Standing Next to History: An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service

by Petro, Joseph

  We flew a C-141 full of equipment down there to set up the rally and the parade, including five miles of yellow rope for rope lines. Two days before the president arrived, I flew down to Grenada to check the security arrangements. I was driving through the countryside and spotted tethered animals everywhere. There were cows and horses and goats and sheep, all tied with brand-new, very distinctive yellow rope. It seems that, as we tried to utilize the rope for our purposes, the local farmers had their own ideas on how to utilize it.

  As hard as we try to plan for every possible new problem, old problems also arise.

  When we took the president back to Japan in 1986, I worried that there could be a fallout from the Motoishi incident. I’d tried to soothe Motoishi’s feelings after that first trip by sending him a little gift. I’d been walking through a West Wing hallway where the photo office hangs pictures of recent events and spotted one in which he was standing right next to the president. The deal with the photos was, if you saw one you wanted, you put your name and phone number on the back of it, and if no one senior to you asked for it, you could have it. I’d asked the president to sign it, and I’d mailed it to Mr. Motoishi. Now, seeing him again on the preadvance, he was guarded but friendlier. I decided that was progress. Bizarrely, five years later I was having lunch with an advance team from Japan planning their prime minister’s trip to Washington, when one of the officials said to me, “Mr. Petro, you are very famous in Tokyo.” Several other officials nodded. I didn’t understand until someone explained that these men were police officers who worked for Mr. Motoishi.

  This time, though, I didn’t have to deal with him. My counterpart was a man named Kanishigi, who seemed pleasant and spoke very good English. I already knew that the Japanese were concerned about our weapons and that they intended to make an issue out of it. I wondered if there was any way I could avoid getting into that argument at the next big meeting of the two advance groups. So over dinner at the ambassador’s residence, I quietly mentioned to Mr. Kanishigi that perhaps we could go outside and have a private word. In the courtyard I said, “You and I have something to work out, and I don’t want to raise this at the meeting, and I don’t think you want to raise it at the meeting either. We have to agree on the weapons.” He nodded, and I went on, “I will guarantee that no one will see our weapons, that agents will wear their sidearms under their shirts, and that we will not bring automatic weapons to the sites.”

  After staring at me for a moment, he nodded again. “This is the way we should do it.” We shook hands, and weapons were never mentioned again.

  Weapons are often a bone of contention with the British, too, but we’ve come to an understanding there. Under the agreement with them, we get to have the same number of weapons they do. I won’t say what the number is, but it is sufficient to protect the president.

  We insist on bringing weapons with us because Congress expects us to be responsible for the president wherever he is. Our rules of engagement are the same overseas as they are in the States. We will take whatever action circumstances require. Firing a weapon on foreign soil would be a big deal politically and legally. Fortunately we’ve never had to do that. As an agent who has carried weapons on foreign soil, I can honestly say that I never thought about the political or legal ramifications, I only concerned myself with the safety of our protectee. I was prepared to do whatever I had to do, and would deal with the consequences later. We carried black diplomatic passports on foreign trips, which imply diplomatic immunity, but had there been a gun incident in the line of duty, I’m not sure that would have mattered, at least not in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. I believe that, in any reasonable situation, if an agent were to use his weapon overseas, as long as it turned out to be justified, it would not be a problem in most countries. If, on the other hand, an accident occurred and someone was killed, that would indeed be problematic. So we’ve worked it out with the Japanese, and we’ve worked it out with the British, and we’ve worked it out with most other countries, but we still have problems in, of all places, Canada. Our nearest neighbors can be the most obstinate.

  In 1985, the president was going to do a two-day trip to Quebec City for a summit hosted by his pal, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Deaver, Henkel, and I did the survey with a smaller group than usual because this was, on paper, a very simple trip. We checked into the Château Frontenac and met with a small group of foreign ministry people, Prime Minister Mulroney’s people, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who have protective responsibilities. The initial meeting lasted only fifteen minutes before we broke into smaller groups.

  I brought with me the advance agent and an agent from our Syracuse field office. Three Mounties sat across from us, led by Deputy Commissioner Bob Roy. He was a big, burly fellow who got straight to the point. “Mr. Petro”—he glared at me as if I were some sort of underling being lectured to—“when the president comes to Quebec City, you may not bring your vehicles, your radios, and your weapons. You will have only one person at each site and two people in the motorcade.”

  “Really?” I stood up. “Well, then, it doesn’t seem like we have much to talk about, does it,” and I walked out. I found Deaver and told him what had just happened, ending my description of Roy’s pronouncement with “It’s an insult.”

  Deaver went straight to Mulroney’s chief of staff and told him what had just happened, finishing his description of the event with “It’s not acceptable.”

  The chief of staff hurried off to find Roy and, a few minutes later, returned to inform Deaver and me, “It’s all right, you can go back to the meeting. The problem is solved.”

