Oliver Sipple

One morning, Oliver Sipple went out for a walk. A couple hours later, to his own surprise, he saved the life of the President of the United States. In a story we reported back in 2017, we explain how in the days that followed, Sipple’s split-second act of heroism turned into a rationale for making his personal life into political opportunity. What happens next makes us wonder what a moment, or a movement, or a whole society can demand of one person. And how much is too much? Through newly unearthed archival tape, we hear Sipple himself grapple with some of the most vexing topics of his day and ours - privacy, identity, the freedom of the press - not to mention the bonds of family and friendship. Special thanks to Jerry Pritikin, Michael Yamashita, Stan Smith, Duffy Jennings; Ann Dolan, Megan Filly and Ginale Harris at the Superior Court of San Francisco; Leah Gracik, Karyn Hunt, Jesse Hamlin, The San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive, Mike Amico, Jennifer Vanasco and Joey Plaster. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Reported by Latif Nasser and Tracie HunteProduced by - Produced by Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Latif Nasser and Tracie Hunte. Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Latif. Today, we have a story about someone attempting a crime so big and so brazen that if they had pulled it off, it would no doubt have changed the world. But they didn't pull it off because one random guy stopped it. And instead of changing the whole world, it just changed the world for this one guy. The story took place in the 1970s. We originally reported it back in 2017, but people keep attempting this same crime as of this taping, literally twice in the last month. I'm being vague on purpose, just so I don't spoil the surprise, but it'll all make sense in a second. Here we go.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Wait, you're listening.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  You're listening to Radiolab.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Radiolab.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  From?

• 0:52Speaker 01

  WNYC.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Rewind.

• 1:00Speaker 03

  Just a quick note. This story contains some profanities.

• 1:03Speaker 04

  Here and there.

• 1:03Speaker 03

  Here and there, a couple. So just know that before we get going. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

• 1:09Speaker 04

  I'm Robert Krowich.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  This is Radiolab.

• 1:11Speaker 04

  And today, we are going to start.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  OK, so let's start.

• 1:13Speaker 03

  With our producer, Latif Nasser.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15Speaker 04

  Well, let's just, let's just go back to San Francisco on a particular day at a particular time.

• 1:20Speaker 00

  And a particular woman.

• 1:21Speaker 05

  Hello.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Hi. Is this Sarah Jane?

• 1:24Speaker 05

  Yes, it is.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  A woman named.

• 1:26Speaker 05

  Sarah Jane Moore.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  Sarah Jane.

• 1:28Speaker 03

  OK.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  So this is San Francisco. The particular date was September 22nd. The particular time.

• 1:33Speaker 05

  1975.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  It's a Monday morning. Was it a nice day?

• 1:37Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. I don't remember anything different, so I assume it was a nice day.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, all right, sure, sure.

• 1:42Speaker 05

  I was kind of, you know, in my own head.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  So Sarah Jane, on this Monday morning, she wakes up early, drops her nine-year-old off at school, runs a few errands. Then she drives downtown to this, this big fancy hotel. What was the name of the hotel?

• 1:58Speaker 05

  I think it's the St. Francis, isn't it? I'm 87 years old. Don't expect me to remember little details like that.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  OK, all right, fair enough.

• 2:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. But at any rate, you know, I parked in the parking garage across. Right across from the hotel is a park, but there's a parking garage underneath. Walked over and walked across the street. There were sidewalks on both sides of the street. There were people on both sidewalks.

• 2:22Speaker 00

  She joins the crowd across the street from the hotel.

• 2:25Speaker 05

  It was very crowded.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  Couple thousand people. It's like a big scene.

• 2:28Speaker 05

  And there was a barrier, a rope barrier, right, keeping us back on the sidewalk. And my plan had always been to be back in the crowd. You know, and I was dressed like every other middle-aged woman that was there.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  What were you, do you remember what you were wearing? I mean, I'm sure there's.

• 2:45Speaker 05

  Oh, there are pictures of it. Yes, I was wearing slacks. That was at the beginning of when it was natural for a woman to wear slacks. I had a coat on and I was carrying a purse and I went back into the middle of the crowd as I had planned to do. Anyway, I felt a man come up against me and, socialized as I was in that day and time, I spun around to slap his face.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  She sees this guy there, big, strong guy, blond hair.

• 3:09Speaker 05

  Looked at him and realized that it was crowd pressure, that he had not done anything out of ordinary. So I turned back around and went on about my business. I was then pushed up. The crowd pressure was such, I tried to stay back in the crowd, but I got pushed up almost onto the ropes in the front, right up on the curb of the sidewalk, which I had not planned to be. And he apparently was still right behind me. So maybe he was pushed up by the crowd also.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  And so Sarah Jane is just crammed into this crowd and she's just standing there.

• 3:43Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  And were you nervous?

• 3:45Speaker 05

  Oh, no. You set out to do something and I was just going about doing what I had set out to do.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  So she waits and she waits and an hour goes by and two and three and then finally.

• 4:04Speaker 00

  Out of the hotel comes none other than the President of the United States, Gerald Ford. And he has police and Secret Service, and they're all coming. They're walking out of the hotel.

• 4:14Speaker 05

  To get in his car, which was parked there on the street.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  But he sees the crowd. Sarah Jane actually says he looks directly at her, and he waves. He waves to the crowd, and everyone starts applauding and cheering. Now, right at that moment, Sarah Jane reaches her right hand into her purse.

• 4:35Speaker 05

  And pulled the gun out of my purse.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  A .38 caliber revolver. She cocks it, and then she takes aim right at Gerald Ford's head. And then...

• 4:54Speaker 06

  Thank God. Thank God. There's been a shot. Been a shot.

• 4:58Speaker 05

  But Mr. Ford did not fall.

• 5:01Speaker 06

  I'll be pushed back by the police.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  The bullet flies a few feet to the right of Ford, chips the wall behind him. Ford freezes in place. Sarah Jane...

• 5:10Speaker 05

  Never planned to take a second shot.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Now, she's just still standing there.

• 5:14Speaker 05

  With my hand still in the air, holding the gun.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Looking over the smoking barrel of the gun, and she's got enough time if she wants it, but before she can take that second shot, the blond man behind her lunges at her, grabs her gun arm, pulls it down, and deflects it for just that crucial second that these police officers nearby need to get to her. They tackle her, they take her gun, and they pin her to the ground.

• 5:40Speaker 05

  So I couldn't move.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  And by that point, the Secret Service has whisked off the President into the limousine.

• 5:45Speaker 05

  And I was immediately picked up and carried across the street.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  Into the hotel.

• 5:49Speaker 05

  Arrested.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  And eventually, she went to prison, and she served 32 years in prison.

• 5:56Speaker 05

  Huh.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  And then, and then after that, was released on parole. And then we talked to her.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  I was not prepared to be told the first-person narrative from the perspective of someone who's about to assassinate the president. That was not what I was expecting.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  I was hoping that.

