Oliver William " Billy " Sipple ( November 20, 1941 – February 2, 1989 ) was a decorated US Marine and Vietnam War veteran widely known for saving the life of US President Gerald Ford during an assassination attempt by Sara Jane Moore in San Francisco on September 22, 1975.

The subsequent public revelation that Sipple was gay turned the news story into a cause célèbre for gay activists.

Sipple was born in Detroit, Michigan.

Sipple, who was closeted in his hometown of Detroit had met Harvey Milk back in New York and had participated in San Francisco's gay pride parades and gay rights demonstrations.

The two were friends and Sipple would also be later described as a " prominent figure " in the gay community who had worked in a gay bar and was active in the Imperial Court System.

Sipple was part of a crowd of about 3, 000 people who had gathered outside San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel to see President Ford on September 22, 1975.

Sipple was besieged by reporters, as was his family.

Sipple then insisted to reporters that his sexuality was to be kept confidential.

According to Harold Evans, " here was no invitation to the White House for Sipple, not even a commendation.

Of President Ford's letter of thanks to Sipple, Milk suggested that Sipple's sexual orientation was the reason he received only a note, rather than an invitation to the White House.

The Superior Court in San Francisco dismissed the suit, and Sipple continued his legal battle until May 1984, when a state court of appeals held that Sipple had indeed become news, and that his sexual orientation was part of the story.

Sipple, who was wounded in the head in Vietnam, was also diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic according to the coroner's report.

A letter addressed to the friends of Oliver Sipple was on display for a short period after his death at one of his favorite hangouts, the New Belle Saloon:

In a 2001 interview with columnist Deb Price, Ford disputed the claim that Sipple was treated differently because of his sexual orientation, saying, " As far as I was concerned, I had done the right thing and the matter was ended.

Moore was restrained by bystander Oliver Sipple, a decorated veteran, and the single shot fired from her gun slightly injured taxi driver John Ludwig, who was standing inside the hotel.

After realizing she had missed, she raised her arm again, and Oliver Sipple, a Marine no longer on active duty, dived towards her, knocking her arm the second time, perhaps saving President Ford's life.

Gay liberation groups petitioned local media to give Sipple his due as a gay hero.

One example is the outing of Oliver Sipple ( who saved the life of U. S. President Gerald Ford during an assassination attempt ) by gay activists, most prominently Harvey Milk.

" Milk reportedly outed Sipple as a " gay hero " to San Francisco Chronicle's columnist Herb Caen in hopes to " break the stereotype of homosexuals " of being " timid, weak and unheroic figures ".

Several days later Caen wrote of Sipple as a gay man and a friend of Milk speculating Ford offered praise " quietly " because of Sipple's sexual orientation.

Later, when Sipple hid in a friend's apartment to avoid them, the reporters turned to Milk, arguably the most visible voice for the gay community.

The reporters had already labeled Sipple the " gay ex-Marine " and his conservative mother disparaged and disowned him when she found out about his sexuality.

* 1975 – Sara Jane Moore tries to assassinate U. S. President Gerald Ford, but is foiled by Oliver Sipple.

In 1961 Sipple described a combination of a pheochromocytoma, medullary thyroid carcinoma and parathyroid adenoma.

introduced the term " multiple endocrine neoplasia " ( MEN ) to describe disorders featuring combinations of endocrine tumors and proposed the terms ' Wermer syndrome ' for MEN 1 and ' Sipple syndrome ' for MEN 2.

Sipple noticed a woman next to him had drawn and leveled a. 38-caliber pistol at Ford as he headed to his limousine.

Reacting instinctively, Sipple lunged at the woman, Sara Jane Moore, just as her finger squeezed the trigger.

Reporters hounded Sipple who at first didn't want his name used, nor his location known.

The police and the Secret Service immediately commended Sipple for his action at the scene, as did the media.

The news media portrayed Sipple as a hero.

At Sounion there is a group of beautiful columns, the ruins of a temple to Poseidon, of particular interest at that time, as active reconstruction was in progress.

Greece was one of the highlights of our trip, but beginning in Greece and continuing around the world throughout Southeast Asia the treatment of animals was horrifying, ranging from callous indifference to active cruelty.

The Suez-Hungary crisis proves that this system was not invented by the new Administration, but only made more consistent and more active.

The first was a list of fourteen manufacturing companies located in the state of Washington which were personally known to the research team to be active in defense work.

Substance Z, an active urinary peptide, was purified by extraction in organic solvents and repeated column chromatography ; ;

He was also personally active in ward politics, and by 1924 O'Banion had acquired sufficient political might to be able to state: `` I always deliver my borough as per requirements ''.

the first use of the word `` rustler '' was as a synonym for `` hustler '', becomin' an established term for any person who was active, pushin', and bustlin' in any enterprise.

By the time Felix turned up it was early afternoon, which, one would think, would be late enough so that by then, except for small children and a few hardy souls who had not yet sobered up, it could have been expected that people would no longer be having any sort of active interest in the previous night's noisemakers and paper hats.

that she was active in the Woman's Club and he in Lions, Rotary, and Jaycee ; ;

Theodore Dwight Weld ( 1803-1895 ) was especially active.

Susan was an active character ; ;

But the process of refusing to think about it was an active reminder in itself and he couldn't rid himself of a consciousness of it throughout the day.

Attempts to accuse anthropologists of complicity with the CIA and government intelligence activities during the Vietnam War years have turned up surprisingly little ( although anthropologist Hugo Nutini was active in the stillborn Project Camelot ).

These terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disk of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet, but as small objects in the outer Solar System were discovered, their volatile-based surfaces were found to more closely resemble comets, and so were often distinguished from traditional asteroids.

While Poirot's actual death and funeral occurred in " Curtain ", years after his retirement from active investigation, it was not the first time Hastings attended the funeral of his best friend.

His father's civil service commission was still active, and during Turing's childhood years his parents travelled between Hastings in England and India, leaving their two sons to stay with a retired Army couple.

The Alan Parsons Project was an English progressive rock band, active between 1975 and 1990, consisting of singer Eric Woolfson and keyboardist Alan Parsons surrounded by a varying number of session musicians.

Bloch was shot by the Gestapo during the German occupation of France in World War II for his active membership of the French Resistance, and Febvre carried on the Annales approach in the 1940s and 1950s.

Jonas of Bobbio records that Columbanus was active in Bregenz, where he disrupted a beer sacrifice to Wodan.

In imperial politics Albert was fairly active.

Alessandro Algardi ( 31 July 1598 – 10 June 1654 ) was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome, where for the latter decades of his life, he was the major rival of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Amos, an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, was active c. 750 BC during the reign of Jeroboam II, making the Book of Amos the first biblical prophetic book written.