SACRAMENTO, Sept. 5 – President Gerald R. Ford narrowly escaped assassination today in Capitol Park when a young woman follower of mass murderer Charles Manson pulled a loaded gun and pointed it at the startled chief executive.

A Secret Service agent wrenched the gun away from the woman — who was only two feet from the President — and pushed her back.

No shots were fired and no one, including the President, was hurt, although Ford visibly flinched when he saw the gun.

The young woman, identified as Lynette Fromme, a longtime follower of cult leader Manson, was charged with the “crime of attempting to murder the President of the United States,” according to Donald H. Heller, the assistant U.S. attorney general in Sacramento.

“He’s not a public servant. He’s not a public servant,” Miss Fromme, 27, said calmly as agents held her on the ground.

“The President reached up; it looked like to shake her hand,” said Roy Miller of Hayward, who was in the crowd near Ford when the incident occurred.

“He saw her gun and he made a motion to deflect it. He looked alarmed and he had a look of fright. I think he (the President) saw the gun first,” Miller said.

The witness said he heard a “click” before the gun was wrestled out of the woman’s hand. Miller quoted the woman as saying, “It didn’t go off, fellows. It didn’t go off.”

Later at an informal news conference Ford said, “I saw a hand come up behind several others in the front row, and obviously there was a gun in that hand.

“I was very thankful to the Secret Service for doing a superb job,” the President added.

U.S. Attorney Dwayne Keyes said there was no bullet in the chamber of the gun, but there were four in the clip of the .45 caliber Colt automatic pistol. Secret Service agents said they believed the woman did pull the trigger.

Presidential Press Secretary Ron Nessen said Ford “will continue on and finish his schedule today. The President was not hurt in any way.”

Nessen said Secret Service agent Larry Brundorf was walking behind the President about 10 this morning when he noticed a woman pushing her way through the crowd.

“She pressed between two women with what appeared to be a .45 automatic pistol. The gun was two feet from the President,” Nessen said.

“The agent wrenched the weapon from her hand and at the same time turned her away from the President and took possession of the gun, forcing her to the ground,” he added.

Bruce Gunderson, a state worker who witnessed the incident, said, “I was standing about 10 feet away and the President had just shaken my hand when a woman in a red, flowing gown, came near the President with what looked to be a .45.”

“Secret Service men got her to the ground and got her hands behind her back and handcuffed her,” he said.

Ford was walking from the Sacramento-Earl Warren Convention Center after addressing the Host Breakfast when the incident occurred. He was about 100 feet inside Capitol Park en route to a meeting with Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. and to make a speech before the joint Legislature.

Linda Worlow, 27, another witness, said Ford went “suddenly pale” when he saw the gun. She quoted Miss Fromme as saying, “The country is a mess. The man is not your President.”

Two Secret Service agents, one on each arm of Ford, hustled the President into the Capitol.

Ford later met with Brown and state legislative leaders, and Bob Holmes, press secretary to Lt. Gov. Mervyn M. Dymally, said the President appeared to be unruffled by the experience.

When the President went in to see Brown, the governor was unaware for a half-hour that anything had happened. It was at the end of their conversation that Donald Rumsfeld, staff chief, came into the room, took the President aside and gave him details about Miss Fromme.

At that time the President turned to Brown and told him what happened.

Later Brown said the President described briefly the attempted attack.

Asked for his reaction, Brown replied:

“There’s a lot of crazy people in this country.”

Asked if that made Brown more fearful for his own security, the governor replied:

“It makes me move a lot faster.”

Both police and federal authorities refused to comment on whether Miss Fromme acted alone or whether a conspiracy existed.

Reports persisted, however, that a number of arrests had been made in various parts of the city in connection with the attempt.

Miss Fromme, a resident of Sacramento the past year, was scheduled to be arraigned in federal court later today.

She has been described as one of Manson’s most slavish followers, who during his trial in Los Angeles shaved her head and carved an “X” in her forehead to show her allegiance to the cult leader.

Manson was convicted in 1970 of the murders of actress Sharon Tate and six other persons.

Following her arrival in Sacramento, Miss Fromme said in an interview she moved here from the Los Angeles area to be near Manson, who until recently was incarcerated in nearby Folsom Prison.

She and another follower, Sandra Good, lived in an old boarding house in the downtown area only blocks from the Capitol. Following the attempt on Ford’s life, Miss Good was taken into custody at her home.

Recently both women have been seen in the Capitol area wearing long, monk-style, red robes. At one time they told a reporter they were “nuns” cleansing the earth while they awaited Manson’s release from prison.

Miss Fromme apparently knew her way around the Capitol. Several weeks ago she contacted Lt. Gov. Dymally in a hallway and asked him what she could do to see her “husband” in Folsom Prison.

Dymally told her to call at his office. “She seemed like a quiet kid,” a Dymally staff assistant said. “She seemed to be interested in everybody being happy. She was sort of childlike.”

Following the assassination attempt the Sacramento Police Department set up what long-time observers said was its tightest security ever.

However, Police Chief William Kinney said federal authorities requested that “no information about the case whatsoever be given out by anybody in the police department. Any information is to be released by federal authorities only.”

