"Rawhide Down"

El próximo 30 de marzo se cumplen tres décadas exactas del intento de asesinato del Presidente Ronald Reagan a las puertas del Hotel Hilton International de Washington DC. Con motivo del aniversario ha salido un libro titulado "Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan" (Rawhide era el nombre en clave de Reagan) que cuenta cómo el Servicio Secreto salvó la vida del Presidente al tomar la decisión de desviar la limusina al hospital, porque perdió más sangre de lo que se contó, y en caso de haberse dirigido a la Casa Blanca podría haber muerto. Desvela que llegó a sufrir un colapso poco después de su llegada al hospital, y que el personal del hospital recibió órdenes de mentir a los medios sobre su verdadero estado para no alarmar a la población.

Os dejo un pequeño fragmento del libro, publicado ayer en el Wall Street Journal. Es la narración de los minutos posteriores al tiroteo, desde que el Presidente ha sido empujado dentro de la limusina por el agente Jerry Parr hasta que llegan al hospital.

(...) As the president's limousine hurtled away from the Hilton, Jerry Parr glanced out the Lincoln's rear window. He counted three men down and wondered who had been hit. Turning, he noticed the telltale marks of a projectile's impact on the right rear door's bulletproof window. Parr had no idea what was happening. Was this a terrorist attack? Was the world at war? It occurred to him that he might have been hurt too, but he gave himself a quick once-over and decided he was fine. He took a deep breath, turned to the president, and helped him into the limousine's right rear seat. Reagan sat slumped forward—he looked like an exhausted basketball player taking a breather on the bench.

"Were you hit?" Parr asked.

"No, I don't think so," Reagan said. "I think you hurt my chest when you landed on top of me."

Parr quickly examined Reagan's mouth and nose for damage or obstructions, then ran his hands along the president's white shirt and through his hair. He felt nothing unusual. He inspected his own hands. No blood. Thank God, he thought.

Parr fumbled for the radio strapped to his belt, but it wasn't there. In the scramble for the car, it had been ripped away from his earpiece and sleeve microphone. Parr swiveled to the limousine's driver, Drew Unrue. "Give me the radio."

Unrue handed him the microphone, its cord connected to the dashboard.

"Rawhide is OK, follow-up," Parr radioed agent Ray Shaddick in the follow-up car. "Rawhide is OK."

"You want to go to the hospital or back to the White House?" Shaddick asked.

"We're going, we're going to Crown," Parr said, using the code name for the White House.

"OK," Shaddick replied.

A few seconds later, Parr turned back to Reagan. Despite his assurance that he was all right, the president looked as if he was in pain.

"I think you hurt my rib," he growled. "I'm having trouble breathing."

"Is it your heart?" Parr asked.

"I don't think so," Reagan replied.

Reagan was pressing his left arm hard against his chest. Reaching into his right jacket pocket, he pulled out a paper napkin that he'd taken from the hotel's holding room. He wiped it on his lips. When he pulled the napkin away, it was coated in blood.

"I think I cut the inside of my mouth," the president said.

Half kneeling, half sitting in the speeding limousine, Parr leaned in and studied the napkin. Then he spotted more blood on the president's lips.

* * *

Hunched forward in the driver's seat, with the limousine's sirens wailing and its hood-mounted flags flapping in the wind, Drew Unrue tried to keep calm and alert as they sped down Connecticut Avenue. There was no traffic—D.C. police had shut down all the intersections in anticipation of the president's departure from the Hilton.

Unrue's big worry, though, was that he would hit something. As they sped away from the hotel, he had swerved just in time to avoid crashing into a stalled police car. Then, as they raced down Connecticut Avenue, a woman pushed a stroller into their path. Unrue dodged left, barely missing her. "Don't hit anything," Unrue kept repeating to himself. "Don't make this worse."

It didn't help that they were alone. They'd pulled away from the Hilton so fast that they'd left the rest of the motorcade behind. Unrue checked the rearview mirror again but still didn't see the follow-up car.

He forced his mind to slow down. This was the most important drive of his life, and he could not afford to make a mistake.

He scanned the road ahead and then took another quick look in the rearview mirror. This time he spotted both the spare limousine and the black follow-up car, both racing to catch the Lincoln. At least he was no longer alone.

A few moments later, the spare limousine and the follow-up car drew up behind them. Unrue saw two agents, their Uzis drawn, clinging to the armored Cadillac's running boards. About a mile from the Hilton, the Cadillac raced ahead and settled in behind the president's limousine in its proper spot.

Washington police officers were not far behind, and soon at least one squad car and several motorcycles sped ahead of the Secret Service vehicles, taking the lead. The president now had a makeshift motorcade.

* * *

In the back of the limousine, Jerry Parr continued to examine the president. Not only was his face gray, his lips seemed a little blue. Clearly Reagan had been hurt in some way—was his rib broken? And whatever his injury, could it be treated by doctors at the White House?

Parr spun quickly through his options, wondering whether they should return to the White House or head straight to the nearest hospital. But what if the assassination attempt was part of a coordinated attack? What if there were other assassins out there? In that case, the White House was the safest place on earth, and that was where he should go. Besides, if he decided to take the president to a hospital and he hadn't been seriously injured, the visit might unnecessarily panic the country or trigger a financial crisis. Moreover, the hospital wouldn't be guarded, so he would be putting the president at great risk, especially if co-conspirators were lurking there, waiting, if need be, to finish the job.

Still, what if Reagan was badly injured? Going to the White House could be disastrous; they'd be much better off at the nearest trauma center, in this case the one at George Washington University Hospital.

Parr weighed the two options. Neither seemed particularly good.

He looked again at the president. Having soaked the napkin with blood, Reagan was now pressing his handkerchief to his lips. Parr examined the blood more closely. He noted that it looked frothy, which meant that it was probably oxygenated and coming from the president's lungs. This was no cut lip—the president had likely suffered some kind of lung injury.

"I think we should go to the hospital," Parr told Reagan.

"OK," said the president.

Parr turned forward and hollered at Unrue. "Get us to George Washington as fast as you can."

* * *

As the motorcade neared GW, Unrue asked Parr if they should head the wrong way around the traffic circle in front of the hospital to save time. "No, go around the circle," Parr said. He didn't want to risk crashing into oncoming traffic.

Tires squealing, the Lincoln sped around the circle and jerked to a stop in front of the emergency-room doors, its right side facing the hospital entrance.

Parr looked out the window. No one was outside waiting for them.

The two agents with Uzis jumped from the running boards of the follow-up car, and Ray Shaddick leaped from its passenger seat. Shaddick opened the back right door of the presidential limousine; Parr slipped past the president and got out first, then put his hand out for the president. Reagan shook his head, as if to say "I can do it myself."

I guess he wants to be a cowboy, Parr thought, reassured that the president seemed to be strong enough to get out of the limousine under his own power.

A moment later presidential aides Mike Deaver and David Fischer, who had been trailing the limousine in another car, moved quickly toward the Lincoln.

Reagan climbed out of the limousine and stood up. The president steadied himself and hitched up his pants, a reflex that Deaver and Fischer had seen hundreds of times.

So far, so good, thought Deaver.

Fischer felt less sanguine: He thought Reagan looked sick and gray. But Fischer could see that his boss was determined to walk unaided through the ER doors.

Parr took a position to the president's left, Shaddick to his right. Others stood nearby while an agent went ahead to run interference and scout for trouble in the hospital's hallway.

Surrounded by his guards, the president shuffled uneasily through the hospital's sliding glass doors. It was 2:30 p.m. (...)