Venker`s spiciest revelations concern the people he protected.
During his tour in the Carter White House, Venker was notified that
”panic buttons” had been placed throughout the residence so that ”if the president were ever attacked or had a heart attack, he could call.” Agents were to respond immediately, bolting into the room where the alarm was located, no knocking, gun in hand.
When an alarm went off one day in a bathroom near the Oval Office, Venker charged in, gun drawn. Inside he found Carter, zipping up his pants;
apparently when he pushed the panic button, he thought he was flushing the toilet.
Venker was present at the storied rabbit attack on Carter during a trip to Georgia. ”Carter and an agent were fishing in a boat on a pond. I was on shore with another agent. Suddenly, I heard some rustling in the woods behind us. I couldn`t tell what it was at first, but soon enough I saw it was a rabbit-I mean, a big rabbit-running away from a fox. The rabbit ran to the edge of the pond, looked back at the fox and then jumped in the water. It started swimming toward Carter`s boat.”
The agent in the boat radioed Venker on shore. ”What`s that?”
”I said, `It`s a rabbit.`
”He said, `A robot?`
” `No, a rabbit. As in Bugs Bunny.`
”Well, Carter saw this projectile coming, and he picked up an oar and started rocking the boat, trying to hit the rabbit with the oar.”
Rattled, the rabbit changed course and swam safely to shore. ”After that, whenever a cat would get into the White House, the agents would say,
`Kill it! It`s got to be a robot!` ”
Venker agrees with McCarthy in giving low marks to Carter in his relations with agents and high marks to Gerald Ford. Carter, he says, was cold and at times petty. Ford was personable and thoughtful, bringing sandwiches and coffee to agents standing outdoor winter watches at Camp David.
Venker once received a letter of commendation while guarding Ford in New York. After seeing a performance of ”A Chorus Line,” the President and Mrs. Ford were going backstage when Ford tripped approaching the stage and almost fell into the orchestra pit. Venker grabbed him and lifted him to the stage. Later the Fords invited Venker to their hotel suite. ”He said I`d saved his life,” Venker said. ”I don`t know about that. I suppose he could have been impaled on a clarinet.”
Venker was fond of Nixon also. ”Carter treated you like a maggot. Nixon treated you like a human being. He always asked about your mother, and when somebody in your family was sick, Nixon was the first to send a card or flowers.”
But the former president had his awkward moments. ”One time the roof alarm at the townhouse went off. That alarm never malfunctioned, so when we heard it, we said, `This is it-terrorist attack. We ran up the stairs with our shotguns and Uzis (machine guns). When we got to the roof, we found Nixon poking a screwdriver into the air-conditioning unit. Sparks were flying everywhere. He had almost electrocuted himself. But he kept saying, `I can get it to go!` ”
Looking for cigars, Nixon one day wandered into a head shop that advertised ”smoking supplies.” Although the place was crammed with hardcore pornography, he remained the unflappable pol, acting as though he were on a campaign stop. ”There was a display case full of drug and sex paraphernalia. Pipes, coke spoons. Nixon was taking it all in, asking questions. He pointed to some two-headed vibrators and said, `Now what`s that for?`
”Behind the counter was this hippie. I mean, a real refugee from the
`60s-long hair, the Grateful Dead coming out of the speakers. The hippie was speechless. You could just imagine him screaming inside his brain:
`Richard Nixon is in my head shop!` ”
On a Caribbean island, where Nixon was a guest of friends Bebe Rebozo and Robert Abplanalp, ”a nude woman came up to (Nixon) on the beach and asked if her husband could take their picture together. Nixon was so taken aback, he said yes.” He was putting his arm around her when Venker, realizing this would not be a picture that should be flashed around the world, interceded, asking the man to come back when his wife had some clothes on.
But Venker didn`t interfere with a beautiful woman in her late 20s who would come out of her cabana-topless-whenever Nixon went swimming. ”She`d always place herself at a discreet distance from Nixon, but close enough so he could still ogle her. He`d wade out into the ocean and lurk with that nose just covered by the water. Like a crocodile.”
The inside view that Venker provides of the Secret Service is of a small
(2,000 agents), highly competitive organization that may be too tight-lipped and tough for the emotional health of some of its people but that in spite of enormous stress operates with remarkable commitment and
professionalism.
