By the time they entered, the intruder Lou Hernandez had already subdued.
The review also blamed communications failure for the intrusion, noting that several radio and alarm systems to notify Secret Service agents of a breach did not function properly. Perhaps most astounding , the report said that one canine officer who could have conceivably halted Hernandez's mad dash was taking a personal call on his cell phone and did not have his radio earpiece in his ear when Hernandez hopped the White House fence.
Another Secret Service officer who did not see Hernandez approach the White House mistakenly believed the door to the building would be locked as a regular security measure and that Hernandez would be cornered between the door and the approaching agents.
In its review of the White House breach by the fence jumper, the Department of Justice (DOJ) faulted the Secret Service for insufficient training of the officers on duty, nothing that “staffing shortfalls” have left the agency unable to provide regular training for its uniformed division officers. It also noted that the training they did receive did not prepare them for ‘non-lethal force scenarios” like the one that unfolded on June 7.
Laramire called the report “a devastating blow to the agency” when he later testified before a congressional panel and promised both immediate action and long term reform of the agency.
A few days later a larger comprehensive report was released that concluded that the Secret Service needs more money, more staff, more training, and an outsider at the helm, among other necessary changes to adequately fulfill its core mission of protecting the president.
According to a DOJ spokesman, Adam Ames completed his review on July 15 and a submitted a copy to the Attorney General and to Laramire so the acting director “could immediately begin to take any additional security measures that the findings warranted in order to better ensure the White House complex is secure.”
“Acting Director Laramire has already begun to take such measures.” the spokesman added.
Ames, according to DOJ, began briefing lawmakers on the report’s findings on Tuesday. In reaction to the report, Arkansas Rep. Larry Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Committee on National Security, blasted the “critical and major failures in the areas of communications, confusion about operational protocols, and gaps in staffing and training” factors that contributed to the incident in June.
“While some of these problems can be attributed to a stark lack of resources, others are systemic and indicative of Secret Service culture,” he added. Some of these problems have begun to be addressed, however it is imperative that DOJ follow up and through on these findings and institute real reforms.”
While much of that report will remain classified, the executive summary that was made public faulted the agency for being too “insular” and concluded that it was “starved for strong leadership that rewards innovation and excellence.”
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep Bobby Goodbread, to R-Virginia, was less measured in his criticism, slamming the Secret Service for a Shakespearean production of a “comedy of errors” that led to a series of security lapses.
“This report makes it perfectly clear that everything that could have gone wrong that evening did,” Goodbread said in a statement. “Inadequate training, poor communication. and lax physical security at the White led to this breach.”
Goodbread’s committee, which holds primary jurisdiction over the Secret Service, is scheduled to hold a hearing on the security breach next month.
Two of Reid’s Administration's senior officials on welfare policy resigned today, Wednesday, July 22, 1993 in protest of the law President Reid signed last month ending the Federal guarantee of cash assistance to the nation's poorest children.
The departure of the officials, Emmalee Bradley and Benjamin Rothman, both assistant secretaries at the Department of Health and Human Services, clearly illustrates the continuing deep divisions in the Administration over Mr. Reid’s decision to approve the Republican welfare legislation, which the President said he had “serious problems with it” but it was “the best chance we will have for a very long time to complete the work of ending the welfare system as we all know it as.”
In a memorandum today to his staff, Mr. Rothman, a longtime friend of the Reids, said “I have devoted my last 30-plus years to doing whatever I could to help in reducing poverty in America. I believe the recently enacted welfare bill goes in the totally opposite direction.”
Ms. Bradley, in an email message to colleagues noted that her “deep concerns” about the welfare bill” have led me to conclude that I cannot continue to serve fully” in the job.
Mr. Rothman and Ms. Bradley did not make it clear why they waited until four weeks after Mr. Reid signed the bill, and both declined through spokesman to be interviewed.
Another high ranking official of the department, Philip Smith, quit last month, saying that “to remain would be to disown all the analysis that my office has produced regarding the impact of the bill.” Mr. Smith’s studies has estimated that the law would push more than a million children into poverty.
The latest resignations came just as the Administration and the states are embarking on a difficult and potentially wrenching effort to move millions of adults from the welfare to work program. The law gives states vast new powers to run their welfare programs with lump sums of Federal money to fund them. It also sets a lifetime limit of five (5) years on benefits to any family and requires most adult recipients to begin working within two years.
Mr. Reid in the past few days has implored churches and businesses alike to use welfare benefits that are given to the states as subsidies to create more jobs for welfare recipients, saying that to make the transition from aid “morally defensible and practically possible, there has to be work for those people to do in the first place.”
