The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents

Na

Great book on the structure, training and issues the agents face. This agency and the executives need an overhaul and updated technology. Thank you all for your dedication and service.

The First Family Detail is a mix of personal anecdotes about Presidential families and their relationships with their protective details, operational Secret Service specifics, and tales of mismanagement at the Executive level. Though I am interested in all these topics and much of the information in this book is pretty fascinating, I did find it to be mostly a rehash of In the President’s Secret Service (which I read and liked).Secret Service agents are uniquely positioned to collect a plethora of dirt on their protectees, expose hypocrisies in their private versus public personnas, and really see into their characters. I’m definitely a sucker for some scandalous stories about politicians’ personal lives and The First Family Detail did give me a good dose of these. The problem is that I was having deja vu while reading most of them. Many of the older stories were included in In the President’s Secret Service and many of the juicy new anecdotes had already been reported by the media (i.e. Bill Clinton has a mistress in Chappaqua who doesn’t have to be screened by the Secret Service).The operational details of how the Secret Service does their job made for some tedious reading at times. And, I wonder how Kessler was able to divulge so many of these details to the public. I felt like a would-be assassin could learn a lot about Secret Service tactics and weak spots from reading this book. Isn’t that dangerous?!Kessler is extremely critical of Secret Service upper management and I was interested in the sections about the recent slide in standards. He tells of many instances of management ordering agents to cut corners in their protection details and in providing security for events. He also tells of Secret Service upper management catering to political aides at the expense of the President’s and other top politicians’ safety. On the flip side, Kessler praises the rank and file agents as people who are highly ethical and dedicated to their mission of keeping the President and his family safe. He indicates they are mostly disgusted with upper management and that morale among agents is at historic lows. This piece became especially intriguing upon the Head of the Secret Service, Julia Pierson’s, resignation after an armed intruder waltzed unimpeded through the White House front door.If you’re interested in how the Secret Service works and behind the scenes stories about high ranking politicians…and, if you haven’t already read In the President’s Secret Service, then I do recommend you read this book. Otherwise, it’s probably not for you.For more review, check out my blog, Sarah's Book Shelves.

It is difficult to classify this "insider" account of the Secret service's protection detail. Some reviewers have complained that Kessler's gossipy treatment of the presidents from Kennedy to the present unfairly favors Republicans more than Democrats. However Kessler provides an "equal opportunity" description of presidents, their families and presidential wannabes. Agents interviewed speak warmly of protectees from both parties--and excoriate others from both parties, as well. The attitudes expressed will come with little surprise to anyone who has read the biographies of these presidents or memoirs of those from their administrations. JFK is a like able rogue; LBJ was crass and crude. Reagan and George W. Bush were unpretentious, respectful of the office and thoughtful in their treatment of the agents. Some critics of the book see those descriptions by the agents as signs of Kessler's bias, but they certainly fit other accounts by insiders, as well. Perhaps Kessler does favor one party over the other (I don't know), but the agents he interviewed speak kindly of Michelle Obama and Kessler takes a brief swipe at Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul even though it has nothing to do with the Secret Service. The book unevenly shifts from the gossipy details to serious criticism of the ability of the Secret Service to fulfill its responsibility to protect the president and ensure that decisions are made apart from political pressure. It is those parts of the book that seek to hold the administrators of the Service accountable, in the tradition of responsible investigative journalism. Even though these parts suffer from writing that could have benefitted from one more going over by a good editor, they are the sections that, one hopes, will lead to some, if Kessler is to be believed, needed reforms in order to prevent another tragedy. Give the rise in terrorist-inspired violence around the world, there is an even greater need than ever for the Secret Service to clean house, provide on-going training of its agents and demand proper levels of staffing to do what we have come to expect it to do. Kessler indicates the faith we have in the Service, into whose hands we place the protection of our leaders, is misplaced because of weakness at the top and a lack of consistent discipline to make sure every agent is functioning at his or her best. One hopes it won't take a traumatic event that happens because of lapses by the Service to bring any needed corrective actions. If the gossipy bits attract readers to the book and, as a result they are informed about the current state of affairs, then I suppose there is some benefit to that after all.

Not as interesting as I imagined. It was ok, perhaps a holiday book to pick up and put down but not enthralling by any means. One or two snippets of interest, but that's it.

The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents by Ronald Kessler is marketed as giving an insight into what life out of the public eye is really like with current and former US Presidents, Vice-Presidents or Presidential candidates. Some individuals come out well on a personal level e.g. former First Lady Barbara Bush’s concern for a Secret Service agent when out walking or Dick Cheney’s promptness and consideration for an Agents time and service. Others do not e.g. Joe Biden’s apparent disregard for taxpayers money in his use (misuse) of Air Force Two or the conduct of both Bill and Hillary Clinton. As one who has no axe to grind with either political party given that I do not live in the US, I found Ronald Kessler’s book to be easy reading, interesting and illuminating if somewhat concerning in part. Setting aside the fact that most people – politicians being no exception ( perhaps an understatement!!) - have their public face and their private face, my feeling about this book is that the stand out revelations are more about the pressures facing the Secret Service. Some of the examples given of Secret Service management cutting corners or demonstrating poor decision making skills when issuing instructions to their Agents is dreadful. The lack of resources, be they management, financial, physical or just plain common sense would, I should have thought, be something the Administration should be addressing as a matter of urgency given that those men and women are very much their safety blanket and last line of defence in a threatening situation.

Informative reading about a side of Presidents and First Family that the majority of the population never get to see or hear about from the media. At the same time, it doesn't reveal or compromise any security details on the Secret Service protocol relative to protecting the First Family.

If you have read in the presidents service there is really no need to read this book. Most of the stories are just the same with the occasional extra bit added on. There are a couple of New stories that have been added but overall its a bit like reading the same book twice. With that being said it is interesting to read what the presidents and families are like away from the camera's and some of the families do not come out well.

I was not surprised by Nixon's, the two Bush's and Reagan's attitudes towards the secret service, I was positively surprised by the Obama's neutral attitude towards them. I expected him to be the rabid tyrant that Hillary Clinton is towards the secret service. I was not surprised by Johnson's, Carter's, Clinton's, Biden's and a few other's attitudes towards the Secret Service and their cavalier attitudes when practicing governmental malfeasance.I always suspected Jimmy Carter of being incompetent but the depth of his incompetence really surprises even me. The fact that he would go to sleep sitting at his desk on a regular basis makes me thankful that nothing more serious than the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Tehran Embassy takeover happened on his watch and the fact that he only slept through one term in the White House.