Former Secret Service Agent Reviews Presidential Films, from 'Air Force One' to 'VEEP' | Vanity Fair

so i think the the best way to you know sum up being a secret service agent it's prolonged periods of boredom only broken up by moments of sheer terror [Music] hello my name is jonathan wackrow and i'm a former united states secret service agent i spent 14 years in the agency and four and a half years assigned to the presidential protection division during the obama administration today we will be reviewing scenes featuring the president's secret service detail in tv and film this is air force one directed by wolfgang pedersen seeing air force one in person for the very first time is very majestic literally takes your breath away the entire construct around the plane has a different sense of importance than your regular aircraft they actually represent it and capture the moment very well the reason why the plane has such distinctive markings and is so obvious is because of the mission that it serves the secret service understands security concerns that go along with it and it's built into the overarching security plan gentlemen welcome to air force one please present your equipment for inspection we were just inspected to the gate sir this plane carries the president of the united states although we understand please place your thumb on the id pad [Music] looking at the boarding procedures what they got right is the organized structure there are a lot of moving parts around air force one just prior to departure but it's it's not chaotic it's very organized what is off on this is actually who does it the secret service does not protect the plane itself that's a responsibility that falls upon the air force the secret service is responsible for the overall security of the airport site as we saw on the clip one of the passengers put their thumb on an id pad to gain access this was actually cutting edge at that time since then technology has evolved and has expanded the level of access control to further protect that plane hello there i'm melanie mitchell deputy press secretary i'll be taking you in from here miss mitchell just so nice to finally meet you in person the president and i were delighted we could accommodate your news crew so in my experience i never want to say never but i think it's highly unlikely that you would see a foreign news crew absent of a foreign head of state on the aircraft at the same time that the president is on board if you'd like i think we have time for a quick tour the press do reside in the back of the aircraft and there is a separate cabin for secret service and the security detail secret service right here they'll never try to go past them without an escort i'm going to be very sorry hello all right moving forward in the aircraft you get into staff senior staff and then the the president's cabin we could run the whole country from here or even a war if we had to what is a little anomalous here is the fact that so close to the president's arrival white house staff would be showing foreign press around yes the president's arriving they should all take their seats right away i'll get out of here let you all get some sleep the president is essentially going to be one of the last people on the plane and when he gets on that door shuts and that plane moves mr president welcome aboard sir i was stunned at how fast the the plane took off during my first trip i was actually still standing and we were rolling down the runway you don't want that aircraft to become a target on the ground so the point is once the president is on board that aircraft it is moving immediately mr brilliant changing plan danny let's go to barbados anything you want you're the president my very first time aboard air force one the moment that i got on board you just knew that it was a different aircraft the flight crew was different you knew that this wasn't just a flight crew from delta these were trained professionals that were there to serve the president of the united states and the food was fantastic skipping ahead in the movie we see an agent assigned to the president's detail actually revealing himself as a rogue agent the look of the secret service agent portrayed in the film is spot on you always have your jacket on tie on you never know when you may confront either senior staff or the president so you want to have a professional appearance at all times the only change that you may actually have is a change in jacket sort of the rule of thumb though is if the president is not wearing a jacket you are not going to wear a jacket we want to blend into the environment as much as possible so it's easier just to mimic what the president is doing at that moment [Music] we also see the rogue agent accessing a cache of weapons behind a security wall what i can say is that this type of weapon system or armament on board the aircraft would be safeguarded by an agent at all times beyond that there's really not much more that i would want to talk about i only will talk about things that are already out there in the public domain this is dave directed by ivan reichman in this scene we see dave the president's decoy talking to a member of the president's detail how long has that been going on i can't say you mean you don't know or you can't say i can't say at the white house uh the president has access to his own private kitchen within the residence as we see here but then also the presidential food service quick answer is the president can get anything he wants at any time the secret service tends to try to give as much privacy as possible to the president while he's in the the residence so while we know where he is at all times it may not be representative like this scene here where an agent is standing next to the president while they're making their meal so uh your job is to protect the president all the time that's that's your whole job right yes the president's day is bifurcated into official duties and private time so while the president may be in a relaxed demeanor you still have to remain on point and focused on your job at hand and that's why in this scene we see the that secret service agent maintaining his decorum throughout the entire scene he's staying professional and focused on what he needs to do if the president was to ever sit down and offer you food most agents that i know would respectfully decline have a gun yes ever use it not you very common question to get i thought the agent's response was a little bit cute which he said not yet indicating that dave was you know starting to encroach on some uh some questions that that agent