Oliver Wellington "Billy" Sipple (November 20, 1941 – January 1989) was an American man known for intervening to foil an assassination attempt against U.S. President Gerald Ford on September 22, 1975. A decorated U.S. Marine and disabled Vietnam War veteran, he grappled with Sara Jane Moore as she fired a pistol at Ford in San Francisco, causing her to miss.

Early life

Sipple was born in Detroit, Michigan. He served in the United States Marine Corps and fought in Vietnam. Shrapnel wounds suffered in December 1968 caused him to finish out his second tour of duty in a Philadelphia veterans' hospital, from which he was released in March 1970. Sipple, who was closeted in his hometown of Detroit, had met Harvey Milk in New York City and had participated in San Francisco's gay pride parades and gay rights demonstrations. Sipple was active in local causes, including the historic political campaigns of openly gay Board of Supervisors candidate Milk. The two were friends, and Sipple would later be described as a "prominent figure" in the gay community who had worked in a gay bar and was active in the Imperial Court System.

He lived with a merchant seaman in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment located in San Francisco's Mission District. He later spent six months in San Francisco's VA hospital, and was frequently readmitted into the hospital in 1975, the year he saved Ford's life.

Ford assassination attempt

On September 22, 1975, Sipple was part of a crowd of about 3,000 people who had gathered outside San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel to see President Ford. Standing beside Sipple, about 40 feet (12 meters) from Ford, was Sara Jane Moore. When Moore shot at Ford with a .38 revolver, narrowly missing Ford, Sipple dove towards her and grabbed her arm;

Though he was known within the San Francisco gay community, and had participated in gay pride events, he had kept his sexual orientation secret from his family and employer; he asked the press to keep his homosexuality off the record.

The day after the incident, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen received two phone messages identifying Sipple as gay. One was from Reverend Ray Broshears, the head of a gay activist group called the Lavender Panthers. The other was from local gay activist Harvey Milk, a friend of Sipple on whose city council campaign Sipple had worked.

he told a friend, "It's too good an opportunity. For once we can show that gays do heroic things, not just all that caca about molesting children and hanging out in bathrooms." Three days after the incident, Sipple received a letter from President Ford. It read:

Two days after the thwarted assassination attempt, unable to reach Sipple, However, other sources indicate that Sipple's parents never fully accepted him. His mother, just after news broke of Sipple's sexual orientation, hung up on Sipple, saying she never wished to speak to him again. His father is said to have told Sipple's brother to "forget [he had] a brother." Finally, when his mother died, his father did not allow him to attend her funeral.

Sipple's mental and physical health sharply declined over the years. He began to drink heavily, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and fitted with a pacemaker, and gained weight. and estimated Sipple had been dead for approximately 10 days.

Issues arising from the press's reporting of Sipple's private life are referred to in the motion picture Absence of Malice and in an episode of LA Law. A number of law review articles, books, and commentary pieces have discussed "the perplexing ethical dimensions of the case".

Oliver Sipple's story was shared in a 2017 episode of the WNYC radio program Radiolab. The program aired in syndication on National Public Radio.

See also

  • List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots

Notes

References

  • American Century article
  • Oliver Sipple Saves President Ford's Life