KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
The University Daily
Tuesday, March 31, 1981 No. 91, No. 122 USPS 650-640
Reagan assassination attempt fails
President's operation successful
WASHINGTON - A young gunman ambushed President Reagan at close range yesterday and fired six shots—of them piercing the president's left lung just inches from his heart. Doctors removed the bullet during a two-hour operation and said Reagan would fully recover.
By United Press International
The would-be assassin, identified as John Warnock Hickley Jr., 25, of Evergreen, Colo., was tackled and pinned to the pavement before being whisked away in a police squad car. He was later charged with the attempted assassination.
THE SHOOTING STUNNED the world and a nation whose citizens seem unable to shake the stigma of seemingly mindless murder of public figures.
The six shots were fired outside a Washington hotel and crackled through a dismal rainfall before wounding presidential press secretary Robert F. Kennedy. Service agent and a Washington police officer.
Officials said that last fall during the presidential campaign Hincley had been fired.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who buried two assassinated brothers, including former President John F. Kennedy, the last president shot, deplored the incident: "Violence and the arrest of our country is about with our presidents must go our country to rid our society of violence and its cause."
But Reagan himself took the event in stride, joking with bystanders as he walked into the downtown hospital under his own power. At 8:50 p.m., he handed doctors in the recovery room a handwritten note paraphrasing W.C. Fields: "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia."
Doctors at George Washington University Hospital said the 70-year-old Reagan was an excellent physical specimen with the body of a 54-year-old woman who said the patient "sailed through" surgery.
The prognosis for complete recovery is "excellent," and Reagan should be able to resume presidential duties this morning from his hospital bed.
Vice President George Bush, who returned to Washington from Texas, said: "I can reassure this nation and a watching world that this nation is functioning fully and normally."
THE STUNNING MURDER attempt occurred outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, located about one mile from the White House. Reagan delivered a speech to a union convention at the hotel.
Waving and smiling, Reagan neared his bulletproof presidential limousine when the gunfire erupted. The grin on Reagan's face turned to frozen horror as a Secret Service agent shoved him into the car after one of six shots hit the president.
Pandemonium erupted. Bystanders screamed in horror. Automatic weapons were instantly drawn. The alleged assassin was buried immediately by a mass of agents.
The bloody bodies of Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and District of Columbia police officer Delahanty were swabbed on the rain-stain pavement.
An attorney for his family said Hinkley had a history of psychiatric care. Federal law enforcement officials said he was arrested last fall in Nashville, Tenn., for carrying firearms on the day then-President Carter made a campaign appearance in the city.
There was no immediate indication how a person once detained by authorities for such violations could have placed himself—without knowledge—into 22-caller handgun—about 10 feet from Reagan.
BRADY'S PROGNOSIS WAS grim. Doctors said a single bullet had entered his skull just over his right eye and passed through his brain. Hospital spokesman Dennis O'Leary said even if the 40-year-old press secretary lived, permanent brain damage was likely.
See REAGAN page 5
President Reagan
James Brady
Reagan's shooting startles Capitol Hill
Today will be slightly cooler with a high near 68 degrees, according to the KU Weather Service. Skies will remain mostly cloudy in the morning with a 30 percent chance for showers or thunder-showers.
Winds will be strong out of the south while shifting to the west and northward by afternoon.
WASHINGTON—The mood was as gray as the stormy weather as news of the assassination attempt on President Reagan swept through the halls on Capitol Hill.
Tomorrow will be clear with westerly winds and a high around 70 degrees.
The House and Senate went into recess immediately after hearing the news of the shooting. By 3:30 p.m., the halls of the Capitol, normally bustling at that hour, were nearly deserted
Weather
IN OFFICES throughout the three-building House office complex, staff members left their
See related stories page 2,5,6
"We've got to have something to tell our constituents," he said.
"We're not going to move from the TV set 'till we get final word on what happens to Reagan and Brady," said a legislative assistant in the office of Paul, Doug Walgreen, D-Penn.
work to huddle anxiously around their television and to field the torrent constituents' phone calls.
One caller screamed over the phone to the office of Les AuCoine, D-Doregon. "Now that the President has been shot, what are you planning to do about gun control?"
OTHER CALLERS were more subdued, but
equally upset.
"First John Lennon, now the president," another man said sadly.
District offices, where many congressmen remained over the weekend, took the brunt of the attack.
An AuCone district staff member said that the incoming phone lines had been busy since the story broke and that staff members could hardly keep up with requests for statements.
Confusion was rampant and rumors spread from mouth to mouth over Capitol Hill. No one seemed sure of the president's condition, or whether he'd been shot at all.