didn't want to answer if this was the president the actual president um asking questions you have to answer them truthfully but again you have to understand what is the context of the questioning even though we have top secret clearance you actually can't divulge things even to the president that are compartmentalized information you know i've always wondered about you guys the way they say that you'd take a bullet for the president what about it is that really true i mean would you let yourself be killed to save his life certainly so that means now you'd get killed for me too they're protecting the office of the presidency so it's something greater than the individual and i think that's the point that the agent at the very end realized that this isn't about protecting dave the decoy or stopping a bullet for dave the decoy this is about the sanctity and protecting the office of the presidency this film is angel has fallen directed by rick roman wah we see the president being attacked by drones while he's fishing on a lake so every president is going to have their own hobbies and each one of those hobbies is going to present a very unique challenge for the secret service it doesn't matter what the activity is you have to build that methodology [Music] around we see the president with one secret service agent in a single boat in the middle of the lake this is something that's really anomalous you wouldn't see you would have the president with the security detail on one boat but then you'd also have a chase boat with with additional detail members on it uh as well as military and medical personnel again you're taking that environment that's established around the president and just putting it onto the water i'm coming to you one of the reasons why i i actually like this scene is because it actually represents a a bona fide threat we have seen recently occurrences uh overseas in syria where drones have been utilized and weaponized to attack over the horizon so this this scene really does represent what a potential threat could be there's a lot of technologies that are emerging today in addition to drones that that really worry not only secret service but law enforcement in general if you think about utilizing ai machine learning anything with deep fakes videos how do you create disinformation how do you tap into communication systems you're coming at your boat getting them in the morning the heart covered in enough what about you what's wrong with it is the fact that that type of attack could even occur the secret service controls the environment that they operate in what the viewer sees is the president in the lake and the secret service on the shoreline that's actually not how protection works it's a concentric ring of protection that goes out from the protectee and why that's important for this scene is that the drones you know came from a launcher and the launcher was was in in fairly close proximity to the site of the president that would have been picked up by the secret service and so when you think about a methodology and why it's so successful it's because it's systematic and it constantly proves itself correct time and time again even with emerging technology such as this drone attack hey hannah where's megan she's with mr song this is along came a spider directed by lee tamahori in this scene we see the president's daughter kidnapped while she's at school patrol i'm on route to sanji's classroom one of the agents speaking back to the command post which i think they called control the microphone's actually connected to the watch so anytime you see a secret service agent speaking into their wrist or their jacket or even sometimes you'll see them putting their finger to their ear it's all part of the communication device so it's wherever the microphone is most comfortable mr sanji secret service open up mr sanji do you have a key there's a lot that that is wrong first and foremost the fact that a protectee is so far away from the secret service is never going to happen second of all the fact that protectee is behind a locked door that the secret service doesn't have access to third and i think the most egregious thing is you'll never have a secret service agent ask somebody hey have you seen where my protectee is i think that that is grounds for termination almost immediately there's a big difference between a security structure that's set up for the president and one that's set up for the president's children especially younger children that may be in school but the the protective methodology doesn't change control shutdown stop all vehicles lock on sanji and rose so in modern times this is a threat but secret service has spent a considerable amount of time planning for these scenarios so whether it was the the bush girls going to college sasha and malia being able to go to school in washington dc you build a a structure that blends into the school environment where you're still protecting that individual 360 degrees in all directions at all times here we saw a complete departure from that how do you control the anxiety of a child of the president so that they're not always fearful that they're going to be kidnapped or harmed and actually what you have to do is tell them about those threats have a little bit more transparency with them so that they understand and are reassured that even though there are these threats out there you are there and the security structure is there and the process is there to to mitigate that we will have a procession and i will walk to the cathedral with the casket this is jackie directed by pablo lorraine even if we could resume the arrangements i'm sure you can understand the secret service still has their concerns i'm president john's president johnson would like nothing more than to fulfill your wishes but i have to take into account his safety in this scene we see former first lady jackie kennedy discussing security details before the funeral of then president john f kennedy him he would do anything that might bring you comfort and who is it up to mr valenti oftentimes it's said that secret service policies are born out of blood and the tragic loss of john f kennedy is a clear example of that agents learn very early on in their training about the different failures that occurred on that day and for that reason we see the president constantly traveling in not only a closed top vehicle but now that vehicle is completely and fully armored well as i'm sure you know tomorrow we're expecting close to 100 heads of state 103 yes i'm sure that's right and i suspect they'll make all their own decisions based on