Within Arm's Length: A Secret Service Agent's Definitive Inside Account of Protecting the President (16 page)

The following day, my team—consisting of agents Mike Carbone, Charlie White, Lee Fields, and Jim Cobb—finished gearing up and mounted our Humvee for the move to the bridge. We had just rolled a few yards when the voice of command post agent and CAT school classmate Joe Clancy jolted me with its urgency. Joe’s voice was usually calmer than calm, but on this occasion, the calm was accented with strain. I was aware from the tone in Joe’s voice that something was wrong and already knew what it was before Joe announced it.

“Hawkeye from command post,” Joe forcefully broadcasted over our encrypted frequency.

“Damn Joe,” I said to myself while lowering the volume on my radio. “CP from Hawkeye, go ahead,” I answered.

“Hawkeye from CP,” Joe responded, “be advised that numerous North Korean soldiers have been observed moving into their sector of the bridge armed with AK-47 rifles.”

As I turned and gave my team the “I told you so” look, I keyed my microphone and simply replied back to Joe, “CP from Hawkeye, roger that.”

I had anticipated this entirely predictable event well in advance and had never had any intention of letting my team go to the bridge armed only with pistols. Before we left Camp Bonifas, I had given the order to carry our full complement of arms and ammunition—pistols, M16s, and a combined total of over a thousand rounds of ammunition—and I was prepared to assume full responsibility for that decision should the fact be discovered. In addition, I had given the order for each of my team members to carry their rifles with a round in the chamber, violating a major Secret Service regulation for long guns. Since we were not supposed to have our M16s to begin with, violating the round-in-the-chamber regulation was minor. Given how outnumbered we were, the extra second it would take to chamber a round under fire could mean the difference whether we or POTUS survived an ambush.

I felt the situation was serious—damned serious, in fact—and I was not risking my team or the life of the president based on a forty-year-old agreement I had correctly predicted would be broken by the Communists. Because North Korea had come to expect over the years that America is always naïve enough to play by the rules, the Communists likely expected us not to have rifles, and this incorrect assumption on their part tilted the odds in our favor a bit more.

Now knowing what we were up against, we moved out to the bridge, where we found the Communists in and around their observation post arrogantly brandishing their Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles, as reported by my good friend Joe Clancy. To our Secret Service way of thinking, the only reason they would commit such a violation of the no-rifle agreement was because shooting the president of the United States is much easier with rifles than with their Russian-provided Makarov pistols.

The terrain around the bridge, while somewhat improved since 1953, was probably much as it had been at that time. The area was a combination of dirt and asphalt road surrounded by fields and forests. The area was also mined, and it would only take driving off the beaten path a little bit to produce a big, flaming kaboom, so we moved carefully. After settling into the best position from which to deploy in case of attack, which in this case was not directly at the arrival point yet near enough to respond by fire and maneuver, we saw quite clearly the Koreans eyeing us with binoculars and trying to shake us up a bit by pointing rifle scopes in our direction. We counter-eyed them with our own binoculars, and although our M16s were scoped, we kept our rifles low and out of sight. Unlike our North Korean nemesis, we at least had concealed our rifles, giving no indication that we were possibly in violation of the meaningless clause in the 1953 cease-fire agreement.

The North Koreans we now traded game-face looks with were not members of just any foreign military. All were the sons or grandsons of the same men who had helped kill over fifty thousand Americans from 1950 until 1953. Each from birth was indoctrinated to hate America, its form of government, and its leaders, and had been taught that resuming the war with the United States was both inevitable and desirable. The shooting part of the Korean War had ended in 1953 with a truce, and we were technically still at war with North Korea. If they wanted to resume the shooting war again, today would be the perfect day.

As irrational as the North Koreans could be, we hoped that they had manned the towers with officers under strict orders not to provoke a situation but rather to present a threatening appearance. We also knew that because North Korea was a fanatical Communist state, the possibility existed that one of these young officers might just decide that taking out an American president would be the thing to do. Even an accidental discharge could set off a gunfight, and those can happen at any time on either side. When dealing with North Korea, anything was possible.

