In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect

This is a little dated, but still great, with reminiscences dating back decades.Kessler intersperses chapters about the Secret Service’s culture, procedures and nagging problems, with those dishing on the presidents. Secret Service agents aren’t supposed to leak what they see, and generally don’t. But they do here, particularly former agents no longer bound professionally and embittered enough to spill it.The Service really does have problems, or did when Kessler wrote this. You can write some of this off to people bitching about work, but much seems substantial, particularly when Kessler compares it to related agencies like the FBI.Agents are promised ample training to stay sharp, responding to different scenarios of attacks upon their protectees. They usually don’t get it. They work too much overtime, the roster stretched too thin by demands for protection from a growing array of government officials, their families and foreign dignitaries. This stresses marriages and family life. Service leaders agree to this, without commensurate increases in budget and personnel, to curry favor with political leaders and to empire build. Their employees pay the price.The Service maintains a retro management style, reminiscent of the Postal Service. It hearkens back to when workers were all men, mostly military veterans accustomed to hierarchy. Their wives all stayed home and were expected to follow loyally behind whenever their husbands were transferred. ‘It was tough on us, it’ll be tough on you,’ managers say, ‘so suck it up.’Life ain’t like that anymore. Unwanted transfers create disruption when spouses can’t or won’t go along. Agents tire of missing birthdays and graduations, of working straight through weekends again and again. The Service, failing to acknowledge this, hemorrhages well-trained, experienced people. They leave rather than accept a transfer they don’t want, or when they can’t get one they need.The favor of superiors is crucial in promotion, and promotion is crucial to getting a better high-paying job after leaving, so agents go along to get along, not making waves. Then they leave the SS for the $$.Many agents at this writing were armed with obsolete, lower-power weapons, older machine pistols, presenting little deterrent to terrorists likely armed with real assault rifles. The Service, still traumatized by JFK’s 1963 assassination in Dallas, is too focused on the lone gunman, some agents say, rather than terrorist scenarios a more real threat nowadays.With presidents traveling more and more, the Service to lessen the work has slacked off on forcing crowds through metal detectors. In one unpublicized incident, a terrorist threw a hand grenade at George W. Bush while he spoke in Tbilisi, Georgia. Only because the grenade failed to explode did Bush survive. The Georgian government had been prepared with metal detectors but the Service waived using them.There’s of course a lot of dish here and, confess, that’s half the reason you read this. The book was published near the beginning of the Obama administration so there’s not much about them. A few highlights:Agents' favorite presidential couple were the George HW Bushes. Their patrician breeding really came through. They knew agents’ names, remembered the details of their lives, and looked after them. Barbara Bush baked cookies for them and made sure, one very cold day, a hatless agent had a warm hat to wear. “Son, don’t argue with the First Lady,” her husband told the young agent, who tried to demur when she pressed one on him.The George W. Bushes were close behind. Laura Bush was maybe their favorite First Lady ever. Dubya was a physical fitness buff, running and then, after his knees protested, biking, with the most fit agents assigned to his personal protection so they could keep up with him. Dubya’s manner in private, they said, was very different from his tongue-tied public speaking style; he was warm, witty, funny and confident.Bill Clinton was late all the time, but they respected the major cause of it. He loved chatting up people, including grunt-level workers like maids and busboys, whose names he remembered, and whom he enthusiastically talked to even when there were no cameras around. His impromptu plunging into groups gave the Secret Service nightmares, but they respected the reasons behind it.Hillary was another story. She hated cops and didn’t want those in uniform anywhere in sight, lessening the deterrent to potential attackers. She was rude to agents and other employees, regularly. She had a nasty, ill-tempered tongue which she unleashed as soon as she was out of the public eye.Agents disliked the Carters and found Jimmy phony on things like not drinking or carrying his own bags. When he did it for a photo op, the bag was empty. Otherwise agents had to carry his bags. His annoying micromanagement included controlling the schedule for the White House tennis court, including when he was out of town.Presidential kids could be a handful. The Bush twins regularly tried as youths to shake their protection details. There were incidents with drinking in bars and fake IDs - the stuff many college kids do, but that those in the public spotlight really can’t afford to do.

