Secrets of the Secret Service

by Gary J. Byrne

  Gerald Ford took office after Nixon resigned in 1974, offering to help heal the nation after the “long national nightmare” of Watergate. Though he was in office for only a little more than two years, his term saw two very critical near misses. Like Wallace before him and Reagan after him, he found himself stuck in the middle of a “fatal funnel”—a situation from which the Secret Service should be able to shield its protectee.

  Imagine, for a moment, an open football field, you’re a Secret Service agent at the fifty-yard line. Next to you are your teammates, spread out evenly along the fifty-yard line. In the center of the field is the protectee, and closely surrounding him are four agents in a diamond formation. In the end zone is an attacker. Even if one or two agents go down, the team will be able to return fire and save the day. But what if the attacker was on the fifty-yard line at your flank? And what if there were barricades or walls on both sides of you and your team, preventing an escape? Even once you identify where rapidly fired shots are coming from, you still have to clear your line of fire, as between you and the attacker are the protectee, your fellow agents, the public, and people screaming and running for their lives. This is a fatal funnel. This is the nature of the Secret Service’s extremely difficult task.

  In both instances when his life was threatened, President Ford was leaving a speaking engagement—and was in the midst of a fatal funnel as unscreened gatherers waved, shouted, and yelled. The first attempt was on September 5, 1975. President Ford left the California State Capitol building in Sacramento and moved alongside his motorcade on his walk to the California State House. He waved to an unscreened crowd of onlookers who had been allowed to gather, gawk, and cheer. The president decided to deviate so that he could shake hands with onlookers. The Secret Service allowed him to do so, knowing full well that at that moment the protection would become impractical, relying (again) almost purely on hope. A woman in the crowd, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, drew a .45-caliber Colt 1911 handgun from concealment and pulled the trigger. The only reason Ford survived was that the gunwoman—a member of the Charles Manson cult—didn’t know the difference between a single-action-only handgun and a double-action handgun. If the hammer had been cocked, the president would have been dead. It was only through luck being with the Secret Service that agents managed to grab the gun and nab the woman before she managed to fix her problem by cocking the pistol.

  In the days afterward, the news media clamored about the idea of the first female assassin to target the president—although there was the shadowy account of the possible female coconspirator in the alleged plot against George Washington.

  Another woman, Sara Jane Moore, made an attempt on Ford’s life just seventeen days later. This assassin waited in her car a block away from the president’s location. The Secret Service had interviewed her previously for making threats against the president but had deemed the threats not credible. She had practiced for the assassination with her .44-caliber magnum revolver and was an excellent shot. But just the day before, police had arrested her on an illegal handgun charge and confiscated the revolver. Due to complications in the arrest, she was released, though the revolver was confiscated. So she acquired a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun and planned to use that instead. She drove to where President Ford was exiting the St. Francis Hotel and at a distance of forty feet fired two shots from her handgun. The first missed by a few feet, but nearby was a marine veteran, Oliver Sipple, who reacted immediately, dashing out to Moore and grabbing the gun as she fired again, hitting a nearby civilian, who survived. The Secret Service covered and evacuated the president.

  During the prosecution of the assassin, it was noted that if she had used the original firearm she had practiced with, the bullet would have reached its mark. It was just by happenstance that President Ford had again thwarted death. Chance had been the deciding factor between a near miss and a catastrophic failure.

  As the Secret Service rapidly continued to expand after Director Rowley’s overhaul of the agency, begun in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, the same problems persisted. Elected in 1976, President Jimmy Carter was as reckless a president as any. An unscreened gate-crasher slipped into a White House function and was able to approach the president and dump ashes on the ground in protest before he was apprehended. In another instance, President Carter took a multiweek tour down the Mississippi River on an antique steamboat, stopping to shake hands with unscreened crowds along the way. It was a security nightmare.

  Two months later, after the new president, Ronald Reagan, took the oath of office, all the hope that had kept President Carter safe from an assassin, left him in the line of fire.

  For Agent Jerry Parr, March 30, 1981, began as a typical day. He started off with an early-morning jog and then a trip to the gun range inside the Old Post Office Building to brush up on his Model 19 revolver skills. The trip to the Washington Hilton with President Reagan for a routine speech was supposed to be just that, routine—as it had been for every other president. But exhaustion, fatigue, arrogance, and complacency finally caught up with the Secret Service, and it aligned with a would-be assassin taking his chance. It wasn’t the first time that a gap had existed in the Secret Service’s protection; it just happened to be a moment when an assassin was there to exploit it.

  Immediately surrounding the president that day were Agents Parr, Timothy McCarthy, Eric Littlejohn, James Varey, Dale McIntosh, and Raymond Shaddick. Agent Shaddick carried with him a messenger bag with collapsible bullet-resistant (what most people mistakenly call “bulletproof”) steel plates to be used as deployable hard cover. A few Uzi submachine guns were contained in nearby briefcases and vehicles for the agents to access. But the agents were prepared to fight an attack outside of twenty feet, and the crowds surrounding them outside the hotel were unscreened and within ten feet. Agent Parr believed it was unnecessary to require the president and his agents to wear their body armor, as the trip was routine, the weather was muggy, and the vests were nontailored and uncomfortable to wear.

