An Infamous 50th Anniversary Just Passed

 

I think she’s definitely a textbook narcissist; maybe even a psychopath. I’d have to have some concrete examples to fill in the Machiavellian part of the Dark Triad equation though. But I’m just armchair quarterbacking on the psychology here, informally trained by watching several YouTube videos on personality disorders.

Even the experts brought in to assess her, with little cooperation from Sara herself, couldn’t come to an agreement on a diagnosis. Histrionic, borderline, and/or bipolar personality disorders were listed on various reports written after meeting with her after her arrest but before her trial—before she could even be considered competent to stand for trial. Sara would not let her lawyer claim insanity or diminished mental capacity at the time of her alleged crime.

The six experts brought in by the defense and the prosecution said she had “a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking, an excessive need for approval, experiences extreme episodes of mania and depression, and an unquenchable need for admiration, as well as a complete lack of empathy” (p.166). She was deemed sane and able to stand trial.

The crime she allegedly committed, you ask? Murder, assassination to be more precise. And this Sara? Sara Jane Kahn Moore Anderson Manning Aalberg Carmel Chase. Born Kahn, then adopting the last name Moore (her mother’s maiden name, changed to obscure her identity), then married to:

1. Wallace Anderson. This was a pre-1950, childless, short-lived marriage
2. Sydney L. Manning. Married from 1950-54, divorced then remarried for about a month before divorcing again. He was the father of the first four of her five children.
3. John O. Aalberg. Father of her fifth child. Apparently never bothered to formally divorced him.
4. Willard J. Carmel, Jr. Married from 1969-1973, this marriage was annulled, as she was never formally divorced from husband #3.
5. Philip Chase. They were married sometime after her release from prison in 2007. He died in 2018. By the way, he was a psychologist; talk about bringing your work home.

Girl was busy, apparently didn’t like to be without masculine attention, and made sure as far as she could, that she wasn’t.

I read Geri Spieler’s 2009 book, Taking Aim at the President: The Remarkable Story of the Woman who Shot at Gerald Ford for this blog. Spieler spent 38 years corresponding with Sara (Sara initially contacted Spieler via the Los Angeles News Journal wanting to visit with her). From the get-go, Sara tried to control the narrative. Eventually, the two stopped communicating and this book was the result of the 38 years of communication between the two. By the way, Spieler’s book does an excellent job expounding on the turbulent 1960s and its changes in culture and politics.

Here are some basic facts about Sara Jane aka “Sally”

1. Born in West Virginia in 1930
2. Studied nursing (didn’t finish)
3. Was a WAC (accepted into, but did not complete officer’s training because of a choice she willingly made)
4. Studied accounting (didn’t earn a degree)
5. Married (and divorced/annuled) 5 times (see above)
6. Mother to 5 children

It was when she became the wife of a rich doctor in 1965 that she took up what she considered “meaningful work,” to stand up for those that couldn’t stand up for themselves as a member of a neighbor women’s group. These wives of rich men did more talking about what should be done to help than actual helping. After her divorce (actually, annulment) from Dr. Carmel, Sara Jane went into full activist mode. In 1973 she attended a Cesar Chavez and United Farm Workers march (p.61). After Patty Hearst was kidnapped and the SLA called for the Hearst family to give $70 worth of food to poor people in California, Hearst donated $2 million to support the People in Need (PIN) program (p.80). Sara donated her skills as a bookkeeper to the project. Sara met a number of other activists while volunteering on this project, including Wilbert “Popeye” Jackson, a leader of the United Prisoners Union.

It was when she was volunteering at PIN that Sara Jane first appeared on the FBI’s and San Francisco Police Department radar. The FBI recruited civilian informants (some paid, including Sara) to infiltrate organizations they deemed a threat to national security. At this time, those organizations were referred to as the “New Left” and the FBI had a program, COINTELPRO, to deal with them. Sara was hired to inform on Popeye Jackson and join other New Left organizations and report back to them. Sara was torn; a part of her believed in the Left’s causes, she was drawn in by the excitement of being a “spy,” it was a source of income, and it could feed her need to feel like she was making a difference, a difference only someone as special as she believed herself to be could.

Then Sara decided she didn’t want to snitch on her friends (the people on the Left that invited her into their circles) anymore (p.123), so she told the man the FBI set her up to inform on that she was an informant.

Sara didn’t restrict her snitching to the FBI; the San Francisco Police Department and the ATF wanted to use her. She wasn’t very covert about being a spy.

Sara tried to join Prairie Fire by offering them (FBI) money to get their book published, but they declined her help.