• 6:13Speaker 04

  Wait, can you explain though, why it is she decided to shoot the guy?

• 6:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, why did she shoot?

• 6:18Speaker 00

  Well, Sarah Jane's never fully explained that. And in fact, when I asked her.

• 6:23Speaker 05

  Well, this is not.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  She was like, I'm not going there.

• 6:26Speaker 05

  This is not an interview about what was driving me or about what I did or why I did it. This is an interview about Mr. Sipple.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Sipple?

• 6:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, Oliver Sipple. He's the random blond guy who just happened to be standing next to Sarah Jane Moore that day. The guy who grabbed her arm and saved the president's life.

• 6:45Speaker 05

  And he paid dearly for that.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  I actually called up Sarah Jane and had her tell that whole story because I was actually interested in what happened to Oliver Sipple after that.

• 6:55Speaker 05

  Because had he not reached out and put his hand on my arm,

• 7:01Speaker 05

  none of this would have happened to him.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  Wait, what happened to him?

• 7:08Speaker 00

  So Oliver Sipple actually died in 1989. But before we get to the story, I just want to give you a picture of the guy. So just Google search Oliver Sipple Ford or something.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  Wait, okay, wait, I see the picture. I see, look at that.

• 7:25Speaker 00

  He's a muscular guy, kind of blond hair. He's a handsome guy.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's a little bit James Dean and Marlon Brando had a baby kind of.

• 7:36Speaker 00

  He feels like an all-American. He feels all-American. There's something all-American about him.

• 7:40Speaker 07

  Thank you.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're bringing in another all-American for this story, Daniel Lutzer.

• 7:45Speaker 07

  An editor at Oxford University Press. And a few years ago, it was like probably more than five years ago, I wrote an article about Oliver Sipple. But anyway.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  To get back on track.

• 7:57Speaker 07

  September 22nd, 1975.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  Sarah Jane Moore fires that shot. Oliver Sipple grabs her arm. The police wrestle Moore to the ground. And then the police actually grab Oliver too, pull him inside the hotel to question him.

• 8:09Speaker 07

  Because there's initially some confusion about what he was doing there and some thought that, you know, he might have been a suspect.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  And so he's in this hotel trying to light a cigarette, but he just couldn't do it because he was shaking so hard. Turns out Oliver had served two very rough tours in Vietnam.

• 8:29Speaker 07

  Loud noises would make him very unhappy. I think this is the sort of thing we might call post-traumatic stress disorder now.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  But when eventually Oliver started to calm down, the Secret Service were like, "What are you even doing here?"

• 8:43Speaker 07

  It was kind of hard for him to answer because it's like, he didn't even really know. It was just like, "Oh, I don't know. I was taking a walk."

• 8:47Speaker 00

  And I just bumped into this huge crowd of people, asked what was going on.

• 8:51Speaker 07

  And people were like, "Oh, like Gerald Ford is going to be here. You know, the president is going to be here."

• 8:56Speaker 00

  So he said he thought, "I might as well see him." And then he was standing there for a couple hours until-

• 9:00Speaker 07

  He saw a flash of metal.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  Realized it was a gun.

• 9:03Speaker 07

  Reacted quickly.

• 9:04Speaker 00

  Instinctively.

• 9:05Speaker 07

  And then-

• 9:06Speaker 00

  "You guys all pulled me in here."

• 9:08Speaker 07

  That's how I came to be here.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  So he's questioned for three hours. He goes home, home to his fourth-floor walk-up, and there's a reporter there waiting for him. But he just wants to sort of be left alone. And he told this reporter, quote, "I'm a coward. I don't know why I did it. It was the thing to do at the time." And then even after that, he just keeps getting phone calls from reporters. And some of them learned that he was a Marine. And so they would ask him questions like, "Oh, was it your, you know, was it your training? Is that why you did this heroic thing?"

• 9:43Speaker 07

  But he said like, "Oh, you know, listen, don't mention any of that stuff about the Marines. You know, like, let's keep that under wraps."

• 9:49Speaker 00

  Quote, "I'm no hero or nothing." But the next day-

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Oliver's story shot across the country.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  His name's on television-

• 10:07Speaker 00

  On the front page of newspapers, where there's headlines like, "Ex-Marine Deflects Weapon As Woman Shoots." That's the LA Times. Chicago Tribune, "Hero Tells How He Deflected Woman's Arm." And so despite his best efforts, Oliver becomes a national hero for a day.

• 10:24Speaker 07

  And it appears that he sort of thought that would be it.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  Maybe his friends would give him a pat on the back, buy him a couple rounds.

• 10:30Speaker 07

  And then, you know, over the next couple of days, it all sort of like rippled out of control.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Because that very same day that Oliver was being painted as a hero, this guy named Herb Kane.

• 10:42Speaker 07

  The longtime San Francisco columnist.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Walked into his office and on his answering machine were two messages saying, "Hey, that guy Oliver Sipple, the hero?"

• 10:52Speaker 07

  Who saved the president's life is gay.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  Huh. Was he, was he out? Well, he was sort of out and sort of not.

• 11:03Speaker 04

  What does that mean?

• 11:04Speaker 00

  Well, to explain, you've got to understand this particular time and place. So let's just, you know, take a magic carpet ride. Close your eyes and let the sound take you away.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  A city has emerged where homosexuality is not only tolerated, but thrives.

• 11:24Speaker 07

  San Francisco, sometimes labeled with the sly caption, "Queen City of the West."

• 11:29Speaker 00

  So San Francisco. It's a great day. It's a gay day. Happy day. Happy day. Was one of the first cities in America to have a gay pride parade. And in the 70s. It's a wonderful city, that city. Boys go to bed with boys and girls go to bed with girls. For gay people, San Francisco was like this shelter from the storm.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  Many of us were immigrants from somewhere.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  This is Ken Mailey.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  Longtime San Francisco resident.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  And gay activist who at the age of 19, uh, came to San Francisco from Kansas.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  Escaped from Kansas because what the West offered was the ethereal promise, if you will, of reinvention.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  You could cross a line in which your past stayed behind you.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  It was a place where you could be out, but to the people you left behind, you could still be in.

• 12:16Speaker 07

  So, uh, so.

• 12:17Speaker 00

  And so for Oliver, you know, he came from Michigan.

• 12:19Speaker 07

  From a working class family. Uh, he had a lot of brothers and sisters. I think he was one of eight children.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  And so after the war, when he got to San Francisco, he actually started going by the name Billy.

• 12:28Speaker 07

  Billy, uh, Billy Sipple. And he was perfectly open about his sexual orientation and would tell anybody who asked that he was a gay man, but, you know, he'd never told his family.

• 12:36Speaker 00

  And so Oliver lived, like a lot of gay people at the time, this double life.

• 12:41Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  And do we know that this is the reason why Sipple came to San Francisco? Or was there a different reason?

