THE TRIO : Reagan, Jodie and John

What do these three have in common? Ronald Reagan, Jodie Foster and John Hinckley were caught in a macabre plot.

John Hinckley portrays the sick, twisted, obsessive

angry, violent person as manifested in his scratchy, printed, blotchy, smeary handwrting. The base line vacillates, (moods), his pen pressure is muddy (violent) and his small, illegible, fractured script (disturbed, dangerous ego) has all the hallmarks of violence. His target: PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN. Why: To impress Jodie Foster who played the prostitute in the movie Taxi Driver.

President (former) Ronald Reagan was shot by Hinckley in an effort to impress Jodie Foster with whom he was obsessed.

Ronald Reagan has the smooth, calm, backhand script with its easy legibility. His letters are clear, precise, simplified portraying his genuine nature. He came up against a violent, angry man who wished to impress Jodie and got caught up in this pitiful plot.

Jodie Foster was the victim of Hinckley's obsessive fantasies. Through no fault of her own she became his fantasy love image. Jodie's handwriting, in reality is highlighted by her rounded upper loops in J and F (her own fantasies and dreams) while her lower zone thrusts in a dagger like stroke (ability to cut off relationships at her discretion). Her writing shows both a soft and hard edge to her persona.

Hinckley was motivated by erotomania and was stalking her. His writing is introverted although he came from a wealthy family where his father was the Chairman of the Vanderbilt Energy Company and his mother doted on him, his handwriting is reclusive and he had limited friendships. He was clearly withdrawn from society and lived in his own fantasy world. While experts testified he was depressed with a psychotic disorder, he was not insane. He knew full what he was doing when he purchased a gun, followed Jodie to New Haven, Connecticut, wrote her love letters and poems and planned the attempted assassination. He even recorded a song, "Ballad of an outlaw" which reflects his awareness of his loneliness and lawlessness. His insecurity is presented in his letter to Jodie, "I never had the nerve to approach you." His scattered, fragmented, illegible, lonely, fractured script testifies to this. Of the shooting he writes, "the shooting was the greatest love offering in the history of the world." While these thoughts are certainly insane, he was not.