Posted on 10/15/2009 5:38:09 PM PDT by highlander_UW
Former Secret Service agent opens window into private lives of presidents October 14th, 2009
Jamie Weinstein In his In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents they Protect, journalist Ronald Kessler gives us a peek inside the intimate lives of our presidents. Through interviews with over 100 secret service agents from the past and present—dating all the way back to John F. Kennedy—Kessler paints a picture of what our presidents are like when no one is looking.
They're always watching. We learn from the agents Kessler interviews that John F. Kennedy was a serial adulterer (big surprise) and that Lyndon Johnson was essentially a serial adulterer and a lunatic. “If Johnson weren’t president, he’d be in an insane asylum,” said one former secret agent who sometimes was on Johnson’s detail. Secret Service agents found Richard Nixon strange and unsociable. Agents described Gerald Ford as friendly but cheap, often tipping caddies at exclusive country clubs a dollar if anything at all. But the president subject to the greatest scorn is Jimmy Carter.
Carter is portrayed as a phony according to the agents interviewed by Kessler. Carter would put on a show for the public to convey himself as a common man, but it was never anymore than an act. For instance, we are told that when Carter would make a point of carrying his own luggage in front of the press, he was really carrying empty bags. He expected others to carry his real luggage. Unfriendly, Carter “didn’t want the police officers and agents looking at him or speaking to him when he went to the [Oval] office,” explained an assistant White House usher. “The only time I saw a smile on Carter’s face was when the cameras were going,” one former agent told Kessler.
After his presidency, Kessler reports that when Carter would stay at a townhouse maintained for former presidents in D.C., he would take down pictures of other presidents and put up more pictures of himself! “The Carters were the biggest liars in the world,” one agent told Kessler of the Carter era.
Carter, not surprisingly, denied to Kessler through a lawyer many of the allegations in the book.
The man who sent Carter packing from the White House could not have been more different according to accounts from agents. Ronald Reagan would constantly interact with his secret service agents and other staffers who worked for him. He was apologetic when he would take secret service agents away from their families on holidays. While Carter would make secret service agents pay for any leftover food they consumed after White House parties, we are told Reagan would insist the secret service eat leftover food (without charge, of course).
George H.W. Bush also comes across as eminently decent. The Bushes, for instance, would stay home on Christmas Eve so that the agents could spend at least some time with their families. “Both [President Bush] and Mrs. Bush are very thoughtful, and they think outside their own little world. They think of other people,” one agent commented to Kessler.
Bush’s successor President Clinton comes across fairly well if sometimes inconsiderate, while Hillary Clinton is depicted as a monster. “Hillary did not speak to us,” one agent told Kessler. “We spent years with her. She never said thank you.”
Vice President Al Gore was exceedingly obnoxious to his agents according to Kessler. When scolding his son for not doing well in school, Gore chastised him by warning that “if you don’t straighten up, you won’t get into the right schools, and if you don’t get into the right schools you could end up like these guys.” The “guys” Gore was referring to were his secret service agents!
President George W. Bush is painted as an affable character behind the scenes. “He does not look comfortable in front of a microphone,” one agent explained to Kessler. “With us, he doesn’t talk like that, doesn’t sound like that. He’s funny as hell.” Bush 43 was also depicted as “down to earth” and “caring.”
While many conservatives may bristle at the domestic and foreign policies of current President Barack Obama, judged by the way he treats his secret service agents it is fair to conclude that Obama is personally a decent man. One agent who protected Obama on the campaign trail says that Obama twice invited agents to dinner at his home.
Kessler’s book does raise a serious question. Should those charged with protecting the president be chatting about what they saw behind the scenes, especially when the protectee is still alive, or worse, still in office? If presidents have to worry about their secret service agents squealing about them to the press at every turn, it will make our presidents want to put as much distance as possible between them and their agents and thus ultimately compromise presidential security. This is not a desirable outcome to say the least.
On the other hand, secret service agents have a unique view of history and there is something to be learned about our presidents from the stories agents tell. It may be argued that the agents owe a duty to history to tell us what they saw on their watch so we can get a fuller understanding of those who lead us, foibles and all. This argument is especially compelling after a president has passed away, or at the very least, left office.
