We are honored to be joined tonight by three former secret Service Agents, and the combined services are 32 years, and larry was honored with a role in stopping assassination attempt on president gerald ford in 1972 in sacramento, and then larry served 25 years as the security chief with the United States olympic committee. Joe clancy is with us, and he served on the protective details of four president s, including president bush and trail blazer as he would have called them by the secret service code name, and he was tempo, and mrs. Bush was trail blazer. The 32 Years Experience culminated in 2014 when joe was named the director of the secret service and he was in charge from the obama administration. And today, he is the chief Security Officer at comcast corporation. And Nicholas Trotta is with us, and helped to protect five president s, including president bush. Worked on large scale events such as world leader summits and a lot of the post 9 11 trips and even trips to afghanistan and iraq. And if he is looking familiar, he has been on a documentary or two talking about being on the field with the president when he threw out the first pitch in the game one of the world series. What a moment. Also pleased to have with us, spencer geissinger, the former deputy for the president for deputy operations of advancement under president bush. That role saw the integration of dozens of military, security and operational agencies all involved in the president ial travel including the u. S. Secret service. Today, spencer serves a as the Global Business development, inc. , and action premier company. We planned to have with us, the former secret Service Agent kathleen flat ti, aley, and due medical emergency, kathleen could not be with us, but we all wish her a speedy recovery. So thankful to joe, nick and larry for being on the stage tonight. So lets welcome spencer and the paneltist s tos onto the stage. [ applause ] we will have a fantastic program tonight and interesting information on the secret service and how it runs and a lot of the back stories that youll find fascinating. And so lets get started. Joe, director clancy i should say is a former director of the secret service, and can you set the scene with sort of the history of the secret service, and it is not always about protection. That is correct, spence, and first, as we are sitting here, it is unusual for the agents to be sitting on stage, and typically stage left or right, and we are good talking into the sleeves, but talking into the mics are a challenge. And i also want to give us a warning that because of the train, any sudden movements might create issues. We have noticed a couple of people did not applaud when we walked in, so that is okay. And also, the history of the secret service is a tremendous history and over 150 years, and started april 14th of 1865, and the civil war and there is a lot of counterfeit currency and the treasury secretary yuma mccullough went into Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and said that we have ram napant counterfeit currency, and he gave the go ahead for the secreter eservic and he had the orders and that night, he went to fords theater, and to apply for our american cousin and we know what happened with fords theater, and then from there, we continued to do investigations and as we say throughout history, we can do the paper investigations, and counter currency, and the plastics and the credit card investigations which we still do, and of course, the cyber world which we are one of the best in the world at that as well. But most people think of the secret service when you are thinking of, you know, you think of the production, and protection mission, and thinking of the secret service, and 1901 and after the mckinleys assassination, that is when we started to protect the president s, and then we had funding from congress to do that, and then it continued to progress taking on candidates after Robert Kennedys assassination, and started taking on the heads of state to children and wives and spouses of protech tees, and so, we will get into some of that as we go through the program. Can you talk about the Training Academy out in beltsfield, maryland, and the total number of agents. For instance, with this president ial candidate campaign coming up with 24 candidates and how much manpower does that require . It is a considerable challenge, and every Campaign Season is a challenge, and history proves that we have done a good job at handling that, and it is a tremendous challenge for the men and women in the secret service, and to their credit, we do a marvelous job in my view, and when we are looking at the history of the country, and most of the world events, the secret service is behind the scenes allowing the events to take place, and lot of it has to do with the training. We have a terrific Training Facility in beltsfield, maryland, and you will see the examples tonight where the training paid off in world events. I think that we have a picture that happened of an event that happened at the white house, and tell us a little bit about that. Normally, you will see the secret Service Agents in nice suits and the ear piece is in, and you dont see the weapons. Here is a photo of a long gun out, and can you tell us about what is happening here . Yes, i can remember that president bush just coming back from a visit out of town, and we came back to the white house, and typically when you get inside of the gates of the white house, there a little sense of relief that you have accomplished the mission, and there is a little bit of deep breath. But just as we are pulling up to the oval office area where the president gets out and you have seen it many times in the press, and he has walked up to the colonnade to the office, and we got over the radio that