Within Arm's Length--A Secret Service Agent's Definitive Inside Account of Protecting the President

June 23, 2014
In this deep look at the Secret Service's operations, Emmett, a veteran agent of more than two decades, examines the recent history of the agency responsible for protecting those in the White House. A native of Gainesville, Georgia, as a child he was impressed by the lone Secret Service agent shielding the mortally wounded President Kennedy and his wife with his body on that fateful day in Dallas. He became a Marine before joining the agency in 1983. Some of the most noteworthy passages in the book address the making of an agent, their rigorous training, and the numerous postings in regional offices. Emmett makes note of the routine investigations the Secret Service conducts and the tense protection roles provided for the president and vice president while offering anecdotes about guarding Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. The agents also serve as caretakers for former presidents and their families, even when the subjects indulge in dangerous behavior after leaving office. Emmett's engaging account is a reminder of the constant threats this esteemed agency faces and the effort each agent puts into their work.

May 15, 2014
The story of the men and women who swear to lay down their lives for the president.Emmett presents himself as the epitome of the Secret Service: patriotic, motivated and self-serious; his intention here is to "[capture] the unique culture of the organization." Following an officer's commission in the Marines, he secured entry into the Secret Service through sheer persistence, fulfilling a childhood dream rooted in the traumatic memory of the Kennedy assassination. He even married a fellow agent, with whom he has a combined 42 years of service. Although all agents customarily spend several years investigating crimes like check fraud, Emmett pushed for a transfer to the Counter Assault Team, the counterterrorism unit that follows the presidential motorcade: "Of all the agents in the Secret Service," he writes, "these men's motives for being there were perhaps the purest of all." With CAT, Emmett was on unusual high-risk protective missions, such as going to Haiti with Vice President Dan Quayle. Yet the author claims the unit's unique capabilities went unappreciated by the agency's meddlesome upper management, a consistent theme throughout the book. Following CAT, Emmett moved to the Presidential Protective Division. Emmett clearly presents the logistics, training and equipment that comprise the PPD agent's working life, testifying to the long hours and physical privations beneath the glamour. However, he's clearly unwilling to tell tales out of school about presidents George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, all of whom he personally protected (although he discusses the security nightmare created by Clinton's love of jogging), and too often the narrative is generalized and anecdotal rather than specific. Emmett's personalized perspective is that of a martinet, generally scornful toward those he encounters (excepting presidents, Marines and fellow agents) and frequently complaining about "political correctness" and media scrutiny compromising the Secret Service.A sternly narrated account that captures the grim, insular nature of the American security state at its most elite levels.

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July 1, 2014

Retired Secret Service agent Emmett, who served Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, has revised and expanded his self-published 2012 book of the same title and added a brief section on his post-Secret Service career in the CIA. This is not a "kiss and tell" narrative that discloses Secret Service secrets; rather, it reveals the human side of the profession, describing the culture of the organization, the dynamics of ordinary interaction with presidents and VIPs, and the daily grind of protecting the commander in chief. While investigations of financial crimes make up the bulk of Secret Service work, Emmett's love and the pinnacle of his career was protecting the president, work that he characterizes as filled with frustration, excitement, apprehension, and fatigue. A traditionalist, Southerner, and marine veteran, the author is critical of both political correctness and the relaxation of old-school standards in the training and administration of the organization. He writes that during his time with the CIA, he was at the "tip of the spear" in Afghanistan but gives almost no information about what he actually did in that capacity. VERDICT Emmett's book, which succeeds in making vivid the life and culture of the anonymous, earpiece-wearing men and women clustered around the president, will be popular with readers who are interested in the Secret Service as an organization and those who protect the president.--Mark Jones, Mercantile Lib., Cincinnati

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