program that is informative and highly entertaining. these guys know how to tell a story, and it is a rare treat to have the curtain pulled back by the people that protect the president and the first lady. there is three former secret service agents. his role in stopping an assassination attempt. it was the security chief with the united states olympic committee. joe clancy is with us tonight. he served for president bush, or trailblazer, mrs. bush was tempo. his nearly 30 year career culminated in 2015 when president obama named joe the 24th director of the u.s. secret service. so he was in charge. today he is the chief security officer at comcast corporation. nick trotta is here. they worked on large scale events like leader summits. post 9/11 travel including trips to iraq and afghanistan that you will hear about tonight. he was in yankee stadium as president bush through out the first pitch before game three in the world series. also tonight, spencer geissinger. he was under advance and operations. he oversaw dozens of military and security military agencies and travel including the u.s. secret service. now he is the global director for show call inc. we planned to have former secret service agent kathleen flatley. because of a medical reason she is not able to be here tonight and we are wishing her a speedy recovery. let us welcome them to the stage. >> thank you all. we have a fantastic program tonight and really interesting information on the secret service and how it runs and a lot of bang stories that you will find fascinating. so let's get started. as a former director, can you set the scene with the history of the secret service. >> that is correct. first i have to just say it is a little unusual for agents on stage, we're usually got stage left and stage right, i just also want to give you a warning that because of our training any sudden movements might create -- we already noticed a couple people didn't applaud when we walked in. but the history of the secret service sf a tremendous history. it started on april 14th. there is a lot of count erfeit currency, and they went in and said we have a rampant counterfeit currency and we have to do something about it. and you had his orders, and that night, he went to ford's theater to take in a play, "our american cousin" and we all know what happened. from there we continued to do investigations. from the counterfeit currency, to the plastic, we still do, and into the digital cyber world. we are one of the best in the world at that as well, but most people think of secret service for the protection mission. and in 1901, we started to protect presidents. and it just continued to progress after taking on candidates and we started to take on heads of state to children, wives, spouses, and we will get into some of that. >> can you take a little about the training economy and then the total number of agents? for example this campaign, the presidential campaign coming up we have 24 candidates. how much manpower is that going to require. >> it is a considerable channel. but i think our history proves that we have done a good job handling that. but it is a tremendous challe e challenge. when you look at the history of the country, most of those world events, the secret service was allowing those to take place. a lot of those have to do with training. and that training paid off in world events. >> i think we have a picture that happened of a world event at the white house. tell us a little bit about that. normally you see secret service agents in nice suits. here is a photo of a long gun that is out. >> i remember president busch had, just coming back from a visit, once you get in the gates of the white house, there is a little sense of relief that you accomplished your mission. just as we're pulling up to the oval office area, he will walk up to the oval office and we get over the radio that we have a fence jumper. i was in the right front seat of the limb seen, i said we have a fence jump eer and we'll have to sit here for a few minutes until we get this resolved. and he said where, and he started looking behind him, and looking through, and i was kind of glad for that response. and then after a few seconds goes on, you can't see the fence jumper and i'm not -- it took about three minutes, but i knew the officers, the agents, they would get this person and you don't know are they armed, what do they have, could we have evacuated? yes, but i was confidence that we would get him in a matter of seconds and then i opened the door and let president bush out. and i know from the event that he is smirking because he knew i was sweating through my suit. >>. >> in 1975, you saved president ford's life. tell us that story. i think we have a video to show you of the assassination attempt. and we can talk you through that day. >> it was mid-morning when president ford went ford they are looking at the republican nomination. he was shaking hands working the crowd as poll suggestions sitic. it was a friendly crowd. he reached for every hand in sight. a young woman holding a gun -- they wrestled the young woman to the ground and moved him swiftly to the capitol. >> there you are apprehending the would be assassin. >> i should have had a haircut. at least that is what my mother said when she heard about it. and i was working the shift, the morning