White House History Quarterly 57

Protecting the President: WHITE HOUSE The History of the HISTORY United States Secret Service Quarterly

The Journal of the white house historical association Spring 2020, Number 57

the white house historical association Board of Directors

chairman

Frederick J. Ryan Jr.

vice chairman and treasurer John F. W. Rogers

secretary

James I. McDaniel

president

Stewart D. McLaurin John T. Behrendt, Michael Beschloss, Teresa Carlson, Jean Case, Janet A. Howard, Knight Kiplinger, Martha Joynt Kumar, Anita McBride, Robert M. McGee, Ann Stock, Ben C. Sutton Jr., Tina Tchen, Gregory W. Wendt

liaison­­

David Vela

ex officio­­

Lonnie G. Bunch III, Kaywin Feldman, David S. Ferriero, Katherine Malone France, Carla Hayden

directors emeriti

John H. Dalton, Nancy M. Folger, Elise K. Kirk, Harry G. Robinson III, Gail Berry West

white house history quarterly founding editor

William Seale (1939–2019)

editor

Marcia Mallet Anderson

editorial and production director Lauren McGwin

contributors alan capps, p h d. is an adjunct professor at George Mason University and a regular contributor to White House History Quarterly. His area of specialty is AngloAmerican history.

The late ch r i s t o ph er ken ney was the director of education at the McKinley Presidential Library & Museum. He was also the author of three books on President William McKinley and an assistant lecturer at the University of Akron. paul landi s was a special agent in the United States Secret Service from 1959 to 1964. He lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and has just completed a book about his time in the United States Secret Service.

senior editorial and production manager Kristen Hunter Mason

editorial and production manager Elyse Werling

editorial assistant Rebecca Durgin

consulting editor Ann Hofstra Grogg

design consulting Pentagram

editorial advisory Matthew Costello Mac Keith Griswold Scott Harris Jessie Kratz Rebecca Roberts Lydia Barker Tederick

the editor wishes to thank

The Office of the Curator, The White House; Michael Sampson, The U.S. Secret Service

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m i ch ael sam p s on is an archivist for the Office of Liaison and Public Affairs in the U.S. Secret Service. r eb ecca yo u n gb l ood vaug h n, m d is the daughter of U.S. Secret Service Agent Rufus Youngblood. In 2018 she expanded and republished his 1973 memoir, 20 Years in the Secret Service: My Life with Five Presidents. elyse w er li n g is editorial and production manager at the White House Historical Association.

contents

A White House Police sergeant uses a measuring tape to confirm that new officers meet the required minimum height of 6 feet, 1925.

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FOREWORD The Role Evolves ma rcia a nd erso n

PROTECTING THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE: The Evolution and Role of the United States Secret Service

m i ch ael s am pso n

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THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT WILLIAM M C KINLEY: A Catalyist for Change in Protecting the President

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ch risto p h er k en ney

m ar ci a ander s o n

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THE BIGGEST GUNFIGHT IN SECRET SERVICE HISTORY: The Failed Attempt on Truman’s Life at Blair House

ala n ca p p s

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GROWING UP A SECRET SERVICE AGENT’S DAUGHTER: Life with My Father Rufus W. Youngblood rebecca yo ungblo od vaug h n LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

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ON DUTY IN THE LINE OF FIRE: The Secret Service at Work

PRESIDENTIAL SITES QUARTERLY FEATURE The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site: The Ansley Wilcox House Becomes a Historic Landmark elyse w er li ng

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REFLECTIONS Challenging Times

st ewart d. m c laur i n

MEMORIES OF MY YEARS ON THE SECRET SERVICE KIDDIE DETAIL: Protecting President John F. Kennedy’s Children paul la nd is

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foreword

The Role Evolves it is rare for White House History Quarterly to cover a single topic by juxtaposing such seemingly incongruous stories as a bloody gunfight in broad daylight and a pet pony visiting the Oval Office or by following an image of a mortally wounded would-be assassin with a photograph of a two-year-old offering chewed gum to the president during a Rose Garden ceremony. But the history of how and when the president of the United States is protected and of who is responsible is characterized by such extremes, and with this issue we approach the broad topic from the multiple perspectives of an agent, historian, archivist, educator, and a witness to history.

We begin with an account by Christopher Kenney, who served as the Director of Education McKinley Presidential Library & Museum until his untimely death in December of 2019. Kenney explains how three presidential assassinations in thirty-six years became the catalyst for change in presidential protection. When William McKinley was murdered in 1901, the shots that killed Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and James A. Garfield in 1881 were recent memories, and Kenney relates how the assassination of McKinley ultimately resulted in the legislation and funding that made his successor President Theodore Roosevelt the first president to officially receive fulltime protection by the Secret Service. Less than fifty years later, the Secret Service successfully protected President Harry S. Truman during a brazen attempt on his life. Alan Capps provides a moment–by– moment account of the dramatic less than

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three minute gunfight that left the young White House Police Officer Leslie Coffelt dead. Rebecca Youngblood Vaughn brings to the mix the unique perspective of an agent’s child, with memories of her father, Rufus Youngblood, who protected five presidents. Former Secret Service Agent Paul Landis shares yet another perspective, that of an agent detailed to protect the president’s children. Michael Sampson, an archivist with the Secret Service, gives us a summary of the evolution and role of the agency. Our photo-essay expands the view of the many circumstances in which agents routinely fulfill their duties. In our Presidential Sites Quarterly Feature, Elyse Werling takes us to the Wilcox House where following McKinley’s death and a breakneck midnight trek to Buffalo, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt took the Oath of Office. Two agents were immediately assigned to protect him.

If you were to join the crowds that assemble to view the White House from Pennsylvania Avenue today, you would do so a few yards away from a plaque remembering Private Coffelt and under the watchful eye of the officers on rooftops, on foot, on bicycles, with dogs, and at their posts along the fence line—all powerful reminders of the need to balance access and security and the dedicated force that is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.

marcia anderson editor, white house history quarterly

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U. S . S E C R E T S E R V I C E

White House Police Officer Leslie Coffelt, who gave his life in what President Harry S. Truman called, “the faithful discharge of duty,� defending the president from an assassination attempt at Blair House, is remembered with a plaque on the fence of Blair House. There a wreath is placed each year on the anniversary of his death.

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That’s all a man can hope for during his lifetime—to set an example —and when he’s dead, be an inspiration for history.—William McKinley

The Assassination of PRESIDENT William McKinley A Catalyst for Change in Protecting the President CHRISTOPHER KENNEY

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

a bra h am linco ln. jam es g ar f i eld. w i lli am m cki nley.

In the span of thirty-six years, three presidents were assassinated at the hands of lone gunmen firing at close range. It is difficult to fathom in the twenty-first century how a potential assassin could get so close to the president, yet as recently as 1981 Ronald Reagan was shot at close range.

In the nineteenth century, presidents had a great deal more freedom of movement than today, and Americans could walk relatively freely into the White House and into the president’s office. Early in the presidency of Andrew Jackson a disgraced naval officer entered the White House and hit the president in the face. “Old Hickory” chased him out of the White House himself.1 Unaccompanied by guards of any kind, William and Ida McKinley frequently enjoyed carriage rides in Washington and walks through town when they were home in Canton, Ohio.

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protections were uncovered. He and the agency faced ridicule from the public and Congress, due to his “shocking administrative mismanagement.”5 Hazen was removed from his director position, made a field operative, and replaced by John E. Wilkie, a friend of President McKinley and a former journalist with the Chicago Tribune.

The following year the February 15, 1898, explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor made it clear that war with Spain was on the horizon, and when Congress declared war in April it also authorized the Secret Service to provide protection to the president, reversing its previous position. Now four agents, operating under a special wartime fund, guarded McKinley and the White House twenty-four hours a day. The protection was authorized only during wartime, so when the Spanish-American War ended, the Secret Service detail was removed. After that, Metropolitan Police of Washington, D.C., provided routine security for President McKinley, although the Secret Service was present when he traveled.6 On Wednesday September 4, 1901, President McKinley left Canton to attend the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Thursday, September 5, was “President’s Day” at the exposition, and in front of an enthusiastic crowd McKinley delivered what many thought was the greatest speech of his career.

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A memorial print published “in loving memory of our martyered president William McKinley” pictures the late president below the Temple of Music where he was shot and above pictures of the two presidents assassinated before him: Abraham Lincoln and James A. Garfield. The U.S. Capitol, where all three lay in state, is featured at the bottom of the composition. above

The Pan-American Exposition was held in about fifteen purpose built buildings and covered 350 acres.

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Today the Secret Service is the agency in charge of protecting the president of the United States.

But it did not always perform that function. The agency had its beginnings during the Civil War, as an agency to fight counterfeiting. William P. Wood was sworn in as the head of this new agency on July 5, 1865, by Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch.

Wood was given the following mission: “Your main objective is to restore public confidence in the money of the country.”2 In 1867 Congress broadened the scope of the agency to include “detecting persons perpetrating frauds against the government.”3 It was under this wider mission that Chief William P. Hazen assigned two men to the White House in 1894 to guard President Grover Cleveland. Hazen had no authority to carry out this action but argued that he was justified because two agents had uncovered threats to President Cleveland and his family during an investigation of “suspicious persons who might be Western gamblers, Anarchists, or cranks.”4 William McKinley was inaugurated on March 4, 1897. Hazen’s Secret Service agents continued to provide protection for the president and first lady, albeit unknown to Congress and the Treasury Department. That was about to end. During a routine audit by the Treasury Department, Hazen’s

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President McKinley delivered his last public address (excerpt at top right) at the exposition on September 5. The 30-minute speech, which emphasized the importance of the exposition and praised America’s groundbreaking accomplishments in technology and communication, was considered one of the best of his political career. left

McKinley walked in open air at the Revue at the Pan-American Exposition before delivering his speech.

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O P P O S I T E : U N I V E R S I T Y O F I L L I N O I S U R B A N A - C H A M PA I G N T O P L E F T : T H E B U F FA L O H I S T O R Y M U S E U M / T O P R I G H T : L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S

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Frances Benjamin Johnston captured one of the last photographs of McKinley as he travels by carriage with John Milburn and George Cortelyou on his way to the Temple of Music, where he was fatally wounded by shots fired from a .32 caliber Iver Johnson revolver, concealed in a handkerchief wrapped around the hand of Leon Czolgosz. opposite

Czolgosz was immediately arrested and soon confessed to shooting the president. This prison record was made at Auburn Prison in New York, where Czolgosz was executed by electrocution on October 29, 1901.

The next day, September 6, President and Mrs. McKinley arrived on the grounds of the exposition at 3:30 p.m. Ida McKinley continued on by carriage to the home of the president of the exposition, John C. Milburn, where they were guests, while President McKinley, accompanied by his secretary, George B. Cortelyou, and Milburn went to the Temple of Music for a public reception. George Foster, the president’s regular guard on trips, accompanied McKinley into the temple. They were joined by agents Samuel Ireland, Albert Gallaher, and members of the Buffalo Police Department.

As was his habit, the president shook hands with all who passed by. Then, according to eyewitnesses, a man shook hands longer than many thought necessary, drawing attention to himself. Guards, as if by rote, quickly moved him along, and during this commotion they failed to notice the next man in line with a handkerchief wrapped around his hand. The man was Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist who viewed the office of presidency as a threat to the workingman.

Czolgosz, alias Fred C. Nieman, was born in 1873 in Detroit. His father had emigrated from Poland and his mother was German. The family moved frequently, causing instability in the home. Czolgosz attended school for only a few years but was an avid reader. By age 19 he had worked in several factories and become active in the labor movement. He became interested in socialist ideas and learned all he could about the leaders of the anarchist movement,

particularly Emma Goldman. He began attending meetings of anarchist groups, but his questions and comments about revolution and secret conspiracies drew skepticism, and he was soon unwelcome, becoming a “misfit among misfits.” In 1898 Czolgosz suffered a mental breakdown and became extremely reclusive. Unemployed, he moved between Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, and Cleveland, where his family had settled a farm, looking for work and a place to fit in.

Czolgosz had been stalking the president for some time, and the public reception provided the opportunity he had been looking for. The handkerchief around his hand concealed a .32 caliber Iver Johnson revolver. At 4:07 p.m., as President McKinley reached out to shake his hand, Czolgosz fired two shots. The guards quickly jumped on Czolgosz and began hitting and kicking him.

Reportedly McKinley urged them to stop, and not to hurt him. The president then said to his secretary, “My wife—be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her—oh, be careful.”7 Thomas Penney, the Erie County district attorney, interrogated Czolgosz immediately after he was detained. Czolgosz confessed without coercion, stating: “I killed President McKinley because I done my duty. I didn’t believe one man should have so much service, and another man should have none.”8 Clearly Czolgosz believed he had killed the president, but at the time he signed the confession McKinley was still alive.

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Following the shooting, George Foster wrote a lengthy statement about the events of September 6. Excerpts from his report are as follows: At 4 o’clock PM we arrived at the Temple of Music. We came through a packed crowd of people, enthusiastically cheering, the President bowing to the right and left. I never saw him in such a pleasant mood, and looking so well. He took his position in the center of the hall, Mr. Milburn to his left, Mr. Cortelyou a little to the rear of his right, Opr. [operative] Gallaher about six feet to the right

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The reception had got well underway, and everything was passing off alright, and I had taken a fellow past the President, whose general appearance did not suit me, but he had passed on by the President alright and I had returned to my place again, and had half turned to take a look at the President to see how he was standing it, when to my horror, I saw and at the same time heard two reports fired directly at the stomach of the President.

I took in the situation in an instant and grappled with the assassin, striking him full in the face as we fell. Several other persons fell on him at the same time that I did. The man kept struggling under me, with his head bent back looking at the direction of the President, with his revolver pointing that way. I then, at that moment noticed Opr. Gallaher on the floor with me, and called to him “get the gun quick.” After disarming him I gave the order to let him stand up so we could search him. He had hardly gotten on his feet, before he took a quick look back at the President. I saw how

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President McKinley’s bodyguard George Foster (at left with Secret Service Agent Samuel Ireland) created the diagram above detailing where the president and other principals were positioned at the time of the assassination.

Dramatic illustrations of the moment the shots were fired (opposite) were widely distributed.

FA R L E F T ; L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S TOP: MCKINLEY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

of Mr. Cortelyou, Spl. Opr. Ireland almost in front of the President, half way between him and Mr. Cortelyou. I stood in front of Mr. Milburn at an angle of about 45 degrees from the President. The President nodded to the newspaper men remarking “cool and nice in here isn’t it” and turning to me “Let them come” the fatal reception was on.

much that look meant to see if he had done his work well. This so enraged me that I struck him a blow between the eyes; several of the guards caught me but upon assuring them I was myself again, they took their hands off of me.

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I immediately went to the aid of the President.

He unbuttoned his white vest, on which was a large black spot from the burnt powder, and on his shirt was a round small hole, the blood had started to ooze through from the wound.

It appeared to me as if the wound was a little above and to the left of the navel. Much to my surprise and intense satisfaction, I saw no signs of the second shot.

The ambulance from the hospital on the Exposition grounds having arrived by this time, we placed the President on the stretcher and carried him with the aid of the attendants from the building and placed him in the wagon.

