CHAPTER 1
JUST ANOTHER DAYAT THE OFFICE
I have a rendezvous with DeathAt some disputed barricade....And I to my pledged word am true,I shall not fail that rendezvous.ALAN SEEGER, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death"
MARCH 30, 1981
It had been almost forty-two years since I saw that B movie atthe Tower Theater, and I was a Secret Service agent assignedto protect the actor in that movie, who was now playing therole of a lifetime: the president of the United States. For thepast eighteen years I'd worked my way through the ranksin the Service—investigating stolen checks, standing post,working shifts, doing advances—and now I was lead agentfor the special detail that protected the president.
When I was younger, I was fascinated by the poem "I Havea Rendezvous with Death," by Alan Seeger. I had even memorizedit decades ago and have returned to it often. The poemmakes the encounter with Death seem as calm and natural aswatching the trees return to life, "when Spring comes backwith rustling shade and apple-blossoms fill the air."
Death is talked about not in cold, impersonal descriptionsbut in warm terms such as "rendezvous" and in personalimages of Death taking the poet's hand. For the poet, deathis not an encounter to be feared but an appointment to bekept. God is in it. Hope is in it. And so is courage.
There was another man enchanted by this poem. WhenJohn F. Kennedy returned from his honeymoon in October1953, he read "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" to hisyoung wife, Jacqueline, telling her it was his favorite poem.After that, she memorized the poem, often reciting it to himprivately. Her soft voice and unhurried accent seemed tocalm him, giving him the resolve he needed to face the futurehe felt awaited him.
In 1963, Jacqueline taught the poem to Caroline, theirfive-year-old daughter. On October 5, 1963, when the now—PresidentKennedy was meeting with his National SecurityCouncil in the Rose Garden, his young daughter slipped intothe meeting and sidled next to him. She tugged at him to gethim to notice her. The president dismissed her, but in a wayonly a young daughter can, she kept trying to get his attention.The president turned to her, smiling. Caroline lookedinto his eyes and recited the poem. She recited it flawlessly,with perfect diction. When she finished, no one spoke. Itseemed not simply a sweet moment but a sacred one. A senseof reverence permeated the silence, touching everyone.
Seven weeks later, this little girl's father made his rendezvouswith Death at the disputed barricade of Dealey Plazain Dallas, Texas.
A day that has haunted the memory of every American.And every Secret Service agent.
Now, almost eighteen years after that rendezvous, I wasan agent, tasked with protecting the president. I was part ofthe barricade between him and Death. And my sole purposewas to make sure this was the one appointment he wouldnot keep.
* * *
March 30, 1981, started for me in the predawn chill, whereI jogged around our neighborhood in North Potomac,Maryland. A small, sequestered suburb northwest of DC,it had been carved out of a forest near the Potomac River.The subdivisions had bucolic names like Travilah Meadows,Quail Run, and Mills Farm, and they lived up to theirnames, forming a quiet respite from the bustling streets ofthe nation's capital.
It was a spring day, not blue and fair but gray and overcastas I drove into DC. And although the first meadow flowershad appeared in some well-manicured parts of the city, themore than three thousand cherry trees there had not yet blossomedto fill the air with their delicate scent.
The first thing I did when I arrived for work that morningwas to sign in for target practice at the gun range inthe basement of the old post office building. I was dressedfor work in a plain, blue-gray, blend-in-with-the-crowd suitand tie, my gun holstered beneath my unbuttoned coat. As Ifaced downrange, I spread my feet to square with my shoulders.I relaxed my arms, shaking my hands at my sides toloosen them.
As an agent, I'd had it drilled into me that the one thingI could never do was freeze. In a crisis, an agent doesn't havetime to think. Reactions need to be instinctive. So much as ablink or a balk, and I would be a dead man. Or worse—thepresident would be a dead man.
With a sudden, jarring sound, the target turned from beinga thin piece of paper to a man with a pistol. Immediately Iflipped open my coat with my right hand, grabbed the buttof my gun with my left, and fired two shots that drilled thepaper assassin.
My gun was a stubby Smith & Wesson Model 19, with asix-round chamber that could be changed out in three to fourseconds. The impact on the hand was brutal, but the impacton the target was even more so. The .38-caliber bullets burstfrom the two-and-a-half-inch barrel at a speed of 1,110 feetper second. If the bullet didn't kill you, the blow from thebullet would knock you off balance—if not off your feet.With the Service using hollow points, though, if the bulletdid hit you, it would likely be lethal.
When you are protecting the most important leader inthe world, lethal is what you want. You don't want to give anassassin a chance to shoot once, let alone a second chance.You want to drop him the way I dropped that target in theshooting range.
