by Jerry Parr
Carl Albert of Oklahoma, Democratic Speaker of the House, was next in line until a vice president could be confirmed under the never-before-used Twenty-Fifth Amendment. The process is set out in Section 2:
Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Within two days Nixon nominated House minority leader Gerald Ford, who was soon confirmed.
All I could tell Rundle was the truth. “Mr. Agnew asked us to keep it a secret, and Sulliman thought if Headquarters knew, you’d put a detail with Speaker Albert right away, and that would tip off the press. They were already watching Albert’s house.” Sam was correct, but so was Rundle. We had allowed ourselves to be drawn in, to the possible detriment of a protectee (Albert), the country, and our careers. As a result of keeping Headquarters in the dark, my rise in the Service took a detour for a while, but I weathered the storm.
Agnew’s political demise was painful enough. But earlier in 1973 something else had happened that caused me to think about leaving the Secret Service entirely. Near the end of August, Jim Connolly, an agent I knew from the Humphrey detail, shot himself at home with his service revolver.
Jim was tall and angular with a friendly smile and a firm handshake. I resonated with his Irish fatalistic sense of humor. He was a loyal friend. He loved a good party but didn’t know when to quit. We all laughed at his clowning and knew he drank too much, but no one wanted to confront him. Back then we didn’t really know how. The Service frowned on anything that hinted at psychotherapy, even marriage counseling, so a lot of situations that could have been helped went untreated.
The day Jim died, he called into his field office three times, each time increasingly incoherent. His speech was slurred, and he wasn’t making much sense. People were trying to work, and they were annoyed. Assuming he was drunk, the SAIC sent two men to get Jim’s car keys, gun, and commission book. Taking the commission book meant he probably would have been fired. When the agents arrived, however, what they found was a human tragedy.
Jim had carefully turned the air-conditioning down as low as it would go to prevent a smell if he weren’t found quickly. Then he sat down in his comfortable leather chair and shot himself with his service revolver. There was no suicide note, but the Maryland police had no trouble determining the wound was self-inflicted.
Jim left a lovely wife and several young sons who didn’t deserve this. Fortunately they were in Boston at the time, visiting family. The agents and Tom Wells, an inspector, did something that was not in their job description: they worked all night with a cleaning crew to remove the blood and bits of bone and flesh that speckled the wall, carpet, chair, even a lamp shade. They didn’t want Jim’s wife to have to see what they were seeing.
I probably made some unfair assumptions, but I blamed the Secret Service for Jim’s death. At the time we had no employee assistance programs; the Service was totally “mission” focused. And we loved that mission. But as an organization the Service had a hard time dealing with pain. We had not yet found a voice for dealing with the human suffering of agents. We did all the “right” things: we went to the funerals, we sent flowers. But when it was over, we expected agents to make a quick recovery. Well, Jim obviously did not recover from his alcoholism or whatever personal demons may have lurked behind it.
I was enraged. I believed the agents who spoke to him on the phone should have recognized his calls as cries for help. I thought they cared more about Jim’s car than they did about him. I was so angry I thought seriously about resigning. I kept asking myself, How could they be so callous?
I know now that I had absorbed entirely too much pain. It was a perfect storm for a midlife crisis. I was the right age: forty-three. I had just come out of four years of nonstop hypervigilance, danger, lack of sleep, family separations, and other hardships to rival battlefield conditions. To some extent every man on the Humphrey detail was a wounded warrior. Maybe Jim’s invisible wounds were too deep for tears.
Agnew’s disgrace was another blow I took personally. He was a father figure to me, and grief from my own father’s death seventeen years earlier came rushing back. I lost my appetite and found it hard to sleep. For the first time since childhood I felt vulnerable. But I never told anyone at work. The men I worked with never knew. I soldiered on, putting up a strong front.
The anger and grief lasted several months, but by talking to God, to Carolyn, and to a friend I trusted, I gradually came through it.
I had been a friend to many agents over the years, one they could trust with their hidden feelings, and I knew I had helped some of them. I wished I’d known how to help Jim. I knew I had a gift for listening nonjudgmentally and for resonating with the pain of others. But if I was going to be the person whom hurting people could come to, I would need training.
I wondered, Could my own vulnerability become the germ of a new calling when my days as a Secret Service agent end?
At least partly in response to Jim’s death, in September 1973 some of us put together a little school for agents who were going to do protective advances. I was now Deputy SAIC of VPPD and had been doing advances from 1964 to 1973, with either vice presidents or foreign dignitaries. At the school, I spoke off the cuff and from the heart, unaware that Bob DeProspero was recording my remarks. Others would speak about the nuts and bolts of advances, but I asked to introduce the topic. And I said something nobody expected: I talked about suffering.
I said doing advances would maim them, but with each success they would gain self-confidence. I said they’d see more holes in their advances than anyone else. I warned that they should expect to be criticized and second-guessed but not to feel guilty about small things.
