In the Secret Service

by Jerry Parr

  President Carter liked to ride on top of cars, waving at the crowd. My left hand is holding him by the belt.

  Surprise fiftieth- birthday cake on Air Force One as President Carter looks on

  Behind President Reagan right before John Hinckley Jr. fired. Tim McCarthy, who was hit, is at the right.

  Relying on my training and quick instincts, I pushed the president into the limo as shots were fired.

  Leaving George Washington Hospital on April 11, 1981, the Reagans smile at applauding nurses while I look grim. Patti Reagan is on the right.

  Trish, Kim, me, President Reagan, Carolyn, and Jennifer (right after I retired)

  Carolyn, now a lawyer, and me

  I checked out the bus bound for El Salvador.

  Amparo Palacios and me, in love with Salvadoran orphans

  Letter I received from Nancy Reagan, October 2012

  A grateful hug from First Lady Nancy Reagan

  With four presidents—Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon—and two first ladies

  NOTES

  [1] Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory (New York: Penguin, 1990), 12.

  [2] Code of the Secret Service was a 1939 film that Reagan later claimed was the worst movie he’d ever made. The budget was so low he had to do his own stunts.

  [3] This story is told by James Douglass in JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (Maryknoll, NY: Touchstone, 2008), 225–26.

  [4] Hebrews 11:8, KJV.

  [5] Edwin B. Kurtz and Thomas Shoemaker, The Lineman’s Handbook (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1928, 1942, 1955). The dedication, “Knights of the Spur” by Edwin B. Kurtz, reads, “To all linemen everywhere, those twentieth-century knights of the spur who serve for only one cause, ‘just service to man. . . .’” I believed then and believe now that being a power lineman is a noble calling.

  [6] 1 Peter 4:8.

  [7] The dates and events in this and subsequent chapters have been confirmed by my daily and weekly reports, which I saved since my first day in the Service; interviews with other agents; and contemporary news reports. Agent Hal Thomas, who followed me, was especially helpful in confirming many details of life in the New York field office.

  [8] See “Fourteen Days in October: The Cuban Missile Crisis,” by Kurt Wiersma and Ben Larson, http://library.advanced.org/11046/. See also “Cuban Missile Crisis,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Cuban-Missile-Crisis.aspx.

  [9] A poster of Kennedy, front and side view with caption, read “Wanted for TREASON.” See “11/22/63, the Warren Commission, and the ‘torrid atmosphere of political rage in Dallas,’ 1963,” Historiann (blog), November 21, 2011, http://www.historiann.com/2011/11/21/112263-the-warren-commission-and-the-torrid-atmosphere-of-political-rage-in-dallas-1963/. “Reader letters to the Dallas Morning News, 1963,” collected by New York magazine’s 48th anniversary of JFK’s death, November 20, 2011, http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/dallas-morning-news-2011-11/.

  [10] “Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty.aspx.

  [11] “Walter Cronkite announces death of JFK,” YouTube video, 5:44, original CBS news broadcast on November 22, 1963, posted by “maxpowers518,” March 27, 2009, accessed May 12, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K8Q3cqGs7I.

  [12] “1963: Kennedy: ‘Ich bin ein Berliner,’” BBC News, On This Day, June 26, 1963, http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/26/newsid_3379000/3379061.stm; “Kennedy—I am a Berliner—Ich Bin Ein Berliner,” YouTube video, 4:42, posted by “forquignon,” November 5, 2006, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH6nQhss4Yc.

  [13] “Radio and TV Address on Civil Rights, 11 June 1963: Executive,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHCSF-0926-041.aspx; “John F. Kennedy Civil Rights Address 11 June 1963 Part2,” YouTube video, 7:01, posted by “zzahier,” March 23, 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkOlCU5aMcM.