These are difficult issues to wrestle with, but the fact is that the book has been written. What’s done is done. Might as well take a peek inside.
Not the first one... my father was pleased to own “Starling of the White House.”
Thank you to moderator for correcting the title, much appreciated.
As if I didn't dislike Al Gore enough already.
Really Al. We all know that no one from your clan has the integrity or courage to be in the Secret Service. Not to mention none of you have the ability to make it past the battery of psychological exams.
Don’t know about the serial part, or HOW serial, but there was a pretty well-known story shortly after LBJ became president, that Ladybird caught him doing the hucklebuck with a female staffer in the White House......IN THE ACT!
That he was “insane” or anywhere near it is brand new information.
I had a friend whose brother-in-law as a SS agent on the Clinton detail and he confirmed that as well. Actually, he was a devout Christian and asked to be removed from their detail because of the philandering on the part of both.
I know a Capitol Cop and he said Clinton was pleasant to everyone but especially to women. But there was a handler to keep women away. Otherwise, Clinton was a REALLY smart redneck frat boy.
It's quite true. LBJ was probably the most venal and base president we ever had.
Unlike JFK, he was not a man who sought "conquests". He didn't want to have to work for it. One of his favorite "companions" was his ranch foreman's wife.
My father was a member of the presidential aircrew on Air Force One during the Carter and Reagan administrations. I heard many stories about what a fake Carter was and how rude Roslyn was to the stewards. They referred to these airmen as “the help”. The Carter’s had absolutely no class. Reagan was a gentleman and was very respectful to the crew. The crew and their families were invited to the White House several times under Reagan. Never under Carter. Oh, yeah. The thing about the empty bags is true.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is blind??? Or maybe LBJ was blind. Was he a drinker? Blind drunk maybe.
Bump....
In August I posted the original thread about this then upcoming book. The best and most revealing items about the presidents were:
Lyndon Johnson
“Johnson would come on the plane and the minute he got out of sight of the crowds, he would stand in the doorway and grin from ear to ear and say, ‘You dumb sons of bitches. I piss on all of you,’ “ recalls Robert M. MacMillan, an Air Force One steward.
Jimmy Carter
At a press conference, Carter denied reports that White House aides had to ask him for permission to use the tennis courts. In fact, even when he was traveling on Air Force One, Carter insisted that aides ask him for permission.
Charles Palmer, chief of the Air Force One stewards, said Carter seemed to relish the power. At times, Carter would delay his response, smugly saying, “I’ll let them know,” Palmer says. “Other times he would look at me and smile and say, ‘Tell them yes.’ I felt that he felt it was a big deal.”
Ronald Reagan
When the news broke that Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart was having an affair with Donna Rice, ... an aide blocked the closing elevator doors to tell Reagan about Hart.
“Boys will be boys,” Reagan said, according to former agent Ted Hresko.
When the door of the elevator shut, Reagan said to Hresko, “But boys will not be president.”
Power, on its own, is, and has been, an aphrodesiac for millenia. Nothing new there. Not surprising at all...
the infowarrior
If they wrote the stuff after the President passed away, people might say the agent was making it up and that it couldn’t be refuted because the former President was deceased.
I think if the President knows that how they behave and treat others could come out at any time, it might be a way of keeping them humble and decent since they are public servant, after all.
Operative words here are 'on the campaign trail'. Has he asked them to dinner at the WH?
I only stumbled across an article about the book. I haven't read it but perhaps that's addressed in the book, I don't really know.
I read it about 2 weeks ago. Quick read and pretty interesting. Reagan, George HW Bush and W are depicted as we would expect...true gentlemen and considerate. Laura apeears to be the one most loved by all. Carter, LBJ, Roslynn, Hil and Al Gore creeps all and Nancy Reagan was not a favorite.
I think there will be more to learn about the O’s in a few years. It appears that they are on their best behavior right now.
I found this in a Drudge article awhile back;
In the book, “In The President’s Secret Service”
It says that Michelle is very kind and appreciative of
the Secret Service agents that protect them.
okay.
I know most here won’t like reading that, but I believe in the truth.
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