Confessions Of An Ex Secret Service Agent

For over a decade, Marty Venker went wherever the President went, his eyes moving all the time, his body bristling with lethal energy and alertness. In this funny, candid behind-the-scenes look at life with some of the world's most powerful men and women--Nixon, Ford, Carter, Imelda Marcos, and others--Venker reveals how the Secret Service scopes out a crowd, and more. Fine.

A former Secret Service agent provides a behind-the-scenes account of what it was like protecting Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, offering scores of anecdotes, and reveals how and why he left the Secret Service

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller CRISIS OF CHARACTER comes an explosive new exposé of the Secret Service. The United States Secret Service is tasked with protecting our Presidents, their families, and the complex in which they live and work. Given this important mission, world stability rests upon the shoulders of its agents. In his new book, former Secret Service officer Gary Byrne takes readers behind the scenes to understand the agency's history and today's security failings that he believes put Americans at risk The American public knows the stories of Secret Service heroism, but they don't know about the hidden legacy of problems that have plagued the agency ever since its creation. Gary Byrne says that decades of catastrophic public failures, near misses, and bureaucratic and cultural rot threaten to erode this critical organization from the inside out. Today, as it works to protect President Trump, the Secret Service stands at a crossroads, and the time needed to choose the right course is running out. Agents and officers are leaving the Secret Service in droves, or they're being overworked to the point where they lose focus on the job. Management makes decisions based on politics, not the welfare of their employees. Byrne believes that this means danger for the men and women of the Secret Service, danger for the President they protect, and danger for the nation. In this book, he shares what he has witnessed and learned about the Secret Service with the hope that the problems of this most important agency can be fixed before it's too late.

In American history, four U.S. Presidents have been murdered at the hands of an assassin. In each case the assassinations changed the course of American history. But most historians have overlooked or downplayed the many threats modern presidents have faced, and survived. Author Mel Ayton sets the record straight in his new book Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts—From FDR to Obama, telling the sensational story of largely forgotten—or never-before revealed—malicious attempts to slay America’s leaders. Supported by court records, newspaper archives, government reports, FBI files, and transcripts of interviews from presidential libraries, Hunting the President reveals: How an armed, would-be assassin stalked President Roosevelt and spent ten days waiting across the street from the White House for his chance to shoot him How the Secret Service foiled a plot by a Cuban immigrant who told coworkers he was going to shoot LBJ from a window overlooking the president’s motorcade route How a deranged man broke into Reagan’s California home and attempted to strangle the former president before he was subdued by Secret Service agents. In early 1992 a mentally deranged man stalking Bush turned up at the wrong presidential venue for his planned assassination attempt The relationships presidents held with their protectors and the effect it had on the Secret Service’s mission Hunting the President opens the vault of stories about how many of our recent Presidents have come within a hair’s breadth of assassination, leaving America’s fate in the balance. Most of these stories have remained buried—until now.

While there haven't been many Secret Service related books about U.S. presidents, the ones still in print (and even those long out of print) are often sanitized memoirs of a politically correct nature or "tell-all" tabloid historical junk meant merely for entertainment purposes. The Not-So-Secret Service provides the facts with the bark off, so to speak, and reveals politically incorrect information of a decidedly unsafe nature. It may be controversial and against the grain, but this book is heavily documented and timely, as the Secret Service guards our political candidates, foreign dignitaries, and, of course, the President, the first family and the ex-presidents and their families.

Protecting the Presidential Candidates is the first book of its kind to examine how presidents and presidential candidates were protected during the presidential election cycles – from JFK to Biden. It is also the first book of its kind to tell the story of the role of state troopers and private bodyguards in protecting presidential candidates. Protection for candidates changed and evolved from the free-wheeling style of the 1950s and early 1960s, which afforded presidential candidates little or no protection, to the growth of bodyguard personnel, increased intelligence facilities and state of the art technology employed today to keep the candidates safe. Presidential candidates relish connecting with the public and it has given greater visibility to the bodyguards who are willing to place themselves between a presidential candidate and a would-be attacker. In the milieu in which the Secret Service operates, bodyguards have witnessed the terrors of election campaigns when presidential candidates have waded into crowds to shake hands with their supporters, rode in open-top cars, and made sudden but risky changes to their schedules – oblivious to the fact that in every campaign there have been people stalking candidates with ill intent. Many stories revealed in Protecting the Presidential Candidates have remained largely hidden from the public; some buried in newspaper archives and others in oral histories, presidential libraries or official government documents. The author draws on numerous sources, including FBI files, presidential biographies, vice presidential biographies, civilian bodyguard memoirs, Secret Service agent memoirs, White House staff memoirs and more so that these stories can now be told. The book also allows readers to gain an insight into the personal as well as professional relationships between the candidate and the bodyguards who protected them. Some candidates were so trusting of their bodyguards they embraced them as part of an ‘inner circle’ of advisers. Bodyguards have also witnessed embarrassing moments in a candidate’s campaign and how intrusive they have been at the most delicate of moments. "The president’s day is your day," one agent said. "Nobody sees the president the way an agent does."

