Radiolab - Oliver Sipple

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

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 Hunte Produced 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 [e-mail] 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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. Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio Lab.

Radio Lab. From W. N.Y. See? Yeah. Rewind. Just a quick note, this story contains some profanities. Here and there. Here in there.

A couple. So just know that before we get going. Hey, I'm Chad Ibramrod. I'm Robert Krollwich. This is Radio Lab. And today we are going to start... Okay, so let's start with our producer Latif Nasser. Yeah.

Well, let's just go back to San Francisco on a particular day at a particular time. And a particular woman. Hello. Hi. Is this Sarah Jane? Yes, it is. A woman named... Sarah Jane Moore.

Sarah Jane. Okay. So this is San Francisco. The particular date was September 22nd. The particular time... 1975. It's a Monday morning. It was a nice day? Oh, yeah. I don't remember anything different, so I assume it was a nice day. I was kind of, you know, in my own head. 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 big, this big, fancy hotel. What was the name of the hotel? 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.

Okay, all right. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. But at any rate, you know, I parked in the parking garage across, right across 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. She joins the crowd across the street from the hotel. It was very crowded. A couple of thousand people. It's like a big seat. 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.

What were you? Do you remember what you were wearing? I mean, I'm sure there's... Oh, there are pictures of it. Yes, I was wearing slacks. That was at the beginning of when it was natural for women 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. She sees this guy there, big, strong guy, blonde hair. 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. That's what I had not planned to be. And he apparently was still right behind me. So maybe he was pushed up by the crowd also. And so Sarah Jane is just crammed into this crowd and she's just standing there. Yes. And were you, were you nervous? Oh, no, huh?

You set out to do something and I was just going about doing what I had set out to do. So she waits and she waits and an hour goes by and two and three and then finally 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. To get in his car, which was parked there on the street. 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. And pulled the gun out of my purse. A 38-cali- revolver. She cocks it, and then she takes aim right at Gerald Ford's head. And then...

But Mr. Ford did not fall. Remain pushed back by the police. The bullet flies a few feet to the right of Ford, chips the wall behind him. Ford freezes in place. Sarah Jane... Never planned to take a second shot. Now, she's just still standing there. With my hand still in the air holding the gun. 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 blonde 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.

So I couldn't move. And by that point, the Secret Service has whisked off the president into the limousine. And I was immediately picked up and carried across the street. Into the hotel. Arrested. And eventually, she went to prison and she served 32 years in prison. Huh. And then after that was released on parole.

And then we talked to her. We have. 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. I was hoping that. Wait, can you explain, though, why? it is she decided to shoot the guy? Yeah, why did you shoot?

Well, Sarah Jane's never fully explained that. And in fact, when I asked her, she was like, I'm not going there. 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. Sipple? Yeah, Oliver Sipel. He's the random blonde 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.

And he paid dearly for that. 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. Because had he not reached out and put his hand on my arm, nobody fired a shot. None of this would have happened to him. Wait, what happened to him? So Oliver Sibble actually died in 1989, but before we get to this story,

I just want to give you a picture of the guy. So just Google search, Oliver Sipple, Ford, or something. Wait, okay, wait. I see the picture. I see like that. He's a muscular guy, kind of blonde hair. He's a handsome guy. Yeah, he's a little bit James Dean and Marlon Brando had a baby kind of.

He feels like an all-American. He feels all-American. There's something all-American about him. Thank you. Yeah, we're bringing in another All-American for this story, Daniel Lutzer. editor at Oxford University Press. And a few years ago, I was like probably more than five years ago, I wrote an article about Oliver Sipple.

But anyway, to get back on track. September 22nd, 1975. Sarah Jane Moore fires that shot. Oliver Sippel grabs her arm. The police wrestled more to the ground. And then the police actually grab Oliver two, pull him inside the hotel to question him. Because there's initially some confusion about what he was doing there and some thought that, you know, he might have been a suspect.

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. Loud noises would make him very unhappy. I think this is the sort of thing we might call post-traumatic stress disorder now. But when eventually Oliver started to calm down, the Secret Service were like, what are you even doing here? It was kind of hard for him to answer because it's like,

didn't even really know. It was just like, I don't know. I was taking a walk. And I just bumped into this huge crowd of people, asked what was going on. People were like, oh, like, Gerald Ford is going to be here. You know, the president is going to be here. So he said he thought, I might as well see him. And then he was standing there for a couple hours until he saw a flash of metal, realized it was a gun, reacted quickly, instinctively. And then you guys all pulled me in here. That's how he came to be here. 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? But he said, like, oh, you know, listen, don't mention any of that stuff about the Marines.