shift, and the president was scheduled to speak at the capital. the motorcade is there as scheduled. a large crowd across the street, so he walkedous and he goes "i think i'll walk. it is just across the park. so that immediately causes a scramble with aelgts and police and trying to move through so get him. my position at the time was right at his left shoulder. so as he is walking along shaking hands, i'm concentrating on his hands in a downward motion. don't want anyone to grab too long or take his watch or whatever. i'm looking down. out in the crowd is a member of the charlie manson family, who had aa .45 strapped to her ankl. i saw a hand come up with something in it, and i didn't know at that time. and the minute i hit it i knew it was a gun i yelled out "gun." all of my very best friends with the president leave, with the president. part of the training program, you're on your own, buddy. so she is screaming and the crowd is screaming, and i got the gun here. and i didn't have my vest on, so i'm thinking i don't know if there is more to this that is going to happen, but i know i'm not letting go of her, the crowd is screaming, he has a gun, he has a girl, she is screaming. i keep pushing her away and the president is gone with the agents. i drop her down to the ground. some of the agents and the police from the back of the crowd came forward. and once she was cuffed, and the police, and i went back and rejoined the shift, and i was pretty fast and curious and i sat back to think about how fast it went down. >> what did she say when you -- did she make any comments -- >> she said it didn't go off, but when i hit the 45, i cupped my hand, and i said you see this. it healed way too fast, it was just a little cut, but i think she might have been pulling back, i think i hit the slide. an interesting thing when we got back to air force one and i got pulled off to be interviewed by the fbi, who takes jurisdiction once we have an attempt like that, and mrs. ford was there. when he boarded the plane, he sa -- she said how was your day, and he said not so good. it is a day that changed our country forever, can you walk us through that day. and they were trying to determine who was trying to decap tkacap -- >> yeah, many people can remember where they were that day, the president, i didn't accompany him. and i had espn on, and i was watching whatever sports highlights and i saw the first plane just like everyone else. and it was the second one when we realized that we were under attack. mrs. bush was at the u.s. capitol at the time. so there was a -- it took some time to see what was happening. we wanted to get her away from the capitol. we had known there was three planes down. the pentagon -- the plane had just hit the pentagon, and as i decided to go and connect with mrs. bush has we relocated her from the capital, and as i mentioned earlier there was about six planes that were still unidentified at the time after the plane hitting the pentagon. it was a challenging day because the yiegts had not been attacked we had the president in florida that wanted to come back. the first lady to be teamed up with her and so communication -- we restricted communication because of the nature of what was happening. and the president was relocated to louisiana, as everyone got to see. it took some time. the president wanted to come back. we weren't sure what was happening yet. the air space was controlled, and then it wasn't until later on in the evening that the decision was made by the president that he was adamant that he was going to address the nation from the white house. and then it was at that point that we linked up the president and the first lady. >> joe, what is your recollection of that day? >> i was actually in japan, and with the secretary of treasury o'neal, and we had just arrived from china to japan, and it was 9:00 in the evening. i said, good night, mr. secretary, went to my room, turned on the tv and, just as nick described, saw the airplane crashing into the world trade center and i went down to secretary o'neal, and i said, i don't think that he had seen it just yet, and we immediately tried to get an aircraft back home to the states, but as we know that all of the aircraft were grounded, so it took almost 24 hours to get a military flight to fly back to washington, d.c. >> tell us a little bit about post-9/11 with the development of homeland security and sort of that day sort of revealed a lot of things about how we treated security, and how our government ran with respect to this kind of an attack and sort of the deficiencies that were uncovered and sort of how the department of homeland security came about. >> sure. again, it had developed after 9/11 and, you know, at the time the secret service was under the department of the u.s. treasury, you had other entities, and you had alcohol, tobacco and firearms under treasury and other departments under justice. and so law enforcement and the intelligence community were, you know, in different agencies and the u.s. coast guard was under transportation. so it wasn't until dhs that put it all under one roof. so where you had all of the law enforcement outside of those inside of the department of justice, and so you had this -- and it took some time, and growing pains with it just like, you know, anything else. but, you know, it is