• 12:45Speaker 07

  It may have just been because Harvey Milk was there.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  The Harvey Milk, you know, famous gay activist, San Francisco politician.

• 12:52Speaker 07

  He was friends with Harvey Milk.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  A New Yorker. An immigrant from New York.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Turns out Oliver had actually met Harvey a decade earlier in New York. And I just want to mention this because I think it's so cool. At different points in time, they actually dated the same guy.

• 13:06Speaker 07

  Who was the inspiration for Sugarplum Ferry.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  Sugarplum Ferry came and hit the streets.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  In Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  Looking for soul food and a place to eat.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  Just a fun fact, just a fun fact. That's it. But Oliver and Harvey, they were pretty good friends. They corresponded, stayed in touch when they lived in different places in the country. Actually, Harvey even loaned Oliver money sometimes because Oliver didn't have a job. He, you know, collected disability from his time in the Marines. But anyway.

• 13:33Speaker 04

  By the beginning of the 70s.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  When Oliver got to San Francisco, reconnected with his old friend.

• 13:38Speaker 04

  Harvey was, shall we say, evolving into.

• 13:42Speaker 07

  A huge figure there.

• 13:43Speaker 04

  A gay public figure.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  Ken was actually friends with Harvey, worked on one of his campaigns.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  But this, I'm sorry.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  No, no, and I'm just thinking like, one of the things we were talking about on the phone was about sort of the, the kind of two different schools or two different.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  About the segue to that.

• 13:59Speaker 00

  Oh, perfect. Okay, go. Yeah, yeah, go for it.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  This older, other, I would say older, but other generation of gay, mostly men, was that they were content to go to tea with the mayor or a public official of some kind.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  They would show up to like a rally.

• 14:17Speaker 04

  Wearing jackets and ties.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  And like ask for their rights politely.

• 14:21Speaker 04

  They really weren't, shall we say, activists.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Because according to Ken, the activism came.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  When in the late 60s, early 70s, you had young gay men and women.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  Who came out of the Vietnam War protests into the world.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  Took a look around.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  The CBS News survey shows that two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort, or fear.

• 14:47Speaker 04

  The police are still raiding bars. What they consider discrimination in jobs and housing. People are still getting beaten.

• 14:54Speaker 06

  One of whom had said, queer faggot, we're gonna beat the shit out of you, something to that effect. We're gonna kill you.

• 15:00Speaker 04

  Both violently and non-violently.

• 15:03Speaker 06

  Got up in the middle of the street, they knocked me down, started beating me with their hands and their feet, their elbows.

• 15:10Speaker 04

  Tried to muffle my screams. And after a while, a body of people get to a point where they just will not take oppression anymore.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  So in came the activists like Harvey.

• 15:24Speaker 04

  Ponytail, mustache. He was a banker turned hippie.

• 15:28Speaker 06

  You know you're lying. You know you're changing the statements around.

• 15:31Speaker 04

  He was very outspoken.

• 15:32Speaker 06

  I question, what is your real motive behind it?

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Very militant.

• 15:35Speaker 06

  And stop this phony issue that you know is a phony issue.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  And to Harvey.

• 15:39Speaker 06

  We are saying that a gay person should have the right to say.

• 15:42Speaker 04

  Gay people were living in a half-life opportunity.

• 15:46Speaker 06

  I am gay. That is a part of society, period.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  Not being able to be who they were.

• 15:51Speaker 06

  Every gay person must come out.

• 15:58Speaker 06

  As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends, if indeed they are your friends. You must tell your neighbors. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in the stores you shop in.

• 16:20Speaker 06

  And once, once you do, you will feel so much better.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  And so, cut back to.

• 16:30Speaker 07

  September 22nd, 1975.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  In the blink of an eye, Oliver Sipple becomes this hero. And that same night, Oliver's friend Harvey hears about all this news and kind of senses, wait, maybe there's an opportunity here. So he picks up the phone and he calls the columnist Herb Kane, a very, very well-known, well-loved gossip columnist. And Kane isn't there, so Milk leaves a message on his answering machine. And he basically says, look, I'm a friend of Oliver Sipple's. I've known him for years. Oliver Sipple worked on my campaign for Supervisor. So basically, without Sipple's consent.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Harvey outed him.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Milk outed him.

• 17:22Speaker 04

  But what was Harvey Milk thinking that he would do this? Well, for Harvey.

• 17:27Speaker 06

  I think the stereotypes, the lies, the innuendos.

• 17:31Speaker 04

  Of gay people as limp wristed and drag queens and stuff.

• 17:35Speaker 06

  The distortions, all gay people are child molesters.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  Well, here's a true gay hero.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  A square jawed, heroic marine.

• 17:45Speaker 07

  Who seemed to be a sort of like, regular, like, red-blooded American.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  And so Harvey said, and this was written down by his biographer, who I'm quoting, "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."

• 18:06Speaker 04

  Wasn't there somebody said, "No, no, no, no, you gotta ask the guy for it. You can't just do that." Harvey just did it. Really? Yeah, he just did it.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  So Kane, the next morning, Kane arrives at his office, he listens to the message, and Kane tries to call Sipple, but he can't reach him. But there was another guy who was a gay activist, his name was the Reverend Ray Broschiers. He was the head of what's called, what was called, the Lavender Panthers. And he also independently called Herb Kane to say, "Oh, that guy Oliver Sipple everyone's talking about on the news? Gay." So you got two independent sources, both of people who said that they were friends with Sipple and that he was gay. And for Kane, I think this was juicy. This was a juicy thing.

• 18:58Speaker 07

  And he, let me just go back and get this.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  So two days after the assassination attempt, Kane's column comes out.

• 19:07Speaker 07

  And the way that he wrote it up, this is the precise paragraph. "One of the heroes of the day, Oliver Billy Sipple, the ex-marine who grabbed Sarah Jane Moore's arm just as her gun was fired and thereby may have saved the president's life, was the center of midnight attention at the Red Lantern, a Golden Gate Avenue bar he favors. Reverend Ray Broschiers, head of Helping Hand Center and gay politico Harvey Milk, who claimed to be among Sipple's close friends, described themselves as proud. Maybe this will help break the stereotype."

• 19:37Speaker 00

  And then, that day, this guy named Darryl Lemke.

• 19:40Speaker 04

  Lemke, L-E-M-B-K-E.

• 19:42Speaker 00

  Picks up his issue of The Chronicle, sees Herb Kane's column.

• 19:45Speaker 04

  Read it, and I reported it to the office.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  The office of the Los Angeles Times.

• 19:49Speaker 04

  I was a reporter for the LA Times in San Francisco, and so my office told me, "Get an interview with Oliver Sipple."

• 19:58Speaker 00

  But really quickly, before we get there, we actually managed to find the recording of this very specific interview in the LA Times collection at the Huntington Library in Los Angeles. And I think the reason they hung on to it was because it was kind of controversial.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  So the night that Kane's article comes out, Darryl goes to Oliver's house. Oliver's there.

