PAGE-1 | ICPS

The Art of Executive Protection

Chapter 1: Threat Assessment …………………………………………… 1

Premise ……………………………………………………………………….. 2

Range of Threats ……………………………………………………………. 2

Risk Analysis ……………………………………………………………….. 4

Chapter 2: The Philosophy of Protection ………………………….. 27

Principle 1 ………………………………………………………………….. 28

Principle 2 ………………………………………………………………….. 29

Principle 3 ………………………………………………………………….. 30

Principle 4 …………………………………………………………………. 31

Principle 5 …………………………………………………………………. 31

Principle 6 ………………………………………………………………….. 32

Chapter 3: Working the Principal.. ………………………………….. 35

Characteristics of a Good EP Specialist.. …………………………… 36

The Agent’s Command of Self.. ………………………………………. 37

The Agent’s Dealings with the Principal.. …………………………. .46

What the Principal and Agent Would Like to Tell

Each Other But Usually Don’t …………………………………….. 58

The Big Question …………………………………………………………. 59

Chapter 4: The Advance …………………………………………………. 61

Protective Intelligence …………………………………………………… 63

Principles of Advance Work …………………………………………… 65

How to Perform an Advance …………………………………………… 68

Advance Work in Various Settings ………………………………….. 69

Scenario: A Well-Advanced Excursion …………………………….. 75

Follow-up Work ………………………………………………………….. 77

Chapter 5: Automobile Security ……………………………………… 79

Selecting a Car ……………………………………………………………. 80

Preparation …………………………………………………………………. 85

Security en Route ………………………………………………………… 89

Performance Handling ………………………………………………….. 95

Emergency Response ………………………………………………….. 100

Chapter 6: Home and Office Security …………………………….. 105

Home and Office ……………………………………………………….. 106

The Home ………………………………………………………………… 131

The Office ………………………………………………………………… 140

Chapter 7: Domestic and International Travel ……………….. 145

Whether to Travel at All ………………………………………………. 147

Preparation ……………………………………………………………….. 148

In Transit …………………………………………………………………. 154

Hotel and Resort Security …………………………………………….. 162

General Personal Security …………………………………………… 168

Health ……………………………………………………………………… 171

Communication …………………………………………………………. 176

Privacy …………………………………………………………………….. 177

Crises ……………………………………………………………………… 181

Chapter 8: Workplace Violence …………………………………….. 185

Sources and Types of Attacks ……………………………………….. 188

Profiling Workplace Killers ………………………………………….. 194

Prevention Measures …………………………………………………… 211

Reaction Measures ……………………………………………………… 219

Chapter 9: Protection Resources ……………………………………. 220

Law Enforcement Contacts ………………………………………….. 221

Intelligence and Other Information ………………………………… 223

Specialized Assistance ………………………………………………… 229

Chapter 10: Training, job Opportunities, and

Finding the Right Person ……………………………………….. 243

For the Agent ……………………………………………………………. 243

For the Principal ………………………………………………………… 256

Final Note ………………………………………………………………… 260

Recommended Reading ………………………………………………… 261

Index …………………………………………………………………………… 264

Introduction

In a flawed, dangerous world, risks abound. Everyone knows that,
and we all take steps daily to reduce the risks we face. We buy in-
surance; we look both ways before crossing the street; we avoid
dangerous parts of the city. We protect ourselves instinctively.

That level of protection, however, is not the end; it is only the
beginning. Personal protection can be elevated significantly. And
for some people-executives, celebrities, persons of high net
worth-personal protection should be taken to a much higher level.
Those persons typically face a higher level of threat than do others
and have the means to hire someone who can help them counter
that threat.

The crux of personal protection is shaping one’s own destiny.

The prevalence of risk is no reason to lie down and accept it, just
as the prevalence of disease is no reason to avoid vaccination. On
the contrary: a heightened awareness of risk is the very reason to
increase one’s level of protection. Doing so is man’s way of ex-
erting a measure of control over a mostly uncontrollable universe.

X111

At root, executive protection means improving your odds, taking
matters into your own hands.

With proper study and discipline, a person can expand the range
of risks he or she! deliberately avoids. That, however, is a compli-
cated, challenging endeavor. Just as an executive understands tax
laws in general but still hires an accountant to master the details, so
an executive should consider it efficient to engage a protection
specialist instead of trying to become an expert in yet another field.

Mastery of executive protection demands much. Adversaries,
whether armed criminals, protesters bent on causing embarrass-
ment, former employees burning for revenge, or merely the hand
of fate, hold nearly all the cards: they choose the time, the place,
and the method of attack. To counter that advantage, the execu-
tive protection (EP) specialist must use his intellect, diplomacy,
and cunning to balance secrecy against exposure, safety against
freedom of movement, boldness against caution. Doing so con-
stitutes the art of protection-executive protection.

EP specialists devote their energies, training, and talent to an-
ticipating threats against their principals- and then helping their
principals avoid them. Note the word “avoid.” That is a key part
of the strategy of executive protection. It is all but impossible to
prevent threats. Theoretically, a highly aggressive posture could
scare away almost all potential attackers, but that approach relies
on greatly restricting the principal’s movements and risks offend-
ing business associates, friends, and family. Such an approach
might even backfire and draw more attention from adversaries.