  [14] “Disgraced Dallas Delivers Apologies for Mistreatment of Adlai Stevenson,” originally printed in the Schenectady Gazette, October 22, 1963, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1917&dat=19631022&id=MnUhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_4gFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5988,4423922. According to Warren Leslie, in the 1960 campaign, racists in Dallas opposed to Johnson’s support for civil rights cursed and spat on LBJ, and Mrs. Johnson as well. Leslie, former reporter for the Dallas Morning News, wrote Dallas Public and Private: Aspects of an American City, published four months after Kennedy’s assassination. At the time he wrote the book, he was a vice president and chief spokesperson for Neiman Marcus.

  [15] Roger Warner, Secret Service agent, personal interview by the author, May 27, 2012. Warner was an agent in the Dallas field office when John F. Kennedy was shot.

  [16] “The Day the President Was Shot,” http://www.allangrant.com/oswaldstory.htm. Accessed on April 10, 2013. For a sample of Marguerite Oswald, see “1964 Interview with Marguerite Oswald,” YouTube video, 4:29, posted by David VonPein, May 28, 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxVozhyf6SI.

  [17] W. Tracy Parnell, “The Exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald and the Norton Report,” parts 1 and 2, 2003, http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/parnell/lhox1.htm and http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/parnell/lhox2.htm.

  [18] The Zapruder film can be seen on YouTube. “The Undamaged Zapruder Film,” 1:25, posted by Robert Harris, April 15, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq1PbgeBoQ4.

  [19] In addition to my own memory and contemporaneous notes, I mined the memories of Agents Walter Coughlin, Tom Wells, Hal Thomas, Mike Weinstein, Roger Manthe, and others.

  [20] George Reedy, The Twilight of the Presidency.

  [21] The Naval Observatory is America’s official timekeeper. It houses an atomic clock and monitors complete sun and moon data for the US Navy. The nineteenth-century mansion previously housed the US chief of naval operations. See “The Vice President’s Residence & Office,” the website of the White House, www.whitehouse.gov/about/vp-residence.

  [22] The resolution authorized the president to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” It passed both houses of Congress in August 1964 with no dissents in the House and only two in the Senate. There was never a declaration of war in Vietnam, but President Johnson used this resolution in its place.

  [23] Lyndon B. Johnson, “President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Address at Johns Hopkins University: ‘Peace Without Conquest,’” April 7, 1965, LBJ Presidential Library, http://www.lbjlibrary.net/collections/selected-speeches/1965/04-07-1965.html.

  [24] “The East Room,” The White House Historical Association, accessed May 15, 2012, http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_history/whitehouse_tour-east-room.html.

  [25] I was on the trip but elsewhere in Vietnam when this occurred. Walt Coughlin, Secret Service agent (Deputy SAIC at the time of the incident), personal interview by the author, May 27, 2012.

  [26] Walt Coughlin was with me and overheard this exchange. Coughlin interview.

  [27] Tom Wells, Secret Service agent, personal interview by the author, May 26, 2012.

  [28] “Watts Riots,” Civil Rights Digital Library, http://crdl.usg.edu/events/watts_riots/?Welcome&Welcome.

  [29] Wells interview.

  [30] Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Friday, March 31, 1967, extracted from the Internet via www.newspaperarchive.com.

  [31] Hal Thomas, Secret Service agent, personal interview by the author.

  [32] Lawrence Kushner, Eyes Remade for Wonder (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1998), 62.

  [33] “Dr. Benjamin M. Spock,” the website of Oregon Public Broadcasting, http://www.pbs.org/opb/thesixties/topics/war/newsmakers_3.html; “Jane Fonda & The Vietnam War,” the website of Wellesley College, http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Vietimages/fonda.htm; “1967: Joan Baez arrested in Vietnam protest,” BBC News, On This Day, October 16, 1967, http://news.bbc.co.u
k/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/16/newsid_2535000/2535301.stm.

  [34] Matthew 5:44.

  [35] Hal Thomas, Secret Service agent, personal interview by the author.

  [36] Walt Coughlin, Secret Service agent, personal interview by the author, May 27, 2012.