• 20:21Speaker 04

  Two reporters from the Sentinel were there also.

• 20:23Speaker 06

  What is the Sentinel? I, uh...

• 20:25Speaker 00

  That right there is Darryl. It's a gay newspaper.

• 20:27Speaker 06

  Gay newspaper?

• 20:28Speaker 00

  Uh-huh.

• 20:28Speaker 06

  Want me to tell him your name again? Sure.

• 20:32Speaker 00

  So they're all sitting in Oliver's living room, and what the reporters are all wondering is, "Have you heard from the president?"

• 20:37Speaker 04

  The president hadn't bothered to thank him at that point.

• 20:40Speaker 06

  The president can award what they call "medals of freedom" to people for outstanding acts. He offered, you know, the having you brought back to the White House. Would you go? Certainly. Would you like to meet him? Well, yeah, I stood in line for three hours to see him. Of course I'd like to.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  And that voice right there, that's Oliver.

• 21:01Speaker 06

  He didn't have time to meet you at that occasion. Oh, thanks.

• 21:06Speaker 06

  Have you heard from the mayor? No, I've heard from nobody. No, uh... I've heard only from the press and reporters and reporters and the press, and that's... Of course you have been hard to get a hold of. Of course, you don't really have to dig, nor do you two get a hold of him. But then, I'm sure the mayor could find you. He has access to police records that know where you are. Okay, can we go on that round? Yeah. Okay. For some reason, San Francisco... Francisco Police Department has now referred any inquiries about you to the sex crimes and missing persons detail.

• 21:44Speaker 06

  That's something I think you should know.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  Something Oliver should know, because this is, again, this is at a time when the assumption was that all gay men were just pedophiles, perverts.

• 21:54Speaker 06

  And when I said background, this is information that cannot be printed. Well, can I call and ask them about it?

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Daryl actually asks if he can call somebody and ask about it.

• 22:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, would you check that right now? Yeah. No, I don't want to. Well, you won't? They're not giving any reasons as to why. The number is 553-1361. Who is the guy to talk to? Talk to your Sullivan or Hetrick. Now, you think I found out?

• 22:21Speaker 00

  Daryl calls local authorities, but he can't get a hold of anyone.

• 22:23Speaker 06

  This other guy about 15 years ago. He said to call back around 1. They have said nothing to you about that. Do you have any sex crimes on your record? I've never had a sex event in my entire... I've never been arrested. My trip has been dropped a couple times, but I don't think there's no more in the world that's been dropped a couple times. Would you like us to check that out further to see if there's more they're giving you?

• 22:44Speaker 00

  And then the tape recorder goes off, comes back on.

• 22:50Speaker 06

  Well, who do I call with some authority with the police department?

• 22:54Speaker 00

  And now Oliver's on the phone with the police department.

• 22:56Speaker 06

  Yeah. This is Detective Allen? Yeah, well, my name is Oliver Sipple, and I'd like to know why I've been turned over to your department, Sex Crimes and Missing Persons?

• 23:07Speaker 06

  This is my yes.

• 23:10Speaker 06

  That's correct, sir.

• 23:12Speaker 06

  Yes, sir, I'd like some information. A bunch of press came over, well, not a bunch, just three people from the press, came over this afternoon, and they said they were trying to get some information about me in the police department, and I was turned over to Sex and Crimes Act? What the hell is all that about?

• 23:34Speaker 06

  Oh, I see. Well, Jesus God. I mean, I said, "What the hell is going on?" Okay, Guy. I tried to call the mayor's office just now, and I tried to call the chief of police office just now. What the Sam hell is going on? Okay, thanks a lot, Guy. Yeah. Just the officer, one of the officers that was involved with the assassination, assassination attempt, is in that department, that's all. That's why it's being turned over. Does that make any sense to you? You got me very shook up, young man. I was just about to go downtown and whip some ass somewhere. We find out anything more about it, let's know.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  Now, the reason this tape is so controversial is because, according to Oliver, before the interview began, before the, you know, recorder started rolling, he had said to the reporters from the Sentinel, "Okay, I'm gonna talk to you guys about my sexuality." But then he had said to Daryl, "I don't want you to write anything about that. I don't want that in a national paper." Daryl says he doesn't remember that. But then, right here in this interview, this thing happens, where Daryl says-

• 24:48Speaker 01

  I'll make one more try on the gay thing.

• 24:52Speaker 00

  "I'll make one more try on the gay thing."

• 24:54Speaker 01

  You don't, you don't wanna change your mind on it?

• 24:57Speaker 00

  "You don't wanna change your mind on that?"

• 24:59Speaker 06

  No. I just don't wanna change my mind on that. Okay. May we quote your saying that homosexuality has nothing to do with this? You can quote me to saying that if I were homosexual or I was not, you can quote me on that. It doesn't make me any less of a man than what I am. But I think that it has nothing to do with the act or itself. So I don't think it should be pushed any further than that. That would be cool.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  And eventually.

• 25:35Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  Interview ends and Daryl says that when he left that interview, he felt like when it came to Oliver's sexuality.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  He didn't want to be quoted.

• 25:45Speaker 00

  That was it, like, just don't quote me on it. But still.

• 25:48Speaker 04

  I was trying to report from all sides about it. The big side for me was that he was a hero and the President of the United States was very slow on the take in thanking him for saving his life.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  And Daryl thought that Oliver's sexuality, the fact that he was gay, might have something to do with that because just seven months earlier.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  On March 6, Sergeant Leonard Matlovich disclosed to his supervising officer at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia that he was a homosexual and wanted to stay in the Air Force.

• 26:17Speaker 00

  This Air Force sergeant named Leonard Matlovich, who had the Purple Heart, had the Bronze Star, he comes out that he's gay and he's kicked out of the Air Force.

• 26:26Speaker 06

  In conversations here, people say that, you know, we're discharging this queer, that queer, thrown out of the Air Force. On the inside, I just burned up with, you know, just, am I a coward here and I'm just going to stand here and never really coming up to protection of my fellow minority group and, and just keeping quiet. And my conscience just wouldn't let me do it anymore. I had to come forward and say, no more America.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  And now you've got this former Marine, saved the president's life, and it's two days later, he still hasn't heard from the president.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  So for Daryl, even though Oliver had said, don't make this about my sexuality.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  I still thought it was, it was a national story and it was pretty hard to ignore it after Herb Kane had started the ball rolling.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  So that night after the interview, Daryl calls in his story to the LA Times office and he uses this phrase. He says that Oliver's a former Marine who was, quote, "a prominent figure in the gay community."

• 27:25Speaker 04

  Put it down a ways in the story, but the rewrite guy put it in the lead. And made it the big thing.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  And so, three days after the assassination attempt, the LA Times runs a story with the headline, "No Call From President: Hero In Ford Shooting, Active Among SF Gays."

