Ronald Kessler - The First Family Detail

While Cheney’s daughter Liz treated agents properly when her father was vice president, his daughter Mary was difficult and demanding. Before Mary—code-named Alpine—had a child, the Secret Service provided full protection only to her older sister, Liz, since she had kids. Mary had partial protection: Agents drove her to and from work. But according to agents, Mary seemed to feel competitive.

“She got all up in arms because we sat outside her sister’s house all night long. She said, ‘Well I think I should have that, too,’” an agent says.

Mary also whined about the Secret Service vehicle assigned to her.

“She saw that her sister had a brand-new Suburban,” an agent who was on her detail says. “Mary had an older vehicle. She was like, ‘Why can’t I have one?’ Next thing you know, within a day or two, she has a brand-new Suburban from the Secret Service sitting out there in front of her house.”

When her Suburban sustained some damage, the Secret Service chauffeured her in the older vehicle until the new one could be repaired.

“When she saw her old vehicle was brought back to use as her limo, she threw a fit,” an agent says. “She called bosses demanding her Suburban be brought back immediately, not realizing that it takes time to make repairs.”

Mary also objected to agents standing post overnight at the back of her home. They disturbed her dogs, she said.

“I don’t even know what the back side of her house looks like because she won’t let us walk around the back because of the dogs,” an agent observed when he was on her detail. “Her dogs start barking. It gets them all upset if we go back there. So we’ve got some cameras angled back there. But your hands are tied. It’s a thankless job anyway, but then you’ve got protectees who mandate how you’re going to do your job.”

When an agent on Mary Cheney’s detail went on vacation, another agent filled in on a temporary basis. Not being aware of what exit she would take, he missed her departure from her office in Washington.

“She shot an e-mail to a supervisor in our operations section saying that you need to stop putting temps on my shift, I’m getting sick of it, I’m tired of being a tour guide around here,” an agent who was on her detail says. If it happened again, she said, she was going to complain to the special agent in charge of the vice president’s detail.

When Mary demanded that the Secret Service shuttle her friends out to restaurants, her detail leader refused, as he should have. Secret Service agents are law enforcement officers, not taxi drivers, and they are authorized to protect only specific individuals. But Mary threw a fit and got Secret Service management to remove the leader from her detail. That sent a message to all agents: You do your job and follow the rules, and management may not back you.

Asked for comment, Mary Cheney said, “These stories are simply not true, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for the men and women of the Secret Service. I am deeply appreciative of everything they have done to keep my family safe.”

While protecting Dick Cheney, agents were told that a specific, credible threat had been picked up regarding his grandchildren. Normally, one agent was assigned to each grandchild. As a result of the threat information, “agents carrying MP5s doubled up and quadrupled up in cars behind these kids when they were going to the mall and the movies,” an agent says.

Even though they were known, Secret Service management did not share any details of the threat. The agents had no idea who or what to look out for. Only later did they learn that the threat came from intercepted communications of terrorists in the Middle East.

“Secret Service senior management in this particular case guarded its own information and prevented the working agents from getting the intelligence they needed to get the job done,” an agent says. “This is my life you’re talking about. If it’s a specific, credible threat against us, against them, that includes me. At least I’ll know what I’m looking for if it comes my way.”

Dick Cheney had the Secret Service code name Angler, while Lynne Cheney was Author. When assigning code names to protectees, the Secret Service starts with a random list of words, all beginning with the same letter for each family. The code names were once necessary because Secret Service radio transmissions were not encrypted. Now that they are, the Secret Service continues to use code names to avoid confusion when pronouncing the names of protectees. In addition, by using code names, agents prevent people who may overhear a live conversation from recognizing the subject of the conversation.

Produced by the White House Communications Agency, the list of code names excludes words that are offensive or may be easily mistaken for other words. However, those under protection may object to a code name and propose another. Thus, Lynne Cheney, a prolific author, asked for and was given the Secret Service code name Author. Dick Cheney, an avid fisherman, got the code name Angler.

George W. Bush objected to Tumbler, the code name he was initially assigned. Perhaps it reminded him of his drinking days. Instead, he chose Trailblazer. Bush’s chief of staff Josh Bolton chose Fatboy, referring to the Fat Boy model of his silver-and-black Harley-Davidson. His predecessor, Andy Card, was Patriot, a code name the Secret Service chose when Card said he did not like his assigned name Potomac.

With two exceptions, agents had no problems with the rest of the Bush administration. The exceptions were Treasury Secretary John Snow and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Ridge was incredibly cheap. On weekends, he would return to his home in Erie, Pennsylvania, and so that he would not have to pay for his own plane ticket, he would insist that agents drive him. The trip from Washington was more than six hours.

“The guy would make them motorcade to Erie, Pennsylvania, almost every other weekend, or every weekend, because he didn’t want to pay for a plane ticket,” an agent who was on his detail says. “If the guy found a free meal, he was there. His reputation in the service was he was the biggest cheapskate ever.”

Instead of buying a newspaper at hotels, Ridge would ask agents for their copy of the paper.

“If somebody said, ‘Hey, Mr. Secretary, appreciate it, meal’s on us,’ Ridge would go back there the next night to the same restaurant and see how long he could milk a free meal from this place,” an agent says.

Agents liked John Snow because he loved to chat and joke with them.

“John Snow was kind of a pretty cool protectee, in that he knew every guy on the detail,” an agent says. “He’d sit in the back of his limo, and he’d talk with you. It was like a group of guys hanging out.”

But Snow, a former chairman and chief executive officer of CSX Corporation, had what agents on his detail believed was a mistress in Richmond, where he and his wife had lived. While Snow rented and later bought an apartment in Washington, he would travel back to his hometown almost every weekend. That incurred huge expenses for taxpayers because agents had to drive him the two hours to Richmond and stay in hotels there.

The Secret Service gave the woman the unofficial code name Area 51, after the supersecret Air Force testing ground in Nevada that gives rise to conspiracy theories.

Now chairman of Cerberus Capital Management, Snow commented through his Richmond lawyer Richard Cullen, a former Virginia state attorney general and personal friend of the Snows for more than twenty-five years.

“John Snow did not have an affair,” Cullen said. “The agents who refuse to identify themselves in making this accusation are simply and sadly very wrong.”