  [37] “Walter Cronkite’s ‘We Are Mired In Stalemate’ Broadcast, February 27, 1968,” University of Richmond, https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/cronkite_1968.html.

  [38] “President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Address to the Nation Announcing Steps to Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not to Seek Reelection, March 31, 1968,” LBJ Presidential Library, http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/680331.asp.

  [39] Coughlin interview.

  [40] “History,” Columbia University 1968 Conference website, http://www.columbia1968.com/history.

  [41] Don Bendickson, Secret Service agent, personal interview by author, June 16, 2012; Thomas interview.

  [42] Coughlin interview.

  [43] “1968 Democratic National Convention (August 26–29, 1968),” South Loop Historical Society, http://www.southloophistory.org/events/1968convention.htm. For more information about the Chicago Convention and riots, see “Brief History of Chicago’s 1968 Democratic Convention,” CNN All Politics, http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventions/chicago/facts/chicago68/index.shtml. See photos: http://chictrib.image2.trb.com/chinews/media/photo/2007-12/34472391.jpg; http://chictrib.image2.trb.com/chinews/media/photo/2007-12/34472412.jpg; Haynes Johnson, “1968 Democratic Convention: The Bosses Strike Back,” Smithsonian magazine, August 2008, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/1968-democratic-convention.html.

  [44] Thanks to agents Sam Sulliman, Clint Hill, and Ed Pollard for augmenting my own recollections.

  [45] For a contemporaneous account of Agnew’s court appearance and resignation see the New York Times account by James M. Naughton, “Agnew Quits Vice Presidency and Admits Tax Evasion in ’67; Nixon Consults on Successor,” October 10, 1973, New York Times Learning Network, http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1010.html. Also, much material is available through the Maryland State Archives, www.msa.md.gov. See also Britannica Encyclopedia online, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/9318/Spiro-T-Agnew?overlay=true&assemblyId=61044, showing a photo of the vice president leaving the courthouse with me on one side and Agent Jimmy Taylor on the other.

  [46] Ed Pollard, an agent in the follow-up car (who later became assistant director for Protective Operations), recalls, “We were told the VP was going to Baltimore that day, but were not told we’d be going to the courthouse. . . . We were all stunned that that’s where we were. Agnew pled. We were shocked, did not want to believe it.” Agent Ed Pollard, personal interview with the author, July 18, 2012.

  [47] Even after Agnew resigned and pled nolo contendere, conservative columnist William S. White quoted Goldwater approvingly as saying that Agnew was “hounded from office” and excoriated the Justice Department for publicly “crowing over the broken body” of the vice president. William S. White, United Feature Syndicate column, October 17, 1973.

  [48] Agnew’s resignation letter to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Nixon and Nixon’s response, all on October 10, 1973, are a part of the national archives. A link to them can be found at the website of the Maryland State Archives, http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/001400/001486/images/nixonletter.jpg.

  [49] Agnew’s statement to the court is available at the website of the Maryland State Archives, http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/001400/001486/images/agnewstatement.jpg, reprinted in U.S. News & World Report, October 22, 1973.

  [50] For a discussion of this, see “Kickbacks, Agnew Payoffs Part of Maryland’s Political Back-Scratching,” by David Goeller, Associated Press, October 11, 1973. Published in the Daily Mail, Hagerstown, MD.

  [51] “Spiro Agnew and the Golden Age of Corruption in Maryland Politics: An Interview with Ben Bradlee and Richard Cohen of The Washington Post,” Center for the Study of Democracy, vol. 2, no. 1 (Fall 2006), http://www.smcm.edu/democracy/_assets/_documents/agnewpaper.pdf.

  [52] William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7.

  [53] Matthew 7:1, KJV.

  [54] Watergate has been written about extensively. A good summary can be found at “Watergate Scandal,” History Channel website, www.history.com/topics/watergate.

  [55] Carroll Kilpatrick, “Nixon Forces Firing of Cox; Richardson, Ruckelshaus Quit,” Washington Post, October 21, 1973, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/102173-2.htm.

