25th Anniversary Of Reagan Shooting
BLITZER: There's an important developing story we're following. A passenger ferry sank off the coast of Bahrain a little while ago in the Persian Gulf, carrying about 150 people, including an unknown number of westerners, mostly tourists. Tom Foreman is here in THE SITUATION ROOM. First of all, show our viewers where this occurred.</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This occurred just in this area here, Saudi Arabia over here, Iran over here, Iraq up there. This is where Bahrain is. If you move in here off the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Bahrain, you see it's a small country, about 700,000 people. This is one of the principal areas of sea commerce here. This sounds like a tourist ferry, something that works around there, evening cruises, that sort of thing. They do have some tourist industry there. There are big ferries that go from here all the way over to Iraq. If you go to those position -- or to Iran. Excuse me. If you go across here, you're going quite a distance, about 150 miles. It can take 16 hours. It doesn't sound like it was one of those ferries, but we do know this. Today, the high temperature there was about 80 degrees, low about 70, so the water temperature would be relatively good for people who had to be in the water quite a while, to sustain life. Nonetheless, we're not sure what caused this accident. There was no wind today, bright, sunshiny day. We do know that just on the other side of Saudi Arabia two months ago, we had that terrible ferry accident over here where we ended up having close to 1,000 people die in that accident. So a terrible time for that region right now.</s>BLITZER: We know in Bahrain right now U.S. Navy divers, U.S. Navy ships, helicopters, choppers are on the scene. They're trying to get involved in that rescue operation. Bahrain is the home of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf. We'll get back to you, Tom. Thank you very much. Other news, it happened 25 years ago today. John Hinckley fired shots that struck President Ronald Reagan and three others outside a hotel here in Washington, D.C. Ronald Reagan was nearly killed that day, and his Press Secretary James Brady was permanently disabled. It was just 70 days into Ronald Reagan's presidency. How well many of us remember that day. Here's how that stunning news first broke here on CNN.</s>BERNARD SHAW, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: Details are very sketchy at this moment. We don't know precisely what happened. We don't know the sequence. First of all, the president is safe. We're told that shots were fired at his party as he left the hotel. The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police report that at least one police officer and one Secret Service agent have been injured. They were shot down. Their condition we do not know. We are checking both with the Secret Service and with people up at the hotel. We can report that shots were fired as President Reagan left the Washington Hilton hotel following that address we carried live here on CNN.</s>BLITZER: Bernard Shaw, our principal anchor, reporting that news that day, 1981, 25 years ago today. The attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan had a huge impact on the White House, indeed on the entire nation. Our White House correspondent Ed Henry has been talking to some of Ronald Reagan's closest friends and advisers 25 years later, and he's joining us now from the White House -- Ed.</s>ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, two Reaganites, Lyn Nofziger and Caspar Weinberger both died this week, right on the eve of today's 25th anniversary of the Reagan shooting. Making this week particularly emotional for the tight-knit group of Reagan alumni, especially Michael Deaver, the late president's right-hand man.</s>HENRY (voice-over): The first of the six shots whizzed right past Mike Deaver's right-hand shoulder.</s>MICHAEL DEAVER, FORMER REAGAN AIDE: The pop, pop, pop of it didn't register for a split second. But then I realized, because of the pandemonium.</s>HENRY: Press Secretary Jim Brady was hit bad.</s>DEAVER: There was Jim laying on the ground in a pool of blood.</s>HENRY: President Reagan appeared safe and was headed to the White House until ...</s>DEAVER: I said, what the hell? What are we doing?</s>HENRY: Spitting up blood, the president was rushed to the hospital. A bullet in his lung, he was near death.</s>RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I had also lost more than half the blood in my body.</s>HENRY: A terrible surprise for Nancy Reagan.</s>DEAVER: She turned to me and said, I thought you said he hadn't been shot. And I said, well, that's what I had been told.</s>HENRY: This was 1981. No cell phones or e-mail. Confusion reigned.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As of now, I am in control here.</s>HENRY: On a random phone, he commandeered at the hospital. Deaver kept an open line to the White House. He had visions of the Kennedy assassination.</s>DEAVER: What ran through my head when we were in that emergency room was Dallas, what it must have been like.</s>HENRY: But the tension was alleviated as the president cracked jokes such as telling the first lady, "honey, I forgot to duck." Those iconic moments remind Deaver he's grateful that Reagan survived the shooting just two months into his presidency, and was able to serve two full terms.</s>DEAVER: To me, it's the grace of the man. Even from the back, you can see how graceful he was.</s>HENRY: Deaver notes that the shooting drastically changed White House security forever, especially tighter restrictions on the media, because the shooter, John Hinckley, was able to exploit the media access to get close to Reagan, so it's pushed the media further back from the president even today. The shooter, John Hinckley, has been in a mental hospital in the Washington, D.C. area for now 25 years. A judge recently decided that he can get overnight visits with his parents. James Brady, as you noted, Wolf, still alive and one of the nation's most passionate advocates for gun control -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Ed Henry, good piece. It brought back a lot of memories for me and I'm sure for a lot of our viewers. Thank you very much, Ed Henry at the White House. Coming up, the battle over immigration. It's being fought right now on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and it's going to be fought right here in THE SITUATION ROOM as well. That's coming up next in today's "Strategy Session." Plus, John McCain here in THE SITUATION ROOM. The senior senator from Arizona joins us live to talk about the immigration wars, the conflict in Iraq, and lots more. Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.