She was quickly lured in by his philosophies and joined the Family. Fromme was happy to be accepted, even if it was by a bunch of sociopaths. Then Manson was found guilty of orchestrating the Tate-LaBianca murders and Squeaky was back on her own. She latched onto environmentalist cause, which would seem like a step in the right direction unless you know that "environmentalist" translates to "killing a United States President" in the language of Crazy Hippy on Acid.
The Attempt:
Fromme met Gerald "The Game" Ford in Capitol Park on the morning of September 5, 1975. She disguised herself with a red robe, apparently under the impression that bystanders wouldn't notice a flamboyant warlock walking around.
While Ford was taking questions from the crowd, he noticed a hand go up near the front row. Much to his surprise there was .45 Colt pistol in that hand.
"I got a fucking question!"
What Went Wrong:
As soon as the weapon was drawn, a Secret Service agent was on her like Nixon on Cambodia. In a moment that must have occurred in slow motion, the agent tackled Fromme and jammed his finger behind the trigger of the gun before wrestling it out of her hand. Fromme was arrested on scene and quickly found guilty of batshittery in the third degree.
If you're thinking that this was actually a good assassination attempt, prevented only by the Secret Service and their Matrix-like skills, you should know Ford would have been fine either way.
It turns out the morning of her attempt, Fromme was still unsure if she actually wanted to kill Ford or just spook him and make him pee a little. She decided she would settle it later and ejected the bullet from the gun. She must have forgotten by the time she met Ford, because the gun she tried to fire at him still had no bullet in the chamber.
Though Fromme failed, she blazed a path for female Presidential assassins and people wanting to kill Gerald Ford in general. Sara Jane Moore tried killing Ford only seventeen days after Fromme. Then again she also didn't manage to get off a shot, so maybe there's still a bit of a glass ceiling there for female assasins, despite what the film Wanted would have us believe.