  I sat down again with an unhappy Mr. Roy. He asked me what we wanted. I went down the list, which included cars, radios, weapons, post standers, the works. He said nothing about our requirements, and we moved on to discuss the sites. The president and the entourage would stay at the Château Frontenac—we took over the entire hotel—and everything was going to happen within five blocks. We got through the meeting, and even though Roy barely spoke to me, everything seemed to have been settled.

  When I returned to Quebec City a few days before the visit, word from the RCMP was “No weapons.” I told Deaver, and he phoned the chief of staff, who walked into the prime minister’s office and came out with permission for us to bring weapons into Canada. This was from Brian Mulroney himself. I assumed that was the end of that.

  We flew up with the president, attended the first night’s banquet, and got him back into the hotel by 10:30. Once he was in his room, I came downstairs to check on the cars for the next morning. I walked into the lobby, which was filled with the press corps, and Roy was there. He spotted me, walked up, shoved his finger in my chest, and said in a very loud voice, “You lied to me.”

  Astonished, I listened to him go into a tirade about agents transmitting over the radio. But no one had ever said we couldn’t. Then he warned, “I don’t give a shit what the prime minister told you, if I find an agent with a weapon in Canada, I’m going to have him arrested.”

  Now I took his hand and placed it on top of the holster hidden under my shirt. I said, “If you’re willing to accept the consequences of arresting me in the lobby of this hotel, with the president of the United States upstairs, be my guest.”

  By now, everybody in the lobby was also waiting for me to be arrested.

  Roy’s face got red, he spun on his heels and stormed off.

  The next morning, I was on the president’s floor, in front of the suite, when Roy appeared. The RCMP was not excluded from the floor because they also had a responsibility for the president’s safety and we operated a joint command post. At the working level, everything in Canada was great, the guys all got along just fine. The problem was the chip on Roy’s shoulder. I stared at him as he approached, thinking here we go again. But this time, to his credit, he extended his hand and apologized. We wrote it off to a stressful day. I did tell him, though, that we’d just come back from China and got more professional
courtesy from the Red Chinese officials than we get from the Mounties. I reminded him, “We’re the same people, you and me. I have no trouble with the Communist Chinese, but I can’t get along with the Canadians. Why is that?”

  It’s a question that is still unanswered.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DOWNTIME

  At some point, on every ride, he would remind us, “The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse.”

  The president of the United States lives above the shop.

  There is no getting around the fact that the White House is a government office building and, therefore, not necessarily the most relaxing place in the world to live. The West Wing is where the president’s offices are, and the East Wing contains additional office space, including the first lady’s office. The private quarters are on the second floor of the central part of the White House, which is known as the residence.

  The rooms are comfortable, Pullman style—in a straight line—but hardly regal and not very large. There is a long hallway running through the middle of the floor. On one side, with the elevator and the entrance, there is a kitchen, a small gym, and the large guest room known as the Queen’s Bedroom. On the other is the Lincoln Bedroom—which was not Lincoln’s bedroom, but his study, the room in which he signed the Emancipation Proclamation—the Oval Yellow Room where the Reagans held private receptions, and some sitting rooms.

  The president’s suite is on that side, too, comprising a living room, a dining room, a dressing room, and a bedroom. For the record, according to the White House historian’s office, there are 132 rooms in the residence—which is the original six-floor mansion. There are 35 bathrooms, 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, 8 staircases, and 3 elevators. That may sound grand, but there are also, always, lots of people around—stewards, staff, the Secret Service—and their presence becomes very tiring. Most presidents quickly learn that they need to get out of there on weekends. Both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton spent weekends at the White House in the beginning, but after a while they started going regularly to Camp David.

  Officially called “Naval Support Facility Thurmont,” it’s a U.S. Navy base protected by U.S. Marines. High in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, some seventy miles from the White House—about twenty-five minutes on Marine One—it became the official presidential retreat in 1942 and was named Shangri-La by Franklin Roosevelt. President Eisenhower renamed it after his grandson. The property is made up of several rustic but comfortable cabins in a wonderful wooded setting. The president and first lady would fly up on Friday afternoon and stay until Sunday afternoon. It was a great place for agents, too, because it is so secure we could give them a lot more freedom than anywhere else. The president and Mrs. Reagan would go for long walks and we could safely be a hundred yards behind and not have to worry. As long as we kept them in sight, we felt they were very safe at Camp David.

  When I first joined the president’s detail, I wanted to see the layout at Camp David. I was given a number to call, and the camp commander’s office set up a tour for me the following week. After I hung up, I started going through the mail, and, by sheer coincidence, there was a request for a Secret Service plaque to be given to the commander at Camp David: a certain William A. Waters, who was being rotated out. I stared at the name, told myself, “It can’t be,” took up the phone again, and telephoned Camp David. I asked to speak to Commander Waters. The clerk wanted to know who was calling, I told him my name and waited until a familiar voice came on the line and said, “Joe?”

  I answered, “Bill?”