By fate and necessity, our mission of fighting a delaying action while POTUS escaped was not much less than certain death should things break bad, and the colonel in charge of the area had as much as said so. None of us had any doubt that, in addition to the North Koreans in the observation post armed with AK-47s just yards from where the president of the United States would be standing, there were in all likelihood more soldiers in the tall grass on their side of the bridge.

This scenario was the quintessential example of why CAT existed and why we trained with such intensity. With a command from me that consisted of only one word, the team would be out of the vehicle and directing a heavy volume of pinpoint, accurate fire on the objective in less than four seconds. Regardless of our own fate in the seconds that would follow, the hope in such a situation was that we would accomplish our mission and that the president of the United States would live another day. Everyone on my team knew this. We accepted it as our job, and there were no complaints. We had no intentions of being mere sacrificial lambs or dying a glorious death, but we were confident that the five of us would produce many, many dead Communists if they decided to do something as ill-advised as killing an American president.

The mood in the CAT vehicle was serious, quiet, and confident as I announced our plan of action in the event of attack. The men indicated with grim smiles that they understood their assignments. I had total confidence that each would do his duty and respond per his training if called upon. We were brothers in arms who worked together, trained together, and traveled the world together. Now, if necessary, we would meet our fates together. We all shook hands and waited for the arrival of the president of the United States into what amounted to nothing less than a made-to-order kill zone. It was time to earn our pay.

As we waited for POTUS, we played eye screw with the Communists while scanning the area. Then, with no warning, everyone in the Humvee began to laugh hysterically, as if the funniest joke in the world had just been told. For one brief moment, we could have been anywhere other than where we were. All mirth died as quickly as it had begun as we saw the approach of the president’s motorcade.

At the designated time, President Clinton and his shift arrived at the bridge. As POTUS emerged from the right rear seat, he was immediately surrounded by the shift. From our position, we could see a noticeable increase in activity and movement from the North Korean observation post. If a gunfight were going to happen, it was going to happen within the next few seconds.

The shift then began doing a constant series of radio checks with us. It was both ridiculous and irritating, but they wanted to be sure we had radio contact with them in the event an attack occurred. We didn’t bother pointing out that, while there would be a lot of activity in such an event, no one would be talking on the radio. Any survivors from the shift would be covering POTUS and trying to evacuate him across the expanse of the bridge, while CAT did its best to turn the Communist observation post into a sieve by killing as many North Korean soldiers as possible.

I felt calm yet hyper-alert as the adrenaline took effect. I could feel my heart rate increase as my grip tightened on the hand guard of my rifle, concealed beneath the instrument panel of the Humvee. As we sat in our vehicle, we stared at the North Koreans and scanned the surrounding area while the Communists stared back. Meanwhile, President Clinton leisurely strolled along the bridge as if he were at Camp David, with the satisfied, relaxed look of a man with no concerns.

After walking a little farther onto the bridge than he probably should have, practically into North Korea, President Clinton looked around the area for a few minutes and then returned to his vehicle, and we got the hell out of the zone.

TRAINING FOR THE WORST

In order to maintain our high level of readiness, we trained constantly. If we were not protecting POTUS, we were running immediate action drills, or working on the firing range or in the gym. As good at our work as we were, we were about to become much better: An agent newly placed in charge of CAT training was poised to take our training to new heights and set a new standard for CAT training that continues to this day.

Through this training program, our skills became as sharp as those of any police tactical unit in the world. There was, however, one problem with the training, and it was potentially lethal. CAT protected POTUS, as did the working shift, but at the time the two entities seldom, if ever, trained together.

In the event of an attack on POTUS, PPD shift agents had little idea what CAT was going to do or not do for them, and CAT really did not know what the shift was going to do, other than attempt to cover and evacuate POTUS, as was their job. In order to remedy this shortcoming, CAT and the PPD shift began training together regularly, and problems quickly surfaced that had to be corrected.

