In the Secret Service

by Jerry Parr

  I was as happy as Brer Rabbit to be going back into the briar patch of protection.

  But before I would officially change jobs, I needed to put a few pieces in place. Carolyn had graduated from Georgetown with honors in 1977, had passed the Maryland bar, and had begun to try tax cases for the IRS in the United States Tax Court. It was time for us to take a long-postponed family vacation with three weeks of my “use-or-lose” leave time. Since I was between divisions on May 16 when I made the request, I had to get permission from Bob Powis, the assistant director for Protective Operations. He and I hadn’t always seen eye to eye, and I wasn’t sure he’d grant it. In my memo I tried to cover all possible objections up front:

  I have planned to take 120 hours annual leave in August of this year with your approval.

  The other supervisors at VPPD know the dates involved, July 30 to August 20, 1978. We will work around these dates accordingly, and there will be no problems with adequate supervisory coverage.

  I have rented a 25´ RV and plan to take the family west to California and return via the southern route. None of the family except myself has been west of the Mississippi River.

  Since there is considerable expense involved in this trip, I am making the annual leave request at this time.

  Since I’ll be on the road most of the time, I plan to call in every other day to make contact with the Division.

  Permission was granted. Carolyn’s boss at the IRS also agreed, and the whole family started to study maps and campgrounds and the etiquette of camping in RVs.

  Ours came equipped with a shortwave radio, the kind truckers use on the road, and Kimberly, now sixteen years old, read up on trucker jargon. “Smokey” was a code word for the highway patrol. While I had fleeting feelings of guilt at the notion of trying to avoid fellow cops, just maneuvering that twenty-five-foot vehicle was enough to occupy my mind. Kim got a kick out of her conversations with drivers of 18-wheelers.

  Our first few days went well, but when the RV started to cough, we limped into the first gas station we could find. It was in a little town called Oakley, Kansas.

  When we pulled in, the mechanic-owner diagnosed the problem and held out his keys. “I’m afraid you’ll have to spend the night,” he said. “You can take my car.” I was astonished. Is this what they mean by Midwest hospitality? I wondered.

  Oakley was less than two square miles in size. And flat. From where we stood in the garage, we could see the motel, a restaurant, and a movie theater. So we gratefully declined the car keys and decided to walk around town.

  The town limits were obvious because that’s where the houses stopped. Abruptly. At the edge of town, fields of wheat and other crops stretched as far as the eye could see. We drifted into a tiny museum of local history and were surprised by a photo exhibition of Oakley’s founding fathers and mothers: among the earliest settlers was a family of black pioneers.

  Coming out, we heard what sounded like carousel music. We came upon a county fair—out in somebody’s field. Not only a carousel but a Ferris wheel, games, hot dogs, and lots of 4-H club exhibits. Eight-year-old Trish petted baby and grown farm animals and stared at the huge vegetables raised by children not much older than her. Teens the age of Kim and Jennifer proudly displayed clothes they’d designed and sewn themselves. Women stood behind their prizewinning pies and cakes. With a silent smile I imagined that, had we lived in Oakley, Jennifer would have captured a cooking prize: when she was only twelve, she’d made our entire Thanksgiving dinner from scratch, including a golden stuffed turkey and a cinnamony pumpkin pie! I identified with the farmers checking out the tractors. It felt like we’d stepped into a 1930s movie. Carolyn asked, “Where’s Judy Garland?”

  After lunch at the fair, the kids begged to go to the movie matinee in town. Like a good dad I shelled out cash for tickets and popcorn. But Carolyn and I decided to skip The Incredible Melting Man. We let them go alone. It was starting to feel safe here in Oakley.

  Next day we picked up the RV, now in perfect shape. I asked hesitantly, “Will you take a check on an out-of-town bank?” The owner said, “Sure.” I pulled out my driver’s license, but he waved it off. “I’m sure it’s good,” he said.

  This was not Oz—it was Kansas. And it was wonderful.

  During this period of my career, in the stability of my now less-frantic schedule, our family found roots in a new faith community. Heritage Christian Church was a small and diverse congregation with a big heart. The first time Carolyn and I walked in, we saw a living sermon before Pastor Dick Miller even spoke a word. Two church elders greeted us at the door: Junior Crowell, a distinguished-looking white man I judged to be in his seventies, and Franklin Gee, a young African American real estate agent. Joanne and Floyd Jamsa came in with four children of different races: one was their biological child and three were adopted.

  Judge Eugene Hamilton, an African American, and his wife, Ginny, pushed wheelchairs down the aisle on which sat identical twin children with cerebral palsy—white kids. I learned they had taken in dozens of hard-to-place kids of every race, some straight from the judge’s DC Superior Court, where social workers brought them from abusive or negligent parents.

  A couple across the aisle from us arrived with a child with Down syndrome who was happily embraced by the congregation and passed from lap to lap during the service. A woman presided over Communion; another chaired the congregation—our first church with women leaders. From the bulletin I also learned that Heritage members tutored neighborhood kids after school and ran a used clothes and grocery distribution center.

  We had never belonged to a church like this, and we were thrilled. This community looked the way I imagine the heavenly banquet will, where everyone is welcome.

