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The date is July 2nd, 1881, and President James Garfield is walking through the Baltimore
and Potomac train station with his two sons in tow.
Accompanying the President of the United States and his sons is Secretary of State James Blaine.
The President, the man at the helm of the most powerful nation in the Western hemisphere,
has no additional protection.
There is not even a police presence as the President, his sons, and his Secretary of
State enjoy their stroll.
Nearly two decades earlier, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated while enjoying a
play, and yet the act did nothing to spur the protection of the leader of the United
States.
In fact even the founding fathers had seen no need to protect the US president, and the
White House itself was protected only by a single police officer- anybody wishing to
force their way into the President's office would have to pass this lone police officer
and a secretary.
There was no need for protecting the President of the United States in the founding father's
eyes, though assassinations were common throughout Europe, the United States was a democratic
nation that was free of such troubles.
Assassinations were after all the result of an oppressed people rebelling against a system
that could never change.
Here in the US, the people were free to vote for their leader- and at worse all they'd
have to wait is eight years for a new one.
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was seen as a historical fluke, a last dying spasm
from the Civil War, the nation's most divisive conflict to date.
In a way, it was almost inevitable that an angry ex-Confederate would seek out revenge
against the Union north for the defeat of the south.
Thus after Lincoln's assassination nothing was done to help protect the American president.
On that fateful July 2nd, 1881 afternoon, President James Garfield would be approached
by a man- Charles Guiteau- who would then shoot him twice in the chest.
Bystanders to the shooting immediately grabbed Guiteau and subdued him, while medical attention
was sent for.
The President of the United States was not even followed by a medical professional in
the case of emergency.
Garfield would go on to die of his wounds seventy nine days later, and just like that
America's political naivety was shattered forever.
Incredibly though, not even Garfield's assassination would convince US lawmakers that the President
needed to be protected.
It would finally take the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 for Congress
to authorize a federal agency to protect the American president.
The task fell on the Secret Service, which had been established in the 1860s to combat
counterfitting, and a year later the White House became officially closed to the public
as the Secret Service created its first Presidential Detail.
The protection of the President would gradually expand to protecting not just the man himself,
but his family as well.
Eventually the Vice-President was also granted protection, and in 1968 after the killing
of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, assassinated President John F. Kennedy's brother, Secret
Service protection extended to presidential candidates.
Though protocol stated that candidates only started receiving protection a set time before
election day, in 2007 the Secret Service, out of fear over racially-inspired violence,
extended protection for the future President Barack Obama.
In the past, Presidents were protected by gunmen who were trained to spot potential
threats in a crowd.
If giving a speech or making another such public appearance, trained sharpshooters may
be present in order to ward off sniper attacks.
As technology and techniques evolved, the Secret Service has expanded its role and capabilities
both, and today a whole host of measures are in place to protect the American president.
The job of protecting the president today is a very expensive and involved one.
Specific plans for protecting the president and the tools used are naturally kept top
secret, and thus very little is known about the specifics of the security that goes into
keeping the American president safe.
Protection starts physically on the president himself.
A president's suit is made of secret bullet-resistant fibers which can help seriously mitigate the
damage caused by a low-caliber bullet.
While they won't do much to stop a high caliber rifle bullet shot by a sniper, the suit is
quite adept at stopping low-caliber rounds such as those that might be used by a gunman
lurking in a crowd.
Of course that gunman would have to evade detection by the Secret Service, which is
the president's next layer of protection.
These men and women are trained to spot potential threats before they get a chance to approach
a president.
They are experts on human behavior, and trained to identify the signs of mental illness or
the extreme stress that a secret gunman might be experiencing as they prepare to fire on
the president.
They are also on constant alert for anyone trying too hard to get close to the president,
and have intercepted individuals in a crowd on numerous occasions.
It's not just the secret service that you can see though that's protecting the president,
it's also the agents you can't see.
Like with many security details, the secret service employs a sort of 'peacock' strategy-
meaning that they make the men and women around the president very obvious for all to see.
This intimidating display of force and capability helps deter would-be attackers, but it also
serves to keep the attention of an attacker on the visible agents.
Meanwhile, agents in plain clothes work their way through the crowd.
They listen to conversations, watch individuals, and even surreptitiously pat down threatening
individuals as they press against them with the crowd.
Overwatching the president is another set of agents that are typically not visible to
the public, and these are highly trained marksmen.
These sharpshooters find advantageous positions to fire on not the president himself, but
other positions they have identified in advance that could be troublesome and might house
a shooter.
Typically though long before a president arrives at a location, these marksmen will scan the
environment and identify problem areas where a sniper could hide, and then local law enforcement
is dispatched there to secure them in advance.
A layer of technology also helps to protect the president.
As he is traveling around or sometimes in a public place, secret service agents may
employ a device that kills all radio and cellular signals in a certain radius.
