Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
New York : Random House, [2021]
Description
"Carol Leonnig has been covering the Secret Service for The Washington Post for most of the last decade, bringing to light the gaffes and scandals that plague the agency today--from a toxic work culture to outdated equipment and training to the deep resentment among the ranks with the agency's leadership. But the Secret Service wasn't always so troubled. The Secret Service was born in 1865, in the wake of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, but its story begins in earnest in 1963, with the death of John F. Kennedy. Shocked into reform by their failure to protect the president on that fateful day, this once-sleepy agency was rapidly transformed into a proud, elite unit that would finally redeem themselves in 1981 by valiantly thwarting an assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan. But this reputation for courage and efficiency would not last forever. By Barack Obama's presidency, the Secret Service was becoming notorious for break-ins at the White House, an armed gunman firing at the building while agents stood by, a massive prostitution scandal in Cartagena, and many other dangerous lapses. To expose these shortcomings, Leonnig interviewed countless current and former agents who risked their careers to speak out about an agency that's broken and in desperate need of a reform"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
Reading this book makes me feel something like the way I feel when I read about generals during the Civil War. With all the drinking and poor decision-making, how did we ever accomplish anything? At one point, after yet another scandal involving drunk secret service men, Obama tells the head of his
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secret service, "You need to hire more women." She said she was trying, but she was thwarted on all sides by conservative misogynists. It seems like whenever you have a group of macho guys in a macho profession drinking and prostitution or sexual abuse is going to abound. Then you get presidents who think the secret service is their own money-making, errand running personal agency. They are overworked and underpaid. Their equipment breaks down and is not repaired or replaced, and they often have attitudes in opposition to the political leanings of the people they are sworn to protect. It seems even more reasonable to me now, after reading the book, that Biden replaced so many of the agents when he took over. Even after 300 secret service agents were infected with Covid on trump's watch, they still loved the guy. At least he wasn't Hillary, whom, of course, many of them couldn't stand. Show Less
LibraryThing member jtsolakos
Carol Leonning's account of the rise and fall of the Secret Service is a well written documentary of the service contracted to protect the leaders of our country. She never degrades the men and women on the front lines of service but reveals the mismanagement, inadequate funding, antiquated systems
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and long hours that these brave men and women must put-up with. Show Less
LibraryThing member Judiex
Many people think of the US Secret Service as an elite group of highly trained, efficient professionals. That is not the story that Carol Leonnig tells in ZERO FAIL.
The Secret Service’s initial responsibility was in the Treasury Department searching financial crimes. After the assassinations of
After the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, things began to change.
Many of the problems Leonning relates, based on hundreds of interviews with agents, government officials, and whistleblowers, were caused by the presidents themselves who did not like the restrictions placed on them. They didn’t like being closely shadowed constantly, partly because, as politicians, they liked getting close to their constituents. Nixon billed the agency for upgrades to his homes claiming they were needed for security.
Some of the presidents and their families treated the Secret Service members like family. Others, like servants, often because they didn’t trust them partly because some members, against the rules of being non-political, showed a preference for the other party. Members of the service were expected to protect the president and maintain silence about what they observed. When disgruntled, though, they were known to leak stories to the media.
Speaking of parties, the service became heavily filled by men who resented any outsiders (e.g., minorities, women, non-agency personnel) being involved. They would undermine anyone that wasn’t part of their club. Frequently, when away from DC to prepare for a Presidential visit, they would party late into the night and early morning, drinking excessively and bringing women, paid and unpaid, to their rooms. Many did that the night before John Kennedy was killed.
After the attempted assassination of George Wallace, who was running for his party’s nomination, the protection was widened to include viable candidates and, later, staff and family members. Congress did raise the amount of money budgeted to the department, but it was still severely understaffed and lacked up-to-date equipment to do a thorough job. People were able to get onto the grounds of the White House with one able to get inside and to the stairs leading to the family quarters before stopped.
Agents were forced to work extra-long hours and days, often having to wait months before being paid. That affected their families and caused frequent resignations. It got especially bad during the Trump administration when he added three dozen people to the list of those to be protected and he and his family spent a lot of time away from the White House. On many of those trips, the agents had to stay on his property, paying his company millions of dollars.
