A twenty-three year old Virginia man has been arrested for plotting to kill President George W. Bush.  According to an indictment, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali discussed plans to assassinate President Bush with members of the terrorist group Al-Qaida. 

 

Abu Ali is accused of planning two scenarios.  In the first, he would “get close enough to the president to shoot him.”  In the second, he would “detonate a car bomb.”  Abu Ali is going to plead innocent to the charges.

 

The situation gets a little complicated, however.  For the past two years, Abu Ali has been held in Saudi Arabia without charges.  While he was detained, Abu Ali claims that he was tortured and forcibly interrogated.  Lawyers claim that the statements used to charge Abu Ali were taken from these interrogations (obviously, it is easy to make a person admit to crimes that he didn’t commit while he is being tortured).

 

Abu Ali has already made his initial appearance in United States District Court near Washington, D.C., and all of the charges will be investigated in the upcoming weeks.  Plotting to assassinate the President is a serious crime, even if there is never an actual attempt.  In fact, it is not even legal to joke about killing the president.

 

Fortunately, assassinating the president might be easier said than done.  At all times, the Commander in Chief is surrounded by intense security.  Every place that he visits is investigated and cleared before his arrival.

 

The heavy protection of the president stems from a lesson learned back on November 22, 1963.  On that day, a rifle fired down from the sixth floor of an office building in downtown Dallas.  President John F. Kennedy, riding in an uncovered vehicle, was shot and killed in the midst of great confusion.          

 

Kennedy had narrowly defeated Richard Nixon in the presidential election three years earlier.  He had taken advantage of something that Nixon overlooked—the power of television.  In the world’s first televised debate for a presidential election, Nixon looked rugged, sweaty, and unrefined.  In short, he forgot to put on his make-up.

           

On the other hand, Kennedy looked like a seasoned Hollywood actor, showing off his smooth demeanor and young good looks.  Kennedy was elected by a narrow margin, and his campaign helped him carry into the office the reputation of a young, enthusiastic, and exciting president.

           

But it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.  In the United States, sensitive issues like Civil Rights blasted the headlines.  The nation was taking on a new attitude, people were quick to point out injustices, and Kennedy was expected to please the public.  He promised large tax-cuts, as well as strives in improving the rights among minorities.

           

However, the problems that Kennedy faced domestically may have just been a warm-up compared to his headaches in foreign policy.  He held office in the midst of the Cold War, and tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were ever present.  The Berlin Wall took shape in Europe, nuclear war seemed only moments away during the Cuban Missile Crisis when it was found that the Soviets had missile bases in Cuba. 

           

To add to his troubles, there was the Bay of Pigs invasion, a failed attempt to overthrow Cuba using Cuban exiles trained by the CIA.  However, even with the turmoil in the world around him, Kennedy remained popular among the American public, and he kept the nation optimistic. 

 

Kennedy’s popularity, combined with the turmoil of the times, made his assassination even more shocking for the American people.   Obviously, any time a President of the United States is assassinated, it’s going to have an enormous impact on the nation, the world, and on history. 

 

While Kennedy wasn’t the first President to be killed in office, he was the first in “modern times.”  It had been over sixty years since William McKinley had been assassinated.  At that time, there had been no security surrounding McKinley (he was shot at a Pan-American Expo in New York), and it certainly wasn’t seen on television.

 

Because TV brought Kennedy’s assassination into living rooms throughout the nation, it had a tremendous emotional impact.  Wild conspiracy theories were quickly formed.  To appease them, an official committee was formed to investigate the events that day, and the Warren Report was written.  This document stated that a single assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, had been guilty.  There had been no second shooter.

 

With no other choice, the American government continued on.  After the shooting, Lyndon Johnson was immediately sworn in as president aboard Air Force One, the presidential Airplane.  Today, a typical presidential motorcade contains nearly thirty vehicles, and the President rides in an armored limousine.