May 13, 1958. Vice President Richard Nixon is on a goodwill tour of South
America. As his motorcade passes through Caracas in Venezuela,
it suddenly finds itself under attack, an assault that will go down in history as the
most violent of its kind on a high ranking American official in a foreign country.
Nixon survives the attack, and some of the twelve United States Secret Service agents
hired to protect him were injured. But it could have been much worse.
As you’ll see today, the President’s – and Vice President’s – motorcade might well be one of
the most dangerous places to be in the world, but thanks to herculean protection measures,
it’s also one of the safest places to be. Getting out of the car is another matter,
though, as you will see in today’s video. We’ll come back to the Nixon attack shortly,
and other times the President found himself in a spot of trouble,
but first, let’s look at how the motorcade is structured nowadays.
How many vehicles will be in any given motorcade will be determined by what kind
of security threat there is and who is traveling within it. When the motorcade is out in force,
you might see around 50 vehicles in all, although during the pandemic, as many as 100 vehicles
were seen in the motorcade. That was more about social distancing than security threats though.
In front of the motorcade, you’ll usually see the police, who are named “sweepers”. In front
of them, just a few minutes ahead, will be the “Route Car.” As the motorcade is traveling,
all the vehicles will be in touch with the Route Car just in case there is any danger ahead. Also,
in front of the motorcade is the “Pilot Car.” This does almost the same job as
the Route Car but is not as far ahead. Right at the front of the main motorcade
will be the “Lead Car,” which could be any vehicle the Secret Service chooses. That
might mean a run-of-the-mill cop car or one of the special limousines we’ll discuss soon.
As we said, the number of vehicles around the President’s car is determined by the
potential perceived threat. The central group of vehicles, limousines, and SUVs, is known as
the “Package,” and the President or other high official will be in the middle of this package.
Often also in tow will be his family, perhaps other White House officials, VIPs,
members of the press, and of course, his security. In the sky, you might
see two Presidential Airlift helicopters, either a Marine One VH-3D Sea King or a VH-60N Black Hawk.
If you’re wondering how so many vehicles get to their destination,
look no further than the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft.
And just in case anything goes wrong, you’ll usually find a high-tech ambulance. Hopefully,
the SUVs fitted with anti-aircraft guns will ensure that the ambulance is never needed.
So, what looks like just a fleet of cars is actually quite a formidable traveling
military force. If you were ever dumb enough to try and find out what would happen if you could
somehow jump in front of it with a plastic gun in your hand, you might not live to tell the tale.
While VIPs and White House officials may be traveling in armored Chevrolet Suburbans or
Chevrolet Tahoe SUVs, when the President is out on the road, you will often find
him in a specially designed limousine that is sometimes referred to as “The Beast.” It’s also
sometimes called “Cadillac One,” “First Car,” or by its codename, “Stagecoach.”
Things have certainly come a long way since Lee Harvey Oswald fired some shots from a Texas School
Book Depository and ended the life of John F. Kennedy, the then President of the United States.
Not only will you never see the President these days traveling around in a car with
an open-top roof, but the vehicle he’ll be sitting in will be armored, and armed.
The Beast has five-inch-thick (13 cm) bulletproof glass. If someone could somehow cause a rucus
around the President’s car, he would be able to stay in there and wait it out. That’s because it’s
also hermetically sealed and has its own internal environment. Bullets could be flying while smoke
bellowed in the street, and the President could, for all intents and purposes, just sit in the
car playing a game of chess on his phone. In 2016, General Motors was paid a whopping
$15,800,765 to build the most recent variation of the President’s car. The money wasn’t just for one
car, but a series of cars. That’s still a lot of money, but the Beast is far from being an ordinary
car. As well as its armor, it can be covered in what’s called multi-scale camouflage, which in
certain circumstances will make it hard to see. The eight-ton behemoth has eight-inch thick steel
doors, which aren’t just tough enough to stop bullets but can protect the
President against biological and chemical attacks, as well as withstand explosives.
If the President thinks it necessary, he could also push a button to separate the front and back
of the car with a glass partition if he ever wants to discuss something the drivers doesn’t need to
hear. Also on board is a communication center equipped with all the latest tech, including a
satellite phone which makes sure the President can contact the outside world at all times.
If he did come under attack, and we mean a serious one, he could at least be assured that the fuel
tank won’t blow up. It’s armor-plated and contains a kind of foam that stops it from exploding if hit
with an explosive. The Kevlar tires will not shred or puncture, but if they are somehow destroyed,
the Beast’s wheels will still work without them. The chassis is also very difficult to
destroy since it’s reinforced with steel plates. As for hitting back, night vision cameras at the
front of the car will give the President an advantage in the dark. The car contains pump
action shotguns, rocket-powered grenades, and it can fire off tear gas and smoke
screens at the push of a button. There are other weapons on board, but as you probably guessed,
the White House is not interested in letting the public know every detail about the Beast.
The defensive features don’t stop there. It’s been reported that if anyone touches the door handles,
they’ll be hit with a 120-volt electric shock, if the car is under lockdown mode.
If that’s not James Bond-esque enough for you, it’s rumored that the Beast
has a button you can press which will release a small oil spill for any chasing car to slip on.
