Please note that the following is a digitized version of a selected article from White House History Quarterly, Issue 57, originally released in print form in 2020. Single print copies of the full issue can be purchased online at Shop.WhiteHouseHistory.Org No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All photographs contained in this journal unless otherwise noted are copyrighted by the White House Historical Association and may not be reproduced without permission. Requests for reprint permissions should be directed to rights@whha.org. Contact books@whha.org for more information. 2020 White House Historical Association. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions.
Protecting the President’s HOUSE The Evolution and Role of the United States Secret Service m i ke sam ps o n
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P R E V I O U S S P R E A D : U. S . S E C R E T S E R V I C E A R C H I V E S / L E F T PA U L J. R I C H A R D S /A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S
Both a national symbol and the home of the president, the White House is a magnet for tourists and demonstrators alike. Performing its responsibility to protect the president and ensure the safety of all those visiting, working, and residing there, the Secret Service monitors it all, from the stream of activity on Pennsylvania Avenue to the daily events inside its walls. previous spread A Uniformed Division Officer stands vigilant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. opposite An agent stands at his post in the East Room as President Barack Obama conducts a prime-time press conference, 2009.
friend and foe. It has even been targeted by foes numerous times, including two occasions that led to fatalities inside its grounds: in July 1976, when an armed intruder threatened the life of an officer, and in September 1994, when a man who wanted to “kill himself in a big way” crashed a stolen plane onto the South Lawn.2 The Secret Service faces a paramount challenge: the need to balance accessibility to the “people’s house,” one of the most sought-after sites in the world, with its security.
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below Secret Service officers watch the crowds passing in front of the White House, 2019.
it has been the epicenter of h i s t o r y in times of both war and peace. It remains a site for tourists and demonstrators alike. It has experienced fires and been fired upon. It is, as noted by the historian William Seale, “one of our most revered national symbols, which, at its core, remains what it has always been, a house.”1 “It” is the White House, and its security and the safety of those visiting, working, and residing there are the responsibility of the United States Secret Service. The White House is alive each day, and the work performed within its walls charts the course of history for the nation and the world. As such, this iconic symbol draws the attention of both
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The president is never without the protection of the Secret Service, even while greeting guests and visitors on the grounds. Agents are seen watching over President Lyndon Johnson as he greets White House guests in 1966 and standing close by as President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet guests to the Easter Egg Roll in 2019.
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right and below The Secret Service responds to would be intruders and those who wish to do harm to themselves or others. In one of the two wellknown incidents when such intrusions led to a fatality, a man who wanted to “kill himself in a big way� crashed a stolen plane onto the South Lawn in 1994. The wreckage was captured in this photograph near the South Portico. An incident that ended peacefully began on Christmas morning, 1974, when a man wearing flares crashed his car through the Northwest Gate. He surrendered after four hours of negotiations with the Secret Service and Executive Protective Service.
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opposite
Members of the White House Police Force pose on the steps of the South Portico, February 17, 1923. Of the officers, newspaper columnist Vylla Poe Wilson remarked, “They soon acquire a real White House air, debonair and cheerful, mingled with the great dignity incumbent on those trusted with such important duty.” Only the best candidates were selected when the White House Police and the Secret Service joined forces on May 14, 1930.
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A Uniformed Division TREK Unit Officer is seen near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building while patrolling the White House Complex area by bicycle.
Before there was a Secret Service, presidents received limited personal protection, and safeguarding of the White House and its grounds were, in the early days, the responsibility of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department. During the Civil War, Congress recognized a heightened need for safeguarding the White House and its grounds. At that time, the military was added to the few members of the Police Department who made up the security force. Until 1922, the officers assigned were under the jurisdiction of the superintendent of the Metropolitan Police Department. On September 14 of that year, the White House Police Force was established at the request of President Warren G. Harding, and it became operational on October 1, 1922. The force was therefore placed under the direct control of the president, as supervised through his military aide, in this case Lieutenant Colonel Clarence O. Sherrill, U. S. Army, who was also the director of public buildings and grounds. Major O. M. Baldinger, junior military aide, was directly in charge of the police force at the White House.3 The force itself consisted of two sergeants and thirty privates, under the command of First Sergeant Clarence L. Dalrymple. The white house history quarterly
officers’ prior police experiences were gained while with the Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Park Police, and only the best candidates were selected. With the exception of a few officers held over from the old detail, all the new men were to be 6 feet tall and well proportioned, and not over 35 years of age. They were required to be men of good character and have excellent records in their respective departments.4 First Lady Florence Harding visualized the officers’ uniforms as similar to the navy uniforms of that time, with gold badges and cap plates, and it was from that design that the first uniforms were developed.5 In 1930, President Herbert Hoover recommended that the White House Police and the Secret Service join forces, since the latter was responsible for protecting the president. Congress concurred, and on May 14, 1930, the integration took place. Up until that time, these two security entities acted independently. The “outer layer” of protection, that of the White House and its grounds, was undertaken by the White House Police, while the “inner layer” of protection, that of the physical security of the president, was the responsibility of the Secret Service and its cadre of operatives assigned to the White House Detail.