As they were about to drive away, the President gave me one of the saddest looks, as much as if to say “why, don’t you come with me.” I jumped in over the tail gate of the wagon, went to his head, and asked him “if I could do anything for him,” and he told me he thought he would feel easier if he sat up so I took him under the arms and with a little assistance from him, I got him in a reclining position, and he told me he “felt a great deal better.” I held him that way until we reached the hospital. After we got

the President in the operating room, I did all I could to keep everything quiet. Taking charge of the two doors that led into the operating room; I forgot to state that in the wagon on the way to the hospital, I noticed him feeling his shirt front, and he said “Foster, what is this, it feels like a bullet?” I felt it very carefully and told him it was a bullet. He said “that only leaves one.” I have that bullet in my possession.

It is one of the bull-head 32 caliber. After a wait of over an hour the doctors were finally gotten together and it was thought proper to undertake the operation. During the time that we were waiting for the arrival of the doctors, the President was as cool and as patient, more so than some of the rest of us. He asked to see Mr. Cortelyou, Mr. Milburn and Dr. [Presley] Rixey. One of his requests was to break it as easily as possible to Mrs. McKinley and not to exaggerate things.9 Agent Ireland was later quoted as saying, “It has been my custom to stand back of the president and just to his left, so that I could see the right hand of every person approaching, but that day Secretary Cortelyou requested that I stand opposite the president, so that Mr. Milburn could stand to his left and introduce the people who approached. In that way I was unable to get a good look at every one’s right hand.”10 Ireland’s words were picked up by the Associated Press and printed in several newspapers throughout the country.

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The ambulance that carried the seriously wounded President McKinley to the hospital on the exposition grounds was driven by two medical students.

Dr. Matthew D. Mann would eventually operate on the president. opposite

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In the days that followed there was much discussion about how the assassination could have happened. It was clear changes needed to be made.

Although the Secret Service still had no official authorization to provide presidential protection, Director Wilkie immediately stationed two agents at the White House full time to protect President Roosevelt and his family.

Congress wanted official protection for the president but struggled with how to best achieve that goal. More than a dozen bills were introduced, but none passed. One of the most promising concepts at the time was to turn the responsibility over to the army. Many senators argued that trained army soldiers could do a much better job than the agents who failed to protect President McKinley. This bill also failed, largely because Congress was traditionally reluctant to elevate the entourage of the presidency to the status of a monarchy. Unfettered access to the nation’s chief executive had been a hallmark of American democracy, setting it apart from European nations whose rulers were secreted away in palaces with limited exposure to their subjects. But with three assassinations in less than forty years, Congress needed to reevaluate its stance on presidential protection.

While Congress was debating the issue, President McKinley’s personal secretary, George

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Eight days later, on September 14, 1901, President McKinley succumbed to his wounds, and within hours Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the next president. McKinley’s body was brought back to Washington, first to the East Room of the White House and then to the Capitol for a State Funeral. He was buried in Canton, Ohio, on September 19, 1901. A few days later Czolgosz was charged with murder. He was tried on September 23 in the Superior Court in Buffalo. The jury debated only thirty-three minutes and returned with a verdict of guilty. On October 29 Czolgosz was executed by electric chair at Auburn Prison.11 On the day McKinley was buried, September 19, Samuel Ireland’s boss, John Wilkie, had written a harshly worded letter to him repremanding him for his public statement on the assassination, which many interpreted as blaming Secretary Cortelyou for his own inability to protect the president. Wilkie wrote, “It looked very much like a pitiful attempt to shift the responsibility, and was in exceedingly bad taste, to say the least.” He continued, “Your ideas on the duties of a bodyguard are somewhat unusual, and taken in connection with the wide dissemination of information at various times, at least gives color to the belief that you were playing to the grandstand.”12

Following his death, President McKinley’s body was moved to the U.S. Capitol to lie in state in the Rotunda.

Crowds lined the route of the train that carried him home to Canton, Ohio, where he was buried on September 19, 1901.

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Following McKinley’s assassination, John Wilkie, director of the U.S. Secret Service (seen here in his office reviewing a display of photographs of offenders c.

1906) immediately stationed two agents at the White House full time to protect President Roosevelt and his family. The White House Police (seen opposite with young Quentin and Archie Roosevelt) also protected the first family. below

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Along with Wilkie, Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Treasury George Cortelyou, who had witnessed McKinley’s assassination, advocated for the president to receive permanent Secret Service protection. The legislation was ultimately passed in 1906 with funds allocated in 1907.

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Despite Cortelyou’s best efforts, no legislation to protect the president was passed until 1906, when the Sundry Civil Expenses Act of 1907 allocated funds for the protection of the president by the Secret Service.17 Starting with Theodore Roosevelt, presidents have received full-time protection, even as they have traveled more extensively and come into contact with more people than ever before. In the twenty-first century, the Secret Service’s duty to protect the president has become more complex, with threats coming in ways President McKinley could never have imagined. The Secret Service continues to adapt and change as the country and the president face new challenges, something the agency has done since its inception more than 150 years ago.

Cortelyou, convened a meeting at his home on October 4, 1901, to discuss the protection of the president. The impetus came from a conversation Cortelyou had with President Roosevelt that morning. Despite McKinley’s assassination, at first Roosevelt did not see the importance of having full-time protection. However, he had a change of heart and said to Cortelyou “he now realised [sic] their wisdom and that he authorized the Secretary to go ahead and do whatever he thought best in this direction.”13 In attendance were Major Richard Sylvester, superintendent of police for Washington, D.C.; W. E. Cochran, chief post office inspector; and W. H. Moran, chief clerk of the Secret Service. Chief Wilkie was out of town at the time and unable to attend.14 Cortelyou indicated “that the object he had in getting these gentlemen together was to talk over the question of precautionary measures for the safety of the President of the United States, and to arrange so that these three branches would act in perfect concert at all times in this work.”15 As the meeting progressed, the men discussed how each agency could assist with the ever more daunting task of protecting the president, particularly a president like McKinley who wanted to see and be seen by the public. As the meeting drew to a close Cortelyou told the group “he did not want to give them any detailed instructions, as they were far more competent than he to look after the details of selection of men, assignment of duties, etc., but that he wanted them always vigilant, always on hand, and he would cooperate with them and help them to the best of his ability.”16

NOTES

The epigraph is from a statement to George Cortelyou, December 1899, reprinted in Louis Gould, “McKinley Lost His Mountain: Should We Still Remember His Presidency?” History News Network, historynewsnetwork.org.

1. Philip H. Melanson, with Peter F. Stevens, The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency (New York: MJF Books, 2002), 25.

2. Quoted in Ibid., 3.

3. Quoted in Ibid., 19.

4. Quoted in Ibid., 24.

5. Quoted in Ibid., 27.

6. Roger Pickenpaugh, McKinley, Murder and the Pan-American Exposition: A History of the Presidential Assassination, September 6, 1901 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2016), 200.

7. Quoted in Allida Black, “Ida Saxton McKinley,” The First Ladies of the United States of America (Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 2017), 54.

8. Quoted in “The Legal Aftermath of the Assassination of William McKinley,” University at Buffalo Digital Collections, digital.lib. buffalo.edu.

9. Statement of George F. Foster, September 7, 1901.

10. Quoted in “Shooting of M’Kinley: Accounts of Tragedy by Eyewitnesses,” Marion (Ohio) Daily Star, September 14, 1901, 7.

11. Pickenpaugh, McKinley, Murder and the Pan-American Exposition, 321–30.

12. John E. Wilkie to Mr. Samuel R. Ireland, September 19, 1901. quoted in ibid.

13. Quoted in memorandum by George B. Cortelyou and B. F. Barnes, October 4, 1901, 2, precautionary file, reel 453, Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 14. Ibid., 1.

15. Ibid., 1–2.

16. Ibid., 12.

17. An Act Making Appropriations for Sundry Civil Expenses of the Government, 1907, 59th Cong., sess. 2, ch. 2918, p. 1315.

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The Biggest GUNFIGHT in Secret Service History The Failed Attempt on Truman’s Life at Blair House ALAN CAPPS

HARRY S. TRUMAN LIBRARY

The President is well and amply guarded by good and brave men both in uniform and in the Secret Service.

—Harry S. Truman

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OPPOSITE: PHOTOGRAPH BY WILLIAM E. CARNAHAN, HA RRY S . TRUMAN LIBRARY ABOVE: HARRY S. TRUMAN LIBRARY

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Surrounded by Secret Service agents, President Harry Truman crosses Pennsylvania Avenue in February 1950.

While the White House was under renovation, Truman made the one block commute between his temporary living quarters at Blair House and his office in the West Wing much like an ordinary pedestrian, until he was finally persuaded by the Secret Service to be driven across the street. above

President Truman waves from the highly visible front porch of his residence at Blair House. The proximity of the front door to heavily trafficked Pennsylvania Avenue was a serious concern for the Secret Service.

o ffic er les li e co f f elt was one of four officers on duty in front of Blair House on Wednesday, November 1, 1950. For his three colleagues—Donald Birdzell, Joseph Davidson, and Joseph Downs—November 1 was their regular duty day, but Coffelt was not meant to be at work that day. He had agreed to change roster assignments with Bradley Allen, who wanted to work on his house.1 The four uniformed officers shared their duty posts with three United States Secret Service agents detailed to presidential protection duties—Floyd (“Toad”) Boring, Vince Mroz, and Stewart Stout. Boring was stationed on the sidewalk, Mroz was in the agents’ office inside Blair House, and Stout was also on duty inside. There were two other members of the protection detail—one located in the basement of Blair House and a second stationed in the rear of Blair House.2 Blair House, located across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House and the Old Executive Office Building (OEOB), had been “home” to President Harry S. Truman, his wife, Bess, and their daughter, Margaret, since 1948, and it would remain so until 1952. Ongoing renovations that involved gutting the White House had necessitated the move. The work had been deemed vital to address the dangerous structural weaknesses, particularly in the first family’s living quarters, but the Secret Service viewed the security of Blair House with apprehension, given the proximity of its front door to the general public and Pennsylvania Avenue.

For the first couple of days after the move, President Truman just walked back and forth across Pennsylvania Avenue from and to Blair House while he continued to work in the Oval Office in the West Wing, which was not under renovation. The Secret Service had arranged for the traffic lights in all directions to turn red to allow him to cross Pennsylvania Avenue, but this white house history quarterly

created a traffic nightmare and Margaret Truman wrote that stopping all traffic made her dad feel guilty. Truman ordered the practice stopped, telling his protection detail, “I’ll wait for the light like any other pedestrian.”3 The result was even greater chaos. A crowd of people surrounded Truman at the stoplight, making the Secret Service extremely nervous, and the traffic slowed to a crawl along Pennsylvania Avenue. Once persuaded to give up on his ordinary pedestrian idea, the president was driven by the Secret Service on a circuitous path from a rear door of the West Wing to an alley entrance behind Blair House.4 The routine on November 1 would be no different. Following a series of meetings in the Oval Office, President Truman presented the Medal of Honor to Colonel Justice Chambers of the United States Marine Corps in a Rose Garden ceremony at noon. There followed two further meetings in the Oval Office, first, with the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and the British ambassador to Washington, Sir Oliver Franks, and then with W. Stuart Symington, a fellow Missourian and good friend of the president. At approximately 1:00 p.m., accompanied by his Secret Service protection detail, President Truman returned to Blair House for lunch with his wife and mother-in-law. Following a short nap, he planned to resume his day’s activities with a visit to Arlington National Cemetery for the dedication of a monument.5 Earlier in the day two men, Oscar Collazo and Grieslio Torresola, left their hotel—the Harris, located a block or so from Union Station. They had arrived the previous evening from New York City. They walked across to the U.S. Capitol and wandered around the grounds. After an hour or so they hailed a cab. Their destination was the White House.

The cab driver drove past the White

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the top of a flight of steps, was right on Pennsylvania Avenue. The front door even appeared to be open with only a screen door barring entrance. A guard house was located at each end of the roughly 130 feet frontage of Blair House.

Each one had a uniformed police officer sitting inside on duty. Another uniformed officer stood at the base of the flight of steps along with a man in plain clothes who they assumed was a U.S. Secret Service officer.

Collazo and Torresola had no idea what or who was behind the screen door in terms of security. However, they reasoned that if they approached Blair House from either side, they could rapidly overwhelm the police officers and Secret Service agents on duty outside by employing the element of surprise.

Then one or both would bull-rush the screen door and burst into Blair House. From there they would have to improvise as they sought out President Truman to assassinate him.

Satisfied that they had, in theory, a workable plan, the two men returned to their hotel. They knew their odds of surviving were minimal, but they white house history quarterly

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Once back in their room at the Hotel Harris (left) after formulating their Plan B to assassinate President Truman, Collazo and Torresola prepared their weapons: a 9 mm Luger (right, top) and a 9 mm Walther P.38 semiautomatic pistol (right, below). They left the Harris to return to Blair House with more than sixty rounds of 9 mm ammunition—a portion of which was carried in a paper bag by Collazo.

LEF T: WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL A SSOC IATION / RIGHT: HAR RY S. TRUMAN LIBRARY

House on Pennsylvania Avenue to the point where he would drop his fare, the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Seventeenth Street, NW. The sight of the White House, with construction scaffolding, heavy equipment, and large numbers of workers, was probably not what Collazo and Torresola expected. How would they ever find their way through to their target, the president of the United States?

What had been a formidable undertaking now seemed to be impossible, until the cab driver explained that while the White House was undergoing renovation, the president lived at Blair House, on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue across from the OEOB. He even pointed out Blair House as Collazo and Torresola got out of his cab.

With their original plan to assassinate President Truman in the White House in tatters, the two men set about trying to formulate an expedited Plan B. As they slowly walked along in front of the OEOB looking across Pennsylvania Avenue, it occurred to them that the change of location might well be fortuitous. The front door to Blair House, at

above

H I S T O R I C A L S O C I E T Y O F WA S H I N G T O N D . C .

The route by which Collazo and Terresola approached Blair House began two blocks east on Pennsylvania Avenue at Riggs National Bank (seen here c. 1959).

would have achieved their goal and brought worldwide attention to Puerto Rico’s demand for independence from the United States. Two days before their planned assassination attempt, Puerto Rico had erupted in violence.

The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party (PPN), led by Pedro Albizu Campos, demanded complete independence. The PPN repudiated any efforts by other political groups, most notably the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico, to negotiate a new political commonwealth status for the island.

Ironically, as David McCullough notes in his biography of Truman, the president “had done more for Puerto Rico than any previous President. He favored the right of the Puerto Rican people to determine their political relationship with the United States and had said so several times.”6 However, to Collazo and Torresola, both members of the PPN, President Truman was a symbol of the system, and as Collazo insisted at his trial after the attempted assassination, “You don’t attack the man, you attack the system.”7 Once the two had returned to their hotel, the objective for Torresola, who white house history quarterly

was far more comfortable with weapons and a pretty good marksman, was to make sure his partner was conversant and comfortable using a 9 mm Walther P.38 semiautomatic pistol.

Collazo had fired handguns before but had never before fired a semiautomatic pistol. Torresola had a 9 mm Luger, and between them, they left the hotel to return to Blair House with more than sixty rounds of 9 mm ammunition contained within the pistols, in extra magazines, and loose in a paper bag carried by Collazo.