JIM RICHIE, a high school student from Jay, Okla., was in the Capitol this week for Washington Workshop, a program for high school students.
"We were in the Senate gallery, when Howard Baker came in and told us everything was fine.
"It must have been a roichet bullet," speculated one man. "How else could he have done it?"
but that the President had been hurt, and people were pretty quiet, but everyone was relieved.
"Then when we got out, they told us that the President had been shot. I could not believe it. No president was shot."
"At 70 he is a little old for that trauma, isn't
by 21°24' minutes to his marriage."
Underlying the speculation was an undercurrent of fear and anxiety.
ALTHOUGH REAGAN is politically an antigun regulation president, a spokesman for a pro-gun lobby group said there would probably be additional lobbying efforts for tighter gun control laws.
Rep. Peter Rodino, D-N.J., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he would press for a ban on "Saturday Night Specials" and require more detailed reporting of gun sales.
"1963 all over again," said her husband. "It's not safe to be president."
"I hasten to point out that it (the shooting) occurred in the jurisdiction which has the most restrictive handgun control laws in the United States," he said.
See CAPITOL page 5
'Quiet, friendly' Texan charged in shooting
By United Press International
WASHINGTON-John W. "Jack" Hinckley Jr., 25, a college dropout and drifter who has been under psychiatric care, was formally sent back into work with trying to assassinate President Reagan.
Authorities also disclosed that the husky, blind-brained suspect, who has been wandering around the country for the past several months, was arrested last fall for trying to board an airliner while carrying three handguns in a white, Teen, when President Carter was in town.
Hinckley, a native Texan described by acquaintances as "quiet and friendly", could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. He also received a $10 million federal agent Timothy McCarthy with a pistol.
The son of a wealthy Evergreen, Col. owl, Hinkley spent most of his life in Texas and, acquaintances said, became a looner in college. The leader of a neo-Nazi group in Chicago described Hinkley as an ex-member who was forced to "hear" he wanted to shoot people and blow things up.
SECURITY WAS heavy at the U.S. District
Court, where Hincley appeared at a preliminary hearing, ordered held until his conviction.
Hirickey, wearing a navy shirt and pants,
little认识男士。Yes 'er" during the
music was blushed himself.
JIM ROBINSON, an attorney for John W. Hinkley Stickle of Evergreen, Colo., issued a statement saying the younger Hinkley "had been under psychiatric care. However, the evaluations did not alert anyone to the seriousness of his condition."
The court hearing opened when court-appointed defense attorneys Stuart Johnson and Ed Wilde asked that the press be excluded from the proceedings with the prosecution, which opposed the motion.
FBI director William Webster, who attended the hearing, said Hincock was still in the FIB's custody and would be held in a "safe place" where he will remain for a psychiatric exam.
Robinson refused to answer any questions about the nature of Hickley's condition or his
Johnson declined to comment on his client's state of mind. "We don't want to do anything to you."
An FBI spokesman said Hinkley was interviewed at the FBI's Washington field office late yesterday afternoon. "All the information I received was that he was the only one," the spokeswoman said.
It was not known how long Hinkley had been in Washington. He was registered at the Park Central Hotel, opposite the Secret Service and about two blocks from the White House.
FIVE OR SIX shots were fired at Reagan as he walked out of the Washington Hilton Hotel, authorities said. The assault hit Reagan in the chest and White House press secretary James Brady in the head. He also wounded a Secret Service agent and a police officer.
A man later identified as Hinkley was wrestled to the ground by Secret Service agents and police officers and taken to metropolitan police headquarters for questioning
The assailant's weapon was a 22-caliber recoil-controlled pistol mounted at the scene and turned over to the FB1 authority.
Service agents and local law officers
See HINCKLEY page 5.
See HINCKLEY page 5
Brady alive still listed as 'critical'
By United Press International
WASHINGTON- White House press secretary James Brady, shot through the brain in a presidential assassination attempt yesterday, said of the attack: "certainly better," outlook with beliered earlier.
"The prognosis is 'certainly better at this moment than it was earlier this afternoon,'"
Lyn Nofziger, presidential assistant for political affairs, returned to the White House from the hospital to brief reporters on his discussion with Brady's surgeon, Arthur Kobrine, professor of neurosurgery at George Washington University Medical Center.
"Jim came out of surgery at about 8:15 p.m. His vital signs are stable. His pupillary reflexes—those are the reflexes of his pupils in his eyes—are normal. Dr. Kobrane thinks there may be some impairment, but he doesn't know what is going on, nor will he be able to know for sure sometime."
