A Drifter Who Stalked Success

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A few days later, Hinckley was arrested—and promptly released on $50 bond—at Nashville Airport as he attempted to board a flight for New York City: in his carry-on luggage were three handguns and 50 rounds of ammunition.

Although President Carter was making a campaign appearance in Nashville the same day, the Secret Service was never told of Hinckley's airport arrest. This may be the first clear, though unheeded, signal of Hinckley as stalker.

Four days later in Dallas he bought a pair of .22-cal. revolvers at a pawnshop.

Within a week Hinckley had surfaced in Denver, where he applied for jobs at two newspapers, claiming to one that he had just finished a month of classes at Yale. A few weeks later, in a Denver suburb, he at tended two meetings of the right-wing National Association for Constitutional Government. In December, the FBI suspects, Hinckley visited Washington, but in January he was back in the Denver area, where, on Reagan's first full day in office, Hinckley bought a .38-cal. revolv - er. In February he returned to New Haven a third time, and then perhaps to Washington.

By the first of March, Hinckley was again in New Haven; he delivered more missives to Foster. Back in Denver a week later, he checked into a shabby motel.

Says one of the motel's maids: "He didn't say much, but he was nice to everyone — just a clean-cut, good-living kid." In his first days in Denver he applied for a job at a record shop and pawned his type writer and electric guitar.

On March 25, Hinckley flew to Los Angeles via Salt Lake City, and the next day boarded a bus headed back to Salt Lake City — and on to Washington, D.C.

For perhaps the past six months, John Hinckley was under sporadic treat ment by Evergreen Psychiatrist John Hopper. No one but Dr. Hopper may be equipped to sketch a psychiatric profile of Reagan's attacker. But particularly after the release of the final letter that Hinckley wrote to Foster, many psychiatrists have been willing to conjecture. Dr.

Thomas Gutheil, of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, says that Hinck ley may be a victim of erotomania in one of its forms: obsession with a celebrity.

Harvard Psychiatry Professor Donald Russell believes that Reagan, not Foster, was central to Hinckley's psychology, and several colleagues also doubt the impor tance of the movie-star crush. Says Rus sell: "He was obviously out to get these father figures." Hinckley's eclipse by an elder sibling was critical, says Chicago Psychiatrist Irving Harris. "The young brother tends to be overshadowed. If the man can't find a socially accepted chan nel, he can become an assassin." Dr.

James Gilligan, another Harvard professor, finds Hinckley's insanity improbable.

Says he: "Most violence is not done by truly psychotic people. They are not completely normal, but that doesn't mean they are crazy." Dr. Gutheil cautions that no accurate explanation is apt to be simple:

more likely in Hinckley's mind was a dis sonant snarl of emotions and delusions, which in concert led him to Washington.