Yesterday's assassination attempt brought immediate comparisons to the 1981

attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan. Judy Woodruff was there that day. She

was NBC's White House correspondent.

Judy, we should mention you are in the arena for the convention.

They're testing the sound system,

so we may hear some extraneous noises.

But Judy, how do those two events compare? Ronald Reagan in 1981 and what happened yesterday?

Well, every one of these terrible acts, John, of course, is different.

But I was there that day, it was March the 30th, 1981, White House

correspondent for NBC News. Ronald Reagan had only been in office for two

months. I was part of the press, small press pool, following him to make a speech at the Washington Hilton

hotel he went into the hotel made the speech we were outside waiting for him I would in fact I was

30 feet away from his limousine, ready to ask a question, which I was doing

when he came out, waved at the crowd, and I was yelling at the same time I started hearing

a pop pop pop

sounded like firecrackers but immediately people started yelling get down it was

clear then it was gunshots the motorcade with President Reagan moved away we didn didn't know it then, but it turned out he had been hit. He almost died.

But what I could see were lying on the ground, Jim Brady, the White House Press Secretary,

with blood coming out of his head and three other men who were part of the protective detail.

It's a day I ran across the street to use a phone.

Thankfully both of these men survive, but it's a day I will never ever forget.

A lot of the things we're talking about given yesterday of the current state of political

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