In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes wi… (2024)

How do I describe a book in which some of the substance was interesting yet was so poorly written? While there were some interesting stories about presidents and other protectees, most of the material is simply gossip from disgruntled agents. I'm sure Kessler believes he's writing some kind of scandalous expose, but really he's just regurgitating the universal complaints that go with the territory of federal civil service. The technical chapters are terribly boring and stylistically, the book is a nightmare. Several issues plague the book that would annoy the careful reader: dialogue quotes that have a near total lack of contractions (people don't speak in perfect grammar); chapters that are scarecly about the subject they're titled; and a patchwork conglomeration of gossipy "drinkin' stories" about protectees with few connections to each other, to name a few peeves. Perhaps most egregious (other than his complete lack of objectivity) is that in one chapter, Kessler goes out of his way to show how out of touch, clueless, and incompetent an assistant director in the Secret Service is, only to quote him as an authority in the next. Overall, a fast read that will arm you with a few interesting trivial tidbits about some famous American politicians for your next co*cktail party, but not much more than that.

An interesting and important book written by the absolute wrong person. There's all this great history of the Secret Service, assassinations thwarted and succeeded, criminal investigations, a scathing indictment of service management and how it treats its people.

…And then the other half of the book is gossip about protectees. Because, yes, okay, he acknowledges the Secret Service has a code of silence so that protectees will trust them, which is important for maintaining safety. But telling the truth about public figures is more important! By 'telling the truth,' we mean 'selling books by marketting them as personal tell-alls.' It might have been more explicable if there was actually anything new or interesting here, but there isn't. LBJ was disgusting, Nixon was weird, Clinton was always late -- these are not revelations, they're Wikipedia footnotes.

Also, the political bias was appalling. Like how the Bush twins, all their public underage drinking and fake id's and bar fights, that's just kids who need to grow up a bit. But Carter's nine-year-old kid, her acting out was a character flaw. Uh-huh. That was the subtlest of it.

And don't get me f*cking started on what he says about the race discrimination in employment lawsuit brought against the Secret Service and how the Service overreacted to it by "reverse discriminating" and promoting undeserving minority agents, but the Service doesn't have a race problem, obviously, you can tell because it's 17% African-American which is higher than the proportion in the population in general and that's definitely evidence. That thing where a black agent was given a noose as a "joke" by a white instructor is just an -- uh -- hey, look over there! In conclusion, reverse discriminating against white people is bad.

And really don't get me started comparing what he says there to what he says about women agents. Apparently there isn't a representational problem there because the Secret service is slightly more than 10% female. Oh, well then! I assume we're not supposed to notice the blatant double-talk here since the sections are over 100 pages apart. Shocker, my memory is longer than that.

Someone else needs to write this book and make it not suck.

The humongous, full title of this book by Ronald Kessler is "In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect." And as the title suggests, it aims to tell the secret story of the equally secret service, gleaned by meticulous research, high quality reporting, cross-referencing each story with multiple sources, and maintaining a tone of level headed objectivity without taking sides.

Ha ha, no. Seriously. No. While it's true that Kessler does aim to tell exciting and interesting stories about the Secret Service based on his extensive interviews with current and former Agents, what we end up with here doesn't bear much resemblance to anything derived from sound journalism or rigorous research. Instead, the author seems most interested in taking quotes (often anonymous) from Agents (often disgruntled) that are assumed to be true without any kind of verification and usually without any kind of qualification. Think "tabloid."

That's bad enough but Kessler seems to be intent on wringing every bit of sensationalism he can out of the book, usually in the form of painting extreme pictures of the Presidents and other people protected by the Secret Service. So you get stories about how Jimmy Carter was aloof with the staff and disingenuous with the public, or how the Bushes sent the Agents steaks every year, and how Al Gore couldn't stop eating cookies. Or how the appropriately named President Johnson would walk around the White House with his, um, namesake hanging out. Some of these are entertaining, but are tainted by their apocryphal nature, and Kessler's judgmental tone.

Kessler also makes the frankly absurd mistake of thinking that I'm more interested in employee relations problems within the Secret Service than I am hearing about how they foiled assassination attempts or organize security measures. I sympathize, for example, that Agents have a hard time getting vacation time off or transfers or that their bosses are unsympathetic about all the overtime they're working. But I really don't want to read a whole book about it and I really don't want you to try to convince me of how terrible this all is. The author goes to great lengths to rail against the Secret Service management about all this and more, and frankly it's just not interesting and the bombastic tone of it all is pretty off putting.

The book does have some interesting bits, like an overview of the methods the Agents use to profile threats, the crazy hardware powering the Presidential motorcade, and a few good stories about catching would-be assassins. But those are buried under tedious discussions of stuff I don't care about and an annoying, judgmental tone that relies on thin evidence and hearsay.

I don't think this book should have been written. The author justifies breaking the code of silence in the form of a book by saying we deserve to know the real personalities of the presidents and their families since they are elected officials. Everyone has a right to privacy. With that being said the stories were interesting.
Political biased does play a part in this story with more consrervitive leanings. It also contains a lot of ranting about the administration of the secret service. I felt beating over the head with repetitive complaints about how the secret service was run.
All in all if you are interested in the secret service you should read it.