Above all, this is a fun to read page-turner. When it ends, the reader is left wanting the true story to continue. It's more fun than reading Page 6 of the NYPOST. As would be expected it provides some history of the Secret Service, which was originally formed to arrest counterfeiters as a division of the Treasury Department on July 5, 1865. "Abraham Lincoln's last official act was to sign into the law the legislation creating the agency." It wasn't until 1902 that the secret service officially assumed responsibility for protecting the President. "Public access to the to the grounds of the White House grounds was ended for the first time during World War II." Amazingly, up until that time members of the public continued to be free to roam the White House and White House grounds during daylight hours. That era seems like such a different world than the present age. In addition to the history of the Secret Service and its constantly expanding responsibilities for protecting the President and an ever-expanding list of other leaders deemed important enough to receive SS protection the book is fascinating in other ways. (Please pardon the negative connotations of using SS as shorthand for the Secret Service). The bulk of the book is gossip about the people the SS has protected over the years and the readers are going to be amazed at the glimpses the book provides of the real characters of many of the protectees. Here are some the questions that are answered by the book, but you are going to have to read the book to learn who is who: What President was most disliked by his SS guardians? Which First Lady wanted the Secret Service Agents around and inside the White not to carry guns? Which Presidents never spoke to their Secret Service Guardians over a period of years even though he was constantly within a foot or two of them? Which First Lady was found crawling around in the garden so drunk she couldn't stand up or find the house? Which President's son would go to the Georgetown bars, get roaring drunk, smoke pot, and then pick up women by asking them if they wanted to come back to the White House and have sex there (most apparently accepted)? Which Secret Service protectee got into drunken bar fights so that his Secret Service agents would have to intervene? Which President would step into Air Force One after smiling and waving to the crowds and cameras outside and then once inside the plane "out of sight of the crowds, he would stand in the doorway and grin from ear to ear, and say, `You dumb sons of bitches. I piss on all you?'" as he started taking off his clothes as he walked down the plane's aisles and often reached his private quarters fully nude so he could shut the door and spend some quality time with some of his secretaries and female personal assistants? He did this even when his wife was sometimes on the plane. Which President, famous for his smile, never smiled once he was out of the public's view? Who was the cabinet level officer who was too cheap to buy a plane ticket and so had his Secret Service Detail drive him home and back each weekend--a distance of several hundred miles each way? And who was another cabinet secretary who would have his secret service agents drive him to visit his mistress every Thursday through Sunday in another city several hours distant from D.C?Which Presidents and First Families were the most liked, respected and appreciated by their Secret Service Agents? What President refused to have either his military doctor or the Military Officer carrying the nuclear code football for launching missiles stay in the same town as the President--meaning that a surprise nuclear attack might be successful even before the President could have ordered a response? Which President(s) actually got caught having sex on a sofa in the Oval Office by his very annoyed wife? Which President and which first ladies refused to let any of the White House Staff look at them as they walked around anywhere inside the White House? Which President liked to pretend he was carrying his own luggage when the bags were really empty? Which President liked to get to the Oval Office at 5 or 6 a.m. and then promptly shut the curtains and take a long nap? What were many of our Presidents and their families really like? How many First Ladies actually ran the nation? These nagging questions and many others are all answered in this tome. Which Vice-President had angry mobs attack his limo and then the American Embassy after he fled there--the 7th Fleet had to send Marines to save him since the local police had disappeared? Which First Couple "were the biggest liars in the world?" This book isn't going to do anything to enhance the respect for many of our elected leaders from either party. Many of them were nasty, phony, ruthless, borderline unstable, irresponsible, paranoid, despicable people. They weren't at all who the voters thought they were when they elected them. The readers are in for some big surprises at the eye witnessed glimpses into their leader's private personalities. The Secret Service was added to the Home Land Security Department after 9/11 and has been suffering many negative results since. The book explains how today's Secret Service is mismanaged, under-funded, has had it's responsibilities doubled without any increase in resources. The Service is rapidly losing its best agents and still considers the main threat to be a single, crazed individual with a gun as the chief threat to the President. With that model, according to the book, the teams protecting the President have been under-armed compared to run-of-the-mill terrorists, under-manned with five or six agent backup teams often cut to only two individuals. The book's author, who interviewed more than 100 present or former agents and had the cooperation of the Secret Service in doing the book, suggests that the SS is now set up in such a way that a group of well-armed, suicidal terrorists could easily overwhelm the President's Secret Service Protection. If he recent gatecrashers at the White House State Dinner, one of which has an Arab sounding first name, had been trained enemy agents, they could easily have killed the President. In fact, they could have fatally infected or killed every person whose hands they shook at the party. This is a very timely read.

I'm still reeling a bit from the last paragraph of the book. After detailing changes that must be made to the techniques, equipment and strategies of the modern day Secret Service, the author leaves us with "without these changes, an assassination of Barak Obama or a future president is likely". As one who lived through the loss of both Kennedys and the shooting of Reagan, it is dismaying to read that, even with all we surely should have learned from these experiences, and with all today's technological advances, we are always vulnerable to it happening again. And it's not due to the fine people who make up the Secret Service, who are as dedicated now as they have always been. It's from their decision-makers, and yes, from the presidents themselves, who evidently see themselves as invincible. By gosh, when you sign on to be our president, can't you see that one of your jobs is to respect and take the advice of those who are there to protect you? You wonder if there is a secret wish for martyrdom in their genes.The arrogance and selfishness of Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan and the Bush daughters was not new news. It's difficult to imagine the most exalted people in our country treating the folks paid to serve them poorly - but I guess that something happens to the brain chemistry of some after breathing the White House air. Thank goodness for the kindness of both Barbara and Laura Bush and their husbands - and the Obamas.Ron Kessler has given us a rare opportunity to see the presidency from the Secret Service's point of view. I'm not sure I feel better having read it, as it is just another indication that government agencies fall far short of doing the efficient job we expect of them. And, lives hang in the balance.

Very nice book.Good prompt service👌👌

Un libro muy interesante para conocer los entramados del servicio secreto con anecdotas muy divertidas. Recomendado 100 x 100. Estupendo.

A very interesting story. It makes you wonder what else goes on that we "punters" do not know about. The secret service is a job that I definitely would not want!

Das Buch erzählt viele Anekdoten aus dem Leben der Secret Service Agenten, die die jeweiligen Präsidenten, Vizepräsidenten, Staatsgäste usw. schützen. Man erfährt viel über den Aufbau des Secret Service, die Entstehung, die zusätzlichen Aufgaben und die Schwierigkeiten, mit denen die Agenten zu kämpfen haben.Über jede neuere First Family kann man Details erfahren, z.B. wer seine Personenschützer gut behandelt hat, wer nach außen hui und innen pfui lebt und wer immer zu spät kommt. Von daher ist es ganz spannend.Der Punkt Abzug resultiert aus der Wischi-waschi-Struktur. Anekdoten und Geschichten werden irgendwie aneinandergereiht, etwas mehr Struktur hätte gut getan.

Did not like this book. Too much on behind the scenes of the secret service. I would have liked more about the Presidents.