• 27:43Speaker 04

  And the LA Times had a news service.

• 27:47Speaker 00

  And so Daryl's story, it goes, I mean, it goes everywhere.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  Another strange twist to the story.

• 27:53Speaker 00

  Headlines are like, "Gay Vet," or "Homosexual Hero."

• 27:57Speaker 04

  It's been reported that the ex-marine who deflected Mrs. Moore's shot on Monday is well-known in San Francisco's gay activist circles.

• 28:06Speaker 00

  And so, it was not just running in Los Angeles. It's also running in Chicago, it's running in Dallas, it's running in Indianapolis, and it's running, you know, of all places, in Oliver Sipple's hometown, in Detroit.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  I guess what I'm wondering is, if you have a guy who says, "Please don't talk about this, this has nothing to do with what I did yesterday." Shouldn't that play some role in what you decide to write or not to write? Well, you know, news sources are always reluctant to talk.

• 28:41Speaker 04

  And so, I guess I took it as my duty to take up that angle, especially since it involved the President of the United States. Right. But... If you were to do it all over again, would you do anything differently?

• 28:59Speaker 04

  I don't know. I hadn't taken into account, maybe,

• 29:10Speaker 04

  the potential harm of saying it. I don't know if I'd do it over again or not.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  But not able to turn back the clock for something like that.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  Clock marches forward after the break.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Radiolab is supported by Capital One. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder that Capital One Bank Guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bankai. Capital One, N.A., member FDIC.

• 30:23Speaker 03

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• 30:59Speaker 07

  Midlife brings a lot of changes. Your Turn with Alison Aubrey is a new podcast to help you navigate the twists and turns. From health and relationships to creativity

• 31:08Speaker 03

  and purpose, we can help steer your next chapter with Your Turn with Alison Aubrey. Find it on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  This is Radiolab. We're back with the story of Oliver Sipple from reporter producer Latif Nasr.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  So the assassination attempt was on Monday, and on Thursday, Sipple and his lawyer call a press conference. Well, I think you all know this is Oliver Sipple, who saved the president's life, and he has a prepared statement.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  ...on a subject that's appeared in the press today.

• 31:47Speaker 06

  In the past few days, I have been asked many questions having to do with my sexual preferences to it. I have been asked whether or not I am gay or homosexual. This is, there is, this is my reply to the line in question. The first reason you are interested in my, in me is the fact, the woman who tried to shoot the president, see, I'm sorry, I'm so nervous, excuse me.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  This is a handwritten statement and he's having a little difficulty reading it. We xeroxed it in order to get it to you this afternoon.

• 32:30Speaker 06

  Reason, first.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Reason you are interested in me is the fact that I deflect.

• 32:34Speaker 06

  Oh, okay, I couldn't get the word there. Can we go right from, whatever. My sexual orientation has nothing at all to do with saving the president's life, just as the color of my eyes or my race has nothing to do with what happened in front of the St. Francis Hotel on Tuesday. My sexual.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Sexuality.

• 32:56Speaker 06

  My sexuality is a part of my private life and I have not, I have no.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  And has no.

• 33:05Speaker 06

  And has no bearing on my.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Response.

• 33:08Speaker 06

  Response to the act of a person seeking to take the life of another. I'm first and foremost a human being who enjoys and respects life. I feel that a person.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Person's worth.

• 33:24Speaker 06

  Worth is determined by how he or she.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Responds.

• 33:31Speaker 06

  Responds to the world in which they live, not on how or what.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  With whom.

• 33:36Speaker 06

  Or with whom a private life is shared.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  He, he basically says, like, stop, stop. It's, it's kind of as simple as that. Yeah. But there's something else that happens in the press conference that is, makes the whole thing, I mean, so much more personal.

• 33:51Speaker 06

  Finally.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  And, and it actually was the very reason that Oliver called the press conference in the first place.

• 33:57Speaker 06

  I want you to know that my mother told me today. That she could not walk out of her front door or even go to church because of the pressures she feels because of the press stories concerning my sexual orientation. Naturally, I never anticipated such interference with my family's relationship, which I when I supposedly saved the president's life.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  Oliver would later say that when he was talking on the phone with his mother, she said to him, I don't want to speak to you ever again.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  And she hung up on him.

• 34:38Speaker 06

  And also hung up.

• 34:43Speaker 00

  Did you call him Uncle Oliver?

• 34:46Speaker 04

  Yes, I called him Uncle Oliver. Yep.

• 34:49Speaker 00

  This is George Sipple Jr., Oliver's nephew. He told me that most of Oliver's family stayed in Detroit. Oliver's two brothers and his dad worked together at an auto plant there.

• 34:59Speaker 04

  They all worked for General Motors. And the stories that I've heard is that.

• 35:03Speaker 00

  The day after Oliver saved the life of President Ford.

• 35:06Speaker 04

  They walked in and everyone wanted to like buy them a beer. You know, everybody on the factory floor was congratulating them, patting them on the back. You know, your brother's a hero, your son's a hero. When, you know, when they would take their their shift break, this is the old days, right? They'd take a shift break and they'd go to the bar and everybody wanted to like buy them a round of drinks. So then the news comes out, whatever, a couple of days later, that he's this gay Marine and there's teasing on the on the factory floor. Teasing, mean teasing or teasing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  And George says what happened is reporters back in Detroit just sort of descended on Oliver's parents.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  To get more of the story. And so they kept knocking on. My grandmother's door and she I guess apparently told them to go away. I guess neighbors were harassing her. She thought the media was harassing her. My grandmother just said, I don't want to deal with it. And so, don't, don't come knock on the door. Leave us alone. They just wanted it to go away. It won't go back to their, you know, private lives.

• 36:11Speaker 00

  Now, one of the things that I found, actually, after talking to George, were these interviews done with Oliver's family after the news broke that Oliver was gay. And there's just a whole, I just want to read you this one particular passage. Here, have you talked to any other members? This is from George F. Sipple, who is Oliver Sipple's brother. Have you talked to any other members of your family since September 1975 about Oliver? I mentioned it once to my father. Question, and what was his response? What did he say? And if you can remember. I was on afternoons then and I had seen him because I had come in early. And he mentioned the fact that the next person that even said he had a son named Oliver, he was going to literally break their damn neck.

• 36:56Speaker 03

  Whoa, so his dad was like, this is his brother talking about his dad's reaction?

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Brother talking to the dad, yeah. And then, so then the brother says, and he told me quite clearly in two letter words, just forget you got a brother. And I let him alone.

• 37:13Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 37:14Speaker 06

  I never participated such interference with my family's relationship, which I, when I supposedly saved the president's life. This is all I have to say on this subject. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Any questions, you go to minister to my lawyer. I'd like to ask Mr. Sipple a question if I could. What would you, what would you like to see happen now?

