Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [282]
Many Arkansans now gathered together, after this staggering week, and gasped to each other in horror: “Oh God, now this?”
CHAPTER
33
“OF TRUST AND CONFIDENCE”
One of the fiercest battles that erupted between Ken Starr’s office and the Justice Department, to which he theoretically was appended, related to the question of whether United States Secret Service (USSS) agents could be forced to testify.
Within days of the Lewinsky story’s erupting in the mainstream press, news reports swept over the Internet and wire services, declaring that Secret Service agents posted in the White House had walked in on President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in various compromising positions. The first media outlet to break the story was the Dallas Morning News; it posted a late-night report on its Web site, slaking the public’s thirst for more salacious news about the Lewinsky affair. Under the byline of David Jackson, the Dallas paper reported that a specific Secret Service agent had stepped forward “Ready to Testify.” A person identified as a Washington lawyer familiar with the FBI and Starr’s office was quoted as saying: “Starr has this person in his hand. This person is now a government witness.” The source added: “This person is real.”
Web sites, newspapers, and the worldwide media piled onto the story. The New York Post featured a front-page sizzler with the banner: “Sexgate Stunner, Secret Service Agent to Testify: I SAW THEM DO IT.” An inside story promised “G-Man Who ‘Saw Tryst’ Will Tell.” The media also reported that Monica Lewinsky had dictated a “complete proffer” of her testimony over the phone to Starr’s prosecutors, and that she was prepared to walk into the grand jury and “spill the beans.”
No sooner had the Secret Service story swept around the world than the Dallas Morning News retracted it. A day after its publication, editor Ralph Langer made the embarrassing admission that “a primary source was now claiming that he had provided incorrect information.” Yet there was no way to put the genie back in its bottle. With rumors abounding that Secret Service agents held the key to proving the illicit affair, Ken Starr’s office swung into action. The best way to find out what ordinarily mum Secret Service agents had seen, OIC decided, was to question them under oath.
The person most incensed and troubled by this decision was Lewis C. Merletti, director of the Secret Service. The short, agile Italian American with jet black hair had grown up in Pittsburgh and looked more like an athlete than a member of a counterassault team trained to kill. In 1998, at age fifty, Lew Merletti had risen to the top of his profession. He had accomplished this by remaining low-key, by maintaining an intense ability to focus, and through grueling preparation. Awarded a Green Beret at age twenty, Merletti had completed a tour of duty in Vietnam on the Special Forces A-Team, returned to pursue a career in the Secret Service (he was assigned to the Washington, D.C., counterassault team), and then received an appointment to one of the most coveted but stressful jobs in the agency: serving in the Presidential Protection Division, or PPD.
The PPD stressed attention to detail, disciplined focus, and a work ethic that treated each moment of each day as “strictly business.” When he first arrived, the Secret Service had just dealt with an assassination attempt on President Reagan in March 1981—sixty-nine days after Reagan’s inauguration. Consequently, Merletti and his fellow PPD agents worked relentlessly on drills involving AOPs (attacks on principals). He followed a strict regimen that included weight-lifting, running, and monthly shooting requalifications to gain every advantage in case of an attack. Merletti practiced “evacuating” from burning motorcades and fleeing from fiery buildings created by exploding pyrotechnics at the Secret Service’s undisclosed training center, preparing