Attempted Assassination of George W. Bush

Background

At the time, George W. Bush was listed as sitting president. The record is categorized as attempted assassination with a high confidence level.

Event details

The reported method was grenade attack. Failed; grenade did not detonate.

Aftermath

The Soviet-era RGD-5 hand grenade thrown toward the stage landed approximately 65 feet from the podium but did not detonate; a cloth wrapped around the pin had prevented the safety lever from fully disengaging. Bush and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili were unharmed, and the event continued as Bush completed his speech. Arutyunian evaded immediate capture and remained at large for nearly three months; during his arrest in July 2005, he killed a Georgian interior ministry officer and was himself seriously wounded. He was tried in Georgia in 2006, convicted of terrorism and murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The near-miss led to reviews of security procedures for presidential foreign travel and underscored the dangers of open-air public events even in carefully secured environments.

Historical significance

The Tbilisi grenade attack is the only known attempt to throw a grenade at a sitting American president and stands as a sobering reminder of the physical dangers of open-air presidential appearances in foreign environments. The fact that the grenade's detonation was prevented only by a fabric pin-wrap—an entirely passive mechanical failure—rather than by security intervention illustrates how thin the margin can be between a near-miss and a catastrophe. Arutyunian's subsequent murder of a Georgian interior ministry officer during his arrest, and the Georgian court's life sentence for both terrorism and murder, demonstrated the multi-dimensional danger such actors can pose. The incident drove significant reviews of outdoor presidential security protocols for foreign visits.

Sources

• 2005 Tbilisi grenade attack — Wikipedia contributors
• List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots — Wikipedia contributors