Hopefully, ZERO FAIL will serve as an incentive for Congress to provide the Secret Service the funds it needs to improve the agency through more modern, working equipment and to correct its internal failings.
The Secret Service’s initial responsibility was in the Treasury Department searching financial crimes. After the assassinations of
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Abraham Lincoln, followed by those of James Garfield and William McKinley, the emphasis switched to protecting the President. Congress, however, gave the department a low priority and refused to provide sufficient funding to do its job.After the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, things began to change.
Many of the problems Leonning relates, based on hundreds of interviews with agents, government officials, and whistleblowers, were caused by the presidents themselves who did not like the restrictions placed on them. They didn’t like being closely shadowed constantly, partly because, as politicians, they liked getting close to their constituents. Nixon billed the agency for upgrades to his homes claiming they were needed for security.
Some of the presidents and their families treated the Secret Service members like family. Others, like servants, often because they didn’t trust them partly because some members, against the rules of being non-political, showed a preference for the other party. Members of the service were expected to protect the president and maintain silence about what they observed. When disgruntled, though, they were known to leak stories to the media.
Speaking of parties, the service became heavily filled by men who resented any outsiders (e.g., minorities, women, non-agency personnel) being involved. They would undermine anyone that wasn’t part of their club. Frequently, when away from DC to prepare for a Presidential visit, they would party late into the night and early morning, drinking excessively and bringing women, paid and unpaid, to their rooms. Many did that the night before John Kennedy was killed.
After the attempted assassination of George Wallace, who was running for his party’s nomination, the protection was widened to include viable candidates and, later, staff and family members. Congress did raise the amount of money budgeted to the department, but it was still severely understaffed and lacked up-to-date equipment to do a thorough job. People were able to get onto the grounds of the White House with one able to get inside and to the stairs leading to the family quarters before stopped.
Agents were forced to work extra-long hours and days, often having to wait months before being paid. That affected their families and caused frequent resignations. It got especially bad during the Trump administration when he added three dozen people to the list of those to be protected and he and his family spent a lot of time away from the White House. On many of those trips, the agents had to stay on his property, paying his company millions of dollars.
Hopefully, ZERO FAIL will serve as an incentive for Congress to provide the Secret Service the funds it needs to improve the agency through more modern, working equipment and to correct its internal failings.
Show Less
LibraryThing member breic
A convincing indictment of Secret Service incompetence and unprofessionalism, from JFK to today. I would have liked it to try to go deeper and ask why. Leonnig hints at a few reasons, ranging from the kinds of people who are attracted to this kind of job, to bureaucrats trying to maximize their
> the deputy Republican counsel, Donald Sanders, asked why the wording in a report they received was so exact. He noted to Butterfield that it had verbatim quotes from the president and senior aides, from a specific meeting. “Were there ever any recording devices other than the Dictaphone system you mentioned?” Sanders asked. Butterfield had decided before walking in the door that he wasn’t going to lie to a direct question. “Yes,” he gulped
> growing up poor in Depression-era Miami, Parr got a special treat when his out-of-work dad took him to see the new B movie Code of the Secret Service. Parr was mesmerized by the central character, agent Brass Bancroft, a brave, dashing crime fighter who trotted the globe to chase down counterfeiters. A young actor named Ronald Reagan played the agent. Now, four decades later, the oddest of career trajectories had brought them together. That actor was a seventy-year-old politician and the new president of the United States. Parr was the fifty-year-old special agent in charge of the president’s security detail.
> [On 9/11] When Scott and Cheney reached the bottom of the stairs in a tunnel leading to the bunker, called the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, Scott still had one major problem. He couldn’t enter the shelter on his own authority. The military tightly guarded access to the PEOC, and unlike top presidential detail agents, many vice presidential agents hadn’t been given the S-keys to get inside.
> In 2008, Sullivan’s team finalized its strategic blueprint for spending over the next six years. The plan oddly listed investigating financial crimes as the Service’s top priority—ahead of protecting the president. Sullivan’s lieutenants wanted to protect lucrative turf. With the Service’s creation of several electronic crime task forces in the late 1990s, a steady stream of veteran agents had begun landing high-six-figure jobs on Wall Street.
