The US Secret Service

Dateline: 02/27/98

The man in the circle on the left side of the picture is Secret Service Agent,Clint Hill. Riding in the car in front of Agent Hill are President John F. Kennedy, his wife, Jackie, and Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie. They are all in Dallas, Texas on the a1afternoon of November 22, 1963.

Agent Hill has no idea that in a few seconds he'll be climbing over the trunk of the President's car trying to get Jackie Kennedy off the trunk and into the back seat where he will attempt to make his own body intercept bullets aimed at the First Family.

Clint Hill cannot see the future, but as a Secret Service Agent, he is always ready for it.

History of the US Secret Service
In 1865, up to one-half of all the paper money in America was counterfeit, and President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. So on July 5, 1865, Congress created the US Secret Service under the Treasury Department -- to stop the counterfeiting. And a good job they did of it. By 1875 very little bogus money remained in circulation.

As the only federal law enforcement agency dedicated solely to Treasury operations at the time, the Secret Service took on many non-treasury related cases including the Teapot Dome scandal, the Ku Klux Klan, and foreign spying.

(Our first federal law enforcement agency, the U.S. Marshals Service, was created in 1789 by the same legislation that created the federal judicial system itself. U.S. Marshal, Robert Forsyth became the first U.S. law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty on January 11, 1794.)

It took until 1901 when William McKinley became the third President killed in office, for Congress to unofficially assign the task of protecting the new President, Theodore Roosevelt, to the Secret Service. Finally, in 1906, Congress passed legislation making presidential protection an official duty of the Secret Service.

Since then, the Secret Service's Uniformed Division has seen its protective services grow to include not only the President, First Family, and White House staff, but the Vice President and family, and US foreign diplomatic personnel. The Agency currently employs over 2000 male and female uniformed officers who investigate more than 1,500 threats every year.

Today, Secret Service Special Agents protect:

• The President, Vice President (or persons in line of presidential succession)
• The immediate families of the above
• Former Presidents and their spouses for 10 years after leaving office
• Children of former Presidents until age 16
• Visiting heads of foreign governments and their spouses
• Major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and spouses within 120 days of the general elections

To find out more about how they do this, visit the Special Agents & Our Protective Mission page on the Secret Service Web site.

Counterfeiting
While the Secret Service's Protective agents get the press and notoriety (lately more than they might want), agents of the Investigations Mission continue to quietly carry out the Service's original duty of stopping counterfeiting.

During the Civil War, each one of about 1,600 state banks were allowed to design and print their own bills. As a result, there were over 7,000 varieties of real US paper bills in circulation. Even a crude copy had a good chance of passing. Congress first adopted a single nation-wide currency in 1862, but by 1865, even the national currency had been so heavily counterfeited that the Secret Service was established to stop the practice.

Today, counterfeiting has increased. Office copiers, laser printers, and desktop publishing software have advanced to the point where criminals with only a little practice can quickly produce large quantities of bogus bills. Worse yet, this easy to access technology makes it possible to counterfeit almost anything printed item of value. Stock certificates, postage stamps, and food stamps are just a few of the hundreds of counterfeited items investigated by the Secret Service.

To help individuals and businesses protect themselves the Secret Service offers some great anti-counterfeiting resources like Know You Money, featuring Detecting Counterfeit Bills and Coins. Office Machine Copiers explains how modern printing technology is being used to produce counterfeits, while New Design Characteristics of Money explains what the Treasury Department is doing about it. If you Receive a Counterfeit tells what to do if you find yourself in possession of a counterfeit bill or other item.

Employment at the Secret Service
If you are interested in working for the US Secret Service, take a look at their Employment and Personnel page.

Other Web Resources in This Article
The Internet Public Library
Links to information about Presidents of the United States

Grolier International Online Edition
Link to Teapot-Dome Scandal history.

Pathfinder -- Photo Archives
Link to picture from Abraham Zapruder Kennedy assassination film.

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