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

by Petro, Joseph

  Within a few days, NASA had organized a memorial service at the space center in Houston. It was planned that the families of the seven astronauts would attend, along with the president and the first lady. The event was pulled together very quickly, and the advance team that went to Texas had only twenty-four hours on the ground to put everything in place. NASA invited nearly ten thousand people, and when we considered the size of the crowd, plus the short lead time that we had, I wasn’t totally convinced that the security arrangements were as complete as they could be. Not that corners were cut or that things weren’t being done properly. We were able to do everything we normally did, but it was all put together too fast, and I was concerned about that. So on the flight down to Houston I made the decision that the president should wear the armored vest. It had been a horrible week for the country and a particularly emotional week for the president and the first lady, and I just wasn’t sure when to tell him.

  About fifteen minutes before landing, as the plane began its final approach, I went into his suite and almost apologized for having to do this. I said, “Mr. President, I am about to make a very tough afternoon even worse.”

  He looked at me with an expression that did not hide the emotions he was feeling for the Challenger families. “You mean that I have to wear the armor?”

  I said, “I’d like you to.” He nodded okay, stood up, took off his shirt, and put on the vest.

  We arrived at the Space Center and met privately with the seven Challenger families. They were standing quietly in clusters. The president and first lady went to every one of them, spoke to them, hugged them, and held their hands. Both of the Reagans could be so wonderfully warm and compassionate, and somehow, in moments like this, they always knew what to say. I stood next to him, trying not to cry. I told him later, “I don’t know how you can do that, you know, how you can maintain your composure.” He gave me one of those slow Reagan shrugs and just shook his head. After half an hour with the seven families, we went outside for the service.

  My younger brother Andy works for NASA, and I’d phoned him the night before to say that I’d arranged for him to sit up front. But he said no, that he wanted to be with his coworkers, which, of course, was the right decision.

  During the service I sat behind the president. On his left was Jane Smith, the wife of the Challenger pilot, Commander Michael Smith, USN. Their two young children were sitting with her, and for the longest time Mrs. Smith sat there stoically, the perfect navy wife. At one point, Mrs. Smith handed the president an index card that her husband had left for her. On it he’d written some words by H. G. Wells: “For man, there is no rest and no ending. He must go on, conquest beyond conquest. This little planet and its winds and ways, and all the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him and, at last, out across the immensity to the stars. And when he has conquered all the depths of space and all the mysteries of time—still he will be but beginning.”

  The president was openly touched by her gift. Later, after making a copy, he returned the card to her because it was just too personal and he didn’t feel right about keeping it. In his memoirs he wrote, “I’ll never forget her generosity in offering me that part of her husband’s final days.”

  While the president spoke, I watched Mrs. Smith. She stayed composed throughout the entire ceremony, that is, until the flyover. Navy planes came over low and slow—in the missing wingman formation—and when that lone plane headed straight up into the sky as the rest of the formation continued without the missing man, that’s when she lost it. But then, that’s when we all lost it—the president, Mrs. Reagan, and ten thousand other people, too.

  It’s impossible for anyone not to react at a moment like that, and yet one of the things that no one teaches you about being an agent is composure. In theory, you always try to be as composed as the president. But we’re human, too, and holding back tears, or at times holding back laughter, is not always easy. I remember sitting behind the president during one of those big televised galas at Ford’s Theater. The irony of protecting the president within a few feet of the box in which President Lincoln was assassinated was not lost on me. The cameras occasionally cut to the Reagans so the audience could see how they were reacting, and every time they did that, I appeared on camera with them. One act was a juggler, who was absolutely hysterical. The president was halfway bent over with laughter, and I sat there trying to maintain a professional composure. I kept telling myself that laughing wouldn’t look professional, and yet, because everybody else was laughing, I’d look out of place if I wasn’t. Every agent has to decide for himself whether or not to show those emotions. But there are times when you can’t control them, like that night at Ford’s Theatre, or that morning in Normandy when the president read the letter from a D-day hero to his daughter, or that afternoon in Houston. Even now, I can’t tell the Challenger story without becoming emotional.

  After the ceremony, the president and first lady got into the car for the ride to the airfield. It was a very quiet car. I don’t think either one of them said a single word. And if the flight down to Texas was somber, the flight home to Washington—leaving those seven families to grieve in Houston—was silent.

  There were two major changes at the White House after the 1984 election. Mike Deaver left, and so did Bob DeProspero.

  Described in the papers at the time as the Reagans’ “virtual surrogate son,” there was some speculation that Deaver had been pushed out by Nancy Reagan. She was apparently quoted years later as suggesting that Deaver had come down with a case of “Potomac fever,” meaning that he’d reached the point where he felt he could cash in on his White House experiences and make some money as a lobbyist. But I don’t think any of that is true. Deaver had indicated on various trips that he intended to leave, so it really wasn’t a surprise to those of us who worked with him. There was also some speculation that he’d been eased out because of an alcohol problem. I never saw any signs of that either.

