Details of Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme's failed attempt to assassinate former President Gerald Ford have come to light when a video of the former president testifying about his brush with the former Manson family member was released on Monday, according to the Associated Press.
On Sept. 5, 1975 Ford was on his way to the California State Capitol in Sacramento to meet with Gov. Jerry Brown, then serving his first term in office, when he was shaking hands with people who had lined up to see him. In the video Ford describes seeing a brightly dressed woman moving toward him apparently eager to meet him, then he saw a gun, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"The weapon was large," Ford said on the video. "Almost automatically, one of the Secret Service agents lunged, grabbed the hands and the weapon, and then I was pushed off."
The woman that Ford saw was Fromme. She was holding a loaded, semi-automatic, .45-caliber pistol that misfired although Fromme has said that she did was not trying to kill the president. Fromme, 26 at the time, was convicted of attempting to assassinate the president and was sentenced to life in prison, according to the Sacramento Bee.
"It fills in the last gap of the case and explains from the president's perspective what it was like to have someone attempt to assassinate you," Michael Vinding, secretary of the Eastern District Historical Society, told the Los Angeles Times.
On the video a judge can be heard saying that the video should not be released to the public in any manner other than portions to be used in court. Some of the copies of the tape were destroyed and the copy that was used in court was sealed. A federal judge ordered it released after lobbying by the Eastern District Historical Society.
Fromme was released from prison on parole after serving 34 years in 2009, three years after former President Gerald Ford had passed away from natural causes.