For a road trip, we decided to listen to this audiobook because it sounded like it would be interesting. By the time we were 2 hours into the trip, I felt as if any validity was gone, and that I could not trust the book with being truthful, as Kessler's personal politics dominated. My husband, whose politics are different from mine, disagreed with me at first, but within one hour of the end of the book became so disgusted that he had to turn it off. I would have loved to read/hear these stories, but not in a way that is so blatantly biased against one political party.

Two and a half stars, really.

Chatty and gossipy -- What I was in the mood for today. Some of it is TMI. I do not want to hear about LBJ's bowels (or balls) or JFK's infidelities or the super-private bits of any other politicians known by their initials. But I am really interested in the fine line between free speech and voicing an actionable threat against the president.

Rather than an exploration into the methods and philosophies of the Secret Service, this is a repetitious whine about presidents and presidential families who have been rude to Secret Service agents. Although Kessler makes important points about too-low budgets, too-small staffs, and lack of training and resources, it's all clouded in informal, slang-y, complaining language that leads me to question how much is true and how much is hyperbole.

Though Kessler is a former Washington Post reporter, this book left me wanting to read something more academic, more believable.

I read In the President's Secret Service while riding in the car on vacation with my husband. He can always tell when I am finding a book to be interesting because I will stop every few pages and tell him little tidbits from the book. So that's what I did for our entire drive while reading this book (which I'm sure drove him crazy).

Most of what I knew about the Secret Service prior to reading this book had been gleaned from watching episodes of The West Wing, and movies such as In the Line of Fire. In other words I had a very Hollywood view of the Secret Service.

I was most surprised to find out that the Secret Service was originally formed as a division of the Department of the Treasury in 1865 in order to track down counterfeiters.

At the time, an estimated one third of the nation's currency was counterfeit. States issued their own currency printed by sixteen hundred state banks. Nobody knew what their money was supposed to look like. Page 3

I also didn't know that investigating fraud is still one of their responsibilities, and that they and the FBI sometimes investigate the same cases.

Topics covered in the book range from training and responsibilities of the agents to personal dirt on each of the presidents and their families for the past fifty years. The author also spends a great deal of time focused on ways the agency is lacking (by being short staffed, having old equipment, lack of proper crowd screening at events, etc.), and how this could threaten the security of our leaders.

The book really jumps around a lot from topic to topic. It would switch back and forth from the training of the agents, to gossipy stories about the presidents and their families (which I have to admit were fun to read in the same way as reading tabloid headlines at the checkout counter).

A good deal of the last section of the book is devoted to the inadequacies of the Secret Service. If they are true, then it makes a scary case for the lack of security currently provided for our leaders (and makes me wonder at the wisdom of giving people ideas by outlining the weaknesses of our leaders' protection).

I recommend reading In the President's Secret Service if you don't know very much about the history of the Secret Service or how it operates today. I have to be honest and say that I enjoyed this book the most for its gossipy information about the presidents and their families.

After reading this book I'm surprised Obama is still alive. The brave men and women of the Secret Service do not receive the equipment, support, or respect their duties deserve. Amtrak security guards are better armed than the Secret Service. Management treats them like workhorses of old, expecting them to stay functional after repeated 18 hour work days. There is no spousal deference given to where agents are assigned and moves are frequent. Presidents and other protectees are often rude to Secret Service officers, treating them as pests and personal servants. Management turns a blind eye to both the rising attrition rate and its causes.

In short, being a Secret Service officer today is a sucky, burn out, thankless job and stepping stone to the private sector that pays four times as much! My review is short but I assure you Kessler points out many potential National Security crisis that could occur because the Secret Service is mismanaged, spread too thin, and generally has their hands tied.

This book came out in 2009 and Kessler claimed that, for all the aforementioned reasons and more, the Secret Service did not deserve its stellar reputation and that grave errors were to come unless there was a complete top down culture shift. Judging from the many security breaches since then I think Kessler was right.

Very interesting book on the "inside" of the Presidency. I was shocked at how the presidents passed and present were very different than their public persona. It was equally, if not more shocking, the opulence this person and his family lives in during their term as POTUS. Albeit ONE of the highest positions in the representative republican government we live in, the POTUS lives a life that can only be envied by royalty. This sadly is much of the driving force behind most of the candidates as of late (~100 years).

Mr. Kessler talks about the best and worst presidents to guard as well as their respective family members. Some of the family members, including the first ladies, made it difficult at time to protect the POTUS. Overall, some of the best include Laura Bush, Barbara Bush, Michelle Obama and some of the worst were Hilary Clinton, Rosalyn Carter.

Mr. Kessler describes the budgetary nightmares once the Secret Service was moved from the management of the Treasure to DHS. The attrition rate is incredible because of the working conditions. Ironically some of the Presidents that spend their days advocating labor unions for the "working man" yet their own details do not get the same benefits as regular "non-union" workers.

This book coupled with a special I watched "Its good to be the president" truly disturbs me. The opulent lives they live is unmatched by any "rich fat cat". I would like to see a stronger SS and not so much of the other minutia. I think the staffers can go to Kinko's to have invitation printed up; I do not think we need five full time calligraphers on the payroll. Additionally, I do not think the WH needs to have fresh flowers every day. This is either the cause or the goal of the corruption in politics.

