Western and can the new deal. He currently writes for a blog, www. Progressiveprofessor. Com. I welcome ron feinman. [applause] thank you very much. I really appreciate your introduction. I want to begin by thanking certain people. I want to thank stephanie and the center for inviting me to speak here on my book. I want to thank cspan for agreeing to indeed tape this event and put it on booktv in few weeks. I want to also thank my son, David Feinman and paul feinman for always being there for me. Were definitely a very close family. I want to also thank one of my colleagues and former students, david glowberg, who took coreses at both Broward College and Florida Atlantic university. He majored in feinman and mine norred in history. He took me eight times and now team e teaches also Broward College and helped me with the power point im going to use because im not that technically savvy, and also with the index and the charts in my book. So i want to different anily thank david for that if also want to thank steven engle, one of the people on the blurb on the back of my book on the head of for also having contributed a great deal and having indeed a review of the book and criticized it and helped to make it better, as well as david glowberg. The question comes up why ive been asked before in fact i was asked by brian lamb on cspan2 q a, why did you pick this topic . Is it a little bit weird to be discussing and researching assassination . And i said, yes issue guess it is, but frankly i find it fascinating and i think its certainly very significant. Assassination has certainly affected not only American History but World History, and i even give a few examples in my introduction about the fact that, after all, lets fate is, world war i began because of an assassination. We of course had the fall of the Roman Republic because of an assassination. Our country was divided when Abraham Lincoln was murdered in 1865 and were still reverberating fromd] the evens around john f. Kennedy in 1963. But its a lot more than just looking at Abraham Lincoln and john f. Kennedy. The fact is assassination has been a common theme unfortunately in World History but also in American History, and i have devoted a chapter to each president who faced a direct assassination attempt, both those who were unfortunately assassinated and those who were wounded and those who were unhurt and also president ial candidates, which i have not seen anybody else do that im aware of. So i have chapter on huhie long who was assassinated in 1958, a chapter on robert kennedy, assassinated in 1968, and a chapter on george c. Wallace who was hot and paralyzed for fiscal cliff 19 2. So i cover 11 president s and three president ial candidates, one chapter on each, and then have two chapters on recent president s who have not had a direct contact with assassination, meaning eyeball to eyeball but haveline threatened to i discuss the issues jimmy carter, george h. W. Bush, bill clinton, george w. Bush, and barack obama right up to october 2014 right after Omar Gonzalez scaled the fence at the white house and got into the white house unbelievable, and showed us that the secret Service Needs reform because its getting more and more daring. More and more people are becoming daring. Bench jumper is call them, white house intruders, and thank goodness none of the living president s have had anything doctor electricity i affected them but lots of threats and as i point out, barack obama, i talk about 20 threats but actually many more has had more threats than any president other than Abraham Lincoln. So, it continues. And of course, president ial candidates, you have to worry about, too. Even now, after all, we have a lot of rhetoric out there a lot of invective out there i have written on the hill. Com and on History News Network of the danger of assassination or the threat this year because of the rhetoric, because of the invective, because of the hyperbole going on, and i advocate before it happened that donald trump should have secret Service Provision as dr. Carson should, and they do, and also advocated that Bernie Sanders should have it. He does does not as far as im aware, at least not publicly. Of course, Hillary Clinton does because she is a former first lady, but even lesser candidates, those who are not as serious, or those who are serious, like marco rubio, ted cruz, always in danger, and all you need is one mistake, one error and thats one too many. And thats what we have to remember. Never enough perfection. Now, the thing is ive looked al assault all these president s and done a lot of research. The question comes up, hough did i get interested in this . When i was in college, more than a half century ago, at queens college, and the university of new york, as an english course, i had to do a term paper. I chose the lincoln assassination, and because i was fascinated by it. That was the year 1962. Now, the next year, of course, was the john f. Kennedy assassination. And that gripped everybody. And still does. And then of course we had the assassination of robert kennedy, the assassination of Martin Luther king, the assassination of malcolm x, the assassination of George Lincoln rockwell this attempted assassination of George Wallace and the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan and the threat