Once again they hailed a cab. The two were dropped off on the corner of Fifteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the Riggs Bank across from the Treasury Department. It was around 2:12 p.m., and Pennsylvania Avenue was, as usual, crowded with people enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. The two men walked along Pennsylvania Avenue, past Blair House, in one final reconnaissance, and then quietly turned around at the corner of Seventeenth and Pennsylvania and walked back, once again past Blair House, to their original starting point in front of Riggs Bank.

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THE GUNFIGHT Collazo turned around once again and began walking back up Pennsylvania Avenue, past Lafayette Square, toward Blair House. All the time he walked, measuring his pace, he glanced across toward Torresola, who had crossed over Pennsylvania, walked in front of the White House, and, upon reaching the corner of Seventeenth and Pennsylvania, crossed back over. The two men were now on the same side of the street approaching each other.

Collazo walked past the guardhouse on his approach to Blair House. Officers Boring and Davidson were talking with each other. Collazo reasoned there was no sense in engaging them if all he had to do was deal with Officer Birdzell and sprint up the steps into Blair House.

Torresola could be relied upon to engage Boring and Davidson immediately after he had taken out Officer Coffelt in the guardhouse that he approached from the west. Collazo walked right up to Officer Birdzell, who had his back to him. Collazo fumbled to pull the weapon from his suit pocket, trying to cock the gun and release the safety. He pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. The gun did not fire.

Officer Birdzell, however, heard the familiar sound of the cocking of a weapon and the ominous click of a misfire. He pivoted around only to confront Collazo about 5 feet from him fumbling with his gun, clutching it to his chest with his right hand and hitting it with his left hand, the orientation of the weapon now pointing downward. Collazo pulled the trigger again, and this time the gun fired, but the trajectory took the bullet into Birdzell’s right knee. It became the first shot in what was described later as “the biggest gunfight in Secret Service history.” It lasted approximately thirty-nine seconds.8 Collazo’s surprise at the weapon firing allowed Birdzell in a split second afterward to somehow get past him into

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the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, drawing his gun in the process. He opened fire on Collazo but did not hit him. What Birdzell had done, however, was to draw Collazo’s attention momentarily away from the open door of Blair House. Officers Boring and Davidson, both of whom had reacted to the initial gunfire by opening fire on Collazo, used the momentary diversion to take up better firing positions.

A combination of adrenaline and panic gripped Collazo. He continued pulling the trigger of his Walther P.38, firing erratically at no particular target. Bullets flew everywhere, including across Pennsylvania Avenue, grazing the sleeve of a Metropolitan Police officer, and across Seventeenth Street.

Collazo had quickly emptied the magazine of his weapon, necessitating that he reload the Walther. He crouched down on the steps of Blair House.9 Boring and Davidson continued to fire at Collazo from their position next to the guardhouse. They were joined by Agent Mroz who, on hearing the initial shots looked out a window, saw people running, and spirited out of the office inside Blair House into the alleyway. He came round behind Boring and Davidson, who were trying to get a better angle on Collazo. Mroz saw Collazo and fired at him, but then reasoned with his two colleagues already engaging the assailant it would be more advantageous to circle back around through Blair House and come out onto Pennsylvania Avenue from the other side. Mroz took off again, and unbeknown to him, Collazo had been hit in the chest and had collapsed on the sidewalk in front of the steps.10 Agent Stout, who had been stationed inside in the main entrance hall with Agent Mroz, on hearing the firing commence, responded immediately, but not by rushing out of the screen door into a situation of which he had no appreciation. His training as a Secret

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This diagram of the gunfight outside of Blair House was published by the Philadelphia Inquirer soon after the incident. Although one of the labels indicates that President Truman watched the scene unfold through a second story window, it is uncertain whether he could have seen more than the aftermath of the shooting.

H A R R Y S . T R U M A N L I B R A R Y.

Service agent allowed him to assess the situation without any visual awareness of what was taking place outside, and he concluded that if a gunfight had erupted outside, the odds were that any potential assailant could come crashing through the screen door. He unlocked the cabinet next to the desk where he was sitting, retrieved the Thompson submachine gun stored there, and assumed a kneeling position at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor.

He would be the next, and possibly last, line of defense, protecting President Truman and his family upstairs. Any assailant who crashed through the screen door would meet with a hail of fire. However, everything happened so fast that by the time he retrieved the weapon the firing had stopped.

Torresola, meanwhile, had quickened his pace as he approached the

entrance to Blair House from the west toward Collazo. He passed the guardhouse where Officer Coffelt was stationed, and he fired at him four times.

Cofflet, hit three times, slumped into his chair. Torresola then confronted Officer Downs, who was in plain clothes moving down the basement walkway to a door at the west end of Blair House.11 Downs drew his weapon upon hearing Torresola’s shots, but Torresola shot him three times. Although severely wounded, Downs managed to fall through the basement door and slam it shut after him, denying Torresola a way into the house.

Torresola continued to move forward toward the main entrance still unseen

by Boring and Davidson, who remained focused on Collazo, and Agent Mroz was now racing through Blair House to come around to the western

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side. Birdzell, lying in the middle of the street, had the best view of the entire front of Blair House and both assailants. Torresola turned his attention to Birdzell and shot him, hitting him in his other knee.

The magazine of Torresola’s Luger was now empty. He had to reload in order to deal with Boring and Davidson and to make it through the open door.

Torresola could not see the wounded Collazo lying on the sidewalk. Half hidden behind the hedges in front of the house, Torresola started to reload a new magazine, ready to continue the attack.

Suddenly, a .38 special round struck Torresola just below his left ear, killing him instantly. Officer Coffelt had somehow managed to get himself out of the guardhouse and draw his weapon. With one well-placed shot he brought down Torresola.

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THE AFTERMATH

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Within seconds after the shooting began, Torresola lay dead in the hedges in front of Lee House (above left) and a wounded Collazo lay at the foot of the steps leading to the Blair House front door (above right). opposite

Spectators, journalists, and police officers crowded around the scene of the shoot-out in front of Blair House immediately after the incident ended. Reporters documented every detail, photographing the wounded Collazo (top left) before he was transported for medical care, and examining a broken finial on the fence in front of Blair House (top right), likely shot off by a stray bullet.

RIGHT: HARRY S. TRUMAN LIBRARY

The head of the Secret Service, U. E. Baughman, who soon arrived on the scene, immediately saw that President Truman would not be persuaded to change his schedule and ordered a substantial increase in the protection detail for the visit to Arlington. The president adhered to his prepared comments, and the crowd of several hundred people had no indication of what had taken place at Blair House within the hour. Back at the Oval Office later in the afternoon, keeping to his regular press conference schedule, President Truman insisted he had never been in any danger.

The following day when he set off for his daily morning walk—accompanied by a more considerable entourage of Secret Service agents and press—Time magazine reported President Truman as saying, “A president has to expect these things.”17 The same article also quoted the president as telling his chief of staff, Admiral William Leahy, who had also served as governor of Puerto Rico for a year, “The only thing you have to worry about is bad luck. I never have bad luck.”18

LEFT: STUTTERSTOCK

In less than a minute it was all over.

Torresola lay dead in the hedges on the western side of Blair House. Collazo, wounded but not mortally, lay at the bottom of the steps. Officers Birdzell and Downs were severely wounded.

Officer Coffelt lay mortally wounded on the sidewalk.

What about the intended target of Collazo and Torresola, President Truman? Accounts differ as to exactly what took place during the attempted assassination. According to Margaret Truman, her mother shouted at her husband, “Harry, someone’s shooting our policemen,” which prompted the president to rush to the window to look out.12 McCullough says the gunfire awakened the president, who “jumped from his bed and rushed to the window.”13 President Truman wrote, “I watched the whole thing from my window.”14 While there is little doubt that the president did witness the later stages of the shootout, the issue of someone seeing him at the second-floor window of Blair House and yelling at him to get back is open to question. In their extensive coverage of the assassination attempt, Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge note that the angles of sight from the sidewalk to the second-floor window prevented any of the Secret Service detail from actually seeing the president at the window. The authors also note in the after-action reports no member of the Secret Service detail could remember shouting anything to the president or even seeing him at the window.15 What is not in doubt was the coolness and calmness of the president after the assassination attempt. Charlie Ross, the White House press secretary, asked whether the president would still attend the scheduled event at Arlington Cemetery. The president simply answered, “Why of course.” Ross later recounted he had “never seen a calmer man.”16

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TOP LEF T AND RIGHT: STUT TERSTOCK / BOT TOM: HARRY S. TRUMAN LIBRARY

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C O F F E LT A N D O A T H O F O F F I C E : U. S . S E C R E T S E RV I C E / P L A Q U E : A L A M Y

Officer Leslie Coffelt (above), having fulfilled the Oath of Office made in 1942 when he was appointed to the U.S. Secret Service Division (above right), was the sole fatality among the officers who successfully protected President Truman and foiled the assassination attempt. His “loyalty, bravery, and heroism beyond the call of duty” are memorialized near the entrance to Blair House with a plaque dedicated on May 25, 1952, by President Truman. The president also attended Coffelt’s funeral at Arlington Cemetery (opposite) and in a letter to Coffelt’s widow, Chessie, expressed that the debt he owed for the officer’s supreme sacrifice was beyond his power to discharge.

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T O P L E F T : A B B I E R O W E , H A R R Y S . T R U M A N L I B R A R Y / T O P R I G H T : U. S . S E C R E T S E RV I C E BOTTOM: AP PHOTO BY JOHN ROUS

TOP: GETTY IMAGES / BOTTOM: AP IMAGES

Officers Birdzell and Downs recovered from their wounds and eventually returned to duty. Oscar Collazo was tried and found guilty and sentenced to death in the electric chair. However, in 1952, and as a gesture to the people of Puerto Rico, President Truman commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. He served twenty-nine years in Leavenworth Penitentiary before being pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. He returned to Puerto Rico and died in 1994.

Officer Leslie Coffelt died of his wounds several hours after the assassination attempt. His death weighed heavily on President Truman. There has always been speculation President Truman chose not to seek reelection in 1952 because of the death of Leslie Coffelt. In his column in the Washington Post on April 3, 1952, Drew Pearson wrote: “An unreported factor behind President Truman’s decision to retire was the anguish and strain that the Truman family still feels over the attempted assassination of the President on November 1, 1950, when Leslie Coffelt was killed.” Pearson also reported President Truman told Congressman Morgan M. Moulder of Missouri, “Did you ever stop to think how you would feel if another man laid down his life for you? Well, that’s the way I feel about Leslie Coffelt. It’s men like him or some other good man who are really in danger in situations like that—not the President, but the men entrusted with his protection.”19

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NOTES

opposite top

Officers Joseph Downs and Donald Birdzell both recovered in a hospital after the gunfight. Downs was shot in the chest and abdomen and Birdzell was wounded in both legs. opposite bottom

After recovering from his wounds, Oscar Collazo was convicted and sentenced to death. President Truman later commuted the sentence to life in prison. He is seen here on February 28, 1951, in handcuffs while being moved from from one court building to another during a recess. above

AP PHOTO/JOHN ROUS

On December 12, 1950, President Harry S. Truman presented medals to the officers who saved his life. From left to right are: Officers Joseph Downs and Donald Birdzell, Treasury Secretary John W. Snyder, Chessie Coffelt (who accepted the medal for her late husband), Officer Joseph O. Davidson, President Truman, and Secret Service Special Agents Floyd Boring and Vincent Mroz.

The epigraph is from President Harry S. Truman’s remarks at the dedication of a plaque honoring Officer Leslie Coffelt, May 21, 1952, online at Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, www.trumanlibrary.gov.

1. Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge, American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill President Truman and the Shoot-out That Stopped It (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 56.

2. Deanna L. Diamond, “Secret Service,” in Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement, ed. Larry Sullivan (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2005), 3:841.

3. Quoted in Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1973), 228.

The young reporter’s name: Ben Bradlee. Hunter and Bainbridge, American Gunfight, 261–62.

10. It was never clearly ascertained who shot Collazo.

There is even speculation that the bullet that struck him in the chest may have also been as the result of a ricochet off the stair rail on the steps.

Ibid., 276.

11. Hunter and Bainbridge describe Joseph Downs as being a “classic wrong place—wrong time guy.”

Even though he was a uniformed White House Police Officer, he was in civilian clothes. His job that Wednesday was to drive the truck known as the Grocery Wagon and purchase food for that day’s Blair House dinner. Ibid., 224.

12. Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman, 488.

4. Ibid., 228–29.

13. McCullough, Truman, 811.

5. President Truman would dedicate an equestrian statue to Field Marshall Sir John Dill, who had been the British representative in Washington, D.C., to the Combined Chiefs of Staff during World War II. Dill died in November 1944 and was accorded the honor of being buried in Arlington National Cemetery, only the twentysecond non-American to have such an honor extended by the United States.

14. Harry S. Truman, Where the Buck Stops: The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman, ed. Margaret Truman (New York: Warner Books, 1989), 94.

6. David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 812. President Truman had also named the first native Puerto Rican as governor of the island and extended Social Security to all Puerto Ricans.

17. Quoted in “Fanatics’ Errand,” Time, November 13, 1950, 20–22.

15. Hunter and Bainbridge, American Gunfight, 264.

16. Quoted in Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), 460.

18. Quoted in ibid.

19. Quoted in Hunter and Bainbridge, American Gunfight, 266.

7. Quoted in ibid.

8. Ronald Kessler, In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect (New York: Crown Publishing, 2009), 8.

9. Marion Preston was the name of the Metropolitan police officer whose sleeve was grazed by one of Collazo’s bullets. He subsequently recounted his story to a young journalist in town for a job interview and, who being at the right place at the right time, used his initiative to conduct the interview and capture as many details as possible.

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GROWING UP A Secret Service Agent’s Daughter Life with My Father Rufus W. Youngblood

LBJ PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

R E B E C C A YO U N G B L O O D VAU G H N

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years before my father’s transfer, the Secret Service had protected the president from an assassination attempt in an all-out gunfight outside of Blair House. On November 1, 1950, two assassins were shot down, two officers were wounded, and Private Leslie Coffelt, a White House Police Force officer, was killed while protecting the president.4 Despite this attack, President Truman continued his morning strolls around the city. My father was often among the protective unit accompanying him. Secret Service Chief U. E. Baughman voiced concern for the president’s safety during these predictable outings, but the president remained an avid walker. “Contrary to popular belief, the Secret Service doesn’t tell the president what he can and cannot do,” my father wrote.5

IN EISENHOWER’S SERVICE On January 20, 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the thirty-fourth president, and my father was among the agents providing protection during the Inauguration. At that time, the president rode in an open-topped limousine and stood without protective barriers during the ceremony and parade viewing. And the Trumans left the capital without Secret Service protection.

On the following morning, my father escorted President Eisenhower to the Oval Office, providing him a mini-tour of the West Wing along the way.

For the next eight years, my father would protect President Eisenhower—his commander in chief

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previous spread

The author (in her mother’s arms) surrounded by her siblings and government officials, looks on as her father, U.S. Secret Service Agent Rufus Youngblood, accepts the U.S. Treasury’s Exceptional Service Award from President Lyndon Johnson, December 4, 1963. above

Agent Youngblood (circled on right) poses with fellow agents assigned to Eisenhower’s 1953 Inauguration detail. opposite Agent Youngblood (on driver’s side) runs beside the Eisenhower’ s open limousine at the U.S. Naval Air Station, Quonset Point, Rhode Island, 1957.