> Agents had their own parody nickname for the First Lady’s detail, code-named FLD: the Fine Living and Dining crew.
> Grinning and slurring his words, the supervisor congratulated the brand-new baby agents working the detail on the perks of being a Secret Service agent. “You guys don’t know how lucky you are,” he told them. “You are going to fuck your way across the globe.”
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budgets and post-retirement job opportunities, but this is more of a history than a critical analysis. Lots of good stories here were new to me. > the deputy Republican counsel, Donald Sanders, asked why the wording in a report they received was so exact. He noted to Butterfield that it had verbatim quotes from the president and senior aides, from a specific meeting. “Were there ever any recording devices other than the Dictaphone system you mentioned?” Sanders asked. Butterfield had decided before walking in the door that he wasn’t going to lie to a direct question. “Yes,” he gulped
> growing up poor in Depression-era Miami, Parr got a special treat when his out-of-work dad took him to see the new B movie Code of the Secret Service. Parr was mesmerized by the central character, agent Brass Bancroft, a brave, dashing crime fighter who trotted the globe to chase down counterfeiters. A young actor named Ronald Reagan played the agent. Now, four decades later, the oddest of career trajectories had brought them together. That actor was a seventy-year-old politician and the new president of the United States. Parr was the fifty-year-old special agent in charge of the president’s security detail.
> [On 9/11] When Scott and Cheney reached the bottom of the stairs in a tunnel leading to the bunker, called the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, Scott still had one major problem. He couldn’t enter the shelter on his own authority. The military tightly guarded access to the PEOC, and unlike top presidential detail agents, many vice presidential agents hadn’t been given the S-keys to get inside.
> In 2008, Sullivan’s team finalized its strategic blueprint for spending over the next six years. The plan oddly listed investigating financial crimes as the Service’s top priority—ahead of protecting the president. Sullivan’s lieutenants wanted to protect lucrative turf. With the Service’s creation of several electronic crime task forces in the late 1990s, a steady stream of veteran agents had begun landing high-six-figure jobs on Wall Street.
> Agents had their own parody nickname for the First Lady’s detail, code-named FLD: the Fine Living and Dining crew.
> Grinning and slurring his words, the supervisor congratulated the brand-new baby agents working the detail on the perks of being a Secret Service agent. “You guys don’t know how lucky you are,” he told them. “You are going to fuck your way across the globe.”
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LibraryThing member highlander6022
A very, very good book, immensely readable, that tells the history of the US Secret Service and the organization’s deterioration over the decades. It is unfortunate to read of the issues the organization has been having, but perhaps an expose such as this will prompt true reforms there, AND, the
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organization will be treated fairly in its budgeted funds from Congress, in view of the many new responsibilities it has ben expected to assume. Show Less
LibraryThing member writemoves
In my almost 70 years of life, the Secret Service has lost only one president to assassination and that was back in 1963. Reagan was shot in 1981 and survived. There are no tellings on how many assassination attempts were foiled by the Secret Service.
That being said, it appears, based on this book,
A number of scandals were cited in the book involving , sex, prostitution, drunkenness, drugs, discrimination etc. in certain circumstances, men of the Secret Service acted like “Animal House, than protectors of the president. The responsibilities of the Secret Service are way too high to allow a lack of professionalism.
This book is a long read but contains many interesting stories and anecdotes. Based on this book, it appears that the Secret Service preferred President Reagan, George H.Bush and even Donald Trump. There are also some interesting stories about the behaviors of presidents Kennedy and Clinton when it came to women.
This book is very well researched and well written…
That being said, it appears, based on this book,
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that the Secret Service has been more lucky than good over the decades. It appears to have been mismanaged in almost every presidential administration. Inept and mediocre managers have been responsible for the direction of this critical area. Secret Service has been profoundly underfunded and their technology archaic at times. They have had difficulty in recruiting quality candidates because the burnout rate is so high due to their demanding schedules and commitments.A number of scandals were cited in the book involving , sex, prostitution, drunkenness, drugs, discrimination etc. in certain circumstances, men of the Secret Service acted like “Animal House, than protectors of the president. The responsibilities of the Secret Service are way too high to allow a lack of professionalism.