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investigations that would later become the responsibility of other government agencies. For example, the Secret Service took part in investigations into the Ku Klux Klan, peonage cases, naturalization fraud, alcohol and drug smuggling, land fraud, and the beef and agricultural industries. In 1894 the duties of the Secret Service expanded, as it was called on to safeguard President Grover Cleveland and his family, due to threats. This protection continued during President William McKinley’s administration, on a case-by-case basis upon request but, as in the past, without the authority of legislation. When the United States became involved in the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Secret Service detailed four agents to the Executive Mansion to protect President McKinley. They were
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Secret Service Operative Frank Tyree observes as President Theodore Roosevelt shakes hands with attendees at a White House party, c. June 1905. Roosevelt, who took office following the assassination of President William McKinley, was the first president supplied permanent and continuous protection by the Secret Service.
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Until this time, protection of the White House and its grounds had been separate from protection of the president. Yet, presidential protection was not the original mission of the Secret Service. At the end of the Civil War, nearly one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit. As a result, the country’s financial stability was in jeopardy. To address this concern, the Secret Service was established in 1865 as a bureau in the Department of the Treasury. (Today the agency’s original duty to preserve the integrity of the nation’s financial and critical institutions by pursuing counterfeiters remains strong, with added attention to the perpetrators of identity theft, access device fraud, and computer crimes.) The Secret Service was often requested to perform a variety of assignments and to conduct
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posted on the First and Second Floors of the house and on the White House Grounds.6 The Secret Service did not officially maintain a detail of agents continuously at the White House for the protection of the president until after President McKinley was assassinated in September 1901. Thereafter, the Secret Service was directed to continue to protect the president. The following year, a permanent two-man detail was assigned to the White House. In 1906, the passage of the Sundry Civil Expenses Act of 1907 officially provided the legislative authority for the Secret Service to protect the president of the United States. With its integration into the Secret Service, the White House Police undertook additional duties. Congress mandated that the White House Police should be responsible for protecting foreign missions and embassies throughout Washington, D.C. That legislation passed in March 1970, and the White House Police became the Executive Protective Service. In 1974, when Congress authorized the protection of the vice president’s immediate
family, the Executive Protective Service gained another responsibility: protecting the vice president and his family at their home on the grounds of the Naval Observatory. On November 15, 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation changing the name from Executive Protective Service to the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.7 Over the years, the United States Secret Service’s protective mission greatly expanded. Currently the Secret Service is authorized by law to protect the following: the president, vice president, and their immediate families; other individuals next in order of succession to the office of the president; former presidents and their spouses and their minor children until age 16; foreign heads of state and their spouses visiting the United States; major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses; and the president-elect, vice president-elect, and their spouses. Protection for the president and vice president of the United States is mandatory. All other individuals entitled to Secret Service protection may decline security if they choose.8
White House Police Sergeant Alpheuis Walter and Secret Service Operative James Haley accompany First Lady Grace Coolidge as she hosts the Easter Egg Roll on the White House Lawn, April 13, 1925.
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Washington, D.C. From 1948 to 1952 Blair House served as the official residence to President Harry Truman and First Lady Bess Truman while the White House was undergoing a complete renovation. On November 1, 1950, White House Police Officer Leslie Coffelt was killed in an exchange of gunfire when two Puerto Rican nationalists attempted to assassinate President Truman. Among the Secret Service personnel to respond that day was Agent Rex Scouten, who later served as the White House chief usher from 1969 to 1986.