You know, let's keep that under wraps. Quote, I'm no hero or nothing. But the next day... Oliver's story shot across the country. The aim deflected by an ex-Marine, a Vietnam veteran named Oliver Sipple. His name's on television. 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. And it appears that he sort of thought that would be it. Maybe his friends would give him a pat on the back, buy him a couple rounds. And then, you know, over the next couple days, it all sort of like rippled out of control. Because that very same day that Oliver was being painted as a hero, this guy named Herb Kane. The longtime San Francisco columnist

walked into his office and on his answering machine were two messages saying, hey, that guy Oliver Sipple, the hero? Who saved the president's life? He's gay. Huh.

Was he out? Well, he was sort of out and sort of not. What does I mean? 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. A city has emerged where homosexuality is not only tolerated but thrives. San Francisco sometimes labeled with a sly captioned Queen City of the West. So San Francisco... It's a great day. It's a gay day. Happy day. It was one of the first cities in America to have a gay pride parade.

And in the 70s... It's a wonderful city, that's a city. Boys go to bed with boys and girls got to bed with girls. For gay people, San Francisco was like this shelter from the storm. Many of us were immigrants from somewhere. This is Ken Maley. Longtime San Francisco resident. And gay activist who at the age of 19 came to San Francisco from Kansas.

I escaped from Kansas because what the West offered was the ethereal promise, if you will, of reinvention. You could cross a line in which your past stayed behind you. It was a place where you could be out, but to the people you left behind, you could still be in. So, so for Oliver, you know, he came from Michigan. From a working class family. He had a lot of brothers and sisters. I think he was one of eight children. And so after the war, when he got to San Francisco, he actually started going by the name Billy.

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 never told his family. And so Oliver lived, like a lot of gay people at the time. this double life? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And do we know that this is the reason why Sipbook came to San Francisco? Or was there a different reason?

It may have just been because Harvey Milk was there. The Harvey Milk, you know, famous gay activist, San Francisco politician. He was friends with Harvey Milk. The New Yorker, an immigrant from New York. 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 of time, they actually dated the same guy. Who was the inspiration for Sugar Plum Fairy.

Sugar Plum? Barry came and hit the streets. In Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side. Looking for soul food and a place to eat. 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. By the beginning of the 70s. When Oliver got to San Francisco, reconnected with his old friend. Harvey was, shall we say, evolving into a huge figure there, but gay public figure. Ken was actually friends with Harvey, worked on one of his campaigns. But this, I'm sorry. No, no, and I'm just thinking like one of the things we were talking about on the phone

was about sort of the kind of two different schools or two different. I was just about the segue to that. Oh, perfect. So this older, I would say older, but other generation of gay, mostly men. was that they were content to go to tea with the mayor or public official of some kind. They would show up to, like, a rally. Wearing jackets and ties. And, like, ask for their rights politely?

They really weren't, shall we say, activists. Because according to Ken, the activism came... When in the late 60s, early 70s, you had young gay men and women... ...and the war in Vietnam. Who came out of the Vietnam War protests into the... The world. Took a look around. The CBS News survey shows that two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust,

discomfort, or fear. The police are still raiding bars. What they consider discrimination in jobs and housing. People are still getting beaten. One of whom had said, a queer faggot, we're going to beat the shit out of you, some to that effect. We're going to kill you. Both violently and non-violently.

Got up in the middle of the street. They knocked me down and started beating me with their hands and their feet, their elbow. try to muffle my screams. And after a while, a body of people get to a point where they just will not take oppression anymore. So... Oh, Harvey. In came the activist like Harvey.

Ponytail, mustache. He was a banker turned hippie. You know you're lying. You know you're changing the statements around. He was very outspoken. I question, what is your real motive behind it? Very militant. And stop this phony issue that you know is a phony issue.

And to Harrow. We are saying that a gay person should have the right to say... Gay people were living in a half-life opportunity. I am gay that is a part of society, period. Not being able to be who they were. Every gay person must come out. 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 to the stores you shop in. Once you do, you will feel so much better. And so, cut back to... September 22nd, 1975. In the blink of an eye, Oliver Sibble 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 Sipples. I've known him for years.