This book is a long read but contains many interesting stories and anecdotes. Based on this book, it appears that the Secret Service preferred President Reagan, George H.Bush and even Donald Trump. There are also some interesting stories about the behaviors of presidents Kennedy and Clinton when it came to women.
This book is very well researched and well written…
Show Less
LibraryThing member rosalita
This historical review of the United States Secret Service, famously known for its role in providing protection for the US president and other high government officials, was published in 2021 but researched and written well before that. The January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol merits
For readers not familiar with the organization of the US federal government, its initial purpose had nothing to do with protecting the president. It was formed in 1865 by President Abraham Lincoln as a law enforcement unit of the Department of Treasury, tasked with combating the rampant counterfeiting of federal banknotes (known as "greenbacks") during and following the Civil War. Its duties quickly mushroomed into investigating all sorts of fraud and federal crimes, essentially precursor of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was founded in 1908. Presidential protection continued to not be one of those duties, even as another president, James Garfield, was assassinated in 1881.
Not until death threats came to light in 1894 against President Grover Cleveland did the director of the Secret Service dispatch a handful of agents to guard the president and his family — a top-secret mission completely unauthorized by Congress, who remained ignorant of the arrangement until after William McKinley was elected in 1901. When McKinley was assassinated six months later — the third president to be assassinated in 36 years — Congress finally voted to create a permanent security force to protect the president, which took effect in 1906. Protective services remained a small part of the Service's work, with most of its resources continuing to be devoted to investigating financial crimes.
Leonnig recounts the numerous times the Secret Service agents performed truly heroic actions, during assassination attempts on Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. But she also details the many, many close calls when violent attempts nearly succeeded due to systemic failures in the agency's organization and operation. And, of course, the most catastrophic failure of all, the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.
The saying is that success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, but Leonnig's meticulous documentation and extensive sources both inside and outside of the Secret Service make it clear that the blame for the organization's sorry state over the years has its roots in many parts of government. Congress has consistently underfunded the agency while increasing its scope, leaving it badly undermanned and reliant on outdated equipment. Presidents of every political persuasion have fought against allowing the agency to do its job, chafing against the "optics" of having an obvious protection detail, and making decisions on the personnel of their protective detail based on personal or political affinity rather than ability. Pretty much every director of the agency, chosen again based on personal connections rather than acumen, has failed to instill a sense of discipline into the agents who serve under them. Again and again, agents have been caught in embarrassing situation involving drunkenness, cavorting with prostitutes in foreign countries and worse.
Again and again, the primary focus of the people in charge was in covering up the problem rather than rooting it out and punishing the agents responsible. As Julia Pierson, a short-lived director during President Obama's administration who tried to clean things up, tells Leonnig: Nobody wants to say it ... but the Secret Service has a culture problem. It's really a culture of managers failing to want to recognize a problem and deal with it. And it's also a culture of not wanting to report up bad news and circle the wagons instead.
I found Leonnig's research to be extensive and wide-ranging. She spoke to current and former agents and directors, as well as presidential aides who were often among the most strenuous objectors of proper (and thus, visible) protection of their bosses. She tracked down documentation of incidents that were either never made public or whose full accounting has never been reported, including close calls from attackers at the White House itself. She writes like the journalist she is, in clear, concise language mostly devoid of in-group jargon that would deter a general audience of readers from understanding the scope of the situation.
Leonnig ends the book with no hopeful suggestion that things are likely to change anytime soon. Today, the Service remains spread dangerously thin. In addition to protecting a president and Vice President and their families, and key senior leaders, the Service also protects hundreds of foreign leaders who visit the United States every year, investigates a broad range of financial crimes, assesses and investigates violent threats ..., researches the traits of school shooters ..., helps local police track down missing and exploited children, and much more. ... The agency hasn't been given the money, staff, or tools to do all its jobs. This neglect creates an opening for a serious attack on our democracy.
