When asked why their weapons do not have night vision and flashlights, supervisors say the Secret Service needs to take “baby steps” before it gets to that point, meaning it would cost too much to upgrade agents’ weapons. When one considers that the United States has been spending twelve billion dollars a month to fund military personnel and the procurement of the most advanced weapons in Iraq—not to mention $787 billion for the stimulus package—the fact that Secret Service management is hesitant to provide agents with the best equipment to repel an attack on the president is mind-boggling.
Agents say the Secret Service is still fixated on the idea that a lone gunman will pull off the next assassination, reflecting what one agent calls an “old-school mentality.” Not enough emphasis is placed on the possibility of a full-scale terrorist attack or an attack with an improvised explosive device (IED), they say.
“Let’s look at IEDs now, look at things that are a real threat,” an agent on one of the two major details says. “Take a look at the boys in Iraq and see what they’re dealing with every day and see how that threat’s going to come home to us. Not the lone gunman with the .45 caliber sitting up in the second floor window as the motorcade rolls by. That limousine is going to withstand a .45 round when it hits the glass.”
Nor is enough attention being paid to the possibility of attacks by suicide bombers.
“How can the Secret Service not train for suicide bombers when Benazir Bhutto was killed standing in her limo by a suicide bomber?” another agent says. “How can you not see that that’s the kind of thing you ought to focus on? Not the guy with a .45 caliber standing on his rooftop two streets over. Let’s worry about real threats that are threats today.”
According to a third agent, a new Secret Service directive does address the threat of suicide bombers but is vague and says agents should try to talk to them.
“If I see somebody in ninety-degree heat coming with a winter jacket on, and I see he’s sweating and he’s nervous, I’m going to draw down on him, and he’s not going to get any closer,” the agent says. “You know if I start talking to him, somebody’s going to die right away. I’m not talking to anybody. I’m going home to my family at night.”
The tendency to cut corners extends to protecting Bill and Hillary Clinton at their home in Chappaqua, New York. Chappaqua is a picturesque hamlet that recalls towns of the 1950s. Its tiny downtown center is full of mom-and-pop stores where owners greet customers by name. Here among the rolling wooded hills thirty-five miles north of Manhattan, Bill and Hillary Clinton bought a five-bedroom Dutch Colonial home for $1.7 million in 1999.
The nine thousand residents of this Westchester County town adhere to an unofficial code of conduct: When you drive past the white house on Old House Lane, don’t rubberneck, slow down, or pull over to the side of the road. While Chappaqua residents may be impressed by the Secret Service agents guarding the property, the security fence does not totally surround it. As one looks at the house from the front, intruders from the adjoining property can walk right in. While they would trip alarms, they would have a head start on gaining access. At any given time, at least six agents are detailed to the house, plus two from the New York field office. But the house is outfitted with only two pivoting surveillance cameras that frequently go on the blink.
At Secret Service headquarters, the computer system that plugs into the intelligence community’s classified information on threats is limited in scope and technologically primitive. Agents say they typically learn more about overseas threats by watching CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC than from briefings by their own intelligence agents.
Until recently, the Secret Service even scrimped on cell phones, supplying agents with huge, obsolete cell phones and refurbished Motorola pagers that would not work near the White House. They have since been replaced by BlackBerrys. The agency’s radio communications that connect to agents’ earpieces often will not transmit through brick walls.
Citing innovations at the Rowley training center, an agent proudly mentions during a tour of the facility that agents are trained with a newly acquired “shoot/don’t shoot” computer program that scores them on whether they have made the right decision on when to fire. Yet when writing The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI, I operated such a program at the FBI’s training center at Quantico, Virginia, back in 2002.
While the Secret Service scrimps on equipment needed to save lives, it wastes agents’ time by requiring them to engage in needless record-keeping using software out of the 1970s. Every two weeks, agents must submit a printout with the hours they worked each day. An attendance clerk then retypes the data into the payroll system. At the end of the month, agents are required to compute manually the number of regular hours and overtime hours they worked for each specific protectee and the number of hours they traveled or worked out of town. They then enter the data into an antiquated computer program.
While the Secret Service has an ombudsman to whom problems can be submitted, agents call the position a joke. “The ombudsman is buddies with the person you’re complaining about, or he went into training with them, and it’s a good ol’ boy system,” an agent on one of the major details says.
Because of the serial deficiencies and corner cutting, “I think we’re on borrowed time, personally,” a current agent says. “I really think it’s just a matter of time before an assassination occurs.”
25
Turquoise and Twinkle
WHEN IT CAME to protecting Jenna and Barbara Bush, the Secret Service had its hands full. Back when Bush was reelected governor of Texas, “The next morning after the inauguration, they had a breakfast for friends and family,” Laura’s friend Anne Stewart says. “George was sitting on a chair at a podium. He looked like he was about to fall off of it. I mean, his eyes kept closing.”
Bush gave a short speech.
“Thank God for the person who invented caffeine, because I really needed the coffee this morning,” he said. “I also have something to say about the person who coined the word ‘curfew’ Unfortunately, my girls do not know the meaning of the word ‘curfew’”
Later, Anne Stewart asked Laura what he meant.
“The girls did not show up after the inauguration party,” Laura said. “At two-thirty in the morning, I heard him frantically punching buttons calling all of their friends, finding out where they were. Finally, he tracked down one of the girls. He said, ‘I don’t care if it’s my inauguration. Get your booties home.’”
“They were partying and having a great time,” Stewart said. “They thought, ‘Dad won’t mind. It’s his inauguration as governor.’”
Recognizing how a presidential race would infringe on their family life, Laura later said she was “somewhat reluctant initially” about a presidential campaign. “I knew it would be hard to see someone I loved criticized,” she said. Laura knew that a run for the presidency and a possible win would mean giving up even more of their family’s privacy than when Bush was governor of Texas. Simply taking a walk or dropping in at a drugstore would require heavy security precautions.
The twins, especially Jenna, were opposed. They wanted to be normal teenagers. The thought of being different, singled out because they were in the White House, made them cringe.
When Bush became president, Barbara—code-named Turquoise—went off to Yale, and Jenna—code-named Twinkle—went to the University of Texas, and they both made good grades. But on May 29, 2001, Austin police officer Clay Crabb was dispatched to Chuy’s restaurant after manager Mia Lawrence called 911 at ten thirty-four P.M. Crabb later wrote in his report that when he arrived at the restaurant on Barton Springs Road, Lawrence told him the subject of her call was a blonde wearing a pink halter top who was seated in the bar area with her back to the wall.