Oliver Sipple worked on my campaign for supervisor. So basically, without Sipel's consent, Harvey outed him. Milk outed him. What was Harvey Milk thinking that he would do this? Well, for Harvey... I think the stereotypes, the lies, the innuendos... Of gay people as limp-risted and drag queens and stuff.

The distortions. All gay people are child blesters. Well, here's a true gay hero. A square-jawed, heroic Marine. It seemed to be a sort of like regular, like red-blooded American. 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. Wasn't there somebody said, no, no, no, no, you've got to ask the guy for you can't just do that.

Harvey just did it, really? Yeah, he just did it. So Kane, in 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 Brochiers. 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. Yay. 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. And he, let me just go back and get this.

So two days after the assassination attempt, Kane's column comes out. 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 Brochier's head of Helping Hand Center and Gay Politico Harvey Milk, who claimed to be among Sippel's close friends, described themselves as proud. Maybe this will help break the stereotype. And then, that day, this guy named Daryl Lemke. Lemke, L-E-M-B-K-E,

picks up his issue of the Chronicle, sees Herb Keynes column. Read it, and I reported it to the office. The office of the Los Angeles. Times. I was a reporter for the L.A. Times in San Francisco, and so my office told me get an interview with Alder Sippel. But really quickly, before we get there, we actually managed to find the recording of this very specific interview in the L.A. 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. So the night that

Kane's article comes out, Daryl goes to Oliver's house. Oliver's there. Two reporters from the Sentinel were there also. What is the Sentinel? That right there is Daryl. It's a game newspaper. I wonder you got him or me in this? Sure.

So they're all sitting in Oliver's living room, and what the reporters are all wondering is, have you heard from the president? The president hadn't bothered to thank him at that point. The president can award what they call medals of freedom to people for outstanding acts. They offered, you know, the having you brought back to the White House, go. Certainly. Would you like to meet you? Well, yeah, I stood in line for three hours of a seat.

Of course, I'd like to. And that voice right there, that's Oliver. You didn't have time to meet you at that occasion. I don't think so. Have you heard from the mayor? No. I've heard from nobody. No. I've heard only from the press and reporters and reporters and the press.

Of course, you have been hard to get a hold of. But then I'm sure the mayor could find you. He has access to police records. Okay, can we go on that round? Yeah. Okay. For some reason, San Francisco Police Department has now referred any inquiries about you to the sex crimes and missing persons detail.

That's something I think you should know. Something Oliver should know because this is, again, this is at a time when the assumption was that all gay men were just pedophiles, pervert. And when I said background, this is information that cannot be printed. Well, can I call them and ask him about it? Daryl actually asks if he can call somebody and ask about it. Yeah, would you get it right now? Yeah.

No, I don't want to. Well, you won't. You damn right? They're not giving any reasons as to why. The number is 553-1-361. Who is the guy to talk to? Talk to you're Sullivan or Hedford. No, you think I found out.

Darrell calls local authorities, but he can't get a hold of anyone. I said a guy about it was amazing yet. He said to call back around one. I 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 never been arrested, much of being dropped a couple times, but I don't think there's no marine in the world hasn't been dropped a couple of times.

Would you like us to check that out further to see if there's more than they're giving you? And then the tape recorder goes off, comes back on. Uh, well, Who do I call with some authority with the police department? And now Oliver's on the phone with the police department. Yeah. Is this 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. This is may yes. That's correct, sir. Yes, sir. I'd like some information. A bunch of press came over, well, not a bunch of 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 acts?

What the hell is all that about? 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. And I thought, what the same hell is going on? Okay.

Thanks a lot, Guy. Yeah. just the officer, one of the officers that was involved with the assassination, or assassination attempt is in that department, that's all. That's why it's being turned. Does that make any sense to you? You got me very shook up, young man. I was just about to go down town and whip some ass somewhere.

We find out any more about it. 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 going to 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,

I'll make one more try on the gay thing. I'll make one more try on the gay thing. You don't want to change your mind on it. You don't want to change your mind on that. No, I just don't want to change your mind on that. May we quote you as saying homosexuality has nothing to do with this? Even quote me as saying that if I were a 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 actor or itself. So I don't think it should be pushed any further than that would be cool. And eventually... Okay. Interview ends, and Daryl says that when he left that interview, he felt like when it came to all of her sexuality... He didn't want to be quoted.