Much more effective is to follow the ancient guidance of Sun

Tzu. This Chinese strategist, who wrote in the sixth century

1 Both women and men are active in the field of executive protection, and of
course both women and men are among those who require such protection. How-
ever, over the next several hundred pages, to avoid a thousand iterations of the
cumbersome constructions “he or she,” “his or her,” and “him or her,” the author
respectfully asks the reader to interpret “he,” “his,” and “him” as applying to both
sexes, as is traditional, where it is logical to do so.

2 The person an EP specialist is charged with protecting is typically called a
principal, executive, client, or protectee. The EP specialist himself may be called an
agent, protection specialist, or other term. When an EP specialist works as part of a
team, that team is often called a detail.

XiV

B.C., offers time-honored truths in his military classic, The Art if
War. His advice applies as much to executive protection as it
does to conventional warfare. Make no mistake: to an executive
under attack, or a corporation whose chief executive is at risk,
executive protection is warfare. Sun Tzu’s insights show that
blustering and blundering against an enemy is an ignorant ap-
proach. What is called for, fundamentally, is cleverness. The
point of war, and the point of executive protection, is to win-
not to show the world how tough one is or to expend lives in
valiant but stupid campaigns. If the point is to win, how much
better a victory it is to win without battle, to win before a battle
ever begins. Sun Tzu writes;’

True excellence is to plan secretly, to move surrep-
titiously, to foil the enemy’s intentions and balk his
schemes, so that at last the day may be won without
shedding a drop of blood.

What a perfect description of executive protection. Adversaries
always hold the upper hand unless the EP specialist outwits them.
And that, precisely, is the EP specialist’s job: to defeat the adver-
sary with intelligence, planning, unpredictability, and avoidance of
danger.

This book is carefully designed to address both the EP specialist
and the executive. Through this book the user and the provider of
executive protection can develop a common understanding of
what the undertaking involves, what underlies it philosophically,
and how it should proceed. When the user and the provider uri-

derstand executive protection in the same way, the tensions that
result from the unknown are reduced, and together the EP spe-
cialist and the executive can deploy their resources in the most ef-
fective manner.

The type of EP specialist this book addresses is the private
sector specialist, the person who must protect a principal with-
out the vast resources that government EP specialists have at
their disposal. The book’s guidance serves experienced EP

3 Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ed. James Clavell (New York: Delacorte Press, 1983),
p. 20. All other Sun Tzu quotes in this book come from the same work.

specialists, novices, and those who contemplate entering the
field.

As for the users of executive protection, this book serves all those
who may need special protection. For that audience, the book raises
and answers important questions that an executive should examine.
For example, what does executive protection involve? How will it
help me? How much will executive protection affect my life? What
should I look for in a provider? Sad to say, the field of EP is full of
phonies; this book will help executives spot and avoid them.

Note that the field has almost nothing to do with the popular
perception of a “bodyguard.” The author hesitates to mention the
word “bodyguard” because of the associations it carries. Anyone
who has ever seen a Hollywood film’s depiction of one (the slick-
haired, wheel-spinning, gun-blasting hot dog) should push that im-
age aside while reading this book.

Why? Because executive protection is a highly evolved skill.

Its serious practitioners study and train extensively to improve
their craft. EP specialists rely on intelligence and alertness, not
wild shoot-outs. Firearms are a rarely used and absolute last re-
sort. (In fact, although protection specialists often carry weap-
ons, it is axiomatic among us that if you have time to draw your
firearm, you have time to shield or remove the principal instead.)
EP is more about threat assessment, protective intelligence,
transportation, choreography, advance work, 10-minute medi-
cine, resources, technology, and support.

This introduction began by stating that risks abound. Just what
types of risks are we talking about? Obviously, not everyone-in
fact, hardly anyone-is a likely target of terrorist attack or
assassination. An executive faces a much higher risk of injury
(intentional or unintentional), victimization by ordinary criminals,
being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time (crossfire on the
street, hotel fires, etc.), deliberate embarrassment, a medical emer-
gency, even kidnapping (which does happen-quite often in some
parts of the world). The risks to be protected against aren’t
dreamed up out of thin air. They are deduced from careful risk
analysis. Fortunately, for any individual, risks-whether high or
low-can always be reduced.

XVl

In the business world, executive protection has little to do
with cloak and dagger and much to do with corporate profit and
loss. Threats to an executive constitute a business risk. There-
fore, EP-by protecting the executive, a valuable corporate as-
set-fulfills a legitimate part of the corporate risk management
mission. And not only does it protect that asset, but it maxi-
mizes the utility of that asset. How? By being, in large part, a
facilitation resource. Executive protection permits the chief ex-
ecutive to live safely in, and move efficiently through, this dan-
gerous world. Under proper protection, the executive need not
worry about personal safety and can concentrate fully on the
business at hand. Clearly, underlying the mission of transporting
the executive safely from point A to point B is the basic mission
of transporting the executive from point A to point B at all.
Therefore, in performing the task of executive protection, the EP
specialist frees the executive to do whatever he does best. The
best protection agents are not tough guys from the security fra-
ternity but effective, well-informed, and articulate components of
corporate risk management.

