Here. I have really been looking forward to this talk tonight because Rufus Youngblood, ive known the name, ive known who he is for a very long time. And im just delighted that we can have his family here. Weve got members of Rufus Youngbloods family here. We appreciate that. We also have tom johnson who was an aide to Lyndon Johnson who is the man that Rufus Youngblood protected and we are really glad you are here as well, tom. He knew Rufus Youngblood very well. Rufus was a secret service agent. Hes known for his actions on november 22, 1963, when shots rang out in dallas, texas, and he leaped over the seat and protected Lyndon Johnson. And continued to protect him. Johnson was one of five president s that Rufus Johnson helped protect. After graduating from georgia tech here in atlanta with a degree in Industrial Engineering, he joined the secret service back in 1951, and he protected president s truman, eisenhower, kennedy, johnson, and nixon, during his 20 year tenure with the secret service. He retired in 1971 as the agencys Deputy Director. At that time, he wrote his memoir, 20 years with the secret service. It didnt get the attention that i think it needed to. It didnt have photographs and the likes. It just kind of over the years faded a bit. So we are very fortunate he moved back to georgia after he retired. And then he passed away in 1996. After he passed away, his family started talking, they started looking through, and you will hear more about this from rebecca. But looking through family photos and the like, and they looked at his book and thought, you know, we need to let the public read this again. And i have read it. And it is a wonderful, wonderful book. I love history and this is a great eyewitness history to some of the most monumental things that have happened in this country. Please join me in welcoming Rebecca Youngblood von to talk about her dads book 20 years in the secret service. [applause] rebecca if you cant hear me, tell me if i drift. Im animated so i drift. Ok. Thank you all for coming to thank you, tony, for allowing me to speak at this amazing place. And thank you, a cappella books for sponsoring us. And thank you all for coming. I think this is an interesting story. I am biased, but i think it is an interesting story because not only was dad on the front lines during many major events in our nations history, and interacted with multiple historical figures, he was an everyman, which i think makes his story relatable. The milliondollar question is tony gave the history, published in 1973, and i recently expanded and republished the book last year. The milliondollar question is why now . Well, i was researching my parents history, their lives during world war ii. It prompted me to reread the memoir. I had read it before. But we were discussing about aging or wisdom, but i thought, this is a really good book. I want to get it back out there. Why . Because it is a firsthand account of the kennedy assassination and aftermath and a lot of people have written a lot of things who were nowhere near, a lot of false assumptions a lot of things that should not be written. It is also an insight look at other pivotal events of our nations history. He also exposes the reader to a personal side of the president s, particularly lbj. The reader also is exposed to the evolution of the secret service itself. I am a dermatologist and we are a visual lot, so i wanted to add photographs. I could have never left my house because my father had a lot of photos. Lbj had given him this beautiful photo album, two of them, they are 8x10, beautiful photography. I wanted to seek some images of his service with the other 5 the other four president s. I went on my archival journey. My kids accuse me of looking for any excuse to be in a library. And that is partly true. But i got my little president ial Library Passport and i went to the president ial libraries and archives, and it was delightful. I even got to come here. Thats one thing i showed you. In our family, when we look at a photograph of one of the five president s, we dont even look at the president. We immediately start scanning in the background looking for rufus, with a little baldhead. You have heard of wheres waldo, it is wears rufus for us. I went on my quest for where is rufus and i found some beautiful photographs. Im going to share many of those with you tonight. I was able to add a pretty comprehensive photo gallery. My husband calls it the book in the book. That was my contribution. Utilizing those photos, im going to go through im going to give an overview of the memoir. But im also going to talk about his early life history, especially since much of it took place miles from here, here in atlanta. I am also i cant resist, giving an overview of his world war ii service. It is in a bishops amount of material. I will try not to get too 10 tangential. Rufus Wayne Youngblood junior was born january 13 in 1924 in macon, georgia. He was the son of Rufus W Youngblood senior and callie lois herndon, both from middle, georgia with ancestry in georgia over a century. Sadly, my grandfather was killed. He actually died a heros death. He was a train conductor which apparently was a dangerous job in 1975 and he was preventing a train collision, got caught under the train. It destroyed my grandmother. She lost the love of her life. She was a young widow. She had my aunt who was eight years old and my father was 15 months old at the time. So, she lived with her family for a while. My father was actually in a foster family, the hiram c ballin family they were his nextdoor neighbors. They were a wonderful family. They had dear names like ma and pa bond. Big sister mabel, and buddy. And theres dad with the dog. Actually, they had an independent phone company that they were starting at the time. When i got older and they would talk about ma bond, i thought ma bond was ma belle. He was able to move with his sister