The First Family Detail Read online

  Agents try to distinguish between genuine threats and speech that is a legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights.

  “If you don’t like the policies of the president, you can say it. That’s your right,” a Secret Service agent assigned to the vice president’s detail says. “We’re looking for those that cross the line and are threatening: ‘I’m going to get you. I’m going to kill you. You deserve to die. I know who can help kill you.’ Then his name is entered into the computer system.”

  The Forensic Services Division compares the voice on a recording of the call with voices in a database of other threat calls. No threat is ignored.

  If there is a security breach or a disturbance at the White House, the Joint Operations Center on the ninth floor of headquarters can view the scene by remotely controlling surveillance cameras located outside and inside the complex. A handful of agents in the center monitor the movements of protectees, whose code names and locations are displayed on light panels on the walls of the center. An agent assigned to intelligence traveling with each protectee updates the Joint Operations Center on the protectee’s location. When protectees make unexpected trips, agents refer to the new assignment as a pop-up.

  Most threats come in letters rather than e-mails or phone calls. Potential assassins seem to get a great sense of satisfaction out of mailing a letter. They think that if they mail it, the president will personally read it.

  If a letter is anonymous, the Secret Service’s Forensic Services Division checks it for fingerprints, analyzes the handwriting and the ink, and matches the ink against 9,500 samples in what is called the International Ink Library. To make the job easier, most ink manufacturers now add identifying tags so the Secret Service can trace the ink. The characteristics of each specimen are in a digital database. Technicians try to match the ink with that of other threatening letters in an effort to trace its origin. They may scan the letter for DNA.

  Sara Jane Moore, a forty-five-year-old political activist, is the only person to have carried out a plot after being listed as a potential threat. On September 22, 1975, Moore fired a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver at President Ford from forty feet away as he was leaving the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. At the report of the shot, Ford looked stunned. Color drained from his face, and his knees appeared to buckle.

  Oliver Sipple, a disabled former U.S. Marine and Vietnam veteran, was standing next to the assailant. He pushed up Moore’s arm as the gun discharged. Although Ford doubled over, the bullet flew several feet over his head. It ricocheted off the side of the hotel and slightly wounded a cabdriver in the crowd.

  Secret Service agents Ron Pontius and Jack Merchant pushed Moore to the sidewalk and arrested her. As bystanders screamed, the agents shoved the uninjured president into his limousine and onto the floor, covering his body with theirs.

  For more than three hours, Moore had waited for Ford outside the hotel. Wearing baggy pants and a blue raincoat, she had stood with her hands in her pockets the entire time. Agents will sometimes ask people to remove their hands from their pockets, but this time, as people milled around her, agents did not notice her.

  Two days before the attempt, Moore had phoned the San Francisco police saying she had a gun and was considering a “test” of the presidential security system. The next morning, police interviewed her and confiscated her gun.

  The police reported her to the Secret Service, and the night before Ford’s visit, Secret Service agents interviewed her. They concluded that she did not a pose a threat that would justify surveillance during Ford’s visit. But the next morning, she purchased another weapon. Moore later said she took a shot at Ford because it was easy to do and she felt isolated and desperately wanted someone to take her seriously.

  Seventeen days before that attempt, Charles Manson family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, twenty-six, aimed a Colt .45 automatic pistol at Ford as he shook hands with spectators outside the Senator Hotel in Sacramento, California. Fromme squeezed the trigger, but while the magazine held four rounds, the chamber was empty. Secret Service agents grabbed her and her gun, and Ford was unhurt. She told her defense attorney that she had targeted Ford because she wanted to garner attention for a request for a new trial for Manson.

  By definition, evaluating anyone’s intentions is an inexact science. No one can predict whether an individual will commit a criminal act. But investigating threats and sending suspects to jail has undoubtedly saved the lives of presidents and other protectees.

  7

  PENNY-PINCHER

  According to his portrayal in the press and on Saturday Night Live, Gerald Ford was a klutz and a dumbbell. Secret Service agents on his detail say he was neither—but he was cheap.

  A University of Michigan football player who was voted most valuable player, Ford—code-named Passkey—was also an expert skier. He mocked agents who could not keep up with him. The Secret Service eventually assigned a world-class skier to his detail to accompany him down the slopes. As the president tried to catch up with him, the agent would ski backwards and wave.

  “The media got their kicks out of portraying Ford as a stumblebum,” says former agent Clark Larsen. “But Ford swam. He skied. He had been an athlete as a youth of some considerable reputation. The truth is the biggest stumblebum was Lyndon Johnson. He was like a country goober, falling down all the time, but the press never mentioned that, so nobody made anything of it.”

  While Ford seemed to be a humble man when he came into office, he discarded his old friends after entering the White House.

  “The people who had been his friends—the little people—kind of weren’t anymore,” Larsen recalls. “His new sets of friends were the moneyed people. People who had been very close friends slipped away and were replaced by the swells.”

  After he left the presidency, Ford’s cheapness became more evident.

  “He would want his newspaper in the morning at hotels and walk to the counter,” says an agent who was on his detail. “Lo and behold, he would not have any money on him. If his staff wasn’t with him, he would ask agents for money.”

