Why are the Secret Service in charge of protecting the president of the USA? They were the only agency capable of doing it at the time.
The Secret Service was tasked with protecting the president of the United States in 1901 after the assassination of President McKinley. McKinley had just been elected for his second term and he was on a meet-and-greet with the public when he was shot by an anarchist called Leon Czolgosz. McKinley was shot twice in the stomach, and he was taken directly to hospital. Doctors thought he would make a recovery, but he died of gangrene eight days later. He was the third president to be assassinated, after Abraham Lincoln and James A. Garfield. Up to that point the president had been guarded by a range of different people, from private bodyguards to the army, and Congress decided that the protection of the president needed to be organized. They asked the Secret Service to do it in 1901.
The Secret Service was created out of the US Treasury Department. The US Treasury Department was created in 1789, by the first United States Congress. The Treasury Department was to oversee the printing of all money and the collection of taxes, amongst other things. It was the printing of money that led to the creation of the Secret Service. After the Civil War, America’s economy was in turmoil. The economy of the southern states had been all but destroyed, while the northern states were prospering, but money would be needed for rebuilding the south. Before the Civil War, most money in the USA was gold and silver coins. During the Civil War, the government introduced banknotes, but there was no regulation. Private banks were allowed to print their own money and they were not regulated. There were over a thousand different types of banknotes and nobody knew what was real and what wasn’t. Counterfeit money became rampant. It is estimated that nearly one-third of all US currency was counterfeit.
The US Marshal service was the only real law enforcement agency, and they were tasked with trying to catch the counterfeiters. They did a good job, but the task was too big, and they had lots of other crime to deal with as well. Congress realized this and decided to create an agency just to deal with counterfeit money, which became the Secret Service. They were created in 1865. This freed up the Marshal Service. The Secret Service became the United States’ first investigative service. They were sent undercover to catch the counterfeiters, which is why they are called the “secret” service.
So, why did the Secret Service end up as the protection service for the president? When President McKinley was assassinated and Congress went looking for a service to protect future presidents, they didn’t have much choice. They could have used the Marshal Service, but they were too busy with other crimes. They could have used the army, but that would be too complicated because it would mean the army operating on American soil. They could have used the police, but they were divided into lots of small forces. And that just left the Secret Service. They had the manpower, they had the investigative experience, they were able to arrest people, and the counterfeit currency problem had basically been solved, so they had the time as well.
The Secret Service became the president’s protection detail in 1901. They were low on manpower and resources. However, as a result of some high-profile attempts on the lives of presidents, the Secret Service slowly grew in size. Today there are 3,200 special agents, 1,300 uniformed agents, and 2,000 admin staff. The service has a budget of $3.1 billion. With that, they have to protect the president and their families. The vice president and their family. Former presidents and their families for life. Visting heads of state. Presidential candidates. And several other people. To do this, they have a vast intelligence gathering network.
Many people say that, despite all of this experience, manpower, and money, presidents have been assassinated. However, since the Secret Service officially took control of the president’s protection, only one president, John F Kennedy, has been assassinated. There have been several attempts, with the one on Ronald Reagan in 1981 being the worst, but they have all been foiled by the Secret Service. One assassination in 123 years isn’t a bad failure rate, but obviously one is too high. The problem is, as is often said, a wannabe assassin only has to be lucky once. The Secret Service has to be lucky all the time. And this is what I learned today.
Image By U.S. Secret Service – https://www.secretservice.gov/data/press/reports/USSS_FY2013AR.pdf, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63912524
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service
https://www.secretservice.gov/about/history/150-years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_William_McKinley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_the_Treasury
https://www.usmarshals.gov/who-we-are/history/historical-reading-room/catching-counterfeiters
https://www.secretservice.gov/thoseothersecretservices