and my grandmother. Grandmother established she got a job and worked in the hosiery department. Our family, and you could only shop at riches for a long time, because riches was so supportive to the community. So, they had a very loyal clientele which included our family. He moved to west end of atlanta, georgia and attended all the atlanta Public Schools for his education. He is an atlanta boy. Importantly, in westend, thats where he met our mother, Peggy Elizabeth denham. This was the bible belt. They met at Weston Baptist youth church. He attended a high school and wanted to pursue a career in the army. Not because he wanted to go to war but because he wanted an education. I gave a version of this talk to history students and i emphasize the g. I. Bill was a game changer because prior to that, college was for the elite. He was not that. And he also wanted to have a very dependable job. This was the depression years, 1938, 1939. He wanted to have a very supportive, dependable job. I throw this in, he was the class president , and i throw this in because he really was a leader of men. Very social. He was just a natural leader. He was also an overachiever. [laughter] if you look here. And a lot of these, he was president or Vice President. A lot of these are kind of academic. Chemistry club. He was very social as well. He was the lieutenant at his rotc unit. My mother was his yearbook sponsor. He always went by the name wayne. Which was confusing when i was young. His friends from the secret service and when we lived in virginia all called him rufus. But my mother always called him wayne. He didnt go by his given name until he was in the military. He graduated from tech high in the spring of 1941. After the japanese attacked pearl harbor in december of 1941, he enlisted and he was 17 years old. He was so early in the air campaign, he joined the u. S. Army air force. He was so early, he volunteered into the respond group which the historian of the mighty air force called the first group of the first wing of the first division. They were the beginning. My air force friends always love pictures of the planes. But he was assigned a crumbs crew and jack the ripper. The plane they named jack the ripper. I hate the name, but it is a force from britain. One thing i should have emphasized is this is a wing ship to the memphis belle. I love this photo of crumms crew and the plane because it shows the camaraderie of the crew. They had to Work Together like a unit. Dad is here, his pilot crumm is there. The other thing i love is what is under his waist gun window. In other words, peggy the georgia peach. [laughter] he earned his purple heart in the third mission. The attrition rate was so high, he got flack in his ankle and he was injured. The attrition rate was so high for those bomber crews, they were dying left and right. They say the american bomber crews had the highest casualty rate of the u. S. Allied services during world war ii. So, the War Department was actually considering abandoning daylight strategic bombing. They requested a crew from the european theater. And crumms was selected. They assisted they worked with consultation to the War Department and then they assisted in a training manual for the new recruits. This is the fascinating thing about my fathers life. It is almost forrest gump like with a higher iq. [laughter] he weaves in and out of very historical moments. He would not only be a witness but a participant. Heres a 19yearold talking to general arnold advising them to put the waist gun windows, stagger them because when they fought, they would run into each other in the b17 f. In the b17 g, they did have staggered windows. They were not able to use their parachutes before the windows were staggered. Just things like that. They went on they raced across the nation, and they went and talked to different industrial rallies. And encouraged production. Hes here. You will get good at this, you will not need me to point after a while. And then they were wined and dined in hollywood. One of the things that was kind of cute here he is here. [laughter] kind of goofy. One of the things that was cute is he would get these autographs on the back of a matchbook. This is carol landis and this is kay kaiser. He would send those back to my mother and she was not amused. [laughter] she was stuck on the navy base in charleston as a telephone operator reading about him wining and dining with these movie stars. But, when the tour ended, he called her, she took a train to orlando and they were married at 19 years old. He kind of did it backwards. He went to officer Cadet Training after his combat experience because he had to pulled from combat. He had written to my mom that he wanted to go back and be a copilot with captain crumm, but for whatever reason, he became an aerial navigator, but he was a dual training as an engineer navigator in b29 when the war ended. My parents decided to come back to atlanta to raise their family with their families. And that is when he went to georgia tech on the g. I. Bill. He graduated from georgia tech in 1949 with a bachelor of Industrial Engineering and he worked as a Consulting Engineer for a while and then there was a mild postwar recession. He had two children to support. He went back to georgia tech and looked for a job lead and found this wonderful job that had a starting salary of 3825 a year. He was one of 30 plus applicants, so in march of 1951, at 27 years of age, he became a secret service agent. This is different than it is important to remember that four months before that time, there was an assassination attempt on president truman and there was a gunfire and agents were injured. Sadly, the secret Service White house Police Officer was killed while protecting the president. I just like to bring this up because he was an american hero. Dad worked in the Atlanta Field Office initially with counterfeiting and with forged