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Although Rick Ahearn was just some toes from John Hinckley Jr. when he opened fireplace on Ronald Reagan and his entourage exterior the Washington Hilton on March 30, 1981, he was most definitely among the many final folks within the metropolis to know that the president had been shot.
That’s as a result of as quickly as Secret Service brokers shoved Mr. Reagan into his limousine, simply seconds after Mr. Hinckley started capturing, Mr. Ahearn was on the bottom giving first support to James S. Brady, the White Home press secretary, who had been hit within the head and was bleeding profusely on the sidewalk.
“All I needed to maintain that collectively was my pocket handkerchief and a few handkerchiefs given to me by folks within the crowd,” Mr. Ahearn advised Neil Cavuto of Fox Information in 2021.
Mr. Ahearn was the president’s advance man, answerable for planning the logistics of Mr. Reagan’s journeys, all the way down to particulars just like the closest medical middle. He helped get Mr. Brady into an ambulance and ordered the motive force to take them to George Washington College Hospital.
The presidential limousine was already there. However Mr. Ahearn assumed that Mr. Reagan was there to test on Mr. Brady, who was rushed into surgical procedure.
“And it was solely after we went into the emergency room, Jim into one therapy room, that I noticed Dave Fischer and Mike Deaver” — two different Reagan aides — “on the phone,” Mr. Ahearn mentioned within the 2021 interview. “And so they advised me the president was in a therapy room. And they didn’t know what his situation was.”
Mr. Reagan had been shot within the chest, the bullet barely lacking his coronary heart. Mr. Ahearn was the primary official to temporary the press on the hospital, and he remained there lengthy after the president left on April 11, caring for Mr. Brady and his spouse, Sarah. (Mr. Brady died in 2014. Sarah Brady died in 2015.)
Mr. Ahearn, who was considered probably the greatest advance males in Republican politics, died on Nov. 14 at a hospital in New Bedford, Mass. He was 74. His companion, Maria Mastorakos, mentioned the trigger was cardiac arrest introduced on by latest surgical procedure.
The 1981 disaster cemented Mr. Ahearn’s already priceless place inside the Reagan inside circle (he had joined the president’s marketing campaign in 1979). Although he was hardly ever within the highlight, he was among the many president’s most trusted advisers, planning each second of his public appearances.
“Rick Ahearn doesn’t precisely tuck the Reagans into mattress at evening, and he’s not concerned in any policymaking,” The Boston Globe mentioned in a 1980 profile. “However he is without doubt one of the first folks they see within the morning and the final they see at evening.”
He inspired Mr. Reagan to combine with common of us — for instance by visiting a blue-collar Irish bar within the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, or by strolling by way of a Moscow buying district throughout a break in arms management talks within the Soviet Union.
Mr. Ahearn did related work for dozens of different candidates and workplace holders, together with each Republican presidential candidate from Richard M. Nixon in 1972 to Donald J. Trump in 2020, when he led negotiations with the Biden marketing campaign over debate preparations.
Frederick Leonard Ahearn was born on Nov. 6, 1949, in Boston. His father, Francis X. Ahearn, was a Democratic politician who served as president of the Boston Metropolis Council and later as Massachusetts deputy secretary of state; his mom, Doris (Johnson) Ahearn, was a homemaker.
Rick acquired into politics early, handing out leaflets for native Democratic candidates and later working the crowds at election rallies. He labored for Senator Hubert H. Humphrey’s 1968 presidential marketing campaign as a scholar at Boston School.
Shortly after graduating with a level in enterprise administration, he labored once more for Mr. Humphrey, becoming a member of his marketing campaign within the 1972 Democratic primaries. However Mr. Humphrey’s loss to the extra liberal Senator George S. McGovern left Mr. Ahearn despondent and indignant.
“I contemplate myself a Democrat and not using a residence, and until I see some distinct modifications within the Democratic Get together, I’ll grow to be a Republican,” he mentioned in an interview with The Related Press that 12 months.
He not solely switched events; he labored for the Republican incumbent, Mr. Nixon, within the common election. He later labored within the Nixon White Home, after which for President Gerald R. Ford’s unsuccessful marketing campaign in 1976.
By the late Nineteen Seventies Mr. Ahearn had earned a repute amongst nationwide politicians as a reliable, detail-oriented skilled, and he was at all times in demand. He labored on George H.W. Bush’s first presidential marketing campaign, in 1979, and when that fizzled, he had no hassle being picked up by Mr. Bush’s rival, Mr. Reagan.
Mr. Ahearn was a creature of politics, not coverage, however in between races he did work in numerous administrations, together with as a deputy assistant secretary underneath Jack Kemp, Mr. Bush’s secretary of housing and concrete improvement.
When Mr. Bush misplaced the 1992 race, Mr. Ahearn went to work for Mr. Kemp’s free-market advocacy group, Empower America, after which joined the marketing campaign workers of Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee. (Mr. Kemp was his working mate.)
Mr. Ahearn married Pamela Gardner in 1990. She died in 2007. Together with Ms. Mastorakos, he’s survived by his brother, Kevin.
He continued to serve Mr. Reagan lengthy after he left the White Home. He and one other Reagan advance man, Jim Hooley, spent many years planning the president’s funeral — particularly after 1994, when Mr. Reagan introduced he had Alzheimer’s illness. They known as the plan Operation Serenade.
They deliberate each second of the nationwide commemoration, held days after Mr. Reagan’s demise in 2004, together with particulars as granular because the situation of the empty boots that sat within the stirrups of the riderless horse following the president’s caisson in the course of the funeral procession. (They had been scuffed however not dusty, Mr. Ahearn determined, and he cleaned them himself.)
“One last alternative to advance a significant occasion for Ronald Reagan,” Mr. Ahearn advised The Wall Road Journal, “is one thing none of us will ever neglect.”
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