Michael: Alright Kevin, I'm going to say a government agency, and you give me the first thing that comes to mind. Ready? The Secret Service. Kevin: Sunglasses, earpieces, and the overwhelming urge to look stoic while a president does something incredibly reckless. Like jogging into a crowd. Michael: That's not far off, actually. And it's the core of the book we're diving into today: Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service by Carol Leonnig. Kevin: Oh, I've heard of this one. It’s got this reputation for being a really tough, no-holds-barred look at the agency. Michael: It is. And Leonnig is the perfect person to write this. She's a five-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The Washington Post, and one of those Pulitzers was for exposing the very Secret Service failures she details in this book. She's not just a historian; she's an investigator who broke these stories. Kevin: Wow, so she's not just reporting on history, she's reporting on history she uncovered. That gives it a whole different level of credibility. Michael: Exactly. The book is this gripping, often terrifying journey through the agency's history, showing how it’s been defined not by its successes, but by its failures. And her book starts with the one failure that defines them all: Dallas, 1963.

Michael: Before the Kennedy assassination, the Secret Service was a surprisingly small, almost quaint operation. Most people don't know this, but protecting the president wasn't even their original job. They were created in 1865 to fight counterfeit money. Kevin: Counterfeit money? So they were basically Treasury cops. How do you go from chasing guys with printing presses in their basements to jumping in front of bullets for the most powerful person on Earth? Michael: Through tragedy. After President McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Congress officially tasked them with presidential protection. But even by the Kennedy era, they were shockingly under-resourced. In 1961, their entire budget was just $5 million. Kevin: Hold on. Five million dollars? For the entire agency? That's less than a Super Bowl ad costs today. That's insane. Michael: It is. And they only had about three hundred agents in total. The White House detail, the elite group protecting JFK, had only thirty-four agents. They were overworked, exhausted, and a lot of their training was learned on the job. There was no formal academy for protection like there is today. Kevin: So they were basically making it up as they went along. That puts the whole Dallas situation in a terrifying new light. Michael: It really does. Leonnig paints a vivid picture of the days leading up to Dallas. The agents were running on fumes. Kennedy's schedule was brutal. And there was a culture of... well, laxity. The book details this infamous night in Fort Worth, the night before the assassination, where several agents on the detail were out drinking at a club called the Cellar until the early morning hours. Kevin: You're kidding me. The night before they go to Dallas, a city they knew was hostile to Kennedy, some of the agents are out partying? Michael: It's one of the most controversial findings Leonnig reports. It wasn't every agent, but enough that it pointed to a systemic problem of exhaustion and a breakdown in discipline. They were on a grueling trip, and they let their guard down. Kevin: That’s just… wow. So when the motorcade rolls into Dealey Plaza, you have a team that's under-resourced, undertrained, and exhausted. Michael: Precisely. And then the shots ring out. The chaos Leonnig describes is chilling. The first shot is fired, and many agents think it's a firecracker or a car backfiring. The driver of the presidential limo, Bill Greer, actually slows the car down. Kevin: He slows down? Why on earth would he do that? Your instinct should be to floor it. Michael: In hindsight, yes. But in the moment, there was confusion. Was it a threat? Where was it coming from? Their training hadn't prepared them for a sniper attack from a high-powered rifle. They were used to thinking about threats from the crowd. So Greer slows down to assess, and in that moment of hesitation, the fatal shots are fired. Kevin: And that's when Clint Hill, the agent on Jackie Kennedy's detail, makes his famous leap onto the back of the car. Michael: Yes, it's this incredible act of heroism. He's the only one who reacts instantly. He scrambles onto the trunk, shielding the First Lady with his body as she's reaching for a piece of the President's skull. It's a moment of pure, selfless bravery. But as Leonnig points out, it's a moment of bravery that should never have been necessary. The system had already failed. Kevin: So the modern Secret Service, the one we think of with the advanced tech and the military-style formations, was essentially born from the blood and chaos of that day. Michael: Absolutely. The Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination, tore into the Secret Service for its failures. And in response, the agency was completely reinvented. The budget exploded, the number of agents skyrocketed, and they developed the rigorous training and advance-planning protocols that define them today. Every major change was a direct reaction to the failures in Dallas. Kevin: It's a brutal origin story. It seems like the agency only learns through failure. But that sets up a really interesting dynamic. If the agents failed, what about the president himself? The book seems to suggest that sometimes, the person they're protecting is their own worst enemy.