About 1,000 persons greeted the President at McClellan Air Force Base last night, but a crowd of only about 50 — outnumbered by Secret Service agents and police — was outside the Senator Hotel at 7:30 this morning as Ford left for his first speech.

Ford, with a brief look of disappointment, waved to the crowd and was then driven to the Sacramento-Earl Warren Convention Center about a block away.

Ford’s speech to the annual Host Breakfast of business leaders was the first of a long list of events for the President during his eight-hour stay in Sacramento.

The breakfast appearance was to be followed by a speech before the joint Legislature, meetings with Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. and other state leaders, and a session with Police Chief William Kinney and Sheriff Duane Lowe.

At the center, another group of about 50 persons were on hand with cheers and some chants of “We want jobs.” Several persons held up signs saying “We need full employment,” and “Ford is a puppet of ITT.”

Ford entered the center to the sounds of “Hail to the Chief,” and then sat patiently at the head table while the names of 600 honored guests was read off and each person stood up.

The name reading took more than an hour, and many men at the breakfast tables appeared restless. Some read newspapers while Ford chatted with other members of the head table.

As the names droned on, one national political reporter traveling with Ford said, “It’s a hell of an imposition for the President.”

When Ford finally spoke, he told the — the business leaders that U.S. industry must invest $4 trillion to create 11 million new jobs by 1980 if the economy is to continue “to climb.”

Speaking in a room lined with white linen table cloths and the bounty of California agriculture — baskets of apples, oranges, pears and table grapes — Ford said Congress must approve tax incentives and cut business regulations to help industry raise such an enormous sum. “It’s four, followed by 12 zeros,” Ford explained.

Ford arrived by presidential jet at McClellan at 10:41 last night, bringing the chief executive to the state for the first time since he announced his candidacy.

Ronald Reagan was nowhere near Sacramento, but the spectre of his salting away California’s mammoth 162-member delegation for the GOP National Convention next year hung heavy in Ford’s Sacramento appearance.

The White House billed it as a noncampaign trip but the stop Reagan overtones seemed as easy to spot as the flashing blue and red lights of the President’s motorcade as they cut the late night darkness from the air base to the Senator Hotel.

From start to finish, Ford’s face beamed with the budding flush of campaign fever.

The first hand he shook on the crowded McClellan apron was that of a possible Democratic opponent, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

The President and the young governor — neither smiling — exchanged a minute’s worth of words at the foot of the Air Force One ramp.

“I welcomed him to California on behalf of the people. I said it was a pleasure to have him here,” Brown told a reporter as the President moved on to meet other dignitaries. “I said I was looking forward to our meeting tomorrow.”

Asked why neither smiled, Brown shrugged: “Some people say I never smile.”

If there was hesitancy on the part of Brown to appear publicly with the Republican President — as has been rumored for days around the Capitol — it wasn’t apparent last night.

The two were almost inseparable for about a half an hour.

Side by side they burrowed into a crowd of mainly Air Force personnel at McClellan — with Brown, in fact, almost upstaging the President by going first down the line of outstretched hands.

“Oh, it’s Gov. Brown,” a few startled well-wishers gasped as they reached for the first hand they saw.

“Hiya’, Mr. President!” “Hello, Chief,” “Where’s Betty?” others yelled. The President, looking somewhat weary from his string of appearances in Seattle and Portland yesterday, kept up a steady “Nice to see you … thanks for coming out” and paused long enough to give out two presidential kisses.

One went to a sleeping baby who’ll never remember and one went on the cheek of a bright-eyed, blonde teen-ager, who popped out in front of Ford and said, “How ’bout a kiss!”

“Well, okay!” Ford said.

At one point, Brown stopped the proceedings briefly to fix the jammed flash camera of a woman about to miss a presidential snapshot. “You’re one of those mechanical types, huh?” Ford quipped to Brown, who was still forging ahead of the chief executive, smiling and shaking hands with everyone in his path.

Ford’s motorcade, down Watt Avenue, along 1-880, down J Street to 12th, was less than tumultuous. Only a small knot of people — less than 100 — lined the sidewalks. On Watt, business went on as usual inside all-night convenience stores and coffee shop customers sat sipping as the flashing lights blinked by toward downtown.

A crowd of 300 was waiting outside the Senator, however, and despite grumbled four-letter expletives of protest from his Secret Service guards — Ford crossed L Street to greet them. This time, Ford managed to pass up Brown in the corridor of reaching hands, but when someone called out “Hi, Jerry,” both chief executives waved back.

The political rewards of the trip will take time to assess. The latest Harris Poll shows Ford in front of Reagan, 50 to 36 per cent. But polls, a year before election, can turn out to be a lot less solid than the gold in the President’s new cufflinks.

“We’re with you all the way, Jerry,” Ford heard many times from voices in the crowds that greeted him today. Yet, “Jerry” doesn’t seem to be taking any chances.

He may return to California in a couple of weeks — Sept. 20 — to dedicate the Firestone fieldhouse on the Pepperdine University campus.

And there’s a tentative date for him in San Francisco, the first week of October, for the national AFL-CIO convention.