The First Family Detail Page 22
Julia Pierson is sworn in as the twenty-third director of the United States Secret Service in an Oval Office ceremony on March 27. A thirty-year veteran of the agency, Pierson had been chief of staff to Director Mark Sullivan.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With my twentieth book, it seems appropriate to reflect on the person who made it all possible, my wife, Pamela Kessler. Back in 1985, Pam strongly supported my risky decision to leave the Washington Post and write books.
A former Washington Post reporter and author of Undercover Washington: Where Famous Spies Lived, Worked, and Loved, Pam pre-edits my book manuscripts, accompanies me on visits to sites such as the Secret Service training center to write vivid descriptions, and shares her wise judgment throughout. My partner in writing books, she is the love of my life.
My children, Greg Kessler, a New York artist, and Rachel Kessler, an independent New York public relations consultant, are a source of pride and support. My stepson, Mike Whitehead, is an endearing part of that team.
Robert Gottlieb, chairman of Trident Media Group, has been my literary agent since 1991 and has been a source of support, great ideas, and friendship.
I am fortunate to have Mary Choteborsky as my editor on this book and to have had her as my editor on my three previous books. I value her brilliant editing suggestions and astute publishing judgment.
The current and former Secret Service agents who contributed to this book did a service by informing the public about the true character of our presidents and vice presidents, about their own courageous work as agents, and about the risk to themselves and to presidents and vice presidents posed by Secret Service management’s practice of undercutting protection by cutting corners.
ALSO BY RONALD KESSLER
THE SECRETS OF THE FBI
In The Secrets of the FBI, Kessler reveals the FBI’s most closely guarded secrets and the secrets of celebrities, politicians, and movie stars uncovered by agents during their investigations. From Watergate to Waco, from congressional scandals to the killing of Osama bin Laden, The Secrets of the FBI presents headline-making disclosures about the most important figures and events of our time.
IN THE PRESIDENT’S SECRET SERVICE
Secret Service agents, acting as human surveillance cameras, observe everything that goes on behind the scenes in the president’s inner circle. In In the President’s Secret Service, Kessler reveals what they have seen, providing startling previously untold stories about the presidents. Only tight-lipped Secret Service agents know the real story about our nation’s leaders, and Kessler is the only journalist to have won their trust.
THE TERRORIST WATCH
Drawing on unprecedented access to FBI and CIA counterterrorism operatives, The Terrorist Watch presents the chilling story of terrorists’ relentless efforts to mount another devastating attack on the United States and of the heroic efforts being made to stop those plots. Kessler takes you inside the war rooms of this battle—from the National Counterterrorism Center to FBI headquarters, from the CIA to the National Security Agency, from the Pentagon to the Oval Office—to explain why we have gone so long since 9/11 without a successful foreign terrorist attack and to reveal the many close calls we never hear about.
LAURA BUSH
In this unprecedented account, Kessler draws back the curtain on this famously reserved woman in the only biography of Laura Bush to be written with White House cooperation. Based on interviews with her closest friends and confidantes from childhood to the present, as well as family members and administration heavyweights like Condoleezza Rice and Andrew Card, Kessler paints a portrait of a First Lady who, even as she ascended to the heights of political fortune and power, never lost touch with the bedrock American values she absorbed in her youth.
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