>> up next, investigative journalist, ronald kessler, discusses what secret service agents have revealed about our presidents over the years and talks about the recent scandles involving the agency. he spoke at barnes & noble book sellers in washington, dc. this is about 50 minutes.

>> thank you very much. it's a pleasure to be here. as you can tell from the title of my books, i like to write about secret subjects, preferably very challenging subjects that have consequences for society. i might be perverse because if the subject is too easy, i don't want to do it. this sometimes gets me into trouble. when i did a book called "moscow station" i revealed a kgb archivist had defected to the fbi. usually it's the cia but this person wanted to defect to the fbi. i knew he was safe in the united states, and nevertheless i heard from inside the fbi that they'd opened a leak investigation, and

that they were going to send agents out to my house to interview me. so i went through my mind how i would great them, offer them coffee,s should them and develop them as sources. i covered the fbi at the "washington post," and the editor thought i knew what fbi agents looked like but there was a ring on my bell, and in maryland, a very quiet place, very few people ring the bell if opened the door and there were these two very intense looking young men with narrow ties and white shirts, and i said, well, where have you been? i've been expecting you. come on in. and they looked at me strangely, a little scared, and they held out these pamphlets, the watchtower. you might have thought i'd planned the individual who ran

across the white house lawn to get into the white house to get publicity for my book. that's not true. on the other hand, in my book, i did predict a lot of the scandals that we see now, based on the corner-cutting and laxness of the secret service. it's not the agents who are actually brave and dedicated and will take a bullet for the president. it's, rather, the management that has created a culture that rewards agents for keeping their mouths shut and perpetrating the myth that secret service is invincible and pun u-s agents as who point out problems or potential threats. a major focus of the book is what agency behind the scenes, because they really get to know the real character of our leaders and that can be pretty shocking. for example, hillary clinton is

so nasty to agents who protect her that being assigned to her detail is considered a form of punishment. the worst assign independent the secret service. and yet here's this woman who claims to be compassionate, care about the little people, a champion of the middle class, and yet behind the scenes she treats the same people with contempt. what does that tell you about her character and how we should choose our president. do we choose them on how well they smile on tv, what they promise, which often they renege on, or do we choose them on the same criteria we use in the rest of our live, when we choose a friend or a new employee, anybody in our lives, we choose them based on their character. we would never associate with someone who treated people who helped them with nastiness, and contempt, and we treat -- it's

like on track record, what have they actually done? what have the accomplished another nor accomplished? that's why you learn a lot in this book about how we should be choosing our presidents. it's a totally apolitical book. the book says that president obama and michelle obama treat their agents with respect and consideration. they'll invite them to dinner. on the other hand, agents have been dismayed to overhear mrs. obama to urge her husband to be more aggressive, and runs and sighting with blacks in racial controversies. the book reveals that joe biden, first of all, likes to skinny dip, which offends female secret service agents. this occurs both at his home at the vice president's residence in washington, and also his home in wilmington, delware. more seriously, when biden goes

back to wilmington, which he does several times a week -- that's another issue -- he will order agents to keep the military aide with the nuclear football at least a mile indy the motorcade because he wants to have this image of the regular joe, a man of the people so he doesn't want to have a big motorcade. meanwhile if president obama were taken out, we would be totally defenseless against nuclear attack because there would not be time for the military with the football to catch up with biden so that he could unleash a retaliatory strike. on top of all that, it has cost be the taxpayers a million dollars for biden's trips on air force ii back and forth to wilmington. it's one thing to go barring and fortha few times a year but he has a vice president's residence in washington we pay for in including five navy stewards who take care of every need,

including making pastrieses every night, and biden treats air force 2 like his personal taxi and will go back and forth twice in one day, sometimes even go back to play golf with obama and then go back to wilmington, and the cost has been a million dollars since biden took office, and at the same time, biden claims to be -- the sheriff who is going to reduce government cost. this is he hypocrisy that goes on that you see in the book "the first family detail." in contrast, president reagan was one of the nicest presidents. he would spend time schmoosing with agents. when we went to air force one, he went to the cockpit and greeted the pilots. remembered their kids name. jimmy carter did that once in his term.

