Attendance. Knowing our panelists who will be out here in a minute, tonight is going to be one of those engage programs that is both informative and highly entertaining. These guys know how to tell a story. And its a rare treat to have the curtain pulled back from those who are on the front lines of protecting the president and the first family. Were honored to be joined tonight by three former secret Service Agents whose combined years of Service Almost approach 82 years. Im privileged to have Larry Buendorf with us, 22year veteran of the secret service. Larry was honored with the secret Service Valor Award for his role in stopping an assassination attempt on president gerald ford in september of 1975 in sacramento. Later, larry served 25 years as the security chief with the United States olympic committee. Joe clancy is with us tonight. Joe served on the protective details of four president s, including president bush, or trailblazer, as he would have called him by his secret service code name. Mrs. Bush was tempo. President bush was trailblazer. Joes nearly 30year career with the service culminated in 2015, when he. [ applause ] well, thank you all we have a fantastic program and interesting information on the secret service, how it runs, and a lot of back stories you will find fascinating. So lets get started. Joe director clancy i should say, as a former director of the secret service can you set the scene of the history of the secret service because it wasnt always about protection. Thats correct, spence, first it is unusual for agents to be sitting on stage. Typically were stage left or right talking into our sleeves but talking into these mics are a challenge. I want to give you warning because of our training any sudden movements might create [ laughter ] we noticed a couple people didnt applaud when we walked in. The history of the secret service, its a tremendous history over 150 years. It started april 14, 1865, civil war theres a lot of counter fit currency and the treasury secretary went in april 14, 1965 and said we have rampant currency and have to do something about it and lincoln gave a it green light to start the new agency, the secret service, he had ace orders and that night president lincoln went to fords theater to take in a play, our american cousin and we know what happened at fords netheater. From there we continue to do investigations, from paper investigations, the counterfeit currency to the plastic, credit card, and the digital cyber world which were one of the best in the world at as well. Most people think of the secret service you think of the protection assignment. The Protection Mission when you think of the secret service, 1901 after president mackinnoc s assassination is when we started to protect president s and it continued to progress taking candidates after Robert Kennedys assassination, we started taking heads of state to children, wives, spouses, well get into that as we go into the program. Can you talk about the Training Academy in beltsville, maryland, and the total number of employed agents. This president ial campaign coming up we have 24 candidates. How much man power is that going to require . Yeah its a considerable challenge. Every Campaign Season is a challenge for the secret service but i think our history proves we have done a very good job handling all that. Its a tremendous challenge for our men and women in the secret service and to their credit. They do a marvelous job in my view. When you look at the history of the country, most of those world events, the secret service was behind the scenes allowing those events to take place and lot of it has to do with our training, we have a terrific Training Facility in bellsville, maryland and will you see terrific examples where that training paid off in world events. I think we have a picture that happened of an event that happened at the white house. Tell us a little bit about that. Normally you see secret Service Agents in nice suits, the ear piece in, but you never see their weapons. Heres a long gun out. What happened here . Sure. So i remember president bush just coming back from a visit out of town and we came back to the white house and when you get in the gates of the white house theres a little sense of relief youve accomplished your mission and theres a little bit of a deep breath but as we pulled up to the oval office area where he will walk up to the oval office we got over the radio that there was a fence jumper who was over on the east part of the complex by the Treasury Building so i was sitting in the right, front seat of the limousine and had to turn to president bush and say we have a fence jumper and were going to have to sit in the vehicle for a few minutes until we get this issue resolved. He said, a fence jumper where, he started looking behind and looking through, i was actually glad for that response. But then after a few seconds goes on you cant see the fence jumper and im not hearing it is all clear yet and the president said i got to get to work, i got to get into the oval office. And it took about three minutes but all that time i knew the uniformed officers and the agents they were going to get this individual and i was confident that well just stay in an Armored Vehicle because you dont know if someone jumps a fence, are they armed, what do they have, so stay in a safe area. Could we evacuate yes but i had confidence we were going to get him and we did in a matter of seconds and we let president bush out, i know he was smirking because he knew i was sweat tlug my suit. For those who know president bush, he likes to run on time and doesnt like to wait very often, so. Hey, larry, in 1975 you saved president fords life. Tell us that story. I think we have a video of the attempts assassination attempt and you can