One of the first joint training exercises I participated in with CAT and the main presidential detail took place at Kennebunkport, Maine, at the Bush compound. President George H. W. Bush had agreed to allow the Secret Service full access to the compound for some realistic practice.

The first exercise required CAT to respond to the main house, kill the attackers, and consolidate its positions around the house. Within seconds of our securing the residence, a PPD agent ran around the corner of the house and promptly shot me with his training weapon, which fired blank ammunition. The bizarre thing was that this agent and I knew each other, and I had a label in large letters on my back: POLICE. In spite of this, he became so excited over the simulated attack, and so overcome with tunnel vision seeing a man in a black outfit, that he promptly blasted me with his Uzi.

The problem was not unique. Under stress, even in training, some people totally lose the ability to think clearly, and all situational awareness goes out the window. As a result, the confused person shoots someone known to him, because all he sees is a black uniform and a rifle. These exercises were invaluable in that they helped CAT and the shift become a harmonious unit. They also alerted us to the fact that certain agents had to be watched closely during time of stress.

CAT COLLATERAL DUTIES: PROTECTING THE VICE PRESIDENT

While protecting the president is CAT’s main function, in some cases upon request CAT would accompany the vice president on high-risk trips, usually overseas. Many times these trips were as eventful as any with the president.

On a trip to the Far East in 1989 in support of Vice President Dan Quayle, my CAT team was in a motorcade en route to a planned stop, and I was working in the back of our Suburban providing rear security. I had just joined CAT about two weeks earlier, and this was my first foreign trip.

Although we had total intersection and route control, one of the many motorcycles that navigate the streets of the region had somehow gotten into the motorcade and was coming up fast behind us. The biker, who wore a backpack, was traveling parallel to the motorcade and accelerated as if he were coming up toward the CAT truck and limo, and then backed off and dropped back. It would not have been permissible to allow this interloper to pull past us and end up adjacent to the VP limo. Once there, the biker could damage the limo and perhaps the vice president in any number of ways.

At the approach of the motorcyclist, who this time looked as if he were going to try to move past us, Phil Hyde, my team leader, calmly turned to me and, with his Boston accent, said, “If he looks like he is going to go past us, take him out.” As the biker began to move closer to the CAT truck, I aimed with my M16, placing the UltraDot sight on his chest with the barrel of my weapon clearly protruding from the rear of the vehicle. Upon seeing my rifle aimed directly at him, the biker abruptly decelerated and then moved back and out of our motorcade. Who he was or if he meant to harm the VP, we would never know. These types of incidents seemed to happen a lot in the Far East, mostly due to the maniacal manner of driving found there. In our work, however, we always had to assume the worst in such cases.

WITH THE VICE PRESIDENT IN HAITI

Some of the most dangerous moments in CAT occurred not on the mission itself but rather on the advance. In 1989, I was sent to Haiti to do a CAT advance for Vice President Quayle.

Haiti, adjacent to the Dominican Republic and south of Cuba, is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. There was a great deal of political unrest when Vice President Quayle visited, and things were tense from the moment of the advance team’s arrival in the capital of Port-au-Prince. The airport was straight out of a bad movie, with one runway and the median strewn with the wreckage of several derelict DC-3s. The terminal building was a pockmarked reminder of other periods of unrest.

With the arrival of the advance team in an Air Force C-141, the Department of State regional security officer (RSO) briefed us. He said that over the past several days, more than one policeman had been captured and burned alive by the criminal element of the local population. Their method of execution was to corner the officer and, after he had expended all ammunition, place a tire over his head, pinning his arms to his side. They then filled the tire with gasoline and ignited it. I was armed with a Sig Sauer P226 9mm pistol, which by then was standard CAT issue, along with 5 magazines of 15 rounds each and an M16 rifle with 180 rounds of ammunition. After the briefing from the RSO, I carried them all.