Secrets of the Secret Service

by Gary J. Byrne

  But as the Clinton administration—and with it the 1990s—came to a close, the Secret Service was less worried about a foreign terrorist empire than it was about building its own empire. In 1999, Director Merletti retired and Brian Stafford became the Secret Service’s twentieth director. Stafford was a “made man” of the Secret Service, and along with senior colleagues A. T. Smith, Julia Pierson, Joseph Clancy, and others, had been a ringleader of the agency’s inner circle as it pushed back against the Kenneth Starr investigation. With Starr behind them, they looked to the future. They were ready to take advantage, eager to put what they called the “Master Plan”—or, as the Uniformed Division called it, the “Beltsville Plan”—into effect. Officially the idea was only to expand the agency’s training center, the James J. Rowley Training Center, in Laurel, Maryland, but it turned into far more.

  The Master Plan was designed to balloon the Secret Service to rival the size and mission scope of the FBI, even as that empire building sowed the Secret Service’s eventual collapse. It was an expansive overreach that bogged down the entire service and distracted the agency from its real problems both inside and out.

  The plan involved expansion in six areas: additions to the training center, new missions, new branding, a takeover of the Uniformed Division, a buildup of middle management, and greater international reach. We can piece together what we know about this plan from interviews with current and former personnel as well as government reports. Taken together, one thing becomes clear: as the Secret Service expanded in the 1990s, its decades-old problems remained: there were still too few agents and officers on duty, and they were overworked with too little sleep. As a result, President Clinton experienced some very close near misses, and the agency was put into a bad position in the tumultuous days after 9/11.

  The first iteration of the Master Plan was building more than a dozen buildings at the training center. They included the Bowron Administration Building, the Magaw Tactical Training Facility, and the Merletti Classroom Building.*

  More money—beyond the $500 million already supplied by Congress—was a critical ingredient of the expansion plan. The Secret Service got its hands on it by never letting a crisis go to waste. For instance, in 1997–98, several credible threats came in targeting the president’s new chief of staff, Erskine Bowles. Bowles was greatly concerned and was flabbergasted to hear “Erskine, we can protect anyone in the world, but we can’t do it for free.” The agency claimed it couldn’t afford more. Within the hour, he pushed for a meeting with the president, who gave the director access to the congressional terrorism fund of some $300 million.

  Bowles was the victim of obvious Secret Service manipulation. While the threat was very real, it was preposterous to think that the Secret Service could not find a way to give the president’s chief of staff the protection he needed. Last-minute protective details had been set up before, including for the mother and wife of the alleged assassin of President Kennedy. Bowles and the president were willing to play ball. With the financial infusion secured, the Secret Service created far more than the simple protection detail for the chief of staff. The new buildings at the training center were planned, but other details of where the counterterrorism fund money went remain a mystery for one simple reason: the Secret Service did not have its own accountant.

  Despite its rapid expansion, there was still nobody keeping track of the agency’s funds. In fiscal year (FY) 1975, the Secret Service had a congressional budget of $82.8 million; in 1985, $192.6 million. Each decade, Congress just about doubled the service’s budget. But in five years under President Clinton, as the Secret Service became his darling for fighting Starr’s inquiries, the budget went even higher. In 1990, it was $366.1 million; in 1991, $412.7 million; and five years later, $555 million. This was done in part, starting in 1995 and ending in 2000, by the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which increased the Secret Service budget by an average of $18 million each year.

  The next concerted effort in the Master Plan was changing the interpretation of “secret” in “Secret Service.” In fighting Starr, the agency contended that “secret” referred to anything directly involving the president, but that didn’t stop it afterward from sending out open invitations to cable news channels and programs to create TV spots and documentaries that highlighted the agency’s prowess.

  Dan Emmett, in his book Within Arm’s Length, wrote:

  “Subsequent to this [Joan Lunden Special], it became the norm for journalists… to regularly be on campus. There were times when so many of these visitors were on site that regular training had to be canceled and special agent class members used as extras in productions. It was not unusual on some days to be standing for an hour or more at the obstacle course with an agent class waiting for the signal to being the course while some cameraman filmed away. Even more irritating… was being forced to give up certain students for on-camera interviews… [the Secret Service’s Office of Public Affairs] granted just enough [media requests] to interfere—significantly, at times—with our normal training schedule.… During this time many agents began to feel that the Service had lost touch with its mission by allowing this type of unnecessary exposure.”

  In the 1990s, the Secret Service lobbied the president and Congress to pass executive orders and legislation that would mandate the service to take on more missions, such as administering asset forfeiture, combating cybercrime, providing protection to individuals other than foreign dignitaries or those in the Executive Branch, crafting a national plan to protect schools against active shooters, locating missing or kidnapped children, assisting all law enforcement agencies with their investigations, and being the lead agency responsible for securing all major US events, such as the Olympics and NATO summit, for starters.