It is a really good book but disturbing in many ways because we are programmed to believe that the Secret Service is an elite group of men and women that have this incredible work ethic, which is true, but we see how the department itself treats their employees, the internal politics, the cronysm, and budget short-falls.

From the assassination of Lincoln to Kennedy’s fateful trip to Dallas, author/journalist Kessler plunges the reader into the super-charged atmosphere of the President’s Secret Service. No more secret are the code names and the personal foibles of people the public thought they know well.

But this non-fiction book is not just a page-turning “kiss and tell” story of the unofficial dallying of recent presidents and the silent collusion between agents and “protectees”. It is the result of extensive insider access to current and former Secret Service agents as well as to their headquarters and training facilities.

Secret Service agents are justly praised for their devotion to duty under often difficult conditions–long hours away from home, insufficient staff or material to insure the expected level of security, and lower pay than in the private sector. However, the top management of the Secret Service is severely criticized for its inability to change with the times, leaving holes in the protective cover of our most important elected officials.

The reader gains a greater appreciation of the role of the Secret Service, as well as the uneasy feeling that the next assassination might be just around the corner.

A very informative read.
C.J. Tremblay, author of “The Patriot Conspiracy”

For someone with a ton of books, Ronald Kessler is a really shoddy writer. I felt like I was being rambled at by an unbalanced person. The writing takes no real direction: he'll spend a couple of paragraphs talking about President Carter, then jump to a description of the different formations secret service members use, then back to Carter like he never left off. He also has a very unfortunate need to wax philosophical about the structure of the secret service and lack of funding. Incessantly. With no depth of understanding--I could tell he was a mouthpiece for one opinionated serviceman (or woman). And, as is the mark of a terrible nonfiction writer, he actually plugs his other books in this one. His subject matter was interesting: Secret Service members know a lot of intimate stuff about each president. Unfortunately, in Kessler's hands it turned to crap.

