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

by Dan Emmett

  As the CAT operations agent during this period, it was my responsibility, after shredding a work schedule for thirty-six agents I had spent five days writing, to write a new one in a matter of hours. To make the schedule a reality involved calling several agents back to Washington from their holidays. This was one of the most difficult assignments I was ever given. All agents whose Christmas leave was canceled were of course frustrated with the last-minute change, and in each case I patiently listened to those frustrations for a minute or so before having to terminate the agent’s sentiments in order to provide him with his travel itinerary. The deafening echoes of exploding spouses, emotionally crushed grandparents, and upset children could be heard all the way back to the White House.

  Prior to volunteering for PPD, all agents understand that such things as the December debacle will occur. Yet when the reality of it all sets in, some change their minds and ask for transfer. In most cases these early transfers are requested in order to save marriages, because while the agent may be all in the game, his or her spouse may not be. Generally these transfers are granted not because the Secret Service is concerned about preserving marriages but rather because the safety of the president of the United States cannot be entrusted on a daily basis to anyone who is not 100 percent committed to the mission.

  What makes these types of events endurable is the fact that everyone on PPD is making the same sacrifices. Because of common hardships, unbreakable bonds form between these remarkable people that will last a lifetime and in many cases longer than the marriages of some agents.

  To the casual observer, seeing the president accompanied primarily by muscular, menacing-looking men and athletic, serious-looking women makes the job of the PPD agent appear glamorous and exciting. Thoughts of James Bond, martial arts experts, license to kill, fast cars, and martinis come to the minds of many. This image is an illusion, however, as I believe anyone reading this will have realized. The reality is quite different.

  Legions of people have asked me throughout the years to describe exactly what it is like to be one of the Secret Service elite who protected three presidents. In terms of the actual physical experience, I explain that if one were to forgo sleep for twenty-four hours, skip lunch and dinner, stand outside of one’s house in the rain at 3:00 a.m. for several hours, cab to the airport, and board a plane to a large city for a four-hour flight, then repeat this regimen for several days in a row, one would begin to simulate the experience. To make the simulation complete, fail to attend a child’s birthday or graduation, and miss the holidays or your wedding anniversary.

  Of course, there is a great deal more to being on PPD, but uncertainty and extreme fatigue are constant companions of the PPD agent. This is why the job is for the young and why burnout usually occurs at the four- or five-year mark of constant presidential protection.

  While the public sees agents with the president during public functions, seldom seen by anyone outside the detail are the agents working the midnight shift who after getting off at 8:00 a.m., have to double back for the afternoon shift beginning at 4:00 p.m. I recall arriving at Andrews Air Force Base from Russia in the late afternoon already dead tired from the trip and jet lag, then going home to quickly shower and dress for the midnight shift back at the White House. The following morning, after going home and sleeping for a few hours, I was back at the White House for the evening shift. In that instance I worked three days with roughly four hours of rest. This was not an uncommon occurrence, and all agents, not just on PPD but also on all Secret Service details have experienced this unavoidable abuse on more than one occasion.

  A PPD agent’s life revolves around an eight-week schedule. Like that of a factory worker, the routine is essentially shift work. Each agent assigned to the president works for a two-week period on day shift, followed by two weeks on midnight shift, and two weeks on the evening shift. At the end of this six-week cycle the agent goes into a two-week training phase, after which the cycle begins again. The changing of shifts every two weeks, combined with constant travel to different time zones, is, as one would expect, very hard on the body.

  In addition to the agents who are directly assigned to the president, there are various sections within PPD, not all of which can be discussed here. These sections primarily include the First Lady’s detail and transportation.

  After an agent has been on the working shift with the president for a period of time, he will then be moved to a section for approximately one year, then moved back to the working shift. This at least gives the agent a break in routine and allows for a more normal existence. Still, there are the trips to every corner of the world, announced and unannounced, which never end. It is all part of protecting the president of the United States, and those of us who have survived the experience will all say it was worth it. I have never heard former PPD agents say they wished they had done any protection assignment other than PPD.

  FROM CAT TO THE SHIFT

  When PPD absorbed CAT in 1992, everyone on CAT became members of PPD. While few of us wanted to be adopted by the detail and lose our divisional status, the change removed a lot of the guesswork. If a man wanted to move over to the working shift after his time in CAT was up, he was free to do so as long as he was deemed competent. Most of us went to the shift when our time came to leave CAT, while some moved to other places. I had loved my assignment in CAT. It was the best four years of my career, but four years was a long time and I was ready to move on.

  One day while in the CAT office, I was called to the offices of PPD in the Old Executive Office Building. There I met with an assistant special agent in charge to discuss my future. “Dan, your time is up in CAT. Where do you want to go next?” the ASAIC said to me. “You can have almost any assignment you want in the Secret Service.”

  I replied, “I want to stay on PPD and become a member of the working shift.”

  He smiled and said okay and told me to report the following Monday.

