It was a grey, drizzly Monday on March 30, 1981, when President Reagan emerged from the Washington Hilton hotel, heading back to his presidential limousine parked a few yards away. His inauguration had been only a few weeks before and he'd just finished speaking at a lunch of US labor union leaders. Along with the rest of the White House press corps I was about 20 feet away, roped off from the President. Suddenly, just as one of our number shouted a question for him, shots rang out. In a split second, a burly Secret Service agent brusquely bundled Reagan...