  Commander William A. Waters was Lt.(j.g.) Bill Waters, the fellow I’d shared a hooch with in Vietnam in River Division 512. Reuniting with him was a wonderful treat, and when I went up there with the president and first lady, I stayed in the cabin called Rosebud, directly across the path from the cabin where Bill, his wife, and kids lived.

  There was a regular routine when we were there. After dinner on Friday and Saturday night, at precisely eight o’clock, the senior agent, the military aide, the chief pilot of Marine One, assistant press secretary Mark Weinberg, the personal aide, the doctor, and the camp commander would line up at the door of Aspen Lodge—which was the president’s—and wait to be ushered in for the evening movie. On Friday nights, the Reagans usually showed an old movie. On Saturday nights, it was a new release. There was a screen that dropped down from the ceiling of their living room and a projector built into the wall at the back. The president and Mrs. Reagan would sit on the sofa. Behind them, on one side, was the aide and chief pilot. I sat behind them on the other side with the camp commander. Everybody had assigned seats, and there were little tables next to each seat. Precisely halfway through the movie, a steward would bring out popcorn and Cokes and put them on everybody’s table.

  The first night I went to the movies, when the popcorn arrived, I turned to Bill at precisely the same moment that he turned to me, and the two of us smiled broadly, thinking the identical thought. We discussed it later. In our wildest dreams, neither of us could have imagined in 1969, sitting in a hooch eating his mother’s popcorn and watching a movie, that one day we would be doing the same thing with the president of the United States.

  My vote for the most interesting film we saw at Camp David was Hellcats of the Navy, starring Ronald Reagan and an actress who used to call herself Nancy Davis. She played a nurse, and he played a submarine captain. It was the last of her eleven films, made at Columbia in 1956, and the only film in which they appeared together. The two of them sat on the couch, watching it, holding hands, and looking very amused.

  Occasionally the Reagans would have guests at Camp David. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain visited a few times. And despite the very informal setting, she was always prim, proper. And she always had her purse with her. You could tell that the president and Mrs. Reagan liked her because the three of them never stopped talking and laughing.

  On Saturday mornings, we went riding. There were some gorgeous trails through the woods, and occasionally we’d go off-site. Because riding was so much a part of the president’s life, and because he was such an accomplished rider, when I joined the detail I went through intensive training, spending two hours every morning at six, for two months, taking advanced riding lessons from the U.S. Park Police.

  The president had been given a world-class jumper named Giminish, a big, gorgeous gelding who was a real handful to ride. But the president not only demanded good horses, he could handle them. There was another horse he rode sometimes called Straights and Doubles, a spirited ex-racehorse. When the president wasn’t riding Straights, I was. He never rode western, like a cowboy, because he was a lot more than an actor who could ride. He always rode with an English saddle, which is a better way to ride because you’re more part of the horse. And he always did the Italian dismount. That truly set him apart. It consists of a fairly elaborate and somewhat athletic move. When the horse came to a stop, he would take both his feet out of the stirrups and throw his right leg up over the head of the horse, then slide down the left side of the horse, landing on the ground, standing at attention holding the reins. He does it in the movie The Cavalry Charge, and I never saw him get off a horse any other way. I’ve tried it a few times, and it’s not so easy. It’s also dangerous. The president was basically dropping off the horse, as opposed to stepping off the horse, and those horses were huge. We worried that he could lose his footing and fall, or that a horse could be startled and throw him. So without saying anything to him, we always made sure that one of the agents was standing behind the president’s horse when he did his dismount. We never had a problem, but an agent was there, just in case.

  For the same reason, we spent a lot of time practicing AOPs on horseback. Whatever we did on the ground was coordinated with the HMX helicopters because, if there was an emergency, we’d have to get the president to a hospital. One agent would pretend to be the president, actually riding Giminish, and another agent would pretend to be the first la
dy, actually riding her horse. We’d go through every variety of emergency. We’d rehearse falls, broken legs, broken arms, and heart attacks, always acting as if it were the real thing. It was especially important to practice with the horses because we couldn’t predict how they’d react, especially to gunfire and explosions. Real life is not like a Hollywood picture. The president told us that when he was making those movies, the studio deafened the horses so that they wouldn’t react to gunfire. It was the only way to film cowboys shooting off the backs of horses. We discovered that we couldn’t shoot more than once before these horses went crazy. In fact, after a while, the horse would spot the gun out of the corner of its eye and get violent because he knew what was coming.

  In the beginning, we made a lot of mistakes. Horses create a dynamic that is unique, because they are reactive animals and always tough to handle under such conditions. During one practice session, a horse got so scared that it took off with the rider and literally jumped over a car. But we learned from our mistakes and that AOP training led us to develop scenarios so that, if there was a firefight, we’d be able to get off the horses to return fire. We also learned how to get the horses out of the way so that they wouldn’t become part of the problem. We did the same training at the Reagan ranch in California. On a number of occasions, we took the team out there three or four days before the president arrived to work AOPs on those trails. The president was aware of our practice sessions, and I think he would have liked to participate. He never said as much, but I could tell he thought about it.