  A psychotic stalker known to police, John Hinckley, had traveled across the state to make an attempt on Reagan’s life. But nothing unusual stuck out about him as far as the Secret Service was concerned as he waded from the unsecured crowd of onlookers to the supposedly screened press. Though agents and officers are trained in behavioral analysis, psychotics and zealots can be so mentally, emotionally, and intellectually wrecked that they seem unusually calm, instead of nervous.

  Agent Mary Ann Gordon was the lead transportation agent and organized the motorcade. Agent William Green was the lead advance agent in charge of the security measures on-site.

  As he exited the hotel after making his speech, President Reagan stopped for a brief moment on his walk to the limousine to wave to onlookers. A woman called out, “Mr. Reagan,” and the president turned, gave his signature smile and waved heartily. The walk from the hotel to the limousine was only about twelve feet—what could go wrong?

  That’s when Hinckley broke out of the unsecured crowd. He pushed in front of a man in a yellow sweater, Alfred Antonucci, an Ohio labor official. Both Hinckley and Antonucci were pressed up against the stone wall of the hotel. In the three seconds during which the president waved, his left side faced toward them. That’s when the assassin drew his .22-caliber rimfire revolver from concealment and fired as quickly as he could pull the trigger. The shots were shockingly loud—which meant they were close, not far away like the long-reverberating, echoing shots at Dealey Plaza. The bullets began to cut down the officers and agents who served as hindrances for the shots bound for the president. We used to refer to ourselves as “bullet sponges.” On the first two shots, half the agents froze, the other half reeled—where were they coming from? James Brady, the president’s press secretary, who had stuck close to the president, perhaps eager to share the limelight, caught the first bullet in the head and fell to the ground. His brain’s blood poured from his skull. Metropolitan officer Thomas Delahanty took the second bullet in the
neck and fell to the ground next to Brady. Agent Tim McCarthy turned toward the sound of the gunfire like a basketball player setting up for a block and caught the third bullet to his chest, leapt onto his toes, and dropped to the ground.

  Agent Parr pushed the president into the limousine. Agent Shadduk scooped both their legs up into the car and slammed the door closed, sealing them inside. Unbeknown to both the president and Agent Parr, the next round had slipped through the gap between the open door and the limousine, ricocheted, and sliced into the president’s lung, collapsing it. Agent Parr pushed the president to the floor and leapt on top of him shielding further incoming fire with his own body. Alfred Antonucci snapped to attention and tackled the shooter, who was rubbing shoulders with him. Local police officers piled on top of him and the assassin.

  Then agents Dennis McCarthy and Daniel Spriggs leapt into action. In the time it had taken Hinckley to pull the trigger, they hadn’t had time to draw their own guns. Instead they ran to the assassin and piled on top of the local officers. Agent Thomas Lightsey grabbed the assassin’s revolver off the pavement. Agent Robert Wanko pressed his body up against the wall, drew his Uzi, and fumbled with the stock as he looked for additional shooters.

  The gadgets, the whizbangs such as the bullet-resistant cover, had failed. There was no point in countermeasures against an attack from beyond twenty feet if the area immediately surrounding the president hadn’t been secured. The same kind of attack that had been tried and proven before was, centuries later, still working against presidents of the United States.

  The limousine sped off, and the president’s detail was split in half, with more agents securing the assassin up against the wall, a result of new training following President Kennedy’s assassination.

  Then it was up to Agent Parr to assess the situation. Should they head back to the White House, where the area was secured and the White House physician could look over the president? The second option was George Washington University Hospital. President Reagan was winded, and Agent Parr checked his body for any sign of a wound or bleeding. There was nothing. But the president’s shallow breathing only increased. Agent Parr noticed the bright red frothy blood on the president’s lip and was deeply scared. He wondered if he had punctured the president’s lung by breaking a rib when he had jumped on top of the president’s body. Agent Parr harkened back to his training, the “ten-minute medicine” course, and changed his mind about their destination.

  “We’re going to GW Hospital,” he announced.

  If it had not been for the refresher course and the split-second clear thinking of Agent Parr, the president might have been returned to the White House, where he would have suffocated by the blood filling his lungs, which then would have been unable to inflate. In the limousine, the president’s lips turned blue.

  Meanwhile, Agent Mary Ann Gordon was another hero of the day. She told two other agents with Uzis to get into her car and accompany the president’s limousine. Their vehicle pulled ahead of the “stagecoach,” the service’s code name for the president’s limousine. As they sped to the hospital, if any car ran a stop sign or red light, they would hit her car and the president’s car would be able to continue on. Her selfless act might well also have helped saved the president. She recognized in the heat of the moment that the president’s protection detail had been split in half. While they had been grabbing and throwing themselves on the assassin, the president’s detail had been thinned out. But no one knew if the attack was over, if another attacker was nearby, or if the hospital would provide another chance for an ambush.