The Secret Service was created in 1865 as a bureau of the Treasury Department to track down counterfeiters. It began guarding presidents after President William McKinley was assassinated, in 1901; the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy during the presidential campaign of 1968 would extend the organization`s shield to presidential candidates. It also protects a number of other government officials and their families, as well as former presidents, their spouses or widows and children under 16.
For some agents, the most unsettling duty is protecting foreign heads of state in this country, which became policy in 1971. Putting your life on the line for the president is one thing, but sacrificing yourself for the leader of another government gives pause.
”That`s something to transcend,” Jerry Parr, a former boss of the White House detail, says in the book. ”I had Somoza. I had (Yasser) Arafat (head of the Palestine Liberation Organization). I had a lot of foreign leaders who, one might say, were politically odious. Would an agent be faulted if he refused to die for a foreign leader? I don`t know. It hasn`t happened that I know of.”
Venker makes a sardonic distinction between the ”star” agents who were assigned to the president and their counterparts in the field offices, of whom he considers himself one, even though he eventually made it to White House.
The White House guys were ”the dashing executive-type whose Brooks Brothers suit didn`t pinch at the shoulders, who spoke well, with a deep, assured mid-Atlantic accent,” who often went to the best schools and
”radiated class,” those whom their less polished colleagues called ”the blow-dried protection faggots.”
In training, Venker learned martial arts, marksmanship, escape driving and how to take close care of a client. ”We used to run through basketball-style plays for moving the president through a crowd. It was called
`working the man.` One of us would play the president, and four others would form a diamond around him.” There would be a mock attack, and someone would shout, ”Cover and evacuate!”
Once accepted as an agent, ”I reported to a doctor who injected warm plastic in my ear.” A few days later, he was issued his first earphone, created specifically for his ear.
His first presidential campaign was a few months later, in 1972. ”On a typical morning, you`d be shivering in Madison, Wis. There`d be snow in the streets. Four cities later, you`d be in Beaumont, Tex. Your wool suit would feel like a cooking pouch.”
He`d precede the candidate as he shook hands with crowds. ”I`d move ahead on the ropeline, keeping my eyes low, watching the hands. . . An agent at my side would be ready with a Uzi in a briefcase. . . You started to view crowds like excitable animals. . . Mostly you relied on your sense of character. You learn to look for the face that doesn`t belong. The guy who`s nervous and perspiring when most people around him are having a good time. The guy who`s grinning at some solemn event like a memorial service. . . I didn`t wear sunglasses as much as some agents. I wanted people to see my eyes. You tried to put out every signal you could to say, `Don`t mess with me. I`m ready for you.` ”
”Marty was a very brave and effective agent,” Rush said. ”And he`s not afraid to talk about the fear he felt or being burned out or about the dissension over internal politics.”
”I was proud to be a part of the Secret Service,” Venker says in the book. ”Otherwise I wouldn`t have stuck around as long as I did. I finally got tired of the job, but no one`s to blame for that.”
And there are all those memories. One night, as Venker was leaving the command post at Nixon`s, he checked the video monitor-it was all clear outside-then opened the door. ”Bam! This fat lady burst in. She blindsided me. Knocked me right on the floor. She must`ve weighed 250 pounds.”
Venker struggled on the floor with the woman; only a few feet away in his study, Nixon was talking on the phone. A disturbed habitue of the neighborhood, the woman was atop Venker, almost crushing him and all the time yelling something about the Pope and Cambodia and having to see Nixon. ”This is the weird way I`m going to die,” he said to himself. ”Not shot in a motorcade but smothered by this maniac woman.”
In seconds, others agents rushed to his aid. The next day, Nixon, who had been told of the incident, asked Venker about it.
”You didn`t have to hurt her, did you?” Nixon said.
”No, sir.”
”Well, what did she want?”
Venker said she had mumbled something about the Pope and Cambodia.
Nixon paused. ”Well, what did she think about Cambodia?”
”What?” Venker said.
”What did she think about Cambodia?”
”I don`t know what you mean, sir. She was crazy! ”
Nixon paused for several seconds, considering what Venker had said. ”Of course, of course,” he replied, presidentially, then walked away.
