by Crisis of Character- A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience
Officers cornered Duran, their guns pointed squarely at his head. Among them was a UD ERT officer who had vaulted the fence—we called him Flying Harry, and he was a workplace friend and later an SA. Instead of returning fire through the fence, Flying Harry bolted headlong over it to isolate his own field of fire and to safeguard White House visitors. He, along with the three civilians who reacted without any training to run toward the fight, were heroes.
Secret Service higher-ups told Congress that the Duran incident resulted from a lack of funds and from not being permitted to secure a wider perimeter. But what the UD did that day was exactly what it was trained for. There was no friendly fire. No deadly mistaking civilians for assassins. Everything went according to plan—well, mostly—according to plan.
It was, however, a massive learning experience. The lack of a common radio network cost us a few seconds of reaction time. In a perfect world we should have checked Duran sooner, but we weren’t there to check everyone with a bulge in their pocket and a big belly, though some in the Secret Service wanted it that way.
Another acquaintance of mine also hopped the fence that day and ended up holding a bystander at gunpoint. That wasn’t a mistake. That was actually necessary diligence. We can’t assume just one shooter. The bystander later told the FBI that he could hear and see the hammer de-cock on the officer’s SIG pistol. You can bet there were a lot of itchy trigger fingers at the White House that day. Yes, days like that shatter complacency—until things settle down again.
Following Francisco Duran’s failed attempt, everyone submitted his or her own report for evidence. A UD officer on the portico (I’ll call him Henry) raced toward the gunfire, ending up near where officers collared Duran. When Henry submitted his report to his lieutenant (henceforth known as the Editor), he was pressured to change his statement—to lie. The Editor absurdly believed that Henry should have remained at his post and not chased the gunfire—an absolutely ridiculous idea. He handed Henry a doctored report. Henry refused to sign it.
Later, when prosecutors were preparing their case against Duran, they requested that officers review their reports. Again, that’s just routine due diligence. Henry reviewed his. “Yeah, I thought this might be a problem,” he responded.
“What do you mean?”
“That’s not my statement. This is my statement,” he said, producing his original, undoctored report.
Henry had anticipated that the Editor would proceed with filing a falsified report. Higher-ups reamed out the Editor. Word of his offense traveled as high as the director of the agency. Had federal prosecutors presented a falsified statement, their whole case could have been questioned.
As strange as it seems, Duran could have gotten away with it. That’s why the quality of being “worthy of trust and confidence” remains pivotal for the Secret Service. The Editor kept his job and even filed a lawsuit a few years later for not being promoted. The Service should have shit-canned him immediately. But it wanted the story squashed and couldn’t if it had fired him.
On the presidential staff side, the scandals never ended. Staffers remained on high alert, but facing a constant barrage of daily headlines, they failed to focus on clear priorities. I almost felt bad for them. Many were good people trying to do right. They didn’t seek the limelight—I can empathize with that. They just wanted to serve their country’s leadership and implement their common vision. I can respect that, too.
Once the president’s national security advisor emerged from Betty Currie’s office after presenting a briefing. Making a sharp left turn, he looked distinctly off-kilter. Proceeding gingerly down the hallway, he shifted his papers to his left hand, touching everything with his right: the furniture, the walls, the door to the Roosevelt Room, the table, the plant on it, the credenza, and the next doorjamb. He looked as if he was losing it. I did not envy him.
Conversely, President Clinton’s cool-cucumber personality impressed me. Nothing seemed to get him down. He was pure Teflon, always displaying a good positive humor. It helps explain his incredible magnetism. He just had a magical way about him. Maybe it was his radio voice or his James Bond–like demeanor. My father could fix a rock. President Clinton could charm a rock.
“If the president told me my name wasn’t Gary Byrne, I’d have to check my name tag,” I told people. If I had only one way to describe President Clinton, that was it.
