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In The President's Secret Service: Behind The Scenes With Agents In The Line Of Fire And The Presidents They Protect (2009)

by Ronald Kessler(Favorite Author)

3.28 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0307461351 (ISBN13: 9780307461353)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Crown Forum

review 1: This book is almost written as two books. One part is a fascinating history of past presidents, filled with amazing anecdotes, a really great read. The other part of this book is a hard analysis of administrative budgets, rules, and procedures. It is this latter subject matter that takes the book down, as the analysis turns into somewhat of a rant, no matter how worthy the arguments. Above all, what stands out are the amazing details and observations shared through the professional and trained eyes of the secret service. (The narrator has a great voice and adds to the audio book version.)
review 2: I've read Kessler books before, and they can be a quite enjoyable mix of history, stories and commentary. This time, he tackles the Secret Service, discussing how i... moret was formed, and their early successes and failures. He will also describe the current state of the Secret Service, and discusses many of the troubling challenges they face today, almost predicting that there can be another assassination in the near future just based on the politics involved in keeping the best people involved in the organization and with the proper training and equipment. The book stops just short of being a rallying cry for improvements to the service.Another controversial, but interesting theme of the book is his behind the scenes look at US Presidents over the last 50 years. He acknowledges that using Secret Service sources to describe the private lives of the Presidents can actually endanger them, but he plugs on anyway. From a historical perspective, we can appreciate that Presidents are people too, who have their public persona, but also have their own way of working with their families, and those immediately around them behind closed doors. But many of the people he talks about are still living. And in today's political climate, the behind the scenes look is very interesting, but controversial. A lot of what is described is the way that the Presidents treated their Secret Service protectors. And the implications for what they are like as a person. Bill and Chelsea Clinton were very easy to work with and considerate of the Secret Service, Hillary was not. If you can accept the fact that Presidents and their families are people, and are going to have their pluses and minuses, that's one thing. But there could be a strong temptation to use this for partisan politics in a pretty unfair way. less

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Reviews (see all)

jrod0518

This is a book in two halves; both unexpected and interesting if disappointing for different reasons. In the first part it appears Kessler got many agents to talk about the secrets the learned from the Presidents they served and many of these are ascribed by name to the agents that divulged secrets from Kennedy (who has a room for assignations with Monroe and got alerts when Jackie was coming home) to the Obamas (Barak still smokes as of this writing. While thee revelations, almost salacious are interesting, it is disappointing to learn how easily it appears to have been to get agents to reveal secrets. We also learn of the adulteries of LBJ, the human sides of Ford and Carter and what unruly imps the Bush twins were. The second part is how since post-9/11 the Service was rolled into Homeland Security it lacks in funding, is spread too thin also investigating modern day financial crimes, and suffering under effective indentured service (unfair transfer and overtime policies) driving away talent so that in the so-called War on Terror our heads of government have no better protection then when Lincoln's security office left Ford Theatre for the saloon.

whyumadbro

This book is almost written as two books. One part is a fascinating history of past presidents, filled with amazing anecdotes, a really great read. The other part of this book is a hard analysis of administrative budgets, rules, and procedures. It is this latter subject matter that takes the book down, as the analysis turns into somewhat of a rant, no matter how worthy the arguments. Above all, what stands out are the amazing details and observations shared through the professional and trained eyes of the secret service. (The narrator has a great voice and adds to the audio book version.)

Sarah

Scary...very scary.

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