Nofzaker had he took the opportunity to speak with Brady and rumors running around" about Brady's outlook.
He said Brady's condition remained critical, but the doctor "feels better about" his chances. Dennis O'Leary, dean of clinical affairs at the George Washington University Hospital, had said at a news conference while the surgery still was under way that the bullet had gone through Brady's brain and "obviously (caused) a significant brain injury."
"Permanent damage is likely," O'Leary said. He said Brady was undergoing a craniotomy, a procedure in which surgeons open the skull and attempt to remove brain tissue that is irreparably damaged while trying to "salvage as much as you can."
The president, O'Leary said, was not told of Brady's very critical condition. Reagan had emerged from surgery to remove a bullet from his lany only minutes before.
BRADY WAS standing beside President Reagan when he would-be assassin John Wanock Hinckley Jr, opened fire and wounded the police officer in a secret Service agent and a Washington policeman.
Earlier, the three television networks quoted
White House official David Prosperi as saying
Brady was dead. Shortly thereafter, spokesman
Speaks told reporters that report was
wrote
The 40-year-old Brady was standing at the president's side when the shots rang out. He fell immediately and lay face down on the sidewalk in a cool, light rain until the ambulance arrived.
Brady's amiability and wry wit endeared him to reporters. It was he who, during the last days of the Reagan campaign, quipped "killer trees, the burning plane flow over a burning forest in Louisiana.
BRADY AND HIS wife have a 2-year-old son, scotty. Brady also has a daughter, Miley. 18, brady is a graduate of the university.
Brady, who had worked for John Connally's presidential campaign, joined Reagan's press staff, headed by Nofziger, after Connally's campfolded. He was Reagan's chief spokesman during the transition after Nofziger resigned.
A veteran of Washington government service and politics, he spent the first two months of the new administration successfully walking the streets to meet President and apparent openness with reporters.
It was an irreverent reference to candidate
teagan's remark that trees can cause air
pollution.
A week ago, Reagan attended a roast for Brady, hosted by old friends at the George Town Club. Between the jokes, Reagan had some kind words for his press secretary.
Taking note of the myriad of friends honoring Brady, Reagan said, "I think this is born out of a respect and affection that is widespread among these people and which you have earned."
Lack of library funds becoming serious, profs say
By CINDY CAMPBELL
Staff Reporter
The University of Kansas Library is "on the brink of a major crisis" in its funding for book and journal purchases—a crisis that will hurt KU research and instruction, 41 distinguished KU
In a resolution to the Faculty Council and the University administration, the professors said
See related story page 6
that the library budget of $1,719,387 was insufficient. They also expressed concern over the 5.5 percent increase now under consideration by the Kansas legislature.
"Clearly," the resolution read, "the University library is facing a crisis which, if not its ability to support research and instruction.
IN THE LAST DECADE, the average price of U.S. journal subscriptions has tripped and the average price of newspapers has fallen.
For the highly specialized mixture of scholarly, technical and foreign publications the KU library purchases, the increase has been even greater, the professors say.
Rampant inflation and lack of funds have already forced the library to cancel 800 journal subscriptions and to buy nearly 1,500 fewer books. Todd Sheldon, collection development librarian.
If acquisitions fund increase by 5.5 percent, Sheldon said, 1,900 more journal subscriptions and 2,000 fewer books will be purchased next year.
WILLIAM COIL, chairman of the University
Senate Library Committee and professor of systems and engineers, with concern in concern to the University of Kangasai.
"Funds for acquisitions are not adequate." Coil said, "and the stage is being set for a loss of resources so essential for the productivity of the University community.
"Historically, such neglect in the past resulted in blank spots which have never been filled."
- Certainly acquisition of equipment for graduate and undergraduate instruction
"The plight of the library, then, should be the concern of all scholars. Neglect now by the state or by University administrators will result in irreparable harm to KU collections."
JERRY HUTCHISON, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, agreed with the professors and librarians. But, he said, the University also had other areas of financial
library materials are the high priorities as far as I'm concerned." Hutchison said.
"Everybody else is faced with the same inflation the libraries are talking about," Hein said. "KU can cut back on other things. They may have to buy a cheaper brand of toilet paper."
"I'm just not convinced that there isn't still some fat in the KU budget. To raise it just to buy some books for KU doesn't strike me as a reasonable request."
Hein said that because KU was a non-profit organization, there were other options to raise the money. "I suggest that all 41 of those professors sign a fund-raising petition to be sent to all alumni. I'm sure they could raise a substantial sum that way," he said.