In the Secret Service

by Jerry Parr

  Dennis Finch drove slowly through the crowd, trying to see between the president’s legs dangling down over the windshield. That wasn’t in the manual either.

  Since I couldn’t complain about everything, I had to pick my battles. But if I did warn the president about something—with great seriousness—he listened and took my advice. Some things I just had to live with. We walked in a bubble of grace.

  In any crowd agents look at hands and eyes. An agent went along the rope line ahead of the president, saying to the crowd, “Please pull your hands out of your pockets. We need to see your hands.”

  At one stop Jimmy Ventola was working the rope line up ahead. I was on the president’s left, and Tom Holman was behind him. Holman thought Ventola wasn’t getting the hands out fast enough, and he shouted, “Talk to ’em, Jimmy! Talk to ’em!”

  Carter turned around to Holman with a surprised look and said, “I am talking to ’em!”

  Besides hands, we also look at eyes. Most people in a crowd are anticipatory, excited, happy to see the president. We look for eyes that glitter with hatred—or faces with no expression.

  As I would learn a few months later, one young man with an expressionless face had been present at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, on October 2, 1980, and again in Nashville on October 9. He was stalking President Carter.[75] He wanted to kill a president.

  His name was John Hinckley Jr.

  The last day of the campaign—November 3, 1980—was a heavy day. ASAIC Bob Horan and an eight-agent shift were with me. We started in the Midwest with two stops in Missouri and one in Michigan. We flew from there to Portland and Seattle. It was getting late. En route, the president got a report that the latest polls in key states indicated the election would not be close. He knew he had lost before he got to Portland. But there were big crowds waiting in Portland and Seattle, and the president campaigned bravely to the end, knowing it was futile.

  The air was thick with sadness late that night, flying back to Plains, where Carter would vote.

  Reagan won 90.9 percent of the electoral votes.[76] It was a crushing landslide. Like me, my youngest daughter, Trish, then ten years old, always hurts for the loser. When I got home, she asked me, “Daddy, how does the president feel?”

  “Well, honey, he’s grieving. And wounded.”

  “Will he ever feel better?”

  I thought for a long minute before I answered. “Yes, I believe he will. God has called him to be a peacemaker. And God will make a way for him to answer that call.”

  Presidential transitions are always stressful. I decided to stay with Carter and send Bob DeProspero and a few key PPD agents to go with President-Elect Reagan. I made a revolving transition, sending people back and forth so Reagan and his staff would get to know us and how we worked, and vice versa.

  There’s a big difference between working a candidate, a president-elect, and a president. Reagan had been a candidate in ’68, ’72, and ’76, so he already had three opportunities to work with the Secret Service. He knew John Simpson and a lot of agents. Somewhere in that interlude I met Reagan’s chief of staff, Mike Deaver, and Mrs. Reagan. So when I rode to the inauguration with President Carter and President-Elect Reagan, in the backseat of the limousine together, my face was familiar to both of them. From my perspective it was an easy transition.

  On Inauguration Day, the choreography at the White House is planned to the last second. The incoming president and spouse arrive, are greeted and enjoy a few minutes of friendly chatter with the current residents, get in a limo, and ride together to the Capitol, where the change in command will take place at high noon.

  Then everything at the mansion goes into fast-forward. All photos of current occupants, as well as personal items, are wrapped, labeled, catalogued, boxed, and removed. Photos of the new president, selected ahead of time, are hung. This happens not only in the family living quarters, but also in all hallways, all offices of all prior staffers, the Oval Office—everywhere. All party symbols are changed. Closets are cleared out, and any unpacked clothing is boxed and shipped to the former first family’s forwarding address. It’s a massive undertaking. And it’s always done unobtrusively and to perfection in about three hours’ time.

  Until the very last minute, President Carter had continued to seek release of the hostages. Then, on the morning of the inauguration, word came that the hostages were sitting in an airplane on the runway in Tehran, preparing to take off.

