Hospital Acts After Getting Papers From Secret Service : Hinckley Trip Canceled Over New Letters

The discovery of new letters involving John W. Hinckley Jr. prompted a Washington psychiatric hospital on Friday to cancel its request to allow the presidential assailant to make a supervised field trip outside the hospital.

At a hearing in U.S. District Court, administrators at St. Elizabeths Hospital, where Hinckley was committed after his 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan, abruptly withdrew their request for the outing after receiving unidentified material late Thursday from a Secret Service investigation.

The material, identified by Hinckley’s lawyers as letters, will remain under court seal at least until next week, despite appeals from government attorneys to make the papers public immediately.

U.S. Sees Danger to Public

The government had opposed from the outset the latest attempt to allow Hinckley to temporarily leave the hospital grounds. It argued that, despite psychiatrists’ assertions that Hinckley’s mental health has improved markedly, he still posed a danger to the public.

Hospital officials have contended that short supervised field trips could be of therapeutic value to Hinckley, 33.

While declining to say when or where this trip would have been, Dr. Raymond Patterson, a St. Elizabeths administrator, said in an interview that “before receiving this new material, we were moving ahead with a superl that is unexpected, and we evaluate that in the context of the patient’s condition.”

Hinckley has been confined to St. Elizabeths since 1982, when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the March 30, 1981, shooting that wounded President Reagan, Press Secretary James S. Brady and two law enforcement officers.

Similar Request Withdrawn

Last year, St. Elizabeths officials made their first request to allow Hinckley to leave the hospital grounds for something other than a court appearance, but it was subsequently withdrawn under similar circumstances. The trip, which would have allowed Hinckley to visit his parents without an escort, was canceled after it was revealed that Hinckley had corresponded several times with Florida serial killer Theodore Bundy.

Around that same time, officials disclosed that Hinckley had sought the address of mass murderer Charles Manson, had gotten mail from Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme--who tried to kill President Gerald R. Ford in 1975--and had kept at least 20 photos of actress Jodi Foster in his room. It was Hinckley’s obsession with Foster and his desire to gain her attention that psychiatrists said spurred him to try to kill Reagan.

Officials familiar with the new papers refused to say how they were obtained, whether they involved any of Hinckley’s past interests or whether they were correspondence to or from Hinckley.

They were constrained both by U.S. District Judge Barrington D. Parker’s order to keep the new material confidential for now and by laws protecting Hinckley’s privacy.

‘Proprietary Interest’

Parker said he would give attorneys for Hinckley until next Tuesday to contest the government’s motion to make public the new letters. Hinckley lawyer Vincent Fuller said his client may have a “proprietary interest” in the materials that should prevent their release.