I once needed to write up an incident that occurred in the fence line area. It was the midnight shift, and I asked the control clerk, a UD officer, if she could type the document for me. I confided to her how nervous I normally was about writing or typing anything, how I certainly didn’t want my dyslexia to screw up a legal document. She was glad to help. When she handed me the finished document, she advised me that our watch commander was still at his Old Executive Office Building office. If I hurried, I’d catch him right in time.
I was still a new guy to the job—so naïve!
I raced to his office and knocked twice. Not waiting for an answer, I swung his door open—and froze. What I saw was not good. His office lights were off, but hallway lights allowed me to see what I didn’t want to see: him screwing a female sergeant on the desk!
“Uh, I’ll come back later.” I closed the door much faster than I opened it.
Taking into account their, er, position and his office’s dim light I hoped they didn’t recognize me. But the hallway light silhouetted me, and my height and build were fairly noticeable. I later passed the super in the hallway and made small talk. I made a mental note to remember to forget what I saw. But I never forgot the look on that control clerk’s face when I next saw her: It was an expression of pure satisfaction. She had placed me in an incredibly difficult spot with both my watch commander and my sergeant, severely damaging team dynamics. Every grievance I might have had in the future, I very well might attribute to their character flaws—a pretty easy case to make when you see management screwing other officers on their desk.
I came to believe that that control clerk hoped I’d spread the word: “Hey, guys, I walked in on…” I didn’t dare. I didn’t blab.
Power corrupts, as they say. Leon Panetta pondered such matters in his book, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace. Ninety percent of the personalities who get into the White House are hotshot types. They’re overzealous about everything they do: relationships, sex, money, nightlife, and power. And everything gained by power can be used to gain more of it. I didn’t catch on quickly enough that sex was a part of that. But I caught on enough to know it was trouble and to abstain. People got transferred. Careers got ruined. Most important, favoritism, drama, and distractions hampered the mission.
I was serving on post during a photo op for an SA who was leaving the PPD. Before retiring or being transferred, agents (but not UD officers) could pose for a photo with their families and the president. It meant a lot to them.
This agent, however, was being transferred to what might as well have been Siberia, punishment for his general office drama and for various other behavioral issues. The Secret Service was saving itself an embarrassment.
Being the genius that he was, this hotshot asked me to ward off So-and-So—his mistress! What the hell was I supposed to do, sweep a broom at her feet? Coldcock her? She had a White House pass and was even part of the Arkansas Mafia!
I spent the next half hour or so nervously watching the members of this unholy love triangle eye each other with open scorn. I just prayed, Please, don’t let this blow up in front of the president’s face!
Stuff like that happened far more than it should. Why? Because superiors told us one thing and did another. Leadership—in both the Service and the administration—often conveyed the message that bad behavior was truly bad only if it made headlines. I called it the Caesar mentality: Do as I say, not as I do, or off with your head.
Who could take the orders seriously when rumors flew that even the president was having midnight calls of his own?
Increasingly, I
had reason to pray.
Please, don’t let this blow up in front of the president’s face!
9.
OKLAHOMA CITY
April 19, 1995: Betty Currie waved me into her office. A few staffers stared at her small television set. President Clinton hadn’t yet arrived, though I was sure he’d already gotten the news.
We didn’t need CNN to tell us what we saw: a massive bomb had exploded at downtown Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Only half the building remained. Half was smoking rubble. We all thought, Somebody seriously screwed up, but hardly anyone spoke. This was an attack on the federal government. This was an attack on us.
Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but the ugly, bitter truth is that whenever a tragic, horrific attack happens, I feel vindicated. All of those like me do. We signed up to stop people like these monsters. We think about that every day. Most other people go about their lives and forget. Incidents like this remind them of the terrible risks society faces.
That April morning, 168 persons were murdered just for doing their jobs. Each casualty was someone exactly like us. I just happened to be in D.C.; they just happened to be in Oklahoma City. I recalled the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The White House sprang into high alert. So did every military and federal installation. I tried to keep a good humor. “Some Middle Eastern country’s getting bombed tomorrow,” I let slip.
