The Presidency: A Bill for an Assassin

When President Kennedy was assassinated, it came as a considerable surprise to most Americans that killing a U.S. President is not a federal crime. It was because of this that Lee Harvey Oswald was handed into the clumsy clutches of the Dallas police force, which had legal jurisdiction, with disastrous results. The Warren Commission was appalled by the legal situation, wrote in its report: "It is anomalous that Congress has legislated in other ways touching upon the safety of the Chief Executive or other Federal officers without making an attack on the President a crime."

Last week President Johnson set out to correct the anomaly. He sent to Congress a bill that would make it a federal crime to kill, kidnap or assault the President, the Vice President or, if there is no Vice President, whoever stands next in the line of presidential succession. Also included would be the President-elect and Vice President-elect between their election and inauguration. The bill calls for the death sentence or life in prison for murder or kidnaping and up to 15 years in prison for assault.

Beyond that, the Attorney General would be authorized to offer a $100,000 reward for information leading to the capture of an assassin; in any conflict over investigative jurisdiction, federal agencies would take over, and in any trial of a presidential assailant, no witnesses could plead self-incrimination to avoid testifying, although they would be immune from any prosecution resulting from the testimony.