jimmy carter was another phony, pretended to be a peanut farmer and manned of the people and yet he told his agents he didn't want them to say hello to him on the way to the oval office. too much bother to say hello to another human being. he would pretend to carry his own luggage in the front of the cameras but as soon as the cameras were gone he would give the luggage too aides to carry or he would -- or the luggage would actually be empty. sometimes he would come into the oval office at 5:00 in the morning and tell the press office to tell the press that he was in there working hard for the american people in at the oval office at 5:00 a.m., but he would fall asleep on the sofa and the secret service agents would see him dose off. so -- doze off. so these are character traits that aren't always public. but when we know about them we

need to pay attention. reagan, one day was going into the elevator at the residence, and an aide came up to him and told him that donna rice's affair with gary hart was about to be in the paper the next day and reagan said, well, boys will be boys, then he went up the elevatorrive his path and as he was get ought he said, but boys will not be president. after reagan was diagnosed with alzheimer's, he said to an agent, well there, must be some positive side to this. maybe i'll meet a new friend every day. that was the great optimism of president reagan. the book reveals that the reason that john hinkley was able to shoot president reagan is that the reagan white house staff overruled the secret service to let spectators within 15 feet of reagan as he came out of the

washington hilton. totally unscreened. and the secret service did not want that, but they caved to what the reagan white house wanted. so, ironically it was reagan0s own staff that really caused the assassination attempt, and this has never come out before. it's confirmed on the record, both by the agent who was assigned to teach what they call the reagan attempt at the secret service training facility and also by peter wallace, who did a report for the treasury department when he was general counsel. the secret service was then within treasury. the report never said that it was reagan's white house staff that was responsible for this. wallace later became white house counsel under reagan and confirmed on the record as well that is exactly what happened. going back, lyndon johnson was

totally out of control. of course, back then, the press never reported notify -- any of this. he would sit on the toilet and defecate in front o aides. he would hold a press conference at his ranch in texas and urinate in front of reporters, including female reporters. when he went into air force one he had this routine of immediately stripping naked as soon as he got on the airplane, even with his own daughters and his wife there in the airplane. one day when he was vice president, johnson was late for an eye appointment with jfk. he was being driven by the secret service from the capitol to the white house at 5:00 p.m., rush hour, and he was late, and so he told the secret service agent, who was driving to drive up on the sidewalk, get there faster. the agent refused. the sidewalk was full of pedestrians. johnson took a newspaper and hit the agent on the head and said,

you're fired. this is the kind of thing that went on every day. one agent said if this guy were not president he would be in a mental hospital. yet we entrusted our country and the lives of our military, who went to vietnam, under his direction, to this guy who was really a maniac. and so when you really peel back the onion you find that we really have made a lot of poor judgments when it comes to electing our presidents and our vice presidents. the secret service, despite the recent publicity, overall does do a good job. when they get a threat, they investigate, and they put the threats into one of three categories. class three is the most serious, where the person really has the intent of carrying out an assassination-has the ability.

in that case when the president visits that person's home town, agents will visit him or her, and warn him to stay away from the president, warn him he'll be watched until the president leaves, and he will be watched. on the other hand, a class one threat is someone who just blurts out in a bar, wish i could kill a president. he is drunk. turns out after investigation there was no real intent, and most likely that person will not be prosecuted because it is a federal crime to threaten the president. one time president george h.w. bush was out greeting people at the gate of the white house. he liked to do that. agents didn't like that. they wanted to screen them. then a story appeared in the "washington post" bush was doing