Even if someone should try and activate a bomb nearby, the President’s “Secret Service
Countermeasures Suburban” is supposed to be able to jam remote signals that are designed
to actuate an explosive. This same suite can also detect if an RPG is launched. It
does this using its electronic warfare sensor capabilities and allows for countermeasures to
be deployed ensuring the President’s safety. If the very worst should happen while the
President is in the Beast, he will have the nuclear football at his side,
allowing him to dispatch the codes that make it possible for a nuclear weapon to be launched.
But let’s say somehow something gets through this armored Beast, and the President is injured. In
the unlikely instance of this happening, he can at least use some of the oxygen stored in the car,
and some of the blood kept in the car’s fridge. It wouldn’t be ideal for him to
use these things alone, but there is always a doctor and possibly other medical staff
traveling right next to the President’s car. As you can imagine, weighing as much as it does,
the Beast is not exactly a nimble car. It takes around 15 seconds for the car to reach 60 miles
per hour. It’s also not cheap to run, getting only about four miles for every gallon of gas.
For many reasons, the Beast isn’t always an ideal car,
especially when the security threat is low. This is why you might well find the President
being driven in a 2005 Cadillac DTS-inspired limousine, which is much easier to handle.
It still has state-of-the-art communications systems and top-notch armor, but it’s not
quite as tooled up as the Beast. It’s also apparently pretty comfortable. That’s because
it has an adaptive seat system that will adjust by itself to suit the occupant’s seating position.
When the President is traveling to a destination, often referred to as a “mission,” US Intelligence
may not always take an obvious route. Vehicles in the motorcade may change
position several times while new cars might join, and others leave. The term agents use
for this is the “shell game,” which will have been choreographed many times before traveling.
For obvious reasons, the drive to the destination might not always follow the clearest route. On
top of that, at times, the President might not even be in the motorcade. In this case,
the motorcade acts as a decoy. We are sure you are wondering
what would happen if someone tried to attack the motorcade. You already know that it did happen
to the man who would become a disgraced President after the Watergate scandal.
Things are much different now, but not so much because of what happened to Nixon but
because of what happened to JFK. That’s when security really ramped up. In the Nixon case,
the perpetrators were allowed to get too close to the motorcade. Secret
Service agents covered the President as angry crowds hit the car and smashed a
window or two. These people were probably linked to the Communist Party of Venezuela,
and to be honest, they weren’t exactly the most highly trained assassins in the world.
Still, things could have been much worse. The Secret Service agents had their weapons at the
ready and were about to open fire when Nixon told them not to shoot. Had they started firing
at the attackers, there could have been a fairly sizable bloodbath, and the goodwill tour would
have looked more like a declaration of war. Some agents got bruised in the tussle with the mob,
but that was about it in terms of injuries. If you ask what would have happened if Nixon
had been in the Beast with all of its modern technology, well, for a start, the windows
of his vehicle would not have been smashed in. While agents may still have covered the President,
they really wouldn’t have needed to. Also, as training has been ramping up
since JFKs death, these agents would already be aware of some sketchy elements in the crowd. The
motorcade would never have taken that route. If it had and people had started attacking the car, you
can be sure that Secret Service sniper teams on roofs nearby would have had those people in their
sights. If they were given the green light to open fire, the attack would be over in a few seconds.
It goes without saying that we at the Infographics Show can’t tell you the exact
protocols and procedures that are in place if such an attack were to happen today. If we knew that,
the Secret Service might as well rename itself the Overt Service. We can still feel confident that
the President is safe when he is out and about. Maybe some of you are now thinking we are wrong
about that. That’s because you might know about the name John Warnock Hinckley Jr.
This guy, unhinged, obsessed with Hollywood stars,
and without doubt out of his mind, tried to kill President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981,
by firing a .22 caliber revolver at him. He’s now got his own YouTube channel
where he shares his passion for music, but it took decades for
him to get out of psychiatric hopsital. He explained why he wanted to kill the
President in a letter he wrote to the movie star, Jodie Foster, the woman he was obsessed with.
The letter went: “Over the past seven months,
I've left you dozens of poems, letters, and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop
an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times, I never had the nerve to
simply approach you and introduce myself. ... The reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is
because I cannot wait any longer to impress you.” In terms of gathering intelligence on possible
threats, the Secret Service will always have a hard time trying to find such crazy outliers.
This man was certainly no Osama Bin Laden. He was love-struck and obviously mentally ill.
The agents did their job and risked their lives by jumping on the President,
but he was hit anyway. What’s ironic is that he was only hit because one of the
bullets ricocheted off the Presidential limousine, the car there to protect him.
Reagan coughed up some blood due to an injury to his lung. He was in a bad way,
but he reached the hospital just four minutes after being shot. Obviously, the fastest route
to the closest hospital is always worked out before the President goes on his travels.
After arriving there, it was soon discovered that Reagan was in shock, and his injuries were
possibly life-threatening, but he was a tough old boot and was in good enough shape to say to his
wife on her arrival, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” A police officer named Thomas Delahanty and a
Secret Service agent named Timothy McCarthy were also hit. Press secretary James Brady
took a bullet to the right side of his head and, after a long time recovering in the hospital,
was severely disabled for the rest of his life. This shows us that the most dangerous part of
traveling for a President is not when he is inside his heavily armored car but when he is
moving around on foot. Any Secret Service agent, or a bodyguard for that matter, will tell you
that going in and out of places where there are crowds is the most nerve-wracking part of the job.
Now you need to watch “Ways They Tried to Assassinate Hitler.” Or, have a look at …