Commander-in-chief

Despite the word "secret", American agents are instantly recognisable.

Dressed in sharp suits, dark sunglasses and earpieces, their job is to scan crowds for potential attackers. If they are protecting a president they must even take a bullet for them if required.

When presidents travel in the famous bulletproof limousine known as "the Beast", an entire motorcade of Secret Service agents follows behind. Action-packed Hollywood films tell stories of their heroism and bravery.

But a new book has shattered this image of steely professionalism.

Yesterday, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carol Leonnig published her damning verdict on the agency. In Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, she paints a picture of dysfunction stretching back decades.

Writing for The New York Times, Chris Whipple calls the book "a devastating catalogue of jaw-dropping incompetence, ham-fisted mismanagement and frat-boy bacchanalia."

The book charts some of the most shocking failures in the history of the Secret Service. On November 22nd 1963, the agents protecting President John F Kennedy were apparently so hungover from a gin-fuelled binge the night before that some of them could barely stand up. Little wonder, Leonnig says, that their reflexes were not sharp enough to prevent their commander-in-chief from being assassinated.

There were mistakes on another traumatic day in US history. As hijacked planes were crashing into buildings on 9/11, the Secret Service attempted to get Vice President Dick Cheney to safety. As they arrived at the bunker, Cheney was forced to wait as an agent struggled to find the right keys.

Most shocking of all is what Leonnig writes about the present-day Secret Service. Normally, agents are under strict instructions not to speak to journalists. Some made an exception for Leonnig, she says, because they feared it was only "a matter of time before a president was shot on their watch."

Leonnig reveals how, overworked and underfunded, agents are being stretched to breaking point. When Donald Trump was president, an intruder climbed over the fence and into the White House grounds. He strolled around for a full 17 minutes before anyone noticed him.

Extraordinarily, this was because the cameras and sensors were all broken. "This is supposed to be the most secure 18 acres in the world, and they just didn't have the money to fix those things," writes Leonnig.

Are American presidents as safe as we think?

Of course, they are. Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, but no President has been assassinated since 1963. By neatly compiling every single mistake from the last 60 years, Leonnig is unfairly harsh on the Secret Service. We don't hear about the agency's success in foiling attacks - often because agents are legally required to keep them secret.

No, they aren't, say others. Leonnig makes that clear. Her book is an urgent warning that things need to change. And it is not just funding that threatens security. Joe Biden's team made changes to his Secret Service protection after concerns that some agents were still loyal to Donald Trump. Like the United States itself, agents are politically divided. It is difficult to believe that a Trump-supporting agent would take a bullet for Biden.