Look at this -

From: Wayne M. Smith <wmsmith_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Sun Mar 23 23:41:00 2003

> > For the foreign audience, Al Haig was the U.S. Secretary of
> State when
> > President Reagan was shot. He achieved infamy by declaring
> at a press
> > conference "I'm in charge."
>
> Incorrect! The correct quote from Al Haig is:
>
> "I'm in charge, here."
>
> He said this responding to a reporters question, and through
> his inflection and tone of voice, was intent to show that he was
> in-charge at the White House.
>
Contemporaneous press reports indicate that the word used was "control".
I don't know why leaving off a word before or after a quote makes the
quotation "incorrect" complete with exclamation point, but I do think
that getting a word wrong is, quite simply, wrong.

-W

United Press International March 31, 1981, Tuesday, PM cycle

Copyright 1981 U.P.I.

March 31, 1981, Tuesday, PM cycle

SECTION: Washington News

LENGTH: 507 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:
Here is the chronology of the attack on President Reagan Monday:

2:20 p.m. -- Reagan completes address to the AFL-CIO Building and
Construction Trades Department at the Washington Hilton Hotel.

2:28 p.m. -- Reagan emerges from the hotel and begins walking toward his
limousine when, amidst a crowd cheering and reporters shouting
questions, six gun shots ring out. White House Press Secretary James
Brady, Washington policeman Thomas Delahanty and a Secret Service agent
Timothy McCarthy are hit.

2:28 p.m. -- Secret Service agents shove Reagan into the limousine while
other agents, with the aide of police, overcome the suspected assailant,
later identified as John W. Hinckley Jr. 25, of Evergreen, Colo.

2:29 p.m. -- Hinckley, a college drop and drifter who recently has been
under psychiatric care, is whisked away to District of Columbia police
headquaters. A policeman there said, ''He looked dazed, like he didn't
know what was going on.''

2:32 p.m. -- Reagan enters emergency room at George Washington
University Hospital. Two of other wounded are also brought there.

2:55 p.m. -- Vice President George Bush, on a speaking tour in Texas, is
advised the president has been shot; he flies back to Washington.

3:15 p.m. -- The White House, which in the initial chaos reported that
the president was not hit, says Reagan was struck by a bullet in the
left chest.

3:37 p.m. -- White House staff director David Gergen tells a news
briefing that Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Treasury Secretary
Regan, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Attorney General William
French Smith are on hand, but that no formal transfer of power was
contemplated.

4:25 p.m. -- Reagan enters surgery at GW hospital, telling friends,
''Don't worry about me. I'll make it.''

4:30 p.m. -- Haig tells reporters, ''As of now, I am in control here in
the White House pending return of the vice president, and in close touch
with him.''

5:19 p.m. -- A 10-car police motorcade transfers Hinckly to a FBI's
Buzzard's Point field office for questioning.

6:30 p.m. -- Surgery on the president is completed. Dr. Dennis O'Leary,
head of GW's clinical surgery, tells reporters that the 70-year-old
chief executive's ''prognosis is excellent,'' adding ''at no time was he
in serious danger.''

7 p.m. -- Vice President George Bush arrives at the White House. He
tells reporters, ''I can reassure this nation and the watching world
this nation is functioning fully and effectively.''

8:15 p.m. -- White House press secretary Brady, who was shot through the
brain, emerges from 4 -hour surgery. Lyn Nofziger, Reagan's political
director, says ''His vital signs are stable. His pupillary reflexes --
that's the reflexes of his pupils in his eyes -- are normal. Dr. Kobrine
feels there may be some impairment, but he doesn't know how much at this
time, nor will he be able to know for quite some time.''

11:52 p.m. -- Hinckley appears for a 43-minute hearing in U.S. District
Court. He is ordered held without bond pending arraignment Thursday.
Received on Sun Mar 23 2003 - 23:41:00 GMT