In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect
by Ronald Kessler
(Crown Publishers, November 2009)
The people who serve in the United States Secret Service seem to live in an alternate universe. They stand erect, almost motionless and devoid of any facial expression. Their astringent demeanor is all that is necessary to broadcast their purpose for being who they are, why they are, where they are.
These are men and women who represent the most pure kind of service one could ever imagine: In any moment they would throw themselves in front of the President of the United States to stop a bullet, using themselves as human shields.
Talk about sacrifice!
With a title like, In The President’s Secret Service, I expected to learn more about the men and women who choose to give their lives for our highest elected officials. As much as I would like to believe each and every agent is a paragon of virtue, I’m adult enough to know we are all mundane in many ways and lack the sustainability to never fall beneath wheel of the commonplace.
However, with all my adult wisdom, I was not prepared for what was waiting for me between the front and back cover of Kessler’s latest book. The latter part of the title, Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect should have been rewritten to accurately describe what this book really is about: Behind the Scenes With Agents Gossiping About the Presidents They Protect.
There is little to admire here. Instead of casting an astute eye on what could have been remarkable insights into the decision making process of a Secret Service agent, we are offered page after page after page of adolescent gossip by dozens of former Secret Service agents who seem only too eager to snicker behind the backs of their former charges. And of course, we get a rerun of the all too well known shenanigans of presidential philandering.
Kessler begins his book with some truly interesting and worthwhile background on the beginnings of what we know as the Secret Service, starting with President Lincoln’s negligent bodyguard wandering off to get drunk, leaving the president unprotected. We all know how that went.
There historical information in Kessler’s book that is worthwhile reading. We are treated to a tale of would-be assassins during President Harry Truman’s term. Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, two Puerto Rican nationalists looking to draw attention to the cause of separating from the United States, decided to go after Truman and raise awareness to their cause.
The hapless pair bought German pistols in New York, rode a train to Washington, D. C., and took a taxi to the White House. Collazo and Torresola learn, to their chagrin, that President Truman was staying at Blair House across the street as the White House was undergoing renovations.
What follows is a shootout between Collazo and Torresola with Secret Service Agent Floyd Boring and White House Police Officer Joseph Davidson. Also on duty were White House Police Officers Leslie Coffelt and Donald Birdzell as well as Secret Service Agent Stewart Stout and Vincent Mroz inside Blair House.
Kessler writes that the Nov. 1, 1950 shootout at Blair House was the biggest gunfight in Secret Service history. As the story is told, twenty-seven shots had been fired in forty seconds, leaving Torresola and Collazo dead at the scene and officer Coffelt dead four hours later at the hospital after surgery.
It’s too bad Kessler didn’t stay with more of these meaningful stories as he moved forward in history. Instead, his book dissipates into nothing more than unsubstantiated disparaging of past presidents and their families.
The disappointment extends beyond the author and his choice of subject matter. Without the willing contributors of the Secret Service agents who were on duty for Presidents Kennedy, Carter, Nixon, and Johnson, Kessler would not have had half of the aspersions he generously quotes from his interviewees.
It is impossible to know if what these agents said is true or where these stories really came from, because Kessler offers no source material or attribution anywhere. Another hard question is why these former Secret Service agents choose to go so public with dirty details they claim to have observed. There were several salacious remarks about President Lyndon Johnson made by Secret Service agents whom Kessler sometimes quotes directly and other times anonymously.
An example of this is a comment from a former agent assigned to President Johnson: “I tapped on his bedroom door,” the former agent says. “Lady Bird said to come in.” ‘He’s in the bathroom,’ she said. I tapped on the bathroom door . . . Johnson was sitting on the can. Toilet paper was everywhere. It was bizarre. If Johnson weren’t president, he’d be in an insane asylum,” former agent Richard Roth says he thought to himself when he was occasionally on Johnson’s detail.”
Kessler’s book is lacking any professional documentation for comments, opinions, or statements he puts forth as fact. His publisher, Random House, partners closely with the media company, NewsMax, where Kessler is on staff. This partnership could account for the reason why the book is lacking any sources or attribution.
In his acknowledgements, Kessler wrote, “The Secret Service agreed to cooperate on this book, the only book about the agency to receive such cooperation.” However, the cooperation did not extend to Kessler secretly procuring the Association’s entire directory. Without the Association’s acknowledgement or approval, Kessler called all former agents in the roster, according to Ike Hendershot, president of the Association of Former Agents of the U.S. Secret Service. Hendershot said Kessler abused their trust by going beyond the names made available to him. Unfortunately, he said, there was lack of professionalism on both sides of this project.
Yet, in keeping with the name of the organization, any chastisem*nt has been kept “in-house.”
Whether it would have made a difference is hard to know. One wonders, though, about Kessler’s approach to saving the Secret Service from calamity, as he says in his book at the end of the acknowledgements. Did it occur to him that by airing all this dirty laundry from these former agents that it might cause current and future presidents to be less trusting of the agents guarding them now?
However, a subject as important as the behavior, reactions, and motives of the Secret Service are very serious. Placing agents in situations, after the fact or not, requires serious research as these events are recorded forever. In that regard, Kessler’s account of Sara Jane Moore and her assassination attempt on Gerald Ford is completely and totally without fact.
On Page 50 of Kessler’s book, he wrote that Oliver Sipple, a disabled former U.S. Marine and Vietnam veteran pushed Sara Jane Moore’s arm as she aimed her gun and shot at President Ford. He also wrote that the bullet flew several feet over the president’s head and Secret Service agents Ron Pontius and Jack Merchant pushed Moore to the sidewalk and arrested her.
Sipple did grab Moore’s arm, but not until after she got off her first shot, which missed Ford’s head by only six inches. Sara Jane’s own gun had been confiscated the day before, and she bought the .38 she used that day the same morning not knowing the sight was off.1.
As the crowd gathered to see Ford, no one was looking at Sara Jane Moore. As President Ford emerged, he stood still for a moment deciding whether to cross the street so that he could shake hands with people lined up on the north side of the street.2
After her first shot, people realized something had happened and Sipple, being a Marine and a hero, lunged at Moore and fouled a second, potentially deadly, shot.
Another factual error in Kessler’s account refers to Agents Pontius and Merchant. Kessler said they tackled Moore to the sidewalk and arrested her.
Agent’s Pontius and Merchant were assigned to guard Pres. Ford and were standing with Ford across the street from Moore. They did not leave Ford’s side. In fact, they grabbed the president and pushed him into the limousine and sped away.3.
SFPD Officer Tim Hettrich is the law enforcement officer who subdued Moore. Hettrich was assigned to crowd detail and was stationed on the sidewalk near Moore. Hettrich pulled the gun from her and handed it over to Secret Service agent Dotson Reeves, who grabbed Moore from the sidewalk.4.
Kessler’s book may be interesting to some, and there are passages that appear to be accurate in the historical sense. As for the remarks in quotations and editorial comments that lack attribution, it will be up to the reader to decide if this book is worth the time to read or to accept as what it is: unsubstantiated entertainment.

Published in The New York Journal of Books, Jan. 2010 http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/

Geri Spieler is author of Taking Aim At The President: The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Shot at Gerald Ford (Palgrave Macmillan). She is currently at work on her second book. www.gerispieler.com.

1. Ford Gun Bought in Danville,” San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 24, 1975
2. President Gerald Ford, in telephone interview with Geri Spieler, December 12, 2003
3. United States of American v. Sara Jane Moore, CR 75-729 SC (U.S. District Court, Northern District of California) Sept. 23, 1975, William Whittaker
4. In an interview with SFPD Officer Timothy Hettrich, assigned to crowd control for Pres. Ford’s San Francisco visit.

Kessler offers two stories here. One is a protect-and-tell in which he lets the reader in on how many of the presidents, first ladies, and others who are protected by the Secret Service, behave in private. It is not at all graphic but reaffirms some notions we have of protectees and counters the image we might have of others. The personal unpleasantness portrayed is matched by nearly as many favorable portraits.

Kessler is a died-in-the-wool conservative, and this comes across. He clearly worships at the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Reagan. He has also written admiring biographies of W and Laura Bush and, somewhat harder hitting work about Democratic presidencies. In addition, he is the chief Washington DC correspondent for Newsmax on-line and print magazine, an entity funded by, among others, that champion of liberty and fair play, Richard Mellon Scaife, so you know that there is likely to be some cushiness to the portrayal of Repugs and some harshness at the portrayal of Dems. IMHO, that was definitely there. While it was not a black and white portrayal, his affection for most of the Republicans he portrays comes across. It is interesting nonetheless.