talk us through that day. Okay. It was midmorning in sacramento when president ford left the hotel to walk to the State Capitol to speak with brown jr. And speak to the state legislature. This was part of the president s exam pain to lock up the campaign to lock up the nomination and he worked the crowd, a friendly crowd accompanied by aides and secret service agtss, the president reached for every hand in sight. Somebody, i a young Woman Holding a gun appeared at the president s side. A secret Service Agent grabbed the gun and wrestled a young woman to the ground and moved the president swiftly to the capital. Well and there you are apprehending the wouldbe assassins. First i should have had a haircut. [ laughter ] at least thats what my mother said when she heard about it. But i was working the shift, the morning shift, and the president was scheduled to speak at the capitol he walks out of the hotel, motorcade is there, scheduled, a large crowd across the street waiting to see him. He walks out, nice sunny day in california, he goes, i think ill walk, it was just across the park and the Capital Building was right there. That immediately causes a scramble with the agents and police and trying to move the crowd in the right direction to get it so theres a pathway and move the crowd across to one side of the sidewalk so as he walked along he can shake hands. My position at the time was right at his left shoulder, so as hes walking along shabing hands shaking hands im concentrating on his hands kind of in a downward motion, he doesnt want everybody to grab too long, take his watch, whatever, so im kind of looking down. Out in the crowd is a member of the Charlie Manson family, lynnet squeaky fromm who happened to be carrying a. 45 strapped to her ankle. She was back a couple people in the crowd and as he is shaking hands i suddenly see this hand come up with something in it. At that time didnt know it was a weapon. But i stepped in front of the president to stop the hand from coming up, because i didnt want him to get hit with whatever it was. The minute i hit it, i knew it was a gun. So i yelled out gun. All my very best friends that are with the president , they leave, with the president. [ laughter ] trained well, trained well, part of our training program. Youre on your own, buddy. So shes screaming and the crowd is screaming and i got hold of the gun and got the gun here pushing, another thing, mr. Director, i didnt have my vest on, so im thinking that i dont know if theres more to this than is going to happen but i know im not going to let go of her and were pushing back the crowd and you see the gun, i got the gup girl, shes cre screaming, i keep pushing her away, the president is gone with the agents, i drop her down to the ground and some of the agents from the back of the crowd came forward and i noticed one of the agent frz the shift and handed him the gun and proceeded to cuff her which is happening now as you see. Once she was cuffed i turned her over to the agent that was there from our Intelligence Division and the police went back and rejoined the shift. Pretty fast and furious and matter of seconds and then you have a chance to sit back and think about how fast it went down. [ applause ] what did she say. Supposedly she said it didnt go off. I did grab it and it caught my hand and for months i kept jabbing the wound to make sure it stay open, i kept going, you seeing this. It healed way too fast. [ laughter ] so it was just a little cut, anyhow, i think she might have been pulling back and when i hit it i stopped the slide. She didnt have a round shame bereted, if she didnt have a Round Chamber because if she did it would have went through me and the president because i didnt have a vest on. Interesting thing, we got back to air force one and i got pulled off to remain in sacramento to be interviewed by the fbi, need to do once theres an attempt like that. Mrs. Ford had gone in another direction so when he boarded the plane she turned to him and said, well, how was your day mr. President. Not so good. Well, i know that the country better for your duty that day and taking care of our president. September 11, 2001, is a day that changed our country forever. Can you, nick and joe, walk us through that day. Talk to us about sort of the fog of that day and trying to determine who was trying to decapitate our leadership of our country and sort of how you dealt with it throughout the day. Sure its one of those moments in history that, you know, everyone can pretty much identify and recall where you were that day. For some reason i had come in early that morning. The president , i didnt accompany him, i waited for the president to return so for whatever reason i went to the white house early that morning. I was actually working out. I had espn on, watching whatever sports highlights and then i saw the first plane just like everyone else. It was that second one when we realized that we were under attack. Mrs. Bush was at the u. S. Capitol at the time. So it took some time to see what was happening. We wanted to get her away from the capitol. We had known that there were three planes down. The pentagon had just the plane had just hit the pentagon and i decided to go and connect with mrs. Bush as we relocated her from the capitol and at that time as we mentioned earlier in the green room there were about six planes thatter with still unidentified at the time after the plane hitting the pentagon. It was a challenging day because United States hadnt been attacked, you know, since pearl harbor and you look at the oklahoma bombing but in this case here we had the president in florida who wanted to come back. You had the first lady who wanted to be teamed up with her husband. So communication, we restricted communication because of the