That was it. Like, just don't quote me on it. But still... 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 and thanking him for saving his life. And Daryl thought that Oliver sexuality, the fact that he was gay,

might have something to do with that because just seven months earlier. 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. 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. In conversations here, people say that, you know, we're discharging this queer, that queer throwing out of the Air Force. I mean, inside I just burn 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 just keeping quiet. And my conscience just wouldn't let me do it anymore. I had to come forward and say, no more America.

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. And so for Daryl, even though Oliver had said, don't make this about my sexuality. I still thought it was a national story, and it was pretty hard to ignore it after Herb Kaine had started the ball rolling. So that night, after the interview, Daryl calls in his story to the L.A. Times office, and he uses this phrase. He says that Oliver is a former Marine, who was, quote, a prominent figure in the gay community. Put it down a ways in the story. but the rewrite guy put it in the lead.

Really? And made it the big thing. And so three days after the assassination attempt, the LA Times runs the story with the headline, no call from president, hero in Ford shooting active among SF gays. And the LA Times got a news service. And so Daryl's story, it goes, I mean, it goes everywhere.

Another strange twist of the story. Headlines are like, gay vet or homosexual. sexual hero. 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. 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 Sipples' hometown in Detroit. I guess what I'm wondering is if you have a guy who says, please don't talk about this. It 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. And so I guess I took it as my duty to take up that angle, especially since it's involved in the president of the United States.

Right. But if you were to do it all over, again? Would you do anything differently? I don't know. I hadn't taken into account, maybe, the potential harm of saying it. I don't know

if I'd do it over again or not, but not able to turn back the clock for something like that. The clock marches forward after the break. This is Radio Lab. We're back with the story of Oliver Sipple from reporter-producer, Lato Fnazor. So the assassination attempt was on Monday,

and on Thursday, Sipel and his lawyer call a press conference. Well, I think you all know this is Oliver Sippel, who saved the president's life, and he has a prepared statement on a subject that's appeared in the press today. 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 my reply to the line in question. The first reason you are interested in my, and me is the fact the woman who tried to shoot the president. See, I'm sorry, I'm so nervous. Excuse me. This is a handwritten statement He's having a little difficulty reading it We xeroxed it in order to get it to you this afternoon

The reason you were interested in me Is the fact that I deflected Oh, okay, I couldn't get the word there Can we go with 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... Sexuality. My sexuality is a part of my private life. And I have no... And has no. And has no bearing on my... 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 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. He basically says, like, stop, stop.

It's kind of as simple as that. But there's something else that happens in the press conference that makes the whole thing, I mean, so much more, personal. And it actually was the very reason that Oliver called the press conference in the first place. 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 participated.

such interference with my family's relationship, which I... When I supposedly saved the president's life. 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. And she hung up on him. And also hung up. Did you call him Uncle Oliver? Yes, I called him Uncle Oliver.

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 in an auto plant there. They all worked for General Motors. And the stories that I've heard is that... The day after Oliver saved the life of President Ford... 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 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 around the drinks. So then the news comes out, you know, 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. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And George says what happened is reporters back in Detroit just sort of descended on Oliver's parents. To get more of the story. And so they kept knocking on my grandkids. mother'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 come knock on the door, leave us alone. They just wanted it to go away. We won't go back to

their, you know, private lives. 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 Gabe. 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, that the next person that even said he had a son named Oliver,

he was going to literally break their damn neck. Whoa. So his dad was like, this is his brother talking about his dad's reaction? 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.

Wow. 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 that go to minister to my lawyer? I'd like to ask Mr. Simple a question like that. What would you like to see it happen now? I don't know. I'm just very shook up. I'm 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 to say. Can you tell us the story of the letter? Well, I wish I would have brought it. I do have it, but I didn't bring it today. The same day is 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. It's a nice letter. It's, White House stationary, 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 the president. 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.

Wow. Yeah. I did not, I did not know about that letter. Really? I have the letter right now. So it's, to the date on it is September 30th, 1975. So here's what it says. Dear Mr. President.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You said it was what? It was when? September 30th, 1975. So that would be a couple days. after he got the letter from Ford. This was, so obviously, obviously he got, my grandmother must have hung up on him.

Right. And then he wrote the letter. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like. Because he couldn't. Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. Okay, yeah.