The other story is Kessler's look at the management of the Secret Service. He portrays the Service management as constantly kowtowing to the demands of politicos by reducing protection activities. The greatest general incidence has to do with reducing or eliminating magnetic screening when there are large events. The politicians do not want to alienate their followers and the number of people who show up for such events often is greater than the screening can manage. The result is that a late-arriver with a weapon would be able to get close to a potential high level target, clearly not a good thing. Politicos who love to meet and greet are at particular risk, Reagan and Clinton being the chief risk-takers in this regard.

Kessler's description of Secret Service duties is illuminating and intriguing. It is no surprise that, as with so many agencies, they have had their responsibilities enlarged while their budget has not been correspondingly inflated. The result is that there are people protecting our leaders who are doing so on short rest and with inadequate training. I guess that does not matter as long as the wealthy get their tax breaks and vast sums of our money still goes to unwarranted foreign entanglements and boondoggle military projects. It is also clear that the Secret Service is in need of a considerable reorganization. It was surprising to learn that the service is responsible for a range of police duties beyond protecting our leaders, largely having to do with counterfeiting and other Treasury Department concerns. As the service has moved from Treasury to Homeland Security, it seems an inappropriate relic for that responsibility to remain with the service. This would leave the service to attend to its core task, and remove managerial incentive to redirect agents from protection to police duties that boost the agency's arrest numbers.

Overall, this was an interesting, at times amusing, if clearly slanted look at a service about which most of us know very little. It adds a little light to our notions of certain people and raises serious concerns about the ability of the service to do its job properly.

A poorly written and edited book - it's 50% dirt on recent first families (kind of interesting, but too subjective), 20% assassination info (what I was most interested in) and 30% secret service info (which would have been very interesting if it wasn't mostly a rant about lack of funds, etc...). I highly suggest flipping through the novel and reading the 3-page epilogue; easily the most interesting and informative part.

Kessler chooses to focus his attention on one of the most public, yet secretive, branches of the US security family; the US Secret Service. Examining the US political scene before its inception and the early days of its creation (when the DC police handled the security of the POTUS) and into its more recent happenings (dealing with a post-September 11th security world), Kessler not only tries to shed light on the organisation, but also provide a behind-the-scenes look at what these men and women have seen. While not revealing state secrets, Kessler uses interviews with past agents and published accounts to tell stories about some of the most highly guarded US politicians and the personas they exemplify when the light and cameras are off. From the abusive nature of Carter's relationship with agents to how down to earth Clinton and both Bush families were with their respective details. No stone is left unturned and few topics are kept from discussion. How can these agents, who are tasked with protecting those deemed most politically powerful in the world, work with arms technology from the early 60s? What lessons have come from the JFK assassination, attempts on Ford and Reagan, as well as the plethora of threats that come regularly? Kessler takes readers behind the scenes (and Ray-Bans) to unearth the juiciest stories on offer.

Having read no Kessler before, it is hard for me to judge his work against what he may have published previously. That said, the book is highly entertaining and full of anecdotes, the sign of a good book looking to offer a little historical background and a lot of insight. With short chapters and useful, focussed information, Kessler attacks his topic head-on and lets the reader come to some of their own conclusions. His constant crossing of the political aisle ensures this is not a party-dominated attack or praise of the Service. Kessler shows that the men and women of the Service are human, even if they pledge not to change their protection routine even if the protectee is disliked. With enough humour to keep readers smiling while their jaws drop, Kessler has surely achieved his intended outcome.

Kudos, Mr. Kessler. I will certainly have to check out more of your work in the future.

"In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect" looked like a juicy read, and a lot of it was. As the cover states, it takes you "behind the scenes with agents in the line of fire and the presidents they protect."

What did I learn? Lyndon Johnson was a real character - quirky, nasty to others, a womanizer. Nixon was odd. Ford was a gentleman, Carter was absolutely awful and not who his public persona suggested. Reagan was a gentleman, as were the Bushes. Clinton was a womanizer, as we know, although he was nice to agents. Not so with Hillary - they couldn't stand her. Not much at all about Obama, although when he's mentioned he is referred to positively.

That was the part I enjoyed, and it comprises maybe half the book. The other portion reads like a disgruntled employee's manifesto: the Secret Service doesn't do enough training; we're close to another disaster; the Secret Service has a bad corporate culture; agents mostly want to leave, etc. etc. May be true, but it doesn't make for compelling reading.

I will say that my first-hand secret service observation tended to back up those claims. In October 2008 my daughters and I went (along with about 10,000 others) to hear Sarah Palin speak. People trailed in slowly for hours as the Secret Service had people going through magnetometers, confiscating our apples (!), etc. Finally, when Sarah was ready to speak, thousands were still not through security. At that point, they were just let in. I had to wonder how safe that was! Also, news stories the next day had local authorities at the venue complaining about the Secret Service requirements, saying that they had slowed things down significantly before they finally "gave up."