  The Secret Service succeeded in getting power over forfeited criminal assets and created the Asset Forfeiture Program. It could thereby seize all property used to facilitate crimes, such as homes, cars, planes, boats, land, farm equipment, and so on. This opened up a Pandora’s box of constitutional issues when it became clear that the Secret Service and other agencies were choosing investigations to pursue based on what they could financially gain from them and thus bolster their budgets. Litigations and countersuits flooded agencies using the practice as criminals and their victims tried to get their property back.

  In May 1998, the Secret Service expanded again to take the lead role in protecting National Special Security Events (NSSE). This was a clear example of the agency’s leadership taking on new missions at the expense of presidential protection, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. In his second term, President Clinton set out to travel the world nonstop, much as President Eisenhower had on his “Goodwill Tour,” but Clinton went above and beyond any president before him. To keep up with his grueling schedule, the Secret Service was stretched to its limits.

  In October 1998, Senator Larry Craig of Idaho summed up the serious uptick in presidential travel in a speech on the floor of the Senate: “President Clinton broke the Presidential record for foreign travel with his 27th trip abroad,” he announced. “This year so far he has logged 41 days in 11 different foreign countries. Some say he is traveling in foreign countries to keep his mind off domestic problems… the president has now broken all-time Presidential travel records with 32 trips abroad, more than any other president ever… Bill Clinton also likes to travel around the country as well… the President has spent almost half of 1997, 149 days, as well as over half of 1998 so far, 155 days, outside of Washington, DC.”

  The men and women of the Secret Service were worn ragged protecting him. There simply wasn’t enough manpower to protect the president correctly—yet the service higher-ups thought they could expand into new missions.

  At the 1999 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference, which, due to violent protests, became known as the “Battle of Seattle,” the Secret Service struggled to secure the area before the president’s arrival. Coordination with local authorities
, specifically Mayor Paul Schell, was so difficult that as President Clinton was about to land, PPD threatened to turn around and head back if the mayor didn’t get the situation under control. At the conference venue, rioters were getting out of hand and the Uniformed Division officers running metal detectors donned gas masks. The tear gas and pepper spray deployed by local police had seeped into the attendees’ clothes and bags, causing officers to choke. Their eyes burned, their mucus membranes overloaded, yet they had to remain vigilant.

  Just a block away, maddened rioters were flipping cars, smashing storefronts, and beating innocent people. The conference venue was a secure area, and many bystanders headed there for safety. Secret Service operatives kept working to make sure everyone was screened but were frustrated that they couldn’t do anything to secure the situation beyond the venue.

  Making matters worse, on their final sweep agents discovered an empty backpack big enough to fit a rifle and climbing equipment discarded and hidden in a closet. All Secret Service personnel were alerted, and they launched another sweep to find what appeared to be an unknown sniper or political stuntman in their midst. But soon afterward, with seemingly no substantiation, the agents declared the find a hoax, a way to intimidate the president and keep him from attending.

  As the PPD threatened to turn Air Force One around, riot police stormed the protests with great force. The president arrived, and everyone in the Secret Service held their breath. The exit routes had been compromised. The streets were jammed. Tear gas still hung in the air. Whoever had left the backpack and climbing equipment behind was never found. Luckily, the president got through his appearance without a scratch, but it was another sign that the Secret Service was having a hard enough time guaranteeing presidential protection and wasn’t in a position to guarantee the public’s safety at large national events.

  The same year, President Clinton insisted at the last minute on walking in the funeral procession of the deceased King Hassan II in Morocco. As CNN wrote, “President Clinton caused the Secret Service some anxious moments in Morocco Sunday, when he became caught up in the moment… and decided to continue walking with the funeral procession, as crowds pressed around him.”

  The story was filled with gross understatement. The “crowd” was an emotionally charged mob of at least two million. They were crying, screaming, running; the atmosphere was chaotic. It was as though the president were surrounded by a surging river of people. In the National Geographic documentary Secret Service Files: Protecting the President one of the PPD agents described how his improvised plan was to use the coffin and pallbearers as cover and concealment if any one of the 2 million unscreened Moroccans realized that he or she was next to the US president and attempted an attack. The PPD was also completely separated from the Counter Assault Team. The CAT and others had to disembark from the motorcade and try to stay parallel to the president. All of the equipment, time, money, and effort put into protecting Clinton could have been made worthless by anyone with a rusty razor blade or even a stampede that could have occurred at any moment. The procession was walking into the blinding sun in the driest month of the year in the desert country. Sand was being kicked up like a storm. The desert heat was unbearable for everyone in suits. If anything did go wrong, the closest adequate medical facility was back the other way—on board Air Force One.

  The Morocco trip was a strategic failure brought on by a reckless prioritization of marketing over security. By putting himself into a dangerous situation, President Clinton put both the US government and the Moroccan funeral attendees at risk. Such a situation hadn’t been dreamed of or planned for in even a theoretical sense. Some Secret Service personnel have speculated that the CAT and PPD would have attempted to shoot their way through the crowd of Moroccan civilians to get the president out—which prompts the question, why endanger the Moroccan people with such a selfish stunt? In footage of the event, the PPD agents and even the president are noticeably terrified, but they had no way out until the PPD pushed their way out, back to CAT and the motorcade. The advance team was blamed, but that was also ridiculous. The trip had been coordinated only in the few days since King Hassan had died. Within that window of time, no advance would have been adequate. Besides, it had been the president’s last-minute decision to take part in the parade, and once he was committed, there was little chance of stopping him.

