POTUS is what the U.S. Secret Service, who are charged with protecting the President, call the President of the United States. The service has a long tradition of doing that job. It is a job that can involve four years of excruciating boredom and three seconds of horror.
It is a job that has been glamourized by Hollywood. Even Dirty Harry (actor Clint Eastwood) had an opportunity to stop shooting bad guys and portray an aging Secret Service agent determined to protect his President.
But the truth is that it is an almost impossible job. The lone, crazed person with a gun is the danger and fits no pattern or obvious threat. The politician in POTUS and the ego demands access to voters, admirers, crowds and nobody knows what danger lurks in a gun-happy environment.
In years of being involved in public events in Canada’s largest city for the Prime Minister of Canada, we learned from the Americans the screening systems, the checks and changes that could keep the event as safe as could be. It was routine to provide information to the Metro Toronto Police and the R.C.M. Police detailed to the event.
One of the first of these Canadian events for us was a large dinner at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel for Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. The party had provided a seat at one of our media tables for the wife. She was dropped off at the Prime Minister’s suite in the hotel after the dinner and speeches while we completed some wrap-up details with the media. (It was years later that the task was referred to as being a ‘spin-doctor.’)
When coming back to the Prime Minister’s suite, the hall door was open and there were only two people there. The protection detail had dropped off the Prime Minister and wandered off. He was sitting on a love seat with the wife, deep in conversation. The man actually blushed when I came up behind them and said, “Hi dear, who’s your friend?”
‘Mike’ Pearson was a gentleman and it was a delight to know him. He was the last Prime Minister of Canada to not have a regular R.C.M. Police detail for protection and the last P.M. to routinely drive himself to work at the parliament buildings. The world has changed very much from those days.
No doubt the Americans will have to increase the U.S. Secret Service detail on the new POTUS-elect. The honeymoon for President Donald Trump might not be too long.
-30-
Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]