one of those moments in history when you can see that the department was created and everybody was under one roof. we were able to communicate. we were able to share, let's say, a little bit better than previous. and then it was getting -- it was, as you mentioned earlier, it was then how does the country move forward? >> right. >> after such a tragic event like that, let alone the new creation of departments and other things that the department of defense were doing and other men and women across the whole united states that were trying to strengthen and make the homeland safe. but it was then the president and first lady, how to move and get the folks moving. because i remember the president saying if he just stayed in the white house, folks in new york and d.c. may not go out. the other parts of the country were affected, but those in new york and d.c., you know, it was right here at home. and when you talk to the folks, you know, up in new york that lived it, it was getting the country back. so then it was creating the movements. >> yeah. so i think a lot of you will remember a few days after -- there were a couple of things. a few days after the attack at the world trade center, president bush actually went to new york city and stood on the rubble pile. and that's where the famous video, if you toured the museum, you see the bullhorn that he actually gave those remarks from. so it was that, going to new york immediately after 9/11, letting the american people know that we will move forward as a country and we will get through this. and an even bigger event, and bigger picture of it, the yankees were in the world series and the mlb had wondered whether to call it off or delay it. and so talk to us about that event, because this is one of the seminole events that brought together the country. >> yes, and if you can remember, he was holding a strategy meeting at camp david shortly thereafter and we were departing, and i was accompanying the president on the trip. and as the president was -- marine one was on the south grounds, and the press were on the south grounds of the white house, and not sure why, but the president when he came out of the oval office, instead of going directly to marine one, he kind of signaled me over. and i wasn't sure if he was calling me over or if there was someone behind me. and i didn't want to turn around because of all the press. well, he had come over and he said guess what, we're going to the world series, yankee stadium. and i went what? but that's how he was. he brought everyone -- he just calmed the whole situation down. you know, it was a stressful period. and i was in shock. i mean, we are getting ready to go to camp david and he calmed everybody down, "nicky, we are going to yankee stadium to the world series." and i forgot the yankees were in the world series. and we would tease each other, as being a big yankee fan. but as we were preparing to go, new york city -- i mean, we had all forces to assist, all the resources, and those that get a chance to watch the espn documentary will see, you know, just the behind-the-scenes stress and the build-up, and everyone in the stadium, you know, had gone through metal detectors. i think billy crystal was already clear, hey, if i have to get to the world series and we have to go through metal detectors, we're going to do it. >> yeah. >> it was a unique time. the planning was, you know, it was difficult, because we're -- it was an extremely stressful period. you have the world series and major league baseball going on. but you have the president of the united states goi ining nott to the stadium but going to the field, to the mound to throw out the first pitch. so it was -- the planning between new york city support, the other federal partners, made the event extremely go forward. >> and the planning to allow him to go out to mound if you saw him, and if you saw the video, and he went from the mound all of the way to the rubber on the mound to throw out the pitch without any security right around him. and all of that was possible because of the planning. tell us a little bit about where agents were and -- >> yeah. so we had -- there's a photo, and the baseball fans picked up right away on it. during the world series and playoffs you have the two extra umpires. well, there was an extra one. >> an extra extra one. >> but again, just in the incident with larry, and you had the agents in the assassination attempt of president ford. as he said they all left him. that's what we're trained to do. the agents are to respond to get the protectant out of the way. and here, again, unique situation. it was a -- just a -- the planning that had gone in between him going to the mound, whether or not he was actually going to, you know, stay for part of the game, stay for the game, where he would sit. so there was a lot that had gone in. we had excellent support. the resources were tremendous. we had the umpires. we had -- the air space, of course, was covered. we had pretty much everyone in media assist us tremendously also by giving access and baseball played a big part. >> the mound at yankee stadium was probably the safest place in the world. >> safest place in the world. >> joe, will you talk to us -- i'm going to segue and meander around with all different topics. tell us a little bit about how secret service protects