SAMUEL BYCK

Samuel Byck is the assassin nobody has ever heard of. One of two presidential assassins choosing a plane as his weapon, Byck's life came to a sudden end on February 22, 1974. He had killed an airport security guard and the co-pilot of the Delta jet awaiting takeoff and seriously wounded the pilot in his desperate attempt to hijack the plane. In those days of a more lax airport security, he killed the guard with a .22 pistol he carried in his pocket, then hurried up the ramp into the jet with a briefcase containing a gasoline bomb. He then fired more shots off at the fleeing flight attendants, demanding that the doors be closed. When the pilot and copilot could not obey his orders to take off fast enough, he began shooting again. After the co-pilot was killed, he grabbed a passenger by the hair and threw her in with the wounded pilot, demanding that she "Help him fly this thing." The pilot at Byck's insistance radioed for help to fly the plane:

Emergency, emergency, we're all shot...can you get another pilot here to the airplane...this fellow, he shot us both. Ground, I need ground, this is a state of emergency. Get a hold of our ramp and ask the people to come on out to unhook the tug.

Then he lost consciousness. Byck grabbed another passenger, shooting both the pilot and copilot again. At that moment, as sharpshooters targeted the assassin's moving silhouette in the window frame, a shot from the ground splintered the glass window in the plane's door. The passenger broke loose, just as two more shots came through the broken window, wounding Byck in the stomach and chest. As he dropped to the floor, he placed the gun against his own head and pulled the trigger. In a matter of minutes the assassin attempt that never got off the ground was over.

Who was Samuel Byck? He was born on January 30, 1930, the eldest of three brothers of an in tact but far from prosperous Philadelphia Jewish family. Byck's father "was a kindly, well-meaning man" who spent his evenings playing pinochle with his sons. However, he was not a successful breadwinner--therefore, the family suffered financially. There remained a certain amount of ambivalence in young Sam's feelings toward his father as a result.

Unfortunately, Byck seemed to follow in his father's footsteps. After quitting school, bumming about a bit, and serving a brief stint in the army--where he received training in weapons and explosives--he married and settled down to raising his three daughters and one son. However, he had trouble keeping a job, and every business venture he attempted failed. To make matters worse, his younger brothers were both successful, causing him no end of jealousy. In 1968, frustrated by his meager pay as a tire salesman, he applied for a loan from the Small Business Administration to begin a tire retail business: selling tires from a brightly painted school bus he wished to park in shopping centers. Before the loan application went through he admitted himself to the Friends Psychiatric Hospital for treatment for anxiety and depression. While he was there the SBA rejected his application. For the next two years he was treated as an outpatient for "manic-depressive illness."

Increasingly, however, Byck began to blame the government for his troubles. He came to identify with the oppressed and even gave $500 (and a couple of truck tires) to the Black Liberation Army. He believed he was a victim. Only those who sold out to the system--his brothers, for example--could make it. In 1972 Byck became a McGovern supporter and an outspoken critic of Nixon. In October the Secret Service came knocking on his door, investigating his alleged suggestion that someone kill Nixon. Byck denied that he had made a threat. His psychiatrist stated that Byck was "a big talker who makes verbal threats and never acts on them."

Now Byck's life was crumbling. His wife had kicked him out, and he was prevented from seeing the children. Early in 1973 a sniper, Mark (Jimmy) Essex, had killed six people from atop the Howard Johnson's motel in New Orleans before he was killed by police. Scrawled on the walls of Essex's apartment were slogans like "The quest for freedom is death. Then by death I shall escape to freedom" "Political power comes fromt he barrel of a gun" "Kill pig Nixon and all his running dogs." In the margin of the newspaper article he saved on Essex, Byck wrote:

He signed it "SAM BYCK." Valhalla, as will be recalled from myth and opera, was the legendary hall where warriors who have died bravely in battle go after death. Shortly after this he took the car from his estranged wife, leaving a note that said he was planning to attend the Nixon's inauguration on January 20. He actually did go to Washington where he talked with police about the preparations for the event. He then drove to North Carolina, Long Island, and Bristol before turning up again in Philadelphia. His wife had reported him missing; again he was questioned as to his designs on Nixon's life. He talked wildly about his mission in life, but since it did not appear to involve the President, he was not arrested but admitted to Philadelphia General Hospital for observation.