Since executive protection safeguards principals against a range
of threats and facilitates many of their important activities, it is ra-
tional to give serious consideration to engaging an EP specialist.
Nevertheless, there may be readers who, after examining the case
for EP, still question its value.

Such readers may wish to recall “Pascal’s wager.” Blaise Pascal,
the great 17th century mathematician and philosopher, exhorted
his readers to examine the probabilities of life in this manner: If

God does not exist, one stands to lose nothing by believing in him
anyway, whereas if He does exist, one stands to lose everything by
not believing. Along those lines, even if an executive cannot easily
foresee the risks he faces, the executive stands to lose little by tak-
ing some precautions against them anyway. And if those risks are
real and no precautions have been taken, the executive stands to
lose everything.

To some, the idea of engaging a protection specialist may be
unappealing-it can be unpleasant to contemplate the world’s
risks. But neglecting to address those risks does not make them go

XVll

away, any more than neglecting to buy life insurance grants one
immortality. As Sun Tzu wrote:

The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is a
matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to
ruin. Hence under no circumstances can it be neglected.

XV111

The general who wins a battle makes ma/!y
calculations in his temple before the battle is
fought. The general who loses a battle
makes but few calculations beforehand.

Thus do ma1!y calculations lead to victory,
and few calculations to defeat.

Sun Tzu

Chapter 1

Threat Assessment

Why do some highly placed businesspeople, wealthy persons,
celebrities, and others need executive protection? What are they so
worried about? What do they hope to be protected against?

The cold truth is that they face the same types of threats to their
safety and well-being that most other people face, and often to a
higher degree. They might live in safer neighborhoods than some
other people, but they are more attractive targets for criminals.
They might travel more comfortably, but their busier travel sched-
ules expose them to more potential accidents and attacks. They
might work in safe offices, but to anyone seeking revenge against
an employer they symbolize the company more than other workers
do.

Premise

The EP specialist has a finite sum of protective resources.

Those resources, which include money, staff, influence, knowl-
edge, and contacts, must be spent wisely. It would be foolish and
inefficient to divide the resources evenly among the universe of
conceivable threats. It makes much more sense to allocate those
resources toward preventing the threats that present the greatest
possibility of harm.’

Therefore, before any protection plan can be developed, the
principal and the EP specialist must identify the threats that are to
be avoided. Although it is impossible to know just when and how
a particular threat will arise, the general categories of threats that
are applicable to the principal must be ascertained before any
meaningful defenses can be erected.

Range of Threats

The range of threats to a person’s safety and well-being is vast.
The following list is not meant to frighten anyone, but it represents
real threats faced by many high-profile, high-net-worth persons.
Even though the list is not exhaustive, it is formidable:

assassination
kidnapping
street violence
attacks by insane persons or zealots
workplace violence
embarrassment (deliberate or accidental)
injury (unintentional)
illness or medical emergency
that which is least expected

Obviously, not all of these threats apply to a particular principal,
and the ones that do don’t apply all the time. To determine which

~ The possibility of harm is defined here as the likelihood of the threat’s occur-
rence times the potential damage the realized threat would inflict. This calculation
is similar to standard risk management formulae.

threats apply and when, the EP specialist should analyze them
systematically through a process called risk analysis.

In executive protection, information is the name of the game.

Much of the success of an executive protection effort depends on
how well-and how cleverly-the EP specialist gathers, processes,
conceals, and reveals information. By comprehensively gathering
information, he ensures that no threats are overlooked. By intelli-
gendy processing information, he determines which threats present
the highest risk, or likelihood, of occurring and thereby lays the
groundwork for the most effective allocation of security resources
and the smartest decisions regarding all parts of the protection
plan. By judiciously concealing information, the EP specialist pre-
serves a low profile for the protectee and keeps adversaries in the
dark, thereby reducing their opportunities for attack. And by se-
lectively revealing information, he either presents the protectee as a
hard target that an adversary should not attempt to attack or mis-
leads the adversary in whatever false direction is desired.

The two major forms of information gathering and processing
that the EP specialist needs to undertake are risk analysis and pro-
tective intelligence. The two operations are complementary, but
risk analysis, which defInes the nature and scope of any protective
program, comes first. It is the foundation of the protective effort.

Comparing the two undertakings, risk analysis is more general,
looking at sources of threats to the protectee because of who the
protectee is, works for, represents, or does. Risk analysis asks and
answers such questions as these:

Who would want to harm my principal?
How are adversaries gaining information about my
principal?
What is the current likelihood of the various threats I
have identified?
What institutions or causes might my principal repre-
sent to an adversary?
Does the principal desire, require, and accept protec-
tion during the work day? Only when traveling?
Twenty-four hours a day?

Protective intelligence is more specific, describing the details of
a particular trip or activity planned for the principal. Protective in-
telligence asks and answers such questions as these:

What’s going on today, tomorrow, and next week in the
city to which my principal is traveling?
To whom can we turn for help in that city if help is
needed?
What airports, roads, hotels, and vehicles will we be
using there?
Who, specifically, lives in or frequents the travel desti-
nation and represents a threat to my principal?

Risk analysis is described more fully below; protective intelli-
gence is expanded on in Chapter 4, The Advance.

Risk Analysis

Where does one begin in the all-important examination of threats
against the principal? Once the EP specialist starts gathering in-
formation, he will find no shortage of data to process. The chal-
lenge is to make sure no key points are overlooked, to update data
continually, and to analyze the information in an organized way.