A B O V E : U. S . S E C R E T S E R V I C E A R C H I V E S O P P O S I T E : U. S . N AV Y

m y fat h e r , ru f u s w. y o u n g b l o o d, had already served half of his twenty-year career in the U.S. Secret Service by the time I was born. He was hired in 1951 as a special agent in the Atlanta Field Office, where he investigated forged check cases. It was a fitting beginning since “safeguarding the nation’s currency” was the original mandate of the Secret Service. He explained in his memoir, 20 Years in the Secret Service, “It was counterfeiting that brought the Secret Service into being,” ironically conceived in 1865 during the Lincoln administration, the first president to be killed by an assassin.1 Presidential protection wasn’t added to the Secret Service’s responsibilities until almost four decades later, after the assassinations of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley. Beginning in 1902 with President Theodore Roosevelt, the Secret Service assumed full-time responsibility for the protection of the president.2 Fifty years later, in 1952, my father was transferred to the capital to begin his journey in presidential protection as President Harry S. Truman was completing his presidency.

My father described his impression of working on the White House Detail: “It was, to me, a rarefied atmosphere.”3 President Truman had recently moved back into the White House after residing in Blair House for more than three years during the White House reconstruction. During that time, just under two

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mother, including the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. It had been suspended during World War II and the Truman renovation and resumed during the Eisenhower administration. Joy remembers feeling at home on the White House Grounds when she saw the Secret Service agents among the crowd; many greeted her by name. Agent Art Godfrey introduced her to Mamie Eisenhower who, in turn, graciously welcomed Joy to the White House.

At the Eisenhower White House staff Christmas parties, Joy recalls how magical the White House appeared with decorations everywhere. She remembers Mamie Eisenhower as “outgoing and friendly,” and Mark remembers the president’s charismatic smile, like “none other.” One year, Santa Claus passed out toys to the children and gave Joy a metal White House dollhouse (flat until assembled) and Mark a toy bear.

Each Christmas, President Eisenhower gave the staff a Hallmark reproduction of one of his paintings. My father favored the Colorado landscape of St. Louis Creek since he had protected President Eisenhower on Byers Peak Ranch where the president had painted it. In September 1955, President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while in Denver, and my father and his fellow agents rushed him to Fitzsimons Army Hospital for treatment.

Afterward, President Eisenhower was restricted from traveling to the Colorado Mountains due to the altitude, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, became his new refuge.

In 1958, two years after my sister Candy was born, our father requested and received a transfer back to Atlanta for “another tour of duty in the field . . . to improve chances for advancement.”7 Having family nearby to provide childcare enabled our mother to work a secretarial job to supplement our father’s government income. Dad was still assigned to protect President Eisenhower, especially when the president traveled to the Augusta National Golf Club. After three years, our father requested a transfer back to the White House Detail, and our family moved back to Virginia, near the capital.

On the morning of January 20, 1961, before John F. Kennedy became the thirty-fifth president, my father accompanied President Eisenhower in the West Wing one last time as “Ike” bade farewell to his staff of eight years.8 After the Inauguration, the Eisenhowers moved to their home in Gettysburg, no longer under Secret Service care.

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left

Agent Youngblood often protected Eisenhower on the golf course. He is seen posing as his caddy (on the back right) during a game at Cherry Hills Golf Course in Colorado.

Youngblood carried a set of dummy club heads and a submachine gun in his golf bag, 1953. opposite

Youngblood (seen here just to the right of President Kennedy) looks on as Kennedy receives a briefing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

During the Kennedy years, Youngblood was often in charge of protection for Vice President Johnson, who congratulated Peggy Youngblood on the author’s birth in 1961.

E I S E N H O W E R : C O L O R A D O S TA T E PA T R O L

who had been his revered supreme commander during World War II when my father served in the 8th Air Force. In addition to working at the White House, my father spent months in Denver, Colorado, protecting President Eisenhower at the “Summer White House,” and on many domestic and international trips. Moreover, he guarded the president in “pursuit of a golf ball over endless miles of roughs and fairways.”6 These were exciting, yet challenging times for my mother, Peggy Denham Youngblood, who was raising two young children, often without her husband in town. However, she was inspired by her surroundings, and, with the capital as their playground, she engaged my older siblings in the many activities around them. They visited monuments and museums, and she emphasized the historical significance of their environment.

My oldest sister, Joy, and my brother, Mark, attended many White House holiday events with our

L E F T : J O H N F. K E N N E D Y P R E S I D E N T I A L L I B R A R Y / R I G H T : R U F U S W. Y O U N G B L O O D C O L L E C T I O N

PRESIDENT KENNEDY’S AND VICE PRESIDENT JOHNSON’S DETAILS My father briefly served on the Kennedy Detail, and he considered President Kennedy “a pleasure to work around.”9 However, when the president began sending Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson abroad, my father was selected as one of two agents in charge of the vice president’s newly created detail.

With a small unit of agents, my father accompanied the tireless vice president around the world as he delivered President Kennedy’s message of goodwill.

I was born that summer, in July 1961. “Thank heaven for little girls!” wrote Vice President Johnson in a warm, congratulatory letter to my mother.10 Vice President and Mrs. Johnson, known as LBJ and Lady Bird, were “down-to-earth,” per my father.11 They addressed our parents by their first names, often calling my father “Rufe,” and sent them cards on their birthdays. They also hosted a poolside party at their home, The Elms, for the families of the Vice Presidential Detail.

Secret Service protection for the vice president

at this time was designated “at the vice president’s request,” and Johnson, with taxpayers’ costs in mind, often did without. Thus, the detail fluctuated in size until October 15, 1962, when President Kennedy signed an amendment designating vice presidential protection to the Secret Service on a full-time basis.12 The Cuban Missile Crisis began the next day.

Vice President Johnson had been campaigning across the country for the 1962 midterm elections when the crisis began. On October 20, the vice president raced back to the capital from Hawaii on a commercial flight accompanied by two agents, my father and Agent Jerry Kivett, to attend the Executive Committee National Security Council meetings.13 My father couldn’t divulge the details of this emergency to my mother. She learned of the nuclear threat along with the rest of the country while watching President Kennedy’s televised announcement two days later. As did millions of people, she purchased supplies to prepare for a nuclear disaster.

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left

Agent Youngblood, assigned to protect Vice President Lyndon Johnson, is seen between the partially visible vice president and Lady Bird Johnson as they greet First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy upon her arrival in Dallas, November 22, 1963. opposite top

President Johnson, ( front center) and Rufus Youngblood, to his right, stand during the graveside ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery for President Kennedy, November 25, 1963. opposite below

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discomfort, she would later learn, had been my father’s weight on him. Upon hearing gunfire, my father had pushed Johnson to the floor of their car, then used his body to shield him from further shots.

He maintained this position during the ride to the hospital.

My mother mourned the news that fellow agent and friend Jerry Kivett had been killed. For several hours, friends and relatives of Agent Kivett, whose initialed name was J. D. Kivett, confused his name with that of Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit, who had been shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.16 At 2:35 p.m. EST, my mother watched Walter Cronkite deliver the devastating news that President Kennedy was dead.17 She was shocked and deeply saddened, as was the rest of the nation.

When 13-year-old Mark came home from school, he tried to be strong for our distraught mother.

When our father returned after midnight, it was our mother who was strong for him. He had maintained his composure and professionalism all day, but when he came home to her, he broke down and cried.18

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J O H N F. K E N N E D Y P R E S I D E N T I A L L I B R A R Y

She readied our basement-turned-bomb-shelter for five of us. In the event of a missile attack, our father would evacuate and protect Vice President Johnson.

The following year, on November 22, my father was the special agent in charge of Vice President Johnson’s protection and was riding with him two cars behind the presidential limousine on that fateful day in Dallas. My mother had been grocery shopping when she heard that President Kennedy had been shot. Early news reports erroneously stated that Vice President Johnson had been injured and that a secret service agent had been killed.14 Terrified, she rushed home to be near the phone and call other agents’ wives for information. Even though we had a phone with a direct line to the White House, the lines were flooded with calls, and she was unable to obtain details.

Watching the broadcasts, my mother learned that Johnson was unharmed. A reporter had mistakenly assumed the vice president injured when he had emerged from the motorcade car bracing his arm.15 The source of Vice President Johnson’s

President Johnson inscribed a note of thanks for Agent Youngblood on the photograph documenting his taking the Oath of Office on Air Force One, November 22, 1963. Agent Youngblood was standing to the right of the photographer when the picture was taken.

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I was two and a half years old and recall few details of this time, but my siblings remember the utter sadness of witnessing President Kennedy’s funeral procession. We stood in the cold along the White House North Portico driveway on Sunday. November 24, as the military honor guard escorted the horse-drawn caisson carrying the president’s body to the Capitol. My brother remembers a soft murmur develop as the crowd whispered the news that Lee Harvey Oswald had just been shot.

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AGENT YOUNGBLOOD RECEIVES EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE AWARD We returned to the White House on December 4, 1963, to stand beside our father as he received the U.S. Treasury’s Exceptional Service Award for his actions protecting Vice President Johnson in Dallas. Mark recalls feeling guilty for smiling in the aftermath of President Kennedy’s death. We met our father in the Cabinet Room, where photographers had congregated. President Johnson emerged from the Oval Office and spoke to us as cameras whirred. This moment could have resulted in a good family photo. However, I had an unsightly, mouthful of chewing gum, given to me by my siblings in a failed attempt to quiet me.

We walked outside and assembled on the marble steps in the Rose Garden for the ceremony. It was a chilly but bright, sunny morning. As Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon presented our father the award, I presented President Johnson my chewed gum. My mother, with her great sense of humor and forward-thinking, recorded my exchange with the president on the back of a photograph.

“Keep it, honey,” President Johnson told me before walking to the microphone to deliver his praise of our father. clockwise from top left

Photographers prepare to document the moments before, during, and after the presentation of the Exceptional Service Award to Rufus Youngblood.

As the Youngblood family gathers in the Cabinet Room, the restless author plays with her gloves.

Pacified with gum supplied by her siblings, the author is carried in her mother’s arms as President Johnson directs the family to the Rose Garden.

Just ahead of the ceremony, the author attempts to share her gum with President Johnson, who advises her to “Keep it.”

Rufus Youngblood, seen holding his award, is surrounded by his proud family following the ceremony.

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Lady Bird Johnson and her daughters, Lynda and Luci, walked around during the parties, graciously greeting guests. Whenever Mrs. Johnson saw my mother, she warmly addressed her by name and reached out to her. She also bent down and welcomed Candy and me. In December 1966, Lynda, gracious like her mother, hosted a children’s Christmas party, and she sat with us in the theater.

Our father, usually working elsewhere during these parties, dropped by when feasible. He always looked so important to me—tall and thin and dapper in his suit and polished black shoes. The other agents seemed to respect him. Former fellow Agent Clint Hill validated my observation when he wrote, “He was respected by me and my fellow agents, not because he demanded our respect, but because he earned our respect.”19 Observing my father in this setting, I remember asking him once, very sincerely, “Dad, when are you going to be president?” I can still visualize how he leaned down to answer me. His blue eyes met mine, and he said, very sincerely, “Never! Honey, I wouldn’t have that job for all the money in the world.”

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above and opposite below Prepared for White House visits by etiquette lessons, the author is seen with her mother and sister Candy in front of the Blue Room Christmas tree in 1967 and front and center (in red jumper) with her sister Candy (second row in blue jumber) at a children’s Christmas party hosted by Lynda Johnson (seated far right) in 1966.

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I was forgiven for the chewing gum incident, but it was a prelude of things to come. During later visits to the White House, my behavior simulated “Eloise at the White House.” I would run down the East Colonnade, enjoying the echoing sound of my shoes; pick up hors d’oeuvres from elegant, silver trays, then put them back; and stuff handfuls of chocolates into my pockets. Fortunately for my mother, the White House movie theater, located on the ground level of the East Terrace adjacent to the East Wing, was accessible to the guests’ children, and I enjoyed watching cartoons on the big screen.

My mother enrolled Candy (by default) and me in “White Gloves and Party Manners” etiquette classes offered at Lansburgh’s Department Store. Every Saturday morning for six weeks, she drove us from our home in Vienna, Virginia, to the Washington, D.C., store for classes. Afterward, my behavior vastly improved during White House visits.

Gloves in hand, Candy and I accompanied our mother to the annual White House staff Christmas parties hosted by the Johnson family. Sometimes we brought a friend if our older siblings couldn’t attend. Our mother sewed matching dresses for us to wear, mimicking high-priced versions found in prestigious department stores. While details of the distinct parties have blurred over time, images of the White House—at once both regal and hospitable—remain strong. I remember light shining through the windows of the East Colonnade, casting shadows on the tile floor; the maroon-red carpets and golden accents everywhere; and the stately white columns in the Entrance Hall where the Marine Band was often stationed in the corner, welcoming guests with music. We walked through the colorful rooms of Green, Blue, and Red, greeting friends along the way. In the Blue Room, we posed for a photograph in front of the Christmas tree decorated with ornaments crafted by children from all over the world. In each room were trays filled with miniature, foil-wrapped Santa Claus chocolates, available for the taking. The real bounty of holiday hors d’oeuvres was found alongside elegant flower arrangements on long, whiteclothed tables, usually in the State Dining Room.

Entertainment was ongoing in the majestic East Room, my favorite room, with its massive glass chandeliers. One year, ladies in colorful dresses square-danced on a stage in this room.

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T O P : L B J P R E S I D E N T I A L L I B R A R Y / R I G H T : R U F U S W. Y O U N G B L O O D C O L L E C T I O N

Rufus Youngblood, at work as Lyndon Johnson takes the Oath of Office in 1965, looks out over the spectators as others focus on the ceremony.

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Joy’s age fell between the two Johnson sisters, and she shared the same birthday (month and day) with Lynda. One year, on their birthday, Lynda invited Joy up to the teen room in the first family’s residence for some birthday cake. Lynda jokingly cautioned Joy to go easy on her serving size since it was a rum cake. Joy remembers the room as cozy, with a TV, record player, and free-flowing soda bar. All three young ladies later married men who served in the military and shared the hardship of having a husband away at war.

My father’s suitcase was always packed. He would often be gone for weeks, especially during the holidays when the Johnsons retreated to the LBJ Ranch. To express their appreciation to the agents who were separated continuously from their families, the Johnsons hosted a weekend at the ranch for the agents and their wives in December 1966.

We attended many ceremonies on the South Lawn. I enjoyed listening to the military bands and admired the soldiers in their dress uniforms. I watched in awe as honor guards maneuvered their weapons with perfect precision and was inspired by the color guard’s presentation of the flags. These procedures instilled in me a deep sense of patriotism, present to this day.

My parents attended many formal events at the White House over the years. While my father

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owned a tuxedo, my mother, a gifted artist and seamstress, made elegant, affordable gowns for the occasions. She carried a sketch pad while shopping, outlined features of dresses she admired, modified patterns, then sewed her outfit using material my father brought to her from some faraway country.

My father maintained that she was “The Belle of the Ball” at each event.

In 1967 my father was promoted to the position of deputy director of the Secret Service. Around this same time, Lynda Bird Johnson married U.S. Marine Corps Captain Charles Robb in a much-anticipated White House wedding. My parents were among the guests. Later, my parents hung a framed photograph of the newlyweds walking beneath the Marine Corps Arch of Swords. Next to it hung an autographed wedding photograph of Luci Baines Johnson and Patrick John Nugent cutting a towering wedding cake. These pictures were my two favorites, displayed on Dad’s “wall of presidents” in our family den.