  Before we got in the limousine, Carter said, “Jerry, I’ve given instructions for the military to radio you the minute the airplane takes off. If I’m still president, I don’t care what’s happening, you let me know. Will you?”

  “Yes, sir. I will.” I was touched by Carter’s trust.

  President Reagan knew about this and agreed.

  All during the inauguration I listened for the word that never came. As he left the podium after the ceremony to board a helicopter, Carter caught my eye. He sounded weary. “They never called, did they?”

  “No, Mr. President. No one called. I’m sorry.” He just looked down at his feet, seemed to gather his thoughts, and walked away.

  The ayatollah had his revenge. Thirty minutes after Ronald Reagan became president, the hostages were airborne for Germany.[77]

  CHAPTER 9

  SHOTS FIRED! MEN DOWN!

  We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V

  MARCH 30, 1981

  President Reagan and I were six or seven feet from the open car door when I heard two staccato shots, followed by four more. Loud, shrill, piercing—stinging the ear. A sound I recognized from years of shooting practice. I’d been waiting for that sound for almost nineteen years and hoping it would never come.

  But I didn’t think about that. No time to think. Training and muscle memory took over.

  At the sound of the first shot I was already moving. Cover and evacuate. I grabbed President Reagan by the back of his belt and pants, pushed his head down with my right hand, and hurled him into the car. At the same moment Ray Shaddick thrust us both forward. We flew into the limo behind Tim McCarthy—who faced the shooter and spread out his big Irish body to extend the protection of the armored door as we threw the president behind it.

  Reagan extended his arms to block the fall, his chest smashing into the transmission riser with my full weight on top of him, his head hitting the seat. Then Shaddick shoved our feet and legs in and slammed the door behind us.

  “Get out of here! Go! Go! Go!” I yelled. Three seconds from the time the first shot was fired, the limo took off.

  Driver Drew Unrue hit the gas, and we burned out, heading for “Crown”—the White House, the safest place. As I helped the president to a sitting position, I noticed a mark on the right rear bulletproof window. That window had stopped a shot. Through the back window, I saw three men down on the sidewalk. I began to absorb it: Someone really tried to kill the president.

  Unlike President Carter, Reagan paid attention to security. A three-time candidate, he’d always worked well with the Secret Service. He had formed a personal relationship with the temporary detail that protected him when he sought the Republican nomination in 1976. In fact, after losing to Ford, Reagan wrote detail leader Joe Parris:

  October 7, 1976

  Dear Joe:

  This is to report serious deficiencies in the security at both the Palisades location and Rancho del Cielo. It has been a matter of some several weeks now and we’ve been unable to detect any on-site personnel at either location. In fact, we seriously doubt that the agent caught in the chimney last Christmas eve is still on duty. In lighting a fire in the fireplace, we hear no coughing or choking sounds.

  At the ranch, the lion has been sighted virtually in the front yard, Ft. Drone is showing signs of deterioration due to lack of occupancy, and Gwalianko and No Strings have been asking why the little chestnut filly doesn’t come around anymore. Worst
of all no one brings us the morning paper.

  If my wearing a gun lately is the reason for your invisibility, come out, come out wherever you are, and I’ll take it off.

  Seriously, Nancy and I miss you all very much. Barney and Dennis walk by the windows now and then to cheer us up, but things just aren’t the same. The other night we were going out to dinner and both of us got in the back seat and waited for you to get in and drive. Nancy Reynolds [a family friend] is learning Karate and Rocket has left home (to go to Yale).

  Please know how grateful we all are for all that you did. We miss you and wish you all the very best.

  Sincerely,

  Ronald Reagan[78]

  The president took our suggestions, grumbling only occasionally about the discomfort of a bulletproof vest, even as he put it on. I grimaced to think he wasn’t wearing one that day. The Hilton was an easy, familiar site to protect, one our charges used all the time—the last place I expected any trouble.

