In the President's Secret Service (34 page)

The Secret Service agreed to cooperate on this book, the only book about the agency to receive such cooperation. While I made it clear in an email at the outset that the book would address management problems I had already raised in an article, based on my previous books and stories, Secret Service officials believed that I would portray the agency accurately and fairly.

The Secret Service arranged interviews with a range of Secret Service officials, gave demonstrations and tours of the agency’s training center and the most secret headquarters components, gave approval to former agents to talk with me, and provided photos and compiled data in response to questions.

Mark Sullivan, director of the Secret Service; James W. Mackin, deputy assistant director of Government and Public Affairs; Eric P. Zahren, special agent in charge of that office; and Edwin Donovan, assistant special agent in charge of that office, have my appreciation for their help.

In the end, more than a hundred current or former agents up to the level of director and deputy director agreed to be interviewed, either on the record or without attribution. I am grateful to them for providing what I believe is a complete portrait of an agency that is a bulwark of our democracy. My hope is that the problems revealed in the book will lead to reforms that could avert a calamity.