'They're the red-headed stepchildren, right? Get them more money. 'The Secret Service hires phenomenal people,' he told Axelrod. He was wounded, with one bullet in the chest, but recovered.īut critics say that urgency has been eroded by insufficient budgets ever since the Secret Service was absorbed by the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.įormer Agent Jonathan Wackrow was with the Secret Service for 14 years. And Tim McCarthy, what does he do? He throws up his chest to take it.' Secret Service Agent Tim McCarthy (top left) responds to shots fired at President Ronald Reagan by putting himself in the line of fire (top right). Leonnig said, 'There's no more heroic image of that than Tim McCarthy on the day, outside the Hilton when John Hinckley shoots at Ronald Reagan. The training and protocols of the post-Dallas Secret Service saved President Ford from not one, but two assassination attempts in 1975, and prepared Agent Tim McCarthy to take a bullet meant for President Reagan in 1981. They made it so rigorous as a result of that tragedy.' But if you think it was bad for the country, you have no idea how bad it was for the Secret Service. Leonnig said, 'JFK's death was a gut-punch to the country like no other.

Consider that in August of 1962, JFK could sneak away from his detail during a weekend in Santa Monica and go for a dip on a crowded beach.

The modern Secret Service is less than 60 years old.

Secret service book zero fail