Within Arm's Length: A Secret Service Agent's Definitive Inside Account of Protecting the President (23 page)

Rachel was quite different from most women I had ever met in the security field. She had wild, wavy brown hair and a dark tan from the Israeli sun. She also had the most unusual scar running down her perfectly sculpted right bicep. It was jagged and uneven—not a surgical scar but one caused by something from her unknown past. Although we were all armed, she was our protector as we rode in our bus on a brilliantly moonlit night through the Israeli desert.

Growing up in a country that had fought for its survival on more than one occasion and was surrounded by countries that wished their homeland exterminated, Israeli women were raised somewhat differently from American women—or women from almost anywhere. A certain number of Israeli girls grew up learning how to use weapons, load ammunition magazines, and kill their country’s enemies, while many American girls grew up playing with dolls. Biologically, Israeli women and those from other countries were the same, but that is where the similarities ended.

At some point, we stopped at a small country store in the middle of nowhere. Rachel told us to get whatever we wanted, including beer. Back on the bus, almost everyone had a couple of beers. We had just completed one of the most stressful and dangerous advances of our careers, and we needed to relax a little. I had finally gotten rid of my bacterial friend from Stoney’s, and the cold beer went down very well. The bus was not large, but there were only ten or so of us, so we each had our own row. It was a great time to reflect on the last mission and just enjoy traveling through the land where Jesus once walked.

We were fatigued, but our minds were still wound up from the last assignment and would not allow us to rest. No one talked and no one slept, but each merely sat alone with his or her own thoughts. The moonlight illuminating the ancient desolation was almost as bright as noon and was too beautiful to miss.

After several hours of driving and with the sun rising, we arrived at our hotel in Jerusalem. As we got off the bus and said good-bye to our lovely and most certainly lethal guide, Rachel shook hands with each of us with a soft but firm grip and then disappeared back to her life of serving Israel.

THE MEDIA

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees freedom of the press. The founding fathers deemed this right to be so sacred they put it at the top of the Bill of Rights. The media are an inseparable component of the White House’s daily operation, present both there and anywhere the president travels. The media have a difficult job, as does the Secret Service, and while both entities must coexist, it is the Secret Service that sets the boundaries the press must operate under when at the White House or in proximity to the president.

There are three types of media that cover the president’s activities, and each presents its own set of challenges for the Secret Service. The press pool is the smallest group of media that covers the president and is comprised of journalists almost everyone is familiar with by sight. These are senior members of their networks who ask the president questions in the White House during presidential press conferences. They include CNN’s Jake Tapper and until recently, Helen Thomas, of UPI, who covered every president from Eisenhower to Obama. This group travels in the presidential motorcades as well as on Air Force One and is by far the easiest group to work with due to their seniority and familiarity with Secret Service procedures and requirements. Each is issued a White House pass that enables him or her to enter the pressroom of the White House 24/7. They all have designated work areas in the West Wing.

The next group of media that covers the president is larger and is made up of primarily Washington, DC–based reporters on the White House beat. They can also travel in presidential motorcades, but, unlike the press pool, which travels in small vans, this group usually travels in a large bus and is accompanied by cameramen and sound operators. This group flies ahead of Air Force One in a chartered commercial-sized aircraft and lands ahead of the president. They then move to their respective sites. This group can be more challenging for the Secret Service to oversee than the press pool due to their large numbers and the amount of bulky equipment they travel with.

The third and by far the most problematic group is the local media. These reporters and technicians work in local TV and radio stations, and many are young and inexperienced. This is the largest group, and they are usually placed on a flatbed trailer at outdoor events and in the very rear of indoor events. Unlike the pool and traveling press who understand the rules set forth by the Secret Service for media conduct, the locals are not used to working with the Secret Service and are issued temporary press passes that are only good for the event they are covering. They are unaccustomed to being directed by men in suits with wires in their ears, and maintaining group integrity with these individuals is like herding cats, a near impossibility.

I personally liked and had great respect for many members of the media. Most were highly professional and thoughtful. On one trip to Russia, President Clinton was scheduled to visit a forest where Joseph Stalin’s troops had murdered and buried thousands of people. It had been raining a great deal in the region, and my wingtips were not exactly the best choice for slogging through a marshy killing field. On Air Force One prior to landing and boarding the motorcade to the forest, a senior ABC reporter looked at my shoes and said, “Dan, those shoes you’re wearing will never do. Here, take mine.” He was wearing waterproof duck boots that fit me perfectly. Here was a senior ABC reporter wearing jeans and black wingtips, while I was dressed in a navy blue suit and wore brown duck boots. The Secret Service could also return the favors at times.

One morning while in Switzerland a young reporter was suffering from a case of self-inflicted dehydration due to the previous evening’s activities. On the press bus he asked, practically pleading, if anyone had extra water and would be willing to share. While none of his colleagues seemed to have any water to spare, an agent gave the young man his reserve bottle to get him through. Since agents are accustomed to working in a state of dehydration and malnourishment, it was not a problem for him.

While the vast majority of the White House media respected the rules set forth by the Secret Service and understood their purpose, others could occasionally be a challenge to work with. There was at times a tense relationship between the media and the Secret Service that could ignite with little warning. This state of affairs arose due to polarization of purpose. While it is the job of the media to cover every public move POTUS makes, one job of the Secret Service is to keep the area in which POTUS operates as “clean” as possible, meaning clear of unnecessary bodies and paraphernalia. Here lies the primary conflict between the media and the Secret Service: The media always seems to be in the way, there are too many of them, and they are a constant distraction to security.