She tried to join Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Winter Soldier Organization (VVAW) and initially they were very wary of her; they were wary of any outsider. Eventually, they let her in. She offered to organize their membership list. Leaders within the VVAW were warned that she “asked too many questions in a number of other movement groups, and … she was reputed to be an FBI informant” (p.130). After the leadership talked to other radical group leaders, including Popeye, she was voted out of the VVAW.

Then Sara began sharing information both ways: she doubled and she loved it. It was exciting, made her feel special, and gave her the attention from both sides of the political spectrum that she apparently craved. She did her usual FBI informing but, because she was sympathetic to some of the ideas of the groups she had infiltrated, began feeding them FBI information. She also did this to try to ingratiate herself to them so that she could join them and stay relevant in their organizations. She saw keeping the connection to the FBI as a way to serve the Left, even as she narced on the Left to the FBI (p.132).

After Popeye was murdered, Sara Jane decided to do an interview about him since many knew they were associated. She was planning to admit publicly she had been an FBI informant, but was no longer. The FBI warned her she would be in danger if this interview was published. She thought she knew better, did the interview, and it was indeed published. She started receiving anonymous hate phone calls. She bought a .44 caliber revolver and “hit the mattresses” (p.141).

She lost what “friends” she thought she had on both sides; she was ostracized by both. She decided that the FBI used her as a “tool” and felt betrayed by them. She decided to help the “little people”(p.144). To do this, she turned to Tribal Thumb (p.145). Weeks before Sara’s assassination attempt on Ford, she became roommates with a member of that organization; but this roommate’s identity has never been exposed (p.128).

No stranger to the SFPD, on September 20th, 1975 Sara called them and said she was going to “test the security” (p.148) Of what, you ask? President Ford was coming to the area for a visit on the 22nd.

The cop she was talking to remembered she had a gun. She was also scheduled that weekend to work with the ATF to set up the guy that sold her the gun, allegedly illegally. Here she was, lambasting the government in general and the FBI specifically for using her, but then she is still willing to work with the ATF to set up a guy that got her a gun to protect herself against the Left from attacking her after she told them she was an FBI informant. I don’t know how she kept it all straight in her head, let alone justified her contradictory actions (p.148).

After this call, the cop called the FBI, Secret Service and the Firearms Unit of the Treasury Department stating (that unit has since been moved from the Treasury Department), “we may have another Squeaky Fromme on our hands.” The Secret Service, Stanford police, and the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office all put out an alert to be on the lookout for Sara: “she might be armed and dangerous” (p.149). Secret Service did not pay her a visit. The cop arranged to meet Sara and she showed him the gun in her purse. He had the Mission District police take her weapon. While he was organizing that, Sara was working with an ATF covert team to take down the unlicensed gun dealer. He was actually a deal in antiques that included guns. When Sara returned home, she was cited for possession of a concealed weapon. The cops contacted Secret Service to see if they wanted her held for the afternoon. They said no, they’d “be in touch.” And they did get in touch with her, and deemed that she was “not of sufficient protection interest to warrant surveillance.” Twice in one day, she was held, then released, from law enforcement custody (p.151).

The day of the assassination attempt, Sara called a Secret Service agent. He didn’t take her call. She called her handler at the FBI. He didn’t take her call. She called the cop that she talked to the day before. He didn’t take her call. She called the gun dealer. He arranged to meet with her and sold her a .38 cailber Smith and Wesson “for a friend” (p.153). By the way, the sight was faulty.

Sara then requested a public defender, and proceeded to not assist her attorney in any way to defend herself. He wanted to be able to use a mental health excuse for her defense, but she refused to go along with it (p.160). Her attorney had a full psychological workup done on Sara (the prosecution brought in their experts too), not that she would open up to the mental health experts anymore than she had her lawyer. She contacted a reporter and explained she did it because she “experienced the same rage and frustration that many people feel (p.161). At first, she pled not guilty and, when she saw that her lawyer wanted to use a defense of diminished mental capacity (which she adamantly claimed was not true, and even the specialists agreed she “was not seriously mentally ill” (p.168)), had her plea changed to guilty against the advice of her lawyer (p.169-170).

She was giving a term of life imprisonment and began serving her time on January 17, 1976 at the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in San Pedro, California (p.184). Spieler gives some examples in the book of some incidents while she was incarcerated of continued activism (a sit-in, a hunger strike, actions that resulted in her being placed in solitary confinement), but I’m not going to go into them here, only to mention that her narcissism and inability to connect to others while supposedly taking these actions were to help everyone there provide more evidence (to me at least) of her self-centeredness, even when she claims she is trying to do the greater good (pp.186-189).

