Standing Next to History: An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service by Joseph Pe

Description: Standing Next to History by Joseph Petro From Rockefeller to Reagan to the Pope, one of the Secret Services top agents offers an extraordinary account of protecting the people who made history. 16-page photo insert. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Standing Next to History presents the extraordinary account of Ronald Reagans Secret Service bodyguard with stories that will make even a diehard "West Wing" fan go speechless.Joseph Petro served for 23 years as a special agent in the United States Secret Service; eleven of them with presidents and vice presidents. For four of those years he stood by the side of Ronald Reagan. Following his career as a Navy Lieutenant, during which he patrolled the rivers and canals along the Vietnamese-Cambodian border, he worked his way up through the Secret Service to become one of the key men in charge of protecting the President. That journey through the Secret Service provides an individual look inside the most discreet law enforcement agency in the world, and a uniquely intimate account of the Reagan presidency. Engagingly, Joseph Petro tells "first hand" stories of: riding horses with the Reagans; eluding the press and sneaking the President and Mrs. Reagan out of the White House; rehearsing assassination attempts and working, then re-working every detail of the presidents trips around the world; negotiating the presidents protection with the KGB; diverting a 26 car presidential motorcade in downtown Tokyo; protecting Vice-President Dan Quayle at Rajiv Gandhis funeral where he was surrounded by Yassir Arafats heavily armed bodyguards; taking charge of the single largest protective effort in the history of the Secret Service-Pope John Paul IIs 1987 visit to the United States; and being only one of three witnesses at the private meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that ushered in the end of the Cold War. Joseph Petro provides an original and fascinating perspective of the Secret Service, the inner workings of the White House and a little seen view of world leaders, as a man who stood next to history. Author Biography After his time in the Secret Service, Joseph Petro went on to become head of global security and investigations for Citigroup. He lives in New York and Pennsylvania. A college roommate of Joe Petros, Jeffrey Robinson is the author of many books, including the bestselling The Laundrymen. An expert on international crime, he has been a keynote speaker on the subject for the United Nations, Interpol, U. S. Customs, the FBI, and many other organizations. He appeared on Fox News, Bloomberg News, and MSNBC. He lives in London. Review "A readable and frequently engaging memoir of the authors 23 years in the Secret Service focuses on his time in the personal protective detail, guarding President Reagan and his family. In detailing his four years in that capacity, Petro burnishes the image of the Reagans as personally agreeable, even admirable, and easy to deal with in a professional context." - Publishers Weekly Long Description Joseph Petro served for 23 years as a special agent in the United States Secret Service; eleven of them with presidents and vice presidents. For four of those years he stood by the side of Ronald Reagan. Following his career as a Navy Lieutenant, during which he patrolled the rivers and canals along the Vietnamese-Cambodian border, he worked his way up through the Secret Service to become one of the key men in charge of protecting the President. That journey through the Secret Service provides an individual look inside the most discreet law enforcement agency in the world, and a uniquely intimate account of the Reagan presidency. Engagingly, Joseph Petro tells "first hand" stories of: riding horses with the Reagans; eluding the press and sneaking the President and Mrs. Reagan out of the White House; rehearsing assassination attempts and working, then re-working every detail of the presidents trips around the world; negotiating the presidents protection with the KGB; diverting a 26 car presidential motorcade in downtown Tokyo; protecting Vice-President Dan Quayle at Rajiv Gandhis funeral where he was surrounded by Yassir Arafats heavily armed bodyguards; taking charge of the single largest protective effort in the history of the Secret Service-Pope John Paul IIs 1987 visit to the United States; and being only one of three witnesses at the private meeting between President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that ushered in the end of the Cold War. Joseph Petro provides an original and fascinating perspective of the Secret Service, the inner workings of the White House and a little seen view of world leaders, as a man who stood next to history. Review Quote "A readable and frequently engaging memoir of the authors 23 years in the Secret Service focuses on his time in the personal protective detail, guarding President Reagan and his family. In detailing his four years in that capacity, Petro burnishes the image of the Reagans as personally