• 37:40Speaker 06

  I don't know. I'm just, I'm very shook up. I may even have to go even see a doctor over this. I'm very emotionally shook up and I just, I feel very sorry for my family too. It's awful, just awful. But nothing more is there.

• 37:59Speaker 04

  Can you tell us the story of the letter? Well, I wish I would have, I wish I would have brought it. I, I do have it, but I didn't bring it today.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  The same day as that press conference, which was three days after the assassination attempt, Gerald Ford actually did write a letter to Oliver Sipple, which was then released publicly.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  It's a nice letter. It's White House stationery, White House envelope. It's basically Ford telling my uncle that, you know, he's thankful to him for this heroic deed. And he signed it Jerry Ford, which I've been told that Gerald Ford signed different ways. So if he signed Jerry Ford, it meant something. It was like a personal touch. Well, there's this other chapter where your uncle says, says to the president, I guess writes

• 38:49Speaker 00

  Well, so, yeah, so this, we found it, we found a letter. We found a letter in the Gerald Ford library. It's from your uncle to the president.

• 38:57Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 38:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  I did not, I did not know about that letter.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  Really? I have the letter right now. So it's, the date on it is September 30th, 1975. So here's what it says. Dear Mr. President.

• 39:10Speaker 04

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You said it was what? It was when?

• 39:13Speaker 00

  September 30th, 1975. So that would be a couple of days after he got the letter from Ford.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  This was, so obviously, obviously, he got, my grandmother must have hung up on him.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 39:26Speaker 04

  And then he wrote the letter.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it sounds like.

• 39:29Speaker 04

  Cause he couldn't, yeah, that's really interesting.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah. Well, then stop me anytime if you have thoughts or reactions. Dear Mr. President, thank you for taking the time to write to me. In view of some of the events since the unfortunate attempt on your life on Monday, September 22nd, I really appreciate your publicly thanking me.

• 39:52Speaker 00

  As you probably know, there have been a number of stories concerning my personal sexual orientation in the news media. These stories have caused great anguish to my parents and to the rest of my family, I am sure. My mother hung up on me when I first called her after these stories began to be published. I know you are concerned with very many matters, which are too important and pressing for you to be concerned with the details of my private life. However, the unexpected and glaring publicity which has been given to my private life has very seriously disrupted my family relationships. Mr. President, it is a very hard thing to have your mother and family not want to have any contact with you.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  I know that your schedule is heavily occupied, but I respectfully request that you take the time to see my family, or at least call my family. The telephone number is 313-888-0000. I love my family and I do not want to be separated from their love and companionship. Your help will be gratefully appreciated. Respectfully, Oliver Sipple.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 41:10Speaker 04

  That's sad.

• 41:13Speaker 04

  Sadder to think that nothing came of it.

• 41:19Speaker 04

  You know?

• 41:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:43Speaker 00

  We tried really hard to find out if Ford ever made that call. The archivists at the Ford Library, they went through his call logs, and there was no evidence that he ever made that call. And then we talked to George Jr., and he talked to everybody in his family, and they don't remember it either. Anyway, you can't say for sure, but as far as we can tell, that call never happened. But we did find out that the same day that Oliver sent that letter back to Ford, he and his lawyer filed a $15 million lawsuit against the press. Really?

• 42:20Speaker 03

  Saying what?

• 42:22Speaker 00

  That the newspapers, when they publicized that he was gay without his consent, they violated his privacy.

• 42:31Speaker 04

  Okay, walking out of Civic Center, Bert, onto Civic Center in San Francisco.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  It's just, it's one of those cases where it pulls your head in one direction and it pulls your heart in the exact opposite direction. And so, so we wanted to get into the legal case files and we could not find them. We looked and looked and looked and then we found them.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  You found them?

• 42:52Speaker 00

  We found them.

• 42:53Speaker 03

  Where'd you find them?

• 42:54Speaker 04

  So the clerk's office is, I guess, not surprisingly, right off City Hall.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  They were at this court in San Francisco. And so, we recruited this guy, this researcher, historian of the gay movement in San Francisco, great name, Joey Plaster, and he-

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Okay, so I'm gonna need your ID.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 43:12Speaker 00

  Went and got the files for us. And then, when we found them, it turned out there were like thousands and thousands upon thousands of pages.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  And is that everything?

• 43:20Speaker 02

  This is everything.

• 43:20Speaker 04

  That's everything, okay. So the issue, you know, it's a very fundamental issue for those of us in journalism.

• 43:27Speaker 00

  And to help us make sense of the arguments lurking in those pages-

• 43:31Speaker 04

  What is privacy and what is invasion of privacy?

• 43:33Speaker 00

  We talked to Dan Moraine.

• 43:35Speaker 04

  Editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  He actually first heard about the case in journalism school and also wrote about Oliver Sipple way back in the 1980s, so, anyway.

• 43:45Speaker 04

  Okay, so here's the first page of the file. The lawsuit was against The Chronicle. The case is Oliver Sipple, plaintiff, versus The Chronicle Publishing Company. Was against the LA Times.

• 43:56Speaker 00

  The Des Moines Register, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Denver Post, the Indianapolis Star, and the San Antonio Express.

• 44:01Speaker 04

  Wow. Let's see, so this is the deposition of Oliver Sipple. Let's see.

• 44:08Speaker 00

  So one of the arguments that the lawyers for the newspapers were making is that Oliver's sexuality was not actually private.

• 44:15Speaker 04

  Lawyer, were there any people that you knew in San Francisco in, say, September 1975, who knew that you were homosexual? Sipple, yes.

• 44:24Speaker 07

  Lawyer. Approximately how many people? Sipple. I have no idea. More than 10? Yes. More than 50? Yes. More than 100? Yes.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  There were people in New York who knew he was gay. There were people in Dallas who knew he was gay. And it kind of, they settle in the like, in the hundreds.

• 44:41Speaker 07

  Did you tell anybody before in September of 1975 that you were a homosexual? If I were asked, I am asking you. I don't know what you were asking.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  And they make the argument, the newspapers, lawyers, that, hey, this was already somewhat public a fact.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  But his personal business was his personal business.

• 45:00Speaker 07

  I have never attempted to obtain publicity for the fact that I am gay or predominantly homosexual in my sexual orientation.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  He was a private citizen.

• 45:08Speaker 07

  I have made my home approximately 1,800 miles away from home of my parents and my family so that I could move somewhat freely in the gay community without the fact of my sexual orientation getting back to my parents and family. And it goes on.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  But the newspapers made this other argument. There was like, OK. Whether or not you're living a double life, whether or not you wanted to or whether or not you had to, there's something here that's bigger than that, that's bigger than you.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  Which was, he was a private citizen who thrust himself, as anybody would hope they would do. He ran toward, he went toward danger. And when he did, he also thrust himself into the public eye.

• 45:47Speaker 00

  And journalists, when you're in the public eye, you become something else entirely. You become a public figure.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  Yesterday in San Francisco, a shot fired.

