OPINION:
As the second attempt on the life of former President Trump was foiled only by a Secret Service agent who saw a gun barrel sticking out of a fence and then fired on the gun holder just a few hundred yards from where Trump stood, it is expected that decent people everywhere are questioning the ability of this agency to do what it’s supposed to do.
JFK was assassinated in 1963. Bobby Kennedy, a presidential candidate who had just won the California primary, was assassinated in 1968, though he was not yet under Secret Service protection. President Gerald Ford was shot at twice in 1975. President Reagan was hit in 1981, surviving, after extraordinary surgery, a bullet that hit just an eighth of an inch from his heart.
The Secret Service came into being in 1863 with the signature of President Lincoln, on the day he was shot and killed. But it was formed primarily to find and arrest forgers of American money. It was only tasked with protecting the president in 1901, after the assassination of President William McKinley. In 1906, Congress passed legislation to fund presidential protection. After Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, presidential candidates were added to the list of those who got protection
Something drastic needs to be done, and now — not after a long, Kabuki theater-style process of investigations and proposals.
H. LEE LAPOLE
Loveland, Ohio
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