  When Ford checked in at the chic Pierre Hotel in New York, a bellboy loaded a cart with the Fords’ bags and took them into their room.

  “After the bellboy was through, he came out holding this one-dollar bill in front of him, swearing in Spanish,” a former agent says.

  At Rancho Mirage, California, where Ford lived after leaving the White House, “you’d go to a golf course, and it’s an exclusive country club, and the normal tip for a caddy is twenty-five dollars to fifty dollars,” another agent says. “Ford tipped a dollar, if at all.”

  When Ford stayed at a Chicago hotel for an event, the host committee supplied half a dozen bottles of premium liquor for his room.

  “Ford took all the goddamn bottles,” a former agent says.

  When Ford was in Japan for a speaking engagement, a country club there lent him a new set of Ping golf clubs to use on the course.

  “At the end of the day, Ford was trying to stuff them in the back of the limo, and they were saying no sir, no,” a former agent says. “And he pretended that he thought it was a gift. He started pulling stuff like that after he left the White House.”

  Secret Service agents say Ford never seemed to care that his wife, Betty, was in a stupor much of the time.

  “We took her off Air Force One rigid as a board, carrying her down the steps,” a former agent says. “I blame Ford. He always seemed to be in another world. He never saw what was right behind him and never took the time to care about her.”

  Betty Ford—code-named Pinafore—drank vodka, so it was difficult to tell from her breath that she had been drinking. In addition to drinking, she was addicted to prescription drugs. Because agents must be aware of possible medical problems in case they need to administer emergency aid, they consulted with the White House doctor and learned of her condition. But unlike Pat Nixon, Betty Ford overcame her addictions after an intervention spearheaded by her daug
hter Susan.

  While she expressed anger at first, Mrs. Ford agreed to enter the Long Beach Naval Hospital’s drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. There she found herself performing humble tasks like cleaning restrooms and telling her story in front of other patients. She participated in emotionally revelatory therapy sessions with other women patients.

  Rather than covering up the reason for her hospitalization, she went public. With her friend Leonard Firestone, she cofounded the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage. She worked to raise funds for the center, which was dedicated in October 1982, and she served as chairman until 2005.

  “Betty Ford didn’t just lend her name to the clinic, she was out there all the time,” an agent on her detail says. “She really wanted to help others who faced what she had faced.”

  8

  WILMINGTON SHUTTLE

  Vice President Joe Biden may seek to project the image of a regular Joe, friend of the workingman, but Secret Service agents know a different Joe. That Joe champions cutting government waste while spending a million dollars since taking office on personal trips back and forth to his home in Delaware at taxpayer expense.

  At least once a week, Biden takes a helicopter designated as Marine Two from the vice president’s residence to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. He then hops on Air Force Two to jet back to his home in Delaware. He returns to Washington on Air Force Two. The cost of the flights is doubled because after dropping him off in Delaware or picking him up at Andrews, the Air Force has to fly the plane empty.

  “Biden leaves every Friday from Joint Base Andrews, so he gets lifts from the observatory via Marine Two to Andrews Air Force Base, takes off via Air Force Two, lands in Delaware, and stays the weekend and then comes back on Sunday nights,” says a Secret Service agent familiar with the trips.

  As if taking a taxi, Biden will fly on Air Force planes from Washington to Wilmington, back to Washington, and then back to Wilmington on the same day. When the weather is warm, the vice president regularly returns from Wilmington to Andrews on an airplane on Saturdays to play golf at the Air Force base with President Obama. After the five-hour golf game, he flies back to New Castle Airport in Wilmington—all at taxpayer expense.

  “Every three or four weeks when it’s warm, Biden gets up there on Saturday and then will fly back on Air Force Two,” says a Secret Service agent. “While Air Force Two is sitting on the tarmac at Andrews, he goes and plays golf with the president at Andrews Air Force Base, gets back on the plane, and flies back to Delaware. Let me tell you something, that is egregious.”

  Besides that, “The Secret Service rents condos in Wilmington because his schedule is so fluid and never concrete enough to properly prepare for his visits to Delaware,” the agent says. “So they keep a fully staffed Secret Service advance team in Delaware in condominiums that we lease so that when he does these things back and forth to D.C., they’re up there ready for him to arrive.”

  Until now, Biden has managed to keep the details of his personal trips and the costs a secret. Seeking to get the answers, I filed a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request with the Air Force in April 2013. Having received no response three months later, I looked into it and learned from Air Force sources what had happened behind the scenes: Air Force FOIA officers had done their jobs and within a few weeks of my request had compiled the information, including the dates of Biden’s trips, empty so-called deadhead trips to pick him up or leave him off, and the actual costs by type of aircraft.

  But in what amounts to a cover-up on behalf of the vice president, on June 6, Biden’s office blocked transmitting the results to me and told Air Force officers they were not to comment to anyone about the case.

  Instead, in an e-mail to the Air Force chief of Special Air Missions—which arranges flights for Obama, Biden, Cabinet officers, members of Congress, and foreign dignitaries—Jessica R. Hertz, who is Biden’s deputy counsel in his Senate office, expressed a series of “concerns” about the FOIA request and claimed she did not fully understand what I was requesting.