that, and then agents noticed a sort of classic lone assassin individual, someone who fits the profile of a lone assassin, namely someone who is smiling when everyone else is not, or vice versa. everyone is smiling and he is frowning. everyone else is wearing summer clothes, he is wearing a winter overcoat. and they patted him down and, sure enough, he had a weapon, pistol, and most likely would have used it. one of the most bizarre stories in this book, the first family detail, is when, again, george w. bush was going to enid, oklahoma, when he was campaigning for re-election, and the secret service did their usual advance work. they talked to log law enforcement to see if there were any threats out there, local law enforcement said there's a psychic in town who has been incredibly reliable in the past

and has led us to the bodies of murder victims, and she said she has had this vision that when bush comes to town, he's going to be assassinated by a sniper on an overpass. well, the agents were, of course, embarrassed to take this seriously, but at the same time they did, and they went and interviewed this woman, and they said, you know anything more about this? she said, i know that the limousines of the motorcade are already in town. they said do know where? the air force base. k somehow is? she went out and pointed to the hangar and that's where the limousines were. then the said that when bush come outs of air force one the next morning, he's going to be wearing a sport jacket and a sports shirt. they thought that was nuts. he always wears a suit. they did tell headquarters about it. but the next morning, they went to greet bush as he came out of

air force one, and sure enough, he was wearing a jacket, a sport jacket, and a sports shirt. and a shiver went down their spines, and they decided to divert the motorcade to an alternate route which which would not go under any overpass, and of course, bush was safe, he was never told about it at the time. he was learning about it for the first time in this book. but that is one of the more bizarre stories that i reveal in this book, as well as just how agent does their job. for example, when the president goes out of town, he is going to stay in a hotel. agents will not only make sure that nobody else is a guest on the floor where the president stays, but nobody else is a guest even on the floor above and the floor below, and they will check out the suite where the president is going to say, repolice the tv with their own tv because the tv could be a

surveillance device. they'll get rid of the telephone, look for bugs. they've only found bugs in a few cases where they were left over in the hotel because some celebrity had been there, and somebody was trying to bug them. they'll search through the carpets and the frames of pictures to look for explosive devices or detonating devices, and then also check out local hospitals, exit routes, safe houses such as a firehouse where they might go if there is an attack. they have what they call expedient hoods which they put of the president in the event of a chemical attack. so it's quite involved. however, in the book, i go in to a culture within management which really started in 2003

when the department of homeland security took over the secret service, of corner-cutting, laxness, and an attitude of, we make do with less. we're the great secret service. we don't have to lock the door of the white house. because we're so wonderful. and an arrogance. you saw the arrogance when julie peerson, the secret service director issued a statement saying that when the white house intruder, gonzalez, entered the white house, ran through most of the white house, with a knife, could have had weapons of mass destruction, he could have had explosives, that the uniformed officers exercised tremendous restraint. can you imagine that? here's this guy, who could have blown up the white house, and she is praising the agents and the officers for exercising restraint. that shows the arrogance of the secret service, they would think, they were such fools we would fall for this baloney, and

think that the secret service had done a good job. at the same time the secret service lied about it. initially that the -- gonzalez was stopped at the door. that was a lie. he actually penetrated the white house, overpoured a female agent while uniformed officers didn't unleash dogs on him initially, obviously they were simple police not paying attention. why didn't they take him out with lethal force. by definition he was a threat to the president. obama had just left but could have returned, and therefore should have been taken out. you cannot wait until he actually enters the white house with weapons, with wmd, with explosives to find out if he really is a threat, and so on top of that, the female officer was overpowered, and it took an agent who was off-duty to

finally take him down. so, another item in the book, which the secret -- the "washington post" picked up on without crediting the book, is that in 2011, there were shots fired at the white house. a female uniformed officer reported that but her supervisor overruled her, pooh-poohed her, said it was probably from a construction site, and she said she was afraid to push the point but a she was afraid she would be punished by management. it's not the agents, it's the management that really punishes agents for raising any questions whatsoever, and so you have this coverup mentality, it's really a rotten culture that can only be changed by an outside director,