there is a fence jumper, and the fence jum eper is over on the complex and the limousine, and turn back to president bush, and say, mr. President , we have a fence jumper, and we are going to be here in the vehicle for a few minutes until we get the issue resolved and the fence jumper, and he is looking behind them, and looking through, and so i was actually kind of glad for that response, and then after, you know, a few seconds goes on, and you cant see the fence jumper and i am not hearing that it is all clear yet, and then the president says, joe, i have to get to work and get into the oval office here, and it took three minutes, but all of the time, i knew that the uniformed officers and the agents, and they were going to get this individual, and i was confident that we would stay in the armored vehicle, and you dont know when they jump the fence if they are armored or what they have, and so to stay in the safe area, and could we have evacuated . We could have, but i had confidence we would get him, and then a few minutes later, we were able to let president bush out, and you can see him smirking, because i was holding him in the car. If you know president bush, he likes to be on time and he does not like to wait. Larry, in 1975, you saved president fords life and tell us that story. We have a video that we will show you of the attempted assassination attempt and you can talk us through that day. Okay. It was midmorning in sacramento when president ford left the hotel to walk over to the state capital to have a meeting with edward brown jr. This is a political trip and part of the president s campaign to lock up the republican nomination, and so he was shaking hands as he went along, and working the crowd as politicians say, and it was a friendly crowd accompanied by aides and seecret Service Agent and the president reached for every hand in sight. Suddenly, a young Woman Holding a gun appeared at the president s side. A secret Service Agent grabbed the gun and wrestled the young woman to the ground, and then formed a tight protective shield to the president and moved swiftly to the capital. And there you are apprehending the wouldbe assassin. Well, i should have had a haircut back then, and at least that is 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 capital. He walked out of the hotel and the motorcade is there, and schedule and the large crowd is across the street and waiting to see him, and so he walks out on a sunny day in california, and he goes, i think that i will walk, and it is across the park and the Capital Building is right there, and so immediately, that is going to cause a scramable with the agents and the police and trying to move the crowd in the right direction so that there is a pathway, and the crowd is across on one side of the sidewalk, and as he is walking along, he can shake hands. My position at the time was right at his left shoulder. So as he is walking along shaking hands, i am kind of concentrating on his hands, and kind of in the downward motion, because he is going to have anybody grab too long and take the watch and whatever, and so i am looking down, and out in the crowd is a member of the Charlie Manson family, lynette squeaky fromm who had a gun strapped to her ankle, and so as he is shaking hands, suddenly, i see a hand coming up with something in it, and at this time, i didnt know that it was a weapon. But i stepped in front of the president to stop the hand from coming up, because i did not want him to be hit with whatever it was, and the minute i hit it, i knew it was a gun. So i yelled out gun and my very best friends with the president leave with the president [ laughter ] trained well. Trained well. And part of the training program. You are on your own, buddy. So, she is screaming and the crowd is screaming and i got a hold of her hand and got the gun, and i got the gun here. And another thing, mr. Director, i did not have my vest on, and so i am thinking that i dont know if there is more to this if it is happening, but i am not letting go of her, and see her pushing back in the crowd, and i see this guy who has this girl and she is screaming. I kept pushing her away and by then, the president is gone with the agents and i drop her to the ground, and some of the police and agents come from the back of the crowd, and i handed him the gun and cuff her which is happening now as you can see. And once she was cuffed, i turned her over to the agent that was from our intelligence division, and the police and i went back to rejoin the shift, and that is pretty fast and furious, and then in a matter of seconds, you have a chance to sit back and think about how fast it went down. [ applause ] what did she say when you did she make any comments . Supposedly, she was saying that it didnt go off, but when i hit the. 45 she could have been pulling back the slide, because i did grab it and it cut my hand and for months, i kept jabbing the wound to make sure it would stay open so i could say, do you see this . It healed way too fast. So just a little cut, but anyhow, i think that she was pulling back and when she hit it, i stopped the slide. If she had a round chamber, it would have gone through me and the president , because i did not have a vest on. Interesting thing, when we got to back to air force one and i was pulled off in sacramento to be interviewed by the fbi, who take jurisdiction once we have an attempt like that, and mrs. Ford was there in another direction and 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 is better for your duty that day and taking care of our president. September 11th, 2001, is a day that changed the country forever, and can you, nick and joe, can you walk us through the day and talk to us about the fog of the 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. It is one of