against gerald ford and Richmond Nixon concern know much about the Richard Nixon case until recently. It was kept quiet but there were. And therefore its a common thing that fascinated me. I started to do lectures on it before over the last few years, and two and a half years ago now, almost three years ago now, roman and littlefield, my publisher, indeed, who i was aware of but never had contact with, wrote me in my email at Florida Atlantic university and say we see youre doing lectures onat assassinations would you like to write a back . Wow. Im retired now, have more free time, die still teach and do lecture and do my blog, but still im much freer than i was and i thought i couldnt have done this ten years ago no matter how much i would have wanted to, but why not . So we made a deal, and it took almost two years, and now the book is out since august. And ive had a great reception, ive had over 30 radio interviews, ive been on cspan and now im on cspan again. Ive had articles on the hill and History News Network good going to be interviewed on npr on february 15, monday, president s day, on topical current, with bonny and joseph cooper, and i was interviewed last week, not on the book but thats how he found out about me on the takeaway, seven minutes toward the end of the hour, 95 00 to 9 57 on wlrn and have had people who write me and say i listened to you and its amazing. A lot of people listen to npr. A lot of people do watch cspan. The sales started too shoot up. Right after brian lamb. So ive very appreciative to have these opportunities here and elsewhere to be able to speak. So, enough of the beginning. Now lets get into the meat of the matter. And what i whatnot to make clear is that i have a power point here, and were going to go through and it it will help, i think, make it a little more interesting beyond myself speaking. So of course we begin with the first attempt at a assassination which is Andrew Jackson, and actually its more than just the one on the board. Thats the one i picked to put up on the power point, but theres actually three threats against Andrew Jackson, and the earliest is two years before this. 1833. We have what we could call an assault on Andrew Jackson. Not with a weapon or firearm. With fists. So not that serious but got tomorrow Andrew Jackson was not in the best of health. He was not a well man by the time he became president. He was in his mid60s, used a pain and all that so used a cane and wasnt in the greatest of health but a man named robert randolph, a former sailor, assaulted him and punched him in the nose, gave him a bloody nose, thats it. But still was comfort a threat, and we have no record ive ever been able to find or issue in else found of any earlier president s having anything happen that we know of anyway. So this is the first thing. Not a big deal but the beginning. Now, 1835, there or two events, one before the one i have on the board,s is not a threat in the sense of physical threat. Its a verbal threat. The verbal threat from a wellknown stage actor, a person who is very famous at the time, and he writes a letter, his hand writing, to president Andrew Jackson, threatening his life, just writing a letter, doesnt go further than that. Hand driven hand written. Its been kepting are everything that deals with president s is kept, agency, unless they somehow get rid of it as Chester Alan Arthur burns his documents and calvin coolidge, a lot of stuff was burned or destroyed, but most times anything that happened to do with the president youre going to find. And the tennessee history project, which deals with jackson, authenticate whod this person was, who it was thought it was and its shocking, not only because its a wellknown actor at the time in 1835, but because he is, get this, the father of the later actor who assassinates Abraham Lincoln. That is Julius Brutus boothe. What a name. His son hadnt been born yesterday, John Wilkes Booth. Three years later, but imagine you got to wonder what it genetic . Whats it maniacal behavior . He thenned and that was it but the point it, it is his hand detroiting so we have hand writhing, and its a threat as much as somebody on facebook or even im. Never arrested, nothing came of it, but the fact is we call its threat so its reported in my book. Now, the biggest event is in 1835 as well and i think its a few months before the booth incident because it occurred in january, on january 30th, 1835. So on my Facebook Page on assassinations, threats and the american presidency issue will be showing january 30th, a entry about this is the day, which is now 100 what it i guess 181 years later that we have Andrew Jackson 181 years earlier i should say that Andrew Jackson was threatened by asass nation. This is serious. We have Richard Lawrence, who is definitely mentally deranged. No question. And i want to make clear most of assassins have mental problems. Most of them. He comps to two pistols, to capitol hill. Jackson is at a funeral of a congressman. And he is walking out of the Capitol Building, right in the Capitol Building area with his cane, when Richmond Lawrence lunges at him, fires a pistol, misfired, amazing. In the middle of the winter. That may have ban factor. He then takes the other pistol and fires again, misfires. The odds of this are astronomical he would miss both times. What