the children of the first family and sort of what goes into that and the delicacies of, that and sort of how you handle that, because i know that it is a difficult situation sometimes. >> it can be, because the secret service of course wants to protect the children, but you also want to make sure they have, as best as possible, a normal life. and that's very hard when you're in this bubble, and i realize that. my direct exposure of that was more with mrs. obama. and i remember sitting down with mrs. obama. it was really the first time i sat down with her at length, and it was all about mrs. obama wanted her kids to have a normal life, going to school plays, going to school, going to basketball games and so on and so forth. and i wanted to make sure she knew we had the same goals. and as kids get older, you know, in their teen years, it's more challenging. as can you imagine, no teenager wants guys like me looking like -- coming out on a date, you know. [ laughter ] so that's always the balance and you try to do the best you can, but you want to make sure they're in a safe environment. >> great. a huge part of any successful presidency requires foreign policy and foreign travel. can you -- and this is for the panel. maybe, joe, you can start out with some thoughts on it, but traveling, taking the president overse overseas, he doesn't fly on a commercial plane and go up to hertz and get a car and go off to his meetings. there's a tremendous amount of planning, and it's staggering. and you would be shocked to know how many planes full of equipment and materials go overseas any time the president travels, but can you talk to us about that? >> you're exactly right, spence. it's really moving the white house. when the president travels overseas, we're moving the white house. and with that, the limousines on these planes that you see on the cargo planes, you can fit six to eight cars on the aircraft. and you can fit helicopters on the aircraft. so, everything moves in this foreign country, but one of the biggest, and beyond the logistics, the biggest challenge is the advance work, because you don't have the same authority that you have within the states, and you are relying on the foreign countries to do what you want, and there is a lot of negotiating back and forth and a lot of nudging back and forth because you know what you want and what you need to have a safe environment, but we don't always get to that point. >> and so reciprocity is a big part of it when you're negotiating whether you can carry your weapons in a foreign country or not, and whether we can fly marine one, and china would always fight us on whether we could fly marine one. so talk about that how you would negotiate and then hopefully when their leader comes to the states, you know, it's an even exchange. >> you go ahead. >> because we have a good video to show you in a moment how there was a negotiation and then there wasn't an even exchange. >> the advanced teams would go out roughly 15, sometimes 20 days, depending on the nature of the visit and the type of summit. but, you know, again, a lot of these leaders are also coming here to the united states. but, you know, we hold a pretty firm requirement. we're not going to allow the president and the first lady to be unescorted. we're just not. you know, the advanced teams really have to push on it. and sometimes we've got to get the political folks. we've got to get the ambassadors, we've got to get the chiefs of staff, the director of the white house advance team to negotiate, you know, our requirements. because when you get into the summit -- and you'll see the video later, but when you get into the summit, there are 30 counterparts or 20 counterparts of security, and what do you do with the security folks? as joe was saying, it is the cars, food. it's medical supplies and it is the whole white house is moving regardless of the length of time that the president is traveling. so there is an entire package that goes along with this, let alone the cars. and then have you all the spares, right? and you look at the aircrafts. and as joe said, marine one. so you've got to have these backup plans and you've got to have all the medical. so, it is a big footprint, but it's all about -- it's not just about evacuating the president and the first lady in a threat. it's also allowing the president to fulfill the president's duties to run the country, to govern the united states. and wherever the president is, that machine follows. and we're part of that, along with the military, the medical unit, so that the president can fulfill his duties as the chief executor. >> the president can literally do anything in a foreign country that he could do at the white house. every piece of technology, equipment and personnel and resources, he has when he is on a foreign trip. let's run a video, because we have an interesting video of a foreign trip to chile. do you want to narrate this, nick? >> we had just -- this was an asia-pacific summit. so it's 30 countries, the countries that touch the pacific ocean. and the president and first lady had just arrived, but prior to that, they took -- the chileans had taken the secret service advance agent away from the site. and so we had a slight delay, but at this point, i thought that it was okay to go, so we left. the president and first lady, we