As a special agency dedicated to protecting the president's safety, the U.S. Secret Service can be said to play a very important role when the president of the United States travels.
So how does the U.S. Secret Service protect the president? Can these strict measures ensure that nothing goes wrong?
Origins of the U.S. Secret Service
In fact, the original U.S. Secret Service was not specifically established to protect the president, after 1865, because the United States had just ended the war, the domestic situation was not stable, and at that time every state in the United States was printing and issuing paper money, so this made the entire U.S. circulating currency market and has been effectively controlled, counterfeit money on the market is everywhere, and the president of the United States at that time was Lincoln, Lincoln saw that the U.S. circulating currency market was becoming more and more chaotic, and established the Secret Service.
That is to say, the previous Secret Service was mainly used to maintain economic order, and later with the development of the times, the Secret Service, as a team composed of elite talents from all over the world, began to undertake more and more extensive business, such as: maintaining public order, preventing hacker attacks, protecting national network security, investigating various illegal financial activities, and so on.
And one of the most important tasks is the protection task, to put it simply, it is the agent, and the "protection task" here is not only to protect the president, including officials in various places, the president's spouse, children, etc. are the protection objects of the agent.
What are the "skills" of U.S. Secret Service agents?
The first basic skill that should be possessed is to be familiar with the traffic routes of the entire city and the general environment around the routes.
When presidents and officials need to travel, these agents plan and design multiple travel plans, and then check them one by one to choose the safest and most time-saving route. At the same time, they also need to pay attention to the location of each hospital, and if there is any accident during the driving process, they can quickly react and drive to the hospital.
Second, the Secret Service conducts a detailed investigation into the hotels where the President stayed during his visit.
Including the structure of the hotel, the degree of hygiene, the most important thing is the escape system, but also to carry out a comprehensive screening of all hotel staff, to maximize the protection of the president's safety. In addition, if the president chooses to stay in this hotel, the Secret Service will also carry out a series of reinforcements to the president's room.
In most cases, the entire floor of the hotel will be wrapped up by the Secret Service, the president's room will be arranged in the middle, and the other secret service personnel will live on both sides of the president's room in turn. For the president's room, not only the floor but also the windows are subject to secondary reinforcement, and they will be covered with a thick layer of bulletproof material.
Can the U.S. Secret Service really make sure it's foolproof?
The answer, of course, is no, and even the most rigorous planning can go awry.
Former U.S. President Kennedy attended the meeting, surrounded by people, the Secret Service directly built a "human bridge" to open the way for the president, Kennedy sat on a sports car, speeding, but it is in such a situation that can be said that the Secret Service is all out, or there was a shooting, and the foolproof image established by the Secret Service was also broken.
Today, a president is usually surrounded by 42 close agents, all of whom are divided into four groups, four of whom take turns on duty and train in between shifts.
And these 42 people are almost inseparable from the president, the president will follow wherever he goes, no matter what the president does, he will follow closely behind, so the working hours are longer, but in terms of salary, their highest annual salary has reached about 70,000, and the annual salary level of American workers is not high, so this job can be said to be tired and bitter, and the income is still small.
In 2021, according to the survey, the satisfaction level of this job is only 21.23%, and it is also rated as the lowest satisfied job in the United States.