Though I was young, the following year, 1968, left indelible memories. I recall the heart-wrenching reports and photographs of the Vietnam War and the angry protests on the home front. I remember my parents’ surprise when President Johnson announced that he wouldn’t seek reelection and the shock and sadness when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Race riots ensued. We

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clockwise from top left The author’s parents enjoy a weekend for agents and their wives at LBJ’s ranch in 1966. In 1967 Rufus Youngblood, seen above in a group photograph of agents, was promoted to deputy director of the Secret Service. That same year, he and his wife were guests at Lynda Johnson Robb’s wedding and received a signed photograph.

An artist and skilled seamstress, Peggy Youngblood often made the formal gowns she wore to special events, including the State Dinner for the prime minister of Iran, Amir Abbas Hoveyda, in 1968.

clockwise

A selection of invitations to the White House.

Secret Service group photo November 1968. Rufus Youngblood is standing in the center group, second to the right from President Lyndon B. Johnson.

During the 1969 Richard Nixon inauguration, Rufus Youngblood stood just above Nixon in the third row, screening the crowd for danger.

Lyndon B. Johnson introduces Rufus Youngblood to XX while Peggy Youngblood looks on.

FA R R I G H T : R U F U S W, Y O U N G B L O O D C O L L E C T I O N ALL OTHERS THIS SPREAD: LBJ PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

Rufus Youngblood, bottom left in the hat, protects President Eisenhower and Mamie Eisenhower in a car in XX, c.1955.

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above left

President Richard Nixon’s 1969 Inauguration was Agent Youngblood’s fifth and final inaugural assignment. He is seen here two steps above outgoing President Johnson. above right

Agent Youngblood (circled on left) with Agent Art Godfrey (circled at top) and Agent Rufus Taylor (circled on right) are strategically placed as they protect President Nixon on his European tour, 1970. The three agents had worked together since the early 1950s.

RICHARD M. NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Vice President Nixon had been in office together.

As the deputy director, my father often visited the three former presidents and their protective details.

On March 28, 1969, former President Eisenhower, “the General,” died after a long battle with heart disease. He had once told my father, “Take good care of Mamie, Mr. Youngblood.” My father honored those words. He maintained a correspondence with NIXON Mamie Eisenhower, never forgetting her birthday, January 20, 1969, marked my father’s fifth and and visited her regularly. My siblings and I somelast Inauguration as an agent, although he didn’t times drove with him to Gettysburg to “go see realize it at the time. He stood on the Capitol steps Mamie.” surveying the crowds as Richard M. Nixon became With more administrative duties as deputy dithe thirty-seventh president. The Secret Service security had expanded to include armored cars, sur- rector, my father had less personal contact with veillance helicopters, and bulletproof enclosures. President Nixon than with his predecessors, although my father did make several trips with Nixon.

Also, for the first time, the former president, in this The last was to Atlanta for Senator Richard B. case, President Johnson, was assigned a Secret Russell’s State Funeral. This trip to Atlanta, where Service detail who accompanied him out of the my father had begun his Secret Service journey, Capitol.

After the Inauguration, Candy and I accompa- symbolized a full circle for him. Shortly afterward, in March 1971, he retired after twenty years in the nied our mother to a reception at the White House hosted by the Nixons for the staff and their families. Secret Service.

During those twenty years, our family had to Julie Nixon, whom I admired, politely talked to me.

She had married David Eisenhower the year before. share our father with the office of the president of the United States. Though he may have missed cerI thought it was sweet that they had known each tain family milestones, our father was always with other as children when President Eisenhower and watched the news showing major cities across the country on fire. My father stayed at the White House all weekend as Washington, D.C., burned, and I was terrified. And then, two months later, we were shocked and saddened again when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.

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Ephemera collected by Agent Youngblood during his service to five presidents documents the many historic events he witnessed and the special relationships he developed over the course of his twenty-year career with the Secret Service.

us in spirit. We knew how much he cherished being a part of the United States Secret Service, and we were proud of him. He was the everyman whose life interfaced with dignitaries and pivotal events of our nation’s history. As his family, there were moments when we also found ourselves, however peripherally, in that rarefied atmosphere. We cherish those memories as well.

NOTES

1. Rufus W. Youngblood, 20 Years in the Secret Service: My Life with Five Presidents, 2nd ed. (Martinsville, Ind.: Fideli Publishing, 2018), 6.

2. Marcia Roberts, Moments in History: United States Secret Service (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Treasury, 2001), 4–5.

3. Youngblood, 20 Years in the Secret Service, 8.

4. Gerald Blaine, with Lisa McCubbin, The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence (New York: Gallery Books, 2010), 35–36.

6. Ibid., 27.

7. Ibid., 36.

8. Ibid., 45.

9. Quoted in Gary Goettling, “Eyewitness to the Death of a President,” Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, Spring 1992, 18.

10. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to Peggy Youngblood, July 25, 1961.

11. Quoted in Goettling, “Eyewitness to the Death of a President,” 18.

12. Youngblood, 20 Years in the Secret Service, 69.

13. Ibid., 68.

14. William Manchester, The Death of a President (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 169.

15. Goettling, “Eyewitness to the Death of a President,” 22.

16. Youngblood, 20 Years in the Secret Service, 106.

17. Manchester, Death of a President, 246.

18. Goettling, “Eyewitness to the Death of a President,” 22.

19. Clint Hill, foreword to 20 Years in the Secret Service, by Youngblood, xii.

5. Youngblood, 20 Years in the Secret Service, 30.

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Memories of My Years on the SECRET SERVICE Kiddie Detail Protecting President John F. Kennedy’s Children

O P P O S I T E : A U T H O R’ S C O L L E C T I O N / R I G H T : G E T T Y I M A G E S

paul landi s

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i grew up in worthington, oh i o, a small village 10 miles north of downtown Columbus, the state capital.

I graduated from nearby Ohio Wesleyan University in 1957, having earned a bachelor of arts degree in geology. Over the next two years I did a stint in the Ohio Air National Guard, hitchhiked across the country, worked part-time in a men’s clothing store, and played lots of golf. I was still living at home with my parents, feeling like I needed to do something a bit more meaningful and exciting in my life, when I ran into Bob Foster, a Secret Service agent, who had been in my older sister’s high school class at Worthington.

Bob talked about the travel and excitement of being in the Secret Service, and it was his opinion that the only drawback to the job was the amount of paperwork involved. It sounded exciting enough to me, and I thought that this might be the answer to my prayers. Bob told me to check it out and gave me the name and number of the Special Agent in Charge (SAIC) of the Columbus Field Office. I called and met for an interview.

Nine months later, after a background check, I received my acceptance letter and was told to report to the Cincinnati Field Office on October 5, 1959.

My training was 100 percent OJT (On the Job Training). That’s the way it was done. I read a lot of manuals and observed other agents conducting their investigations and interviews. After six months in Cincinnati, I was temporarily assigned to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for thirty days of OJT on protection with President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s grandchildren. My thirty-day temporary assignment became permanent, and I spent the remainder of 1960 in Gettysburg on the Eisenhower Kiddie Detail.

I was in Secret Service School when President John F. Kennedy was inaugurated in January 1961. After completing Secret Service School, I was assigned to the White House, a dream job for this

25-year-old. Monday, February 13, 1961, was my first day on the White House Detail. I worked two shifts. I reported to the White House for the day shift, and then in the afternoon we drove to Middleburg, Virginia, where I continued on with the 4:00 p.m.-to- midnight shift at Glen Ora Farm. It was a long first day, but I didn’t mind. I was on the White House Detail, right where I had wanted to be.

My first face-to-face encounter with President Kennedy did not occur until nearly three weeks later. My post assignment was at the West Entrance to the Executive Mansion. The president left the Oval Office and was walking toward me, engrossed in conversation with someone and not paying attention to anything else. As the two of them approached, I opened the door and said, “Good morning Mr. President.” He glanced at me, smiled, nodded his head, and continued walking and talking. I thought nothing more about it.

On the following day I was at the same post when the president again came by, only this time he was leaving the Executive Mansion and heading toward the West Wing. He was alone.

Again I greeted him with a “Good morning Mr. President.” This time he stopped momentarily and replied, “Good morning Mr. Landis.” I was shocked and impressed. The president of the United States had gone to the trouble to learn who I was! But it wasn’t just me.

President Kennedy did that with all the agents. He made the effort to learn all of our names. That’s the kind of person he was.

Days were exciting—buzzing around Washington, accompanying the president to various venues such as the State Department or visiting hotels for meetings and speeches. However, midnight shifts were the worst, especially at Glen Ora, in Middleburg. Sitting alone in a small security booth, in the middle of the woods, in the dark, in the middle of the night could get creepy. Hearing the

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previous spread The Secret Service agents detailed to protect the Kennedy children attracted the interest of the press with telephoto lenses as they accompanied Caroline Kennedy exercising her pony Macaroni on the South Lawn of the White House. When one such picture of Agent Paul Landis appeared in the Washington Evening Star, the first lady sent him a framed clipping with the inscription “Love from Caroline” and her own inscription: “The four-minute mile for Mr. Landis—with admiration!

Jacqueline Kennedy.” Landis’s colleague Agent Lynn Meredith (on right page) was also photographed leading the pony.

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above left Charlie, the Kennedy’s energetic Irish Terrier, pauses on the lawn at Glen Ora, where he enjoyed playing late night fetch with the on-duty Agent Landis. above right The author with John Kennedy Jr. at Glen Ora, 1962.

different sounds of the night could play tricks on the imagination, so I had to be extra careful not to overreact.

Whenever the first family traveled to Glen Ora, they brought along Charlie, their pet Irish terrier. Charlie loved to play fetch, so much so that he could be a real pain. One weekend at Glen Ora, Charlie got me really good. I was on post during the midnight shift, inside a security booth, in the dark, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the night.

It was quiet and there was no moon.

Suddenly, there was a loud kerplunk inside my security booth. It startled me so that I nearly jumped out of my shoes; my heart was racing. I had been watching the woods but not at ground level.

It was Charlie. He had been left outside for the night, and he had rummaged up a wooden croquet ball. He was looking for someone to play fetch with him. I happened to be the victim of choice. I did not see or hear him sneak up on me. That wooden ball landing on the floor of the security booth came out

of nowhere. I was so mad. I picked up the ball, and, stepping out of the booth, I threw it as hard as I could. I returned to the booth and was still stewing, when, a few minutes later, kerplunk. He was back. He had found the ball and wanted me to throw it again. Considering the situation, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself, “You got me Charlie. You got me good.” So, giving in, the two of us played fetch until my relief came. “Have fun,” I said, as I left and walked to my next post.

On July 30, 1961, I learned that I was being transferred to the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. The compound was a 6-acre, three-house complex overlooking Nantucket Sound, where Joseph P. Kennedy, the president’s father, owned a large summer home. The president and his brother Robert also owned separate houses on the property. The Secret Service had a security office located behind President Kennedy’s garage and several security booths located around the perimeter of the property. Agents

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took turns rotating from booth to booth.

The Robert Kennedys had a Newfoundland dog named Brumus, a big lug of a dog with long black fur and the disposition of a pussycat. Brumus spent the nights outside, and his favorite place to sleep was across one of the pathways the agents used when changing guard. His black coat blended into the night, and it only took me two times tripping over him on midnight shift before I wised up. There must be something here regarding me, dogs, and midnights.

All the president’s siblings had homes nearby, but the focal point was the compound where all the children played together. Caroline was approaching four, and John Jr. was now nine months old, walking and becoming more mobile.

This necessitated an expanded Kiddie Detail. On August 22, 1961, after only three weeks in Hyannis Port, I was informed that I was the necessity.

Until then, the Kennedy Kiddie Detail consisted of two special agents, SA Lynn Meredith and SA Bob Foster, my friend from Worthington, Ohio. My new position required a code name, one that I could use for security and identification purposes. I had no input in the selection process.

During the Kennedy years, the code names for agents began with the letter “D” and in some way or another tended to match an agent’s personality. Lynn Meredith was “Drummer” because of his musical talent. Bob Foster’s penchant for clothes earned him the code name “Dresser.” My code name was “Debut,” I’m guessing because of my youth. I was the youngest agent on the White House Detail at the time, and I knew that I didn’t look anywhere near my age of 26, so this new assignment was considered my coming of age party. The first family had code names too, but they all began with the letter “L.” The president’s code name was “Lancer,” Jacqueline Kennedy was “Lace,” Caroline was “Lyric,” and John Jr. was “Lark.”

I spent the next fourteen months on the Kiddie Detail, which many agents considered no more than a glorified babysitting job. They wanted to be where the action was, with the “Boss.”

For me, protecting the president and first lady’s children was just as important. There were positives, too, like no more swing shifts and no more midnight incidents with dogs. With the children, it was more like a 9-to-5 job.

I happened to be in Palm Beach, Florida, on December 19, 1961, when

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J O H N F. K E N N E D Y P R E S I D E N T I A L L I B R A R Y A N D M U S E U M

Special Agent Bob Foster and John F. Kennedy Jr. play with a puppy at Hammersmith Farm, 1963. It was Foster who suggested a career in the Secret Service to the author.

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Caroline Kennedy with her grandfather Joseph P. Kennedy in March 1961. While he was recovering from his stroke in Palm Beach later that year, Agent Landis accompanied her to the hospital—even loaning a penny to her father for a gumball.

President Kennedy made daily trips to visit his father in the hospital over the Christmas holidays in 1961, often driving a white Lincoln convertible himself.

Joseph P. Kennedy, the president’s father had a stroke. The president flew down from Washington to check on his father, flew back to D.C., and then returned to Palm Beach for the Christmas holidays. He made daily visits to West Palm Beach Hospital to visit his father, driving himself in a white Lincoln convertible. On one of those days I was outside watching Caroline when the president came outside and asked her if she wanted to go see Grandpa and help cheer him up. Caroline ran to the president’s car and jumped in with her father while I ran and jumped into the follow-up car.

When we arrived at the hospital, all the agents swarmed into the lobby behind the president and Caroline, but, once inside, all the agents came to a halt.

I was selected as the agent to accompany the president and Caroline upstairs to visit Grandpa. We rode up on the elevator together, and I followed them as far as Joseph Kennedy’s room and then I returned to the nurse’s station to wait. After their visit, I escorted the two of them back into the elevator and down to the first floor where everyone else was waiting.

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When the elevator doors opened, Caroline spotted a gumball machine directly across the hallway. Tugging on her father’s hand, she excitedly exclaimed, “Daddy, Daddy, can I have a gumball? Please Daddy, please.” The president fumbled around in his pockets—nothing. Then he turned to me and said, “Mr. Landis, do you have a penny I can borrow?” I reached into my pocket and came up with some small change, including a penny, and I handed it to him. He walked over to the gumball machine where Caroline inserted the penny, turned the dial, and retrieved a blue gumball. I could hardly believe that Paul Landis, a kid from Worthington, Ohio, had to lend a penny to the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world. I had just saved the day and probably helped avoid a major world crisis. I never got my penny back.