What makes risk analysis possible is the use of a methodical ap-
proach. Risk analysis requires the EP specialist to expend a sub-
stantial amount of time and effort, but the task is absolutely essen-
tial. Without a high-quality risk analysis, the EP specialist and the
principal will be operating in the dark. With a high-quality risk
analysis, they will be able to see much of what may lie in wait for
them. It is not too much to say that one cannot have executive
protection without risk analysis-and that one cannot even know
whether executive protection is needed without a risk analysis. Risk
analysis is, simply, the essential framework of any protective effort.

To perform a risk analysis, the EP specialist can start by asking
who, what, when, where, and wly, reserving how for the protective in-
telligence phase. The particular questions under each heading may
vary according to the situation, but in general they are these:

Who am I protecting? (corporate president, celebrity,
wealthy person, controversial activist)

What, therefore, must I protect him from? (mugging,
embarrassment, kidnapping, harassment, stalking)
When must I protect him? (eight hours a day, 24 hours
a day)
Where must I protect him? (at work, at home, while
commuting, while traveling)
Why must I protect him? (preserve protectee’s privacy
or life, protect corporation’s leading human asset, fa-
cilitate protectee’s safe movement through the commu-
nity and world)

The most important of these questions is “Who am I protect-
ing?” It is vital for the EP specialist to know as much as possible
about the principal so that intelligent, informed decisions can be
made in the event of a question, problem, or crisis. Detailed
biographical information must be known by and be available to the
agent to help resolve crises and even to help determine whether a
CUSlS exists. For example, on determining that the principal is
missing from his vacation home, the agent can help the police
much better if he knows how many cars the principal keeps there
and which one is missing. Alternatively, while accompanying the
principal to the hospital in an ambulance after a car crash or heart
attack, the agent can help the paramedics much better if he knows
the principal’s blood type and medical history.

Detailed knowledge about the principal and his family can even
help determine whether a supposed incident in progress is real or
fraudulent. For example, if a self-proclaimed kidnapper calls to
say he is holding the principal’s daughter hostage, an agent who
knows how to contact the daughter’s school quickly and determine
whether she is still there may be able to foil the phony kidnapper
and save the principal much grief and expense.

Among the types of information that an agent should gather
about the principal and his family are these: physical description;
pseudonyms; tape recording of voice; fingerprints; personal tele-
phone number; extensive handwriting sample; medical require-
ments and history (including allergies and dietary requirements);
banks and bank officers (who can release funds for ransoms);

credit card numbers and issuers’ phone numbers; phone numbers
of doctors who serve the principal and his family; children’s
schools’ names, emergency contact arrangements, and routes the
children take to and from school; notable civic and other outside
activities of both principal and spouse; names and phone numbers
of close relatives; recreational and hobby vehicles owned; firearms
and other weapons owned by the principal and his family (to re-
duce surprises inside the house); floor plans and utility maps of
residences, along with video footage of interiors; and reports of
any past threats against the principal and his family.

The answers to the “who, what, when, where, and why” ques-
tions set the parameters for the rest of the risk analysis. The EP
specialist can continue by considering each of the threats men-
tioned earlier, gathering information about the threat, and reaching
a conclusion as to how great a risk it poses to the protectee. The
threat list presented earlier serves as a starting point; the risk analy-
sis process will suggest other threats that the EP specialist can add
to the list. This chapter explains the method of determining risk
levels; the means of reducing those risks are addressed in later
chapters.

The general process of gathering information relevant to the
various threats requires some organized sleuthing. The following
are some of the steps the EP specialist can take to obtain informa-
tion about threats to the protectee’s safety and security:

Interview the protectee about past incidents and any ar-
eas of concern.
Examine the protectee’s (or his organization’s) threat
file-the record of threatening letters, phone calls, and
incidents-if one exists.
Obtain information on crime levels from local police
contacts or state crime analysis experts. Learn, for ex-
ample, what areas to avoid and what types of crimes are
most prevalent at which hours of the day. Also, dis-
cover the level of various crimes around the protectee’s
office and home, and find out about seasonal fluctua-
tions in crime.

Read newspaper accounts of crimes against people
similar to the protectee. Search for news reports of
past incidents by using a proprietary on-line service, the
Internet, or the library.
Examine any public relations materials or other infor-
mation about the protectee or his organization that is
available to inquisitive members of the public. Sources
include annual reports, company promotional materials,
newspaper and magazine articles, industry directories,
and even waste paper sent to unsecured trash bins. A
major and growing information source is the Internet.
The EP specialist or an adversary can use various
“search engines” to hunt for references to keywords in
thousands if not millions of data sources. Though the
depth of information is not always great, the breadth is.
By finding out what a potential adversary could learn
about the protectee, the EP specialist can stay a step
ahead in planning a defensive strategy.

Risk assessment is so important that if the agent cannot per-
form it adequately, he should consider hiring the assignment out.
Various firms provide risk assessment and threat analysis profes-
sionally.> In some cases, contracting the assessment out may be
the only way to obtain good information and hence would be the
best course of action. However, there is much for the agent to
gain from conducting the assessment personally-skill in recog-
nizing risks, better internalization and understanding of the results

of the analysis, and a somewhat more personalized analysis, based
on his greater familiarity with the principal.

