The most wonderful piece of information from my Bush-Quayle-era AP Biology school has nothing to do with mobile division, genotypes, or, actually, any scientific idea. Instead, it’s our long-tenured John Muir High School teacher, Al Razum, recalling how, more than 20 years earlier, FBI agents came calling on his class on a terrible June 1968 night, with individuals at their tables, right after the death of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
Federal officials wanted any info they could obtain on Sirhan Sirhan, who some years before was a pupil at the Pasadena, California, public high school. Sirhan stood accused of assassinating Kennedy, the former attorney general, lawmaker from New York, and, most notably, younger nephew of slain President John F. Kennedy. The offense had taken place at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, about 15 yards apart, in what now is the state’s Koreatown area. Sirhan was found guilty on April 17, 1969, and is still incarcerated at the age of 80.
A similar research just played out in and around Butler, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh. FBI agents interrogated past instructors and former colleagues of Thomas Matthew Crooks, as well as anyone else who had just spoken with him. The 20-year-old had notched an awful place in national background when, around 6 p. m. on July 13, he shot at former President Donald Trump, then the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, from the roof of a building about 400 feet , aside from a campaign rally stage where the candidate was speaking.
A shot that struck Trump’s proper ear , came feet away from killing him. But a group member, Pennsylvania fire Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed. Two other protest visitors, David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74, were injured. Crooks was killed hours after he fired at the former president by a Secret Service rifle.
It’s the first time a president or prospect has been shot in a similar way since Ronald Reagan was killed in 1981. In U. S. past, four presidents have been assassinated — a horrible record considering just 45 people have held that business.
Kennedy, at the time of his death by the Arab Jordanian Sirhan over support for Israel, was a leading candidate for the 1968 Democratic presidential election. In his lifetime, had Kennedy lived, he may have easily defeated Republican Richard Nixon, the ultimate champion of that gloomy and dreadful time. And in surprising ways, fruitless attempts to save leaders ‘ lives have continued for years.  ,
The unfortunate string of political assassinations
Surprisingly, the commander in chief’s protection was much changed after the first presidential shooting, which surprised. To claim Abraham Lincoln’s death on April 14, 1865, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D. C., changed the course of history is a wild understatement. Except in one place, national security, where needed clear, extraordinary development, was in short supply. Instead, Lincoln’s dying by professional and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth was viewed as a final, horrible book to the Civil War, which took more than 600, 000 life collectively.
When President James A. Garfield was fatally shot on July 2, 1881 at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, little had changed in terms of chief executive protection. Garfield passed away on September 19 amid poor medical care, even at the time. In the wake of Garfield’s death, after only six months in office, there still was little clamor for presidential protection. According to public opinion, the top priority for public officials was to have a connection with regular people. And newcomers were escaping monarchical regimes, where Praetorian Guard-like units were the norm, as new immigrants from Europe were arriving. Such measures drew deep public skepticism.
The Secret Service’s duties, which up until then were primarily focused on combating currency counterfeiting, were only enhanced by the assassination of President William McKinley. Even after McKinley was fatally shot on Sept. 6, 1901, at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, protection was limited and, at times, haphazard. It would take several decades to become a full-time part of the president’s entourage.
Intense security measures were in place by the time of President John F. Kennedy’s murder on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, though, obviously, not nearly enough to prevent the Texas tragedy.
The Warren Commission, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate his White House predecessor’s assassination, noted that no one thought to check the buildings along the Dealey Plaza motorcade route in Dallas. Additionally, there were no established rules for cooperating with regional law enforcement.
In the coming years, the agency began working on fixing these and other issues. For instance, presidents no longer drive open vehicles but wave to passing guests through the thick glass of a heavily armored limousine known as” the beast.”
President-adjacent assassination attempts
The biggest changes to Secret Service procedures have probably been the result of failed attempts to kill presidents and the successful assassination of a potential president.
Such as the Nov. 1, 1950, attempt by two Puerto Rican nationalists to assassinate President Harry S. Truman. The assault took place outside of Truman’s temporary home at Blair House, across the street from the White House, while the executive mansion underwent renovations. One of the gunmen was killed, along with a White House policeman. Truman, who remained inside, was unhurt.
Congress finally passed legislation that gave the president the right to receive Secret Service protection a full 50 years after the Truman attack, a full half-century after McKinley was the third president to be killed in office. Prior to that, federal spending bills had to be re-upped annually in Secret Service protection, which it always was. The 1951 law also authorized Secret Service protections for the president’s immediate family, the president-elect, and the vice president, if he wished.  , Eleven years later, not long before the Kennedy assassination, Congress expanded coverage to require the vice president, among others, to be protected.