Michael: That's the second major theme of the book, and it's fascinating. The agents can have the best training and technology in the world, but none of it matters if the president refuses to follow protocol. And Kennedy was notorious for it. Kevin: Right, the jogging into the crowd thing I mentioned. He really did that? Michael: Oh, constantly. Leonnig tells this incredible story about Kennedy being in Santa Monica. He's at his brother-in-law Peter Lawford's house, and on a whim, he decides to go for a swim in the ocean. He just slips out the back, crosses a public beach, and dives in. Kevin: Oh no. I can just picture the agents' panic. Michael: Absolute chaos. The beachgoers recognize him and start swarming him in the water. The agents, who were guarding the front of the house, have to sprint down to the beach and form a human wall to get him out safely. The pictures were on the front page of the L.A. Times the next day. It was a huge embarrassment for the Service. Kevin: But it's more than just a desire for public interaction, right? The book hints at darker things. Michael: It does. Kennedy's extramarital affairs were a constant security nightmare. Agents were often instructed to look the other way, to pretend they didn't see women being escorted into the president's private quarters. One agent, Larry Newman, is quoted saying, "We had to acquiesce to a form of behavior that was dangerous—not to us, but to the country and to the protection of the president." Kevin: That's an impossible position. You're sworn to protect this person, but you're also being made complicit in behavior that could get them blackmailed or killed. It's a total moral and professional conflict. Michael: And it didn't stop with Kennedy. The book shows how this dynamic played out with other presidents. With Nixon, it wasn't recklessness; it was paranoia. He didn't just ignore the Secret Service; he tried to weaponize them. Kevin: What do you mean, weaponize them? Michael: Nixon was obsessed with his enemies. He saw conspiracies everywhere. Leonnig uncovers that he tried to use the Secret Service as his own personal spy agency. He ordered them to wiretap his own brother, Don, because he was worried about his business dealings. He tried to get agents he considered loyal to spy on his political rival, Ted Kennedy. Kevin: That's a complete abuse of power. It turns the protectors into political operatives. It's like being a bodyguard for a celebrity who wants you to spy on the opening band. Michael: It's a perfect analogy. And then you get to Clinton, and it's a different flavor of the same problem. Like Kennedy, he had this incredible charisma and a desire to connect with people, which meant constantly pushing security boundaries. But he also brought the personal scandals. Kevin: Troopergate, Paula Jones, and eventually, Monica Lewinsky. Michael: Exactly. And the book details how agents on his detail were aware of his activities. They knew his jogs were sometimes cover for trysts. They were put in that same impossible position as the Kennedy agents: what do you do when the person you're protecting is creating the biggest risk? Kevin: It seems like the agency is constantly caught between a rock and a hard place. On one side, you have the public and the media scrutinizing every failure. On the other, you have presidents who, for reasons of politics, ego, or personal appetite, actively undermine their own safety. Michael: And that long, grinding history of being under-resourced, politically manipulated, and forced into ethical compromises creates the perfect storm for the modern decline that Leonnig documents so powerfully.

Kevin: Okay, so the book's title is 'Zero Fail,' which is the agency's mission. But it sounds like the author is arguing that's become a fantasy. What does this "modern decline" look like? Michael: It's a death by a thousand cuts. After 9/11, their mission exploded. They were put in charge of "National Special Security Events" like the Super Bowl, their budget was stretched thin, and they were hemorrhaging experienced agents who were tired of the brutal travel and low morale. This created a culture that Leonnig describes as deeply toxic. Kevin: Toxic in what way? Michael: A culture of covering up mistakes rather than learning from them. A promotion system based on loyalty, not competence. And a growing, dangerous gap between the leadership and the rank-and-file agents. The agents on the ground felt completely betrayed. Kevin: And this leads to actual, tangible failures. Michael: Shocking failures. In 2011, a man named Oscar Ortega-Hernandez fired a semiautomatic rifle at the White House. He hit the residential quarters, where one of the Obama daughters was. And the Secret Service didn't realize the White House had been shot for four days. Kevin: Hold on. Someone shot at the White House, the home of the President of the United States, and they didn't know for four days? How is that even possible? Michael: A complete breakdown in protocol and communication. The officers on duty that night were told to stand down by a supervisor who thought the sounds were just a car backfiring. No one followed up. It was a housekeeper who finally found a broken window and a chunk of concrete and realized what had happened. Kevin: That is terrifying. It's not just a failure; it's a symptom of a deeply broken system. Michael: And it gets worse. In 2014, a man with a knife jumps the White House fence, sprints across the lawn, and gets deep inside the mansion before he's finally tackled. He ran past multiple layers of security. Then you have the scandals, like the agents in Cartagena, Colombia, who were caught soliciting prostitutes right before President Obama was due to arrive for a summit. Kevin: It sounds like the agency is coming apart at the seams. The title 'Zero Fail' starts to sound deeply ironic. Michael: That's exactly Leonnig's point. The 'Zero Fail' mission is what they aspire to, but the reality has become a desperate struggle to avoid catastrophe, often relying on sheer luck. She quotes one former agent who says the agency's strategy is just to "throw bodies at the problem." No strategy, just reaction. Kevin: And this all happens while the political environment is getting more and more polarized and the threats are getting more complex. Michael: Precisely. The book ends by covering the challenges of the Trump years, where the president's frequent trips to his own properties strained the budget to the breaking point, and his rhetoric often inflamed the very crowds the agents were trying to secure.

Michael: When you pull it all together, Zero Fail is more than just a history of the Secret Service. It's a powerful and frankly alarming story about institutional decay. Leonnig shows how an agency, born from failure and forged in crisis, has been worn down by decades of political manipulation, cultural rot, and a fundamental misunderstanding of its own mission. Kevin: It seems the core tension is that we, as a country, want two contradictory things. We want our presidents to be safe, to have this invisible shield of perfect protection. But we also want them to be one of us, to be accessible, to shake hands and kiss babies. The Secret Service is caught in the middle of that contradiction. Michael: And Leonnig's argument is that the agency is losing that battle. The trust between the agents and their leadership is broken. The trust between the agency and the presidents they protect is frayed. The book is a wake-up call. It argues that this isn't just about protecting one person; it's about protecting the institution of the presidency and, by extension, the stability of American democracy. Kevin: It really makes you wonder, in an era of such intense political division, what does it even mean to protect the 'symbol' of the presidency when the institution itself is under so much stress? It's a question that feels more urgent now than ever. Michael: It's a heavy but essential read. We'd love to hear what you all think. Does this change how you see the people in the black suits? Let us know on our social channels. Kevin: This is Aibrary, signing off.