what there's a great deal of classified intelligence that i just can't get into we've intercepted a threat against general negol from our assets in geneva i'm afraid if he refuses to march others may follow the question is what is the balance of exposure and security and there's always a fine balance between the two this instance the first lady felt that it was necessary to bring closure to this traumatic situation for her to walk with the casket obviously that represents a significant security challenge but the secret service doesn't dictate the behavior of the protectees we build a security structure around that behavior so typically there's no final call made by one individual to dictate a security procedure what it is it's both sides coming to an agreement if it was up to the white house staff they would have the president standing in the middle of a crowd of a hundred thousand people with everybody around him it was up to the secret service we'd have the president in a big steel box with a little vent for air there's a there's a big difference in how do we how do we come to an agreement well that's negotiation mr valenti would you mind getting a message to all our funeral guests when they land of course inform them that i will walk with jack tomorrow alone if necessary and tell general de gaulle that if he wishes to ride in an armored car or in a tank for that matter i won't blame him and i'm sure the tens of millions of people watching won't either why are you doing this mrs kennedy i'm just doing my job so as we know historically the former first lady did walk in the funeral procession publicly outside i think in this instance the first lady was smart she stuck to her own conviction she knew what was best for not only her her children but the nation as it tried to heal this is the american president directed by rob reiner here we see the president united states requesting an impromptu stop at a flower shop look look there it is karma's house of flowers hey coop we gotta stop what i gotta get us some flowers here now well that's what men do when they break a date that's not what men do i know no men who do that hey coop i'm gonna hop out at the flower shop you gonna help out sir no he's not hopping no no hopping sir the president would often call his agents by their name in this instance uh colin koop is as a good representation of of that relationship the lead agent is the head of the detail so the the entire structure builds out from from that one individual the detail leader would would be traveling directly with the president stay in the car i'll get the flowers then it's not gonna be personal there's a very large motorcade the question always arises how many vehicles are in in that motorcade it varies it varies upon location actually in washington dc you're going to see probably one of the smallest motorcades where if the president's traveling to a campaign stop that motorcade could expand out significantly let's do a security suite we don't know who's in there you think there's a florist in there planning an assassination the off chance i might be stopping by it's possible the president says you know what are the odds of somebody here launching an attack in that flower shop i give them partial credit for that however you don't know what's on the other side of that door so that could be somebody that hates the president that has great animosity that is engaged in criminal activity you just don't know so eliminating the unknown is something that is critical for the secret service excuse me no girl at the game i'm telling you kiki wasn't even there excuse me hold on i will be right with you hey i don't know if you're the one that i talked to on the phone virginia dogwood president does any of this ring there so at the time that this movie was made which was really pre-911 there is a a likelihood that this could have occurred in today's environment um what you see here is what's referred to as an off the record movement these types of things rarely occur if any i have never experienced a true off the record movement which was not choreographed again the threat environment is is such that you can't take any chances and you have to control every environment that the president goes into this is an episode of veep directed by tristam shapiro just go for it i think we should just find the so the aren't fine this is a great scene i love it because it it does represent the shock sometimes that protectees have to realize that secret service agents are actually human uh they have some sort of emotion i think that the vice president's reaction here is a little bit overboard i've seen the president make a joke and agents laugh i've actually laughed at something the first lady said and then in turn they started teasing me about something so as long as it's something that's measured that doesn't have a material impact on the moment then i think it's appropriate that was totally inappropriate and inappropriate that's not the first time that that's happened by the way he's not supposed to register emotion he's supposed to be like a robot geisha i have heard secret service agents be described in many different ways uh never as a robot geisha so that uh that actually is a is a first you may find this surprising but i actually think that veep really represents the organized i don't want to say chaos but a structure that is a hurry up offense constantly for for any administration a great representation of the security structure that i've discussed today can actually be seen during the upcoming inauguration during the inaugural parade you can actually see many layers of the concentric rings of protection there's a lot of things that you will see and there's a lot more things that you will not see i challenge you to take a look and see how many you can identify

Channel: Vanity Fair

Views: 1,553,269

Rating: 4.9431357 out of 5

Keywords: secret service, secret service review, secret service reviews, former secret service agent, former secret service agent reviews, vanity fair reviews, vanity fair, expert review, expert reviews, experts review, secret service vanity fair, secret service film, secret service films, secret service protection, secret service explained, jonathan wackrow, secret service movie, secret service movies, presidential films, presidential review, vanity fair review, review

Id: LkY_BkIb4QA

Length: 21min 35sec (1295 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/earhere]

Next one, Former Terrorist reviews Terrorism depictions in films.

[u/codyt321]

I would sign up for an entire series of just politicos responding to Veep.