United States Secret Service

The United States Secret Service is connected in the book to two distinct White House operations: the transfer of information about a political opponent and the maintenance of a system that recorded presidential conversations. The passages identify the institution’s role but do not name the agents involved or describe the agency’s broader participation in either operation.

Information Sent to the White House

An account of undercover activity dating back to 1969 states that the Secret Service forwarded information about the private life of a Democratic presidential candidate to the White House. The episode is presented alongside other investigative and information-gathering actions, including the handling of Senator Eagleton’s health records and an FBI investigation of a news correspondent. In that context, the Secret Service’s documented role was a channel through which personal information about a political figure reached the presidential administration.

Role in the Presidential Taping System

The Secret Service also appears in the account of the White House recording system. Knowledge of the system was restricted to the President, selected aides, Alexander Haig, Alexander Butterfield, and several Secret Service agents who maintained it. The agents’ stated connection was operational: they were among the small group aware of the recordings because they serviced the system. The account does not identify them or say that they controlled how the recordings were used.

Scope of the Record

These two references place the Secret Service at different points in the book’s portrait of White House operations: in one, information about a political opponent was passed to the administration; in the other, agents maintained equipment central to the recording of presidential conversations. The evidence establishes those specific connections, but does not establish who within the agency initiated the information transfer, what happened to the information afterward, or whether the two activities were linked.