such as bob mueller was when he came in as the new director of the fbi, he had been the head of the criminal division, not that the fbi was in terrible shape like the secret service, but it needed to be more focused on prevention of plots before they happened and that's exactly what muller did, and made it clear that anybody any agent who had the attitude i'm going to make an arrest, put him in jail, that's the end of it, will be left to work cases in butte, montana. the idea was to focus on individuals who may become assets, who will lead the fbi to more plots, more sources, and that's why we have actually not had a successful foreign terrorist attack since 9/11. people don't tend to connect that with the fbi but that is exactly why, along with help

from the cia, we have not had a successful attack. every few months you see arrests by the fbi of terrorists and that's the bottom line, that they are doing their job. speaking of the fbi, i want to just briefly touch on my previous book, the secreted of the fbi, which refeels how the fbi breaks into homes and offices to plant bugging devices without getting caught, and shot as burglars. this is employed on any major case whether it's terrorism, or political corruption, and what the agents do is two weeks before the break-in, they case the joint, and they determine who goes in and who goes out, who works there. on the night of the breakin, the agents will watch at the homes of those individuals to make sure they don't go back into the premises, and it could even be an embassy, and if they do, the agents will die vert them. they'll have police officers

stop them, give them a ticket. they'll even have a traffic accident. they may even open a fire hydrant in the area so nobody can go back to the area. and they also will take a photo of any dog that might be on the premises, and show that to a veterinarian who is on contract to the fbi, and the veterinarian will prescribe just the right amount of tranquilizer to shoot into the dog with a dart gun as they're breaking in because, of course, they don't want any barking dogs. and at the end of the break-in they'll give the dog another shot to wake him up, bring their own dust into the break-in case they disturb any dust on 0 coffee table or desk. they'll replace the dust with their own dust. let's say they want to put bugs -- by the way they actually showed me -- i got incredible accommodation. bob muller approved this cooperation personally. they actually showed me a real bug, which is about the size of

a postage stamp, a little thicker. it will record for 20 hours or transmit as you wish. so let's say they want to put aing new an office building. they go temovateor school to -- elevator school to learn how to control the elevator so they take control of an elevator, get on the roof of the elevator, and then get out and put the bug in the suite, get back on the elevator, and then during the day they'll come out wearing business suits and nobody is the wiser. lefts say they want to put a bug in a home in the middle of the night. they'll take a photo of the front of the house and then blow that up into a huge tarp that they drape over the front of the house, so that any bystander walking by on the street in the middle of the night looks at the house and thinks that's the house, but actually behind the tarps the agents work to defeat the alarms and defeat the locks, and they put the bugs in. they also have a phony bush that

opens up like an umbrella and will walk with the bush in front of them towards the front of the house and then they'll shield themselves with the bush as they defeat the locks and the alarm systems. a tremendous number of anecdotes, many funny, in this book. and just one is when they were going to put bugs in mafia hangout in philadelphia, the agents determined that there was a back door but they didn't want to go in at the back door because it could be bob about trapped but the front door overlooked an overnight bar and the patrons could see the agents trying to defeat the locks. so, the agents borrowed a city bus and drove in front of the mafia hangout, which was supposedly an electronics store. they got out, put the hood of the bus up so it looked as if

the bus had broken down. they got out, they defeated the locks, the patrons couldn't see them because they were behind the bus. the bus went around the block as they were putting the bugs in, came back, went by a bus stop and there were two patrons in the bar waiting for the bus, and the bus went whizzing by and they were furious and went running for the bus, and as soon as it stopped in front of the mafia hangout, these two guys ran in, drunk, and at first the agents didn't realize they weren't with them because the agents were from different offices or they were with the secret team which is called tactical operations or tack ops, a team that breaks into the homes and offices and i was able to actually go out to see the headquarters of this operation, and the photo of it in the book, the secrets of the fbi. the agents started take out their weapons and