talked about it. as we went, what happened was that i stayed back a little bit to allow the press to take the photograph of the president, the first lady along with the president of chile, and the first lady of chile. and then security started closing in behind the president. and he now hears me yelling. [ laughter ] so he was trained well. [ laughter ] so it was, i was fortunate, because -- [ laughter ] and so it is like moses parting the water. and the first lady is here, so she can attest to -- they heard -- they were hitting me, and i'm not sure why, but in all seriousness, i actually thought for that moment -- because this is like a game, right? it's like the security part is like -- you know, it's a dangerous game. and we're maintaining the president. we have the president. at that moment, i actually thought that today is the day, because i was the only foreign security allowed inside. i thought today was the day that -- they were hitting me, and no one has ever done that before. they were grabbing my arms. i was yelling, get your hands off me. what are you doing it for? i'm right-handed. so my weapon is on my right side and that's where they were hitting me. it was really confusing. then the doors were closing, which was definitely, you know, a concern. so as i got -- push my way up the stairs, the president and first lady heard the commotion, heard the yelling. my chilean counterpart actually tried to help, but the others weren't buying in, and they form this had wall. and then the president, as i said, like moses, kind of came and parted the waters and i came in. but again, as spence said, the advance team, not only secret service, but the white house advance team worked it out to ensure that the secret service was going to have the representative in with the president and accompany the president and first lady at all times. then something broke down. it broke down just 10 minutes prior to departure, and then we were able to get the agent back. but, spence, if you remember, they took the white house staff representative, along with the secret service agent, and took them away and actually put them in a room, and they secured it with an officer. and now, we had no one, and then they -- finally, when we decided we were not going, we were waiting, that's when they brought the individual back. so even though last minute, things change. you have these agreements and then last minute, things change. >> i remember a trip -- the president's last trip to china for the olympics. i had made two or three trips to china to negotiate with the preadvanced team and the survey team to negotiate for the credentials and the passes and the permits and the vehicle placards and we were on air force one flying to beijing and that still hadn't been worked out. so sometimes it just -- >> yeah. one thing to add to that -- and it's not that the united states, there was all this negative press after, but the united states -- it's not that, you know, we're tops and we want to, you know, be the rulers. we recognize, and so do our counterparts in the foreign countries, that the united states president, whoever the president is, brings in the highest threat. the highest threat is against the u.s. president. and they recognize that. however, at these summits, whether it's the g8, g20 or in this case, asia-pacific, where there's 30 heads of states, there's 30 detail leaders. but again, the united states, with support of the white house, of course, ensured to hold that where the president and first lady are never unescorted. and when they come here to the united states, the secret service does play a good partner with them. but they also don't bring that footprint. and, spence, you have worked with many of these. the foreign governments don't come with that big machine. >> right. we are often -- and when i mentioned the reciprocity earlier, we try and give them everything that we have asked for in their country, we give them when they come on their trip. >> absolutely. >> go ahead, joe. >> one comment, because you saw president bush's support coming back for nick there, and also, to say that there is another event where there is a state dinner planned, and we noticed that when we were doing the advanced that magnetometers were not in place at the white house in a foreign country and nobody was checking for weapons, and nick was my supervisor at the time, my boss, and i called back. and i said, nick, i don't think it's -- my recommendation is that we don't go, because we can't vouch for 250 people un g unmag'd. and the result is they scrapped the state dinner and we don't want to do that, because of the political ramifications here, but it showed the support that president bush had for the security here. eventually they had a 14 on each side dinner, including the director of the secret service at the time. but that support is very important. >> let's talk -- let's move to post-presidency. larry, you ran president ford's detail. you were the sac of his detail post-presidency. talk to us about that, the challenges of a post-presidency without all the support that the president had when he was in office. >> you know, people don't understand how difficult it is to cover a former president. like i had former president ford and mrs. ford seven months in vail. [ laughter ] five months in vail, and seven months in palm