Secret Service and lessons learned from assassination of JFK
Never forget - but implement the lessons of failure. That was the collective vow of the US Secret Service after the assassination of John F. Kennedy 50 years ago this week.
Never forget - but implement the lessons of failure.
That was the collective vow of the US Secret Service after the assassination of John F. Kennedy 50 years ago this week.
The killing sparked a revolution in how presidents are protected and led to the current ring of steel and formidable firepower around the US leader. The circumstances of Kennedy's murder in Dallas - with the 35th US president a sitting duck in a slow-moving, open-topped limousine - are unthinkable today.
The assassination was a singular but never forgotten failure for the Secret Service, the government agency charged with protecting presidents since 1902.
As little as possible is left to chance. They eliminate every minute risk
"The Secret Service every year at this time is reminded that on that day in 1963, the Secret Service failed," said Dan Emmett, who served as an agent between 1983 and 2004.
"Its mission is to keep the president alive at all costs, and on that day it didn't do that. It was somewhat of a painful day," said Emmett, author of the memoir about his service with the elite US protection force.
Emmett said anyone who suggested taking Barack Obama, or any of his immediate predecessors, through a major urban area in an open-top car would today be viewed as mad.
But America was a different place in 1963, and no one foresaw what could happen. Obama's vehicle could not be more different than Kennedy's. He travels in a hulking armoured car which is more like a tank than an ordinary family saloon.
The car, known as "The Beast", is equipped to protect the president from mortars, gunfire and other projectiles.
Its specifications are classified, but it reportedly carries supplies of oxygen and blood and communications scrambling equipment. It also has reinforced tyres and wheels.
Another lesson from Dallas was that the Secret Service would never tolerate an open window, like the one at the Texas School Book Depository through which Lee Harvey Oswald is believed to have fired the fatal shots.
"As little as possible is left to chance. They really eliminate every single minute risk that they can," said Robinson.
Today's presidential motorcade includes teams with equipment to detect radiological and chemical or gas threats and technology capable of blocking radio controlled bombs.
Close behind the presidential limousine are detachments of commandos in sports utility vehicles packing enough firepower to "probably assault a small country", said Robinson.