  With CAT behind me and my new assignment as a shift agent on PPD a given, I had in ten years as an agent attained all of the major career goals I had set. No matter what the future might hold, through planning, tenacity, and luck I had managed to land the prime assignments sought after by most young agents but realized only by a few. I would now join the ranks of such notable agents as Clint Hill, Jerry Parr, Tim McCarthy, and Larry Buendorf, as well as the thousands of anonymous agents who had since 1901 directly protected the president of the United States. After paying my dues and learning the basics of my profession for a decade, it was now my turn to help safeguard the leader of the free world up close. No more cockroaches or muddy dogs. I was going to the White House.

  THE NEW GUY, AGAIN

  In June 1993, on my first day as a PPD shift agent, I reported to W-16, the Secret Service command post in the West Wing. Briefing for the shift was at 6:00 a.m., but I was always at least five minutes early. I found out that morning that everyone else was ten minutes early. I met my shift mates, and although I knew each of these agents, my shift leader introduced me and then we briefed for the day. I was happy with the lot I had drawn. These were good men, two of them former CAT agents.

  After the briefing, we moved from our command post in the West Wing to the main mansion, where I had worked so many CAT midnight shifts over the past four years. We relieved the previous midnight shift, which was very glad to see us, and moved to our posts.

  The senior agent on the shift, whose position was officially known as the shift “whip,” walked me around to each post, explaining the responsibilities. Although I had worked in the White House for four years as a CAT agent and had filled in from time to time as a shift agent, I did not know what the permanent shift responsibilities were or the general shift routine. While an ace in CAT, I was essentially a shift “new guy” that happened to know how to move around the White House without getting lost, at least most of the time.

  For a new agent on PPD, there were always tough moments in learning the routine. Each day there seemed to
be a never-ending list of new things to be learned, some of which were written and others not. Most information that did exist in writing was provided on small flash cards reminding the agent of what his actions should be at each post. Also issued was a series of flash cards depicting the various formations used in walking with the president.

  I had been on the shift about two weeks and was learning just enough about my duties to be a menace. One morning I was posted on the ground floor of the White House when the elevator light came on indicating that “Eagle,” the call sign for President Clinton, was on the way down in the elevator. The door to the elevator opened, and out came the president in a suit dressed for work. I quietly announced over my sleeve microphone, as was standard operating procedure, “Eagle moving to the Oval.” Off we went, with me leading the POTUS to his office for another day of whatever presidents do. He did not need to be led, of course, but there always had to be an agent close by.

  All was routine, and as we reached the Oval Office, I opened the colonnade door leading inside the oval office, with Eagle close behind. As we entered, I did a quick look-see to make sure all was in order and then exited through what I thought was the door leading to the hallway between the Oval and the Roosevelt room. It was not. I instead exited through the door leading into the private dining room of the Oval Office, which was located next to the door I was supposed to use.

  There was no one in the small dining room other than me standing there trying to decide what to do next. I should have taken another second or two to decide, because I made the wrong decision. I turned and reentered the Oval Office to find a surprised and somewhat annoyed-looking President Clinton. I tried to look as though this were all somehow planned, as I said, “Good morning, sir, all clear,” and then exited through the correct door, leaving behind a puzzled POTUS.

  No one knew about this minor but embarrassing incident, and, being new, I was certainly not going to inform on myself. Phil Hyde, my old team leader in CAT, was a big proponent of the old question: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a noise?” My going through the wrong door was a tree that had made no noise, and I was going to leave it that way.

  ADVANCES AND STAFF COUNTERPARTS

  Before the president leaves the White House for any reason, a security site advance is performed by the Secret Service at the location to be visited. It can be as simple as merely finding an arrival point for the motorcade, a bathroom, and the route to be walked, or it can be complex, like a two-week advance in a foreign country with multiple venues.

  On each site advance, an agent is assigned a counterpart from the staff of the protectee to work with. This staff person is responsible for creating the protectee’s itinerary—activities on site, sequence of events, who the greeters will be. The agent is then responsible for preparing a security plan around the itinerary.

  After receiving the itinerary from the staff advance counterpart, the site agent designates an arrival and departure point for the motorcade, and a location for the emergency motorcade. He designates several different rooms to be used by the protectee, route of travel for the protectee and an emergency egress route, posting of agents, police, and other security assets. He coordinates with explosive ordnance disposal teams and local fire department and does many other things that cannot be listed here. In short, it is an enormous responsibility, and one must be able to keep several things in the air at once in order to be a successful site agent. For a trip to be a success for both agent and staff, it is essential that the two work together in harmony, not in opposition.

  A few months after joining my shift, I was assigned to do my first out-of-town advance for President Clinton. The stop was a library in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and it was fairly simple as far as presidential advances go. By this point in my career I felt experienced and confident enough to handle such a venue but getting to this level of experience had taken time, with some hard learning experiences along the way.