springs. it was very, very stressful. [ laughter ] much different with a former president is that you no longer have a military plane, air force one. so you want to make sure you have your american airlines mileage card because you're going to spend a lot of time. traveling with the former president and mrs. ford is a little different because you are on a public plane. they want to greet him. president ford had a great system. he would get on the plane, and flying in first class made me i had to fly first then, too. but he would go on the inside seat, and i'd be on the aisle, he would immediately go to sleep, so to speak. people would come by and go, oh. and they would go by. but he was -- both he and mrs. ford were just spectacular to work for. and, you know, he was great on the golf course. bob hope made jokes about him, and bob hope said that he is the only president that could play two golf courses simultaneously. [ laughter ] and the jokes kept going on and on, but a very gracious couple. it was a privilege to be on their detail. >> great. nick, let's -- you and i have had the privilege to do a couple of secret trips. joe, you were on them as well. talk to us a little bit about what it takes to plan a secret trip by a sitting president to a foreign country without anybody knowing. >> well, finding out on the first one, and so getting call and there were only a few of us in on it, and we went to the room to get the briefing. there was a long table. i actually remember that and so there were only about five in the room, and mr. hagan, and i remember a tray of chocolate chip cookies there that were not for us. and i remember mr. hagan coming in and saying, what i'm about to tell you is from the president and it's not negotiable. the president is going to baghdad. i'm not sure why, but i shot up and went, what, what? no. and i went right for those cookies. i actually unraveled it and started eating them. i looked at the director and realized i was an adult and was supposed to have some responsibility. so i went back. but from that moment forward we had five days to plan for this trip. it wasn't just taking a sitting president into a war zone, it was secretly doing it. the white house or any place, the ranch in this case where we left from, it's not set up to sneak the president out, especially when we did the second ones at the white house. and mrs. bush will recall on the second one when the president -- i went up early in the morning and he had his sunglasses and ballcap on. and maria said he was in the hallway, and i took a peek, and barney was there and miss beasley and i said sir, we're ready. and i said the glasses? he said shhh. and i went -- and he said you said we're sneaking out. i don't want barney to know. i wanted to say, just get in the elevator, but he actually said in the elevator, nick, you know, like, chill. i said, sir, i don't know if i can do any more of these, because this is the second one. the planning is that when you are secretly doing it, there were secret service people, and we couldn't share information with, let alone folks on the detail. it wasn't a want to know. it was a need to know. we had to safely, successfully take the president out so that the president could fulfill the mission. did i want to go there? of course not. but that is not what we are all about, and the president was adamant when we went there and, spence, as you know, we agreed to three hours on the ground, which we got about 3 1/2 or 4 but the president was clear he was going to serve every thanksgiving meal to every soldier. and it was a moving moment. then he met with some of the leaders in the community. that was the photo you're seeing now. >> that is in the chow hall. >> yes, in the chow hall. but you're also not telling the military. and air force one, colonel tillman did an outstanding job of taking this aircraft, change the codes, as he was talking about, flew without the call signs. and then arriving in country, not only where the men and women in awe when they saw the president, but the other folks on the ground had no clue. so it was a team effort, t only five days. >> yes, five days and literally 99.9% of the white house staff did not know. most of the secret service agents that weren't on the detail or weren't going to be involved with it did not know. members of the president's family probably did not know. so sneaking the president out of the white house, if any of you have been to washington, all around the white house, tourists are everywhere. you can't just drive him out. so there was a lot that went into getting him out of there, getting him to andrews, aboard the plane and then having the plane take off and then fly all the way to iraq without another airliner passing it in the sky and saying, there goes air force one. and that's happened. >> that happens, right. and the first one, if you remember, we left crawford and we had a switch in andrews because they had to leave with a full tank of gas and then we flew direct. >> joe, do you have -- >> in the next time with the s.a.c. and i was involved with the branch to helping get out of the white house complex, and then president obama went over on one of those missions. fortunately, i had the experience of watching nick and how his team worked it. one rule was that if it leaked out, we would not do all the stops. we