  What I did see was what Deaver did for the president, and that cannot be overstated. He understood better than anyone else the sheer power of Ronald Reagan’s charisma. The president used to say that if you liked someone on the screen, chances are you would like him in person. Because Deaver knew how likable the president was, he translated that to the small screen. Bill Henkel admirably followed in Deaver’s shoes, which were, without a doubt, very big shoes.

  Around the same time, Bob DeProspero decided he had to move on. Being agent in charge of PPD is one of those jobs you simply can’t do for more than three or four years. It’s too stressful, too demanding, and, in the end, too draining. The pressure is constant, and the travel is relentless. Every agent pays a very high price for the honor of being with the president. Time is never your own. You can’t plan weekends or family events because something always comes up. Most agents who have that job are ready to leave when the time comes. Bob was promoted to assistant director for training.

  One of the straightest, most incorruptible men I have ever known, Bob was, first and foremost, true to himself. Not even the president could tempt him to lower his own high standards. It was Bob’s birthday and we were on Air Force One, going somewhere, when President Reagan came back to our compartment with two glasses of champagne. Bob politely refused to drink it because he was on duty. Under the same circumstances, I probably would have taken a sip, if for no other reason than to be congenial. But Bob never faltered. What’s more, the press was sitting behind us and they could see us. Who knows what they might have made out of the agent in charge sipping champagne on Air Force One. Bob always knew what he was doing.

  Throughout the Secret Service today, you can still find remnants of the “DeProspero model.” It may not be called that by agents who never knew him, but the values he instilled in those of us who worked for him were passed down to the next generation of agents, and from them to agents on the job these days. He used to tell us, “If you want something and can’t get it and it feels as if you’re h
itting your head against the wall, you may be hitting a stud, so move a little bit to the left or the right and keep hitting the wall until you find a soft spot, and then you’ll get through it.”

  An important part of being a leader is to take what you learn and teach that to the people who follow. There was a period of about fifteen years when almost every assistant director of the Secret Service, plus the director and the deputy director, came out of Bob DeProspero’s PPD. He assembled an extraordinary group of men and women whose success in the Secret Service was no accident, and the success of the Secret Service under their leadership remains a testament to the DeProspero model.

  Bob was also a very sensitive man. He understood human nature, which is why, before he left PPD, he sat down with me alone to explain why someone else would be taking over PPD. As assistant agent in charge, I’d had fleeting thoughts about becoming agent in charge. But Bob said that, whereas I could be the agent in charge—and should be—I wasn’t going to get the job. “You don’t have enough gray hair.” His point was that I wasn’t salty enough. I’d only been in the Secret Service fourteen years.

  Instead, the man taking over was Ray Shaddick. He was the shift leader with the president on the day he was shot—when Jerry Parr shoved the president into the limousine, Ray was right there with him—and therefore looked on by the president as part of the team that had saved his life. It was an easy decision for me to accept. I liked Ray, respected him, and knew that he was the right man for the job. He’d left PPD shortly after the assassination attempt to become agent in charge in Honolulu. I’d gotten to know him on all those survey and preadvance trips to Asia because we went through Hawaii so often.

  A tall, good-looking California guy with a mustache—and a more than competent racquetball player—he was totally devoid of ego, one of the things that made him such an outstanding supervisor. This was a man with no pretensions, very low-key, who delegated extraordinarily well. Because he had no overwhelming desire always to be in the picture, he shared his responsibilities with me, for which I will always be grateful. Frankly, I’m not sure I would have been as gracious if I had been agent in charge. We were soon alternating trips, so that I’d go out of town with the president while he stayed in Washington, and vice versa. Not every agent in charge operates that way. Then again, not every agent in charge is as superb a manager as Ray. He left PPD right after the 1988 election to work for a few years as assistant director for investigations. He then decided he wanted to leave Washington and took a downgrade to become agent in charge in Atlanta. This was a man who stepped away from being assistant director to become an agent who reports to the assistant director. Ray Shaddick was a unique man. He retired out of Atlanta and is today head of security for CNN.

  Both Bob and Ray served the president well and were able to institute changes for the better. For instance, agents coming onto PPD were subjected to a two-week trial period so that we could see them and evaluate them. It was important that they be compatible, that they fit in, that they fit the model Bob and Ray were looking for. And not everyone was. Getting onto PPD was difficult enough, and while many agents volunteered, and many others were recommended, there were never enough spots for all applicants. This gave us the opportunity to become even more selective.

  Bob’s philosophy of always stationing an agent at the primary trauma hospital whenever the president traveled soon manifested itself in “hospital agents” on overseas trips. The White House medical unit traveled with us on preadvance trips to see hospitals and make suitable arrangements. Throughout the West, hospitals are generally well equipped to handle any type of emergency, though that might mean, in some cases, entrusting the life of the president to a foreign surgeon. That might not be a problem in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, or Australia, but arguably it could easily become a problem in the third world. In such circumstances, the medical office arranges for a U.S. Navy ship having full trauma capabilities to be stationed offshore.

