Pulling the veil off a highly visible yet tight-lipped federal agency, scholar of governmental secrecy and political violence Philip H. Melanson has created the first definitive portrait of the Secret Service. From its 1865 inception as the nation's police against counterfeiting to the official assignment of protecting the president to the post 9/11 challenges of protecting the targets of terrorists, Melanson and co-author Peter E. Stevens present the agency's history and examine its role in the headlines of our times.Through rigorous research and interviews with former White House staffers, retired agents, and the first female agent on the presidential detail, Melanson reveals new details about the assassination of JFK and the shooting of President Reagan, along with threats against other presidents; presidential demands on agents and agency funds (by JFK, LBJ, Nixon, the Bushes, and Clinton); alcoholism, divorce, and burnout among agents; the continuing failure to develop a profile of assassins that would facilitate effective prevention; and how the gender gap within the Service has been institutionalized.Examining the image of a highly professional and apolitical organization, the book reveals the pervasive, often detrimental influence that politics exerts on the Service, typified by Kenneth Starr's efforts to use agents' testimony against President Clinton, and earlier, lesser known episodes.Melanson also assesses the profound new challenges confronting the Secret Service as Congress considers whether to move the agency out of the Treasury Department and place it in the nascent Department of Homeland Security. The authors also analyze how the agency will respond to threats that are escalating in technological sophistication - nerve gas, dirty bombs, biological agents, and shoulder-held missiles. Now, with this provocative study, one federal agency still veiled in secrecy is exposed for all Americans to see. Read Less