Secret Service Confidential

     I usually feel a bit disengaged from Presidential campaigns because neither the Democratic nor Republican Party has ever convinced me that their candidates are at all interested in working people, an equitable redistribution of wealth, or an end to war. I believe in peace, non-violence and several other political concepts that don’t seem to mesh well with managing a for-profit government. Therefore, I am an informal member of the Birthday Party, whose platform is “Nobody for President” and whose button features a coat and tie with Nobody wearing them and slogans like “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,” “Nobody cooks like Mom,” “Nobody cares when you’re down and out,” and “Nobody is minding the store.” 

     But I do enjoy watching political candidates on television, particularly during the glad-handing crowd scenes after the speeches, because I like to play “Spot the Secret Service.” It is not a difficult game to master if you’ve ever accompanied a wire-haired terrier during a Fourth of July evening. These are the folks who surround the politicos, front, rear, and both sides, programmed to expect that the sky will fall at any moment, eyes darting from side to side, up and down, waiting for the next Sirhan Sirhan or John Hinckley, Jr., or some other wackoid creep to try to change history with a handgun. They are fun to watch, but I would not want the job, even if I qualified and was between the ages of 21 and 37, a college graduate or retired military security personel, and had eyesight correctible to 20/20.

    I watch these folks because, once upon a time, I was felt-up by a Secret Service agent. No real harm was done and enough time has passed that the story can be told here without recrimination to either the agent in charge or to any of the principals, but I have changed a few names just in case. The tale takes place in McCall, Idaho.

     The summer of 2000 in central Idaho was either a good or bad fire season, depending whether you had to make payments on a new pickup truck. Everything northwest of McCall was on fire and, in those pre-Iraqi-war days, even the Army National Guard was called in to try to quell the blazes. William Jefferson Clinton was at the end of his second term as President. Bill woke up one morning and felt the urge to fly to Idaho and shake the hands of the people who were fighting fire on the Burgdorf Junction Complex. So he did just that. It was early in August.and word that a real living President of the United States was planning to visit Podunk spread like, er, wildfire across central Idaho,

    The night before his visit, I attended a cookout along Boulder Creek east of Donnelly at the home of four young filmmakers fresh out of L.A.. During the evening’s discussion, one of these young folks, a very flashy, Hollywoody, and extremely well-proportioned Latina woman, whom we will call Trixie, said that she would really like to see Bill Clinton up close. I said that we probably could make that happen. After all, I was a newspaper writer, maybe even a bonafide journalist, and should be able to muster press credentials that would get us up close enough to distinguish Bill from just another of his entourage. 

     By ten the next morning, Trixie, I, my son who was eight, and a friend’s young boy were standing in the press line at the McCall Airport awaiting the Presidential helicopter, Marine One. On several of the hanger rooves were way musclebound anti-sniper guys holding rifes with barrels longer than mop handles and binoculars that could’ve focused on Tahiti. Around Trixie and my necks, hanging by boot laces, were two two identification tags laminated with packing tape, that said that I was a political journalist and that she was a photographer. I had loaned her a 35mm Canon.

     The Secret Service was in charge of processing us. Wolf Blitzer and the bigtime boys were on the copter with Bill. When we got to the front of the line, I and the kids were ahead of Trixie. A 30-something guy in a linen suit the color of a filing cabinet asked me to raise my hands above my head and proceeded to feel me up, even though it was pretty obvious in my Wranglers and teeshirt that I was not packing much more than blubber. He glanced at my homemade ID tag, then asked me about the boys, and I said that they were big fans of the President, that they wanted to see a real live President, and that they were part of the story I was going to write.

    The guy then actually whispered up his left suit jacket sleeve, just like on Saturday Night Live, tilted his head to the side as data came in over his little hearing aid, and then explained to me that kids were not allowed on the tarmac, for their own protection, and would I please step behind the police tape with the boys in order to allow the next person to be processed. 

      I was about ten feet away when he processed the next person, Trixie, the Puerto Rican bomshell. While I watched the procedure I realized that the next Presidential assassin might very well be a beautiful woman, because this guy, this Special Agent who went through very vigorous training to get his job then spent his entire career as a member of a heavily masculine team flying all over the planet protecting our national assets had very little daily contact with women and never imagined personal contact with the girl from the calendar on his locker door. Despite his dedication to his country and his boss, he could not bring himself to look directly at Trixie, let alone determine by touch if she had a .38 Special hidden in her braworks. He just glanced down at his brown loafers and waved her on through to the Presidential landing spot. 

    Five minutes later, three identical helicopters flew up the valley in an ever-shifting formation, like peas under walnut shells, and came to ground on the northwest edge of the McCall Airport. When the Presidential press corp poured out of the machinery to grab a quick smoke and William Jefferson Clinton stepped out onto the stairs of the Apache to wave at the crowd, there was Trixie, front and center, fifteen feet away.  I imagine that the President noticed her, but I have no photographic evidence. There was no film in her camera.