first displayed as an actress in high school. Despite three decades of contact with Moore, Spieler admits she still cannot explain what led Moore to attempt to kill Ford. But Spieler offers a portrait of an erratic, unstable woman with a protean capacity to shift identities, with the 1960s and '70s as a dramatic backdrop.

Fans of true crime accounts or contemporary history will savor this portrait of the first woman to make an assassination attempt on an American president.

From James Dalessandro
Screenwriter and Author of 1906: a novel

Geri Spieler has done a marvelous job of unraveling the events surrounding one of the most bizarre events in American history, Sara Jane Moore's attack on Gerald Ford.

From Carl Stern, JD
Professor of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University, and former NBC News correspondent

A well-written, fascinating story about an inexplicable moment in American History.

From Frank Baldwin
Author of Jack & Mimi: A Novel and Balling the Jack

Sara Jane Moore is a compelling figure. Willful, stubborn, frustrating. For the first time, we realize what this woman was capable of. She managed to charm an Academy-Award winning Hollywood player into marriage; and gain the confidence of Randolph Hearst. She's truly an enigma, and the story of her transformation into a violent revolutionary is riveting. Just an amazing era. Geri Spieler has been a fine tour guide through it.

Hiya Swanhuyser,
Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009, SF Weekly

Did you know? Because we didn't: In 1975, 45-year-old Sara Jane Moore became the only woman ever to fire a bullet at a U.S. president. What's more, she did it in San Francisco, right in front of the St. Francis Hotel. (Epilogue: She was paroled early last year.) In Taking Aim at the President: The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Shot at Gerald Ford, author and onetime Moore confidante Geri Spieler draws a fairly straightforward map of the facts. Moore was intensely crazy in a million ways, but the story is written in the voice of a trained and responsible journalist, not a tabloid screech. Moore was deeply involved in a number of Bay Area groups — but otherwise, the book is pretty hard to put down.