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A special agent stands at his post on the South Lawn (top) during a departure as President and Mrs. Donald Trump walk toward the waiting Marine One. A Uniformed Division Counter Sniper Team officer stands vigilant on the White House roof, October 30, 2001 (opposite). On the morning of September 11, 2001, officers remained at their posts even as the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 approached from the southwest before it turned and struck the Pentagon. A hero from the war in Afghanistan that followed, Special Agent Ronald J. Shurer II is presented the Medal of Honor by President Donald Trump, 2018 (above).
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Today the various components of the Uniformed Division work together with the Presidential Protective Division, the Vice Presidential Protective Division, the Technical Security Division, Special Operations Division, and the Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division, along with assistance from valued law enforcement partners in the Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Park Police, to ensure an intricate, multilayered, and coordinated effort in protecting the entire White House Complex. The complex consists of the four principal structures: the Executive Mansion, where the first family resides; the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the location of the executive offices of the president and the vice president; the West Wing, the location of the official office of the president; and the East Wing, the official reception entrance to the State Rooms of the Executive Mansion.9 Nearby, the Treasury Building and Treasury Annex also receive the attention of the Uniformed Division. Blair House is secured when in use by a foreign head of government or state during a visit to
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G E O R G E W. B U S H P R E S I D E N T I A L L I B R A R Y
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It is usually Uniformed Division personnel who are predominately visible to anyone approaching the White House. Officers perform specific functions integral to the design and execution of security plans by means of post standers and by confirming access entry checks, administering magnetometer screening (with more than 1 million visitors screened in 2019), conducting tours, and patrolling the grounds of the White House.
Upon closer examination, it can be noted that Uniformed Division officers have the unique dispensation as the only law enforcement agency authorized to wear the Presidential Coat of Arms as a shoulder patch on the uniform, granted by President Dwight Eisenhower on April 16, 1958. The United States Secret Service Valor Award honors and recognizes agency personnel who have
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A Uniformed Division Officer authenticates the credentials of employees and guests awaiting access to the White House. It is the Uniformed Division that is most visible to anyone approaching the White House.
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Officers stand at their posts at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in front of a newly erected section of iron fencing, March 2020. Replacing a 6.5 foot fence, the new 13 foot fence incorporates anticlimbing and intrusion technology. Construction began on the replacement fence in July of 2019 and is scheduled to be completed in 2020.
demonstrated outstanding courage and voluntary risk of personal safety. Of the current 132 recipients, seven have been awarded with the Secret Service’s highest and most revered decoration for their actions in response to violent life-threatening situations around the White House Complex. More than thirty officers and agents have been bestowed with the agency’s Distinguished Life Saving Award for rendering aid to visitors, employees, or colleagues in distress or with medical emergencies in areas of Secret Service protective concern. The relationship between providing a robust security plan while still allowing access to the “people’s house” is always evolving. Most recently, in July 2019, construction of a new White House fence undertaken by the National Park Service and Secret Service required a balance of pleasing decor and security. The existing 6 foot 6 inch fence was replaced by a fence approximately 13 feet tall, with wider and stronger fence posts. Additionally, the new fence incorporates anticlimbing and intrusion technology and is designed to mitigate current and future security threats.10
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The U.S. Secret Service is prepared to meet such challenges in 2020 and the years to come.
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NOTES
William Seale, The President’s House: A History (Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 1986), 1:xx.
2. Department of the Treasury, Public Report of the White House Security Review (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1995), 31. 3. United States Secret Service Moments in History (Washington, D.C.: Department of Homeland Security, 2015), 92. 4. Ignatius J. Connole, “A Review of Police Protection at the White House,” c. 1952, 28. Connole was a retired White House Police officer. 5. Harold A. Dougherty, “Presidential Protection and Security: Origin and Development, 1792– 1922,” c. 1963, 24. Dougherty also was a retired White House Police officer. 6. Department of the Treasury, Public Report of the White House Security Review, 73. 7. United States Secret Service Moments in History, 95–96. 8. 18 U.S. Code, sec. 3056, Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service. 9. Department of the Treasury, Public Report of the White House Security Review, 53. 10. National Park Service, “White House Fence Construction-President’s Park (White House),” posted August 20, 2019, online at the National Park Service website, nps.gov.
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