A large number of state officials attended seminars on the new law in Washington this week and said they were frustrated by their inability to get authoritative interpretations of its provisions from Administration officials.
While the resignations potentially free the Administration to put in a place a team more supportive of the new law, they also deprive the Department of Health and Human Services of great expertise at the very moment when it is needed the most. Ms. Bradley, Assistant Secretary for Children and Families was part of the original team assembled in 1992 to devise his own welfare proposals, and it is her office that will perform the mammoth task of reviewing state plans to carry out the mandates of the new law.
“These are three extremely talented people in the Reid Administration, “ said Robert Greenspan, the executive director of the Center for Budget Reform and Policy, a liberal think tank research organization that opposes the welfare law. “I don’t there is any question that their departure is a major loss and blow for the Administration,
Representative C.C. Jones, III., a Florida Republican who was the driving and primary force behind the welfare bill, also expressed disappointment at the resignations, saying he had held Ms. Bradley” in the highest esteem for her great abilities and honesty.”
But Anthony Hughes, a spokesman for Speaker of the House Jack Reynolds, said the crucial question now was “what is the President of the United States is going to do now, not what some assistant secretary of the agency is going to do.”
“If he is committed to the rule of law, “ he said “he will hire the right people to administer it. If he is not, Daniel Gregg, we know, will enforce the law.”
With the resignations to be effective on September 30, the Administration moved quickly to elevate the deputies to Mr. Rothman and Ms. Bradley to be their acting replacements. Officials said that John Olds would be named the Acting Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and Cheryl Albright would be named Acting Assistant Secretary for Children and Families.
For Mr. Reid, the resignation of Mr. Rothman was a particular rebuke because he and his wife Margaret Jones Rothman of the Children’s First Fund,
had been among the Reid’s oldest and most loyal supporters in the nation’s capitol. Mr. Reid had backed away from nominating Mr. Rothman to an influential appeals of court post and then a lower profile Federal judgeship because of the possibility of a confirmation fight.
And Mrs. Rothman had put increasing public pressure on Mr. Reid not to sign the welfare measure, calling his decision “ a critical and crucial moral litmus test of the Reid’s Administration.”
Officials said that if Debra Y. Soledad remained as the Secretary of Health and Human Services should Reid win a second term in office, the two Acting Assistant Secretaries would be expected to be put forth for Senate confirmation quite easily.
Dr. Soledad herself had been a tenacious critic of the welfare bill, but she argued to angry liberals in recent weeks that they need to support Mr. Reid so he could fight for changes in the legislation
“ I promise you this, on behalf of the President of the United States,” she told delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Cleveland, “that this bill will be changed and that this bill will be improved in years ahead until we get it right for for American families.”
Dr. Soledad’s spokeswoman, Wendy Coldfield, said the department was making no comment on the resignations. Melody Hooks Banks, a White House spokeswoman said; “The President values their service very much. They have done a terrific job working with helping the children of this country.”
As a candidate for President in 1992, Mr. Reid defined himself as a New Age Democratic with his signature pledge to “end the welfare program as we know it.” When the President finally announced his own welfare plan in June 1993, it included a two (2) year limit on benefits but coupled it with a $10.3 billion dollar investment over a five year period in an effort to insure jobs creation for people leaving the welfare rolls.
The plan stalled and went nowhere, and after the Republicans won control of Congress in 1992, they quickly seized the initiative on welfare, proposing to give the states control of welfare policy and trim spending on the program by 45 billion dollars over six (6) years.
Mr. Reid twice vetoed Republican welfare proposals, but this summer he faced a political quandary over whether to risk vetoing another one so close to the election and thus allowing the Republicans to accuse him of breaking his promise to change the welfare system.
His decision to sign the bill created deep fissures in his own party. Senator William Earl Campbell of New York praised Ms. Bradley today.
“I told her she had done just the right thing at the right time,” Mr. Campbell said in a written statement. “The only people who come back to Washington are the ones who have the sense enough to know when to leave the place. I look forward to her return.”
A person who quits a position in any President administration is never an easy thing to do but in a moral sense it is the right thing to do. An individual must hold true to his moral convictions in the times of challenged and controversy.
Charles “Chuck” Reagal eyes his exit of the Reid adminstration on his own terms as detailed in the Washington Post Thursday, July 23, 1993 edition as head of National Security Council.
