When a President’s daughter, Lynda Bird Johnson, was working for me, I got to know her Secret Service agents quite well. One of them almost shot me at Trader Vic’s in Manhattan.
An agent new to her detail saw me put my arms around her when we unexpectedly met and, as I later learned, was “ready to react.”
As we know from endless movies, protecting presidents is a job that calls for an unusual combination of courage, judgment and quick reflexes. In the coming year, the Secret Service will be hard-pressed to provide enough of them.
After 9/11, the Bush administration doubled the number of top officials for protection, from 26 to 54.
The agency will need 103 new agents for President Bush and his family when he leaves office in January and, for all those who want to replace him, is proposing to spend more than $100 million on campaign protection in 2008, roughly $35 million more than in 2004.
Because of undisclosed threats, the Service is already spending $44,000 a day on around-the-clock security for Barack Obama in addition to the protection provided for Hillary Clinton as a former First Lady. At some point, they will be assigned to other candidates as well.
This burden will draw some agents away from other investigations, of financial crimes and Homeland Security matters.
All in all, we are in an era when protection is a growth industry.
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