Assassination

What would an application of the preceding information-gathering
method tell the EP specialist about, for example, the risk of assas-

5 A company to consider for international risk assessment is Control Risks
Group, 8200 Greensboro Drive, Suite 1010, McLean, VA 22102. Phone (703) 893-
0083. The company provides an on-line risk assessment service that covers more
than 130 countries.

sination? A search of news stories and communications with po-
lice would inform the EP specialist that few protectees are likely
targets of assassination attempts. The most common targets of
that crime are political leaders, not celebrities or corporate execu-
tives. The EP specialist would likely conclude that the protectee is
in little danger of assassination and that few, if any, assassination-
specific defenses should be raised. In executive protection in gen-
eral, and in risk analysis in particular, it is important not to exag-
gerate the threat.

However, that is not to say the risk of assassination is now and
forever zero. Several factors could raise the risk to a level of con-
cern. Does the protectee associate with political leaders? Has he
been appointed to a quasi-governmental status, such as leader of a
government task force or go-between in a peace negotiation? Has
his corporation become involved in a controversial practice? Has
he made a film or written a book that gravely offends a religious or
ethnic group? Such questions show that the risk of a particular
threat can rise and fall over time. That is why the EP specialist
must keep up to date on the various types of threats to the safety of
the protectee, even if those threats do not currently seem applicable.

As mentioned before, most assassination attempts target politi-
cians-but not all. The classic example of an assassination of a
businessperson is the attack on Alfred Herrhausen. Much has
been written about the Herrhausen incident; the tale makes fasci-
nating reading, and every EP specialist should study the details.
The brief version is this: In 1989, Herrhausen, a major figure in
German business and chairman of Deutsche Bank, was riding to
work in his chauffeur-driven armored car. The car was the middle
vehicle in a three-car convoy. Two security personnel were in the
lead car, two in the follow-up car. When Herrhausen was about
500 yards from his home, his car was destroyed by a bomb con-
cealed in a knapsack on a bicycle parked along the road. The trig-
gering mechanism was a photoelectric cell. Responsibility was
claimed by the Rote Armee Fraktion,6 a German terrorist group that
violently opposed the “military-industrial complex.”

(, Translated variously as Red Army Fraction or Red Army Faction.

Several lessons can be drawn from the Herrhausen story. First,
businesspeople, not just political leaders, are sometimes the target
of assassins. Second, EP specialists and their adversaries are in a
neck-and-neck race to outwit each other. Able adversaries can
beat lax EP specialists; they can even beat security schemes that are
excellent but have just one chink in their armor. Third, EP spe-
cialists can’t depend on others to observe and report potential
dangers. A month before the assassination, a neighbor of Her-
rhausen’s had actually handled the bomb’s arming cable, yet he had
no idea what it was and forgot about it. The days of close neigh-
borhoods-where it was obvious who belonged there and who did
not, and where neighbors would tell each other if something suspi-
cious happened-are long gone. The responsibility for close ob-
servation lies with the agent, not the neighbors. Fourth, as one
observer has noted, “if security is raised to the level afforded Her-
rhausen, the possibility of an attempted kidnapping is virtually
ruled out. Thus, if a vehicle ambush takes place, it is more likely to
be an assassination attempt.”?

In general, the risk of death due to international terrorism is
small. The U.S. State Department’s figures for 1996 show that in-
ternational terrorist attacks killed 311 people worldwide. Nearly
200 of those deaths were the work of the Tamil Tigers, a separatist
group in Sri Lanka. The number of American victims of interna-
tional terrorism in 1996 was 24. Nineteen were killed in the June
25 truck bombing of an American military base near Dhahran,
Saudia Arabia, and five more died in bombings and shootings in
Israel.

Of course, not all assassinations of businesspeople are con-
ducted by internationally known, highly sophisticated terrorist
groups. In the course of a news search, the EP specialist would
certainly come across accounts of recent business-related killings in
the countries of the former Soviet Union. For example, in Octo-
ber 1995 during a soccer game at a stadium in Kiev, Ukraine, a
bomb exploded in a stand for honored guests. The blast killed AI-

7 Anthony J. Scotti, “A Calculated Assassination,” Security Management, Novem-
ber 1990, p. 31.

exander Bragin, the president of one of the soccer teams and
chairman of Luxe, one of the city’s largest commercial firms. Five
other persons in the VIP stand were also killed.f Similarly, on
April 30, 1997, an attacker tossed a grenade at Emomali
Rakhmonov, president of Tajikistan. Rakhmonov and 57 others
were wounded, and two more died. The attack occurred as the
president shook hands with supporters outside a theater.”

Even if a particular principal is not, most of the time, a likely
target of assassination, is it so implausible to think that he might
sometime travel abroad and be invited to a public event by some-
one who is a more likely assassination target? Not being the target
isn’t good enough-the principal should not even be standing next
to the target. That doesn’t mean he must avoid all contact with
other important persons. It simply means that, to some extent, the
principal takes on the threat level of whoever he is with. And that
gives the EP specialist one more factor to weigh when performing
risk assessments.