  As I sat in National Airport reading the latest edition of the Washington Times and waiting to depart for my first PPD advance as a member of the working shift, I remembered my first experience as a site advance agent, during the 1984 campaign. It was a near disaster but a great learning experience and my first encounter with a less than straightforward volunteer staff counterpart.

  Before Sarah Palin there was Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to be nominated by her party for the office of the vice presidency of the United States. She ran with Walter Mondale on the 1984 Democratic ticket against Ronald Reagan. Just out of agent school, I was assigned to proceed to Raleigh, North Carolina, to conduct a site advance for Ferraro. The site was considered major and would have been a challenge for an experienced agent. This was during the middle of a presidential campaign, and there were no experienced agents to be found.

  When my supervisor gave me the assignment, I told him that I was happy to have it but wondered why I had been chosen. With no hesitation, he replied, “Because you are the only agent available.”

  “You mean one of the few available,” I replied.

  He looked up and said, “No, the only agent available in the entire state of North Carolina.”

  The site was a large outdoor courtyard shopping mall, with stores on the left and right and streets running along the northern and southern boundaries. Ferraro would be speaking at an outdoor rally at one end of the courtyard. Not only was I in over my head, but my staff counterpart was on his own agenda.

  He was in his late fifties and dressed as one would expect an older liberal intellectual to dress: baggy pants, rumpled tweed sport coat, wrinkled button-down shirt, shoes that had not seen polish since JFK. He had long, gray thinning hair and a reddish complexion, and he wore round wire-frame glasses. He looked as if he just stepped out of a Berkeley political science classroom where he had been teaching that socialism was superior to capitalism. I am certain that he immediately sensed my inexperience, and I could also see that he was going to try to take advantage of that inexperience. In the business, this is called “getting rolled.”

  For about the first two days of the advance, my Timothy Leary clone pushed for things that probably should not have been done, but I was as green as an agent could be. Although I was relatively certain he was taking advantage of me, I could not put my finger exactly on any one thing that would point to that. Not long out of agent school, and with no real experience or a senior agent to mentor my advance, I was winging it pretty hard.

  On the third day of the advance and the day before the visit, I thought that we had pretty much nailed everything down. As we stood looking at the site, my elder counterpart volunteered that he was going to place a gigantic banner behind the podium welcoming Ferraro to Raleigh. He said that he had already ordered it and that it should arrive at any time.

  While I was inexperienced, I knew that he should have run this by me beforehand. My counterpart from the Raleigh Police Department was also standing there and firmly offered that such banners violated city ordinance and were therefore not permitted. As far as I was concerned, that settled the issue. Not for the professor, however. Realizing that he was losing this engagement, he elected to try a flanking maneuver. He offered that the banner would serve as an excellent barrier to block any sniper’s view from behind Ferraro. Snipers? Where was this coming from, and what the hell did this man know about snipers? A little too smugly for my taste, he volunteered that he had vast experience in such matters and that he had done site advances for JFK and RFK. I suppose this comment was designed to impress and intimidate the police officer and me, but it failed to do so. I was at the end of my endurance with this pompous ass. He had opened the door, and I couldn’t resist. I then observed that both men he had just boasted about doing sites for were dead, killed by assassins. The police advance officer burst into laughter and the bohemian pseudo-intellectual turned red and stormed away. The banner never happened.

  That same year I was tasked with conducting a fairly simple advance for Lady Bird
Johnson at an elementary school in Texas. Part of this advance, as with any other, was to obtain a holding room. Here protectees can review their notes before proceeding with their schedule or just collect themselves for a few minutes. This is Secret Service protocol doctrine.

  I was working with a very young volunteer staff counterpart, who advised me that Mrs. Johnson would not need a holding room, as she intended to move directly from the cars to the event. I nodded but obtained the holding room nonetheless. The Secret Service, not staff, dictates such things, and it was a good thing I made the decision I did. Upon the arrival of Mrs. Johnson, the panicked young staffer practically screamed that we needed a holding room—that Mrs. Johnson did not want to immediately move to the event. I just smiled, letting the staffer believe that we had no holding room, per her unheeded, meaningless orders, and then led Mrs. Johnson to her holding area. My instincts were correct on this day, and I had learned an unbreakable rule of advance work that would serve me well in the years to come: Always carefully consider any direction or advice offered by a protectee’s volunteer staff, and always stick to Secret Service procedure.

  Experience is the best teacher, and I was getting a lot of it that would serve me well throughout my career when the protectee was the sitting president of the United States, not a candidate or former First Lady. I was learning that advances were the most difficult part of protection and that the hardest part of the advance was dealing with staff. Every advance was different, and there always seemed to be a new staffer who did not understand his role. It was like going on a never-ending series of blind dates: You never knew what you were going to get, but you knew it was usually going to be unpleasant. I learned that in many cases staff was as ignorant of what their job was as I had been in Raleigh, and that they needed to be dealt with firmly and professionally right off the bat. For a young agent to become too friendly with some of them was immediately perceived as weakness, which they would exploit. In time I learned to strike the right balance of firmness and friendliness, but one always had to be on guard.