A voice behind me said, “Well, not so fast, young man. It could be domestic. But we’ll get this sorted out,” said President Bill Clinton.
I was mortified. “Sorry, Mr. President,” I said, turning to keep my head low and dismissing myself.
I asked a nearby PPD agent if we had a field office there.
“Yeah.” He bit the side of his mouth and added, “There was also an all-agency day care on the bottom floor for any agent to drop off their kids for free day care, too. Perk of the job,” he added sorrowfully.
We later learned our field office was the attackers’ target.
Every UD officer checked their gun box and FAT kit and made ready. Secret Service closed Pennsylvania Avenue, Fifteenth Street, and Seventeenth Street. Everyone asked “what if?” and came up short on answers.
Concrete barriers on a portion of Pennsylvania Avenue created a permanent pedestrian-only area. But D.C. streets were never designed for this, and the move bewildered and frankly scared visitors and tourists.
After Oklahoma City, the value placed on our warnings increased, if only for a time.
A month later, May 24, 1995, and the day was coming to a close. It was dusk, and the White House spotlights switched on, illuminating the South East lawn and…
“Crash-Crash!”
Every serviceman couldn’t help but hear it. A Bandbox radio report blared that a fence jumper was sprinting toward the White House. Hindsight is close to 20/20. Only later do you know “something” was really nothing. But we had been trained and engrained to think Benghazi, long before Benghazi. We knew of the siege of the Iranian embassy in London, the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the 1993 WTC bombing, the Japanese embassy takeover in Peru, Beirut’s U.S. embassy bombing, and 1992’s Israeli embassy attack in Argentina. You hear “Crash-Crash” and you don’t know what’s next.
Following this “Crash-Crash,” UD Officer Scott Giambattista sprinted toward a fence jumper (who, by the way, wanted suicide by cop). They raced uphill through the pachysandra and toward the mansion, passing a set of floodlights. Another UD officer, Dave Levine, fired a single shot at the fence jumper. Bull’s-eye! But his bullet passed through the fence jumper’s left arm, seriously wounding Scott in his left forearm as Scott tackled him. Dave and Scott were friends and both were top-notch guys. It wasn’t fly-ball gazing that screwed them over—they had each lived up to the level of the Service’s training for such incidents. It was, however, a result of miscommunication in an incredibly fast-moving situation. White House lawns aren’t open fields. They’re a maze of booths, roads, paths, trees, hedges, and bushes. There’s even a moat. It’s invisible from the fence line, but trust me, it’s there.
The Secret Service simply lacked the budget, time, and leadership to support training that properly dealt with intersecting fields of fire, sprinting fence jumpers, and adaptive light situations (that is, at dawn and dusk when light sources are shifting and make pursuit difficult). Fence jumpers pose an extra hazard because they sprint. Shooters, at least, take a fixed position, landing themselves in our kill zone. Hunting fence jumpers is like hunting quail—birds that wait in the brush and once spooked, spring out and fly past you. Quail fly up five feet and then travel laterally—just like fence jumpers. Get a bead on a sprinter, and your field of fire can trap a teammate. It’s why we drill, drill, drill: Know what’s behind your target. Mistakes can happen to complacent or inexperienced quail hunters, just like what happened to Vice President Dick Cheney when he shot his pal. Another happened to Scott and Dave, both highly trained, great guys.
The incident highlighted one of our major weaknesses in dealing with these damn fence jumpers. Dave and Scott did everything right; they just did the right thing at the same time. It’s a hazard of the job. But let’s not forget: They stopped the bad guy. Had Dave or Scott been an agent, the White House staff would have erected statues on the lawn, but they were UD.