Each time an assassination attempt is made against the president, successful or unsuccessful, the Secret Service reevaluates its procedures. A new procedure was created after John Hinckley shot President Reagan. It was the creation of a position known as the press agent.

The main purpose of this assignment is to see to it that no assassin embeds himself in the press area, as John Hinckley did when he shot President Reagan. As President Reagan exited the Washington Hilton Hotel, Hinckley casually joined the White House press corps and, standing squarely in their midst unnoticed, shot the president. The more practical everyday purpose of the press agent is to ensure that the press hurries along and does not delay the motorcade’s timely departure.

Some in the media played a game, pushing the envelope as far as they could in order to get their story or photo. Generally, the worst-case scenario for breaking the rules would be receiving a verbal admonishment from the press agent. This meant really nothing to the offending reporter or photographer as long as he or she got the shot or the story. Too many such admonishments could result in a complaint being filed by the Secret Service with the reporter’s network, but this was a very uncommon occurrence. The bottom line for the media was to get the story or the shot that could win a Pulitzer. Most journalists are as mission-oriented to their calling as agents are to theirs, and they are willing to go to jail if necessary to get their stories. Receiving a colorful reprimand from an agent was a small price to pay.

In most cases during a motorcade departure, everyone, including the president, is in his or her vehicle ready to move out, while the hapless members of the media struggle to get into their vans with cameras, microphone booms, and all other manner of equipment. Many tend to move without much purpose, and, absent the constant prodding from an agent, they would take close to forever getting into their vans. Each agent on the working shift takes turns with this assignment. I never enjoyed it. My job as I saw it was to protect the president, not herd the media, making sure they did not get into mischief.

THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS PASS

While few members of the media appreciated being told where they could and could not go, they knew it was a part of the game they had to play in order to keep their White House press credentials. This Holy Grail of press passes was issued by the Secret Service and was the hammer held by the Service over the media. It could be used against out-of-control behavior, and the hammer did fall on occasion.

One day I witnessed an agent literally rip a press pass from the neck of a photographer who had pushed things too far on too many occasions. With the loss of the coveted pass, the photographer was now no different from the general public and was escorted from the area. Rather than ride in the press van, he was forced to take a series of taxicab rides from site to site, where he could observe only from the general public area.

Although such encounters perpetuated the sometimes adversarial relationship between agent and journalist, it was in most cases not personal: An agent could be chewing out a journalist one minute and sharing a joke with him five minutes later. It was all a part of the game, not unlike the game between defense attorneys and the prosecution, who might battle it out in a courtroom and share drinks that evening.

The end of my official association with the press occurred as the result of a physical confrontation I had with a print reporter while working a rope line with President Clinton. President Clinton was on a trip that had a lot of stops. We had been on the road for several days, everyone was tired, and as usual practically all of the staff was testing everyone’s patience with their “golly gee whiz” approach to things. As POTUS moved down this particular rope line, the limo paralleled along behind him in the event we had to move him quickly out of the area. My job was to walk alongside the limo manning the left rear door, which was cracked open and ready for use if necessary.

All in the media are well aware that no one is to get between POTUS and the door of the limo. On this day, however, a very large print reporter continued to do so. It was a problem because if Rich, the detail leader, had to grab POTUS, turn him, and push him inside the limo, the reporter would be in the way. Twice I put my hand on this man’s shoulder and firmly but politely asked him to move away from the door of the limo. Twice he ignored me. The third time I did not ask. I turned him around and, with all my strength and weight—I weighed about ninety pounds less than he did—shoved him out of the way. He went spinning toward the crowd. While the reporter knew and understood that he had pushed the boundaries too far and that the consequences he faced were simply the cost of doing business, some did not take it as well.

This rope line was so chaotic and was moving so fast that no one seemed to notice the interaction—no one except one of President Clinton’s senior staff. I say
senior
in the sense that she was fairly high up the staff chain of command, although she was only in her thirties. She also did her share of getting in our way a great deal of the time, moving in our formations with a sense of irritating entitlement and no purpose.

After President Clinton had finished working the rope line, everyone boarded Air Force One for the trip to our next stop. We had been airborne for about an hour when my shift leader informed me that the senior staffer had complained to the special agent in charge of PPD about my tossing the reporter and wanted me removed from PPD. The boss reportedly calmed the staffer like a father would calm down a hormonally driven teenager, and the incident died. The word from him to me through my shift leader was, however, to stop grabbing reporters. I never “grabbed” another reporter because I was never again assigned the job of press agent.

THE DEATH WATCH

Camera 1

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in a motorcade while riding through Dallas, Texas. While many onlookers snapped photos or rolled motion picture cameras, only one actually captured the headshot that killed President Kennedy. Even this footage was incomplete—it missed the first round that passed through the president’s back and exited the throat. No meaningful media footage exists of the actual assassination.

Since that day a specially designated vehicle has been in every major presidential motorcade to ensure no such opportunity is missed again. The vehicle is known as Camera 1, or “the death watch.” Riding on the tailgate of Camera 1, or with his or her head protruding from an open hatch, a camera operator films nothing other than the presidential limousine during all movements. The sole purpose is to ensure that a future attack on the presidential limousine is filmed in high definition.

THE CAMEL’S NOSE IN THE TENT

The Journalistic Media

One cold night, as an Arab sat in his tent, a camel gently thrust his nose under the flap and looked in. “Master,” he said, “let me put my nose in your tent. It’s cold and stormy out here.”

“By all means,” said the Arab, “and welcome.” He turned over and went to sleep.