On the night of his visit to the Ford Theatre to see a play that would not finish, second-term President Abraham Lincoln was working on a plan to establish a Secret Service, not for executive protection but to protect and ensure against the circulation of fraudulent currency.
That second duty is still on the Secret Service’s short duty roster today and explains why the agency was so long a part of the U.S. Treasury Department.
After Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant and signed the Treaty of Appomattox on April 10, 1865, Lincoln created the Secret Service on April 14, 1865, to prevent rapidly growing counterfeiting and stop the continuing acceptance of some Confederate currencies.
Lincoln was assassinated the next day by 26-year-old John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer frustrated by his older brother’s more incredible theatrical successes.
The Secret Service would not add the duties of executive protection for presidents and later, former presidents and still later, presidential candidates until after the 1901 assassination of President William H. McKinley. McKinley’s vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, then became our nation’s youngest president, and he was elected to two more terms.
Making a third run for the White House in 1912, challenging his own hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, and the Democratic nominee, Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt would be shot in the chest at a campaign rally in Milwaukee by former saloon-keeper John Shrank.
But Roosevelt survived the shooting, thanks to a 50-page speech folded in half in his suit coat pocket and his metal glasses case.
Candidate Roosevelt completed his 84-minute speech and prevented the near lynching of his shooter onsite before seeking medical attention. T.R. would surpass Taft – but split the GOP vote and helped to put Wilson into the White House.
After Roosevelt’s shooting, the Secret Service added protection for the president-elect. In 1915, the agency was given additional duties to investigate acts of foreign espionage (spycraft). In 1917, protection was extended to the entire first family.
Later, the Secret Service prevented assassination attempts against Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman. In 1962, Secret Service protection was extended to the vice-president and to former President Eisenhower, for a reasonable period, estimated then to be six months.
After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, special protection was extended to his widow and children for two years, and this protection was later extended to former presidents, first ladies, and minor-aged children for a period of four years each.
Following the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Secret Service protection was extended to all major presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
In 1971, the Secret Service picked up the responsibility of safeguarding visits by foreign heads of state and received a dedicated 60-acre training grounds and compound near Washington.
The following year, Alabama governor and Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace survived an assassination attempt without protection, and the Secret Service soon after twice blocked attempts to kill President Gerald R. Ford.
In 1984, the Secret Service received additional charges and was responsible for investigating credit card fraud. During 2003, the Secret Service was transferred from the Department of Treasury to the Department of Homeland Security. In 2013, all former presidents, their spouses, and minor-aged children (up to age 16) were given lifetime Secret Service protection.
As a former president and current presidential candidate, Donald Trump lands squarely in two of those protection categories. No one had done this since Teddy Roosevelt when the agency was only four years into its role of protecting presidents.
However, as each successful assassination to date has reportedly been the act of lone-wolf shooters, there remain ways to reach that target.
Most recently, the U.S. Secret Service had multiple system failures in Butler, Penn., at yet another outdoor political campaign rally, this time by former President Trump.
Although the Secret Service did successfully cover and remove Mr. Trump, in a matter of seconds, after he was shot, the breach was large enough that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was eventually pressured into resigning on July 23.
Thank God for the Secret Service sniper who responded in kind to end the life of the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, but in this moment of pause and reflection, it is time to take the Secret Service back to its original purposes and roots, minus a few of its more recent ancillary missions.