After about a year and a half of being locked up (and not receiving the attention she wanted anymore), Sara decided to try to change her plea again due to inadequate legal assistance (p.190). It was denied. In July, 1977, she was transferred to West Virginia, her home state. She was placed in the Alderson Women’s Reformatory (p.195). It was then that one of her now-adult children and a brother attempted to visit her. She declined their visits (p.197).

In 1979, Sara escaped from prison. This act added 2 years to her life sentence (and a fine). She was just shy of 50 years of age.

Gerald Ford died on December 26, 2006. Sara was released on December 31, 2007 to 5 years of supervised parole; she was 77 years old (p.215).

Sara Jane Kahn Moore Anderson Manning Aalberg Carmel Chase died September 24, 2025 in Franklin, TN, just 2 days after the 50th anniversary of the assassination attempt that brought her to our nation’s attention.

Let’s go through the book and see if we can find any examples Geri provides from Sara’s life that fit symptoms of the disorders the experts pegged her with. A few examples, scattered throughout one’s life don’t qualify a person as being assigned a personality disorder, but it is a pattern over a number of years that may raise the prospect of an expert (or a few experts) of suggesting something psychological may be amiss. Here are a few examples:

Histrionic

• Feel underappreciated or depressed when they’re not the center of attention.

“Sara Jane often demanded that she be the center of attention no matter how uncomfortable that might make others” (page 25). In this particular example, she forced kids that came to her birthday party to endure a violin recital by her before they were to enjoy a birthday cake her mother had made for the occasion (the only reason why the kids came to the party in the first place). That cake better have tasted pretty dang good.

• Be dramatic and extremely emotionally expressive, even to the point of embarrassing friends and family in public.

Even though not well liked, she was a respected member of Thespians, her high school’s acting club. “It was clear that Sara Jane was adept at role-playing” (p.25). Later on in her life, she would use this skill to infiltrate left wing organizations as an FBI informant. She also double-crossed the FBI and let the left wing organizations know what the FBI knew about them.

After Patty Hearst was kidnapped and the SLA called for the Hearst family to give $70 worth of food to poor people in California, Hearst donated $2 million to support the People in Need (PIN) program (p.80). Sara donated her skills as a bookkeeper to the project. When she went in for the interview, she said, “God sent me to help” (p.81).

• Be persistently charming and flirtatious.

Despite being described as social awkward in her teens (p.27), Sara convinced five different men to marry her. As an example, Sara recounted how she acted to “reel in” (her words) her 3rd husband, an award-winning sound man at RKO Studios. She met him while working as a bookkeeper there (she loved being around the Hollywood elite). She described him to Spieler as a womanizer who was used to getting what he wanted, so she specifically acted coquettish and hard-to-get in contrast to the younger actresses (by this time Sara was in her mid-30s) that he was used to. Sara said when talking with him she would look down and then glance up furtively; she called this her “proven technique” (p.46). It worked and they were married in 1965. Spieler describes Sara as “turning on her West Virginia charm” (p.48) to win over Dr. Carmel, as she needed someone to provide for her and her child by Aalberg (even though Aalberg sent money and tried to stay in touch with Sara and his young son after they split up).

• Be gullible and easily influenced by others, especially by the people they admire.

“She did, however, develop respect for Popeye[‘s]… and she believed that he really was trying to make a difference…” (p.111)

Sara was recruited by the FBI to be an informant on New Left organizations she could infiltrate. However, when she started attending some of their meetings she began to realize she agreed with some of their beliefs. “Although she was beginning to agree with the people she was reporting on, Sara Jane stuck to her job as a government informant” (p.115).

• Think that their relationships with others are closer than they usually are

I think she though she was much closer to Wilbert “Popeye” Jackson of the UPU and Randolph Hearst because of her interactions with Jackson. Hearst only interacted with her because he thought he could use her to get information out of Jackson. Sara asked Jackson to be her political mentor and teach her about the various left wing organizations in the area, but that was so she could provide information to the FBI. She used them as much as they could use her. Hearst was done with her when he realized Jackson was not going to give up any information on his daughter’s whereabouts. Sara’s take on why she and Popeye fell out was, “he treated people like s–t” (p.122). Other people that were around Sara and Popeye at the time reported that “Sara Jane had been physically attracted to Popeye, but the feeling was not mutual… [they] were convinced that his lack of interest in her was a contributing factor to her cooling on him” (p.123). So much for being able to report on him. But by then, the FBI was not that interested in him.

• Have difficulty maintaining relationships, often seeming fake or shallow in their interactions with others.