nature of what was happening and then the president was relocated to louisiana as everyone got to see. And it took some time. The president wanted to come back. We werent sure what was happening yet, the airspace was controlled and it wasnt until later in the evening that the decision was made by the president that he was ambidexterousant that he was going to address the nations ad adamant that he was going to address the nation. Where were you joe. I was in japan. With treasury secretary oneal, it was the evening, went to my room and turned on the tv and saw the aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center. Went to seshlgt secretary one oneal, and dont had you he seen it yet, we immediately tried to get all aircraft back to the states and took about 24 hours to get military flight back to washington, d. C. Tell us a little bit about post9 11 with respect to the development of the department of Homeland Security and sort of that day revealed a lot of things about how we treated security and how our government ran with respect to this kind of an attack and sort of the deficiencies that were uncovered and sort of how the department of Homeland Security came about. Sure. You know. Again, it developed after 9 11. You know, at the time, the secret service was under the department of u. S. Treasury. You had other entities. You had alcohol, tobacco to and firearms under treasury. You had other departments under justice and so Law Enforcement and Intelligence Community were in different agencies. U. S. Coast guard was under transition portation and it wasnt until dhs that put it all under one roof and where you had all of the Law Enforcement outside of those in the department of justice. So you had this. And took some time. There was growing pangs with it, just like anything else, but it it was one of mosaof thos moments in history where you see the department was created, everyone was under one roof, we were able to communicate. We were able to share a bit better than previous. And then it was getting it was as you mentioned earlier, it was, then, how does the country move forward. Right. After such a tragic event like that. Let alone the new creation of departments and other things that the department of defense were doing and other men and women across the whole United States that were trying to strengthen and make the homeland safe but it was then the president and first lady, how to move and get the folks moving. Because i remember the president saying, if he just stayed in the white house, folks in new york and d. C. May not go out. The other parts of the country were effected but those in new york and d. C. , you know, it was right here at home. When you talk to the folks, you know, up in new york that lived it, it was getting the country back, so it was creating movements. Yeah, i think a lot of you will remember just a few days after, there were couple things, few day afz the attack at World Trade Center president bush actually went to new york city and stood on the rubble pile and thats the famous video if you tour the museum you see the bull horn he gave those remarks from. So it was that going to new york immediately after 9 11 and really sort of letting the American People know well get through this as a country. And a even bigger event as many know the yankees were in the world series and mlb debated whether to call it or or to delay, talk to us about that event. I think this is one of the seminole events in president bushs presidency that really unified the country. Zb zbll. Yeah, actually a back story. Prior to , if you remember, the president was hosting a strategy meeting at camp david shortly after. And we were departing going to camp david and i was accompanying the president on the trip and marine one were on the south ground and the press were on the south ground of the white house and not sure why, when the president came out of the oval office he kind of singled me over and i wasnt sure if he was calling me over, if there was someone behind me, i didnt want to turnaround because of all of the press, well, he had come over and he said, guess what, were going to the world series, Yankees Stadium. I went, what . But thats how he was. He brought everyone he just calmed the whole situation down. You know, it was a stressful period and i was in shock, i mean, were getting ready to go to camp david, but he just calmed everyone down, nick, nikki, were going to Yankees Stadium the world series and i forgot the yankees were in the world series. Wed tease each other as big yankee fans. As we prepared to go, new york city, i mean, we had all forces to assist, all of the resources, and those that get a chance to watch the espn documentary will see the behind the scenes, the stress and the build up and everyone in the stadium had gone tlud metal detectors, Billy Crystal was can here, if we have to go through metal detectors were going to do it was a unique time, extremely stressful, with the world series of major league baseball, and you have the president of the United States going not just to the stadium but going to the field, to the mound, to throw out the first pitch. The planning between new york city support, the other federal partners, made the event extremely full. The planning to allow him to go out to the mound, if you saw the video, he went to the mound, all the way to the rubber on the mound to throw out the pitch without any security right around him. All of that was possible because of the planning. Tell us a little bit about where agents were. Yeah, so we had, theres a photo baseball fans picked up right away on it because during the world series and playoffs you have the two extra umpires. Well, there was an extra one. [ laughter ] extra extra one. But, again, just as in the incident with larry, and the