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just a few paragraphs in the epilogue, presumably added soon after the event as the book was going to print. And of course there's nothing about the crisis that's exploded over the past month, related to missing texts and emails from the days surrounding the events of January 6. However, that doesn't mean it doesn't shed light on current events, particularly in drawing a line through multiple crises and scandals pretty much since its founding. In short, the current crisis didn't spring fully formed out of nothing; the groundwork was laid over many years of mismanagement and politicization of what is meant to be a decidedly nonpartisan unit of government.For readers not familiar with the organization of the US federal government, its initial purpose had nothing to do with protecting the president. It was formed in 1865 by President Abraham Lincoln as a law enforcement unit of the Department of Treasury, tasked with combating the rampant counterfeiting of federal banknotes (known as "greenbacks") during and following the Civil War. Its duties quickly mushroomed into investigating all sorts of fraud and federal crimes, essentially precursor of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was founded in 1908. Presidential protection continued to not be one of those duties, even as another president, James Garfield, was assassinated in 1881.
Not until death threats came to light in 1894 against President Grover Cleveland did the director of the Secret Service dispatch a handful of agents to guard the president and his family — a top-secret mission completely unauthorized by Congress, who remained ignorant of the arrangement until after William McKinley was elected in 1901. When McKinley was assassinated six months later — the third president to be assassinated in 36 years — Congress finally voted to create a permanent security force to protect the president, which took effect in 1906. Protective services remained a small part of the Service's work, with most of its resources continuing to be devoted to investigating financial crimes.
Leonnig recounts the numerous times the Secret Service agents performed truly heroic actions, during assassination attempts on Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. But she also details the many, many close calls when violent attempts nearly succeeded due to systemic failures in the agency's organization and operation. And, of course, the most catastrophic failure of all, the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.
The saying is that success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, but Leonnig's meticulous documentation and extensive sources both inside and outside of the Secret Service make it clear that the blame for the organization's sorry state over the years has its roots in many parts of government. Congress has consistently underfunded the agency while increasing its scope, leaving it badly undermanned and reliant on outdated equipment. Presidents of every political persuasion have fought against allowing the agency to do its job, chafing against the "optics" of having an obvious protection detail, and making decisions on the personnel of their protective detail based on personal or political affinity rather than ability. Pretty much every director of the agency, chosen again based on personal connections rather than acumen, has failed to instill a sense of discipline into the agents who serve under them. Again and again, agents have been caught in embarrassing situation involving drunkenness, cavorting with prostitutes in foreign countries and worse.
Again and again, the primary focus of the people in charge was in covering up the problem rather than rooting it out and punishing the agents responsible. As Julia Pierson, a short-lived director during President Obama's administration who tried to clean things up, tells Leonnig: Nobody wants to say it ... but the Secret Service has a culture problem. It's really a culture of managers failing to want to recognize a problem and deal with it. And it's also a culture of not wanting to report up bad news and circle the wagons instead.
I found Leonnig's research to be extensive and wide-ranging. She spoke to current and former agents and directors, as well as presidential aides who were often among the most strenuous objectors of proper (and thus, visible) protection of their bosses. She tracked down documentation of incidents that were either never made public or whose full accounting has never been reported, including close calls from attackers at the White House itself. She writes like the journalist she is, in clear, concise language mostly devoid of in-group jargon that would deter a general audience of readers from understanding the scope of the situation.
Leonnig ends the book with no hopeful suggestion that things are likely to change anytime soon. Today, the Service remains spread dangerously thin. In addition to protecting a president and Vice President and their families, and key senior leaders, the Service also protects hundreds of foreign leaders who visit the United States every year, investigates a broad range of financial crimes, assesses and investigates violent threats ..., researches the traits of school shooters ..., helps local police track down missing and exploited children, and much more. ... The agency hasn't been given the money, staff, or tools to do all its jobs. This neglect creates an opening for a serious attack on our democracy.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Okies
Carol Leaning is one of the great journalists but I don't think she should have read her book. I thought she was a little flat - no matter how well she reads she isn't a trained thespian. And there's a reason why there are professional narrators.
I didn't find the material as interesting as I
I didn't find the material as interesting as I
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thought I would - the Secret Service. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
2021
ISBN
9780399589010
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