It is important to note, also, that politicians and successful busi-
nesspeople are not the only objects of lethal attacks. Professors,
researchers, even salespeople associated with universities, other
research institutions, or high-technology corporations are some-
times targeted. The Unabomber, for example, killed three persons
and injured 23 with 16 package bombs in the anti-technology cru-
sade he conducted from 1978 to 1996. His goal: to ruin industrial
civilization. The shifting risks that a principal faces are the reason
no threat can be dismissed completely and forever. That, conse-
quently, is why risk analysis must be updated continuously.

Kidnapping

What about kidnapping? It might sound exotic and far away, but
is it? A careful analysis would show that, for most protectees, the
risk of kidnapping is not great. On average, how many people are

8 “Bomb at Stadium Kills Kiev Magnate,” Washington Times, October 17, 1995, p.

Ala.

9 Umed Babakhanov, “Tajikistan President Narrowly Escapes Assassination in
Attack with Grenade,” Washington Times, May 1, 1997.

kidnapped each year? Not many, of course, but business execu-
tives, wealthy persons, and other VIPs are not average people.
The risk of kidnapping begins to rise as certain factors emerge:
personal wealth (to a degree that seems high to the attacker, re-
gardless of whether the principal feels wealthy compared to col-
leagues), entanglement with criminals or criminal organizations, a
high profile in support of a controversial cause, intervention in
political hot spots, travel to countries in which kidnapping is
common, and vulnerability of family members.

Once an EP specialist begins to look into the subject, kidnap-
ping may not seem such a remote possibility after all. Even a cur-
sory search of government and news sources turns up many
warnings and reports of kidnapping. Although the crime is more
common outside the United States, it is not unknown here. Each
year the FBI investigates hundreds of kidnappings-some years
almost a thousand. Of those, typically 50 to 100 involve ransom.
Given the demands for secrecy that often accompany kidnapping,
there is reason to believe that official reports may understate the
threat.

Accounts of kidnappings make fascinating, frightening reading.

Brief summaries of a few incidents will suffice here, but EP spe-
cialists should familiarize themselves with all available details of
such cases when planning their defenses.

May 26, 1992, Mountain View, California: Charles
Geschke, the 52-year-old president and chief executive
officer of computer software firm Adobe Systems Inc.,
was kidnapped at gunpoint by two men as he arrived at
work. FBI agents arrested a suspect after he picked up
the $650,000 ransom left by Geschke’s family at a drop-
off point. The suspect led agents to a house where his
accomplice was holding Geschke, who was freed un-
l?
July 26, 1993, Las Vegas, Nevada: Kevin Wynn, the 26-
year-old daughter of casino tycoon Steve Wynn, was
kidnapped from her townhouse in a gated, guarded

10 “Kidnapping Victim Freed; 2 Arrested,” Chicago Tribune, May 31,1992.

luxury community. The kidnappers demanded a large
ransom from her father, who was able to gather it
quickly from the casino of his Mirage Hotel. After an
employee delivered $1.45 million in cash to a drop site,
the kidnappers revealed the daughter’s location. She
was found bound and gagged but otherwise unharmed
on the back floor of her car at the airport parking lot.
The whole event took less than three hours. Three
men were eventually convicted of the kidnapping.”

August 4, 1993, New York City: Harvey Weinstein, 68-
year-old chief executive of Lord West Formalwear, one
of the country’s largest tuxedo manufacturers, was kid-
napped as he left the Queens diner where he ate break-
fast every morning before heading to work. He was
shackled and then forced into a small, muddy hole cov-
ered by wooden boards, cinder blocks, and six inches
of dirt. Fed irregularly by his captors, he spent 13 days
there before being rescued by police-after his kidnap-
pers took delivery of the ransom money but failed to
release him. Charged with his kidnapping were a collar
maker employed by the tuxedo company and the collar
maker’s brother and girlfriend.t-

It is worth noting that the victims in those cases were not politi-
cians, and the kidnappers were not terrorists. Moreover, the set-
tings of the crimes were not exotic or unusual. Clearly, kidnapping
in the United States is a threat that poses at least some risk. As
history shows, too, the victims are not always the executives but
sometimes their family members, who typically receive less protec-
tion. In addition to Kevin Wynn, the infamous cases of Patty
Hearst and Samuel Bronfman attest to the vulnerability of family
members.

What about overseas? Basically, in many countries kidnapping
runs rampant. For protectees who travel, concern for kidnapping
may jump from the back burner to the front. In November 1995,

II “Daughter’s Abduction Jolts Tycoon,” Chicago Tribune, August 1, 1993.
12 “Manhattan Hell Hole,” Time, September 12, 1993.

police in Phnom Penh arrested the suspected leader of a kidnap-
ping ring who allegedly masterminded a series of abductions of
high-profile businessmen there, including the chief operating offi-
cer of the country’s largest foreign investor.P The same month, in
the midst of a strike involving 13 French universities, students in
Metz kidnapped an envoy of Education Minister Francois Bayrou
and only released her after Bayrou pledged to reopen negotiations
on increasing state funds.” In Mexico, the criminal economy,
which is built around narcotics trafficking, arms smuggling, kid-
napping, and other forms of illegal activity, has become by far the
largest part of the economy, dominating the entire landscape. IS
Kidnapping of businesspeople in the Philippines has become so
common, it is said, that to facilitate the transactions, kidnappers
are beginning to accept checks for ransom payments.lv Finally, in
Brazil, criminals have begun charging “pre-ransom” when they
threaten wealthy people with kidnapping. One recent pre-ransom
consisted of seven installment payments totaling $1 million, which
the victim paid in exchange for not being kidnapped.l?

