The Secret Service Knows Whose Cocaine It Is

Home of News, Politics & Opinion Mark Schwendau

by Mark Schwendau

In the spring of 1976, I was a student teacher at Buffalo Grove High School in Illinois. One Tuesday, I was in the lunch line getting my lunch when a tall (over 6 feet) good-looking young man in a nice suit was behind me. We each got our lunches, and then he asked me if he could sit with me. Of course, I agreed. At first glance I had him figured to be a vendor visiting the school to sell something.

As we sat across a cafeteria table from one another I studied him and began to make conversation. It was about the time I wrapped up my side of the conversation of who I was. I noticed his lapel pin and inadvertently blurted out, “And I bet you’re law enforcement and more specifically Secret Service.” He looked at me like he had been shot. LOL

Keeping his cool he said, “Why would you say that?” I replied, “Because I thought about going FBI before I went into education.” I continued my theory of why he was Secret Service, “Maybe because one of our Home Economics teachers in my office bullpen has a second home in Vail, Colorado, and her next door neighbor happens to be none other than President Gerald R. Ford.”

At that point the mystery man smiled and said, “I can’t say anything now but if you want to have lunch tomorrow, your high school principal is going to make an announcement tomorrow morning and then I can talk.”

So, of course, the next morning the announcement was made United States President Gerald Ford, would be visiting our high school Friday evening for a campaign presentation, and a limited number of guests were invited as students, faculty, administration, and staff. Everyone would require a ticket in advance, and all people entering the building would be screened by Secret Service.

So the next day my new acquaintance and I ate lunch together so he could talk openly with me. It was a talk I will never forget. It also made me sad, though as I really liked this guy. He told me he was in a unit of the Secret Service called the White House Advance Team. He told me what his job entailed and said he would be gone before President Ford arrived, and a different team would come with the President. He told me things that would happen- some seen and some not.

Washington DC, USA – May 02, 2019: U.S. Secret Service Officer in front of White House. Washington DC. USA

Here are a few I remember:

He told me I would never be safer in my life as all air traffic would be diverted overhead. No flights were allowed over the President, and military aircraft would be overhead to make sure of it. That night I saw and heard a helicopter over the school.

He told me that the indoor swimming pool adjacent to our basketball gym would have heavy weights put over the bottom drains, and a bomb squad would sweep the entire building, even going down in dive outfits to scan the bottom of that pool (the logic was a bomb could be blown up the sewer line with air). Bomb-sniffing dogs would comb the building late Friday afternoon.

He told me sharpshooters would be stationed on the roof of the building with flares to make sure people saw them for the intimidation factor.

What was even more interesting than what he told me were several things that would later come to pass.

Two high school boys were walking down the hallway Thursday when one said to the other, “Wouldn’t it be funny if the president got shot while he was here.” All of a sudden, a Secret Service agent came out of nowhere and took both boys into custody. They were held for 72 hours until the president was on his way home and then released to the custody of their parents. While we were in the school listening to President Ford, two other boys were breaking into a car for a CB radio. They, too, were placed under arrest by the Secret Service and held in custody until the president had left, and then they were turned over to local law enforcement for prosecution.

My point of this very personal story is that the media is not reporting on how the Secret Service operates. The First Family does not go through security screenings by the Secret Service like the rest of us, for, after all, they are the First Family. They are not searched out of respect for our highest office.

It is not the job of the Secret Service to narc out the First Family, but then again, it is also not their job to turn a blind eye to a Federal crime. I truly feel for them in this conundrum since I knew one of them.