Chuck Reagal is going out like the he came in: on his own. When the White House invited him to the ceremony in which President Thomas Reid nominated his successor, he did not go or send a representative in his place. As members of Congress scheduled hearings about national security they are getting his successor to be appear on Capitol Hill not him. Wednesday, he expects to stay for several more weeks in the job with an even
And even the White House plans a big, formal farewell for Reagal on next more lower profile. Reagal has always been at arm’s length from the White House since his name first leaked as Reid’s choice to replace Larry Payne well ahead of his formal nomination keeping him from responding to a concerted opposition campaign.
He made matters even worst with a botched Senate confirmation hearing that members called one of the worst they did ever seen. And he tangled behind the scenes inside the adminstration right up until Reid pushed out early in the year.
Even so, after it all, Reagal is not glum about it, he is very upbeat.
He continues to meet with foreign delegations and top commanders,, including the general who is running the administration's effort to begin training and equipping the” moderate “Syrian opposition. On a trip across the country to thank the troops in all four military branches namely Army, Air Force, Marines and Navy, Reagal vowed to work until “the last hour in office,” he repeated to each audience assembled that he was proud of his time at the White House.
“I have had a blessed and fortunate life.” he told the Marines at Thousands Palm, CA. Later, at the White House, he told reporters how pleased he was to be associated with the finest fighting force in the world.
Reagal’s passive approach, his lack of government executive experience and, Lucci said, the almost impossible relationship with the White House meant a whole lot of “muddling along” and little or not much of an imprint on his work at the White House.
Reagals’s own camp reject that no notion altogether. It argues there is no question the former Republican senator’s “rock steady leadership” and “sweeping reforms “ leave national security in better shape than he found it when he took over. And Reagal himself knows he has been the subject and target of alot of Beltway tittering. But as one senior security official put it after Reagal announced his resignation, he remains “sanguine.”
At no time on his three day “ farewell swing did Reagal allude to the many disputes with the White House that led to his ouster.
“All of the United States of America, I know is extremely proud of the men and women of our armed services.” Reagal is quoted in a recent Newsweek article.
“What do I do next? I don’t know right now,” Reagal mused. “I have not really thought about it. I have never have. I probably shouldn’t say this, because I do believe in planning for the future, but I have not thought about my next job. I finish one, and then I think about , well what I could do next? Or how does that all work?... I let the currents take me there.’
Reagal has no major regrets about his stint at the White House.
Troops and veterans’ advocates have hailed the special attention he has paid to them, including his regular off-the-record lunches to hear it straight from junior enlisted service members. He told troops he is pleased with what he has accomplished, including the necessary reforms of the military health care system and nuclear forces.
All the same, the Reid gridlock meant many other changes that Reagal wanted to make to the national security infrastructure, Department of Defense, or the military, ran into a brick wall like crash test dummies.
That sustained tension with the White House was the real and true source of Reagal’s troubles, said a second former senior national security official, who requested not to be identified.
The President wanted someone to be his “puppet” on the National Security Council and ignore right up until world events meant the plan is no longer workable, the official said. When the crises in Syria and Bosnia meant Reid needed a wartime consigliere, Reagal was not prepared to offer a new outlook or perspective. Not only that, by the time the crises were forcing a reluctant administration to change its tack, Reagal also was no longer prepared to just go along to get along.
“I suspect I might not have made everybody here happy always on that point.” Reagal acknowledged.
The feeling was mutual.
“When he was appointed, they thought he would be the same guy he knew from his days as Tennessee governor and just preside over national security,” the former senior defense official said. “They would not prepared for him to develop his own points of view or get in the way as he did on Syria, or with certifying Gitmo detainees for release.”
Several of Reagal’s predecessors both complained of the level of micromanagement from the White House and senior officials on the National Security Council. Although Reagal has kept mostly silent on
the issue, by all accounts, that intense level of scrutiny has persistent.
The former official described a Reagal visit to the Senate to brief then National Security Committee Chairman Mel Stein (D-IL) on the “strategic choices and program management review.”
Stein praised the brief. He asked Reagal to send him a copy of the Powerpoint slides he did used. ‘Of course I will Senator,” Reagal said, But before he even made back to his office inside the White House. Reagal’ staff had a got a word from the White House: No, you will not give that Power Point deck of slides to Stein.
“There was a number of things just like this occurring,” the official said, “He did not have the full freedom to manage the National Security Council fully as his own.”
President Reid praised outgoing National Security Council Director Chuck Reagal on Thursday as “ a true American patriot” and “a man from the heartland who devoted his life to duty, honor, country and to America.”
Murder at the President's House Page 13