Street violence

Street violence-holdups, carjackings, robberies, and crossfire-is
a highly localized phenomenon. The EP specialist should gather
crime data for each area in which the principal must be guarded:
office, commuting route, home, and other areas to be traveled to
and through. Such information can be obtained from local police,
newspaper articles, and commercial services that provide risk data
for specific geographic locations.

In addition to being a local phenomenon, street violence pos-
sesses another important characteristic: it is not likely to be di-
rected at a principal because of who he is personally; rather, the

13 “Kidnappers Arrested,” Cambodia Times, November 15, 1995.

I~ “French Students in Mounting Strikes, Kidnapping,” Reuter, November 16,
1995.

15 “Mexico: What’s Next?” remarks by Christopher Whalen, Council on Foreign
Relations, New York, N.Y., March 6,1995.

16 ”What’s Next, Credit Cards?” The Detroit News, November 30, 1995.

17 “Rio Kidnappers Charge Pre-Ransom,” Washington Times, December 6,1995.

principal will be selected because of his appearance as a good (that
is, affluent) target. One of the challenges of defending against
stalkers, bombers, terrorists, crazies, or other adversaries is that
they choose freely from a wide range of times, locations, and
methods of attack. By contrast, street criminals are mostly limited
to certain predictable times, locations, and methods, making the
EP specialist’s job a little easier. However, the world is home to
many, many more street criminals than trained terrorists, so the
risk of attack by a street criminal is actually much greater.

Data on the rate of criminal attacks specifically against business
executives, celebrities, and wealthy persons is not available. It is
hard to say whether their exposure to street crime is greater or less
than that of other persons. On one hand, such principals often
live and work in safer than average neighborhoods and frequent
establishments that provide some level of security. On the other
hand, they may stand out as attractive targets and travel more than
others, increasing their exposure to street crime.l”

To place street crime in perspective, the rate of criminal victimi-
zation in the United States is relatively high: the FBI’s Uniform
Crime Reports show a rate of 5,278 serious crimes per 100,000
population in 1995.¹⁹ Those crimes are in such categories as mur-
der, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and arson, and to-
gether they are used to derive what the FBI calls its Crime Index.
Not surprisingly, the Crime Index rate is higher in the nation’s

18 A recent example: On April 17, 1997, just a block from where the author was
protecting a principal in London, three men in a BMW tailed a man driving in his
Rolls-Royce with his wife. When the wealthy couple parked their car in a garage
near their home, the muggers stopped their own car, hopped out, pulled masks
over their faces, and attacked. They slashed the man’s face and head with a 12-inch
knife, threw him to the ground, stole cash and credit cards, and ripped a £1,000
necklace from his wife’s neck. In seconds, the muggers were gone. According to
the London Times (April 18, 1997), “The muggers are believed to watch for possible
victims as they leave restaurants, hotels and shops in areas such as Park Lane, Bel-
gravia and St. John’s Wood. They follow them home and then strike in car parks or
on the street. Up to a dozen muggers operating in small and interconnected gangs
could be involved.” Police said the thieves had probably chosen the couple be-
cause their car showed they were rich.

19 The FBI released its 1995 Uniform Crime Report data on October 13, 1996.

metropolitan areas (9 percent higher than the national average) and
small cities (0.7 percent above the national average) and much
lower in rural areas (60 percent below the national average).

Getting more specific, the rate of violent crimes (murder, forci-
ble rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) in 1995 was 685 per
100,000 inhabitants. The total number of such crimes was 21 per-
cent above the 1986 level. The murder rate was 8 per 100,000 in-
habitants, and the rate of property crimes was 4,593 per 100,000
population.

A careful risk analysis clearly shows that street violence is, sta-
tistically, a higher risk than many of the more exotic concerns,
such as kidnapping and assassination. Protection against street
violence is a constant, daily service required of the EP specialist
and is well within his powers and skill to provide.

Attacks by insane persons or zealots

This category is driven by motives that may be inexplicable and
irrational, and hence not susceptible to anticipation by rational EP
specialists. Attacks by insane or overzealous persons take much
the same form as attacks by other adversaries, except that these
particular opponents usually do not worry about eluding detection;
they may not even care whether they survive their attack. Like the
kamikaze pilots of the Second World War, such attackers necessi-
tate a high degree of defense and allow for no errors by security
staff.

If it can be based on anything, the risk analysis for this threat
must be based on the following:

records of past threats against the principal or the or-
ganization
interviews with the principal about any concerns he
might have, based on odd sightings, phone calls, letters,
conversations with police, who may have information on
unusual activities around the principal’s home or office

Beyond that, the EP specialist cannot easily predict that an at-
tack will come from insane or overzealous persons and must in-

stead guard the principal against the particular types of attacks those
persons might make, such as assassination, kidnapping, bombing,
and other assaults. Every prominent principal will receive regular
attention from a certain number of locals who are, to some degree,
mentally unbalanced. Most of them are harmless, pathetic souls
who engage in inappropriate hero-worship or telephonic harass-
ment. The trick is to know who is among the harmless and who is
not.

