Ron Kessler's New Book about the USSS

Secret Service Is Putting the President at Risk
From: Newsmax.com
Monday, August 10, 2009 10:00 AM, By: Ronald Kessler

The nation has not endured a presidential assassination since John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas in 1963. That is largely because of the dedication of Secret Service agents. But since the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) took over the Secret Service in 2003, the agency has been cutting corners to the point where the lives of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and other protectees are endangered.

That is the opinion of a number of current Secret Service agents who have told me for my book, “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents,” that it is a miracle an assassination has not taken place. But you do not have to be a Secret Service agent to recognize that the agency has been taking foolhardy risks.

After the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life on March 30, 1981, the U.S. Secret Service learned to use metal-detecting magnetometers to screen those who have access to the president. But in recent years, when pressured by staffs of presidential candidates like Barack Obama or by the White House, agents have shut down magnetometers at major events when stragglers are still arriving and a speech is about to begin.

Only one such incident was publicized. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that an hour before a rally for then-presidential candidate Obama was to start at Reunion Arena in Dallas on Feb. 20, 2008, the Secret Service stopped magnetometer screening.

As if shutting down magnetometers at an event is about to start is not shocking enough, when Vice President Biden threw the opening pitch at the first Baltimore Orioles game of the season at Camden Yards on April 6, 2009, the Secret Service skipped any magnetometer screening of the more than 40,000 fans. Moreover, even though Biden’s scheduled attendance at the game was announced beforehand, the vice president was not wearing a bullet-proof vest under his navy sport shirt as he stood on the pitcher’s mound.

“A gunman or gunmen from anywhere in the stands could have gotten off multiple rounds before we could have gotten in the line of fire,” says a current agent who is outraged that the Secret Service would be so reckless.

Before the Baltimore event, senior management on Biden’s detail decided “we don’t need magnetometers,” overruling stunned agents on Biden’s detail and the agency’s own Baltimore field office.

Ironically, when I interviewed Nicholas Trotta, who heads the Secret Service’s Office of Protective Operations, for my book — the first book about the Secret Service the agency has cooperated on — he cited the use of magnetometers as a key to protecting presidents.

“Now,” he said, “Everyone goes through the magnetometer.” Indeed, the Secret Service official said, often just seeing a magnetometer in use may deter an assassin. But when I mentioned that the Secret Service shuts down magnetometers under pressure, Trotta contradicted himself and changed his tune.

“When we have a crowd of 70,000 people, we may or may not need to put all those people through magnetometers,” Trotta said. “Because some of those people in certain areas might not have a line-of-sight threat that can harm the protectee.”

What if an assassination occurred because someone was not screened? Trotta looked uncomfortable. Still, he plowed on ahead, saying it may be safe to forgo screening of crowds sitting further away from the president.

Has Trotta never heard of a gunman leaving his seat to zip off a shot or throw a grenade at the president? In fact, it was a decision to stop magnetometer screening that almost led to the assassination of President Bush on May 10, 2005, when a man threw a grenade at him as he spoke at a rally in a public square in Tbilisi, Georgia. Because local security services shut down magnetometer screening, the man was able to take a grenade into the event where Bush was to speak.

Failing to screen everyone who attends an event where the president or vice president is speaking makes as much sense as letting passengers board an airplane without passing them through metal detectors. When told of Trotta’s rationale for stopping magnetometer screening, Secret Service agents cannot believe he said what he did indeed say.

“I was in absolute shock regarding his comment about the mags closing down and potential attackers being too far away to cause any problems,” says an agent on one of the two major protective details. Imagine, the agent says, if three or four suicide assassins came in, with guns blazing. “I cannot believe the head of our protective operations actually said that,” he says. “Yeah, let’s drop those magnetometers. Thank God you have it on record, because he would be one of the first people to be called to testify before a congressional committee if such an incident happened.”

Since the book came out, law enforcement sources admitted to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the Secret Service did not screen crowds at the Orioles game and defended the decision by saying Biden’s presence had not been announced beforehand. But as I pointed out in a CNN interview with Blitzer, a simple Google search turns up dozens of stories that reported the day before the game that Biden would be throwing the first pitch. Nexis lists more than 50 such stories.

Agents trace the corner-cutting to the Secret Service’s absorption into DHS. Being submerged in what many view as a dysfunctional agency and having to compete for funds with a range of other national security agencies led to a lowering of standards. The fact that the Bush White House itself periodically asked the Secret Service to skip magnetometer screening undoubtedly contributed to an indulgent attitude.

Many of the things in the book may be correct but to get into the private lives of the protectees is just plain wrong and will make dealing with them in the future much, much more difficult.

It is disgusting and abhorrent that any Secret Service agent, former or current, would disclose private information about any person who is or was protected by the Service.

It is a violation of the trust and confidence that those being protected are entitled to expect from someone who is granted such intimate access to their lives. Those who tell tales about the private lives of protectees have dishonored themselves and have forfeited their claim to having integrity.

However, it is also true that some people who spoke with Kessler did not talk about protectees, but about deficiencies in Secret Service protective operations. This might be healthy criticism that will lead to improved protective measures.

Those people are not in the same category as the ones who blabbed about the actions of the people being protected.

After the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life on March 30, 1981, the U.S. Secret Service learned to use metal-detecting magnetometers to screen those who have access to the president. But in recent years, when pressured by staffs of presidential candidates like Barack Obama or by the White House, agents have shut down magnetometers at major events when stragglers are still arriving and a speech is about to begin.

I don't know that I agree with that "recent years" claim. I can recall Bob Haldeman personally physically dropping the rope lines at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City during a Nixon visit so the "friendly" crowd could mob in around Nixon to show how "popular" he was.

Over the years the conflict between Service security concerns and presidential staff publicity concerns have brought many arguments. The question now is whether or not the publicity people are winning over the security people. If so, that is a very, very bad thing.

[worfusa2008]

To anyone who has plunked down $15.00 for this book: Is it worth reading? Does it report the continued mismanagement of the Service by the successors to the Old Guard in HQ or is it simply anecdotes about the previous Presidents?

To anyone who has plunked down $15.00 for this book: Is it worth reading? Does it report the continued mismanagement of the Service by the successors to the Old Guard in HQ or is it simply anecdotes about the previous Presidents?

Read the last paragraph of the first post. It is supposedly worse under DHS than it was before.

:shock:

[worfusa2008]

Downhill, I didn't think it could get any worse. I got out one year before mandatory age, a victim of the Comanche School of Management.

Downhill, I didn't think it could get any worse. I got out one year before mandatory age, a victim of the Comanche School of Management.

Is that where you ride a horse until he collapses and then you kill him?

:?:

[worfusa2008]

A Comanche will ride a horse until it can go no further and lies down. The Comanche will then build a fire under the horse until it gets up and then ride it some more. This is repeated until the horse can no longer get up and then the Comanche eats him.

[worfusa2008]

The wife wants to read Kessler's book because I was retired when we met and subsequently married. She wants to know more about The Job. I am trying to talk her out of it, warning her that she will end up disappointed, disillusioned, disenchanted, and dispirited just like most of the street humps. The bosses are doing very well, thank you very much.