George W. Bush objected to Tumbler, the code name he was initially assigned. Perhaps it reminded him of his drinking days. Instead, he chose Trailblazer. Bush’s chief of staff Josh Bolten chose Fat Boy referring to the model of his silver and black Harley-Davidson. The code name was one word, “Fatboy.” His predecessor Andy Card had been Patriot, a code name the Secret Service chose when Card said he did not like his assigned name, Potomac.
“My Secret Service detail loved the code name—even the female agents, who end up getting called Fatgirls,” Bolten tells me.
When Clinton was president, the press claimed that his brother Roger Clinton was code named Headache, presumably because he replaced Billy Carter as the black sheep of the first family. But because he was not protected by the Secret Service, Roger Clinton had no code name.
Besides those entitled by law to Secret Service protection, the president may extend protection to others by executive order. By executive order, Bush ordered coverage for Cheney’s two daughters and his six grandchildren.
Besides the vice president’s residence, the Cheneys have homes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. After the Cheneys bought the house on the Eastern Shore, they would go there almost every weekend on a marine helicopter. The Secret Service outfitted each home with alarm systems and surveillance cameras. Looking ahead to when he would leave the vice presidency, Cheney also bought a home in McLean, Virginia.
In Cheney’s case, when Bush extended protection to his children and grandchildren, the Secret Service did not add additional agents. Instead, the agency made do by extending hours and paying overtime to agents on his detail, borrowing agents from field offices, and allowing virtually no time for the required refresher training, physical fitness, and firearms practice.
“Instead of saying, ‘Well, we’ll be glad to take care of his grandkids, but let’s just do the right thing and get some more people over here so we can cover all these added assignments,’ Secret Service management said to the president, ‘No problem, sir. We’ll take care of it,’ without giving us any more people,” says an agent who was on the vice president’s detail.
“You end up working twelve-hour days sitting in a cul-de-sac,” says another agent on the detail. “That’s why you don’t get the training, because you’re having to fill in these assignments. You’re fighting battles on a multitude of fronts, because you’ve got the protectees you’re trying to make happy, and you turn around and see people we work for who don’t care about us at all. It leaves you with feelings of hopelessness, and that’s why people want to leave.”
Before the Cheneys’ daughter Mary—code-named Alpine—had a child, the Secret Service provided full protection to only her older sister, Elizabeth, since she had kids. Mary received partial protection: Agents drove her to and from work. But Mary seemed to feel competitive.
“She got all up in arms because we sat outside her sister’s house all night long. She said, ‘Well, I think I should have that, too,’” an agent says.
Mary also complained about the Secret Service vehicle assigned to her.
“She saw that her sister had a brand-new Suburban,” an agent who was on her detail says. “Mary had an older vehicle. She was like, why can’t I have one? Next thing you know, within a day or two, she has a brand-new Suburban from the Secret Service sitting out there in front of her house.”
When her Suburban sustained some damage, the Secret Service chauffeured her in the older vehicle until the new one could be repaired.
“When she saw her old vehicle was brought back to use as her limo, she threw a fit,” an agent says. “She called bosses demanding her Suburban be brought back immediately, not realizing that it takes time to make repairs on a damaged vehicle.”
Mary objected to agents standing post overnight at the back of her home. She said they disturbed her dogs.
“I don’t even know what the back side of her house looks like because she won’t let us walk around the back because of the dogs,” an agent who was on her detail says. “Her dogs start barking. It gets them all upset if we go back there. So [we had] some cameras angled back there. But your hands are tied. It’s a thankless job anyway but then you’ve got protectees who mandate how you’re going to do your job.”
When Mary demanded that the Secret Service shuttle her friends out to restaurants, her detail leader objected. She had the agent removed from her detail.
Asked for comment, Mary Cheney said, “These stories are simply not true, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for the men and women of the Secret Service. I am deeply appreciative of everything they have done to keep my family safe over the last eight years.”
Often, protectees think of Secret Service agents as personal servants, there to act as gofers. When he was running for president, Edmund Muskie demanded that the Secret Service carry his golf bags.
“He took vacations in Kennebunkport,” a veteran agent says. “He would play eighteen holes of golf every day. He would cheat and kick the ball into the hole with his foot and pick it up and put it in. An agent would not carry his golf bags [after Muskie asked him to]. It reduces our effectiveness.”
But with a gracious woman like Lynne Cheney, agents happily offered to help with her bags. “To her credit, she shops a lot, and she’ll come out with all kinds of bags, and she’s never once that I know of ever asked us to help,” says an agent on her detail. “Probably because she doesn’t ask us, we go ahead and volunteer.”
Like the Bushes, Dick and Lynne Cheney were always on time and were well-liked by the Secret Service. The Cheneys invited agents and their families to the Christmas party they gave every year and took photos with them.
“I remember that I was probably the one hundred sixtieth click that afternoon, but when my kids walked up, Mrs. Cheney acted like we were the first picture of the day,” an agent who was on the vice president’s detail says. “She squatted down and reached out and hugged my little girl, and it really meant a lot to me.”
As with the Cheneys, agents thought highly of most members of Bush’s staff and Cabinet.
“Karl Rove loved the counterassault team,” says an agent. “He would always come by and talk to us. He took photos with us. Any time he saw us in the CAT truck, he would come over and say hello. Always smiling, always joking, a real nice man.”
“Karl Rove has a phenomenal reputation within the service, taking care of the guys,” another agent says. “Andy Card, same thing.”
In general, agents found the Bush administration to be much more friendly and appreciative of what agents do than most other administrations. In the Bush administration, there were two exceptions: Treasury Secretary John Snow and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Agents considered Ridge the cheapest protectee they had ever known. On weekends, he would return to his home in Erie, Pennsylvania. So he would not have to pay for his own plane ticket, he would insist that agents drive him—a trip of more than six hours, one way.
“The guy would make them motorcade to Erie, Pennsylvania, almost every other weekend, or every weekend, because he didn’t want to pay for a plane ticket,” an agent who was on his detail says. “If the guy found a free meal, he was there. His reputation in the service was he was the biggest cheapskate ever.”
Instead of buying a newspaper at hotels, Ridge would ask agents for their copy of the paper.
“If somebody said, ‘Hey Mr. Secretary, appreciate it. Meal’s on us,’ Ridge would go back there the next night to the same restaurant and see how long he could milk a free meal from this place,” an agent says.