  In medical matters, privacy and the presidency are often mutually exclusive terms, and there are times when the lack of privacy really means no privacy at all. When President Reagan was diagnosed with colon cancer in the mid-1980s, he was operated on at Bethesda Naval Hospital. A suite of rooms is set aside at the hospital for VIPs, and it is at the president’s disposal, if and when he needs it. There’s a meeting room and there’s a sitting room, but the room where he sleeps is a hospital room. After his operation, he recuperated for a little while at the White House, then went out to the ranch. Once he was back at work, he had routinely scheduled colonoscopies. As we have a requirement that, regardless of where the president is, an agent must always be with him, I was in the room with him twice while the doctors did the procedure. I was never terribly comfortable being there, but I must say that the president never seemed ill at ease.

  In addition to instituting the hospital agent and developing a new attitude toward medical facilities on foreign trips, DeProspero and Shaddick fought for and obtained control over the Uniformed Division at the White House, and changed it.

  When I was there, the UD officers reported to the assistant director for protective operations. The PPD, the agents with the president, also reported to the assistant director for protective operations, but along a separate chain of command. It was always an issue that we, the agents, had no operational control over the UD officers at the White House. In practice it wasn’t necessarily that restrictive, but in theory it could have been, and that created some tensions. If we were in the State Dining Room and there was a UD officer there and I wanted him moved, I could say, Please move, and generally he would do that. But he didn’t have to, because, technically, he didn’t report to us. It was the same thing at the Naval Observatory when I was running the vice president’s detail. It had the potential to be a problem, and occasionally it did become one. Today, the chief of the UD at the White House reports to the PPD special agent in charge.

  We increased our emphasis on running AOPs, going through an ever widening range of scenarios, which included airport arrivals and departures. Granted that not much can happen on a plane, except a medical emergency, and we’ve got the doctor right there with some medical facilities on board. But we worked AOPs in those situations, and the rarer ones, too, like those on horseback. Increased training of the agents on PPD was emphasized with an eye toward finding out what to expect, finding out where the choke points were. We even thought about running some AOPs at the White House, but it’s a working office, and the press is there at all times. After looking at the various options, we worried that if people saw us running around with guns drawn and with helicopters overhead, they might not understand that it was a practice drill. So we decided it really wouldn’t be practical to do that. Since my day, I understand, the Secret Service has built a replica of the White House façade at Beltsville.

  DeProspero and Shaddick also recognized that the nature of threats was beginning to change, and began adjusting accordingly. Back in the days of John Kennedy, the principal threat to the president was an assassin. For the next two decades—and this was reinforced by the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan—the Secret Service believed that it needed to prevent another Oswald or another Hinckley trying to shoot the president with a handgun or rifle in the traditional way. But as we moved through the 1980s, and the world began to change, the threat began to change, too. We’ve seen it more dramatically since the late 1990s, and in its most startling form on September 11, 2001.

  The potential of the lone assassin still exists, and you have to protect the president from him, but it’s no longer the only scenario. The threat has become much more sophisticated. There are suicide bombers and car bombs, rockets, mortars, and mines, and chemical weapons. Since 9/11, the threats have multiplied. It’s a very different world. So the Secret Service has had to make those adjustments and create circumstances and procedures that counteract them all. And anyone who traces the history of the changes the Secret Service has made in the face of that cha
nging threat can go straight back to Bob DeProspero and Ray Shaddick and the way they ran PPD.

  One event that is now standard operating procedure for the president and vice president in a motorcade is called “an impromptu.” It’s when they drop by somewhere unannounced to say hello and stay just long for the press to get some pictures. Skillfully handled, it is the impromptu that often turns up on the evening news. But they are never as impromptu as they look. The stops have to be planned in advance, and measures have to be taken to make certain they’re safe.

  Knowing that impromptus are part of the package, staffers and advance agents study motorcade routes and pick out two or three places where an impromptu might happen. They choose diners, bowling alleys—Dan Quayle could hardly pass a Dairy Queen without wanting to stop because, as he always pointed out, “We have the same initials”—coffee shops, sometimes even bars and restaurants, any place where Middle America might feel a kinship with the president or vice president.

  The place where we would stop would be decided at the last moment, and once it was, a few minutes before the motorcade would arrive, we’d send an agent in. He’d order a cup of coffee, look around, and decide whether or not it was safe. He’d check out the best way in and the best way out. If there was a big sign saying “Welcome Mr. President,” we’d drive by. We’d also call it off if the agent reported back that the place was rowdy or too crowded.

  In theory, impromptus were generally considered safe. The chances that someone with a weapon would be waiting in a diner or a bowling alley for the president to show up on an unannounced visit were pretty remote. That is, as long as no one knew we were coming. A minute before the stop, the agent inside the venue would report back to the limousine that it was or wasn’t okay to stop. Only that agent, the immediate staff, and those of us in the limousine would know. The police with the motorcade probably could have guessed where we’d stop, but they weren’t told until the very last minute. The motorcade would pull up unannounced, then we’d do the impromptu and leave as fast as we could. Five minutes was about as long as we could stay without starting to draw a crowd. After all, anyone driving by would see limousines and police cars and motorcycles parked out front and wonder, What’s going on?