Really interesting (and worthwhile) read. Besides all the facts and interesting stories about the Secret Service itself, there is a plethora of interesting - and often infuriating - stories about the presidents they served. I'm one of those who think these stories should (and need to be) told. Why should we venerate men who treat their servants like crap, mock the people who elected them to office, and generally break every moral commitment that exists? It didn't surprise me to discover that Hilary Clinton, Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter were among the absolute worst offenders (when Carter discovered that his Secret Service detail were being given leftover banquet food that would otherwise by thrown away, he demanded that the caterers charge the agents to eat!), but I was unexpectedly charmed by other presidents, including Reagan, who wrote checks from his personal account to mail to those who wrote him hard-luck letters ("I know how it is to be poor," he said), and also by First Lady Barbara Bush who frequently offered to do the Secret Service agents' laundry! If there's a true way to gauge someone's true worth, it's by watching how they treat those who are "beneath them". In my opinion any president who would treat men willing to die for them with the contempt some of these Secret Service agents have been shown, are themselves contemptible, and I'm glad this information is being released to the public. It's well past the time we should allow shallow, contemptible people to hide behind the mantle of "respect for the office".

This book basically covered three topics. It skipped around among all three throughout the chapters, so it wasn't the most coherent book. It was part informative, covering the specifics of being in the secret service. That was the most interesting part to me. It also was gossipy, giving the "inside scoop" on the various presidents and VPs and their families. Of course, you can't really know if he is telling the truth. I was a little bit skeptical of all those parts.

Finally, the author complained about how the secret service is currently doing sub par work. He emphasizes that it's not the agents' fault, but is really being cause by "old school" management. There isn't enough money or agents (high turnover) to do all the work that needs to be done. He constantly uses the phrase "cutting corners". The last few chapters definitely veer off into this topic, and really give the ending of the book a really depressing tone. It mostly alternates between fun gossipy stories and interesting details about the life of a secret service agent, then ends with "we're not being careful so the president might be assassinated." Maybe he is trying to guilt the higher ups into taking more action?

This is a book in two halves; both unexpected and interesting if disappointing for different reasons. In the first part it appears Kessler got many agents to talk about the secrets the learned from the Presidents they served and many of these are ascribed by name to the agents that divulged secrets from Kennedy (who has a room for assignations with Monroe and got alerts when Jackie was coming home) to the Obamas (Barak still smokes as of this writing. While thee revelations, almost salacious are interesting, it is disappointing to learn how easily it appears to have been to get agents to reveal secrets. We also learn of the adulteries of LBJ, the human sides of Ford and Carter and what unruly imps the Bush twins were.

The second part is how since post-9/11 the Service was rolled into Homeland Security it lacks in funding, is spread too thin also investigating modern day financial crimes, and suffering under effective indentured service (unfair transfer and overtime policies) driving away talent so that in the so-called War on Terror our heads of government have no better protection then when Lincoln's security office left Ford Theatre for the saloon.

OMG - If I could give this book a "double five" - I would....An investigator interviews over 100 Secret Service Agents - having served from Kennedy to Obama.... A fascinating look at the workings of the Secret Service and the people that they protect...a wonderful insight into the "protectees"...some of them as genuine as they seem - and others...so vastly different than their publicity and public persona would imply....also...an investigation of the management of the Secret Service since it's transfer from the Treasury Dept to the Dept of Homeland Security...bureaucracy at it's scariest....no surprise...I was mesmerized by this book.

Saying that I read the book is putting it strongly. I’ve been rewatching House of Cards, and I was given this book by a friend for free, so I thought “why not?” I read a couple of chapters and then realized by my time is too valuable to waste it reading this crap. Poorly written, little substance and just a waste of paper, don’t bother!

Was rather disappointed by the tone, but there is some interesting info about the Secret Service. If the agents are so limited in training, if funds are so tight, and if the management is so inept, we cannot assume that our presidents are safe. Ron Kessler is a right wing idealogue.

Secret service agents get some unique insights into the various First Families and other high-ranking politicians. I think what I enjoyed most about the book was learning some of the personality quirks of some of the US Presidents and their families (although a number of insights were disappointing and/or frustrating). Seems like how individuals treated their secret service detail is a pretty good indication of how they treated people "below them" generally - some were very kind, and some were fairly hostile. Makes me wish we could have a way to have this insight before elections. Here's a sampling:

George and Barbara Bush:
Kind and generous people. Secret service guys were accompanying them somewhere cold, and one of the agents didn't have a hat. Barbara insisted that he use one of George HW's hats. Secret service guy tried to refuse, but wasn't successful.

Clintons:
Bill was kind, energized by talking with crowds of supporters, and typically 1-2 hours late to everything (often because he was talking with someone). Had a knack for remembering names and circ*mstances people are in. Hillary, on the other hand, would put on a face for the public, but once she was behind closed doors she was not pleasant to be around, to say the least. Shares an incident of her berating some White House janitor for changing a light bulb when the Clinton's were home (staff had instructions to only do stuff like that when they were out of town). She was generally unkind and aloof towards her secret service detail. Chelsea Clinton was kind.

George and Laura Bush:
Kind and generous, similar to George and Barbara Bush. George W never did well behind a microphone or on camera, but off-camera his intelligence and humor could come out. He liked to run, and would often race the agents guarding him. Their daughters, Jenna and Barbara, were in high school or thereabouts when they moved to the White House, and hated having agents following them. When they were in college, they'd pull all sorts of stunts to lose their agents. Eventually they grew out of it.

Obamas:
The book was written towards the beginning of Obama's presidency, so there wasn't a lot of information on them, but they were kind towards and grateful for the agents who protected them.