First of all you go there and you create an organism. It’s nothing. You and the political advance man, and the [local] SAIC, the committee man—you create this organism from nothing. You use your enthusiasm, your judgment, your intelligence. You get a lot of people to work for you. You sell the idea that it’s worthwhile to protect the president or vice president. You create this thing from nothing, and as “the Man” lands, it is big and complicated and you have involved so many people. They’re connected by radio, by telephone, transported by boats, cars, helicopters, airplanes. It’s an organism in itself. . . . It may last as long as the inauguration, but it’s temporary. . . .
You can expect human failure. When you organize something as big as an advance, there will be somebody who doesn’t get the message. I often say, to myself and others, “I’m mildly surprised when the thing works at all.” . . .
You always want to leave a good deposit when you go, not a deposit of ill will. I’ve gone to stops, and the first thing the Man says to me is, “You didn’t bring that s.o.b. with you, did you?” . . . His ego has been hurt by some young, brash advance man who thought he knew it all.
It’s like Don Bendickson used to say: “You can muck up a counterfeiting case, but when you muck up the president, they write thirty-two volumes [the Warren Commission Report].” So you do a good job—and the Man leaves. It would be better if he left happy and alive, but certainly alive. It’s a great relief to have completed a good advance and done the best you could. It has only been in the last couple of years that I’ve really understood what President Kennedy meant when he said, “A good conscience is your only sure reward.” Because that’s all you’re going to get out of it—the knowledge that you’ve done a good job.
I told them they might not understand what I was saying for a while, but I knew the five men in the room who were running the class would know what I meant.
Three years later I was surprised by a note from Tom Quinn, who was present that day. He said, “Your words on September 13, 1973, have always meant a great deal to me, but you were right in that it’s only been the past year . . . that I completely understood their full meaning. I have played the tape of that day often, and it has gi
ven me something extra to rely on when doing advances.” I had not even realized my speech had been taped, but Tom had had copies of the tape made and distributed to other agents who were there and to the training division. He also had it transcribed. With his note Tom enclosed a framed copy, titled “Words of Wisdom by Jerry Parr.” Like an underground newspaper, it had been passed from agent to agent, almost secretly, for three years!
I’m not sure how wise they were, but I think my remarks resonated with so many because I was someone with earned credibility, and I was unashamed to talk about pain.
I wish Jim Connolly had been there.
CHAPTER 7
SINNERS AND STATESMEN: WATERGATE AND THE WORLD
Don’t be so humble—you are not that great.
GOLDA MEIR
1970–1976
A scant two days after Vice President Agnew resigned, on October 12, 1973, Nixon nominated House minority leader Gerald Ford to take Agnew’s place. I moved over to protect him. While all the world’s attention was on Nixon (with a slight distraction to Agnew), my five months with Ford were deceptively peaceful—like the eye of a hurricane. Ford was an affable man with kind eyes, a friendly smile, and a firm handshake. He was minority leader of the House, whose only ambition was to become Speaker should Republicans gain control. He never sought or expected to be president. His brunette wife, Betty, had been a professional dancer with choreographer Martha Graham. She was down to earth and refreshingly candid. I liked them both.
Since Ford was reputed to be ethical, competent, and well respected by leaders of both parties, his confirmation as vice president was virtually assured. But before Congress could vote, President Nixon himself provoked a constitutional crisis that came to be known as the “Saturday Night Massacre.”
Like an angry sea, Watergate swirled around both Agnew and Ford, rocking each in very different ways. But I was focused on the sharks—the physical danger to my charges—and relatively unaware of the political currents tugging at them. Unlike the anger over Vietnam that had directly threatened Humphrey’s safety, the lapping of Watergate seemed to me like white noise.
Only later did its true significance dawn on me.
The Watergate saga began on June 17, 1972, while I was still with Agnew.[54] Five men were arrested at two thirty in the morning trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel and office complex. A GOP security aide was among them. In a burglar’s possession detectives found the White House phone number of the Committee to Reelect the President (derisively called “CREEP”), controlled by Attorney General John Mitchell. Then investigators discovered a $25,000 cashier’s check in a burglar’s bank account, earmarked for the Nixon campaign and traceable to CREEP. These discoveries led Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to begin an investigation that uncovered a secret Republican fund used to finance sabotage and spying on the Democrats.
Pursuant to a leak, the Post reported on October 10, 1972, that FBI agents believed the break-in was the tip of a massive iceberg of intelligence gathering and “dirty tricks” on behalf of the Nixon reelection effort.
Nevertheless, by election time none of this had yet been linked to the president or his inner circle. He and Agnew were reelected by a wide margin on November 7, 1972.
Rapid-fire disclosures began to surface a couple of months later. On January 30, 1973, former Nixon aides G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr., in addition to five others, were convicted or pleaded guilty to conspiracy, burglary, and wiretapping. The sentencing judge was John Sirica. Then the Washington Post, Judge Sirica, and members of a Senate investigating committee started to dig deeper. Aided by an informant nicknamed “Deep Throat” (later revealed as Mark Felt, deputy director of the FBI), Woodward and Bernstein continued to investigate and write, and the scandal grew. Nixon aides were rumored to have tried to get the CIA to impede the FBI investigation, a clear misuse of presidential power and an obstruction of justice if true.