  Hertz has no trouble understanding the English language: In 2007 and 2008, she was a U.S. Court of Appeals clerk to Judge Sonia Sotomayor before President Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court. In 2009, Sotomayor officiated at Hertz’s wedding at the Metropolitan Club in New York.

  Hertz placed herself in charge of the FOIA case and, on the grounds that they were not “source documents,” ordered Air Force FOIA officers not to give me the ninety-five pages of records they had already compiled in response to my request. Rather, she instructed, to retrieve the flight data, Air Force officers must examine individual logs of each aircraft Biden flew on going back to January 2009, when he took office.

  To make the release of the data even less likely, Hertz told the chief of Special Air Missions that the Secret Service would have to be consulted before any data would be provided to me. In addition, any official statement about the case would have to come from Biden’s office, she told the Air Force in an e-mail.

  Calling Hertz’s claims “ridiculous,” an Air Force officer familiar with the matter said the data compiled in response to the FOIA request were the Air Force’s computer records that come directly from aircraft flight logs.

  “They are covering up,” the Air Force officer said. “We spent a lot of time compiling the records, but Biden’s office said logs for each flight would have to be consulted. This is a smokescreen designed to delay providing any records as long as possible.”

  Contrary to Hertz’s claim to the Air Force that individual flight logs must be examined, the Freedom of Information Act requires the government to provide access to existing “records,” which specifically include electronic computerized records. The act says nothing about “source documents.” Moreover, nonpolitical government employees are supposed to process FOIA requests, releasing documents regardless of whether they may embarrass the brass. In this case, the brass took over.

  After hearing from Hertz, the Pentagon transferred the FOIA request to the Air Mobility Command, which includes the 89th Airlift Wing, the Air Force component responsible for Air Force One and Air Force Two. Regardless of which plane is used, aircraft carrying the president are identified with the call sign Air Force One, while flights transporting the vice president are designated Air Force Two. The command told me a response to the FOIA request would be delayed because of the “high-level coordination required on these types of records.”

  The attempt by the vice president’s office to suppress results already compiled appears to be unprecedented and conflicts with Obama’s directive to agencies to “apply a presumption of openness in responding to FOIA requests.” Much like President Nixon’s cover-ups, it is an effort to direct government officials to hide personal abuse.

  Despite the cover-up, shortly after Hertz intervened, an Air Force officer provided me with the records compiled in response to the FOIA request that Hertz claimed she did not understand. The officer was outraged that Biden’s office would taint the Air Force by politicizing its FOIA process. Without telling her that I had already received the records in question, I e-mailed Hertz to ask what she did not understand about my request. She did not respond.

  The Air Force records show that from the time Biden took office in January 2009 until March 2013, the vice president’s trips back and forth between Andrews and Wilmington cost taxpayers $979,680 for fuel and maintenance. That figure does not include the additional costs of flying Biden on the Marine Two helicopter to and from the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory and Andrews. Nor does it include crew costs for his frequent trips.

  In fiscal year 2012, the cost to taxpayers for Biden’s Air Force Two flights alone amounted to $288,080, including deadhead trips. The flights totaled 62.8 hours on a C-32, which is the military version of the Boeing 757-200; on a C-40B, which is a Boeing 737-700; and on a C-20B, C-37A, or C-37B, which are Gulfstream aircraft.

  The records show Biden thinks nothing of flying back and forth to Wilming
ton multiple times on the same day. For example, on Friday, February 8, 2013, Biden flew from Andrews to Wilmington and back to Andrews on a C-37A, then returned that same day to Wilmington on a C-20B. Since deadhead flights were required to pick him up or drop him off, that taxi service entailed four flights in one day at taxpayer expense.

  In some cases, because Biden must be on a flight before the Air Force will pay for it, he has flown from Andrews to Wilmington to pick up his wife, Jill, then immediately flown back with her to Washington, according to an Air Force source who arranges his flights. In addition, according to an Air Force source, Biden regularly schedules a single public event in Arizona so he can fly there on Air Force Two at government expense with his family to play golf.

  Biden’s use of Air Force assets to play golf with President Obama is even more egregious. For example, on Saturday, April 21, 2012, Biden flew from Wilmington to Andrews to play golf with Obama, White House trip director Marvin Nicholson, and White House staffer Mike Brush.

  Biden then flew back to Wilmington, requiring two deadhead flights. Including the deadhead trips, the cost to taxpayers for that one golfing outing back and forth on a C-20B was $12,406. Since Air Force Two parks at Andrews for these games, Obama is obviously aware that Biden is running up a colossal government tab for each game of golf he plays with him.

  More than six months after Biden’s counsel Hertz intervened, an Air Mobility Command Freedom of Information Act officer responded to my FOIA request and provided the records of Biden’s trips that Hertz had tried to suppress. They confirm that between March 2009 and March 2013, Biden flew to Wilmington or flew back to Washington two hundred twenty-five times. The personal trips required a total of four hundred flights, including deadhead trips.

  Biden’s press office had no comment on his trips.