Lots of stories throughout the book of individuals (with whom I wasn't as familiar) who treated their agents like dirt.

Leaves me thinking that, when voting, I'm more interested in how the candidate treats other people than in their specific platform. Well, maybe that's oversimplifying it. But Kessler makes this observation, which I think is something we tend to overlook:

"No one can imagine the kind of pressure that being President of the United States imposes on an individual, and how easily power corrupts. To be in command of the most powerful country on Earth, to be able to fly anywhere at a moment's notice an Air Force One, to be able to grant almost any wish, to take action that affects the lives of millions, is such a heady and intoxicating experience that only people with the most stable personalities and well-developed values can handle it. Simply inviting a friend to a White House party, or having a secretary place a call and announce that the White House is calling, has such a profound effect on people that presidents and White House aids must constantly remind themselves that they are mortal.

"Of all the perks, none is more seductive than living in the 132-room White House. Servants are always on call to take care of the slightest whim. Laundry, cleaning and shopping are provided for. From three kitchens, White House chefs prepare meals that are exquisitely presented, and are of the quality of the finest restaurants. If members of the First Family want breakfast in bed every day, as Lyndon Johnson did, they can have it. A pastry chef makes everything from Christmas cookies to chocolate eclairs. If the First Family wants, it can entertain every night. Invitations, hand lettered by five calligraphers, are rarely turned down." etc, etc.

Hmmm.... seems a bit excessive.

Biggest complaint about the book is that there was way too much time devoted to discussing the poor management in the Secret Service.

Really interesting topic, but not well done. The prose is choppy and often reads like bullet-points, with little cohesion or flow.

Kessler can't quite decide if his purpose is gossip about the protectees, the history of the Secret Service, or an exposé on the significant shortcomings within the agency. He includes all three, but there's little rhyme or reason to the way the three topics are presented. As for the shortcomings, I can't help but feel that shining a light on these issues publicly is detrimental to the agency's mission and the safety of those they seek to protect. I hope that things have improved and those gaps have been addressed in the years since the book was published.

Readers might prefer Kessler's other book on this topic, First Family Detail. It's been awhile since I read it, but my recollection is that it was a superior effort.

Who’d think there is mismanagement within a government agency?

I did enjoy this book on the 'inner workings' of the Secret Service. With the cooperation of the Secret Service, interviews from past and present agents gave us a small look at the different Presidents, their families and other political figures they have protected. Starting with Kennedy there's something about each president along with some Vice Presidents, a few Presidential candidates and a few of the Cabinet members of President Bush. [Tom Ridge comes across poorly] The author also relates how the Secret Service is using outdated weapons, methods and taking too many chances with their protection. These problems seem to be strictly with management and the agents are doing the best with what they have to work with. Agents leave the service long before retirement due to this bureaucratic bull sh*t.

One quote was if the public knew what these people were like they would scream. Actually there wasn't anything too shocking that surprised me except Jimmy Carter. He was a total fake with no regard for others. He only smiles in public and did not want anyone on the White House staff to even look at him. He never once spoke to the driver he had for 3 1/2 years. He'd carry empty luggage on a trip so the press would think he was carrying his own luggage and he'd go to his office early in the morning so people would think he was working and then he'd sleep. I've never been a Carter fan but I did view him as a 'kindly foolish uncle' type until reading this book.

Both Presidents Bushes and their wives, and the Obamas are said to be genuinely nice people. Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan were also sincere and personable but their wives didn't fare as well. By the same token Lynn Cheney and Tipper Gore were favorites of the Secret Service but their husbands sure weren't. Chelsea Clinton was the favored child of the White House and Amy Carter came off as a total brat. The teens inhabiting the White House were problematic for the Secret Service and anyone who has raised teens certainly understand that. The stories on the Bush twins were funny and the one about Carter's son certainly was entertaining. Pat Nixon was a lush, LBJ was crude and nasty [is their anyone in the world over 30 that didn't know that?}, Gerald Ford was a cheap tipper [big deal], and the stories about David Eisenhower [for the younger set= Ike's grandson and Richard Nixon's son in law] were hilarious!! Nothing new that hasn't been reported about Nixon or Kennedy.

If your politics lean too far to the left you will not enjoy this book because there are no great scandals about the Republican Presidents. If your politics lean too far to the right you probably will not enjoy this book either because it gives no scandals on the last 2 Democratic Presidents [unless you are an ex smoker and find it disgraceful that Obama is still smoking].

In a reclusive arm of America’s law enforcement community, there is an elite few courageous men and women who are tasked with protecting the most important man on earth… the President of the United States. One of the nation’s most secretive agencies, the U.S. Secret Service is charged with protecting heads of state, foreign dignitaries as well as the President, Vice President and their families domestically and abroad. Originally part of the U.S. Treasury Department and now Department of Homeland Security, tasked with investigating counterfeit crimes beyond shouldering the burden of protecting high profile government figures, a great mystique exists within the U.S. Secret Service. Only a rare few are privy to this clandestine agency’s activities and its day-to-day operations.

