Behind the Photos: the Attempted Assassination of President Reagan Revisited
Behind the Photos: the Attempted Assassination of President Reagan Revisited
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Of the first frame he made of the President, Edmonds recalled: "Just as I got ready to press the shutter down and take the picture, he waved, [and] the first shot rang out. I didn't know they were shots initially — they sounded like firecrackers. I saw him grimace, and that's when I pushed the shutter down, and I held it down."Ron Edmonds—AP
Thirty years ago today, Ron Edmonds was on his second day as White House photographer covering President Ronald Reagan for the Associated Press. Edmonds had photographed much of Reagan’s presidential campaign the year before, and the two knew each other well.
That day, Edmonds had been photographing the president giving a speech inside the Washington Hilton Hotel, and after the speech was over, he rushed outside to get a shot of the President waving to the crowd before getting into his limousine. “That day was the first day I was going to cover him where he was President of the United States,” Edmonds says. “I’d photographed him thousands of times getting in and out of a limousine, but never with a Presidential seal.”
Edmonds had the camera to his eye when the President started to wave, and as would-be assassin John Hinckley, Jr., fired his gun, Edmonds made the famous sequence of three images that would be published around the world. “Sometimes you make your own luck, and I just happened to be at the right place at the right time and ready when this happened,” he recalled. “The most important job is to watch the President. I did everything I was supposed to do.”
As an AP staff photographer, Edmonds did not own the negatives or the copyright to the photographs he had made. “I have never seen all of the negatives. I couldn’t tell you how many outtakes there are.” So unlike some freelance photographers at the scene, Edmonds did not make much extra money from his employers. “I got a $50 a week merit raise,” he says.
Initially, Edmonds was convinced he had upset his employers because he had failed to get a picture of Hinckley. When Edmonds returned to the office, he was told to call the head of the AP, and he assumed the worst. On only the second day of his six-month probation as a new hire, he feared he would be let go. Instead he was told, “You nailed it, kid,” and “We’re lifting your probation — we’re going to keep you.”
Of the first frame he made of the President, Edmonds recalled: "Just as I got ready to press the shutter down and take the picture, he waved, [and] the first shot rang out. I didn't know they were shots initially — they sounded like firecrackers. I saw him grimace, and that's when I pushed the shutter down, and I held it down."Ron Edmonds—APReagan looks in the direction of the noise. "We almost didn't get up there," Edmonds recalled. "I just barely got up to the car when he came out the door. Another probably 10 seconds later and I would have missed the whole sequence."Ron Edmonds—APOf the sequence of five images from this angle, only the first three show Reagan's face. Within a couple of seconds, a secret service agent had pushed him into the limousine. Of his ability to capture this sequence, Edmonds is straightforward: "If you didn't have your camera to your face you were going to miss [it]. It was so quick you couldn't have gotten your camera up to your eye quick enough to shoot it."Ron Edmonds—APIt is a common misconception due to Reagan's expression in the first frame that he is reacting to being shot, when in fact it was only the sixth and last bullet that struck him. Here, secret service agent Tim McCarthy (right) reacts to being struck with the fifth bullet. Reagan was likely struck somewhere between this frame and the next one.Ron Edmonds—AP"I'd love to stand here and tell you that I kept shooting through this hail of gunfire, but the reality was the gunfire was over in 1.9 seconds — six shots," said Edmonds. "I happened to be in the right place, was ready at the moment that an unusual thing happened. I did what I was supposed to do and what I'd been trained to do."Ron Edmonds—APPress Secretary James Brady lies shot in front of a scrum of police and secret service agents wrestling with would-be assassin John Hinckley, Jr. "It wasn't until the car sped away that I saw the agent and everybody else lying on the ground. It was in that split second that I realized what had gone on," Edmonds admitted. Ron Edmonds—APIf chance played a small part in the making of the initial sequence, it did so in the subsequent pictures, too. "One of the best things to happen to me was the fact that our car did not stop for us. When the motorcade took off, they just left. If they had stopped, I know to this day what I would have done. My job was to stay with the President. I would have had to jump in that car and leave that whole scene, and wouldn't have made all the aftermath pictures."Ron Edmonds—APMcCarthy, officer Tom Delehanty and Brady all lay on the ground after being shot, as agents overwhelmed Hinckley. Of this other prize-winning frame, Edmonds recalled: "To me, [this] is one of the best pictures I made of the event, not having the President in it, that really kind of told the story. The reason that I got this picture is I was able to go around two [secret service] agents I had worked with and [they] kind of left me alone. I was able to stay out there for a little while until they pushed me out. It's not always clicking the shutter if you can't get there to click the shutter."Ron Edmonds—APAgents and aides continued to wrestle with Hinckley and attend to Brady and the other victims as bystanders and press looked on.Ron Edmonds—APA police officer (left) points to Hinckley's gun.Ron Edmonds—APMcCarthy is put into an ambulance by his colleagues. Edmonds has few regrets about the work he did that day. Recalling technical limitations of shooting film, he offered one lament. "Looking back on it, I wish I would have shot a lot more images of what was going on. You're conserving [film] because you don't want to come to the end of a roll of film and a big thing happens."Ron Edmonds—AP
