Standing next to history : an agent's life inside the Secret Service / Joseph Petro with Jeffrey Robinson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Petro, Joseph, 1944-

Contributor:

Robinson, Jeffrey, 1945-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Petro, Joseph, 1944-.

Petro, Joseph.

Reagan, Ronald.

United States. Secret Service--Officials and employees--Biography.

United States.

United States. Secret Service.

Presidents--Protection--United States.

Presidents.

Presidents--Protection.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

vii, 292 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Thomas Dunne Books, 2005.

Summary:

Joseph Petro served for twenty-three years as a special agent in the United States Secret Service. He spent eleven of those years guarding presidents and vice presidents, and for four of them he stood by the side of Ronald Reagan.

Petro served as a navy lieutenant during the Vietnam War and patrolled the rivers and canals along the Vietnamese-Cambodian border. After his stint in Vietnam, he joined the Secret Service, where he worked his way up to become one of the key men in charge of protecting the president. That journey through the Secret Service provides an individual look inside the most discreet law enforcement agency in the world and a uniquely intimate account of the Reagan presidency.

Engagingly, Petro tells firsthand stories of riding horses with the Reagans; eluding the press and sneaking President and Mrs. Reagan out of the White House; rehearsing assassination attempts; working, then reworking every detail of the president's trips around the world; negotiating the president's protection with the KGB; diverting a twenty-six-car presidential motorcade in downtown Tokyo; protecting Vice President Dan Quayle at Rajiv Gandhi's funeral, where he was surrounded by Yassir Arafat's heavily armed bodyguards; taking charge of the single largest protective effort in the history of the Secret Service-Pope John Paul II's 1987 visit to the United States; and being one of only three witnesses at the private meeting between President Reagan and Premier Mikhail Gorbachev that ushered in the end of the Cold War.

Joseph Petro provides an original and fascinating perspective on the Secret Service, the inner workings of the White House, and a little-seen view of world leaders, as a man who stood next to history.

Contents:

1 Taking A Bullet 11

2 On the Road 27

3 Protecting People You Like 48

4 The Two of Them 65

5 Just a Kid from Allentown 81

6 Rocky 101

7 Moving Up in the World 122

8 Working for the President 140

9 Downtime 154

10 Healing Some Old Wounds 171

11 Three Words in Geneva 182

12 Leaving the President 198

13 Shepherd One 218

14 The Quayles 243

15 Lifting The Burden 260.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0312332211

OCLC:

56324629