It would seem as though by this time the Secret Service would have had Byck marked for who he was: an unstable individual who blamed the government--and Nixon--for his economic problems. He was indeed an angry man. Following this came a series of letters to various authorities: to Sentaor Schweiker complaining about the corruption at the SBA; to the FCC protesting an editorial that endorsed capital punishment; to the Israeli Consulate enclosing a map of Egypt with the Sinai circled, and a notation: "Israelis go home and let my brothers alone." At that point the Secret Service again knocked on his door. He stated he felt it important to let the Israelis know that, as a Jew, he wanted peace in the Middle East.

Then, just a few days after his divorce was final, Byck was arrested for picketing outside the White House without a permit. His sign called for Nixon's impeachment. (This was the era when increasing numbers of people were beginning to do that, minimizing Byck's eccentricity. He later submitted numerous applications to demonstrate, but only actually appeared twice.) In December 1973 he again wrote to Senator Schweiker, this time requesting the names and offenses of persons granted executive clemency by President Nixon. He also wrote to Senator McGovern protesting his vote for Gerald Ford's confirmation as Vice President: "You and I both know Ford is Nixon's Echo-ooo-ooo-oo. P.S. From the mind of Ford came Edsels." He also wrote letters protesting against the mayor and the Philadelphia City Council. Christmas Eve found Byck dressed as Sant Claus, parading up and down in front of the White House carrying a huge sign stating:

On the other side it read "Impeach Nixon." Still, nobody would do the guy a favor and lock him up.

In the depths of dispair, spending holidays without his children, Byck began to confide his anguish to a tape recorder, rambling on and on about his troubles and the troubles of the world. His obsession, however, was with the corruption in Washington. He began to plan Nixon's assassination. Like other assassins of modern times, he began to read of previous assassinations. He was determined to be a "smashing success." Eschewing conventional weapons, he would slam a jetliner into the White House. Byck confided his bizarre plan, called "Operation Pandora Box," to his tape recorder:

I will try to get the plane aloft and fly it toward the target area, which will be Washington DC, the capitol of the most powerful, wealthiest nation of the world. . . . By guise, threats or trickery, I hope to force the pilot to buzz the White House--I mean, sort of dive towards the White House. When the plane is in this position, I will shoot the pilot and then in the last few minutes try to steer the plan into the target, which is the White House. . . Whoever dies in Project Pandora Box will be directly attributable to the Watergate scandals.

Because he didn't want his actions to be misunderstood, Byck sent copies of the tape to a number of well known people, including Leonard Bernstein, Jonas Salk, Jack Anderson, Senator Ribicoff. Carefully denying his mental illness--as if sending a taped assassination diary to Leonard Bernstein wasn't a confession of severe mental difficulty--Byck claimed instead that he was a terrorist.

After disposing of his meager possessions in his Last Will, Byck drove from Philadelphia to Baltimore. Throughout the dreary night journey, with the windshield wipers beating time in the background, he confided his last rambling thoughts to his tape recorder. His plight recalls other assassins' last moments as well: He hopes that with the gasoline shortage he will have the fuel to make it to the Washington Baltimore Airport. He laments that his last meal has to be such a lousy one. He loses his wallet through the hole in his pocket. He laments the thought of innocent victims. At last he pulls into the airport parking lot. His final moments blend the personal and political:

It's always easy for the authorities to look outward for the causes, say, this guy acted as a madman, a mad dog, and this guy acted like a maniac, when basically these hostile actions, or at least my hostile actions, are inward, that of being robbed and cheated out of my dignity...and seeing my country being raped and ravished almost before my very eyes. And I won't stand idly by and allow it to happen. They can call me misguided, if they like, but of course being misguided or being guided is only a matter of again, of who is interpreting the action and what side of the fence you are sitting on. I feel that I am guided, that I have a purpose, and I think that I have made it abundantly clear what I think my purpose is.

If Byck's purpose was to assassinate Nixon, he failed, as the President was never in any danger from his ill-fated venture. By this time Nixon's days in the White House were decidedly growing shorter in any case. If Byck's purpose was to destroy himself, however, he was a "smashing success."

Sources: Clarke, James W. American Assassins. Princeton, NJ: Princton UP, 1982. New York Times, February-March 1974.