Caroline had a 10-year old pony she called Macaroni. Macaroni was usually stabled at Glen Ora Farm. Occasionally, David Lloyd, the Glen Ora caretaker, would haul Macaroni to the White House so that Caroline could ride there.

A small shelter on the west side of the White House provided protection, but,

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inscribed in a four-year-old’s handwriting, “Love from Caroline.”

Another time, after we finished our “jog” around the South Grounds and were “cooling down,” Caroline said, “I want to go see Daddy.” I thought the president was in the Oval Office, but rather than tell Caroline, “No, it wasn’t a good idea,” I thought “Let’s take a chance.” So, rope in hand, I led Macaroni, with Caroline astride, past the Rose Garden and over to the Oval Office.

It was a beautiful sunny day and the outside door to the Oval Office was open, but the screen door was closed. I peeked around the corner and saw that the president was alone, sitting behind his desk, head down, busily writing away. He appeared to be deep in thought and had apparently not heard our approach. I hesitated for a moment, thinking to myself, “Hmm, why not?”

Reaching out, I opened the screen door, and in we marched. I had the rope in hand with Caroline atop Macaroni in tow. The president looked up, quite

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Macaroni grazes on the South Lawn.

GETTY IMAGES

more frequently, Macaroni was allowed to roam and graze freely on the lush grass of the South Lawn. Whenever Caroline wanted to ride Macaroni, it was the duty of the Kiddie Detail to look after her safety, which mostly consisted of walking the two of them around the South Lawn on a lead rope. Caroline easily got bored with the walking, which meant we had to run and go faster.

One beautiful spring day, when I happened to be the lead runner, an Associated Press photographer was lurking outside the South Lawn fence, and he took a telephoto picture of us. The next day, March 21, 1962, the Washington Evening Star featured a front-page photograph of the three of us—Caroline, Macaroni, and me— caught in midstride, passing in front of an entrance near the South Portico. The photograph was picked up by newspapers across the country. A few days later, I received a framed copy of that photo.

It read, “The four-minute mile for Mr. Landis—with admiration. Jacqueline Kennedy.” It had an additional note

startled, and if you could have seen the expression on his face, it was priceless.

His jaw dropped open in utter disbelief.

I, of course, was wearing a big smile.

President Kennedy pushed his chair away from his desk and started coming around to greet us. By now, the shock of our grand entry had vanished and he was grinning from ear-to-ear. He came over to us, gave Caroline a hug, and still with a smile on his face, turned to me and said, “Mr. Landis, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

I was also starting to have second thoughts about what I had done. What if Macaroni relieved herself on the huge Presidential Seal rug. I knew that if that happened, I’d be the one in deep doodoo. We managed to exit the Oval Office without incident, and I wandered off with Macaroni in tow while Caroline stayed behind with her father. I am willing to bet that no one else has ever taken a pony into the Oval Office.

Maud Shaw had been the children’s nanny before President Kennedy’s election, and she came to the White House with the family. She was friendly and easy to get along with, and we relied

on her a lot for advance notice of any plans for the children. She enjoyed taking the children away from the White House, and we spent many hours wandering in Montrose Park or Rose Park in Georgetown. Both parks were relatively safe areas, and we were usually unrecognized and left alone. Occasionally we went to the National Zoological Park, but before long someone would recognize Caroline and John Jr. and the word would spread. As the crowd of onlookers grew, we would stay only as long as tolerable. Eventually, we would have to leave.

Mrs. Kennedy tended to migrate with the seasons. Wherever we traveled, Maud Shaw determined the daily agenda for the children, and we went along. During the summers in Hyannis Port, most activities focused around the Kennedy Compound—playing on the beach, swimming, or maybe Caroline’s riding lessons at the Allen Farm in Osterville, Massachusetts.

In the fall Mrs. Kennedy would take the children to Hammersmith Farm, her childhood home in Newport, Rhode Island. Again, we would go where Maud

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Maud Shaw, seen here watching over the Kennedy children at play on the trampoline, had served as the Kennedys’ nanny before the presidency and came to the White House with the family. Agent Landis often accompanied Shaw and the children on outings to local parks and the zoo.

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Agent Landis with Caroline Kennedy and Agent Luciano Grando, Sottofficiale di Polizia / Naples Police Department, on the Amalfi Coast in August 1962. The author considers the trip, made to visit Mrs. Kennedy’s sister, Lee Radziwill, a highlight of his assignment with the Kennedys.

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Shaw wanted to take the children— places like The Breakers, Bailey’s Beach, or the Swiss Village, a small reproduction of an actual village. If the president came up from D.C. for the weekend and cruised with the children on board the presidential yacht Honey Fitz, we tagged along following in our jet runabouts, chasing away other watercraft that came too close.

In winter it was off to Palm Beach, Florida, and the children followed much of the same daily routine there. We went to the beach or spent many hours walking along Lake Trail, a scenic pathway that ran along the intercoastal waterway.

All of these activities were interspersed with trips back and forth to Washington, D.C., by car, military white house history quarterly

helicopter, or on the Kennedys’ private twin-engine airplane, the Caroline, a Convair CV-240 piloted by Captain Howard Baird.

In Middleburg, I made friends with the local game warden. Sometimes at night, when not on duty, I would patrol with him, searching for poachers who were spotlighting for deer. He appreciated the company, and I enjoyed the excitement. He introduced me to several of the area property owners who allowed me to hunt and fish on their farms. I always enjoyed fishing and kept a fishing rod and small tackle box handy, just in case there was an opportunity to use them.

Once, on a gorgeous Saturday in Middleburg in May 1962, I had an extraordinary fishing trip. I’d finished for the day and decided that I was going to take advantage of the beautiful, quiet spring evening and try my luck fishing a nearby farm pond. I retrieved a bucket and my fishing tackle from the stable area and was getting ready to load them into the trunk of a car when Mrs. Kennedy and Caroline happened to come out of the house and spotted me.

Mrs. Kennedy approached and asked me what I was doing. While I was explaining, Caroline started jumping up and down and asking, “Can I come along? Can I go? Can I go?” Then Mrs. Kennedy asked, “Mr. Landis, do you mind if we tag along, too?” Well, there goes my quiet evening, I thought, but I wasn’t about to say no. I was flattered that the first lady was interested enough to want to come along. So, the three of us piled into the car—destination, the McCoy Farm.

The McCoy Farm was located off a gravel road, not too distant from Glen Ora. When we arrived, I parked next to a faded red barn and grabbed my fishing rod and a bucket from the trunk.

The pond was located in the middle of an overgrown pasture only a short hike away. I had preselected a red and white “Jitterbug” as my casting lure, so

I was good to go. The three of us headed across the field with me leading the way.

When we reached the pond, I immediately started casting, working my way around the edge, casting slightly ahead of me.

Caroline was more interested in the frogs, turtles, tadpoles, and butterflies, so Mrs. Kennedy stayed and poked around with her while I fished.

I was opposite them on the other side of the pond when I got a strike. I had cast the Jitterbug and was looking up to check on their whereabouts when a 5 lb., 2 oz., largemouth bass struck my bait. I set the hook, and when the fish leapt out of the water, I noticed that the swivel snap attached to the bait had come unhooked. One good leap and I would lose the fish, Jitterbug and all. If that happened, I was more concerned about being embarrassed in front of the first lady than about losing the fish.

I managed to land the fish, and to my surprise Mrs. Kennedy and Caroline clapped their hands and cheered. I was elated. This is what it was like to be around the Kennedys. They took a

personal interest in everyone. They cared. I had the fish mounted in remembrance of that day, and it still hangs on my office wall.

The highlight of my assignment with the Kennedy children came in August 1962 when Mrs. Kennedy decided to meet her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, in Italy—and she was taking four-year old Caroline with her. Two of us from the Kiddie Detail were selected to go along—me and my old friend from Ohio, SA Robert Foster. We spent three weeks in Ravello, Italy, enjoying the Amalfi Coast. For me, this beat anything that the President’s Detail had to offer by a long shot. But that’s another story for another time.

Though it’s been fifty-five years since I left the Secret Service, I still remember much about those fun-filled days in the Kennedy White House.

T H I S S P R E A D : PA U L L A N D I S

Jacqueline and Caroline Kennedy clapped when Agent Landis caught a 5 lb., 2 oz., largemouth bass on a fishing trip in 1962. He mounted the fish to remember the springtime outing.

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Protecting the President’s HOUSE The Evolution and Role of the United States Secret Service m i ke sam ps o n

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P R E V I O U S S P R E A D : U. S . S E C R E T S E R V I C E A R C H I V E S / L E F T PA U L J. R I C H A R D S /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

Both a national symbol and the home of the president, the White House is a magnet for tourists and demonstrators alike.

Performing its responsibility to protect the president and ensure the safety of all those visiting, working, and residing there, the Secret Service monitors it all, from the stream of activity on Pennsylvania Avenue to the daily events inside its walls. previous spread A Uniformed Division Officer stands vigilant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. opposite An agent stands at his post in the East Room as President Barack Obama conducts a prime-time press conference, 2009.

friend and foe. It has even been targeted by foes numerous times, including two occasions that led to fatalities inside its grounds: in July 1976, when an armed intruder threatened the life of an officer, and in September 1994, when a man who wanted to “kill himself in a big way” crashed a stolen plane onto the South Lawn.2 The Secret Service faces a paramount challenge: the need to balance accessibility to the “people’s house,” one of the most sought-after sites in the world, with its security.

TA S O S K A T O P O D I S / G E T T Y I M A G E

below Secret Service officers watch the crowds passing in front of the White House, 2019.

it has been the epicenter of h i s t o r y in times of both war and peace. It remains a site for tourists and demonstrators alike. It has experienced fires and been fired upon. It is, as noted by the historian William Seale, “one of our most revered national symbols, which, at its core, remains what it has always been, a house.”1 “It” is the White House, and its security and the safety of those visiting, working, and residing there are the responsibility of the United States Secret Service.

The White House is alive each day, and the work performed within its walls charts the course of history for the nation and the world. As such, this iconic symbol draws the attention of both

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R I G H T : L B J P R E S I D E N T I A L L I B R A R Y / T O P : U. S . S E C R E T S E RV I C E A R C H I V E S

clockwise from top left

The president is never without the protection of the Secret Service, even while greeting guests and visitors on the grounds.

Agents are seen watching over President Lyndon Johnson as he greets White House guests in 1966 and standing close by as President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet guests to the Easter Egg Roll in 2019.

T O P : A P P H O T O B Y J. S C O T T A P P L E W H I T E / B O T T O M : U. S . S E C R E T S E RV I C E A R C H I V E S

right and below The Secret Service responds to would be intruders and those who wish to do harm to themselves or others. In one of the two wellknown incidents when such intrusions led to a fatality, a man who wanted to “kill himself in a big way� crashed a stolen plane onto the South Lawn in 1994. The wreckage was captured in this photograph near the South Portico.

An incident that ended peacefully began on Christmas morning, 1974, when a man wearing flares crashed his car through the Northwest Gate. He surrendered after four hours of negotiations with the Secret Service and Executive Protective Service.

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opposite

Members of the White House Police Force pose on the steps of the South Portico, February 17, 1923. Of the officers, newspaper columnist Vylla Poe Wilson remarked, “They soon acquire a real White House air, debonair and cheerful, mingled with the great dignity incumbent on those trusted with such important duty.” Only the best candidates were selected when the White House Police and the Secret Service joined forces on May 14, 1930.

O P P O S I T E : L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S / A B O V E : U. S . S E C R E T S E R V I C E A R C H I V E S

abive

A Uniformed Division TREK Unit Officer is seen near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building while patrolling the White House Complex area by bicycle.

Before there was a Secret Service, presidents received limited personal protection, and safeguarding of the White House and its grounds were, in the early days, the responsibility of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department. During the Civil War, Congress recognized a heightened need for safeguarding the White House and its grounds. At that time, the military was added to the few members of the Police Department who made up the security force. Until 1922, the officers assigned were under the jurisdiction of the superintendent of the Metropolitan Police Department. On September 14 of that year, the White House Police Force was established at the request of President Warren G. Harding, and it became operational on October 1, 1922.

The force was therefore placed under the direct control of the president, as supervised through his military aide, in this case Lieutenant Colonel Clarence O. Sherrill, U. S. Army, who was also the director of public buildings and grounds.

Major O. M. Baldinger, junior military aide, was directly in charge of the police force at the White House.3 The force itself consisted of two sergeants and thirty privates, under the command of First Sergeant Clarence L. Dalrymple. The white house history quarterly

officers’ prior police experiences were gained while with the Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Park Police, and only the best candidates were selected. With the exception of a few officers held over from the old detail, all the new men were to be 6 feet tall and well proportioned, and not over 35 years of age. They were required to be men of good character and have excellent records in their respective departments.4 First Lady Florence Harding visualized the officers’ uniforms as similar to the navy uniforms of that time, with gold badges and cap plates, and it was from that design that the first uniforms were developed.5 In 1930, President Herbert Hoover recommended that the White House Police and the Secret Service join forces, since the latter was responsible for protecting the president. Congress concurred, and on May 14, 1930, the integration took place. Up until that time, these two security entities acted independently. The “outer layer” of protection, that of the White House and its grounds, was undertaken by the White House Police, while the “inner layer” of protection, that of the physical security of the president, was the responsibility of the Secret Service and its cadre of operatives assigned to the White House Detail.

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investigations that would later become the responsibility of other government agencies. For example, the Secret Service took part in investigations into the Ku Klux Klan, peonage cases, naturalization fraud, alcohol and drug smuggling, land fraud, and the beef and agricultural industries.

In 1894 the duties of the Secret Service expanded, as it was called on to safeguard President Grover Cleveland and his family, due to threats. This protection continued during President William McKinley’s administration, on a case-by-case basis upon request but, as in the past, without the authority of legislation. When the United States became involved in the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Secret Service detailed four agents to the Executive Mansion to protect President McKinley. They were

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Secret Service Operative Frank Tyree observes as President Theodore Roosevelt shakes hands with attendees at a White House party, c. June 1905. Roosevelt, who took office following the assassination of President William McKinley, was the first president supplied permanent and continuous protection by the Secret Service.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Until this time, protection of the White House and its grounds had been separate from protection of the president. Yet, presidential protection was not the original mission of the Secret Service. At the end of the Civil War, nearly one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit. As a result, the country’s financial stability was in jeopardy. To address this concern, the Secret Service was established in 1865 as a bureau in the Department of the Treasury.

(Today the agency’s original duty to preserve the integrity of the nation’s financial and critical institutions by pursuing counterfeiters remains strong, with added attention to the perpetrators of identity theft, access device fraud, and computer crimes.) The Secret Service was often requested to perform a variety of assignments and to conduct

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

posted on the First and Second Floors of the house and on the White House Grounds.6 The Secret Service did not officially maintain a detail of agents continuously at the White House for the protection of the president until after President McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. Thereafter, the Secret Service was directed to continue to protect the president. The following year, a permanent two-man detail was assigned to the White House. In 1906, the passage of the Sundry Civil Expenses Act of 1907 officially provided the legislative authority for the Secret Service to protect the president of the United States.

