Obama Visits The West Coast

Secret Service agents turn away from the blast of air from Air Force One as President Barack Obama departs from San Francisco International airport in San Francisco, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. Obama is on a three-day trip to the west coast. (Photo Eric Risberg)

Michelle Obama tells Secret Service: 'Just tell me when — where to run'

By AMIE PARNES |

First lady Michelle Obama made a rare trip to Secret Service headquarters Wednesday, where she glimpsed the intricate work that goes into protecting her family — and the potential danger of that mission.

After an hour long tour of the agency’s protective intelligence division and the joint operations center, Obama called the daily tasks performed by the Secret Service “pretty scary.”

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A Brief History Of: The Secret Service

By Alex Altman

An agent looks on as John McCain concedes the presidency to Barack Obama in Phoenix. Christopher Morris / VII for TIME

Abraham Lincoln left to Barack Obama not only an example to emulate but also the sentinels who will safeguard his life. In 1865, on the very day he was assassinated at Ford's Theatre, Lincoln green-lighted what would become the U.S. Secret Service, which has been guarding Obama (code-named "Renegade") since May 2007--longer than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history.

The agency's mission has evolved dramatically since its inception under the Treasury Dept. While today more than 3,200 Secret Service members stand ready to sacrifice their lives for the safety of the leader of the free world, the agency's job originally was to stamp out counterfeiting in an era when one out of every three bills in circulation was fake. Though the Secret Service was tasked with guarding President Grover Cleveland's family in the 1890s, presidential security became a formal objective only after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. It wasn't until 1951--after a failed attempt on President Harry Truman's life--that Congress codified the agency's permanent protection of the First Family. Its duties also now include candidates for high office and visiting dignitaries. (See the Top 10 secret service code names.)

Scanning crowds while the President walks a rope line is a given. But agents have also had to respond to unique security challenges--from rigging traffic lights while Truman strolled through Washington to shielding President Jimmy Carter's daughter, Amy, from a charging elephant at a pet show on Ethel Kennedy's Virginia estate. While the demeanor (sunglasses, earpieces, constant vigilance) and the danger are what captivate the public, monitoring for fiscal malfeasance is still half the job. In August, the Secret Service helped crack what was heralded as the largest identity-theft ring in U.S. history.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine

Secret Service agent Hobart native Lou Sims tells of Kennedy assassination ...

ZEKE CAMPFIELD


HOBART The day Louis Sims graduated from U.S. Secret Service School was certainly the most notorious day in the organization's history since its founding.

It was November 1963, and then-29-year-old Sims had recently arrived in Washington, D.C., from Chicago, where he had been working as an agent for two years. Having passed the agency's entrance exam with flying colors the highest score recorded at that time, he said graduation was an especially exciting time, even when it was interrupted with some pretty sordid news.

"The chief of the Secret Service was getting ready to speak; it was a noon graduation," Sims, now 77, said, recalling his early days recently in the living room of the Hobart home he shares with his wife, Gwen. "He got called out of the room for a phone call. He came back and said, 'The President has been shot in Dallas. Everyone report to the Washington field office.' You always think, if I would have been there, what could I have done? How could I have helped save his life?"

Born in 1934, the son of an insurance agent, Sims was a star athlete at Hobart High School and then at several prep colleges in Oklahoma, where he played baseball and basketball while pursuing a degree in business.

Shortly after his 1956 graduation from Panhandle State University he was drafted into the U.S. Army and was immediately recommended for U.S. Army Intelligence School in Baltimore.

"I was absolutely delighted because I intended to serve, so I figured hey, I'm going to learn as much as I can while I'm in there and get as much as I can out of it," Sims said.

He was a week off basic training when he married Gwen, his high school sweetheart, and in November 1957, he was assigned to Kansas City to work as an agent in Army intelligence, and then to Topeka, Kan., as a resident agent in Army intelligence. In Kansas City, Sims was conducting a background investigation and one of the references cited was former President Harry Truman, who was setting up his presidential library at the time. While he had Truman's ear, Sims figured he'd ask the former president what he thought about a Secret Service career.

"I said, 'I've only got a year left in Army intelligence and I'm thinking about joining the Secret Service. What do you think?' President Truman spoke up and said, 'If the outfit can be that close to me and not get in my hair, that's a pretty good outfit,'" Sims said.

After an interview and a four-hour test, he was told he qualified as a candidate for the service but that he would have to await assignment. In the meantime, he opened a life insurance business. It was 1960.

"If I never got that call from Secret Service, I've got a business," he said. "And after a few weeks we didn't know if we'd ever get the call, so we moved to Lawton."

