Opening Day Auction Closing May 9th
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/10/2015
On September 22, 1975 amateur photographer and history buff Terence J. Cox saw history in the making. Doing what any aspiring photographer would do - point and shoot - Cox managed to capture the attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford. Just 17 days after another crazed assassin and Manson devotee Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme made an attempt on Ford's life, Sara Jane Moore made another attempt to kill the 38th President. Moore was a mother of four, five time divorced accountant who reinvented herself as a counter-culture revolutionary. When her radical pals found out the FBI employed her as an informant to help with the Patty Hearst kidnapping they turned their backs on her. Moore's plan to assassinate the President was a last-ditch effort to get back into the good graces of her radical friends. Moore was waiting for the President outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco with Terence Cox standing a mere 10 feet away. The first shot from her .38 missed and the second was deflected by a former U.S. Marine who was standing in the crowd. Quickly subdued by the crowd, Moore was disarmed and arrested.
The value of this archive is in Cox's two original photos signed by Ford taken moments before the shots rang out like firecrackers. One photo is 8x10 and inscribed "To Terry Cox, best wishes, Gerald R. Ford" and then is signed again. The other photo is an 8 x 10 color photo again signed by Ford. This one is mounted to brown matting with a plaque at the bottom. It can be easily removed without harming the photo.
This assassination attempt archive also includes: four 8 x 10 black and white pictures of the scene that day after the shooting happened, three 3.5 x 5 color pictures of that fateful day moments after the shooting, three newspaper clippings and a TLS on White House stationery dated November 17, 1976 to Mr. Cox. The letter is auto penned and then signed above it. In part the letter reads, "Dear Mr. Cox: . . . Long after the hard work and hurried pace of these past weeks are forgotten, I will remember the generous encouragement and goodwill which were extended to me and my entire family by our fellow Americans. It has been a tremendous honor to serve the people of our great country, and I will never forget this wonderful privilege." The letter comes with the original transmittal envelope. Also included is Ford's signature while he was a Representative for the Michigan's 5th district signed "Rep. Gerald R. Ford Jr." in ballpoint pen. Ford has signed a photocopy of a newspaper article on the assassination attempt. Along with two 8 x 10 white House issued color photos of Ford signed in autopen is a March 18, 1976 letter on White House stationery to Cox signed by Mildred Leonards, Ford's assistant, explaining auto penned signatures. After serving 32 years for her failed attempt on Ford's life, Sara Jane Moore was paroled in 2007. This is the most important and most complete archive ever assembled documenting the attempted assassination of the 38th President of the United States.