Wanting to Talk to Reagan

For the President, a weekend that was twice not to be

Hello, this is the President. This is Ronald Reagan. I understand you want to talk to me. Would you talk to me? This is the President. If you are hearing me, will you please tell me, and we can have that talk that you want.

The situation was bizarre. In a minor incident whose initial form was to be echoed large half a world away a few hours later, a lone driver had rammed his truck through the gates of Georgia's Augusta National Golf Club, site of the Masters Tournament. Reagan had been playing the par-three, water-guarded 16th hole under cloudy skies with two Cabinet officers and a former Senator. Now he was seated in a Secret Service car parked near the 16th green trying to talk by radiotelephone to the driver holding hostages in the famed club's pro shop, some 1,000 yards away. The pistol-carrying man had already fired one shot into the floor and was threatening to kill anyone who did not cooperate. But although he had demanded a chance to talk to Reagan, he insisted on doing so face-to-face. The sometimes incoherent man kept hanging up on the President.

Clearly, Reagan was in no danger. But if he had completed two more of the 18 holes, either he or his Secret Service guards might have confronted the emotional intruder near the clubhouse. The gunman, Charles R. Harris, 44, a millwright from Blythe, Ga., had rammed his blue four-wheel-drive pickup truck through a locked gate at 2:15 p.m.

Harris drove a few hundred feet to the pro shop and entered. There he waved his .38-cal. snub-nosed pistol at two White House aides, David Fischer, a special assistant who travels regularly with the President, and Lanny Wiles, an advanceman. Harris ordered the pair as well as three other men into a back room. "This is no joke," he warned. "Somebody could be killed." Fischer convinced him that since the President was out on the course, Fischer would have to go deliver Harris' message himself.

Once freed, Fischer caught up with the presidential foursome, which included Secretary of State George Shultz, Treasury Secretary Donald Regan and former New Jersey Senator Nicholas Brady. Fischer briefed Reagan, who decided to telephone the gunman through the Secret Service radiotelephone link. When Harris kept refusing to say a word to Reagan on the telephone, the President's security aides urged him to get into a heavily guarded limousine. Ten agents followed his limo in an open car, brandishing Uzi submachine guns. The caravan returned the President to Eisenhower Cabin, a white-columned six-bedroom house from which Ike, while President, had often played the pine-studded course.

Harris began to release the other hostages. He surrendered to local police without resistance at 4:36 p.m.

The gunman, who had demanded whisky during the afternoon, appeared drunk when he was taken into custody, and was given a Breathalyzer test. The FBI joined in the interrogation, seeking a motive for his all too desperate attempt to confront the President.

The Reagan party promptly resumed its weekend stay in the Eisenhower Cabin, only to have it irrevocably cut short scant hours later by the news from Beirut. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.