Painstakingly researched by an authority on the history of the Secret Service and based on primary, firsthand accounts from more than 80 former agents, White House aides, and family members, this is the definitive account of what went wrong with John F. Kennedy’s security detail on the day he was assassinated. The work provides a detailed look at how JFK could and should have been protected and debunks numerous fraudulent notions that persist about the day in question, including that JFK ordered agents off the rear of his limousine; demanded the removal of the bubble top that covered the vehicle; and was difficult to protect and somehow, directly or indirectly, made his own tragic death easier for an assassin or assassins. This book also thoroughly investigates the threats on the president’s life before traveling to Texas; the presence of unauthorized Secret Service agents in Dealey Plaza, the site of the assassination; the failure of the Secret Service in monitoring and securing the surrounding buildings, overhangs, and rooftops; and the surprising conspiratorial beliefs of several former agents. An important addition to the canon of works on JFK and his assassination, this study sheds light on the gross negligence and, in some cases, seeming culpability, of those sworn to protect the president.

America's oldest law enforcement agency, the United States Secret Service, has never been exposed like this before. The Secret Service has made many headlines through the decades, especially in the last five years. This book presents a thorough look at more than 100 of the most famous, infamous, and interesting agents who have protected presidents from William McKinley to John F. Kennedy to President Trump and everyone in between. Students of history will find much to contemplate in this revealing, entertaining, and sometimes disturbing book. Readers will never look at the men who guard the president the same way ever again.

During his more than 50 years in politics, Democratic strategist Douglas E. Schoen has produced nearly two dozen books that have deftly dissected national and international crises and offered prescriptions for solving them. Now, in The Politics of Life: My Road to the Middle of a Hostile and Adversarial World, Schoen delivers his most personal work. Bringing to life the antiwar youthquake of his Harvard years, Schoen introduces us to Cornel West, Walter Isaacson, Merrick Garland, and other classmates bound for glory. A tense summer in Mississippi helps Schoen appreciate the long game of candidate Charles Evers, a bootlegger-pimp turned civil rights crusader. In New York, he witnesses the twilight of clubhouse power as he canvasses for society swell Carter Burden, “mob priest” Louis Gigante, and Ed (How’m doin’?) Koch. Taking time out for his own run for Congress, Schoen joins data wunderkind Mark Penn in pioneering overnight polling – getting to know everyone from Camelot heir Ted Kennedy to crack-smoking mayor Marion Barry to a brash developer named Donald Trump. Penn & Schoen evolves into a global consultancy, taking on strongmen in Serbia, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Turkey, and Venezuela. Two of its clients are assassinated. Three win the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1996, the duo guides beleaguered President Bill Clinton to a second term and through a wrenching sex scandal. Using a unique strategy for micro-targeting voters, the firm helps give Mayor Michael Bloomberg the time he needs to steer New York City to a recovery after 9/11. A HALF-CENTURY IN POLITICS WAR STORIES AND WISDOM During his more than 50 years in politics, Democratic strategist Douglas E. Schoen has produced nearly two dozen books that have deftly dissected national and international crises and offered prescriptions for solving them. Now, in The Politics of Life: My Road to the Middle of a Hostile and Adversarial World, Schoen delivers his most personal work. Bringing to life the antiwar youthquake of his Harvard years, Schoen introduces us to Cornel West, Walter Isaacson, Merrick Garland, and other classmates bound for glory. A tense summer in Mississippi helps Schoen appreciate the long game of candidate Charles Evers, a bootlegger-pimp turned civil rights crusader. In New York, he witnesses the twilight of clubhouse power as he canvasses for society swell Carter Burden, “mob priest” Louis Gigante, and Ed (How’m doin’?) Koch. Taking time out for his own run for Congress, Schoen joins data wunderkind Mark Penn in pioneering overnight polling – getting to know everyone from Camelot heir Ted Kennedy to crack-smoking mayor Marion Barry to a brash developer named Donald Trump. Penn & Schoen evolves into a global consultancy, taking on strongmen in Serbia, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Turkey, and Venezuela. Two of its clients are assassinated. Three win the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1996, the duo guides beleaguered President Bill Clinton to a second term and through a wrenching sex scandal. Using a unique strategy for micro-targeting voters, the firm helps give Mayor Michael Bloomberg the time he needs to steer New York City to a recovery after 9/11. Schoen seems to be on top of the world when a British multinational pays a fortune for Penn & Schoen. Out on his own, he shrugs off a new generation of progressives who mock his centrist views and his willingness to debate conservatives on Fox News. Gradually, he reinvents himself. He becomes a syndicated columnist, co-founds a new polling company, immerses himself in Ukraine’s struggle against Russia, and saddles up again with Michael Bloomberg to help oust now-President Trump. Along the way, some former critics admit Schoen might have been right. Brimming with ripping yarns from campaign war rooms, The Politics of Life is also a manual for living a productive and happy life. Sprinkled through the memoir are the author’s “Schoenisms” – lessons he’s learned the hard way: • It helps if your opinion is correct. But first, it should sound convincing. • Take on a despot when he first threatens you. Bullies only get bigger. • Martyrdom is overrated. Don't fall on any swords unless there’s an ambulance on the way. • Shaming and blaming your opponents might impress your allies. But it doesn’t accomplish much – aside from chasing people away from the bargaining table. • Don’t waste time on feuds. Grudges sap your strength and hurt you almost as much as the person you’re fighting. • Most people are mixtures of light and darkness. Life is about learning the moral gradients – the grayscale – and deciding how much shadow you can live with. “Wisdom can come from people you don’t immediately recognize as wise,” writes Schoen, whose unlikely teachers have ranged from a tenement house painter to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The essence of Schoen’s koans is consensus. Though it’s popular in business to talk about “eliminating the middleman,” Schoen argues in The Politics of Life that “you need the middleman. And the middlewoman. You need the go-between, the tiebreaker, the conciliator.”

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