Ronald Kessler - The First Family Detail

Two days before the attempt, Moore had phoned the San Francisco police saying she had a gun and was considering a “test” of the presidential security system. The next morning, police interviewed her and confiscated her gun.

The police reported her to the Secret Service, and the night before Ford’s visit, Secret Service agents interviewed her. They concluded that she did not a pose a threat that would justify surveillance during Ford’s visit. But the next morning, she purchased another weapon. Moore later said she took a shot at Ford because it was easy to do and she felt isolated and desperately wanted someone to take her seriously.

Seventeen days before that attempt, Charles Manson family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, twenty-six, aimed a Colt .45 automatic pistol at Ford as he shook hands with spectators outside the Senator Hotel in Sacramento, California. Fromme squeezed the trigger, but while the magazine held four rounds, the chamber was empty. Secret Service agents grabbed her and her gun, and Ford was unhurt. She told her defense attorney that she had targeted Ford because she wanted to garner attention for a request for a new trial for Manson.

By definition, evaluating anyone’s intentions is an inexact science. No one can predict whether an individual will commit a criminal act. But investigating threats and sending suspects to jail has undoubtedly saved the lives of presidents and other protectees.

According to his portrayal in the press and on Saturday Night Live , Gerald Ford was a klutz and a dumbbell. Secret Service agents on his detail say he was neither—but he was cheap.

A University of Michigan football player who was voted most valuable player, Ford—code-named Passkey—was also an expert skier. He mocked agents who could not keep up with him. The Secret Service eventually assigned a world-class skier to his detail to accompany him down the slopes. As the president tried to catch up with him, the agent would ski backwards and wave.

“The media got their kicks out of portraying Ford as a stumblebum,” says former agent Clark Larsen. “But Ford swam. He skied. He had been an athlete as a youth of some considerable reputation. The truth is the biggest stumblebum was Lyndon Johnson. He was like a country goober, falling down all the time, but the press never mentioned that, so nobody made anything of it.”

While Ford seemed to be a humble man when he came into office, he discarded his old friends after entering the White House.

“The people who had been his friends—the little people—kind of weren’t anymore,” Larsen recalls. “His new sets of friends were the moneyed people. People who had been very close friends slipped away and were replaced by the swells.”

After he left the presidency, Ford’s cheapness became more evident.

“He would want his newspaper in the morning at hotels and walk to the counter,” says an agent who was on his detail. “Lo and behold, he would not have any money on him. If his staff wasn’t with him, he would ask agents for money.”

When Ford checked in at the chic Pierre Hotel in New York, a bellboy loaded a cart with the Fords’ bags and took them into their room.

“After the bellboy was through, he came out holding this one-dollar bill in front of him, swearing in Spanish,” a former agent says.

At Rancho Mirage, California, where Ford lived after leaving the White House, “you’d go to a golf course, and it’s an exclusive country club, and the normal tip for a caddy is twenty-five dollars to fifty dollars,” another agent says. “Ford tipped a dollar, if at all.”

When Ford stayed at a Chicago hotel for an event, the host committee supplied half a dozen bottles of premium liquor for his room.

“Ford took all the goddamn bottles,” a former agent says.

When Ford was in Japan for a speaking engagement, a country club there lent him a new set of Ping golf clubs to use on the course.

“At the end of the day, Ford was trying to stuff them in the back of the limo, and they were saying no sir, no,” a former agent says. “And he pretended that he thought it was a gift. He started pulling stuff like that after he left the White House.”

Secret Service agents say Ford never seemed to care that his wife, Betty, was in a stupor much of the time.

“We took her off Air Force One rigid as a board, carrying her down the steps,” a former agent says. “I blame Ford. He always seemed to be in another world. He never saw what was right behind him and never took the time to care about her.”

Betty Ford—code-named Pinafore—drank vodka, so it was difficult to tell from her breath that she had been drinking. In addition to drinking, she was addicted to prescription drugs. Because agents must be aware of possible medical problems in case they need to administer emergency aid, they consulted with the White House doctor and learned of her condition. But unlike Pat Nixon, Betty Ford overcame her addictions after an intervention spearheaded by her daughter Susan.

While she expressed anger at first, Mrs. Ford agreed to enter the Long Beach Naval Hospital’s drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. There she found herself performing humble tasks like cleaning restrooms and telling her story in front of other patients. She participated in emotionally revelatory therapy sessions with other women patients.

Rather than covering up the reason for her hospitalization, she went public. With her friend Leonard Firestone, she cofounded the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage. She worked to raise funds for the center, which was dedicated in October 1982, and she served as chairman until 2005.

“Betty Ford didn’t just lend her name to the clinic, she was out there all the time,” an agent on her detail says. “She really wanted to help others who faced what she had faced.”

Vice President Joe Biden may seek to project the image of a regular Joe, friend of the workingman, but Secret Service agents know a different Joe. That Joe champions cutting government waste while spending a million dollars since taking office on personal trips back and forth to his home in Delaware at taxpayer expense.

At least once a week, Biden takes a helicopter designated as Marine Two from the vice president’s residence to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. He then hops on Air Force Two to jet back to his home in Delaware. He returns to Washington on Air Force Two. The cost of the flights is doubled because after dropping him off in Delaware or picking him up at Andrews, the Air Force has to fly the plane empty.

“Biden leaves every Friday from Joint Base Andrews, so he gets lifts from the observatory via Marine Two to Andrews Air Force Base, takes off via Air Force Two, lands in Delaware, and stays the weekend and then comes back on Sunday nights,” says a Secret Service agent familiar with the trips.

As if taking a taxi, Biden will fly on Air Force planes from Washington to Wilmington, back to Washington, and then back to Wilmington on the same day. When the weather is warm, the vice president regularly returns from Wilmington to Andrews on an airplane on Saturdays to play golf at the Air Force base with President Obama. After the five-hour golf game, he flies back to New Castle Airport in Wilmington—all at taxpayer expense.

“Every three or four weeks when it’s warm, Biden gets up there on Saturday and then will fly back on Air Force Two,” says a Secret Service agent. “While Air Force Two is sitting on the tarmac at Andrews, he goes and plays golf with the president at Andrews Air Force Base, gets back on the plane, and flies back to Delaware. Let me tell you something, that is egregious.”