Now, investigative author Ronald Kessler pulls back the dark veil of mystique and intrigue with his book, “In The President’s Secret Service.” With an in-depth history of the agency’s humble origins to the present day from an analysis of some of the earliest assassinations of William McKinley, Abraham Lincoln, John and Robert Kennedy to the bravery of secret service agents thwarting an assassination attempt at Blair House and saving the life of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s. Mr. Kessler also gets behind-the-scenes access to active duty agents and sits down with former agents like Clint Hill and others as they talk candidly about their time with one of the most renowned and mysterious law enforcement agencies. Also given mention is the rigorous training and selection process of joining this elite fraternity from the impressive fleet of vehicles at the service’s disposal for a myriad of domestic and international trips to weapons and delving into the personal demands of the job.

I was lucky to find this book on Audible and after listening to it, I found this literary work quite informative and shocking at the same time. I didn’t know that President Lyndon Johnson was a playboy nor that actor Warren Beatty was a pimp for a U.S. Senator during an election campaign. Secret Service Agents would spot numerous women coming and going from Beatty’s California home. Having seen numerous documentaries on the Secret Service, this book was a wonderful read to go deeper into the mysterious world of the U.S. Secret Service. If you’re curious about the real men and women in black, this book is for you!

Parts of this book were so good I didn't want to put it down. Yet, there were some parts that were so boring I skimmed the pages. There were some good insights into the Secret Service, and the history of the organization was wonderfully done. But, at times, the book took on a gossipy tone which, while fun to read, didn't really add much to the core content. On the other hand, that is probably what will move books because we have an unquenchable thirst for gossip about....well, everyone.

What I found most amazing about this book was how stupid some of my fellow citizens can be when it comes to how (and how not to) behave in regards to people who enjoy Secret Service protection. Most of the things that are detailed in the book had me saying "Really? Someone would really be that dumb? Seriously?!" The book passes a lot of it off as mental instability/illness and I'm sure some of that is true. But there seems to be just a lack of common sense in these anecdotes as well.

As always, readers have to decide for themselves how much of it they're going to believe. When you're dealing with real people, especially real people who aren't around to defend themselves anymore, you take it all with a grain of salt. I can't remember what I said to half the people I saw last week. Do I really believe all of the reports in this book were remembered correctly from 10, 20, 40 years before? Not necessarily. And, there is always bias involved when you have people reporting what other people may have done or said. That's just how things go. But, taking that into account, I believe you can still get the gist of the Secret Service job and a sense of how they felt about the particular people they were assigned to guard. If you're a political history buff, or have an interest in the secret service,you'll probably want to check this one out.

This here book's a real page turner. Amazing look at the protected (President, VP's, First family members) from the agents perspective. Starts out with a history of the Secret Service that is fascinating from page one and continues with assasinations and attempts, the lives and personas of the protected and what it takes to secure the President. They talk about the equipment, logistics and the manpower it takes for the President to travel. He finishes with a look at the problems facing the Secret Service and they are many and unsettling. Let's all hope and pray their luck holds out.

Character matters, especially in the Chief Executive. It's been said that you can tell a lot about a man by how he treats those from which he has nothing to gain. This book talks about the behind the scenes behaviour of people from the Kennedy administration to the election campaign of Barak Obama. A real eye opener, some of these people are complete jackasses. Kennedy was reckless, I understand more about how his assination happened, although I am still not convinced Oswald shot him. Johnson was a nasty peice of work and had as many extra marital liasons as Kennedy. He was also well known for the size of his johnson (made a horse feel inadequate) which is known because he whipped it out every now and then in front of lots of people. Those were the days, yessiree, really fun stories. The portraits of Nixon and Carter are fascinating and weird / sad. Amazing what an ass Carter was (still is). Everybody gets a portrait, Reagan / Nancy, Bush 41 / Barbara, Clinton / Hillary / Gore, Bush 43 / Laura and Obama / Michelle. You will learn a lot reading this book and understand in depth what you see on TV (news, Presidential coverage). See how your expectations match up to these people. I recommend this book.

Definitely a timely book to read in the light of the recent Secret Service scandals that exploded in the news the past month. This book is easy to read - less than three hours - with a good variety of stories told from past Secret Service agents who worked the protection detail of US Presidents and their families. Some surprises here about who the individuals they most liked and least liked to guard and work around ... I won't give any spoilers away, except to say that by far the one they least liked to be around had the least respect for was: Hillary Clinton. The other ones are kind of surprising.

The author also goes into the endemic problem in the agency that manifested itself most recently in 2014 - the really bad management by the leadership of the Secret Service, and the extent to which the budget cuts have impacted the safety and protection of the protectees. I finished reading this book surprised that Obama is still alive given the gross incompetence shown to be the "new normal" by the Secret Service. High turnover, long hours, no training, and lax procedures all are spelled out in this book.

Finally, what gave this book only three out of five stars was the feeling that I was being told the dirty gossip about the nation's Presidents without really being sure if it was spiteful hearsay, or the actual truth. The author spent quite a bit of time talking about the Clinton era scandals (Vincent Foster, for example) to show the pettiness and meanness of Hillary, but I have always felt that the Clinton hating was partly legitimate, and partly partisan, and partly because she was a strong woman. Not sure how much of what was being said here was just prejudicial or fact, but it was a good read, and I can recommend this to others, especially given the current scandals.

P.S. - what the agents had to say about Lady Bird Johnson was just genius.