The fact that she was married five times speaks for itself. A girl scout troupe member from Sara’s youth said, “Even if you were nice to her, she never reciprocated… she never had any friends.” (p.24-25) This may have helped her in her theater work though, faking convincing interactions is the core of acting. By 1970, she had alienated neighbors with her pushy, takeover attitude.

While at PIN, Spieler reports that “she failed to create a rapport with the other volunteers” (p.83). It should be noted, however, she was 44 years of age and most of the other volunteers were college-aged. Didn’t Jack Weinberg say, “don’t trust anyone over 30?” I was very surprised how she was able to connect some of the with the radical youth, that they trusted her (some more than others).

• Need instant gratification and become bored or frustrated very easily.

Again, she was married 5 times. She also changed her life’s direction often. She studied (but did not complete her degree in) nursing, she was a WAC and started officer’s training (but did not complete the training because of a choice she made that banned her from completing it), and it is believed she studied accounting at UCLA (but there is no record of her earning a degree). She abandoned her children to the care of others and did not stay in touch with them. One month after marrying her 3rd husband (by whom she was already pregnant), she packed up and left him. She said she didn’t like Los Angeles and used that as the excuse to get away from him (p.47). And then there’s all the intrigue of being a double spy for the FBI/New Left.

• Be overly concerned with their physical appearance

Spieler writes, “as ever, her personal appearance mattered… she stood out as a beacon of white middle-class respectability” (p.85). One of the psychologists that examined Sara noted that, ” is always neatly dressed… goes to great efforts to present the best possible appearance” (p.167).

Borderline

Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

Sara did seem to change things in her life suddenly and markedly. After finishing high school, she became a nursing student and was considered “top-notch,” but dropped out before finishing her degree to become a WAC (p.28). As Spieler put it, “she had traded in her starched white nurse’s uniform for military khakis, and a brand-new persona appeared” (p.28). She now wanted to become an officer; she was selected for Officers Candidate School (with the requisite firearms training). Despite her wanting to become an officer, she chose to marry Wallace Anderson (an NCO), thus barring her from OCS. There goes that persona, by her own hand. Changing or evolving interests can be good for growth, but hers seems jarringly sudden.

After Sara abandoned her children by Manning (after marrying and divorcing him twice; one child was handicapped and institutionalized, the other 3 where sent to her parents’ home under a ruse that Sara would be with them for a short visit, but were actually sent there by themselves and never contacted again by her), she “created a new life for herself, and possibly even a new identity. Attempts to find documentation on the DECADE that followed this event were futile” (p.41). She didn’t want to be found, by her children or her parents. Supposedly it was during this time she studied accounting at UCLA. She morphed from nursing student to WAC to military housewife and mom, to wife of a Hollywood mover and shaker (albeit behind the scenes), to rich doctor’s wife and member of the country club set, to left wing activist without, apparently, batting an eye.

One of the psychologists that examined Sara after the attempt referred to her as “…a blank slate… she periodically would adopt a role and play it out for a while, changing characters from time to time until they were used up… on September 22 [she] was Sara Jane Moore, vanguard of a vast and implacable movement” (p.167).

Narcissistic

Have an unreasonably high sense of self-importance and require constant, excessive admiration.

She told the arresting officers that she was descended from a West Virginia oil and timber baron. She wasn’t. She wasn’t poor either; she came from a typical, ordinary middle class family of both parents present, 3 brothers and a sister (p.19).

She was a good student, but at least one teacher considered her “odd.” A student in her ballet class reported that Sara would tell tall tales of her “family being descendants of royalty.” (p.24).

When she because a member of the “ladies who lunch” club (when she was the stay-at-home mom/wife of the rich doctor), one of the other moms reported, “she barged in on my life as though I had nothing to do but listen to her… she had no regard for anyone but herself.” (p. 51).

CNN’s 2015 4 minute interview shows a well put together older Sara becoming highly offended when the interviewer stated that Sara must have “turned over a new leaf.” Sara didn’t feel she needed to turn over a new leaf because she didn’t think she needed to change (that is, she didn’t do anything wrong).

Just last year, she was interviewed by a local television station about one of the Trump assassination attempts. From her nursing home/hospital bed, she looks like a queen reigning over her court, thrilled to have the attention of someone, anyone, her opinion (of course) being sought to share with the masses. She can hardly contain her happiness at being the center of attention again.

Feel that they deserve privileges and special treatment.