agentsnd assassination attempt of president ford they all left him thats what were trainin d trainingedtraininge traininged trained to do, to get you out of the way. Again, unique situation. It was, just a the planning that had gone in between him going to the mound, whether or not he was actually going to stay for part of the game, stay for the game, where he would sit. There was a lot that had gone in. We had excellent support. The resources were tremendous. We had the umpires. We had the airspace of course was covered. We had pretty much everyone and media assist us, tremendously, also by giving us access and baseball played a big part. The mound at Yankees Stadium was probably the safest place in the world. Safest place in the world. Joe, im going to meander around with different topics. Tell us how the secret service protects the children of the first family and what goes into that, the delliccys of that and how you handle that. I know its a difficult situation sometimes. It can be because the secret service want to protect the children but also want them to have as best as possible a normal life. It is hard in this bubble and i realize that. I remember sitting with mrs. Obama, the first time i sat with her at length, it was all about mrs. Obama want herd kids to have normal life, going to plays, going to school, going to basketball games, so on, so forth and i wanted her to know we had the same goals and as kids get older in thirteen years its more challenging because as you can imagine no teen ethic aer wants guys like me going out on a date. You know. So thats always a balance. You try to do the very best you can. You want to make sure theyre in a safe environment. Great. A huge part of any successful presidency requires foreign policy. Foreign travel. Can you this is for the panel. Maybe joe you can start out with some thoughts on it. But traveling, taking the president overseas, he doesnt fly on a commercial plane and go up to hertz and get a car and go off to his meetings. Theres a tremendous amount of planning. Its staggering. Youd be shocked to know how many planes of equipment and materials go overseas any time the president travels. Can you talk about this. Exactly right, spence. Its really moving the white house. When the president travels overseas youre moving the white house to that country and with that, the limousines, on these car planes, the military aircraft you can fit six to eight cars on these aircraft. You can fit helicopters on these aircraft. So everything moves in this foreign country. But beyond the logistics, the challenge is the advance work because now you dont have the same authority that you have in the states. So youre relying on those Foreign Countries to do what you want and theres a lot of negotiations back and forth and nudging back and forth, because you know what you want and what you need to have a safe environment but we dont always get to that point. So reciprocitiy is a big part of it when you are negotiating whether you can carry your weapons in a foreign country or not. Whether we can fly marine one. China would always fight us whether we could fly marine one. Talk about how you negotiate and hopefully when their leader comes to the states its an even exchange. Because we have a good video well show how there was good negotiation and then there wasnt and then the exchange. The advance would go out 15 sometimes 20 days depending on the nature of the visit and type of summit. Again, a lot of these leaders are coming here to the United States but we hold a pretty firm requirement. Were not going to allow the president and first lady to be unescorted. Were just not. The advance teams really have to push on it. Sometimes we have to get the political folks, the ambassadors, the chief of staffs, the director of the White House Advance Team to negotiate our requirements because when you get into a summit, you will see the video later, when you get into a summit theres 30 counter parts or 20 counterparts of security. What do you do with all these security folks. As joe was saying, its the cars, its food, its medical supplies. The whole white house is actually moving regardless the length of the time the president is traveling. So theres an entire package that goes with this along with the cars and then you have the spares. You look at the aircrafts. As joe said, marine one. You got to have these back up plans and you got to have all the medical. So it is a big footprint. But all about its not just about evacuating the president and first lady in a threat, its also allowing the president to fulfill the president s duties to run the country, to govern the United States. Wherever the president is, that machine follows. Were part of that, along with the military, the medical unit so the president can fulfill his duties as the chief exec utahor. The president can do anything in a foreign country that he can do at the white house. Every piece of technology and equipment and personnel and resources, he has when he is on a foreign trip. We have video of a foreign trip to chili to chile. This is asianpacific summit, 30 countries, the country thats touch the pacific ocean, the president and first lady had just arrived. Prior to that the chileans had taken the secret Service Advance agent away from the site. So we had a slight delay. But at this point i thought it was okay to go. So we left the president and first lady, we talked about it as we went. What happened was i stayed back a little bit to allow the press to take the photograph of the president , the first lady, along with the first lady of chile and first lady. And security started to close in as you see behind the president and he now hears me yelling. [ laughter ] so he was trained well. [ laughter ] so i was fortunate because [ laughter ] so it was like