This is meant to prevent a would-be assassin from remotely detonating a planted bomb- although
once more before a president goes anywhere a team of bomb sniffing dogs is dispatched
for just such threats.
Today though the threat of a bombing comes from a new threat vector- an armed drone.
While details are extremely sparse, it is rumored that the Secret Service utilizes an
automated anti-drone device that uses either high-speed projectiles, emp interference,
or a laser to disable any incoming drones.
The device is rumored to be worked into the design of one of the presidential entourage
vehicles, though a deployable device can be set up in public places such as when the President
attends a sporting event.
Speaking of vehicles, the President is probably the single most well-protected motorist in
the world.
That's thanks to the Presidential Limo, known as The Beast.
Once more details are classified, but it is known that the limo can resist even a direct
hit by an RPG, and is essentially bulletproof.
The windows can stand up to armor-piercing ammunition, and the only window that actually
rolls down in the entire vehicle is the driver's window which lowers exactly three inches-
just enough to speak to a secret service agent running alongside the limo.
The doors are about eight inches thick and incorporate ceramic armor to disrupt the impact
of high-velocity rounds.
Each door weighs as much as the cabin door on a Boeing 757 jet.
The front of the vehicle features both night vision and thermal cameras, so that the driver
can operate the vehicle no matter the conditions on the outside.
The underside of the vehicle is protected by a steel layer of armor almost half a foot
thick, designed to protect the vehicle from even a mine buried under the road.
The tires are made of puncture and shred-resistant kevlar and have a steel rim inside, letting
the vehicle speed away at a top speed of sixty miles per hour even with flat tires.
The rear compartment where the President sits is itself basically a completely independent
environment.
The small interior window that connects the president to his driver can only be opened
by the president himself, and the entire rear cab is completely airtight, allowing the limousine
to operate in even a Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical warfare environment.
Inside the limo, there are also numerous weapons and accessories for the president or any secret
service agents with him to protect themselves with, to include pump-action shotguns and
5.56 carbine rifles in side panels.
Tear gas grenades are also available for non-lethal threats.
The gas tank is armor plated and filled with a specially engineered foam which prevents
the fuel from exploding even if suffering a direct hit.
Inside the trunk the limo is outfitted with an automated fire fighting system which can
put out fires anywhere in the limo, as well as an oxygen supply that can keep the president
alive for a classified amount of time.
The limo itself is directly connected to the vice president, the White House, and the Pentagon
via jam-resistant Extremely High Frequency and other classified communications equipment.
From inside the limousine the President can respond to any national or global emergency,
and even command the US's nuclear forces.
In the case of the worst coming to pass, several refrigerated bottles of the President's own
blood is kept on the limo at all times, along with first aid and emergency transfusion equipment.
The Beast is also rumored to pack an additional accessory which is kept extremely classified,
and that's the recent addition by President Obama of an automated chain gun which can
be deployed from the trunk of the limousine.
Whether this is true or not, what is known is that amongst the 22 vehicles that form
the President's entourage there are in fact several similarly equipped vehicles.
These vehicles share a design with those used by the Department of Energy to secretly transport
nuclear weapons across the United States via regular road and highway networks.
These 'nuke convoys' as they are known to insiders typically consist of an armor-reinforced
semi-truck that is constantly escorted in the front and rear by several SUVs or armored
vehicles camouflaged to look like RVs.
The President's vehicle entourage includes several of these chaingun equipped SUVs, which
feature a chaingun not dissimilar to that used on American combat helicopters and mounted
on a rising platform that is hidden inside the fake cab section of the SUV.
The chainguns can be fired from the safety of the bullet-resistant SUV using a video
feed system exactly like that of American military combat vehicles such as the Stryker.
Along with an unknown number of secret chaingun SUVs, the convoy also includes at least one
air-threat response unit, which is equipped with short range anti-air missiles, also hidden
inside a rising platform that lifts out of the fake cab of the SUV it is equipped on.
While traveling, the President is kept safe aboard Air Force One, which itself can operate
in even Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical environments.
The big plane is equipped with a great deal of defensive countermeasures, many of them
top-secret, and is known to have numerous electronic counter measures, decoys, chaff,
flares, and laser systems designed to burn out the seeker warheads on incoming missiles.
There are no known offensive weapons that have been publicly acknowledged aboard Air
Force One, but there are rumors that the big plane is equipped with long-range anti-air
missiles and possibly a new airborne laser system capable of targeting hostile aircraft.
Speed though is a major defensive feature of Air Force One, and though top speed is
classified, it has been clocked moving at an incredible Mach .85, which is just shy
of the sound barrier.
For such a big jet, that is quite the feat.
The President of the United States is quite well protected, and is possibly the most secure
person on earth.
Unfortunately all that protection comes with a very hefty price tag, which is why presidential
travel is usually very tightly controlled.
Even a simple trip to the golf course necessitates the movement of dozens of personnel and assets,
and can range in the tens of millions of dollars, all on the backs of the American taxpayer.
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