Well, stop me any time 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 event since the unfortunate attempt on your life on Monday, September 22nd, I really appreciate you're publicly thanking me. 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. 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. 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 W. Sybil. Wow. That's sad. Sadder to think that nothing came of it, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

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, you know, 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? Saying what?

That the newspapers, when they publicized that he was gay, without his consent, they violated his privacy. Okay. Walking out of Civic Center, Bart, onto Civic Center in San Francisco. 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 we wanted to get into the... the legal case files, and we could not find them.

We looked and looked and then we found them. You found them? We found them. Where'd you find them? So the clerk's office is, I guess, not surprisingly right off city hall. 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...

Okay, so I'm going to need your ID. Okay. 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. And is that everything? This is everything. Okay.

So the issue, you know, it's a very fundamental issue for those of us in journalism. And to help us make sense of the arguments, you know, lurking in those pages. What is privacy and what is invasion of privacy? We talked to Dan Moraine. Editorial page editor of the Sacramento B. He actually first heard about the case in journalism school and also wrote about Oliver Sipple way back in the 1980s. So anyway.

Okay. Okay, so here's the first page of the file. The lawsuit was against the Chronicle? The case is Oliver W. Sippel, plaintiff versus the Chronicle Publishing Company. Was against the LA Times? The Des Moines Register, the Chicago Sun Times, a Denver Post, the Indianapolis Star, and the San Antonio Express. Wow. Let's see.

So this is the deposition of Oliver W. Sipple. Let's see. So one of the arguments that the lawyers for the newspapers were making is that Oliver's sexuality was not actually private. Lawyer, were there any people that you knew in San Francisco's in, say, September 1975, who knew that you were homosexual? Sipple, yes. Lawyer. Approximately how many people?

Simple. I have no idea. More than 10? Yes. More than 50? Yes. More than 100? Yes.

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. Did you tell anybody before in September of 1975 that you were a homosexual that you were homosexual, if I were asked, I am asking you. I don't know what you were asking. And they make the argument in newspapers, lawyers, that, hey, this was already somewhat public a fact. But his personal business was his personal business. I have never attempted to obtain publicity for the fact that I am gay or predominantly homosexual in my sexual orientation. He was a private citizen. 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. But the newspapers made this other argument that was like, okay, 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. Which was he was a private citizen who thrust himself as anybody would hope they would do. ran toward, he went toward danger. And when he did, he also thrust himself into the public eye.

And a journalist, when you're in the public eye, you become something else entirely. You become a public figure. Yesterday in San Francisco was shot fired. When that happened to Oliver, he lost his right to privacy. I'll make one more try on the gay thing. And the newspapers argued when it came to Oliver's sexuality. You don't want to change your mind. No.

It was news at the time. is, was, and at all pertinent times has been my judgment that Mr. Sippel's activities in the gay community are highly significant and newsworthy for two important reasons. First, On March 6th, Sergeant Leonard Matlovich disclosed that he was a homosexual. So, like we said, when Daryl Lemke was writing that article about Oliver, you had this big story about the U.S. Air Force trying to kick this guy Leonard Matlovich out because he was gay. 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 Siphol might have been affected by rumors of Siphol's activities in the gay community. That was news. News secretary Nessen was asked if that was the reason President Ford has not yet personally thanked him. Second. Lies, the innuendos. Sipples' public display of heroism and saving the life of the president of the United States. The distortions all gay people of 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. 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 this individual person's privacy. Do they make it that explicitly? I mean, sort of putting it in terms of the public benefit outweighs the private privacy. Yeah. So Oliver's case, it dragged on for nine years, so from 1975 to 1984.

But this is, I'm quoting the judgment. The record shows that the publications were not motivated by morbid and sensational prying into 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. 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. If we were to go silent because somebody says, don't say that about me, then, and the government backs him up? But 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. It's really hard. I mean, I was thinking about this, like, even sort of on the train coming over here. Again, Daniel Lutzer.

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, what makes something not an invasion of privacy is not that it's okay, 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. 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 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 anybody else? Well, I mean, we have 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.

So is Oliver just like this? This is producer Tracy Hunt, who was in on the interview. Somebody whose life is basically kind of sacrificed to the altar of the First Amendment in this, like, sad way? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it feels like he was sacrificed from me. all sides, actually.