those moments in history that everyone can pretty much identify and recall where you were that day, and for some reason, i came in early that morning and the president and i did not accompany him, but i waited for the president to return, and for whatever reason, i went to the white house early that morning. I was working out, and had espn on. I was 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, and so there was a, it took some time to see what was happening, and we wanted to get her away from the capitol. We had known that there were three planes down, and the pentagon had just, and the plane had just hit the pentagon and i was, i decided to go to connect with mrs. Bush as we relocated her from the capitol. That time, as we mentioned earlier in the green room, there were about six planes that were still unidentified at the time after the plane hitting the pentagon. It was a challenging day, because, United States had not been attacked since pearl harbor, and you are looking 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. And so we restricted the communication because of the nature of what was happening and the president was relocated to louisiana as everyone got to see. It took some time. The president wanted to come back. We werent sure what was happening yet. The air space was controlled, and then it was not until later on in the evening that the decision was made by the president that he was adamant that he was going to address the nation from the white house. And then it was at that point that we linked up the president and the first lady. Joe, what is your recollection of that day . I was actually in japan, and with the secretary of treasury oneal, and we had just arrived from china to japan, and it was 9 00 in the evening. I said, good night, mr. Secretary, and went to my room and turned and the tv and as nick described i saw the airplane crashing into the World Trade Center and i went down to secretary oneal, and i said, i dont think that he had seen it just yet, and we immediately tried to get an aircraft back home to the states, but as we know that all of the aircraft were grounded, so it took almost 24 hours to get a military flight to fly back to washington, d. C. Tell us a little bit about post9 11 with the development of Homeland Security and sort of that day sort of 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 uncover and sort of how the department of Homeland Security came about. Sure. Again, it had developed after 9 11 and at the time that the secret service was under the department of the u. S. Treasury, you had other entities, and you had alcohol, tobacco and firearms on the treasury, and other departments under justice, and so Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community were, you know, in different agencies and the u. S. Coast guard was under transportation. And so it was not until dhs put it all under one roof. So where you had all of the Law Enforcement outside of those inside of the department of justice, and so you had this, and it took some time, and growing pains with it just like, you know, anything else. But, it, you know, it is one of those moments in history when you can see that the department was created and everybody was under one roof and we could communicate and share a little bit of, say, a little bit bert than previous, and then it was getting, and it is as you had mentioned earlier hour, does the country move forward after such a tragic event like that. Let alone, the new creation of the departments and the 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 of first lady, and how to move and get the folks move, because i remember the president saying that if he is just staying in the white house, folks in new york and d. C. , they may not go out, and the other parts of the country were affected and the people in new york and d. C. , it was right here at home. When you are talking to the folks, you know, up in new york that lived it, it was getting the country back. So then it was creating the movements. Yes, so a lot of you will remember that just a few days after, there were a couple of things that a few days after the attack at the World Trade Center, president bush actually went to new york city and stood on the rubble pile, and if you have toured the museum, you will see the bull horn that he gave the remarks from. So it is that and going to new york immediately after 9 11 letting the American People know that we will move forward as a country and we will get through this, and a bigger veevent and better picture of it, the yankees were in the world series and the mlb had wondered whether to call it off or delay it. And so talk to us about that event, because this is one of the seminal event s ths that gad the country. Yes, and if you can remember, he was holding a strategy meeting at camp david shortly thereafter and we were departing, and i was accompanying the president on the trip, and so as the president was marine i on the south grounds and the press were on the south grounds of the white house, and not sure why, but the president when he came out of the oval office, instead of going to directly marine one, he signaled me over, and i was not sure if he was waving to me, and i was not sure whether to go over because of all of the press and he said, guess what . We are going to the world series. I was like, what . That is what happened. He brought everybody and calmed the whole situation down. It was a stressful period. I was in shock. I mean, we are getting ready to go to camp david and he calmed everybody down, nicky, we are going to Yankee Stadium to the world series. And we would tease each other, me being a big yankee fan, and preparing to go, and new york city, we had all forces to assist, and all of the resources. Those who have a chance to watch the espn docume