• 45:56Speaker 00

  When that happened to Oliver.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  He lost his right to privacy. I'll make one more try on the gay thing.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  And the newspapers argued, when it came to Oliver's sexuality.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  You don't want to change your mind on that? No. It was news at the time.

• 46:09Speaker 00

  It is, was, and at all pertinent times has been my judgment that Mr. Sipple's activities in the gay community are highly significant and newsworthy for two important reasons. First.

• 46:19Speaker 04

  On March 6th, Sergeant Leonard Matlovich disclosed that he was a homosexual.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  So, like we said, when Daryl Lemke was writing that article about Oliver, you had this big story about the US Air Force trying to kick this guy, Leonard Matlovich, out because he was gay. Would you like to meet him? And Oliver has heard nothing from the president. The president later said that that had nothing to do with Oliver being gay. But to people at the time. The suggestion that the president's expression of gratitude to Sipple.

• 46:46Speaker 06

  Might have been affected by rumors of Sybil's activities in the gay community.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  That was news. News Secretary Nesson was asked if that was the reason President Ford has not yet personally thanked him.

• 46:55Speaker 06

  Second. Lies, the innuendos. Sybil's public display of heroism in saving the life of the president of the United States. The distortions, all gay people are child molesters. Presented an image. That gay people are like everybody else, that they're heroes. An image certainly contrary to the stereotype of persons associated with the gay community as weak and unheroic figures.

• 47:18Speaker 00

  Which is to say, this is newsworthy, this is worth knowing, and it is something that the whole country wants to know, and the value of that is more than the value of, you know, this individual person's privacy.

• 47:30Speaker 03

  Do they make it that explicitly? I mean, sort of putting it in terms of the public benefit outweighs the private privacy?

• 47:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. So Oliver's case, it dragged on for nine years, so from 1975 to 1984. But this is, I'm quoting the judgment.

• 47:49Speaker 00

  "The record shows that the publications were not motivated by morbid and sensational prying into a appellant's private life, but rather were prompted by legitimate political concerns, i.e. to dispel the false public opinion that gays were timid, weak, and unheroic figures, and to raise the equally important political question whether the president of the United States entertained a discriminatory attitude or bias against a minority group such as homosexuals." So the court tossed Oliver's case out. He lost. He didn't get a dime.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  I mean, if you think about it, it is weird that a journalist can just take a person's most private details, and then if it feels relevant, like if they can make that argument, they just put it out there.

• 48:37Speaker 04

  It is the, like, if we did, if we were to go silent because somebody says, "Don't say that about me," then, and the government backs him up?

• 48:45Speaker 03

  But is if it's meaningful, then the person out of which the meaning is being pulled painfully has nothing to say about it? That's just weird to me.

• 48:54Speaker 04

  Yes, it's really hard.

• 48:56Speaker 07

  I mean, I was thinking about this, like, even sort of on the train coming over here.

• 48:59Speaker 00

  Again, Daniel Lutzer.

• 49:00Speaker 07

  And it's like, the thing that like makes journalism law so complicated, and the things that make an invasion of privacy discussion so difficult, is that like...

• 49:11Speaker 07

  What makes something not an invasion of privacy is not that it's OK. It's that it's politically, you know, relevant. So like the fact that the story, the fact that the private details of his life are politically relevant means that it's not an invasion of privacy. You know, it doesn't mean that it isn't rude or that it doesn't hurt. It means that it's an appropriate story to, you know, to publish.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  But I, but I do think like, why should the journalists be the only ones to decide what is newsworthy? It's not like, why is it that then journalists, you, you just pick up a notepad and a pencil and all of a sudden you have so much more power to say what's sayable than, than anybody else?

• 49:57Speaker 07

  Well, I mean, we have a, the sort of long tradition of that in the United States. I mean, like, that's like what the First Amendment is. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's like, yeah, sure. Like, it's like, why do journalists get to decide that? Well, like, who would you rather have decided? It's not a perfect system, but it's, you know, it kind of works.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  So, so is Oliver just like this?

• 50:18Speaker 00

  This is producer Tracy Hunt, who was in on the interview.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  Somebody whose life is basically kind of sacrificed to the altar of the First Amendment in this like sad way?

• 50:28Speaker 07

  Yes. Yeah.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, it feels like he was sacrificed from all sides, actually.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. It, it feels like there's this one kind of man in the middle and then there are all these forces around him, these like, these larger than life forces, like the White House, there's the gay movement, there's the freedom of the press. And, and all these people are sort of batting around all these, all these enormous and important abstractions. And then in the middle of it, there's this guy that just, he's trampled by all of them.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  And so what ends up happening to him in the end?

• 51:09Speaker 00

  Well, I'll tell you right after we take a quick break.

• 51:13Speaker 02

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• 53:08Speaker 03

  This is Radiolab. I'm Jad Abumrad, here with Robert Krulwich. Getting back now to our story from producer Latif Nassar about Oliver Sipple, who, as we heard before the break, tried to sue a series of newspapers for outing him, lost that suit. What happened to him after that?

• 53:23Speaker 00

  Well, apparently, some people in the gay community during and after the lawsuit felt that he was trying to go back in the closet. So they sort of turned their backs on him. He, surprisingly, he was friends with Harvey Milk till, till the end. Like, when Harvey Milk was assassinated, Oliver Sipple went to his funeral. And he, he did have one brother, George Senior, who, who stuck by him throughout. But, but his parents did not. And they never fully accepted the fact that he was gay. And, and to, when his mom died, it, it was so bad that Oliver Sipple's father didn't let him go to the funeral.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  And because he, he sort of, he had so, so few people, I guess, at the end, and because there weren't, you know, a lot of news articles about him, and because a lot of people in the gay community from that time have died because of the AIDS crisis, it was really hard to find out what happened to Oliver Sipple in those last five years of his life. And the only way we could was because, when we were talking to Daniel Lutzer, he mentioned this interview that he did with this guy named Wayne Friday. He was a friend of Oliver's.

• 54:43Speaker 07

  Wayne Friday was sort of like a pillar of the community in San Francisco, like a pillar of the gay community, and then also a sort of political figure, and he was a cop, and, you know, he was, he was, he sort of fingers in every pie, kind of thing.

• 54:57Speaker 00

  Wayne died last year, but Daniel still had the transcript of their conversation about Oliver Sipple's last days. And so- Yes, he tried to absorb it, or just try to speak about it for a second? That's not me. We found an actor, the very gifted Gordon Pincent, and we had him read it for us.

• 55:17Speaker 04

  Okay, let me have a go. I, I forget, was it 1975, the Sarah Jane Moore, or? Yeah, that I met him around 73. He was a swamper, had a gay bar called The Cockpit. Swamper, they used to clean the bars at night. You know, they set the bar up for the next bartender in the morning. That's what he did. He did it at two or three different bars. He was always at the bars. I'd see him. We actually became friends because we discovered we were both from Michigan.