would limit the time on the ground. and as we were leaving turkey to go to iraq, it did leak out. so once again, you're in a position where you have to make a recommendation which you know is not popular, and the recommendation was we just go to the military base. there were a lot of discussions about it. but once again, at that point, the obama administration, there was a big discussion on air force one and they were very supportive. it means a lot to the agents, of course, when you get that kind of support. >> can i add to that for a second? >> go ahead. >> on that trip which joe did not mention, joe was a special agent with president obama and the assistant director and we were leaving as he said from istanbul to go to afghanistan and it was a secret trip. so they were planning the trip, but prior to departing the last venue in istanbul, as joe said, the word was getting out, and the staff were still working on the time of the trip, how much time on the ground. and the staff, again, because of their priorities and their mission, were extending it. and joe was holding firm -- he wouldn't say this, so i'm going to embarrass him. but it's an important point, because it shows the relationship -- regardless of what you read in the newspapers, the relationship of the president and first lady with the detail is tremendous, because they recognize and support. in this particular case, and i was present for it, the president had his senior advisers and asking for the plan. what is the schedule? and they were giving this long, long, we will do this, this and extend. he looked at joe, president obama looked at joe, saw he obviously wasn't buying into the extended program and said, "joe, what schedule do you prefer," and he said the shorter one. and the president said, that's it, and walked out, and we went to the cars. the decision was made regardless of the senior staff. he relied on joe. >> yep. >> yes, thanks. [ applause ] here at the bush center there is a new special exhibit "away from the white house." let's talk about where our presidents go when they are not staying in the white house. so let's cover their private residences where they go and little bit about camp david. anybody? start with larry. >> well, we went to vail. [ laughter ] the hard part of that is when he was in office was the advance team, as you said, sometimes two to three weeks out ahead, and so, i was a skier and still am, i think. so the advance team would have to go out for two weeks ahead of the president to vail for mountain familiarization. [ laughter ] this required us getting up with the ski patrol at the crack of dawn to ski fresh powder and familiarize ourselves with all the runs, to make sure that there was no one hiding in the trees, et cetera. but it was a pretty interesting operation that we moved about the mountain in such a way that we are. great outfit, larry. but we move about the mountain without people being able to really trail us the way we ran our formations, and we would go into a ski line, obviously, to the ski instructor line. we would go to the line. we would be up the mountain, down a run and gone. so, we were able to move about without interrupting the normal ski days of everyone else. so it worked out pretty well. >> great. nick, talk about the ranch. >> and with that, what is important about that, again, is the first families are trying to live a normal life in this bubble. and, you know, as larry said about skiing, the secret service has to take this private nature when they go into this public nature. president reagan, horseback rider, president bush 41, what did he not do, right? boats, water. president bush, running, biking, and president clinton, president bush, president obama, all the other activities. so the secret service had to train agents on horseback, and u.s. park police played a tremendous role. because it's about how to extract or evacuate the president and first lady while they're on horseback. how about getting to them in water safety, in boat patrol? president bush, george h.w. bush, 41, i remember being at kennebunkport and the press would be around and they would say, "how many fish did you catch"? and he would say, fish? with all these boats around, they scared the fish away. >> and for you as well, that boat "fidelity" it was not a slow boat, because he would drive it at full throttle. >> full throttle. >> we're making light of the training but it is serious, because they have to learn to mountain bike. and president bush mountain bikes on his ranch in crawford and he is a serious mountain biker, and you have to be able to keep up with him. >> before the mountain bike was the running, because in the campaign, he averaged and i hope he is not listening, but he averaged around which is a tremendous 7:40 pace, and i was not a runner. in fact, i did not like to run. he ran a race in the d.c. and ran a 6:40 pace for three miles. but at the ranch and wherever else he ran, he was averaging about a 7.10 pace. so just the training that have alone, the agents with equipment, the radio, a weapon, no vest. and then president bush started these heat runs. i didn't know what a heat run was, and neither did he when he created it, but he formed this 100-degree club which later went to his mountain bike. so it's -- you could start out thinking, you're in pretty good shape. it's