Senate should extend lifelong protection for former presidents

This week, the House of Representatives passed a bill by voice vote extending Secret Service protection to former presidents and their wives for the remainder of their lives. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), was prompted by what was described as an increased threat in the post-9/11 world. If so, one wonders why it took eleven years to pass such a measure, given that as it stands now, former presidents and first ladies are protected the Secret Service for only ten post-White House years.

A brief review of the pre-9/11 threat is in order. Over the past 150 years, 28 different men have been elected President of the United States. Four of them have been assassinated. Two others were shot by would-be assassins. The numbers sound like they come from some banana republic in South America: more than one in five of our democratically-elected chief executives have been struck by a bullet. McKinley died not simply from the bullet, but from the infection caused by physicians whose unsanitary hands had prodded the fallen president’s wound. The man who succeeded him, Teddy Roosevelt, was shot, too. But true to form, and keenly aware of how his predecessor died, he never allowed doctors to remove the bullet that was lodged in his chest.  The Rough Rider even gave a speech minutes after being shot, telling the audience "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot. But it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Ronald Reagan’s life was spared thanks to the skill of the surgeons who attended to him. Had he been victim of Hinckley’s bullet in era of McKinley, he too would probably have died from the infection that resulted from the substandard hygienic practices of the day.

Despite this sad history of violence against presidents in our nation, President Clinton signed a 1994 law that limited Secret Service protection for former presidents to 10 years. Though protection can be extended based on recommendation from the Department of Homeland Security, one has to wonder if no one at the time bothered to examine the homicide rate suffered by Oval Office holders. Even if they hadn’t, surely they were aware that Clinton himself received a then-unprecedented number of death threats. And while the number of such threats made against President Obama have been somewhat exaggerated in the blogosphere, there is no evidence that the threat against present or former presidents has decreased.  So why limit protection?

Well, Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.) opposed the measure, saying “I think we have seen that being a former president can be a pretty lucrative career, and I feel that after 10 years, if these former presidents feel the need for additional security, they should pay for it themselves.” Rep. Coble ignores the fact that Secret Service agents on the presidential security detail are not merely bodies that surround the target, there to absorb a bullet. They are the best personnel security force in the world. Agents of the Secret Service are highly and continuously trained, deeply committed to their country and protecting their assignees. Furthermore, they do their job armed with up-to-the minute intelligence about the latest threats. They have access to information to which no private guards would ever be privy. And that can make the difference between life and death for former presidents who, as Rep. Gowdy rightly states, are more mobile than ever.

Further, one needs only to imagine the nightmare scenario of a former president or first lady being kidnapped by terrorists to consider the impact it would have on our nation. Imagine the negotiations that would be undertaken, or the impact on our national psyche. We know all too well that terrorist organizations and state-sponsors of terrorism have not only directly targeted former presidents before but rightly consider them very high-value subjects.  In 1993, Saddam Hussein sent a team to Kuwait with the goal of killing former President George H.W. Bush with explosives. Fortunately, the plan failed.  It would surprise no one to learn that al-Qaeda or its affiliates would be very willing to kill a former president or first lady given the slightest opening.
The Senate is sometimes jokingly referred to as a group one hundred men and women who think they should be president. Perhaps, then, self-interest might push that deliberative body to waste no time to pass the house bill extending lifelong Secret Service protection to former presidents and first ladies.  A quick reading of our history makes this a very easy decision.

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