Dec 8
The Secret Service Revealed
They (whoever they are) say that “timing is everything”. There’s no doubt in my mind that New York Times best selling author and multiple award winning journalist Ronald Kessler agrees with that. Fresh off the press, his latest/18th non-fiction work, called In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with the Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect was an instant NYT Best Seller and has spent 8 weeks on the hot list.
Kessler was the special guest at the author media meet & greet series that Janet Donovan of Creative Enterprises International, Christine Warnke of Hogan & Hartson and soon to be launched The Georgetown Dish’s Beth Solomon hosted on Monday evening. He and his wife Pamela talked with local media attendees at the reception, addressed the group prior to dinner being served, then patiently answered journalists’ questions before he bit into his dessert. The book openly and with no shame, tells accounts of the real deal – what really goes on behind the scenes with the overworked, understaffed agents whose job is to take a bullet for the POTUS.
The problem is not the agents, shared Kessler. It’s the management. He was emphatic in putting money back into the Agency. There’s nothing more important than protecting the President of the United States. If there is an assassination, there is no democracy. Because of budget cuts, these agents are working way too many stressful hours, straining their ability to do their job to the fullest.
On a lighter note, look for entertaining anecdotes of past (and current) Presidents and their families. Who was nice? Who was naughty? Who did what in public, yet was actually deceitful? Washington loves a great Tell All.