moses parting the water. And the first lady is here, she can attest. They were hitting me, im not sure why, but in all seriousness i thought for that moment, because, this is like a game. The security part is like a, you know, its a dangerous game and were maintaining the prize. We have the president. And at that moment i actually thought today was the day because i was the only Foreign Security allowed inside and thought today was the day that they were hitting me, no ones done that before, they were grabbing my arms and im yelling, be get your hands off me, what are you doing that for, my weapon was on the right side where they were hitting me. It was confusing. And then the doors were closing, which was definitely a concern. So as i pushed my way up to the stairs, the president and first lady heard the commotion, heard the yelling. My chilean counterpart actually tried to help but the others werent. They formed this wall. And then the president like moses kind of parted the waters and i came in. But again, as spence said, the advance team not only secret service but the White House Advance Team worked it out to ensure that the secret service was going to have the representative in with the president and accompany the president and first lady at all times. And then something broke down and it broke down just ten minutes prior to departure. And then we were able to get the agent back but then, spence, if you remember, they took the white house staff representative along with the secret Service Agent and took them away and actually put them in a room and they secured it with an officer. And now we had no one. And then they finally when we decided we were not going, we were waiting, thats when they brought the individual back. Au so even though last minute things change, you have agreements but last minute things change. Yeah i remember the president s last trip to china was for the olympics and i had made two or three trips to china prior to negotiate with a preadvance survey team to negotiate for passes, permits and vehicle placards and we were on air force one flying to beijing and that still hadnt been worked out. Yeah, one thing to add to that. Its not that the United States, all this negative press after. But the United States its not that were tops and we want to be the ruler, we recognize and so do our counterparts in Foreign Countries that the the United States president , whoever the president is, brings in the highest threat. The highest threat is against the u. S. President and they recognize that. However, at these summits, whether the g 8, the g 20 or in this case the asia pacific with 30 heads of states. Theres 30 detail leaders. Again, the United States again with support of the white house of course ensure and hold that where the president and first lady are never unescorted. We do, then, when they come here to the United States the secret service does play a good partner with them. They also dont bring that footprint and spence you know, you worked many of these, the foreign governments dont come with that big machine. Right. And often, when i mentioned reciprocity, we try to give them everything we ask for in their country we give them when they come on their trips. Absolutely. Go ahead joe. Just one comment. You saw president bushs support there, also i will say there was another event where there was a state dinner planned and we noticed in advance nobody was checking for weapons and nick was my supervisor at the time, my boss, i called back and said my recommendation is we dont go, we cant vouch for 250 people unmagged and it went to the deputy chief of staff at the time and the end result was they scrapped the state dinner, which of course we never want to be in that position because theres a lot of political ramifications here. But again it showed the support that president bush had for the security for the secret service at the time. That support was very important. Lets move to post presidency. Larry, you ran president fords detail in post presidency. Talk about that and the challenges of a post presidency without all of the support that the president had when he was in office. You know, people dont understand how difficult it is to cover a former president , like i had former president ford and police ford seven months in vale. No five months in vale and seven months in palm springs. Over and over. Was very, very stressful. [ laughter ] with a former president of course you want to make sure you no longer have a military plane, air force one, so you got to make sure you have your American Airlines mileage card because youre going to spend a lot of time, traveling with the former president , and mrs. Ford its a little different because you are on a public plane. They want to greet them. President ford had a great system, he would get on a plane and flying in first class, made me, i had to fly first then too, but he would go on the inside seat, id be on the aisle, hed immediately go to sleep, so to speak, people would come by an god, you know. And they would go by. And go, you know. They would go by. He and mrs. Ford were spectacular to work for. And you know, he was great on the golf course. Bob hope made joke s about him. Bob hope said he was the only president that could play two golf courses simultaneously. [ laughter ] and the jokes kept going on and on. But a very gracious couple. And it was a privilege to be on their detail. Great. Nick, lets you and i had the privilege to do a couple secret trips. Joe you were on them as well. Talk to us a little bit about what it takes to plan a secret trip by sitting president to a foreign country without anybody knowing. Well, finding out on the first one it was a lot of drama of course. And gotten call in. It was only a few of us that were told of it. And we had gone