aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Friday, December 29, 2006
Oliver Sipple
What became of the gay man who saved President Ford’s life by grabbing Sara Jane Moore‘s arm and wrestling her to the ground as she tried to shoot?
Sipple had served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, where was wounded twice. Following his discharge in 1970 he moved to San Francisco, living on a veteran’s disability pension.
With the media clamoring for information on the man who saved the presidents life openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk told a reporter that Sipple was gay and had worked on the campaign that made Milk the first gay local politician in the US.
But while Milk and Sipple’s friends in San Francisco knew he was gay his family did not. Following the press report his mother disowned him.
Sipple, shocked by the outing issued a statement: “My sexual orientation has nothing at all to do with saving the President’s life, just as the color of my eyes or my race has nothing to do with what happened in front of the St. Francis Hotel.”
He then sued the San Francisco Chronicle and six other papers for damages, and the mental stress he suffered as a result of his mother’s action. The lawsuit dragged on until it finally was dismissed in court five years later.
The distress that Sipple was going through led him to drink. He was found dead on February 2, 1989 in his apartment. Police at the time said they believed he had been dead for two weeks. [...]
Only 30 people attended Sipple’s funeral.
