Samuel Byck
Samuel Joseph Byck (January 30, 1930 – February 22, 1974) was an unemployed former tire salesman who attempted to hijack a plane from Baltimore-Washington International Airport on February 22, 1974. He intended to crash into the White House in hopes of killing U.S. President Richard M. Nixon.
Byck's life
Born to poor Jewish parents in Philadelphia, Byck dropped out of high school. He enlisted in the US Army in 1954 and was honorably discharged in 1956. Byck married and had four children, but he experienced a number of business failures and admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital, citing depression, for two months in 1972.
He began to believe that the government was conspiring to oppress the poor. Sometime shortly after this Byck was diagnosed with a neurologically driven mental disorder, then known as manic depression, now known as bipolar disorder. It is important to note that most people with this brain disorder are not violent.
Byck first came to the notice of the Secret Service in 1972, when he threatened Nixon, whom he had resented ever since the Small Business Administration had turned him down for a loan. Byck had also sent bizarre tape recordings to various other public figures including Jonas Salk, Abraham Ribicoff, and Leonard Bernstein, and tried to join the Black Panthers. However, the Secret Service considered Byck to be harmless, and no action was taken.
The assassination attempt
In early 1974, Byck made his decision to assassinate Nixon. He planned to do so by hijacking an airliner and crashing it into the White House on a day when Nixon would be there. It has been suggested (for instance, by the 2004 film dramatization of his life) that Byck was inspired by news reports of the February 17, 1974 buzzing of the White House by Army PFC Robert K. Preston in a stolen helicopter.
Since Byck was already known to the Secret Service, and because legal attempts to purchase a firearm might have resulted in increased scrutiny, Byck stole a .22 caliber revolver from a friend of his to use in the hijacking. Byck also made a bomb out of 2 gallon jugs of gasoline and an igniter. All through this process, Byck made audio recordings explaining his motives and his plans; he expected to be considered a hero for his actions, and wanted to fully document his reasons for the assassination.
On February 22, 1974, Byck drove to the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. He shot and killed Maryland Aviation Administration Police Officer George Neal Ramsburg before storming aboard a DC-9, Delta Air Lines Flight 523 to Atlanta, which he chose because it was the closest flight that was ready to take off. After pilots Reese Lofton and Fred Jones told him they could not take off until wheel blocks were removed, he shot them both, and grabbed a nearby passenger, ordering her to "fly the plane". He told a flight attendant to close the door or he would blow the plane up.
After a standoff with police, Charles Troyer, an Anne Arundel County officer, on the jetway stormed the plane and fired four shots through the aircraft door at Byck with a .357 Magnum revolver taken from Ramsburg's body. Two of the shots hit Byck after penetrating the thick window of the aircraft door and wounded him. Before the police could gain entry to the aircraft, Byck committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
According to a special on the History Channel, he lived for a few minutes after shooting himself, finally dying after saying "help me" to one of the police officers who entered the plane after he had been shot. A briefcase containing the gasoline bomb was found under his body. The plane never left the gate, and Nixon's schedule was not affected by the assassination attempt.
Aftermath
It was subsequently discovered that Byck had sent a tape recording detailing his plan, which he called "Operation Pandora's Box", to news columnist Jack Anderson. A review of records disclosed that Byck had been arrested twice for protesting in front of the White House without a permit, and that he later dressed in a Santa suit for another protest. The flight's captain recovered and resumed flying airliners five years later. The co-pilot died shortly after the hijacking.
In 1987, an FAA document entitled Troubled Passage: The Federal Aviation Administration During the Nixon-Ford Term 1973-1977 was produced, which mentioned Byck's failed hijacking: ...though Byck lacked the skill and self-control to reach his target, he had provided a chilling reminder of the potential of violence against civil aviation. Under a more relaxed security system, his suicidal rampage might have begun when the airliner was aloft.
After Byck's failed assassination attempt and subsequent death, his attempt faded into relative obscurity. While the news media reported on Byck's actions, they did not disclose why Byck attempted to hijack the plane - fearing that it would lead to copycat crimes.
As a result, Byck and his assassination plot remained relatively unknown until a movie based on his story, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, was released in 2004, starring Sean Penn as Bicke (the spelling was changed to avoid offending living relatives). The History Channel also ran a special on Byck entitled The Plot to Kill Nixon[1].
Byck is also one of the (failed) assassins portrayed in Sondheim's and Weidman's musical Assassins (1991), which, like the movie that followed, also focused on the tapes sent to Leonard Bernstein. Whilst Byck has no songs outside of the rest of the group songs (the closest he gets is Another National Anthem in the original, Off-Broadway version where Byck gets much of the lines), he has two long monologues via his tape recordings, the first addressed to Bernstein, the second to Nixon himself.
The 9/11 Commission Report also mentioned Byck's attempt to fly a plane into the White House. On page 537 it notes:
- As part of his 34-page analysis, the attorney explained why he thought that a fueled Boeing 747, used as a weapon,"must be considered capable of destroying virtually any building located anywhere in the world." DOJ memo, Robert D. to Cathleen C.,"Aerial Intercepts and Shoot-downs:Ambiguities of Law and Practical Considerations," Mar. 30, 2000, p. 10. Also, in February 1974, a man named Samuel Byck attempted to commandeer a plane at Baltimore Washington International Airport with the intention of forcing the pilots to fly into Washington and crash into the White House to kill the president. The man was shot by police and then killed himself on the aircraft while it was still on the ground at the airport.