Assigned to Chicago
In 1961, however, and after some haggling over his pay grade, Sims was assigned a special agent at the agency's field office in Chicago.

The Secret Service was tasked then, as it is now, with protecting the president and other elected national officials but also with investigating federal financial crimes, like forgery or counterfeiting of government obligations. In fact, though the Secret Service was founded by Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s, it wasn't until William McKinley's assassination in 1900 that it was assigned its bodyguard duties.

In Chicago, Sims found the job as intense as it was an adventure, sometimes finding himself going to work in the morning and not knowing exactly where he'd wind up by night. The job was round-the-clock and required an enormous amount of personal commitment, he said.

"You realized that it was your responsibility to see that the right investigation was done and the right steps were taken for the security of the president or his family or the vice president," Sims said. "You looked at everyone and made a decision on whether or not that person was a danger. Unless it went to the courthouse, nine times out of 10 it never even hit the newspaper."

In 1961, he was assigned to the Kennedy detail at the White House for a month. Kennedy was the first of six U.S. presidents Sims would protect, an experience he tends to tone down.

"Normally a Secret Service agent doesn't have personal discussions with the president or first family; most of it is about the security activities where's your guy, itineraries and that sort of thing. Normally you don't sit down and visit," he said. "But it was just, I don't know how you describe it, it was exciting and you felt very privileged, no matter who the president was."

So of course it was only natural that when Kennedy was shot that fateful day in Dallas, Sims took it as kind of personal.

For four dark days, as he described them, Sims was among a crew of depressed agents tasked with handling logistics of the memorial. The day of the funeral, Sims walked alongside President Johnson's limousine during the motorcade from the Lincoln Memorial to the entranceway of Arlington National Cemetery.

Relied on his experience
"You're thinking about the job, but also, 'Here's a guy from Hobart up here where everybody in the country is focusing right now,'" he said. "And I will tell you how very true I relied on all that experience growing up in Hobart, Oklahoma, doing that job. You learn how to do everything here, and, if something needed to be done, you did it, no matter what it was."

Reforms put in place
The occasion marked serious reform for the Secret Service, and Sims was among the new agents who rode the tide as its budget was boosted and its personnel increased many times over. He was one of about 350 special agents when he went into the service, which operated then on about a $4 million budget. Today's Secret Service has more than 6,500 employees, including 3,200 agents, and operates with an annual budget of $1.4 billion.

The build-up after Kennedy's assassination did not stop until the Secret Service was ultimately swallowed by the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2003, Sims said.

"The recommendations of the Warren Commission kind of changed our whole direction," he said. "No question that's what got the appropriations up where we could have the number of people we needed to do the job and get the right equipment. That was just the time when things began to happen, and they began with the assassination of President Kennedy and went from there."

The Kennedy funeral wasn't the last time Sims felt the eyes of the country upon him.



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Former Secret Service agent: Betty Ford looked after us

Written by

The Associated Press

GRAND RAPIDS — An ex-Secret Service agent says former First Lady Betty Ford was like “a mother” to him and his colleagues.

Mike Shannon signed a condolence book for Ford at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids. He was among many who came to express their sympathy to the Ford family after Betty Ford's death in California on Friday.

Shannon told WOOD-TV that he protected the Fords, and Betty Ford was always concerned about the agents and their families. He says she once sent him home with a bag of oranges for his wife.

The museum says its lobby will be open around the clock until further notice so people can sign the book.

Her body will be sent to Michigan for burial at the museum alongside her husband.

http://www.thetimesherald.com

Secret Service created July 5, 1865

http://washingtonexaminer.com




By: Scott McCabe | Examiner Staff Writer Follow Him @Scott_McCabe |

On this day, July 5, 1865, the U.S. Secret Service was created in Washington to arrest counterfeiters.

During President Lincoln's administration, more than a third of the nation's money was counterfeit. On April 14, 1965, the day he would be assassinated, Lincoln established a commission to stop the counterfeiting problem.

The Secret Service evolved into the country's first domestic intelligence and counterintelligence agency. After the assassination of President McKinley in 1901, Congress informally requested that the Secret Service provide presidential protection. In 1902, William Craig became the first agent to be killed riding in the presidential carriage. Now, there are more than 3,200 Secret Service agents.

-Scott McCabe

Dallas Secret Service Field Office Visit - 11/22/10

Jerry and Clint make special presentation to Dallas Secret Service Field Office on 11/22/10 - the 47th anniversary of JFK's assassination.



















Current and Former SAIC's of Dallas Secret Service Field Office with Jerry Blaine and Clint Hill.


























Lisa McCubbin with Dallas SAIC Edna Perry.