finishing the race with the president and do you have enough energy to hopefully and successfully evacuate or attend to the medical, so you're definitely in training all the time. but it was a -- you had to look at formations, you had to look at -- with 41, as everyone knows, kennebunkport, the home is surrounded by water. so the coast guard assisted, but the secret service agents had to prepare by training in water safety, boat handling, boat safety on how to extract the president from the water. it's not just helo lift from the water. it was putting him maybe in a boat and bringing him to shore. so we had to get armored vehicles aligned, we had imaginary lines, the smart ones figured out how to divide up the atlantic ocean and we have mark lowery, who was on the detail with us, and former agent here in dallas. you recall kennebunkport. we would have to, you know, move the cars and get ready to receive the president if he had to come on shore. so the president would cross over this imaginary line, and you were with the first lady. you spent time with tranquility, with barbara bush. and they would say the president's in the zone, we would move the cars. we wait ten minutes, and then we start moving cars around again, and it was -- you know, it was training involved in it, but we're moving and you're kind of disrupting the town also, but all of that comes down to spence, as you said earlier, as we started and talked about training, it all comes down to training, and the success of training was the successful attempt that lowery prevented, his training. >> let's talk about that in closing, we just have a minute or two left. let's talk about how you're trained to make a split-second decision. often times, you know, it's just you have zero -- you just have to react. how are you trained to do that? >> go ahead, joe, why don't you start? >> you go ahead. you've got the training part of it. i was just going to say it is what it is. the training that you have to do, and then it comes down to the person of can you react when the time comes in the right way? >> and i think of jerry par would often talk about his experience in 1981 during the reagan assassination attempt, and most of you have seen the video of that. look at tim mccarthy, when the first shot rang out, tim turned around and made himself big. that's not a natural instinct when you hear a gunshot, to make yourself big. it's usually to cover yourself, get behind cover, concealment. he made himself big to protect the president and that's from repetitive training that our training staff would do so well. >> this is sort of our wrap up. sometimes with all the greatest security, the most trained personnel, the best equipment, sometimes the president just has to take matters into his own hands. and in baghdad, he had to fulfill the old texas two-shoe two-step right here. he was pretty quick. well, this concludes our presentation. this concludes our panel. mrs. bush, thank you very much for having us. we really enjoyed being here. >> thank you. >> joe? >> spence, if you don't mind, we all felt very honored to be down here today. we've had fun up here telling stories and all, but we certainly thank the bush family, the extended bush family for all they've done for the secret service over the years, but when you go -- we told some stories here tonight, but when you go to the bush library and see the enormity of what they've done for this country, it just makes you very proud. so, mrs. bush, thank you. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you to spence, joe nick and larry for a fantastic program. i told you it would be both informative and entertaining, and they delivered as we knew they would. thank you all for coming. tonight you'll be exiting through the museum. please take a few minutes if you can to stop by and visit our new special exhibit, presidential retreats away from the white house which will be open until 8:15, and remember tickets are available at bushcenter.org for our next engage program, our annual highland capital lecture, on june 12th, dana perino, with a conversation about global flash points with ian bremer and neil ferguson. thank you, and have a good evening. [ applause ] we're featuring american history tv programs this week as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. this evening, pulitzer prize winning cartoonist pat oliphant and his work are subjects of discussion at the university of virginia, focusing on president's lyndon johnson through ronald reagan. american history tv tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. >> our mission continues, to provide an unfiltered view of government. already this year, we brought you primary election coverage. the presidential impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of c-span's public affairs programming on television, online or listen on our free radio app and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily washington journal program or through our social media feeds. c-span, created by private industry. america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. next, on the presidency, cia chief historian david robarge talks about the evolving nature of the relationship between presidents and cia directors and how it's influenced by the president's needs and

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