walkie-talkieses and these guys started ringing to get off, ding, ding, ding, and the agent who was driving said, stop bothering me. i'm having enough trouble driving this bus. they taught me how to drive this in 20 minutes. and then another agent got up and he had a shotgun over his shoulder, and then they really started ringing to get off. ding, ding, ding, let me off. so finally the agent who was driving understood what was going on, let them out. they went running down the street and nobody ever heard from them again. when it comes to the secret service budget, which is only $1.6 billion a year, and that includes not only protection of the president and vice president, almost 40 individuals altogether, including white house staff, as well as visiting heads of state, the national nominating conventions, plus the secret service investigates

counterfeiting and financial crimes. the budget is ridiculous. it's about the size -- the amount of one stealth bomber, and the secret service just sort of creeks along like a car without an oil change, and all around it's crumbling. they don't -- in fact they actually refused to update their devices at the white house for detecting intruders to more sophisticated technological devices available now. they refused to update devices for detecting weapons of mass destruction. they refused to put devices in to detect gunshots, and we saw that when the secret service didn't realize until four days later that the white house had been shot at in 2011. even the d.c. police have devices for detecting gunshots. they're not keeping up to date with the latest firearms. the fbi has more powerful

weapons. they will not allow time for agents to qualify for firearms requalification or physical fitness tests and they cover that up by asking agents to fill out their own test scores. so, there's dishonesty involved, which would never be tolerated in any law enforcement agency. when members of congress go out to the secret service training center, which i've been to with my wife, pam, who contributes vivid descriptions in my books, she is a former "washington post" reporter and wrote the book "uncover washington" about spying in washington, and we saw how they train, for example, when driving to do the j turn where they go 180 degrees around and they do -- they have scenarios where they detected explosives. ... and then they

show these scenarios that is spontaneous and secretly when congress goes out there so everyone knows the answer. nothing is worse than any law enforcement agency. and to take credit for some cases that local police have investigated then they take the copy of the report then they include that. is the most poorly managed that you can imagine.

but one of the more shocking examples is under pressure from white house staff and campaign staff. it is just like letting the passengers and but secret service mainly because it has no business caving to resulted in the assassination and then on a regular basis it is negligence.

but based on my previous book i wrote in the op-ed in 2012 so far the biggest scandal the history of secret service are the prostitutes and columbia the story that i wrote but the of media had ignored to cut corners by yet it was the fact that an arms individual was allowed in the elevator and finally president obama obviously demanded the resignation of the director. but the previous director also should have been.

entered the white house state dinner even though they were not on the guest list as well as another story. why would officers ignore the fact that they were not on the guest list but ignore the fact that they had not gone through a background check? one clue is that when they married cheney's daughter under protection, she was try to get her agents to take her friends to restaurants. they refused as they should. they are to protect individuals under certain laws and that doesn't include taking her friends to restaurants that she threw a fit and got her removed over this so what message does that send to those that the white house gave to our confronted with this glamorous

couple it says if it turns out they were not supposed to be and then the white house staff complains we could be in trouble with our management and they wouldn't back us as was the case anybody that thinks this book is not a political, i would point you to the republicans such as mary cheney who are skewered in this book and spirit back new for having a number of affairs going at once even though he claimed to be for family values as well as jenna bush who gave her agents over time a gentle time and would even go through red lights didn't understand what security was all about and thought that it was a big game and senator ted cruz. you will have to buy the book to see what i say about him but i

think it's interesting. and so, at that point he says he has confidence in the secret service. how can anybody say they have confidence in the secret service is not that he has to come out publicly but look for mark silverman. mark sullivan as it turns out ordered and this is one of the most shocking revelations they are protecting obama at the white house including when he lifted off in marine one to go to camp david when we one weekend especially looking out for snipers that might try to take him out as he's looking off with his family were these agents who are on the prowler team instead of protecting the white house to go to southern maryland to protect our own

