The Many Blunders of the Secret Service â and the Dangers They Pose to U.S. Presidents Secret Service agents keep an eye on Air Force One, 2008.Credit...Matt Slocum/Associated Press Buy Book â¾ By Chris Whipple ZERO FAIL By Carol Leonnig Anyone of a certain age can remember when assassination was a tragic fact of American political life. In the 1960s came the slayings of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy; in the 1970s and â80s, the near-fatal shootings of George Wallace and Ronald Reagan. And yet, since Reaganâs close brush with a deranged gunman in 1981, no American president has been caught in the cross hairs of an assassin. One might think that this owes something to the competence and professionalism of the Secret Service, the agency we depend on to protect our leaders. Think again.