  [56] “Report That Pompidou May Cut Short His Visit; 10,000 Demonstrate in Chicago,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 2, 1970, http://archive.jta.org/article/1970/03/02/2952573/report-that-pompidou-may-cut-short-his-visit-10000-demonstrate-in-chicago.

  [57] Albin Krebs, “Léopold Senghor Dies at 95; Senegal’s Poet of Négritude,” New York Times, December 21, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/21/world/leopold-senghor-dies-at-95-senegal-s-poet-of-negritude.html. See also Mark Doyle, “Senegal’s ‘poet president’ dies,” BBC news, December 20, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1722156.stm.

  [58] D. Darlene Simpson, “Women in Secret Service,” Women in Federal Law Enforcement website, http://www.wifle.org/conference1991/pdf/46-52.pdf.

  [59] Hirohito’s visit was widely covered in the US press. See, e.g., “The Nation: Hirohito Winds Up His Grand U.S. Tour,” Time, October 20, 1975, www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946563,00.html and “Once a God, and a Bitter Wartime Foe, Emperor Hirohito Is Now America’s Guest,” People, October 6, 1975, www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20065719,00.html.

  [60] A Google search of Abu Hassan, aka Ali Hassan Salameh, reveals material of a spy thriller. In fact, according to one source, he has been the model for characters in several novels and films, including Steven Spielberg’s Munich.

  [61] Arafat’s entire speech can be found online: “Speech of Yasser Arafat Before the UN General Assembly,” MidEastWeb: Middle East, November 13, 1974, www.mideastweb.org/arafat_at_un.htm.

  [62] Her acceptance letter arrived in April 1974.

  [63] “American President: A Reference Resource,” Miller Center, University of Virginia, http://millercenter.org/president/carter/essays/biography.

  [64] See essay by Mark O. Hatfield, with the Senate Historical Office, Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789–1993 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1997), 517–25, http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/walter_mondale.pdf.

  [65] For a chronology of the Camp David Accords, see “Camp David Day By Day,” Camp David Accords—Framework for Peace, Copyright American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, reprinted with permission, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/cddays.html. For the treaty language, see “The Camp David Accords: The Framework for Peace in the Middle East,” ibiblio online database, http://www.ibiblio.org/sullivan/docs/CampDavidAccords.html. For an overview, see also “Peace Talks at Camp David, September 1978,” PBS online, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/carter-peace/.

  [66] I mean no disrespect here. I admire him very much. As I write this, President Carter is still taking risks to help desperately poor people around the world. For biographical information see Steven H. Hochman, “Jimmy Carter,” ibiblio online database, http://www.ibiblio.org/lia/president/CarterLibrary/GeneralMaterials/Biographies/JimmyCarter-bio.html; “Jimmy Carter-Biography,” Nobelprize.org, May 7, 2013, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2002/carter-bio.html.

  [67] For an extensive discussion of the treaty talks, see Matthew M. Oyos, “Jimmy Carter and SALT II: The Path to Frustration,” American Diplomacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, December 1996, http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issues/Amdipl_2/Oyos_1.html.

  [68] For more information on the Delta Queen, see “Delta Queen Steamboat,” Natio
nal Trust for Historic Preservation, http://www.preservationnation.org/travel-and-sites/sites/eastern-region/delta-queen-steamboat.html#.UX57UaKKKDk.

  [69] For more details on President Carter and Plains, Georgia, see “Welcome to Plains, Georgia: Home of the 39th President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize Winner,” Plainsgeorgia.com, http://www.plainsgeorgia.com/plains_to_the_white_house.html.

  [70] Matthew 5:9.

  [71] For a good overview of the Iran hostage crisis, see “The Iranian Hostage Crisis,” PBS online, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/carter-hostage-crisis/; “Iran Hostage Crisis,” History Channel website, http://www.history.com/topics/iran-hostage-crisis.