USOC security chief Larry Buendorf finally opens up about saving President Ford
On a sunny morning in 1975, these two vastly different slices of America collided in a park in
Their collision altered history. Or, maybe, Buendorf's bravery meant history was not altered.
A few months before the sunny morning, Fromme bluntly summarized a horrifying truth.
"Anybody can kill anybody," she said in the little-girl voice that inspired her nickname. When she spoke the words, Squeaky was plotting to assassinate President
On
Since 1993, the man who saved
He retires
Buendorf, 80, looked back on his career in a small meeting room at
"Well," he said, "I can't really judge how people get their fear, but I can tell you this: My job is to set that comforting level for our staff and athletes. If they see me get excited, they are going to get excited."
Buendorf, who lives on the southwest side of
"If you see Larry," Gardner said from his home in
In tense situations abroad, Gardner always looked to his silver-haired friend.
"Him smiling gives you a lot of confidence," Gardner said. "You feel like you had a cocoon whenever you traveled with him. You put him in a 450-degree oven and he's as cool as ice. The man will not sweat."
The man also will not discuss
I talked with a host of Buendorf's friends. All said this: He never mentions Squeaky and
As Buendorf nears the end of his public life, he altered his reticence.
And talked about that morning in
---
It seemed
The president's spontaneous decision nearly shook American history.
"He walks out and says, 'Oh, this is a nice day. I'll walk,'" Buendorf said, speaking in the present tense about the long-ago day. "So he starts across the street."
Buendorf followed Ford into the park, where Fromme waited. She wore a full-length gown, fire-engine red, and matching turban. A .45 Colt semi-automatic was strapped to her ankle.
In 1967, Fromme dropped out of her
"What's the problem?" asked a dirty man who resembled a bearded elf.
She raised her eyes for her first look at
"He smiled really bright," Fromme wrote later, "and I had the strangest feeling that he knew my thoughts."
In 1969, Manson led his small cult on a murder spree near
Minutes before Ford walked into the park, Fromme sat a few blocks away in a dingy apartment on
"I'll take the gun," Fromme told herself. "I have to do this. This is the time."
But she ejected a bullet from the chamber, which meant she needed to pull the slide on top of the pistol to move a bullet to the chamber.
She wanted to kill Ford, or maybe she didn't want to kill Ford. The Manson follower wanted to blaze in American infamy, but the suburban daughter wasn't so sure. A conflicted Fromme strapped the haphazardly loaded gun to her ankle and walked to the park.
This lost young woman soon would stand face-to-face with the leader of the free world and his protector.
---
At Minnesota State, Buendorf had played guard for the basketball team and ran hurdles for the track team. After departing the
Now, on a sunny morning, he was walking next to Ford, who was enthusiastically shaking hands.
"I was watching to make sure nobody hangs on or grabs his watch or whatever," Buendorf said.
At
"Squeaky is back, not at the front of the line but back a little bit and had a .45 strapped to her ankle," Buendorf said, reaching down to his ankle to demonstrate. "It came up like this."
Buendorf stopped to show how Fromme raised her pistol.
"When I see it coming, I stepped out in front of the president."
Buendorf was not wearing a bulletproof vest. Didn't matter. He was protecting the president, no matter the risk.
Fromme, after leaving the chamber empty, finished her internal wrestling match. The Manson follower defeated the suburban daughter.
Buendorf believes Fromme made the decision to open fire.
"She was probably pulling back on the slide," he said.
He grabbed the gun with his right hand and seized Fromme with his left hand as other
"I'm expecting that she's not alone," Buendorf said.
She was alone. The president's short, spontaneous walk through the park ended safely.
---
Buendorf, sitting in the meeting room, shook his head as he returned to the morning in
"Afterwards, you think about it and you think if she had a round in the chamber already, she would have shot through me and him," Buendorf said. "It does put a little different slant on your life when you start thinking about it. A lot of things that people get stressed out about, I don't get stressed out about."
He became friends with Ford. He skied beside him on slopes in Vail. He sat with him in smoky backseats of limos and asked, politely, if the president would mind putting out his pipe.
He saw how deeply the president cared for his family. When first lady
He sat next to Ford on long plane flights. Sometimes, Ford talked with Buendorf the entire flight. Other times, Ford napped and read newspapers and spoke not a word.
"He set the pace," Buendorf said.
Every
Even today, 42½ years later, Buendorf's moment defines him. Olympic athletes hear they are being protected by the man who once protected presidents. These young athletes, born long after Buendorf's
"
But the line does not always inspire knowing laughter.
"They're beginning to believe me, so I dropped that," Buendorf said with his grin.
His calm, the result of meticulous preparation, has a way of banishing fear.
But the Buendorf moment that sticks with Bender is a 2001 journey to the Greco-Roman World Championships in Patras,
In the middle of the night, power went out in the hotel. In normal circumstances, the darkness would have been no big deal, but on this tense night not long after 9/11 it was a very big deal. Nervous wrestlers gathered in the hallway. Team trainer
No answer, and the panic escalated.
Moments later, Buendorf walked calmly down the hall. He already had spoken to hotel representatives. Everything was fine, Buendorf announced before commanding the far-from-home Americans to return to bed.
"I'll tell you what," Bender said, "I went to sleep in five minutes."
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Buendorf hopes to inspire the same soothing sleep in
He works with local law enforcement and the
"I try to come in with whatever anxieties I might have about a particular place and get them settled out, nice and smooth," Buendorf said.
Yes, there's reason for anxiety in the hearts of American athletes and the hearts of those watching back home in America.
North Korean dictator Jong
Each night, American athletes will go to sleep knowing Jong-
But they also will go to sleep knowing the man who saved
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