Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

DEVELOPMENT OF PRESIDENTIAL PROTECTION

The assassination of McKinley, only 36 years after Lincoln’s death, shocked the nation and heightened awareness of the uniqueness of the Presidency and its grim hazards. While the first congressional session after McKinley’s assassination gave more attention to legislation concerning attacks on the President than any previous Congress, it passed no protective measures. Nevertheless, in 1902, the Secret Service, then the only significant Federal general investigative agency, assumed full-time responsibility for presidential safety as one of its major permanent functions, assigning two men to its original full-time White House detail and providing additional agents when the President traveled or vacationed.

第二章 With the assistance of Agent in Charge Sorrels of the

This chapter traces the historical development of U.S. presidential protection by the Secret Service from Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency through the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It covers legislative authorizations, notable assassination attempts, organizational changes, and concludes with medical records from Parkland Memorial Hospital relating to President Kennedy.

Theodore Roosevelt’s Perspective on Secret Service Protection

Theodore Roosevelt, the first president to receive extensive Secret Service protection, expressed ambivalent views in a 1906 letter to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. Roosevelt described the Secret Service men as “a very small but very necessary thorn in the flesh,” acknowledging that they would not prevent an assassination but were essential for managing the daily intrusions of carriages, pedestrians, cranks, and others. He quoted Lincoln’s observation that although it would be safer for a president to live in a cage, doing so would interfere with his duties.