With its integration into the Secret Service, the White House Police undertook additional duties. Congress mandated that the White House Police should be responsible for protecting foreign missions and embassies throughout Washington, D.C. That legislation passed in March 1970, and the White House Police became the Executive Protective Service. In 1974, when Congress authorized the protection of the vice president’s immediate

family, the Executive Protective Service gained another responsibility: protecting the vice president and his family at their home on the grounds of the Naval Observatory. On November 15, 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation changing the name from Executive Protective Service to the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.7 Over the years, the United States Secret Service’s protective mission greatly expanded. Currently the Secret Service is authorized by law to protect the following: the president, vice president, and their immediate families; other individuals next in order of succession to the office of the president; former presidents and their spouses and their minor children until age 16; foreign heads of state and their spouses visiting the United States; major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses; and the president-elect, vice president-elect, and their spouses.

Protection for the president and vice president of the United States is mandatory. All other individuals entitled to Secret Service protection may decline security if they choose.8

White House Police Sergeant Alpheuis Walter and Secret Service Operative James Haley accompany First Lady Grace Coolidge as she hosts the Easter Egg Roll on the White House Lawn, April 13, 1925.

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Washington, D.C. From 1948 to 1952 Blair House served as the official residence to President Harry Truman and First Lady Bess Truman while the White House was undergoing a complete renovation. On November 1, 1950, White House Police Officer Leslie Coffelt was killed in an exchange of gunfire when two Puerto Rican nationalists attempted to assassinate President Truman. Among the Secret Service personnel to respond that day was Agent Rex Scouten, who later served as the White House chief usher from 1969 to 1986.

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A special agent stands at his post on the South Lawn (top) during a departure as President and Mrs. Donald Trump walk toward the waiting Marine One. A Uniformed Division Counter Sniper Team officer stands vigilant on the White House roof, October 30, 2001 (opposite). On the morning of September 11, 2001, officers remained at their posts even as the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 approached from the southwest before it turned and struck the Pentagon. A hero from the war in Afghanistan that followed, Special Agent Ronald J. Shurer II is presented the Medal of Honor by President Donald Trump, 2018 (above).

U. S . S E C R E T S E R V I C E

Today the various components of the Uniformed Division work together with the Presidential Protective Division, the Vice Presidential Protective Division, the Technical Security Division, Special Operations Division, and the Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division, along with assistance from valued law enforcement partners in the Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Park Police, to ensure an intricate, multilayered, and coordinated effort in protecting the entire White House Complex.

The complex consists of the four principal structures: the Executive Mansion, where the first family resides; the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the location of the executive offices of the president and the vice president; the West Wing, the location of the official office of the president; and the East Wing, the official reception entrance to the State Rooms of the Executive Mansion.9 Nearby, the Treasury Building and Treasury Annex also receive the attention of the Uniformed Division. Blair House is secured when in use by a foreign head of government or state during a visit to

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G E O R G E W. B U S H P R E S I D E N T I A L L I B R A R Y

left

It is usually Uniformed Division personnel who are predominately visible to anyone approaching the White House.

Officers perform specific functions integral to the design and execution of security plans by means of post standers and by confirming access entry checks, administering magnetometer screening (with more than 1 million visitors screened in 2019), conducting tours, and patrolling the grounds of the White House.

Upon closer examination, it can be noted that Uniformed Division officers have the unique dispensation as the only law enforcement agency authorized to wear the Presidential Coat of Arms as a shoulder patch on the uniform, granted by President Dwight Eisenhower on April 16, 1958.

The United States Secret Service Valor Award honors and recognizes agency personnel who have

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L E F T : U. S . S E C R E T S E RV I C E

A Uniformed Division Officer authenticates the credentials of employees and guests awaiting access to the White House. It is the Uniformed Division that is most visible to anyone approaching the White House.

above

A B O V E : B R U C E W H I T E F O R T H E W H I T E H O U S E H I S T O R I C A L A S S O C I AT I O N

Officers stand at their posts at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in front of a newly erected section of iron fencing, March 2020.

Replacing a 6.5 foot fence, the new 13 foot fence incorporates anticlimbing and intrusion technology. Construction began on the replacement fence in July of 2019 and is scheduled to be completed in 2020.

demonstrated outstanding courage and voluntary risk of personal safety. Of the current 132 recipients, seven have been awarded with the Secret Service’s highest and most revered decoration for their actions in response to violent life-threatening situations around the White House Complex. More than thirty officers and agents have been bestowed with the agency’s Distinguished Life Saving Award for rendering aid to visitors, employees, or colleagues in distress or with medical emergencies in areas of Secret Service protective concern.

The relationship between providing a robust security plan while still allowing access to the “people’s house” is always evolving. Most recently, in July 2019, construction of a new White House fence undertaken by the National Park Service and Secret Service required a balance of pleasing decor and security.

The existing 6 foot 6 inch fence was replaced by a fence approximately 13 feet tall, with wider and stronger fence posts.

Additionally, the new fence incorporates anticlimbing and intrusion technology and is designed to mitigate current and future security threats.10

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The U.S. Secret Service is prepared to meet such challenges in 2020 and the years to come.

NOTES

1. William Seale, The President’s House: A History (Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 1986), 1:xx.

2. Department of the Treasury, Public Report of the White House Security Review (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1995), 31.

3. United States Secret Service Moments in History (Washington, D.C.: Department of Homeland Security, 2015), 92.

4. Ignatius J. Connole, “A Review of Police Protection at the White House,” c. 1952, 28.

Connole was a retired White House Police officer.

5. Harold A. Dougherty, “Presidential Protection and Security: Origin and Development, 1792– 1922,” c. 1963, 24. Dougherty also was a retired White House Police officer.

6. Department of the Treasury, Public Report of the White House Security Review, 73.

7. United States Secret Service Moments in History, 95–96.

8. 18 U.S. Code, sec. 3056, Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service.

9. Department of the Treasury, Public Report of the White House Security Review, 53.

10. National Park Service, “White House Fence Construction-President’s Park (White House),” posted August 20, 2019, online at the National Park Service website, nps.gov.

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I N T H E L I N E O F F I R E Š 1 9 9 3 C O L U M B I A P I C T U R E S I N D U S T R I E S , I N C . A L L R I G H T S R E S E RV E D , C O U R T E S Y O F C O L U M B I A P I C T U R E S

On Duty in the Line of Fire The Secret Service at Work

agent frank harrigan, por trayed by Clint Eastwood in the movie In the Line of Fire (opposite) was famously ready to take a bullet for his president. Though a fictional character, Harrigan embodied bravery and dedication not unlike that of the real life agents who risk their lives each day fulfilling their duty. As this collection of images reveals, the job takes agents in and out of the White House and around the world with the president.

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Who Is Protected?

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B R E N D A N S M I A L O W S K I /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

The U.S. Code (right) details whom the Secret Service is authorized to protect and under what circumstances. Among those protected under the code are those illustrated on this spread, including Donald Trump, as the sitting president, and his immediate family, seen (above) surrounded by the Secret Service during the Inaugural Parade, 2017.

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PENCE; OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY D. MYLES CULLEN / AMY CARTER: GET TY IMAGES / CHELSEA CLINTON: GET TY IMAGES, TOM SMART CONTRIBUTOR / C A R T E R : L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S B Y C A R O L H I G H S M I T H / B A R B A R A B U S H : A L A M Y S T O C K P H O T O B Y R I C H A R D F. O W E N S

Mike Pence (left), as the vice president of the United States, is accompanied by agents during a 2019 visit to the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida; Amy Carter (above), as the daughter of a sitting president, is protected by the Secret Service on her way to school, 1977; and Chelsea Clinton, also a daughter of a sitting president, is accompanied by agents on a 1999 ski trip to Utah.

Jimmy Carter, as a former president, is shadowed by a Secret Service agent as he greets a participant in his Sunday School class in Plains, Georgia, 2017; and Barbara Bush (above left) as the spouse of a former president, is accompanied as she walks on the beach with her two dogs in Kennebunkport, Maine, 2015.

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On the Road

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T O P : B E T T M A N N C O N T R I B U T O R / B O T T O M : P H O T O B Y S TA N WA Y M A N / T H E L I F E P I C T U R E C O L L E C T I O N V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

A familiar sight on the streets of Washington, D.C., on any day of the year, presidential motorcades are perhaps most dramatic during Inaugural Parades when a contingent of Secret Service agents escorts the president from the Capitol to the White House. Separated by a century, photographs of the Inauguration Day parade of 1905 (right) and of 2005 (opposite) show a similar arrangement of vigilant agents around the president.

President Theodore Roosevelt is traveling by horse-drawn carriage, while President and Mrs. George W. Bush have left their limousine to make part of the trip on foot.

Agents practicing for such an event are seen below in 1968.

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BROOKS KRAFT LLC/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

above President Herbert Hoover (left) is protected

by Col. Richard Starling of the Secret Service as he approaches a crowd of visitors on the South Lawn, 1932. Agents watch over the enthusuastic crowd as President Jimmy Carter (right) shakes hands in the Rose Garden, 1977. left Protected by Secret Service agents, President Donald J. Trump greets military personnel at Joint Base Elmendorf in Anchorage, 2019.

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HOOVER: ASSOCIATED PRE SS / CARTER: AP PHOTO / TRUMP: WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY SHEALAH CRAIGHEAD

In a Crowd

NIXON: BET TMANN–CONTRIBUTOR / OBAMA: OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY PETE SOUZA

above President Richard Nixon is protected by strategically placed agents as he pauses to greet tourists near the White House east gate, 1969. right President Barack Obama greets cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point under the watchful eyes of the Secret Service, 2009.

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Keeping Fit The Secret Service protects the president not only in the office but during recreational activities of many kinds, often becoming participants in the sport in the process. clockwise from top left Secret Service agents follow in their own golf cart as former President Gerald Ford and comedian Bob Hope drive a cart down the fairway during the Jerry Ford Invitational, 1985.

Former President George H. W. Bush, with a Secret Service agent behind him, pilots his speedboat in the waters off Kennebunkport, Maine, 2004.

Setting the pace for the agents who follow, President Bill Clinton leads a pack of Secret Service agents along a jogging path in Washington’s Rock Creek Park, 1996.

F O R D : D E N V E R P O S T V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S / G E O R G E W. B U S H : A P P H O T O B Y PA B L O M A R T I N E Z M O N S I VA I S

President Ronald Reagan rides with John Barletta, the Secret Service agent in charge of his equestrian detail. On one of many photographs of President Reagan and John riding together at the Reagan’s ranch, both on white horses, Reagan wrote, “Looks like a matched pair—or 2 matched pairs.”

President George W. Bush is followed by a Secret Service agent as he rides his mountain bike at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia, 2004.

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G E O R G E H . W. B U S H : G E T T Y I M A G E S P H O T O B Y D AV I D H U M E K E N N E R LY / C L I N T O N : A P P H O T O B Y J. S C O T T A P P L E W H I T E / R E A G A N : Y O U N G A M E R I C A’ S F O U N D A T I O N

Canines Assist clockwise from top left President George W. Bush observes Uniformed Secret Service personnel run their bomb sniffing dogs through suitcases at the James J. Rowley Training Center in Beltsville, Maryland, 2002.

Part of a specialized canine unit that works to keep the public area surrounding the White House safe, a Secret Service officer patrols with a dog on Pennsylvania Avenue.

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T : S T E P H E N JA F F E /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E / A L A M Y S T O C K P H O T O / A P P H O T O B Y C H A R L E S D H A R A PA K

A Secret Service Canine Unit screens a vehicle entering the White House grounds.

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Rain or Shine

T O P : A P P H O T O B Y JA C Q U E L Y N M A R T I N / B O T T O M : M L A D E N A N T O N O V/A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

The Secret Service remains on duty in every kind of weather. Agents (right) wait on the tarmac in the rain as Marine One lands at Andrews Air Force Base, 2015. Officers are seen at their posts (below) during a 2016 snowstorm.

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C L I N T O N A N D B U S H : T I M S L O A N /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S / C O N G R E S S I O N A L P I C N I C : S A U L L O E B /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S / I N D E P E N D E N C E H A L L : A P P H O T O B Y A L E X B R A N D O N / R I C H A R D R O G E R S T H E AT E R : B R E N D A N S M I A L O W S K I /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

On the Lookout A photograph of the White House or a presidential activity or event would not be complete without agents on the lookout with binoculars.

Clockwise from top right: on the Bellevue Country Club golf course with President Bill Clinton, 1999; on the roof of the White House during the Congressional Picnic, 2019; during a campaign rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, with President George W. Bush, 2004; on the clock tower of Indepedence Hall ahead of the arrival of Pope Francis, 2015; and on the roof of the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York City while President Barack Obama attends a showing of Hamilton.

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T R U M A N : U N D E RW O O D A R C H I V E S / G E T T Y I M A G E S / K E N N E D Y A N D J O H N S O N : B E T T M A N N / C O N T R I B U T O R

Outside the Gates President Truman (above left) was famous for his brisk morning walks through Washington.

He is seen here with with his Secret Service entourage crossing through the Washington Monument Grounds near the White House, 1946. On November 25, 1960, President elect John F. Kennedy strolls through the streets of his Georgetown neighborhood (above right) with daughter Caroline as one agent follows at a distance. President Johnson (right) is followed not only by Secret Service agents, but also by a police escort and motorcade, as he takes his one-mile morning walk. The photograph was taken near Johnson’s private residence following his assuming office after the death of President Kennedy and before he moved into the White House.

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While it is much more unusual for sitting presidents to leave the White House on foot today than it was in the past, they do sometimes venture out into the surrounding neighborhood to walk to church, shop, or pick up coffee.

President Bill Clinton (left) is surrounded by his security detail after doing some Christmas shopping in Georgetown, 1994 and President Barack Obama and his family (below) are followed by Secret Service agents as they make a short walk across Lafayette Park to Easter services at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 2013. next spread

O B A M A FA M I L Y: G E T T Y I M A G E S , D R E W A N G E R E R - P O O L / C L I N T O N : A P P H O T O , W I L F R E D O L E E NEXT SPREAD: OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY AMANDA LUCIDON

A U.S. Secret Service agent waits to open the motorcade door as President Barack Obama arrives at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City, 2014.

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presidential sites quarterly Feature

The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site The Ansley Wilcox House Becomes a Historic Landmark elyse werling

in buffalo, new york , a special historic house preserves a story of presidential transition at a time before the president was given official protection. The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, a museum open to the public for tours, played an intricate role in the arc of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. It was in this then-private home’s small library that around fifty people gathered to witness the vice president take the Oath of Office after the death of President William McKinley on September 14, 1901.

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THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM MCKINLEY

From May to November 2, 1901, the city of Buffalo, New York, hosted the Pan-American Exposition, a largescale semipermanent fair highlighting American technological advancements with exhibits and demonstrations, including a feature on “electric lighting which utilized hydroelectric power generated in nearby Niagara Falls” and the famous “electric tower.”1 The exposition also hosted a midway for entertainment. President William McKinley had been scheduled to attend the opening of the exhibits in May, but his wife, Ida McKinley, was ill and they were unable to travel. Instead, the president and first lady visited the exposition on September 5–6, 1901. On the second day of the visit, and against the better judgment of his secretary, George B. Cortelyou, the president insisted on holding a receiving line during a reception at the Temple of Music. Seven minutes in, the president reached to shake the left hand of a man who had his right hand bandaged with a handkerchief.

This bandage concealed a .32 caliber revolver,2 which the man, anarchist Leon Czolgosz, fired twice into the president’s breast and stomach.3 McKinley died from his wounds eight days later.