  Another positive change in our home life came shortly after I took charge of Mondale’s protection. Carolyn loved being a trial attorney, and the extra income allowed us to move from Silver Spring to North Potomac, Maryland. We bought a large, brand-new house on two acres with a swimming pool and a forest behind us full of deer and wildlife and a stream that ran into the Potomac River. I planted apple and peach trees and raised chickens and a turkey that followed me everywhere I went. With my little tractor, big garden, and poultry I fancied myself a farmer. I thought about my dad, who grew up on a farm in Ohio and always loved nature and living creatures. I missed him.

  The space evoked my contemplative nature. I loved to sit outside amid the natural beauty and feel close to God. I read the Bible and also continued to be inspired by Thomas Merton. About that time Pastor Dick introduced me to another Catholic contemplative writer and activist, Henri Nouwen, in person and through his writings. Nouwen would later become a personal friend.

  Our new place was idyllic—except for the longer commute to work and my worry about our teenagers’ daily drive back to their old high school (which we hesitantly allowed). And Heritage Christian Church was now more than twenty miles away.

  My promotion to SAIC of the VPPD for Mondale became official September 18, 1978.

  Though my team members now addressed me as “Mr. Parr” or “sir,” I was proud to be a simple agent. Even later on, when I became assistant director of the Secret Service, I always answered my phone “Agent Parr.” It sometimes evoked surprised laughter on the other end—and sometimes distress by peers who considered it undignified. But I really thought of myself as an agent first. I didn’t dwell on my job title, and I never demanded respect but always received it.

  By this time I understood security at all levels, from standing post to leading complex advances to relating to world leaders at the highest levels. Administration, however, was never my strong suit. Fortunately, I was blessed with great deputies: Barney Boyett on VPPD, then Bob DeProspero on PPD and Ed Walsh in Protective Research.

  Jimmy Taylor had left Mondale’s detail in good shape. It had the strength of experience and the eagerness of youth. I was glad because I wanted to avoid the “box phenomenon.” That’s the trap a detail can get caught in w
hen there’s an imbalance of youth and experience. Advances are critical and often complicated. But if the most-experienced agents are out on advance and the Man is surrounded with new agents, there’s added danger in case of attack. On the other hand, if all the new agents are doing advances, then risk increases away from home. Agents can get trapped in one box or another. I tried to open the ends of the box, to maintain a flow of experience to enthusiastic young agents from veterans who could mentor them and to move agents back and forth between personal protective assignments and advances.

  I expected to stay with Mondale quite a while.

  I didn’t hear Mondale talk much about God, but I knew that Walter Mondale’s father was a Methodist minister with a strong social conscience, and the vice president grew up believing that Christians should help the poor. His wife, Joan, was also a preacher’s kid. As a college student Mondale had helped Hubert Humphrey get elected mayor. After law school Mondale managed Orville Freeman’s race for governor of Minnesota in 1958. The next year Governor Freeman appointed him state attorney general, at thirty-one, the youngest in America. Mondale prosecuted consumer fraud and protected civil rights. He won reelection twice by wider margins than any other state candidate. Like his mentor Humphrey, he was passionate about lifting the underdog.

  In his interview with Carter, Mondale had made it clear he was not interested in a ceremonial vice presidency; he’d rather remain a senator in that case. That impressed Carter. He gave Mondale an office in the West Wing and ordered his staff to work closely with Mondale’s people. Unlike his predecessors, Carter would rely strongly on Mondale’s advice and would bring him into every important meeting and decision.

  Middle East peace talks were no exception.

  Perhaps because of his strong biblical roots, President Carter longed to see peace in the Middle East. He convened a meeting between Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, and Israel’s prime minister, Menachem Begin, which began at Camp David on September 5, 1978. The president took two old enemies and put them in a monastic environment—with a skeletal staff and no press—where they had to talk to each other. And they did. I saw Begin and Sadat walking side by side on a wooded path at Camp David, alone.[65]

  Carter’s role began as mediator but progressed to active participant, including drafting the final agreement. The US team was Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Since Carter remained on-site, Mondale stayed in Washington to handle whatever might come up.

  But on the evening of September 14, 1978, President Carter urgently summoned the vice president to Camp David. After eight days of intense back and forth, negotiations were faltering. The parties seemed to have hit an impasse. Carter knew the Israelis trusted Mondale and thought his presence could be crucial in getting the talks unstuck.

  At 10:55 on the night of September 14, we took a helicopter, Marine 2, from DC to Camp David and landed in the middle of what looked like a failure. Mondale went directly to the cabin where Vance and Brzezinski were meeting. I was not privy to the talks and can’t say what happened. But the stalemate was broken. Eleven days after the talks began—and three days after Mondale arrived—Begin and Sadat signed the Camp David Accords on September 17, 1978.

  Looking back, it still seems to me that getting the agreement was a brilliant diplomatic coup. It would be the crowning achievement of Carter’s presidency. It didn’t buy him much traction from the US public, but it won him the Nobel Peace Prize.

