Book Review

In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect

by Ronald Kessler

(Crown Publishers, November 2009)

The people who serve in the United States Secret Service seem to live in an substitute universe. They stand erect, almost motionless and devoid of any facial expression. Their astringent demeanor is all that is necessary to broadcast their intention for being who they are, why they are, where they are.

These are men and women who represent the most pure kind of service one could ever imagine: In any moment they would throw themselves in front of the President of the United States to stop a bullet, using themselves as humane shields.

Talk with regards to sacrifice!

With a title like, In The President’s Secret Service, I expected to learn more in regards to the men and women who choose to give their lives for our most eminent elected officials. As much as I would like to believe each and each agent is a paragon of virtue, I’m adult sufficient to know we are all routine in a good deal of ways and lack the sustainability to never fall under wheel of the commonplace.

However, with all my adult wisdom, I was not prepared for what was waiting for me among the front and back cover of Kessler’s latest book. The latter percentage of the title, Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect ought to have been rewritten to accurately describe what this book genuinely is about: Behind the Scenes With Agents Gossiping About the Presidents They Protect.

There is little to admire here. Instead of casting an astute eye on what could have been noteworthy perceptivenesses into the decision making procedure of a Secret Service agent, we are offered page after page after page of adolescent gossip by dozens of former Secret Service agents who seem only too eager to snicker behind the backs of their former charges. And of course, we get a rerun of the all too well known shenanigans of presidential philandering.

Kessler begins his book with a heap of genuinely interesting and suitable background on the beginnings of what we recognise as the Secret Service, starting with President Lincoln’s negligent bodyguard wandering off to get drunk, leaving the president unprotected. We all recognise how that went.

There historical info in Kessler’s book that is suitable reading. We are treated to a tale of would-be assassins for the duration of President Harry Truman’s term. Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, two Puerto Rican nationalists looking to draw attention to the cause of separating from the United States, decisive to go after Truman and raise consciousness to their cause.

The hapless pair purchased German pistols in New York, rode a train to Washington, D. C., and took a taxi to the White House. Collazo and Torresola learn, to their chagrin, that President Truman was staying at Blair House throughout the street as the White House was undergoing renovations.

What follows is a shootout among Collazo and Torresola with Secret Service Agent Floyd Boring and White House Police Officer Joseph Davidson. Also on obligation were White House Police Officers Leslie Coffelt and Donald Birdzell as well as Secret Service Agent Stewart Stout and Vincent Mroz inside Blair House.

Kessler writes that the Nov. 1, 1950 shootout at Blair House was the greatest gunfight in Secret Service history. As the story is told, twenty-seven shots had been fired in forty seconds, leaving Torresola and Collazo dead at the scene and officer Coffelt dead four hours later at the hospital after surgery.

It’s too bad Kessler didn’t stay with more of these significant stories as he moved forward in history. Instead, his book dissipates into not one thing more than unsubstantiated disparaging of past presidents and their families.

The disappointment extends beyond the author and his choice of subject matter. Without the more than willing subscribers of the Secret Service agents who were on responsibility for Presidents Kennedy, Carter, Nixon, and Johnson, Kessler would not have had half of the aspersions he generously quotes from his interviewees.

It is out of the question to recognise if what these agents said is unfeigned or where these stories in truth came from, because Kessler offers no source material or attribution anywhere. Another hard question is why these former Secret Service agents choose to go so public with dirty details they assert to have observed. There were assorted salacious remarks in regards to President Lyndon Johnson made by Secret Service agents whom Kessler from time to time quotes directly and other times anonymously.

An example of this is a comment from a former agent assigned to President Johnson: “I tapped on his bedroom door,” the former agent says. “Lady Bird said to come in.” ‘He’s in the bathroom,’ she said. I tapped on the bathroom door… Johnson was sitting on the can. Toilet paper was everywhere. It was bizarre. If Johnson weren’t president, he’d be in an insane asylum,” former agent Richard Roth says he thought to himself when he was once in a while on Johnson’s detail.”

Kessler’s book is missing out any professional documentation for comments, opinions, or affirmations he puts forth as fact. His publisher, Random House, collaborators closely with the media company, NewsMax, where Kessler is on staff. This cooperative relationship could account for the reason why the book is missing out any origins or attribution.

In his acknowledgements, Kessler wrote, “The Secret Service accorded to cooperate on this book, the only book in regards to the agency to receive such cooperation.” However, the joint operation did not extend to Kessler secretly procuring the Association’s entire directory. Without the Association’s acknowledgement or approval, Kessler called all former agents in the roster, according to Ike Hendershot, president of the Association of Former Agents of the U.S. Secret Service. Hendershot said Kessler maltreated their trust by going beyond the names made available to him. Unfortunately, he said, there was lack of professionalism on both sides of this project.

Yet, in keeping with the name of the organization, any chastisement has been held “in-house.”

Whether it would have made a divergence is hard to know. One wonders, though, in regards to Kessler’s approach to saving the Secret Service from calamity, as he says in his book at the end of the acknowledgements. Did it occur to him that by airing all this dirty laundry from these former agents that it might cause current and future presidents to be less trusting of the agents guarding them now?

However, a subject as necessary as the behavior, reactions, and motivations of the Secret Service are very serious. Placing agents in situations, after the fact or not, requires severe exploration as these events are recorded forever. In that regard, Kessler’s account of Sara Jane Moore and her assassination undertake on Gerald Ford is exclusively and altogether without fact.

On Page 50 of Kessler’s book, he wrote that Oliver Sipple, a disabled former U.S. Marine and Vietnam veteran pushed Sara Jane Moore’s arm as she purposed her gun and shot at President Ford. He also wrote that the bullet flew assorted feet over the president’s head and Secret Service agents Ron Pontius and Jack Merchant pushed Moore to the sidewalk and arrested her.

Sipple did grab Moore’s arm, but not until after she got off her basi shot, which missed Ford’s head by only six inches. Sara Jane’s own gun had been confiscated the day before, and she purchased the.38 she used that day the same morning not knowing the sight was off.1.

As the crowd collected to see Ford, no one was looking at Sara Jane Moore. As President Ford emerged, he stood still for a moment resolving whether to cross the street so that he could shake hands with persons lined up on the north side of the street.2

After her introductory shot, people realized something had happened and Sipple, being a Marine and a hero, lunged at Moore and fouled a second, potentially deadly, shot.

Another factual error in Kessler’s account refers to Agents Pontius and Merchant. Kessler said they tackled Moore to the sidewalk and arrested her.

Agent’s Pontius and Merchant were assigned to guard Pres. Ford and were standing with Ford all over the street from Moore. They did not leave Ford’s side. In fact, they grabbed the president and pushed him into the limousine and sped away.3.

SFPD Officer Tim Hettrich is the law enforcement officer who subdued Moore. Hettrich was assigned to crowd detail and was stationed on the sidewalk near Moore. Hettrich pulled the gun from her and handed it over to Secret Service agent Dotson Reeves, who grabbed Moore from the sidewalk.4.

Kessler’s book may be interesting to some, and there are passages that appear to be exact in the historical sense. As for the remarks in quotations and editorial remarks that lack attribution, it will be up to the reader to determine if this book is worth the time to read or to receive as what it is: unsubstantiated entertainment.

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