Vice President Roosevelt did not accompany the president to the exposition, as he had a schedule of speaking engagements on September 4, 1901, in Rutland, Vermont, a small town about halfway between the Massachusetts border and the city of Burlington, Vermont. Two days later, on September 6, Roosevelt traveled north to Lake Champlain, where he attended a Vermont Fish and Game League luncheon. The reception was held at the private home of former governor Nelson W. Fisk, who received the first phone call made to notify the vice president of the shooting. Fisk pulled Roosevelt into his office and relayed the news of the attempt on McKinley’s life.

At first the astounded vice president thought it to be untrue and a rumor, until a second phone call confirmed it.

Roosevelt immediately made his way to Buffalo, which was about 350 miles southwest of his location in Vermont.4 After arriving at the Buffalo train station, Roosevelt ran into an old friend, Ansley Wilcox, who invited him to stay at his Buffalo home. Wilcox and his wife, Mary Grace, lived in a stately house just down the road from the residence of

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previous spread

The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site was once a private home in a neighborhood of similar residences. Now the house is a National Historic Site situated within a busy commercial zone in downtown Buffalo. above left

The Pan-American Exposition is seen at night with the brilliantly lit “electric tower” as the centerpiece. The lights were powered by electricity generated on the nearby Niagara Falls. above right

Ansley Wilcox, an acquaintance of Theodore Roosevelt, hosted the then vice president at his home following the shooting of President McKinley. When Roosevelt returned a second time to the city following McKinley’s death, he took the Oath of Office in Wilcox’s library wearing a jacket borrowed from his host. Today the jacket is preserved at the Buffalo History Museum.

P R E V I O U S S P R E A D : J I M M Y E M E R S O N, F L I C K R / A B O V E L E F T : L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S A B O V E R I G H T : T H E O D O R E R O O S E V E LT I N A U G U R A L S I T E F O U N D AT I O N

TRAGEDY IN BUFFALO

DEATH MAS K: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY P H O T O : D I C K E N S O N S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

At about 3:00 p.m. September 14, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt is seen approaching a waiting carriage as he departs from the Milburn house where William McKinley had died at 2:15 a.m. Accompanied by two bodyguards in suits and two officers on horseback behind the carriage, Roosevelt was heading to the Wilcox House where he would take the Oath of Office. Molded at the Milburn house just thirty hours after McKinley’s death, this death mask was made by an artist for later use in sculpting a realistic likeness.

John G. Milburn, president of the exposition, where the McKinleys were staying.5 A Yale-educated lawyer, Wilcox was active in politics but not a politician. He had developed a friendship with Roosevelt, as well as with President Grover Cleveland and future President William Howard Taft.6 Meanwhile, President McKinley had been operated on in the exposition’s infirmary, a small hospital building onsite that did have an operating theater but was lacking in proper surgical instruments.7 Surgeons called to the scene found and removed one bullet but were unable to remove the second, and the decision was made to close the wound.

McKinley was moved to Milburn’s home to recover and he was visited there by Vice President Roosevelt, along with most of his cabinet. The president steadily improved, and so, on September 10, Roosevelt left Buffalo to meet his wife Edith and family at a luxury camp resort in the Adirondack Mountains.

On Friday, September 13, Roosevelt hiked up Mount Marcy but in middescent was intercepted by an

Adirondack guide, who delivered the distressing news that McKinley’s condition had dramatically declined. Before dawn on September 14, the vice president began a hastened journey back to Buffalo. When he reached the nearest train station at North Creek, he learned that the president had died at 2:15 a.m.

Roosevelt continued by train to Buffalo, where Wilcox and a small cavalry unit were waiting for him at the station.

After changing into borrowed clothes at the Wilcox house, Roosevelt immediately went to the Milburn home to pay his respects to Mrs. McKinley. He returned to the Wilcox house by 3:00 p.m., where he was met by six of the eight members of McKinley’s cabinet.

He needed to take the Oath of Office as soon as possible.8 Precedent calls for the vice president to take the oath quickly, wherever he is when a president dies in office.9 It had been 12 hours and 45 minutes since McKinley’s death. Around 3:30 p.m. Theodore Roosevelt took the Oath of Office from U.S. District Judge John R. Hazel. And so it was that the library of the Wilcox home became

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O P P O S I T E : T H E B U F FA L O H I S T O R Y M U S E U M T H I S PA G E : T H E O D O R E R O O S E V E LT I N A U G U R A L S I T E F O U N D AT I O N

opposite The Wilcox home library is seen in 1901, the year that Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in in the room. No photographers were allowed in to document the Oath of Office, but an artist’s rendering published in the Nashville (TN) News on October 13, 1901, illustrates the scene.

the site of a presidential Inauguration.

Wilcox described the room as not a large one and far from full. The following were present: Secretary of War Elihu Root, Secretary of the Navy John Long, Attorney General Philander Knox, Secretary of the Interior Ethan Hitchcock, Postmaster General Charles Emory Smith, and Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson. With them were Judge John Hazel of the District Court, Judge Albert Haight of the New York Court of Appeals,

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Senator Chauncey Depew, “and a few friends who happened to know of it.”

Additionally, a few journalists were admitted to the room but no photographs were permitted. Immediately after taking the oath, Roosevelt announced that it was his wish for the cabinet members to remain in office and a small meeting commenced. Two days later President Roosevelt departed Buffalo, accompanying McKinley’s funeral procession back to Washington, D.C.10

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A western portion of the present-day Wilcox House dates back to 1835-36, when the surrounding neighborhood became known as Walden Hill, named for the man who owned the plot of land. In 1839 Walden leased the lot to the U.S. Army, and temporary barracks were constructed; this lease was terminated in 1845 and most of the army buildings were removed. It is speculated that a portion of one of the army buildings was added to the site’s previously extant home and is encompassed in the current Wilcox house.

The home was sold several times before 1883, when the house and lot were sold to Dexter Phelps Rumsey, who gave life tenancy to his daughter, Mary Grace, and her husband, Ansley Wilcox. In 1896 Wilcox undertook a renovation and added to the home, creating its current neo-classical, Colonial Revival style.11 Ansley and Mary Grace remained in the home until their deaths in 1930 and 1933, respectively, at which point the house reverted back to the Rumsey estate.12 The estate sold the contents of the home at auction in 1935, altered the house, and demolished the carriage house. The house was leased to Oliver and Kathryn Lawrence from 1938 to 1947, at which point they purchased the home. They operated it as a restaurant and “extensively remodeled” the building, using a Roosevelt presidential theme for decoration and touting the 1901 Inauguration as the home’s claim to fame. After they closed the restaurant in 1961, the home fell into a period of disuse and disrepair until citizens of Buffalo raised the funds to save the building.13 right top to bottom

Kathryn Lawrence’s Dining Rooms operated out of the Wilcox house as a restaurant and banquet center from 1938 to 1961. The “White Room” featured a portrait of President Roosevelt while other dining spaces displayed ephemera of the Inauguration and Roosevelt’s presidency. A neon sign posted in the front yard welcomed customers. opposite top to bottom

Constructed c.1872-1880, the original carriage house was demolished in 1938. By 1965, four years after the Lawrences closed their restaurant, the neglected Wilcox house was falling into disrepair.

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T H I S PA G E : T H E O D O R E R O O S E V E LT D I G I TA L L I B R A R Y. D I C K I N S O N S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y. O P P O S I T E T O P : N A T I O N A L PA R K S E R V I C E OPPOSITE BOT TOM; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

LATER YEARS AND DISREPAIR

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The Wilcox House was renovated and transformed into the Theodore Inaugural National Historic Site, which opened to the public in 1971. The visitor center was renovated in 2009 and is housed in the reconstructed Wilcox carriage house.

Here visitors experience multimedia and interactive exhibits on the Pan-American Exposition, McKinley’s assassination, and the circumstances surrounding Roosevelt’s Inauguration, as well as Roosevelt’s presidency and legacy. bottom

The library of the Wilcox mansion was restored to its original appearance in the 1970s. Many of the original furnishings have been recovered and placed back into the same locations as the day of Theodore Roosevelt’s swearing-in ceremony.

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LEF T: VISITLAKEGEORGE.COM R I G H T : A D I R O N D A C K D A I LY E N T E R P R I S E , J U S T I N A . L E V I N E

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In addition to the Wilcox House, there are several other New York sites that preserve the story of Theodore Roosevelt’s journey from vice president to president of the United States. Declared a scenic byway by the New York Department of Transportation, the Roosevelt-Marcy Trail is named for the route Roosevelt traveled by stagecoach from Tahawus, where he learned that President McKinley was dying, to the North Creek train station, where he learned of McKinley’s death. The 40.2 mile trail begins in Long Lake at NY30 and follows NY 28N to North Creek, the site of the North Creek Depot Museum. Here Roosevelt boarded a train to Buffalo where he would take the Oath of Office.

THE THEODORE ROOSEVELT INAUGURAL NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE Formal work began in 1969 to restore the home and included the re-creation of architectural features from the time of the inauguration. Many of the original furnishings and objects that were there the day of the inauguration are back in place. The site opened to the public in 1971 and continues to operate as a museum under the leadership of a private foundation in partnership with the National Park Service, which owns the site.14 The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, situated in the historic Allentown District of downtown Buffalo, New York, is open year-round for public tours. The site also has a reconstructed carriage house, an interactive exhibition on the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and audiovisual presentations.

1.

NOTES

“Pan-American Exposition of 1901,” University at Buffalo Digital Collections, digital.lib.buffalo.edu.

2. Roger Pickenpaugh, McKinley, Murder and the Pan-American Exposition: A History of the

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Presidential Assassination, September 6, 1901 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2016), 1.

3. Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan), 777–78.

4. Ibid.

5. Ansley Wilcox, How Theodore Roosevelt Became President of the United States in Buffalo, September 14, 1901, revised by President Theodore Roosevelt (reprint: Roosevelt Memorial Association, October 1919), copy at Theodore Roosevelt National Historic Site, Buffalo, N.Y., online at Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University, www. theodorerooseveltcenter.org; excerpts online at Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, www.trsite.org.

6. “Ansley Wilcox,” updated March 31, 2012, Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, nps.gov/thri.

7. Pickenpaugh, McKinley, Murder and the PanAmerican Exposition, 312–14.

8. Wilcox, How Theodore Roosevelt Became President.

9. Scott Bomboy, “How JFK’s Assassination Led to a Constitutional Amendment,” November 22, 2019, Constitution Daily, National Constitution Center, constitutioncenter.org.

10. Wilcox, How Theodore Roosevelt Became President.

11. Lance Kasparian, Ansley Wilcox House Historic Structure Report (Lowell, Mass.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 2006), 3–19.

12. “The History of the House,” Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site.

13. Kasparian, 19-20.

14. “The History of the House,” Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site.

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Image: Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum / NARA

2020 WHITE HOUSE EASTER EGGS Collectable Keepsake The Official White House Easter Eggs are used in the White House Easter Egg Roll and are historically given to children who attend the event. While the White House Easter Egg Roll was cancelled for 2020, the White House Historical Association is commemorating the tradition of the Easter Egg Roll this year like every year with keepsake wooden eggs.

The 2020 Easter Eggs are available in spring colors blue, green, pink, yellow and metallic gold–and feature the White House North Portico and imprinted signatures of the President and First Lady. The eggs are available for purchase online at: SHOP.WHITEHOUSEHISTORY.ORG

HONORING P R E S I D E N T J O H N F. K E N N E DY The White House Historical Association’s Official 2020 White House Christmas Ornament honors John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States. The youngest president since Theodore Roosevelt, Kennedy took office in January 1961, at age 43. Before his vibrant presidency was cut short by an assassin’s bullet on November 22, 1963, he had reinvigorated the American spirit. His legacy lives on in his youthful belief in America and his faith in America’s responsibilities to the world. With this ornament we remember President Kennedy through his posthumous official White House portrait, made in 1970 by Aaron Shikler. The portrait, symbolic of his unfinished presidency, hangs in the White House today.

SH OP.WH ITE HO U SE HISTO RY.O RG

reflections

Challenging Times

as i write this column in mid-April, to be published in May, the Association staff is working from home, committed to our mission and to meeting the deadlines and obligations of our work.

These are indeed challenging times in our country. Those who have worked in the White House throughout our history have faced many challenges— the Civil War, two World Wars, the influenza epidemic that followed World War I, the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, the civil rights challenges of the 1950s and 1960s, 9/11, presidential assassinations, and a myriad of natural disasters. Each time the institutions of our country have emerged strong and forward looking.

That is the mindset and commitment of my colleagues at the White House Historical Association as we approach the celebration of our sixtieth year. In 1961 our organization was inspired and founded by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as the private, nonprofit, and nonpartisan partner to the White House.

In the years since our founding, the Association has invested many millions of dollars in the acquisition of art and furnishings for the permanent White House collection and in the maintenance of museum standards that Mrs. Kennedy envisioned through our funding of conservation, restoration, and preservation projects. The

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Association will continue this work into the future, believing that our best service to the American people is yet to come. After all, it is the “people’s house,” and it is on behalf of the people of this country that we will continue our historic mission.

This issue of the White House History Quarterly focuses on the extraordinary service of the men and women of the United States Secret Service who protect the president of the United States and maintain a secure work environment for the White House and all who interface with the president. Every morning when I come to work and every evening when I leave, I see these wonderful public servants at their posts, committed

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to the role they have undertaken. Their jobs remain the same no matter the challenges facing our country. Perhaps the bar is even raised for them in times like these.

During this period of working from home, I realize the simple things in life we take for granted: dinner with friends, going to a movie, attending church, or just popping into the mall to buy something. I realize also that it is easy for us to take for granted the service and presence of the United States Secret Service day in and day out. So, to each of you who have served past and present, the White House Historical Association does not take you for granted. We know well the critical importance of your mission, and we honor you with this issue for your dedication to the security of the presidency and to our great nation. above Stewart McLaurin at the Dacha Navy Yard mural of Jacqueline Kennedy and a Uniformed Division Officer wears personal protective equipment while conducting operations at the New Executive Office Building during the COVID-19 Pandemic, April 2020. opposite Secret Service officers on duty at their posts on Jackson Place and H Street Northwest near the entrance to the Association’s offices, 2015.

S T E WA R T M C L A U R I N : W H I T E H O U S E H I S T O R I C A L A S S O C I AT I O N S E C R E T S E R V I C E O F F I C E R : U. S . S E C R E T S E RV I C E

STEWART D. M C LAURIN PRESIDENT, WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

E LV E R T B A R N E S

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WHITE HOUSE HISTORY Quarterly

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features articles on the historic White House, especially relating to the building itself and life as lived there through the years. The views presented by the authors are theirs and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the White House Historical Association. cover: U.S. Secret Service agents focus on the spectators as they accompany President Donald Trump’s vehicle on foot during the slow-moving journey from the U.S. Capitol to the White House in the 2017 Inaugural Parade.

Their serious expressions reflect the gravity of their duty to protect the president of the United States.

the white house historical association was chartered on November 3, 1961, to enhance understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of the historic White House. Income from the sale of White House History Quarterly and all the Association’s books and guides is returned to the publications program and is used as well to acquire historical furnishings and memorabilia for the White House.

address inquiries to: White House Historical Association, P.O. Box 27624 Washington, D.C. 20038 books@whha.org © Copyright 2020 by the White House Historical Association. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the White House Historical Association.

issn: 2639-9822

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