  At the moment we careered out of the hotel driveway, Carolyn was tearing across the street, desperate to identify the three bodies she saw lying there. Agent Bob Wanko, holding an Uzi (a 9-millimeter submachine gun), screamed at her, “Get back!”

  Dashing to another part of the sidewalk, she saw Press Secretary Jim Brady lift his grievously wounded bald head. She knew he wasn’t me.

  Then she heard a woman screaming. Realizing it was her own voice, she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle it. In desperation she ran back to Wanko, who was watching her. “I’m Jerry Parr’s wife! Where is he?”

  He pointed. “In the car. With the Man.”

  In the car, I was half sitting, half kneeling on the floor before the president. Checking him for blood, I methodically worked my hands around his body from the belt line up, under each arm, along his back, neck, and head—looking for blood, feeling for a wound or a painful spot. With immeasurable relief, I assessed that he had escaped unharmed, at least for the moment. But there was no telling what dangers might still be lurking. We needed to secure the president.

  I radioed Shaddick in the follow-up car. “Rawhide is okay. We’re going to Crown.” I had a choice to make: head to the ultrasecure White House or divert to George Washington University Hospital. I chose the White House.

  But about twenty seconds into the run, I noticed the seventy-year-old president was pale, and he grimaced every time he took a breath.

  I asked, “Is it your heart?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said in a soft, clear voice. Then, matter-of-factly, “I think you broke my rib.”

  I caught my breath. All I could think was, God, I hope not!

  The president took a napkin from his pocket and touched it to his lips. It filled with blood. “I must have cut the inside of my mouth,” he said. But I remembered my “Ten Minute Medicine” class: frothy, bright red blood was oxygenated—a sign of a lung injury. My own heart was pounding, though my head was clear. Maybe I hurt him when he hit the riser! What if a rib punctured a lung? What if I killed the president trying to save him?

  His pallor was now gray and his lips were blue. His breathing was becoming more labored. As we passed through the tunnel under Dupont Circle, I made a decision. “Mr. President, we’re going to GW Hospital.”

  I saw concern and strength in his eyes. He didn’t argue.

  We’d left the follow-up car and the entire presidential motorcade in the dust, but they managed to catch up. Unrue radioed Agent Mary Ann Gordon. “We want to go to the emergency room of George Washington.” The lead police car overtook us and went in front as usual. What was not usual was that no agent was in it. That meant they didn’t get the radio message of our revised destination and sped on to the White House. Mary Ann Gordon pulled ahead of us to replace the lead car and take the brunt of any traffic we might encounter. I grabbed Unrue’s mike (mine had torn off my belt as I hit the limo floor) and ordered Shaddick, “Get an ambulance. I mean, get a stretcher out there. Let’s hustle!” Our sirens were wailing as we tore toward the hospital on Washington Circle.

  “Should I take a shortcut and go the wrong way around the circle?” Unrue asked. Seconds were precious, but I said no. The last thing we needed was a head-on collision.

  We screeched to a halt at the GW entrance at 2:30 p.m., just under three minutes from the time we peeled out of the Hilton driveway.[79] Shaddick leaped out of the follow-up car and opened our door. I climbed over the president and extended my hand, but he didn’t take it. Though pale and gaunt, he was determined to walk in on his own steam. I was on his left, no more than two inches away. Shaddick was on his right. Dale McIntosh and Russ Miller caught up with us to create a circle of protection around him. As we walked about twenty feet, the president’s eyes suddenly rolled back in his head and he dropped. Shaddick and I caught him as he collapsed. Nearly two hundred pounds of deadweight. The four of us and an ambulance attendant carried him to Trauma Room 5 in George Washington Hospital’s emergency room.

  President Reagan was pale. The doctors and nurses immediately ripped off his clothes and took his vitals. I heard a nurse say his blood pressure was too low to get a systolic reading. His pulse was faint. At first the team suspected a heart attack.

