Executive Protection: "Soak Up Six For The Boss"

By Lt. Thomas A. Taylor, Missouri State Highway Patrol A dashing terrorist, armed with a state-of-the-art weapon, watches from a distant perch as a dignitary, riding in an armored Mercedes. arrives for an important meeting. The dignitary, surrounded by several bodyguards, enters the building. The terrorist knows that he will exit the same door and return to the same car. He prepares for the attack. Later, the dignitary emerges and strides toward the limo. His bodyguards accompany him in a loose diamond formation, their eyes scanning the surrounding area for signs of danger. The terrorist takes careful aim with his silenced weapon, fires a muffled shot, and the dignitary falls to the sidewalk, fatally injured. In the ensuing confusion, the terrorist calmly escapes. This, statistically speaking, describes a typical assault on a public figure, right? Not really. Perhaps this type of assault is common on prime time TV, but it is extremely rare in the real world. Public figures within the United States are typically assaulted by a lone gunman, usually a male, armed with a handgun. Like the given example, the attack often happens during a departure situation, when the event has ended and the dignitary is leaving the function site. Of the 13 assassination attempts made against U.S. presidents, 51 percent of the attacks occurred during the departure. Unlike the example, however, the attack usually occurs close-in, rather than from a distance. Public figures outside the United States are usually assaulted by a criminal or terrorist group, armed with automatic weapons or explosives. The majority of attacks occur during motorcade situations, in and around cars. The use of remote-controlled car bombs, planted along motorcade routes, has become a favorite terrorist technique. Another is for two assassins on a motorcycle -- the passenger armed with an automatic weapon-to pull alongside the protectee's car and open fire. Both techniques are often successful. Assassins are not clumsy, predictable, slobbering idiots. A group intent on assassinating Charles IX of France in 1574 attached a gelatinous substance to the pages of his favorite book, knowing of his habit of wetting his fingers with his tongue while reading. By poisoning the book, they poisoned him. In 1925, the head of Bulgaria was the target of an innovative group. Unable to penetrate his extensive security directly, they first assassinated a prominent government official whose death would require a state funeral. The church to be used was then wired with

explosives. When the target made his entrance during the funeral service, the explosives were detonated, collapsing the roof. In order to assassinate one man, more than 200 people were killed. Several hundred law enforcement officers nationwide are assigned the sometimes exciting, more often mundane, task of providing protection to governors, mayors and other dignitaries. Most security details are small and unable to provide the massive amount of protection given to presidents, kings and premiers. They depend instead on providing a more low-key level of protection. Since the bad guys need to know where the protectee will be, and when he will be there, in order to carry out an assault, the amount of protection provided can vary greatly for the same dignitary. During high-profile visits where there has been extensive publicity on the activity, security should be much tighter than during low-profile situations. History has shown time and again that assassins are obsessed with prior assassinations. Many assassins clip and keep articles on other attacks. Bodyguards for the mayor of a large Midwestern city arrested a lone gunman carrying a briefcase, which contained a .32 revolver, 18 extra rounds and a newspaper clipping about Anwar Sadat's assassination. Publicity not only provides the assassin with valuable information on the protectee's activities, it can also be the catalyst for an attack by creating an atmosphere of excitement. Officers assigned to a protective mission should be extra alert during highpublicity situations. A highly trained police officer or soldier doesn't necessarily make a good bodyguard. The bodyguard must never forget that his job is to protect the dignitary at all costs. It is largely a defensive posture. The street officer, sworn to stop crime and protect the public, would instinctively react in an offensive manner, confronting and apprehending criminals. This would leave the dignitary unguarded and open to assault from another direction, While a street officer is trained to dive for cover when under attack, the bodyguard must cover and evacuate his protectee. Tony Geraghty, in his book, The Bullet Catchers, describes the role of the security person this way: "The bodyguard, prepared-in the trade's own jargon-to be 'a bullet-catcher for other people,' is also, for a few brief seconds, the only defense left to the open society. He is expressing, as a hard-nosed professional, a Christian precept that runs, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." A veteran Secret Service agent, when asked what to do when your protective assignment falls apart, answered with a smile, "You soak up six for the boss!"

The secret to the longevity of life for a bodyguard (and his protectee), therefore, is to avoid getting into a shooting situation. The most fundamental concept in protection is that of conflict avoidance. In order to accomplish this, the bodyguard must undergo strict training with an emphasis on proactive skills, rather than reactive skills. Reactive skills include firearms training, evasive driving, martial arts and emergency medical training-those skills needed after things have gone wrong. Proactive skills include intelligence gathering, threat assessment, life-style risk reduction, site hardening, movement planning, advance preparations, vehicle or body armor, and an alert stance -- those things done before things go wrong, which will hopefully foil an attack. It is the responsibility of the officer to establish a safe environment in which the protectee can function, to preclude the opportunity for an attack. This is not to say that training in reactive skills is unimportant; however, officers are often assigned to protect a dignitary or witness with little or no training in the proactive skills necessary to successfully carry out that assignment. Reliance on reactive skills alone is a sure route to disaster, no matter how good the officer may be. All too often the bodyguard feels in control by merely strolling along behind his protectee, content that he has the reactive skills necessary to counter any threat that they will encounter. This is a fool's mentality, which will probably prove inadequate when faced with a life-threatening situation. Studies of assaults on public figures around the world reveal the following to be true:

The vast majority of attacks are successful. Bodyguards rarely fire their guns effectively, if they fire at all. Bodyguard's gunfire almost never affects the outcome. The bodyguards usually all die.

Geraghty states it this way: "To be truly effective, the bodyguard requires more than strong nerves and skill at arms. Special air service veterans tell an apocryphal tale about a Middle Eastern ruler who sought absolute safety in a walled garden surrounded by soldiers. Each day he walked around the garden accompanied by a bodyguard who carried every conceivable type of weapon, a fearsome man with so many black belts they caused indigestion. So the ruler thought he was safe until a poisonous snake bit his ankle. The bodyguard had no medical training, not even a first-aid kit. The moral, as they say, is that "the fatal threat is usually what the target and his bodyguard had not considered." Nearly a hundred law enforcement officers are killed every year. Factors that play a role in their deaths include fatigue, lack of proper training, tombstone courage (the John

Wayne syndrome) and lack of mental alertness. These same factors almost always play a role when bodyguards fail to adequately protect their principals. It is ultimately the protective detail leader's responsibility to see that his team is adequately trained in proactive and reactive skills, that they maintain a proper mental alertness for any threat to the protectee, and that they are not overworked to the point of exhaustion. The sharper and more professional the detail looks, the less likelihood there is of an attack. To depend on luck alone is foolish, for luck smiles on those who are best prepared. There is no crystal ball that predicts when the lone gunman will step forth, when the protectee will suffer a heart attack, or when the drunken driver will cross the centerline and hit the protectee's car head-on. James W. Clarke, in his book, "American Assassins - The Darker Side Of Politics", writes: "Assassins cannot be easily stereotyped . . . The incidence of these attacks has increased significantly since 1963 . . . The tasks of security are enormous, and the brave persons shouldering that difficult burden should have the best information available. At present, they do not." Therefore, the protective detail must maintain a constant state of alertness for anything that may go wrong. As the saying goes in protection work: Plan for the worst and hope for the best. In doing so, you will reduce the odds that you'll have to soak up six for the boss.

Lieutenant Tom A. Taylor, Missouri State Highway Patrol, is director of the Governor's Security Division. He also serves as secretary to the National Governor's Security Association.