Oliver Sipple

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2021

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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. But 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.

Reported by Latif Nasser and Tracie Hunte. Produced by Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Latif Nasser and Tracie Hunte.

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.

Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Episode originally published 09/21/2017

Transcript

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0:00.0	This story contains a couple moments of profanity, cursing, just a few.
0:07.6	Know that before you go in.
0:09.6	Oh, wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from WNYC.
0:21.4	This is Radio Lab. I'm Chad Abumrod. So today, I want to play for you really one of my favorite stories we've ever done on Radio Lab.
0:35.4	It's one of those like perfect stories where all the different things you want in a story come together all at once.
0:42.6	Like you've got the single human being going through something truly unique and difficult.
0:49.0	But inside that single human being story is in that kind of universe and a blade of grass sort of way is everything.
0:56.2	You know, it's that kind of story.
0:58.2	Comes from Latif. This is back in the days when Latif was a producer and this is before he was hosting the show with Lou
1:06.3	Miller and I. It's back that time when I was hosting the show with Robert Crowe, which so I don't know. Let's just let it roll.
1:13.0	Hey, I'm Chad Abumrod. I'm Robert Crowe, which is Radio Lab. And today we are going to start.
1:21.4	Okay, so let's start with our producer Latif Nasser.
1:23.8	Yeah, well, let's just let's just go back to San Francisco on a particular day at a particular time and a particular woman.
1:30.2	Hello. Hi. Is this Sarah Jane? Yes, it is.
1:34.2	Woman named Sarah Jane Moore Sarah Jane. Okay.
1:37.8	So this is San Francisco. The particular day was September 22nd, the particular time. 1975.
1:44.2	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.
1:50.2	Yeah, sure, sure. I was kind of, you know, in my own head.
1:53.8	So Sarah Jane, on this Monday morning, she wakes up early, drops her nine year old off at school, runs a few errands.
2:01.8	Then she drives downtown to this big fancy hotel. What was the name of the hotel?
2:07.4	I think it's the same Francis, isn't it? I'm 87 years old. Don't expect me to remember a little details like that.
2:13.4	Okay. All right. Fair enough. Yeah.
	...

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