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Bycks 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
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*. 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. | ||||||||||||
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