After cleaning my gun, I left for "the office." The office forme was known as W-16, located in the bowels of the WhiteHouse, directly under the Oval Office. It was the Secret Service'scommand center, the central nervous system for protecting thepresident and other key leaders and their families. Intelligencewas routed to us there—field reports, surveillance feeds,wiretaps—up-to-date intel on people who were knownthreats. The Service receives threats every day on the livesof those they are assigned to protect—especially on the lifeof the president. The lower his approval rating is, the higherthe number of threats. And since taking office, PresidentReagan's approval rating had plummeted.
The president had been in office just seventy days. Forthe first week after his inauguration, every time the presidentleft the safety of the White House, I stuck so close I couldsmell his aftershave. But for the next seven weeks after that,others in the management team had been with him while Iattended the Federal Executive Institute. Now back at theWhite House, I felt today would be a good day to spendtime with him and get to know him. Although an agentnever wants to get on too-friendly terms with the president,you do want to be able to do the best job of protecting him,and that involves knowing him. Knowing how fast he walksor how slow. Knowing how often he stops along a rope lineto greet the public and for how long. Knowing whether heis cautious or cavalier. Is he immediately compliant to anagent's suggestions, is he momentarily hesitant, or is he resistantto the point that the agent has to persuade him? Inscenarios where every second counts, knowledge like this canbe lifesaving.
Johnny Guy was the agent assigned to travel with thepresident to the Washington Hilton that afternoon, where hewas to give a short speech to a labor union within the AFLCIO.I talked to Guy sometime after ten in the morning toask if I could take his place. He agreed.
I called my wife, Carolyn, at her office to tell her that Iwould be accompanying the president to the Hilton and thatif she wanted to see him, his motorcade would be across thestreet. She was a trial lawyer for the IRS at the time, and shehad a fourth-floor office in the Universal North Building,with a window that looked down on T Street. She was gladI called and eager to see the president, if only for a moment.
It was a routine route for a routine stop for a routinespeech. But that's the rub: routine is the enemy of everyagent. With routine comes boredom. With boredom comesdistraction and letting down your guard. When that happens,people die.
We had taken presidents and vice presidents to theWashington Hilton 110 times since 1972, and nobody haddied. Nobody had even come close. An advance search ofthe hotel had been done, along with the strategic assignmentof agents, sixty-six for this event, plus police. Hadwe been scheduled for an out-of-Washington trip—say, inBaltimore—we would have used twice that number.
Paul Mobley and Mary Ann Gordon headed up transportation.Both had done the route to the Hilton before,as well as numerous runs to the hospital. They had put themotorcade in place—a caravan of vehicles, each with differentduties assigned to those riding in them. There was a leadcar that set the pace at twenty-five miles per hour, whichwould stop for nothing unless it hit someone. There was atail car, a van with eight agents, and a pilot car, all looking forsuspicious vehicles along the route. There were a few ancillarycars, like a spare car with protective support and technicians,a communications car, and a staff car. There was thecontrol car, which would include Deputy Chief of Staff MikeDeaver. Finally, there was the president's limousine, whichwas code-named Stagecoach. Every inch of it was bullet proof,covered in level-4 armor. It weighed six and a half tons andstretched nearly twenty-two feet. There was even an "emergencymotorcade" of four vehicles parked at the hotel, shoulda quick escape be needed. All total, fifteen vehicles.
We had plotted a protected route with police officersassigned to block off intersections along the way. The planwas to arrive at the VIP entrance; otherwise we would haveto go to the hotel's basement, where we would have sometwelve hundred cars to check out. Then, when the motorcadestopped at the entrance, where uniformed police formed aperimeter of protection, the car doors would open with strategicsynchronization, and the president would be whiskedaway to the hotel ballroom.
It was all very regimented. And all very routine.
In spite of how well rehearsed our responsibilities were,the risks were real. You know that danger is out there—realdanger—you just don't know where. Absence of evidencedoesn't mean evidence of absence. Just because there is no signof a threat doesn't mean there isn't one. The problem isn't whatyou know; it's what you don't know. Not what you see or hear,but what you don't see, don't hear. It's the open window youdon't notice. Or the sound from a book depository that takesyou a second too long to recognize as a gunshot.
Not only do you have to be vigilant; you have to behypervigilant.
Ever since I joined the agency in 1962, a number ofpeople had died. President Kennedy had been assassinated.Attorney General Robert Kennedy had been assassinated.Governor George Wallace survived an assassination attemptbut was paralyzed. President Ford had escaped two attemptson his life. And civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. hadbeen assassinated.
President Kennedy, Wallace, and Ford had been under theprotection of the Secret Service. The others were not.
In some cases, agents were negligent. In others, they werevigilant.
In all cases, life or death was determined by seconds.
Sometimes split seconds.
