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​Inside the Secret Service

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The Secret Service: Under fire

The Secret Service is on high terrorist alert at the White House this Fourth of July weekend, which also happens to mark the agency's 150th anniversary. Agents in the line of fire are nothing new for the service. But the other kind of fire the institution is under right now is something else again, as we're about to see in our Cover Story:

A history of the Secret Service 41 photos

It was raining at the White House in March of 1981, and U.S. Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy had just splurged on a new suit.


"And it was not the typical polyester suit," he told Cowan. "This was a real good suit -- and it was raining."

Hoping to stay out of the drizzle, he and another agent flipped for who would accompany President Ronald Reagan to the Washington Hilton.

"We flipped a coin, and I went, which was fine, until I got shot."

John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots in a matter of seconds, all aimed at the President.

"All I saw was what I thought was a flash of the gun and exactly where it was coming from," McCarthy said. "I knew where the shot was coming from -- there was no doubt in my mind -- and I turned in that direction."

"And just made yourself as wide as you could?"

"Yeah, yeah, kind of."

McCarthy blocked the bullet with his own chest.

"It hit my rib, went down through my lung, liver and diaphragm, and then my lower back," he said.

No agent has taken a bullet for a president since -- and yet, to this day, McCarthy still regrets that one of Hinckley's shots got by him.

"There's a sense that you did you job, and a sense that you failed," he said. "Because he was still shot. In spite of everything that was done, he was still shot. So that's a failure."

Most would call McCarthy's actions heroic, not a failure, especially in light of the not-so-heroic Secret Service headlines of late.

In September, an Army veteran carrying a knife made it over the White House fence and all the way to, and through, its un-locked front door.

That lapse in security followed some lapses in judgment. Three years ago, a group of agents were disciplined for inviting prostitutes to a Cartagena hotel ahead of President Obama's trip to Colombia.

And then just four months ago, agents coming back from a night of drinking were seen disrupting an active bomb investigation.

"We don't have an alternative. We've got to fix this," said Democrat Elijah Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee. He is one of many Capitol Hill critics demanding the agency get its act together.

"A lot of the Secret Service's effectiveness is the image and the reputation, and people believe that they cannot pierce the protective veil," Cummings said. "If something tragic happens to the most powerful and influential leader in the world, that's a national security problem."

The paint is barely dry on the door of the man brought in to fix the mess: Joe Clancy, a 27-year veteran agent who was once head of President Obama's protective detail.

"Well, any mistake that we make is critical," Clancy said. "We have zero tolerance for failure. We can't make mistakes."

"Are you confident what you've done since taking over will prevent any more mis-steps?" asked Cowan.

"Well there's no guarantees. And every day, all of us wake up with that concern. Those who want to do harm to any of our protectees, you know, they're working just as diligently as we are."

His first order of business: better training. Recruits spend weeks at a Secret Service facility outside Washington, where fence jumper drills have now taken on particular urgency.

White House to install spikes on fence

In addition to the uniformed division, Secret Service attack dogs, like Rocky, train here, too.

"It's all about doing better next time," said Bill Glady, who helps train dogs to attack the attackers.

"We've got to expose the dogs, the handlers, the officers or the agents to different scenarios every day to make sure that we're consistently ready," Glady said, "because the bad guys will change."

There are mock-ups of Air Force One and Marine One here, and Clancy has asked Congress for $8 million to build a full-scale replica of the White House, too, to replace what recruits are using now (essentially a parking lot).

"We would like to have that so that our people can train with the same exact distances, and same type of fountains and bushes," said Clancy.

History, however, shows most attacks come outside the White House.

Seared into the nation's memory is that awful day in Dallas in 1963, and the quick thinking of special agent Clint Hill.

"I can still see Clint Hill, climbing on that the back of that vehicle and forcing the First Lady, Mrs. Kennedy, back into her seat and then lying prone over Mrs. Kennedy to ensure that she was not injured, all the way to the hospital," said Clancy.

When Gerald Ford was shaking hands in Sacramento, it was Special Agent Larry Buendorf who tackled Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of the Manson Family, during an assassination attempt in 1975.

Unbelievably, just 17 days later, another would-be assassin tried to gun Ford down outside a San Francisco hotel.

"It takes a lot to be an agent. It takes a different type of person," said Alan Biladeau, who was at one time assigned to protect Dick Cheney, and later Joe Biden. He now runs assassination drills.

"I think a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their heads around why someone would be willing to take a bullet for someone else," said Cowan.

"It's a heavy toll," said Biladeau -- and not just on the agent, but also on his or her family. "Just the job description -- as you just said, try explaining that to your family what you do every day on the shift. It's tough."

Remarkably, just one agent has been killed while protecting a President. Officer Leslie Coffelt died while protecting President Truman. It happened at Blair House, where Truman was staying while the White House was being refurbished.

Two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to fire their way into Blair House. Coffelt was mortally wounded. And yet, not thinking of his own injuries, he stood up, steadied himself, and took a shot, hitting one assailant in the ear.

But rarely are they in the spotlight; instead, Secret Service agents are generally on the fringes of history -- those unknown faces in the crowd who have a front-row seat to world events.

Cowan asked, "What's it like being that close?"

"When you're on the job you're thinking two feet in front of you," said Clancy. "You're not thinking about history. You're not thinking about speeches or anything along those lines. You're looking for where the next threat may be."

It was Abraham Lincoln who created the Secret Service 150 years ago. Ironically, it was on the very day he was assassinated.

But he never intended the Secret Service to protect him, or the office. Its sole purpose was to battle the rise of counterfeit money, which by 1865 amounted to as much as a third of all the money in circulation.

Today fighting counterfeiters remains its primary investigative mission, although now it includes hacking and data breaches as well.

Most of what these agents do well we'll likely never know about. And while it may be struggling with current problems, the past 150 years shows the Secret Service has had more successes than failures.

"It's up to us to live up to that legacy," said Clancy, "that those who came before us left us. The people that we have coming on board, I think the American people would be proud of."

As for Tim McCarthy, he never did get his new suit back. He's now Chief of Police in Orland Park, Illinois.

He knows it's what he did that day 34 years ago that still stands for the best of what the Secret Service can be.

Cowan asked, "Did you feel like you were a hero?"

"No," replied McCarthy. "Well, I thought I did my job. That was most important to me. What I take away from it for the rest of my life was that, when I was called upon to do my duty, I did it."


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