assistant who had been harassed by a neighbor and appropriately called the police and the secret service has no legal authority any more than the fbi to protect its own employees and get mark sullivan ordering the agents to keep this secret and told them to go and protect his assistant over a matter of months and then on top of that that was revealed by the "washington post" i had a story back in 2012 about the books being what they are but what was not in the "washington post" and is in this book is the agents on top of all that retrieved confidential law enforcement records about this neighbor. again, not only the violation a violation of the law but of the criminal law to retrieve the records on anyone unless you have a legal basis which they did not have. so, not only is it a shocking

example of dereliction of duty by mark sullivan to protect the president, not only a violation of criminal law that it shows the culture and it shows the effect on the agents. they are real patriots and yet they are being told by the director it's not really important to protect the president. i will just have my assistant protected as a favor. another example in the book and this hasn't hit the press yet when the actor bradley cooper and i know that you know who bradley cooper is that i didn't know who he was so i'm saying he was an actor he went to the white house correspondents dinner where obama spoke and a high-ranking secret service official of new york ordered agents at the hill to lead

bradley cooper and his suv into the area in front of the hotel where only secret service vehicles were allowed. and even they had to be screened for explosives mainly those that cost 400 or $500,000 each. they are training also to take down individuals such as wanting across the white house lawn. anyone could attach explosives to the underside of the car. i'm not saying bradley cooper is a terrorist that anybody could have attached explosives to the underside of the car and that's why even see its service service vehicles have to screened for explosives and get official in the secret service apparently has some theater to bradley cooper and the security people to impress them and perhaps he is looking for a job once he gets out and to ignore the basic

security procedures. you can imagine the dismay of the agents that are there to protect the president that are being presidents that are being told to ignore the most basic security precautions. so, that again tells you the culture that has brought us to this point where we actually had an intruder running into the white house and individual in an elevator, period that hasn't been screened guard was whether the individual has a gun by basic protocol you never let anybody in the elevator with a president unless it is somebody that has been screened and is already known to the secret service. so, that is where we stand today. i do hope that president obama chooses a good outside individuals ahead of the secret service. i think that his failure to replace the director which was six years ago is a colossal

failure of management judgment and i think also perhaps he is very impressed by his own agents as i'm sure he should be and so he thinks this represents the secret service and there is no problem yet it is his own life that has been at stake and is still at stake as well as the lives of his own family. so that's where things stand and i think that obama is capable of selecting a good leader for the secret service as he did with james coney the fbi director and he is very admired by agents and is doing a good job and it is possible to get someone from the outside who can shake it up and change the culture and is not beholden to interests within the agency. but i'm telling you it's going to be a monumental task because everywhere you look, there is

corner cutting, there is a culture of spinelessness and it is in need of reform and i hope that individuals reading this book will consider it to be a roadmap of what needs to be done because it has dozens of other examples of this culture of corner cutting as well as the story of the leaders and event something that we need to wake up to and pay attention to character and track record and stop fooling around with data they make a gaffe in some debate and are they nice and he beat and that's the way that we've been choosing presidents and over and over again we are disappointed and that is i think the most important message in this book and i would like to take your questions.

>> is it like a high-level administration, because the service agents? is there any initiative from any congressional committee or any other organization to go ahead and conduct such reform for the agency even though it is going to dip into the presidents rule? >> there is a level of frustration you can be the there is. and i've interviewed many current agents as well as former agents. i was also able to come as i said, get cooperation from the secret service to visit the training center and the command center. that they are outraged.

the agents are outraged at this culture they feel that their jobs are at stake. when agents want to protect the assistance of the director mark sullivan they felt they were probably violating the line yet they felt if they blew the whistle and stood up for what was right they would be fired. that's how serious it is. the other part of the question is carrying the investigations i remember when they crashed the state to dinner there were hearings on the hill and they gave the director hard time and nothing changed. if you have any organizations running applets see microsoft or apple you would bring in a new

ceo. he wouldn't have investigations or reviews and that is exactly. you get the right manager in there and for example when bob miller was the fbi director come as soon as he came in, he was having briefings by top fbi officials and one of the officials was over counterintelligence started obfuscating and misleading about problems within her division which involved a case in los angeles. he removed her like that and that sent a message right-of-way you want to be honest and candid and you better do your job and that made a huge difference in the fbi. that's what you need with the secret service, a good manager. it's so unfortunate that we have to think like that.