  Feeling helpless and sick to my stomach, I tried unsuccessfully to stifle the nagging memory of JFK and the fear of losing another president. I did the only thing I knew to do: I told Shaddick, “Set up a perimeter.”

  Later the Treasury lawyers preparing for a congressional inquiry had a hard time understanding what that meant. But every agent knows how to set up a perimeter: we start with the president’s body and systematically cut off access to him. I stayed with the president, close enough to observe without hindering the trauma team.

  When an emergency room nurse caught my eye, I asked her, “Do you know all the doctors who belong in here?” She nodded. I told her, “We don’t have time to check people out. If you let them in, they’ll come in. If you don’t, McIntosh will keep them out.”

  She may have ticked people off, but that nurse did her job. Word traveled with lightning speed through the hospital, and many doctors started to show up just to watch a part of history: pediatricians, gynecologists, whoever. But the right people got in, and those who didn’t belong were turned away. It may have looked like chaos to an outsider, but that perimeter held.

  Joseph Giordano, the surgeon in charge, and his trauma team found the wound, a narrow slit. I thought for a moment that maybe the corner of the door had hit him. A surgical intern who had been in Vietnam recognized it as a bullet wound. It wasn’t round; the president had been hit by a ricocheted bullet, flattened out like a dime. We later surmised it struck the car and bounced through the narrow space between the car frame and the door, which opened toward the back. It must have hit the president’s left side as he threw his arms forward to catch himself. Because he held his arm close to his side in the car, his arm had closed the wound. That’s why there had been no blood on the outside.

  I could hardly believe it. A lone bullet from the would-be assassin, who I would later learn was John Hinckley Jr., had found its mark. And now the president was suffering massive internal bleeding.

  Giordano got a chest tube in to suck out the blood, then gave the president a transfusion and glucose; his blood pressure started to rise almost immediately. He quickly regained consciousness and looked puzzled. He could speak, and his mind was clear. A doctor on the trauma team asked, “Mr. President, do you know what happened?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Someone shot you. There’s a wound on your left side. We’re giving you blood. In a few minutes we’ll take you to the operating room and remove the bullet.”

  I silently prayed, Lord, let him live.

  Then another doctor said what the president and all of us wanted desperately to hear, but something of which he himself was unsure: “You’re going to be fine.”

  Soon Mrs. Reagan arrived, along with her agents. She rushed to his side, frantic with worry. At the sight o
f her, his face lit up. With a twinkle in his eye, he said, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

  Mike Deaver (deputy chief of staff) had come in the follow-up car from the Hilton; soon Jim Baker (chief of staff), and Ed Meese (counselor to the president for policy) hurried in. When the president saw his “Troika,” he began to crack one-liners. “Who’s minding the store?” he asked, with a wink to Baker.

  With mock seriousness, he turned to me and said about the doctors, “I hope these guys are Republicans.” I smiled. Later in the operating room, he would repeat that wish to the doctors there, and they burst out laughing. Dr. Giordano, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, assured him, “Mr. President, today we’re all Republicans.” It broke the terrible tension.

  Always considerate of others, Reagan was playing the consummate host, putting his guests at ease even in the emergency room. It worked. I even began to relax a little. But the relief was premature. From the number of transfusions he was getting, I could see that the president was still losing blood at an alarming rate. (Half his body’s blood, I later learned.) The low blood pressure was a sign of shock: first symptoms are weakness, loss of control. Then the body’s organs begin to shut down. There is a point of no return from so much blood loss.

  The ER was beginning to look like a battlefield. Soon Jim Brady arrived. He was still conscious, with gray matter oozing from his head. Tim McCarthy was also brought to the ER. None of them could see each other.

  The other wounded man was a policeman, Thomas Delahanty, who was taken to the Washington Hospital Center because GW couldn’t handle any more. All the men who took a bullet that day were Irish. By God’s grace they all survived, though Jim Brady would never fully recover.