  I was with Mondale only a year—not long enough even to see his family move into the official vice president’s mansion at the Naval Observatory, the first vice president to actually live there. While I was in charge of the VPPD, my old friend John Simpson headed the White House detail. In May 1979 an announcement from Headquarters came in over the wires: Simpson would be promoted to assistant director of Protective Operations.

  I was honored—and humbled—to be chosen to lead the Presidential Protective Division.

  Lost in the lush sound of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, I was jarred back to reality by the insistent buzz of my pager. Offering up a silent prayer of thanks for my aisle seat in the darkened Kennedy Center, I whispered to Carolyn, “Sit tight” as I left to take the call in the lobby.

  Roger Counts was calling from Camp David. “The president ran out of gas.”

  “What was he driving?” I couldn’t understand why that was an emergency.

  “Not that kind of gas,” Roger explained. “Oxygen. He was jogging up a hill here, trying to outrun some younger guys. They saw him turning gray and tried to get him to stop, but he kept going. Then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed. Jack Smith, Dale Wilson, and I threw him in the car and took him back to Aspen.”

  “Aspen” was the name of the central cabin at Camp David, where people ate communally and larger meetings took place.

  I knew that hill. Carter had run up it twice before, to practice. On this day he was with runners in their twenties, and he wanted to race, to run and run and run. He couldn’t keep up, but he wouldn’t quit. His spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak. His body shut down.

  Roger continued, “Dr. Voss got a line of glucose in him. He’s okay now, but it’s going to be in tomorrow’s Washington Post, so I thought you should know.”

  I went back to the concert hall, but my ability to get lost in the music had vanished. I was concerned about this news but not surprised. I had already learned that Carter was a president who loved to take risks.[66]

  Going from vice presidential security to the White House was like moving from a suburban house to a palace. (In fact, before the Mondales occupied the new vice presidential mansion, that had been literally true.) The difference can be summed up in four letters: M-O-R-E. With a president there is more of everything. More threats. More agents. More press attention. More micromanagement from Headquarters. More perks.

  And much, much more anxiety.

  Since 1968—an aberrant year in every respect—only a few people have wanted to kill a vice president. But as the nation’s ultimate authority figure, a president attracts crazies. A deranged person may see him as a neglectful or abusive father. To a religious fanatic, he may be the Antichrist. A revolutionary may hold the president responsible for the oppression of his or her people. A Nazi may believe the president wants to destroy the white race. Whatever the delusion, and whoever holds it, many people see the president of the United States as the ultimate enemy.

  Mondale attracted very few threats. But like all other presidents, Carter drew hundreds a day. Credible threats: people who had the will to kill and the means to follow through.

  About forty-five agents now guarded the vice president, but the White House detail had one hundred twenty. Administration and logistics were magnified: scheduling shifts, advances, days off, reviews, times for physicals and for shooting. Fortunately, I could rely on Bob DeProspero to cover that. But since I thought it important to know the agents on a personal level, I practiced “management by walking around.” I often dropped in to W-16, the Secret Service work space directly beneath the Oval Office, just to take the pulse. It made me accessible and kept me in the loop about potential problems in a way I could not be if I stayed in my office all day.

  There was another change I had to get used to: all day, every day, the national press scrutinize a president for the smallest misstatement or mistake. They watch us, as well. Regardless of political party, I learned that most presidential staffs—and most Secret Service leaders—regard the press with suspicion.

  Tensions also arise between every White House staff and security. We have different jobs: they look after the president’s political health, and we look after his safety. One requires high visibility; the other sometimes favors high fences.

  I refused to buy into the notion that press and staff were the enemies of security. They had their jobs; we had ours. Sometimes we clashed. But whenever possible, by speaking respectfully and frankly about any problem that
arose, I sought a collaborative win-win solution. I did understand the danger of being sucked into their differing agendas, and I hope I avoided that. But I treated White House press and staff as friends and colleagues. I got to know Helen Thomas, Sam Donaldson, Bill Plante, Judy Woodruff, Andrea Mitchell, and others. Chris Matthews, now host of MSNBC’s Hardball, was a young speechwriter for Carter. As a former Capitol Hill police officer, Matthews shared an affinity of spirit with the agents. He still does.

  I didn’t realize it then, but the bread I was casting on the water would come back to me very soon.

  Privileges came with the job as well as headaches. I could park on the White House grounds. I had a huge, beautiful office in the Old Executive Office Building. I rode on Air Force One. I could eat at the most exclusive dining room in Washington: the White House mess. The name is misleading—the dining room is more like that of an elegant private club, with a lovely formal setting. China and crystal, table linens, gourmet menu. Uniformed waiters. (I did get a monthly bill for my meals.)

  Absolutely anyone—generals, senators, cabinet members, top media celebrities—would take my phone calls. It’s a good thing I was nearly fifty years old and had a wife who kept me grounded. This was heady stuff.

  But I never forgot for a single moment that my charge was to keep the leader of the free world alive. The thought of what could happen shadowed my days and troubled my dreams. A special telephone line direct to the White House was installed in my Potomac den. It seldom rang, but if it did, whoever was in the house sprang to answer it. Most often, in later years, it was Mrs. Reagan with a question or suggestion or concern—which I always took to heart. Once a king was on the other end of the line.