Yeah. It feels like there's this one kind of man in the middle, and then there are all these forces around him, these larger-than-life forces, like the White House, there's the gay movement, there's the freedom of the press, and all these people are sort of batting around 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. And so what ends up happening to him in the end? Well, I'll tell you right after we take a quick break. This is Radio Lab. I'm Chad Abumrad here with Robert Crowe, which getting back now to our story from producer of Lasif Nasser about Oliver Sippel, 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? 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 turn their backs on him. He, surprisingly, he was friends with Harvey Milk till the end. Like when Harvey Milk was assassinated, Oliver Sippel went to his funeral. And he did have one brother, George Sr., who stuck by him throughout, but his parents did not. And they never fully accepted the fact that he was gay. and when his mom died, it was so bad that Oliver Sippel's father didn't let him go to the funeral.

And because he sort of, he had 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 Sibble 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. 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 sort of fingers in every pie kind of thing.

Wayne died last year, but Daniel still had the transcript of their conversation about Oliver Sipples' last days. And so we found an actor, the very gifted Gordon Pinsent, and we had him read it for us. Okay, let me have a go. I forget, was it 1975, the Sarah Jane Moore? Yeah, that I met him around 73. He was a swamper at a gay bar called the cockpit. Swampers, 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. 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, 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 of the nail at the bar, and I'd drive him home, so I always knew where he lived. And after this thing with Ford, it really fucked his mind up. Siffel 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 be 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. He won't be known for what you did in bed, for Christ's sake. But he would get drunk, and he'd start be moaning that. I'd sit there in the bar with him and I'd talk to him about it.

Amen. It is what it is. But he was just down to nothing. This thing happened, and it overcame him. It was too much for him to handle. And I think he got the feeling sorry for himself and his family. Just many a night I would sit in the bar with Bill Sibble, 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. I remember it was raining. It was pouring fucking rain. Bruce called me at my office over at the DA's office and said, Wayne, will you do a well-being check on Siple for me? And I said, why? And he said, nobody's seen the dude.

He hasn't been around for a while. So we go out there together, and it was raining. And I'm ringing the bell, ringing the bell, ring. He doesn't answer. I noticed on his door there were these little stick-and-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. I showed him my badge and I said, you've got to let me in. And so he did. And the door opened and I knew what was going on. It's the smell. It's a smell you never forget.

It's a sickening, sweet smell. Bill was sitting in the chair. He was bloated. He was bloated out real big. He had a bottle of Jack Daniels sitting there and the television was still on the coroner told me he'd been dead about ten days

as near as they could figure God, I didn't know he was only 47 I thought he was older than that anyway I got the guy to open the door for me and the minute he did I said close it and then I had to stand there and wait for the coroner

I remember it was over here at the Campbell Funeral Home on Market Street. And then we buried them out in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno. And I remember it was very small. Casket wasn't open. The funeral was just, I mean, there were more media there than anything else. 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. I mean, shit, there he was.

This national icon, a gay, whatever, and there were just a few people out there for the funeral. 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 feel that a person 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.

These are my words and they're my feelings. All I have to say on this subject, Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. This story was reported by Latov Nasser and Tracy Hunt. He was produced by Matt Kilty and Annie McEwen with Lattva and Tracy. 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 Craman, who is Gordon Pinson's agent.

And as long as we're on the subject of Gordon, the actor you heard just ending the piece, Wow. Wow, yeah. Just wow. Yeah, thank you to Gordon. Special thanks also to Alan Jones, Denny Meyer, and Floyd Abrams. Thank you all. 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 bit, a lot at least, before we close,

we just want to say a very sort of special, uh, belated goodbye to our senior producer, Jamie York for everything, for guiding so many of our stories and our whole team for the last few years. Jamie, we will, we'll really miss you. Yes, we even do at this very moment, miss you. Hey, 2026, Lathif 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 Pinsent, reading Wayne Friday's transcript at the end there, also passed away in 2023 at the age of 92. All right.

I'm Jed. I'm Um-Rod. I'm Robert Crow. Thanks for listening. To play the message, press 2. Hi, I'm Gabby. I'm from the Bay Area, California, and here are the staff credits. Radio Lab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Lentif Nasser.

Soron Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandback is our executive director. Our managing editors, Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Jeremy Bloom, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindu Naina Sambandan, Matt Kielty, Mona Madgaocher, Alex Nissen, Sara Kari, Natalia Ramirez, Rebecca Rand, Anisa Vizza, Arian Wack, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young, with help from Gabby Santis. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Angeli Mercado, and Sophie Samayi.

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