However, significant public figures were vulnerable, as the country and the world tragically discovered on April 4, 1968, when escaped convict James Earl Ray killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. Today, a figure such as King would have at least private security, the way Trump, a television star and business mogul, did before declaring for president in June 2015. ( That’s not in any way to compare the legacies, accomplishments, moral standing, etc., of the two men. )
After Johnson bowed out amid unpopularity over the Vietnam War, Robert Kennedy’s death occurred as he rose into a seeming lead for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination. In response to that murder, Congress authorized the protection of significant presidential and vice presidential candidates and nominees.  , A separate law expanded other Secret Service protections, such as for the widow of a former president until her death or remarriage. Prior to the age of 16, a former president’s minor children were protected until they were no longer in the country, unless protection was denied.
Thirteen years later, the Reagan assassination attempt led to other tangible, if less visible, changes to presidential protection. Particularly because it occurred just three months after the former Beatle John Lennon was killed in New York City and two months before the Vatican City assassination attempt failed.
When John Hinckley Jr. opened fire on a crowd of onlookers and journalists just 15 feet away in Reagan’s case, the president was exiting the Washington Hilton hotel. Before Secret Service officers tackled him, Hinckley got off six shots. Reagan was struck by a limo by the final shot.
After that, presidential affairs started to focus more on the White House than on frequent trips to Washington or wherever the commander in chief is. Additionally, presidents were escorted into buildings by garages that had underground parking. When that was n’t feasible, a cover was put up around the entrance to block the president’s view when he entered or left a car.
The Rose Garden at the White House became a regular location for presidential celebrations. While once reserved for major events of state, such as the 1979 signing of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty during President Jimmy Carter’s administration, the Rose Garden was used for routine events. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform legislation. In 2002, President George W. Bush held a ceremony honoring the teachers of the year. In a 2020 Rose Garden event, Trump celebrated his third Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, being confirmed.
The transition to a more conventional approach to presidential security was in part the result of Nancy Reagan’s intervention.
” She became a bigger worrier, especially when it came to her husband’s safety”, the Los Angeles Times reported in March 2016 a few days after her death at age 94. ” But it also marked a turning point, in which she took a more assertive role in expressing her views on matters of security, scheduling, and policy, often to the frustration of White House aides”.
However, Nancy Reagan was n’t the only one pushing for enhanced presidential security arrangements. After two unsuccessful assassination attempts against President Gerald Ford in September 1975 during separate visits to Northern California, the Secret Service was already moving in that direction.
Each exemplified the risk the Secret Service wanted to reduce in the public. The first occurred on the Sacramento, California, grounds of the state Capitol, where Ford was greeting the governor in courtesy. Jerry Brown, a Democrat elected the previous November. After Ford exited a building where he had given a speech and before entering his limousine, the second occurred in downtown San Francisco.
There was always a certain irony to Ford’s encounters with assassination attempts and how fortunate he was for him and the country. Ford had been on the Warren Commission, appointed by Johnson. As a Michigan congressman, Ford was a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which funds federal agencies. The 38th president had more experience with the organizational and legal ramifications of presidential protection than either of its White House predecessors or successors.
Administrative shuffle for the Secret Service
The Secret Service only recently reported on the July 13 assassination attempt, which was just the latest in a line of negative headlines. And some unflattering agency issues have persisted for years.
Numerous people managed to get close to the president and first family as a result of an uninvited couple who crashed a November 2009 state dinner that President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama hosted. Then in 2012, Secret Service agents hired prostitutes , on a trip to Colombia, where they were supposed to be setting up security for a visit by Obama. In 2015, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee concluded the Secret Service is an “agency in crisis” after a series of high-profile embarrassments. The agency’s leadership flaws and congressional budget cuts, which the committee found to be the cause of a” staffing crisis,” were both blamed for in the congressional report.
Many claim that the issues date back to the Secret Service’s transition from its long-standing residence in the Treasury Department to the newly established Department of Homeland Security in 2003. Now, under DHS, more than 20 years into the behemoth department’s existence, the Secret Service is just one of several agencies competing for annual appropriations.
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Moreover, Secret Service protection remains a touchy political subject. A son and namesake of the late Robert F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running for president  , as an independent against Trump and the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. Kennedy Jr., 70, for months, said he requested and was denied Secret Service protection. As Robert Kennedy’s son and John Kennedy’s nephew, the pleas had a certain public resonance. Before Biden dropped his reelection bid and turned to Harris, the White House’s longstanding refusal to provide him with security cover faded.
Less than four months before the Nov. 5 general election, the Trump assassination attempt is likely to cause unanticipated changes to the Secret Service’s operations and presidency. Interviews with those familiar with the Trump shooter will provide some information, as did Mr. Razum, a high school teacher who passed away in 2016 at the age of 96, who had been questioned about the assassination. Although it’s tragic, such interviews have been and are likely to be necessary in a democracy where political violence has taken place much more frequently than we would like to believe.