agreeable, even admirable, and easy to deal with in a professional context." - Publishers Weekly Excerpt from Book Standing Next to History CHAPTER ONE TAKING A BULLET If you fail in this business, you could lose the president. A t no point did anyone ever say to me, your job is to take a bullet for the president of the United States. Legend has it theres a blood oath that Secret Service agents take in which we swear to lay down our own life to save the presidents. There is no such pledge, no such promise, and, maybe even more important, no such requirement. Its a myth, nothing more than part of the mystique that surrounds the Secret Service. Instead, the reality of the job--and this, perhaps, best defines the fundamental principle of the Secret Service--is to do absolutely everything possible to prevent such a decision from ever having to be made. It goes without saying that protecting the president can be dangerous, and, yes, there may be a moment when, because of where we are, getting killed is a real possibility. But police officers face that same possibility every day. So, too, firemen, soldiers, sailors, and pilots. Danger is hardly unique to the Secret Service. Because no one ever knows for sure how he or she will react in a life-threatening situation, we try to leave nothing to chance. We practice assassinations at speeches and at rallies and in motorcades, getting in and out of the car. We dont use professional drivers; we train our own agents todrive the presidential limousine because that driver is the most important person in the motorcade. Armored to our specifications, the limousine is much heavier than a regular car and a lot harder to drive. It doesnt respond the way a standard Cadillac limousine would respond. In an emergency, the driver may have to do something--break through a barricade or execute a J-turn--and even though there is always a supervisor sitting next to him, there might be a few seconds when the life of the president hangs on the drivers instinctive reaction. So we work a lot of assassination scenarios around cars, all of them authentically played out with presidential limousines and crowds and explosives, and with mock assassins firing guns. However, the classic scenario for an "attack on the principal" (AOP) is the rope line, where the president shakes hands over the simple barrier that separates him from the crowd. Its a very dangerous time, because you dont always know whos in the crowd. Even if youve controlled access by putting everyone through a metal detector--known as a magnetometer--you cannot trust the machine to pick up everything. In theory, the metal detector should spot a gun. But theres always the possibility that someone can get through with an explosive device or something simple, like a pen, with which he plans to stab the president. So you look for anomalies, for something that doesnt fit, for the man whos not smiling, for the woman whos wearing a heavy coat on a warm day, for someone who appears unusually nervous. The level of crowd emotion is always high when the president is near enough to touch, and agents need to see that emotion reflected in everyones eyes. I would stand within a hands reach of him, ready to grab him around the waist and yank him away, all the time looking into eyes for a stare that told me the person wasnt happy to see the president up close. And I would also be looking at hands, for the person who wasnt trying to shake hands with the president. Anyone whose hands were in his pockets was someone I needed toworry about. Thats why there were agents in front of the president, and behind him, too, looking into eyes and saying to people in the crowd, "Let me see your hands, please ... . Hands, please. Let me see your hands." Its not a perfect science, but rather a technique that can be learned and perfected with practice, which is why the Secret Service teaches it and why we practice it over and over and over again. Agents on the presidents detail, and on the vice presidents detail, too, spend two weeks out of every two months at the Secret Service training center at Beltsville, Maryland, going through realistic situations that have been specifically designed to create instinctive reactions to a single seconds madness. Although the Beltsville facility was pretty basic when I first went through there in 1971, today it is a small town--much like a movie set--with city blocks featuring fa Details ISBN031233222X Author Joseph Petro Short Title STANDING NEXT TO HIST Language English ISBN-10 031233222X ISBN-13 9780312332228 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 363.283092 Year 2006 Subtitle An Agents Life Inside the Secret Service Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States Edition 1st Imprint Saint Martins Griffin,U.S. Residence NY, US Birth 1944 DOI 10.1604/9780312332228 AU Release Date 2006-02-21 NZ Release Date 2006-02-21 US Release Date 2006-02-21 UK Release Date 2006-02-21 Pages 304 Publisher St Martins Press Publication Date 2006-02-21 Illustrations Illustrations Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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