Scott underwent surgery at George Washington University Hospital. The president phoned and thanked him profusely. What the president didn’t know—certainly no one was going to delay a call from the president—was that Scott was a little wonky having just come out of surgery. “Hey! Hey, Bill,” Scott babbled, “we should have a barbecue up at Camp David! It’d be great.”
“Well, that’s an idea, Scott,” said the president, chuckling.
That cracked us up and became a running joke. Obviously nobody was going to have a barbecue to celebrate an officer’s getting shot. Still, there were times when the administration did convey its appreciation (and the president’s call meant a great deal to us all). From then on whenever someone tried saying something serious, we’d interrupt: “Hey! Let’s have a barbecue!”
One of my greatest honors—and I knew it at the time—was when the First Couple vacationed on Block Island, Rhode Island, in August 1997 and were doing something as a family, getting ice cream with Chelsea. Maybe it was all for show, or maybe the First Family really did want some normalcy in their lives.
I worked the rope line. Even a simple ice cream run is a celebrity event for a president. Presidential Protection Detail agents singled me out to screen people inside the store before the First Family entered. I remained inside as the Clintons purchased ice cream. The agents remained outside. For a few minutes, as the president paid, it was just the Clintons, shop employees, and myself. No agents—just me. It was a profound honor.
Soon the spectacle moved outside. As the Clintons walked, every PPD SA spied a shirtless drunk fast approaching. “That’s my girl!” he shouted, “Hillary! Hillary! That’s my girl! Hillary!” Agents closed in behind him as he weaved through the rope line. Fathers shielded family members from this buffoon. He kept yelling, caring nothing for rope lines—hell, he didn’t even care to wear a shirt.
“Hey!” I addressed him loudly, amiably, and disingenuously. “Can you do me a favor? Squat down for a sec.”
He probably thought I was going to let him under the rope line. Crouching down, he looked up at me with big gullible eyes. I shoved him in the chest—maybe his head—and he plopped on the cement sidewalk. I fretted about using too much force, but the Service backed me up.
One day I felt the same heebie-jeebies I had in catching that spy years before at the Air Force Thunderbirds air show. Two CIA officers mysteriously arrived at the Secret Service training center with no purpose listed for their visit. I requested their IDs. Everything checked out.
“Well, how about this one?” one said, plopping down a different driver’s license and passport on the table.
I ran the new documents, and they checked o
ut, too. “Are you serious?” I said. They just laughed.
“What about this one?” the same guy said. “And this one?” He kept plopping down credentials with different names—but the same face.
His passports and driver’s licenses came from different countries and even different government agencies—but were all valid, at least as far as I or anyone else in my position could tell. He smiled at me, and I knew this guy was the real-deal Secret Squirrel or Jason Bourne, operating far beyond the front lines for his country.
I just kept thinking, F—me, these guys really do exist. Every foreign country, whether friendly, enemy, or less-than-friendly, employed its own off-the-book types. Each eyed the White House and our security installations. As for this CIA operative, he just gave me a pat on the shoulder and walked right in for his meeting.
International intrigue—and real security issues—don’t stop at the president’s door. Special Agent Dan Emmett’s book, Within Arm’s Length, describes a tense moment when Syrian president Hafez al-Assad conferred in 1993 with U.S. leadership. Emmett was fully ready—on a hair-trigger—to draw his SIG P229 and protect the president against Assad’s bodyguard’s Czech-made, fully automatic Škorpion machine pistols.
My hold-your-breath moments occurred in 1993 when I interacted with the staffs of Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres and Palestine Liberation Organization head Yasser Arafat at the White House for the signing of the Oslo Peace Accord. Everybody feigned amiability, but I couldn’t help but feel that at any given moment, everyone in the room with two hands (let alone a firearm) was going to be at each other’s throats. I had never felt such a feeling emanating between anyone, and I can only describe it as pure hate. The president literally had to coax the two sides to shake hands. His vaunted charm and charisma really did break the ice between intensely wary adversaries.