• 55:54Speaker 04

  Bill was a good guy. He was just a fucking alcoholic. I mean, he'd get his disability check once a month, and he'd go down to one of the bars in the Tenderloin, where he used to hang out, was called Queen Mary's Pub. He'd go in there the day he got his check. Swear to God, he'd spend his whole fucking check on everybody. And he'd get broke the rest of the month. He just couldn't control himself. And he was a little bit of a blowhard, you know? He'd get drunk and loud, and he'd get tossed out of bars. I used to drive him home. He had an apartment on Van Ness. Had a little studio. Maybe a one-bedroom on the first floor at About Turk. He'd be drunk as an hell at the bar, and I'd drive him home.

• 56:39Speaker 04

  So I always knew where he lived.

• 56:44Speaker 04

  And after this thing with Ford, it really fucked his mind up. Sybil was a broken guy after that. The whole thing worked him. The publicity of it all, and the fact that everyone knew he was a faggot, you know? He said to me a couple of times, "I went to the Marine Corps, and I got hurt. And now what am I known for? For being a faggot." And I'd say, "No, you're not. You're known for saving the president's life. You won't be known for what you did in bed, for Christ's sake." But he would get drunk, and he'd start bemoaning that. I'd sit there in the bar with him, and I'd talk to him about it. "Hey, man, it is what it is." But he was just...

• 57:27Speaker 04

  He was just down to nothing.

• 57:32Speaker 04

  This thing happened, and it overcame him. It was too much for him to handle. And I think he got to feeling sorry for himself and his family. Just... Many a night, I would sit in the bar with Bill Sybil, and he'd cry on your shoulder, and you'd say, "Okay, Sybil, it's time to go home." And then I'd drive him home.

• 58:05Speaker 04

  I remember it was raining. It was pouring fucking rain.

• 58:11Speaker 04

  Bruce called me at my office over at the DA's office and said, Wayne, will you do a well-being check on Sipple for me? And I said, why? And he said, nobody's seen the dude. He hasn't been around for a while.

• 58:25Speaker 04

  So we go out there together and it was raining. And I'm ringing the bell, ringing the bell, ring. He doesn't answer.

• 58:34Speaker 04

  I noticed on his door there were these little stickum things, Post-its. And he had befriended this little old lady who lived next door. They kind of looked after each other. And she'd left all these notes, Bill, call me. I can't get a hold of you. So I rang the manager's bell. And there was a little Filipino guy.

• 58:55Speaker 04

  I showed him my badge and I said, you gotta let me in. And so he did. And the door opened and I knew what was going on.

• 59:07Speaker 04

  It's the smell. It's a smell you never forget. It's a sickening, sweet smell.

• 59:17Speaker 04

  Bill was sitting in the chair.

• 59:21Speaker 04

  He was bloated. He was bloated out real big.

• 59:27Speaker 04

  He had a bottle of Jack Daniels sitting there.

• 59:31Speaker 04

  And the television was still on.

• 59:35Speaker 04

  The coroner told me he'd been dead about ten days. As near as they could figure.

• 59:46Speaker 04

  God, I didn't know he was only forty-seven. I thought he was older than that.

• 59:54Speaker 04

  Anyway, I got the guy to open the door for me. And the minute he did, I said, close it.

• 1:00:02Speaker 04

  And then I had to stand there and wait for the coroner.

• 1:00:20Speaker 04

  I remember it was over here at the Campbell Funeral Home on Market Street. And then we buried him out in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno. And I remember it was, it was very small. The casket wasn't open. The funeral was just, I mean, there were more media there than anything else. I've, I've seen him buy drinks for more people than were at that funeral. He could have been buried in Arlington if they'd made an issue out of it.

• 1:01:00Speaker 04

  I mean shit, there he was, this national icon, a gay whatever, and... There were just a few people out there for the funeral.

• 1:01:31Speaker 06

  I believe in human life. And I think that this country stands for human values. Including life and freedom. I'm first and foremost a human being who enjoys and respects life. I feel that I, that, I feel that a person's worth is determined by how he or she responds to the world in which they live. Not on how or what, or with whom a private life is shared.

• 1:02:16Speaker 06

  These are my words and they're my feelings.

• 1:02:24Speaker 06

  This is all I have to say on this subject. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

• 1:03:25Speaker 03

  This story was reported by Latif Nasser and Tracy Hunt. It was produced by Matt Kielty and Annie McEwen with Latif and Tracy.

• 1:03:34Speaker 04

  Special thanks to Bruce T. H. Burke, to Stacey Davis at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library, to the GLBT Historical Society, Stephanie Arias at the Huntington Library, James Crammon, who is Gordon Pinson's agent, and as long as we're on the subject of Gordon, the actor who you heard just ending the piece, wow.

• 1:03:50Speaker 03

  Wow, yeah.

• 1:03:50Speaker 04

  Just wow.

• 1:03:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you to Gordon.

• 1:03:53Speaker 04

  Special thanks also to Alan Jones, Denny Meyer, and Floyd Abrams. Thank you all.

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  We had original music in this story. We used a lot of music from a guy named Patrick Cowley. He was a guy who grew up in Buffalo, moved to San Francisco in the 70s like Oliver Sipple, and in 1982, he died of AIDS. This music was released posthumously by the label Dark Entries. We're super grateful to them and to Patrick Cowley, wherever he is, for the use of his music. And last but not least, before we close, we just want to say a very sort of special belated goodbye to our senior producer, Jamie York. For everything.

• 1:04:35Speaker 04

  For everything.

• 1:04:35Speaker 03

  For guiding so many of our stories and our whole team for the last few years. Jamie, we will really miss you.

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  Yes, we even do, at this very moment, miss you.

• 1:04:46Speaker 00

  Hey, 2026 Latif here with a few little updates for you. A few of the people in this story have passed away since we first released this episode. Last year, Sarah Jane Moore, the woman who tried to assassinate President Ford, died at a nursing facility in Tennessee. She was 95. In 2020, Bud Lemke, the longtime LA Times reporter, died. He was 98. And our actor Gordon Pincent, reading Wayne Friday's transcript at the end there, also passed away in 2023 at the age of 92.

• 1:05:18Speaker 03

  All right, I'm Jad Abumrad.

• 1:05:19Speaker 04

  I'm Robert Prologi.

• 1:05:20Speaker 03

  Thanks for listening.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  To play the message, press 2.

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Gabby. I'm from the Bay Area, California, and here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Sauron Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandback is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Jeremy Blum, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nainas Ambandan, Matt Kielty, Mona Margaucher, Alex Neeson, Sarah Kari, Natalia Ramirez,

• 1:06:00Speaker 02

  Rebecca Rand, Anissa Vitza, Arian Whack, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young, with help from Gabby Santis. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Angela Mercado, and Sophie Sami.

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Aubrey, calling from Salt Lake City, Utah. Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Simon's Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.