to a room to get the briefing and i actually remember, you know, its in all the history books, in one of the rooms below ground. It was a long table. Only about five of us in the room. I remember chocolate chip cookies, they werent for us. I remember mr. Hagan coming in and saying, what im about to tell you is coming from the president , its nonnegotiable. President s going to go to baghdad. Not sure why, i shot up and went no, no, and i went right for the cookies and i unravelled and started eating them sand i looked the at director and realized i am an adult supposed to have some responsibility and went back, from that moment forward we had five days to plan for this trip. It wasnt just taking a sitting president into a war zone, it was secretly doing it. The white house or any place, the ranch in this case where we left from. Its not set up to sneak the president out. Especially when we did the second ones at the white house and mrs. Bush will recall on the second one when the president , i went up early in the morning and he had his sun glasses and a ball cap on and maria said he was in theed howl way and i was in the hallway and i took a peek and said, sir, were ready. I said the glasss . He said shhh and i went. And he said you said were sneaking out, i dont want barney to know [ laughter ] i wanted to say just get in the elevator. He said in the elevator, he said, nick, like, you know, chill. So i dont know if i could do any more of these because this was the second one. So the planning was, you know, when youre secretly doing it, there were secret Service People we couldnt share information with, let alone folks on the detail and wasnt i want to know. It was a need to know. We had to safely, successfully take the president out so the president could fulfill his mission. Did i want him to go there . Of course not. But thats not what were all about. The president we went there as you know we agreed to three hours on the ground which we got three and half or four. But the president was clear he was going to serve every thanksgiving meal to every soldier. It was a moving moment. Then he met with some of the leaders in the community and that was the photo youre seeing now. Thats in the chow hall. In the chow hall. But youre also not telling the military and air force one, colonel tillman did an outstanding job take the aircraft, changed the codes as he talked about. Into u. Without at call signs and then arriving in country not only where the men and women were in awe when they saw the president but other folks on the ground had no clue. So it was a team effort but only five days. Five days and literally 99. 9 of the white house staff did not know. Most of the secret Service Agents that werent on the detail or going to be involved in it did not know. Members of the president s family probably did not know. So they were sneaking the president out of the house w. White house as many of you know youve been to the white house turves are everywhere. You cant just drive him out. There was a lot went into getting him out of there and to andrews and get all the way to the plane and fly to iraq without another airliner in the sky passing it going, there goes irs air force one. The first if you remember we left crawford and had to switch in the hangar to get full tank of gas and then flew direct. Joe do you have some. Next time during sack i was with the White House Branch involved with helping him get out of the white house complex and years later president obama went over on one of those missions and fortunately i had the experience watching nick and how his team handled and the one rule was if it leaked out wed not do all of the stops, wed limit the time on the ground and we we were leaving turkey to go to iraq it did leak out and once again youre in a recommendation which you know is not popular and the recommendation was we just go to the military base and theres a lot of discussion s about it but once again at that point the Obama Aldrich adebayo there was a big discussion on fair force one they were very supportive. It mean as lot to the agent when you get that kind of support. Can i add to that. Go ahead. On that trip what joe didnt mention, joe was special nagt charge for president obama and i was assistant director. As we were leaving from istanbul to go to afghanistan, it was a secret trip, they were planning the trip but prior to departing in istanbul, the word was getting out, the staff were still working on the time of the trip. How much time on the ground and the staff because of their priorities and their mission were extending it and joe was holding firm. He wouldnt say this im going to embarrass as him. Its an important point because regardless what you see in the newspapers its the relationship with the Prince Amukamara and first lady with the detail is tremendous because they recognize and they support. In this particular case, the president had his senior advisors and was asking for the plan, were going to do this and extend. President obama looked at joe and saw he wasnt buying into the extended program and said joe what schedule do you prefer . He said the shorter one. The president said thats it. And walked out and we went to the cars and the decision was made. Regardless of the senior staff, he relied on joe. Yes, thanks. [ applause [ applause [ applause ] lets talk about the p president s where they go when theyre not staying in the white house. Cover their private residents and maybe a little bit about camp david. Anyone, lets start with larry. Well, we went to vale. Hard part about that was when he was in office was the [ laughter ] was the advance team, as you say sometimes two, three weeks out ahead. Ir was a skier, still am, i think. So the advance team would have to go out for two weeks ahead of the president to vale