  Since taking office in 1993, President Clinton had made the Secret Service so user-friendly—for himself—that it had been reduced to protecting him with little more than hopes and prayers. During the 1999 trip in Morocco, that’s all that kept the American president alive.

  Back stateside, President Clinton was on hand to dedicate the newly built Secret Service headquarters. He spoke of how the agency had a proud history and was “worthy of trust and confidence.” His speech sounded so hollow, it was as if he were reading the agency’s eulogy.

  At the James J. Rowley Training Center in Laurel, Maryland, the “raw apples”—new recruits—were trained alongside agents and officers conducting their recertifications and continuing education. In 1999, Director Merletti invited about sixty National Football League employees and representatives to a Secret Service “dog-and-pony show,” which had become so frequent they were like circuses that regularly came to town. The demonstrations had originally been put on for protectees to impress upon them the effectiveness and seriousness of Secret Service protection. Later, congressmen were invited so the agency could demonstrate to Congress how its ballooning budget was used.

  The program consisted of a tour of the complex and large-scale demonstrations, with real pyrotechnics, of the Secret Service’s defensive measures. It even included a mock “attack on the principal” with blank-firing guns and explosions. It was well known that the spectacle was put on at taxpayers’ expense. Even if it was somehow justified in the accounting books to have the training center used to entertain NFL hotshots, real training had been sidelined and morale had suffered. The damage was done. The optics were that “worthy of trust and confidence” meant loyalty primarily to the Secret Service. Director Merletti joined the ongoing exodus of service personnel, leaving his successor in as tight a spot as the one he had inherited. Merletti took a job in security in the NFL and later became senior vice president of the Cleveland Browns.

  During the Clinton administration, the Secret Service found itself in a desperate last-ditch effort to save itself. Director Merletti could have taken the agency to new heights instead of new lows if not for the power couple at the center of all the scandals, President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton.

  Snipers, crowds, approachers, gate-crashers, and bombers have been common categories of violent threats facing presidents, but threats from the air have also hounded the president for more than a century and continue to this day.

  The average reader reads about two hundred words per minute. That’s a few paragraphs in this book. So just imagine seven seconds—that’s how quickly an airborne threat can travel from outside the normal military or commercial air traffic lanes over DC and deviate to the White House. Small arms are useless against aircraft, so as soon as officers radio that an “unannounced” mystery aircraft is inbound for the White House and our president, seven seconds is all we have to realize what’s being said over the radio, take the initiative, and “cover and evacuate”—fancy talk for getting the president from wherever he is to a secure area.

  The airborne threat is far from new. During the Civil War, the Confederates launched blimps that posed threats to President Lincoln. Agent Mike Reilly had .50-caliber antiaircraft guns installed on the White House roof during World War II and wrote of them in his memoir. Then, as now, the Secret Service knew that the best protection was early detection so they could rush President Roosevelt into the bomb shelter, the only place safety was guaranteed if and when planes took aim at the White House. In Agent Reilly’s memoir he noted very specifically how the capital’s geography and monuments could easily lead any low-flying bomber
directly to the White House, and the Secret Service consulted with experts and they even considered rerouting the nearby river to camouflage the White House from a bomber circling at high altitude. So the cat has been out of the bag on airborne threats for well over a century. Until the Secret Service and US government make it clear that airborne attacks are not possible on their watch, attackers will continue to see them as an opportunity, a chance to succeed.

  One year, 1974, saw two significant near misses. That February, a disgruntled army pilot stole a Huey helicopter and headed for the White House. Thinking he could win his job back by impressing the president with aerial stunts, he engaged in two chases with police helicopters and twice performed low-flying acrobatics over the White House. On his second pass, Secret Service personnel opened fire with everything they had—handguns, shotguns, submachine guns—forcing the chopper to land and arresting the wounded pilot. That pilot was given just a few months in a military prison and was granted a “general discharge” from the Army, not even a “dishonorable discharge.” Just five days later, a man attempted to hijack an airliner at a local airport with the intent of flying it into the White House. Wounded when police stormed the plane, the would-be assassin committed suicide like the coward he was.

  By the 1990s, the Secret Service still had learned nothing but was in a worse position due to fatigue in its highest ranks and most important positions. There was, of course, the 1994 airplane crash at the White House. But another, relatively unknown incident placed President Clinton in danger, and it was made worse by the wrongly diagnosed problem of “freezing up.” What most people call “freezing up” usually means that protectors lack rest, training, balanced psychological conditioning, mental readiness, or a mixture of all of those. But in a service where split seconds matter, “freezing up” kills.