  Back at the chaotic scene in front of the Hilton Hotel, Agent Wanko was yelling for a police squad car to pull up and take Hinckley away. Suddenly, Carolyn Parr, his colleague Jerry Parr’s wife, burst onto the scene. Carolyn looked at the officer presumed dead, his revolver lying by his head, and Brady’s split skull. She looked for her husband’s body and called out to Agent Wanko, who tried to make sense of why his colleague’s wife would be there. As it turned out, she worked nearby and Agent Parr had called to invite her to come watch the president’s exit and get a fun glimpse of her husband in action. It had gone horribly wrong.

  But her husband had made the difference, albeit narrowly, that had saved the president’s life. Had even the smallest of variables changed—the caliber of weapon Hinckley had used, Agent Parr’s decision to head to GW Hospital, or Agent Mary Ann Gordon’s decision to stick with the president and take the lead instead of hanging back to secure the assassin—the president might have not survived.

  But still the Secret Service hadn’t adequately prepared and was learning on the fly. Vice President George H. W. Bush, who was traveling on Air Force Two at the time, didn’t have secure communications and the press intercepted the discussions in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. When the press asked who was in charge of the nation, neither the White House nor the Secret Service had an answer. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, in the vacuum of certainty, declared, “As of now, I am in control here, in the White House,” and for a few hours, everyone believed he was. Once Vice President Bush returned to the White House from Texas, he was given the nuclear codes and took charge of the “crisis management” team, and the nation once again had a leader at the helm.

  As President Reagan recuperated in George Washington University Hospital for thirteen days, the Secret Service made it into a makeshift White House. The presidential powers temporarily transferred to Bush were returned to Reagan, and the significance of a peaceful return to the elected president in the wake of a crisis cannot be understated.

  An ironic happening in the immediate aftermath of the attack was that journalists, poring over the crystal-clear footage of the attack, all reported that the president had not been hit and had not been wounded. In those late days of the Cold War, when an attempt on the president’s life could initially be seen as a Soviet plot, that was fortunate. The risk of creating a flash point and a war between nations was lessened when it became clear that a lone, mentally ill gunman had been responsible. But again, that was happenstance.

  The ultimate consequence of the Reagan assassination attempt was that it not only proved that such an attack was possible but established a pattern of behavior for the Secret Service. The same kind of attack, an “approacher” with a concealed weapon, had happened in the past. “Approachers” had killed Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. They had killed presidential candidates Robert Kennedy and Louisiana governor Huey Long. They had nearly killed President Ford, candidate George Wallace, and former president Theodore Roosevelt. Now they had almost killed President Reagan.

  Any assassin who watched the footage, just as the world watched, could see that if Hinckley had made small changes, such as using a slightly larger caliber bullet, taking better aim, or using an explosive, he could have succeeded. It was painfully clear that the Secret Service was not learning from its mistakes.

  After the attack, the hope was that it would be the event that would finally spur the Secret Service to change.

  That was the hope, anyway.

  FIVE.

  TRANSITION AND TRAGEDY

  Politicians may run the town, but no one knows our nation’s capital better than cab drivers and cops.

  Sometime in 1993 or 1994, a man arrived at Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC, from a Middle Eastern country and hailed a cab from the international arrivals terminal. He told the driver to go straight to the White House. When he arrived, he got out, told the driver to wait, and walked around the White House complex, taking notes and seemingly making surveys. When he finished, he returned to the cab asked the driver to take him back to Dulles. Upon arriving, the man entered the Dulles international departures terminal and left the country.

  Suspicious of his passenger’s behavior, the cab driver drove straight back to the White House and informed the Secret Service of what he had seen.

  Soon after, every Secret Service employee, or at least those working the White House,
was informed by the same report that played in our ears via our radios. “Be advised,” it began, “at approximately… at Dulles, a taxi driver drove a man of Middle Eastern origin, approximately 35, to the White House, asked the cab driver to wait, where the man appeared to make a survey, and then got back into the cab and returned to Dulles and departed the country.”

  I was working at the White House when the incident was reported. It was strange enough that I and several others remembered it years later, when the 9/11 Commission asked government employees to come forward with any information that might be related to the attacks. We contacted the commission to share our story, but, being unsolved, it never made it into the final version of the report. The identity of the mysterious White House visitor during the Clinton years remains unknown.

  In the early 1990s, Al Qaeda killed scores of innocent people, though their prime targets were US military personnel in foreign countries. In 1993, a splinter faction infiltrated the United States, crafted a 1,200-pound bomb in New Jersey, and drove it into the parking garage of the World Trade Center. When detonated, it killed six people and injured more than a thousand. In 1996, the group targeted President Clinton on his trip to Manila, planting a bomb on a bridge. The fact that Agent Lewis Merletti exercised his override authority and changed the route at the last minute was all that saved the president. That attack was kept secret by the Secret Service until December 2009, when an interview with Merletti was published by author Ken Gormley. In 1998, the terrorist group simultaneously bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than two hundred people, including twelve Americans. Al Qaeda was steadily building its status as the world’s deadliest terror organization, but the extent of its threat was yet to be realized.