Mel Ayton - Protecting the Presidential Candidates: From JFK To Biden

Protecting the Presidential Candidates

Other books by Mel Ayton:

Plotting to Kill the President Assassination Attempts from Washington to Hoover

Dark Soul of the South: The Life and Crimes of Racist Killer Joseph Paul Franklin

Justice Denied: Bermudas Black Militants, The Third Man and the Assassinations of a Police Chief and Governor

Beyond Reasonable Doubt The Warren Report and Lee Harvey Oswalds Guilt and Motive 50 Years On , with David Von Pein

The JFK Assassination: Dispelling the Myths

Questions of Controversy: The Kennedy Brothers

Praise for Mel Aytons Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts

From FDR to Obama :

The only book of its kind and certainly the best book of its kind A fascinating and very important book which I heartily recommend its easy to figure out why Mel Aytons writing has drawn nearly universal praise in the past and for his present volume Hunting the President Even for people who know American history; even for people who have a special expertise in the history of presidential assassinations; youre going to learn a great deal from [this] new book. Michael Medved, The Michael Medved Show

Hunting the President by Mel Ayton shows that both threats and attempts are far more common than we know. Larry Getlen, New York Post

Ayton debunks conventional wisdom about presidential assassins motivations. Readers who pick up Hunting the President will take away much they didnt know before about many whove stalked presidents with murder in mind. Alan Wallace, Pittsburgh Tribune

I picked up this book, boy, its fascinating! The Sean Hannity Show

I love the book its a great read. Peter Boyles, The Peter Boyles Show

From JFK to Biden

Mel Ayton

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

Frontline Books

an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS

Copyright Mel Ayton 2021

ISBN 978 1 39901 408 3

eISBN 978 1 39901 409 0

The right of Mel Ayton to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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For my wife Sheila, my son Tim, my daughter Laura, my son-in-law Paul and my grandchildren, Isabella, Sophia and Cameron, the joy of my life

Protecting the Presidential Candidates from JFK to Biden is the third in a series of books I have written about presidential protection following the publication of Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts From FDR to Obama (2014) and Plotting to Kill the President Assassination Attempts from Washington to Hoover (2017).

According to the Secret Service it is during a presidential election year when a president or presidential candidate faces the highest risk of assassination. During this period the Secret Service is on its highest alert when candidates for the presidency, including sitting presidents, expose themselves to large and sometimes unruly crowds. It makes their protective mission a vital part of the election process.

Protecting the Presidential Candidates is the first book of its kind to chronicle the history of modern bodyguard protection for leading presidential candidates and presidents during election cycles. It is also the first book of its kind to tell the story of the role of state law-enforcement officers and private bodyguards in protecting presidential candidates.

The book also covers plots, threats and assassination attempts against leading candidates but omits a full examination of assassination plots and threats against presidents. Those incidents are chronicled in my books Hunting the President Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts From FDR to Obama and Plotting to Kill the President: Assassination Attempts from Washington to Hoover .

It would be impossible to write about the protection all candidates have received from 1960 to 2020. There have, literally, been more than a hundred presidential candidates during this period. The majority of their presidential campaigns lasted only a few weeks or, at best, a few months. I have therefore chosen those politicians who the media characterised as front-runners or future presidents the exception to the rule being the candidacies of Jesse Jackson and George Wallace. While historians never believed either candidate would eventually become president, they nevertheless described them as having ran important historical campaigns which placed the United States defining issue of race at the centre.

There have been a number of assumptions held by the general public which Protecting the Presidential Candidates addresses. It has been assumed that protecting the lives of leading candidates has been wholly dependent on the Secret Service. Whenever reports appear in the media about a politicians bodyguards it is generally assumed that presidents, vice presidents and presidential candidates are all guarded by the US Secret Service from the beginning of the presidential campaign season to its conclusion. Protecting the Presidential Candidates alters that assumption. Readers will probably be unaware, for example, that candidates like Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan campaigned for the presidency long before the official election cycle began, and they would also be unaware of the protection these candidates employed which was very little. Jimmy Carter, for example, began his campaign with the protection of one Georgia State Police bodyguard, as did Ronald Reagan who was protected by a single California Highway Patrolman.

Readers will also learn that sitting state governors who ran for president, including Nelson Rockefeller, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and George Wallace, began their campaigns with a small force of state police officers.

Many presidential candidates were either sitting or former vice presidents. Protecting the Presidential Candidates addresses the commonly held belief that vice presidents have never been the target of assassins. It has often been said that no one would attempt to kill a vice president because it would be pointless nothing would change and the president would simply appoint another vice president closely allied to his policies. However, as this book demonstrates, there have been at least five assassination attempts directed against vice presidents; one of which has never before been revealed.