we have so many women who are capable of running businesses and in the government it's the same as well as and it needs to be someone who knows what he or she is doing and it's very simple. >> by du think that the fbi is so much better funded than the secret service cracks? >> they have been pushing to get more funding and they die very good job of it whereas the secret service not only hasn't been pushing for more funding because they could get it and if they went to obama and said your life is at risk we better doubled about just budget which is what i think should have been. you can be sure that money would be provided. $1.6 billion, that is ridiculous for this agency.

and congress would go along as well. but as a part of this culture they have the attitude of we may do with less. and in my book i quote mark sullivan as actually saying that. they are proud to spend less money. what are they thinking? this is the president of the united states. if you have an assassination you nullify the democracy. people sort of recoil when you hear the word assassination because it is so unthinkable and it sounds so terrible, but it's very, very possible. in fact i quote in the book about, and by the way two thirds of the book is on the record, one individual who is not on the record who says it's a miracle that there hasn't always been an assassination because of all of this corner cutting. and even with the best security, the president is very vulnerable. and with the worst security now, of course, be terrorists are

going to realize that they can overwhelm the white house after what happened. it's a terrible situation. i matter another difficult tv agencies besides the screwed up management is that many presidents think that the advice that they are given by the secret service goes back to jfk. jfk refused to let them on the board of the limousine. if they had been there, the agents would have jumped on them as soon as the first shot was fired which wasn't fatal, and pushed push them to the floor and saved their life no question whatsoever. and so, really with all of the conspiracy theories and all the talk about whether the secret service screwed up in the end i'm afraid that it was the president himself who made it possible for him to lose his own

life. abraham lincoln, the same thing. even though the war was going on, he refused to have any security and finally just before his assassination, he agreed to have one dc police officer with him. on the night of the assassination this one dc police officer, parker, decided to walk and have a drink in a local tavern. so he was totally unprotected and of course he was shot and killed. so, there are so many difficulties that they have to face. it's one of the most important agencies of the federal government. as for now of course it has been very secret. people ask me how did you get them to talk? i think they understand we have a track record of writing about the fbi, the cia and other

sensitive areas and i will tell it like it is and for example the fbi have been doing a wonderful job since 9/11 but on the other hand one of my previous books exposed william sessions the fbi director time for engaging in personal abuses and having the vip for a fence around his home that had no security purpose taking personal trips on the fbi plane and quite a few other infractions even letting his wife alice into fbi headquarters even though she didn't have a top secret clearance she would be given a pass so she could get in and that led to his dismissal as the fbi director. so if the agents really are dedicated to the truth, they understand that i am going to tell the truth as well. also i've been told i listen very well and that seems awfully

simplistic and doesn't take a lot of skill, but i did a book on palm beach with my midlife crisis i wanted to drink more champagne and go to parties but my wife, pam coming and it is a secret society there in palm beach, which i was able to penetrate and one of the people said to me about here listens to anybody. you listen and that is perhaps part of why i have been able to tell these stories in the books. on a lighter note you talk about the secret service working with a psychic in the george bush french i think it was. >> the fact that the secret service listened to be psychic and it is one of of the more amazing stories in the book. and i'm glad you pointed that out. >> any other questions?

thank you for coming and i appreciate your questions. during the recent visit to green bay we stopped by the library to learn about the life and career of political cartoonist while >> he commented on national and local and regional news and events. he is an individual who was born in 1931 in northern was conned. he served a stint in the korean war from 1954 to 1956 such impacts some of his views and then g