The men holding Uzis in this photo are Secret Service agents dressed for a round of golf. It's October 1983 and they're evacuating Reagan from Augusta National, because a laid-off millwright just crashed his pickup through the gate with a .38 and took 7 hostages in the pro shop. He had one demand. Five minutes with the president.
What happened next is one of the strangest stories in presidential history.
Charlie Harris had lost his job at a local paper mill that summer. His father had just died. His wife had left with their three kids. He fired one shot into the pro shop floor and said he wanted to talk to Reagan about American jobs going overseas. He never asked for money.
Agents shoved Reagan into an armored car parked on the cart path and begged him to leave. He refused. Instead he asked for a phone, and aides handed him a two-pound prototype cell phone. The first commercial cell phone call in history had been placed nine days earlier.
"This is the president of the United States. This is Ronald Reagan. I understand you want to talk to me."
Harris heard static. The connection was so bad he couldn't make out a single word, so he ripped the phone out of the wall. The one conversation he'd risked everything for, eaten by 1983 cell service.
A hostage then suggested they both needed a stiff drink. Harris agreed and sent him out for vodka. The man walked through the door and kept walking. Two hours in, Harris watched the motorcade leave on the pro shop TV, released everyone, and surrendered. He pleaded guilty and got 10 years.
The part nobody remembers is what else was happening on that property. While Harris held the pro shop, national security adviser Bud McFarlane sat in the Eisenhower Cabin planning the invasion of Grenada. At 2:27 the next morning, Reagan was woken in that same clubhouse and told a truck bomb had killed 241 Americans in Beirut. Hostage standoff Saturday. Beirut Sunday. Grenada launched Tuesday.
Reagan went back out and played golf the next day anyway.
Dr. Ben Braddock (@GraduatedBen)
1983 — Secret Service agents evacuate President Reagan at Augusta National Golf Club where Charles Harris took seven hostages and demanded to speak with the president.
— https://nitter.net/GraduatedBen/status/2085589788518953441#m