Nixon’s closest aides, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, resigned on April 30. So did Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, who was not involved but felt he could not prosecute a friend. Suspecting that White House counsel John Dean was talking to investigators, Nixon fired him.
The Senate Watergate committee began its nationally televised hearings in May 1973. Attorney General–designate Elliot Richardson chose former Solicitor General Archibald Cox as the Justice Department’s special prosecutor for Watergate.
On June 3, 1973, the Post revealed that John Dean had told investigators he discussed the Watergate cover-up with Nixon at least thirty-five times.
Shortly thereafter, Alexander Butterfield, former appointments secretary, testified before Congress that since 1972, Nixon had recorded all conversations and telephone calls in his office. The Senate committee and Cox immediately asked for the tapes, but Nixon refused to turn them over.
Because of Nixon’s troubles, Vice President Agnew, next in line to become president should Nixon resign or be impeached, started to draw attention. He had nothing to do with Watergate, but beginning in August, it became clear that Agnew had his own problems. His resignation in disgrace did not deflect attention from Nixon’s troubles for long.
Just ten days after Agnew’s resignation, on Saturday, October 20, 1973, the president tried to decapitate the Justice Department, which he believed had become his enemy. In what the Washington Post called “the most traumatic government upheaval of the Watergate crisis,” Nixon ordered Attorney General Richardson to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus also refused, and was either fired or resigned (Nixon said each at different times). Solicitor General Robert Bork, third in line, did the deed.[55]
The immediate and overwhelming public outrage at the firings took Nixon and Capitol Hill by surprise. Within hours thousands of telegrams, letters, and calls from angry constituents flooded Congress. They poured in from Republicans as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals, demanding that the president be impeached. The “Saturday Night Massacre” did not end the Watergate crisis, but it may have been the single most important event that doomed Nixon’s presidency.
If Nixon had expected Bork to protect him, he was soon disillusioned. The acting attorney general quickly appointed a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who, on March 1, 1974, convened a grand jury that indicted seven of Nixon’s former closest aides on various charges related to Watergate. In its report the grand jury referred to Nixon as an “unindicted coconspirator.”
Although Nixon eventually released edited transcripts, it was too little too late. On July 24, 1974, in United States v. Richard M. Nixon, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the president must turn over the actual taped recordings of sixty-four White House conversations. A scant three days after receiving them, the House Judiciary Committee passed the first of three articles of impeachment: abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and contempt of Congress.
On August 8, 1974, Nixon became the first US president to resign. And, with his hand on the Bible, Gerald Ford swore to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” In light of what had just occurred, these words hung heavy with meaning.
But by the time Ford became president, I had moved on.
I served with the Foreign Dignitary Protective Division (FDPD) twice. My first deployment, from November 30, 1970, to December 10, 1972, was sandwiched between two periods with Agnew. And now, around the time of the Watergate grand jury indictments, I returned to “foreign digs,” this time as Deputy SAIC.
FDPD was born in 1970 after a French president was roughed up in Chicago and someone unsuccessfully tried to kill Taiwanese Vice Prime Minister Chiang Ching-kuo in New York.[56] Alarmed that poor security could cause an international incident, Nixon transferred foreign dignitary protection from the State Department to the Secret Service. It began with a special detail for a United Nations gathering. I wa
s one of four experienced agents charged with the safety of all visiting heads of state when they were on US soil. It was a major responsibility.
Ken Balge was the first SAIC, Dick Roth was Deputy SAIC, and Bill Payne and I were ASAICs. One of us would always act as detail leader; agents temporarily pulled from field offices filled in the shifts.
To accompany heads of state from so many different countries—each with its own diplomatic and security staff—demanded flexibility and openness to cultural differences. US State Department representatives, trained in protocol, accompanied us. I watched them carefully, trying not to make a faux pas—although I secretly believed that their emphasis on protocol over security was the reason Nixon had taken security away from them and given it to us. Protocol and security had to be parallel concerns, but like oil and water, they did not mix easily.
Our every action also required political sensitivity. Rigidity was the enemy of security. As I learned on my very first assignment, shades of gray were the order of the day.
King Hussein of Jordan was friendly to the West, spoke perfect English, and had a beautiful English wife, Princess Muna. (As I write, Jordan’s current monarch is the son of this union.) The king was small in stature but large in importance to the United States. He was likable, easy to protect, and seemed to appreciate our work.
On his last day in the United States, at around six forty-five in the evening, a top member of the royal staff asked me to come to his room in the Waldorf Towers in New York. He wanted to present gifts to the detail agents.
I was prepared for this. Headquarters had decided that FDPD would follow normal State Department procedure, which allowed for the exchange of small gifts, tokens of national pride. I was told this was expected and acceptable in diplomatic circles. We could accept gifts worth no more than fifty dollars (later raised to seventy-five dollars). But we absolutely could not accept cash.