checks and transferred to washington in 1952. This was actually toward the end of Harry Trumans term. Right before he left office. Im going to read to you the president ial snapshots that my father said during an interview with the georgia tech alumni magazine. And i will paraphrase from his book when i get to the appropriate one. Of harry as truman, my father said, he was an immaculate dresser. A carryover from his days when he was a haberdashery. He was one of the most really at brilliant historians i ever ran across. Dad occasionally accompanied the president during his famous walks around the city. If theres one thing the secret service hated, it was president trumans walks around washington because he did it on a regular basis and predictable and he prophesies at all it would take was a sharpshooter from a window and they could not protect him. Nevertheless, the president walked. I love to point out the first families. We have first lady bess truman, margaret, and president truman. These three were very close. The secret Service Agents pegged them the three musketeers because they did everything together. They played the piano together, sing together, they debated. They were very close. My father really admired the trumans. In 1953, 1953, and dwight d. Eisenhower became the 34th president. Of president eisenhower, my father said, i thought of him as my commanding officer. I felt like we had won world war ii together. He spent a lot of time on the golf course and since i was a georgian, familiar with the area, i would often accompany him on those trips. Ironically, though trumans left after the president was inaugurated and they went they waived the secret Service Agents from their train. That was the flavor of the protection back then. It was very different. You have the president and first lady riding in an open car, open topped vehicle. People are hanging out of the windows and the crowds are close to the street. These are the agents. Even one of the participants in the parade lassoed the president. [laughter] rebecca they are laughing. This is Vice President nixon. Its just a different world. This is the first family. Mimi eisenhower, president eisenhower and their son, john, and daughterinlaw, barbara. Sadly, the eisenhowers had a baby. He was nicknamed icky and he died in 1921 at age three of scarlet fever. Later, president eisenhower said it was a tragedy from which we never recovered. Eisenhower spent a lot of time in denver, colorado because mimi was from denver and her mother lived there. They would take base at larry air force base. Eisenhower would head to the mountains, he loved the colorado mountains, he would love to hunt and grill. Hes grilling a steak here. This is former president herbert hoover. This is actually one of dads photos that came from one of dads photo reels. He took the movies sometimes and my mother would complain that he used the movie film and he wasted the film. [laughter] and he also president loved to golf. The agents would dress as golf caddies and they would carry a set of dummy club heads in their bags and a highpowered rifle or submachine gun. Here he is here. And then i read once that eisenhower was the former general who hated war. He did much to try to maintain the peace. And it was a peaceful time. And then in 1957, he was reelected and heres Vice President nixon here. And then, i did find dad here. I love this photo. Watching the inaugural parade, eisenhowers with his grandchildren and president nixon is with his daughters, and these sweet little children, they get married later in life. Thats julie nixon and david eisenhower. Dad spent a lot of time on Augustine National golf park. He said he knew it like the back of his hand which i thought was cool because i went to medical school in agusta. They were in front of me in the cabin. In 1961, john f. Kennedy became the 35th president and of president kennedy he said, i epitome ofs the charisma. I dont believe we use that word very much in those days but i think if anybody had it, he had it. He was energetic and it was a pleasure to work around him. The asians really liked president kennedy, he was polite and nice and had a nice sense of humor. They really liked him. Again, the inaugural parade, open cars, people hanging out the windows, the viewing stand, they are right there. This is the first and second family right there. My father was originally assigned to the kennedy detail. But then when kennedy sent lbj around the world, literally around the world, he needed a secret service detail. At the time, it was by law, by the Vice President s request only and a lot of them declined the protection, with taxpayers money in mind. But they chose my father and another agent. My father had a very good organizational skill. He was a good agent. And this is in South Vietnam in may of 1961. This photograph amazes me. It is a little blurry. But i love this photo. You are leaving the american sector. This was right as the construction of the berlin wall, the countries are on a a lot of tension, the tanks are facing each other, the u. S. Army is rolling into berlin and they sent my father and to agents to protect Vice President johnson. Which i think is kind of amazing, just two agents. You have willy brandt here. Another thing i love about this is you have three georgians. Theres a general who is from marietta, georgia. And ambassador walter dowling. They found out about that trip on the day of it and he has a funny thing. Theres no way to advance a trip that begins on the day you find out about it. [laughter] meanwhile, back at the ranch, my mother was exerting her southernism. She loved to decorate. Merry christmas, yall, on the door. She would have us dress up for christmas cards. Thats my brother, my sister, my sister joy, and i was jesus. [laughter] jfk championed the space program. I think all of us are sad he never lived to see that day. This is when they visited nasa