Spieler provides the example of Sara Jane abruptly leaving her fifth child, Frederic, at a local Episcopalian church overnight because she wanted to attend a meeting and she had no one to watch him. She did not attend the church, nor did she know anyone there. She approached the reverend, told him she was Episcopalian, and demanded that, “it is time for the church to do something for us now” (p.59). After she returned from the meeting, she picked up her son and never darkened the door of that church again.

Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements/Make achievements and talents seem bigger than they are

Although considering herself an activist for the downtrodden in the 1960s, she backed the candidacy of a ultra-conservative candidate for senator (George Murphy). She knew him from her time spent hobnobbing in Hollywood with ex-husband Aalberg. One neighbor reported, “[she] elaborated her importance to the point that, to hear her tell it, Murphy had been elected in 1964 because of her.”

While at PIN, she considered her work essential to its success. However, it was discovered that she consistently refused to provide information to her bosses about the accounts. She did not prepare reports, keep an inventory, or manage distributions. She either ignored requests for more information or lashed out verbally, promising results in the future (p.108). It was because of this lack of work that she had to be physically removed from the premises and fired.

Believe they are superior to others and can only spend time with or be understood by equally special people/Be critical of and look down on people they feel are not important.

After Sara married Manning and started having children, she was “well on her way to a life as a stay-at-home mother and homemaker… she must have been deeply uncomfortable with that lifestyle, with groups of what she surely deemed to be superficial women gathering to gossip and watch their children play” (p.33). Sara must have thought she was better than those women and bigger than that lifestyle.

Sara loved to tell Spieler about running around the track at UCLA (while studying accounting there) and “chatting with Hollywood stars” (p.42). While married to her husband that was a doctor, a member of a group of rich women she was a member of in her neighborhood stated, “she [was] always name dropping…” (p.51).

Sara Jane began to send out press releases and contact radio and newspaper reporters as a representative of PIN even though that was not her place to do so (p.87).

When she was fired from PIN for being an unproductive and unstable volunteer and coworker, as they were dragging her off the property, Sara Jane yelled, “you need me here! you people are worthless; no one is a dedicated as I am” (p.108)

When she got to the point where she was doubling, she felt contempt for both sides, feeling she was smarter and working both of them for her own purposes. “Bureau folks were a–holes who labeled anyone caring about human rights and dignity as the dupes of foreign governments… she said she knew that they were wrong.” “If they [the Left] were so g–damned stupid as to talk to me, they needed to be taught a lesson.” Sara Jane, yet again, feeling superior and working people to her own advantage.  She really thought she knew better than everyone else how things should be run (p.132).

Again, the dumping of the kids on her parents and expecting them to take them in, without asking them to care for them long-term is the textbook definition of entitlement.

Take advantage of others to get what they want.

She had four children close together in age with her third husband (one of the 4 children was born disabled and, as happened frequently during that time, was institutionalized). Sara, at the time living with her family in California, called her mother in West Virginia and asked if she and the children could come visit . Mom of course said yes. At the airport in West Virginia, the three children emerge from the aircraft unaccompanied. Sara’s mother took in the kids to her home and waited to hear from Sara. She had no contact from Sara after that, even after adoption proceedings were started and notifications were made. Sara never saw her children by Manning again (p.37-38).

Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.

Sara’s mother, after visiting her in California and talking with her frequently by phone, worried that she “didn’t take any joy in her children… all the while resenting her role.” Manning is the one who filed for divorce, stating she was “an extremely poor mother and wife” (p.33). Her brother visited her and her young family and said she deemed distant from them (p.34). After she gave birth to a mentally handicapped child, she had her institutionalized, and it was Sara’s mother, not Sara, that would check on the child’s progress (p.34-35). Sara was described as an indifferent and irresponsible mother (p.35).

Years later, when she was transferred to a prison close to where her now grown children and other close family members were living, she wanted nothing to do with them. Her daughter and a brother, tried to visit her while she was in prison there. Sara would not allow it (p.197).

Behave in an arrogant way, brag a lot and come across as conceited

Childhood neighbors remembered her as aloof, intense, unfriendly, odd, and “looking for the limelight.” SHE NEVER HAD ANY FRIENDS (p.24).

On September 20th, 1975 Sara called SFPD and said she was going to “test the security” (p.148). Only those who consider themselves very important notify law enforcement to let them know they’ll be test how secure they are going to keep the president. You have to be pretty arrogant to pull that off.

Insist on having the best of everything 

When she was married to Aalberg, she used to boast about the jewelry he bought her and the vacations they could take at the drop of a hat (p.46). While married to Dr. Carmel, she was a member of the most prestigious country club in the area, and insisted on landscaping and decorating their home to the hilt (p.49).

I think she’d be pretty happy that 50 years after the fact, she’s still being written about.