Riding with REAGAN
FROM THE WHITE HOUSE TO THE RANCH
JOHN R. BARLETTA, U.S. Secret Service (Ret.)
with ROCHELLE SCHWEIZER
CITADEL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
There is nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.
—Ronald Reagan
Table of Contents
Title Page Epigraph 1 - The Bond Is Forged 2 - The Unlikeliest of Friends 3 - The Rider and His Ranch 4 - A Strong Man and His Horses 5 - The Cowboy’s Lady 6 - Protecting the Rider 7 - The Assassination Attempt 8 - With World Leaders 9 - The Simple Man 10 - The People He Loved to Be With 11 - The Gipper’s Smile 12 - Closing Scene 13 - The Ending Acknowledgments Copyright Page
1
The Bond Is Forged
I was in what we called the down room in the White House, taking a break with a few other agents, when my shift leader came in to ask if any of us could ride. The down room is a small room near the command post with a few couches and some hooks on the wall where the agents can hang their jackets. The shift leaders had been asking all the agents the same question, “Does anyone know how to ride a horse?” At first, the question surprised me, but I sheepishly raised my hand. The boss said, “Barletta, you’re going to go over to President-elect Reagan’s detail out at the ranch next time.”
I said in response, “Yes, sir.”
Consisting of approximately two thousand agents, the U.S. Secret Service is an integrated but layered network. In its sophisticated operations, the Secret Service assigns each division with a specific area of protection. The Uniformed Division is responsible for the security of the White House and grounds, as well as foreign embassies in the United States. They outfit their command post with equipment such as infrared cameras that monitor all that is going on in or near the White House. They are usually a part of the Secret Service advance team in charge of the magnetometers, dog teams, and countersniper teams. The Technical Security Division (TSD) makes certain all the electronic systems are in place, including the ground’s perimeter alarms.
Located in the West Wing of the White House, the surprisingly unpretentious Secret Service command post is referred to as W-16. When compared to the Uniformed Division, the equipment is simple—a few television monitors and a switchboard to receive incoming calls. Today it is much more sophisticated, with the supervisors’ offices and plenty of state-of-the-art technology located across the street in the Executive Office Building. In this mammoth operation, everyone has a boss—supervisors, shift leaders, and working agents. On our detail, everyone answered to the shift leader first.
The entire Secret Service always faces a huge learning curve during the transition to a new administration. Following the election of a new president, the Presidential Protective Division (PPD) splits the detail between the sitting president and the president-elect so that some agents can start getting used to the new man’s needs and mannerisms. Right from the beginning, President Reagan’s detail started accompanying him to his ranch. With the grueling campaign over, the ranch was where he and Mrs. Reagan wanted to go to relax.
It soon became apparent that the supervisors at the ranch were having quite a time finding agents to protect the newly elected president while he was riding his horse. Horses are dangerous, and you have to know what you are doing. The rider is handling a big animal weighing about twelve hundred pounds with incredible strength and jumping and running abilities and with a brain the size of a walnut.
The problems at the ranch began even before anyone mounted a horse. First, no one had any idea how to tie a horse, the president-elect ended up saddling the horses for the agents. Things only got worse once they started riding. President Reagan would ride fast and jump fences. He was really an English equestrian rider. The agents assigned to him did not know how to ride, and they were having trouble keeping up with him. One day, an agent fell off his horse and broke his arm. The president-elect dismounted his horse to take care of the agent. Our chief supervisor at the time rightly said that was not how things should work. The President was not supposed to be giving us aid and comfort. That was what we should be doing for him.
After that incident, the detail supervisor called the White House and said, “I have a big problem out here. I need someone who can ride a horse.” The supervisor at the White House put out the word to the shift leaders that they needed to find an agent who could really ride. And that’s where I came in.
* * *
TO DEAL WITH the new security needs at the ranch following Reagan’s election, the Secret Service created the Western Protective Division (WPD), which would protect the ranch even when the First Couple was not there. In the weeks before the inauguration, agents made a trip to Santa Barbara, California. Members of the Secret Service always fly commercially unless they are working a shift. Only then do they fly on Air Force One or another government aircraft.
In Santa Barbara, the agents used dozens of rental cars that had been brought up from Los Angeles. During the first few months, we drove those rental cars from our hotel in Santa Barbara to the ranch for our eight-hour shifts, but the drive up the winding mountain road was tough, and it wasn’t long before sturdier Chevy Suburbans replaced them. For the next eight years, the Suburbans were workhorses, transporting the agents on those precipitous drives to and from the ranch. The number of agents on duty at the ranch varied, depending on ever-changing circumstances such as the weather and the President’s arrivals and departures. In addition to the dog teams outside the perimeter, there could be as many as fifty-four supplemental agents standing post.
The President and I first met in late November 1980 during my first trip to the ranch. On my first morning there, I was standing outside the barn with Jerry Parr, the deputy special agent in charge, when the president-elect approached us on his way to get his horse ready. A path of about fifty steps led from the ranch house to the tack room.
Built on a hill, the tack room was in a metal and brick building with two large rooms. In one of the rooms were the President’s two Jeeps, a tractor, and all the ranch tools, including chain saws, pole saws, and axes. All the horse equipment was kept inside the second room, where the wall was covered with saddles hanging on racks. Some of the saddles were gifts that the President