did jackson do and his reaction was tie tack his assailant with his cane. He kicks him down, whacks him over the head, until other people came along to help him out. In away he tend to subdue his own assassin. Thats old hickory for you. Been involved in gun duels and killed some people so why not attack his own attempt assassin. So lawrence went to a Mental Institution for the rest of his life. Luckily he did not harm jackson but still it was something to worry about. It was not a good thing. But you got to realize, jackson engendered a lot of anger and a lot of people by his policies, by his temperment and all of that and thats the kind of thing that people who whatnot to kill a leader and become famous and lefts be honest, if you kill a leader, or even try to youre always remembered, youre infamous but never forth governmenten. And Richard Lawrence is still alive today because of me. And of his because obviously other people have written articles about jackson, who is richmond Lawrence Citizen nothing. But suddenly he is somebody, and although he was mentally ill i think he probably was very happy he had got summon notoriety. Now gotten some notoriety. After this we have the next attempt and and more than an attempt, few attempts, on Abraham Lincoln, and in 1861, before the inauguration, lincoln on his way from springfield to washington, dc, ridgefield, illinois, had to go through baltimore, which is a very radical place, very confederatelike even before the civil war, and theres concern that he might be harmed. So he is whisked through by Pinkerton Agency detectives deto help him through, including a woman, kate warren, and the skinned through baltimore without stopping and red call when he arrives in d. C. , he is a coward, doesnt want to stop and say hello to an audience at the station. Well, because this was a baltimore plot, as it is known. That was believed to exist and theres evidence of it but nobody was ever arrested but the thought was, he is on his way to the inauguration, we dont want him facing assassination. So he is able to be inaugurated. But he is going to have Death Threats all the time in 1864, he rides to the old soldiers home in washington, dc, and he is away from the white house, a little cooler, in the hills, and he always just had a few soldiers with him. There was no secret service yet. The point is that he rides his smores wears his high hat on his head, and he has just a couple of soldiers and suddenly theres sniper fire, and his hat is shot off his head. My god. And he laughed it off. His wife did not. But was it accidental . Probably not. Could have been. Some wonder, what is john whisk booth . Could have been. We dont know. But he just chuckled about it. Now he agreed to have more protection and use a stage coach when he went to the old soldiers home for the last seven or eight months of his presidency. Now, hes inaugurated for the second term, wins the second term, and of course he is worried about it, he is not going to be able to within so he decides hes going to drop his Vice President , because Vice President s didnt matter, just standby equipment, right . So the first of the socalled might have been president s i have chapter 17 is my list and discussion of 15 might have been president s. Is Hannibal Hamlin, Vice PresidentHannibal Hamlin. I mention this to students and they think youre make can that up. No im not making it up. Its a real person. Actually would have made probably a pretty good president but he is dropped and Andrew Johnson is picked to replace him. And in order to gain democratic votes because johnson is not a republican like lincoln, he is a democrat. This is the mistake of trying to Cross Party Lines and pick a vicepresident of the other party. The same problem for William Henry harrison when he picked john tyler who what not a whig. He was a democrat. And its going to cause trouble for johnson when lincoln dies. The point is, only six weeks in office as Vice President , Andrew Johnson. And lincoln is of course assassinated at fords theater in washington, dc, and we know that John Wilkes Booth was involved and we know a few days before he was mumbling, pretty loud to some people, he was going to make sure the president did not live much longer. He was at an event at the white house, booth, and he had been plotting with nine other people at a boarding house, headed by mary stewart and involving the whole idea of killing not only the president but the new Vice President , Andrew Johnson, and also the secretary of state next in line under the constitution, under the succession laws at the time, who was secretary of state William Seward who later purchased alaska under Andrew Johnson. Turns out lincolns killed at ford theater. And in fact we want to move on. Im forgetting to move on. This the scene about Richard Lawrence assaulting jackson. So, i get so involved i forget to move this. All right. And then there might have been he succeeded him anyway but not really a he became president anyway. But now lincoln. Attack bid John Wilkes Booth. Killed before trial and this is the escape of it. Now the scene of it. Now, the thing is that the Vice President is not harmed. Louis paul is supposed to kill him but gets drunk and chickens out. So johnson is saved. He goes on to become president , of course, overnight, april 14, apri