for if mount familiarization, requiring us to get up with ski patrol at the crack of dawn to get fresh powder and familiarize ourselves with the runs to make sure no one was hiding in the trees, et cetera. It was a pretty interesting operation. Then we moved about the mountain in such a way, we are a great outfit, larry. But we move about the mountain without people being able to really trail us the way we ran our formations. Wed go to a ski instructor line. Wed go through the line, be up a mountain, down a run and gone. And so we can whats president bush 41, you know, what did he not do, right. Boats, water, president bush running, biking and president clinton, president bush, president obama, all of the other activities, so the secret service had to train agents on horseback and u. S. Park police played a tremendous role because its about how to extract and evacuate the president and first lady while on horseback. I remember the press would be all around and say how many fish did you catch. Hed say fish, with all these boats and secret service it scared all the fish away. For those who may have read book s about president bush 41 that boat fidelity was not a slow boat. Hed drive that at full throttle. Full throttle. Yeah. So talk to us about the training, were making light of it but its serious, they have to learn to Mountain Bike. President bush is a serious Mountain Biker on his ranch in crawford and you have to keep up with him. Before the Mountain Bike was the running because during the campaign, he averaged, i hope hes not listening, but he averaged around a tremendous 740 pace and i wasnt a runner, in fact, i didnt like to run. But he ran a race in d. C. As president , ran the threemile race, made the cover of runners world. Ran a 640 pace for 3 miles but at the ranch wherever he ran he was averaging a 710 pace. So just the training of that alone, the agents, the equipment, the radio, the weapon, no vest and then president bush started these heat runs. I didnt know what a heat run was. Neither did he when he created it but he formed a 100 degree club which later went to his Mountain Bike. So you can start out thinking, wow, youre in pretty good shape, its finishing the race with the president and do you have enough energy to hopefully and successfully evacuate or attend to the medical. So youre definitely in training all the time. But it was a, you had to look at formations, you had to look at, with 41, as everyone knows with kenny, their home was surrounded by three sides with water. The u. S. Coast guard we had a Great Partnership with the coast guard assistance but the secret Service Agents had to prepare water, water safety, boat handling, boat safety, on how to extract the president from the water. But its not just helo lift from the water, it was putting him maybe in the boat and then bringing him to show. So we had to get Armored Vehicles. We had imaginary lines, not me but the smart ones decided how to divide up the atlantic motion and we have the detail with us, you recall, we would have to, you know, move the cars and get ready to receive the president if he had to come on shore, so the president would cross over this imaginary line and you were with the first lady. You spent the time with tran kwquil quillitty with bark bash barbara bush theyd say the president ba theyd say the president theyd wait ten minutes and start moving the cars around again. There was training involved with it, you are moving and disrupting the town also. It all comes down to training and the success of training was a successful attempt that larry prevented. Yeah. Lets talk about that in closing. We just have a minute or two left. Lets talk about how youre trained to make a splitsecond decision. Often times, you know, you have zero you just have to react, and how are you trained to do that. Well. Go ahead joe. No you go ahead, you got the training part of it. I was just going to say it is what it is, you know, the training that you have to do, and it comes down to the person, can you react when the time comes in the right way. I think of jerry par would often talk about his experience in 1981 during the reagan assassination attempt. Most of you have seen the video of that. You look at tim mccarthy when the first shot rang out, tim turned around and made himself big. Thats not a natural instinct when you hear a gunshot, to make yourself big, it is usually to cover yourself but he made himself big to protect the president , thats from repetitive training our staff would do so well. This is our wrap up, sometimes with all of the greatest security and most trained personnel, the best equipment, sometimes the president just has to take matters into his own hands and in baghdad he had to fulfill the old texas two shoe two step right here. He was pretty quick. Well, this concludes our presentation. [ laughter ] [ applause ] this concludes our panel. Mrs. Bush thank you very much for having us. We really enjoy being here. Joe . Spence, if you dont mind, we all felt very honored to be invited down here today, weve had fun up here telling stories and all, we certainly thank the bush family, extended bush family for all theyve done for the secret service over the years. When you go to the bush library and see the enormity of what theyve done for this country it makes you very proud. So mrs. Bush, thank you. Thank you. Thank you spence, joe, nick and larry for fantastic time. Told you it would be informative and please stop by and visit the new president ial retreats away from the white house, open until 8 15 and ticket as available for the next program june 12th, with a conversation about global flash points with ian bremer and neil ferguson. Thank you advanced a good evening. [ applause ] rvelgs tell. 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