* * *
I had assigned Bill Green to work the advance on the president'strip to the Hilton, which he started on March 25. Hisjob was to draw up a security plan that pinpointed whereeach agent was to be stationed in and around the hotel. Hewas to make sure a background check was done on everyonescheduled to meet with the president during his visit, howeverbriefly. He was also responsible for inspecting the ballroom,the hotel basement, the holding room, the stairwells,the elevators, and the VIP entrance.
Though it was the first time Bill had done this at theHilton, his preparations were thorough, down to the smallestdetail. He visited the hotel on Friday for another inspection,then again on Saturday. On Sunday he made a few final callsbefore finishing his security report, which he handed in firstthing on Monday, March 30. He checked the latest intel, andhe was told that there was nothing on the radar in terms ofthreats to the president's appearance that day.
The trip to the Hilton was so routine that I decided bulletproofvests weren't necessary. Besides, it was a muggy day,with rain, and vests were hot and uncomfortable. I sat in thefront passenger seat; the president sat behind me. We drovedown Connecticut Avenue, got on 18th Street, and madea left onto T Street, which took us to the hotel. When westopped at the designated entrance, police and other agentswere waiting for us. I got out of the car first to pull the codedswitch on the president's door—a tricky thing because if youdon't do it just right, the system has to be rebooted beforeyou can open the door.
President Reagan, a probusiness Republican, was at oddswith the largely Democratic labor unions. But he had beeninvited to speak and felt a sense of responsibility to come.When Reagan had worked as an actor in Hollywood, heserved as president of the Screen Actors Guild, a unionunder the auspices of the very group to which he was scheduledto speak. And so he felt a certain kinship with theaudience.
Once inside, I ushered the president into the elevatorthat led to the permanent holding room. As we ascended theplatform, I picked another agent to stand near the presidentso I could sit behind him to survey the room. I had a goodeye, trained to see trembling hands, darting eyes, sweat onthe forehead ... a disturbed look on the face ... clothes orshoes that didn't fit in ... a bulge in an overcoat ... a purseclutched a little too tightly.
After Reagan was introduced, he stood behind thearmored podium to speak. But I wasn't paying attention tothe speech; I was paying attention to the crowd, looking witheyes that could cut steel they were so intense. An agent's eyesare weapons, every bit as intimidating as a semiautomatic.I sat with a face as cold and hard as if it had been cut fromMount Rushmore and scanned the ballroom, searching fora face that was every bit as cold and hard as mine, for eyesevery bit as intense.
One of the things agents are looking for is a gun. We aretrained to shout whenever we see one—"Gun right" if anagent sees someone with a gun to the right or "Gun left" or"Gun in front." Depending on the type of threat and wherethe threat is, I might push the president down behind thepodium, cover him with my body on the stage, or evacuatehim from the stage.
When President Reagan finished speaking, the audiencerose to applaud. But the speech wasn't his best, and the gesturewas more respectful than enthusiastic. With agents flankinghis sides, the president stopped to shake a few hands, thenwe escorted him to the elevator.
In the meantime, Carolyn had lost track of time. Shehad received a call at 1:45 and became so engrossed that sheforgot all about seeing the president. When she suddenlyrealized what time it was, she looked out the window, andthe motorcade was still parked across the street. Even thoughit was rainy, she grabbed her purse and rushed downstairs tothe sidewalk, shortly before the president emerged from theHilton.
When the VIP elevator at the Hilton opened, the otheragents and I surrounded the president in a human barricadewe called the "diamond formation." The diamond hadfour points. Tim McCarthy was positioned in front, EricLittlejohn in the rear. Jim Varey was stationed at the right,Dale McIntosh at the left. Ray Shaddick and I were insidethe diamond on either side of the president. Shaddick wasin "POTUS Left" position, I was "POTUS Right," eighteeninches behind the president. Shaddick carried a bulletproofsteel slab to protect the president in case of an attack, coatedwith leather so as not to appear foreboding. Bringing up therear was Bob Wanko, the gunman with an Uzi in a briefcase,again so as not to appear foreboding.
As we opened the door to the outside, uniformed policein raincoats stood guard on the sidewalk that was wet froman earlier shower. Beyond them was the rope line, where agaggle of around thirty onlookers and members of the presseagerly awaited an opportunity to shout out a greeting ora question. All my senses were keenly alert, scanning the surroundingsfor any possible threat—any person that seemedout of place or out of sorts, any door that might be ajar,any window that might be open, any sudden movement,any startling sound. All the while, I was plotting an ever-changingescape route if something did happen. If a threatpresented itself as we walked out the door, I would pull thepresident into the building; if we were closer to the limousine,I would push him into the car.
Carolyn was across the street, standing on the fringe ofa small crowd that had gathered there, craning her neck tocatch a glimpse of the new president.