Workplace violence

This is a new and escalating threat to executives. In some in-
stances, after a firing or major loss of some sort, an attacker seeks
out an organization’s top executive because the executive repre-
sents the business. The executive personally mayor may not feel
responsible for the incident that upset the attacker. It is important
to know that that does not matter to the aggrieved person. Other
attacks are unrelated to business and have to do with personal
problems spilling over into the workplace. Such incidents include
assaults by an employee’s spouse or lover against the employee. In
such cases, the violence can spread beyond the primary target.
Therefore, the EP specialist should seek reports of any current or
developing situations or relationships that could lead to violence,
so he can maintain an up-to-date, valid threat assessment.

When assessing the risk of workplace violence, the EP specialist
may be able to learn only a little from the usual data sources.
News reports and police data are unlikely to offer any insight into
whether violence should be expected at the protectee’s office.
However, two sources close to home may help. First, the EP spe-
cialist should speak with the principal to see whether threats have
been made in the past and should ask to be notified about any fu-
ture actions that might spark violence, such as firings, plant clos-
ings, or personal relationships that are becoming dangerously sour.
Second, the EP specialist should look into the policies and proce-
dures at the protectee’s workplace that might affect his vulnerabil-
ity to workplace violence. For example, how are firings handled?
Are persons who are fired escorted from the building? Are they
allowed to return to the building later? Are all security employees

adequately briefed or informed about terminations? Who may
enter the executive’s area of the building? May visitors bring in
packages? Are those packages, along with mail, screened for
weapons and explosives?

Regardless of who the EP specialist reports to, the corporate
executive protection program needs to be coordinated with several
other key departments: security, loss prevention, maintenance,
public relations, and human resources. Ideally, members of those
departments should clearly understand the types of incidents and
conditions (firings, lurkers spotted, threats received, etc.) that they
should automatically report to the executive protection program.

Much workplace violence takes place between or against line-
level workers. But executives are certainly not immune. One of
the most chilling examples of recent workplace violence is the
following incident, in which the assailant attacked everyone from
lower-level employees to executives.

On July 1, 1993, Gian Luigi Ferri walked into the 34th-floor of-
fices of the San Francisco law firm Pettit & Martin, hauling a black
canvas bag stuffed with guns and ammunition. He walked into a
conference room and began shooting, then walked throughout the
firm’s offices on two floors of the building, continuing to shoot
people. Ferri, who felt he had a grievance against the firm, killed
eight people and wounded six; then he shot himself. A note he
left behind showed him to be a resentful man frustrated for years
by what he saw as conspiracies to thwart his business deals. A lit-
tle less than two years later, the firm’s partners voted to dissolve
the firm, which at its height in the 1980s had employed 240 law-
yers.i”

When weighing the cost of executive protection, EP specialists
and executives should take note of the Pettit & Martin incident.
Aside from the immense human cost and the possibility of legal
liability that can arise from workplace violence incidents, those in-

20 “San Francisco Carnage: Gunman Kills 8, Self,” Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1993;
“San Francisco Gunman’s Rage Is Revealed in Four-Page Letter,” Chicago Tribune,
July 4,1993; “Law Firm Dissolving After Mass Murder,” Chicago Tribune, March 7,
1995.

cidents can be so demoralizing that the organization completely
folds afterwards. How much is it worth in security expenses to
keep a corporation from shutting its doors permanendy?

Workplace violence is not rare. Aside from the anecdotal
evidence, found in news accounts of workplace attacks, that such
violence is growing, government research shows that workplace
violence has become a major cause for concern. According to the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH),
during the decade of 1980 to 1989, 7,603 workplace homicides
occurred in U.S. workplaces, for a rate of 0.7 per 100,000 workers.
Homicide was the leading cause of occupational death for women
and the third leading cause of death for all workers during that
period.” Although business executives were not among those at
greatest risk, workplace violence appears to be a growing trend
spreading to more and more types of settings. Moreover, it is
worth noting that guns, which often harm persons other than the
intended target, were the weapons of choice in 75 percent of the
homicides.

Embarrassment

A very different type of threat to an executive is embarrassment-
in other words, being made to look bad. That threat can be inten-
tional or unintentional. The threat assessment process regarding
embarrassment is not highly technical or research-based. Rather, it
is based on awareness and anticipation. Once the sources of em-
barrassment are discovered, a careful agent can protect the princi-
pal from them through forethought and careful choreography.

Intentional forms of embarrassment come from protesters or
hecklers, among others. By taking the trouble to find out in ad-
vance what sort of crowd awaits a principal who is going to make a
speech, the agent may be able to tell him that hecklers are present.
The principal can then mentally prepare to deal with them. Simi-
larly, by radioing ahead to staff at a stockholders’ meeting, the
agent might learn that protesters have massed by the main en-

21 “NIOSH Urges Immediate Action to Prevent Workplace Homicide,” NIOSH
Update, October 25, 1993.

trance to the room. If there is reason to believe that protesters
might attempt to throw, for example, fake blood on the principal
to protest animal testing, advance warning helps. If the EP spe-
cialist thinks ahead and steers the executive around to a different
entrance, it will be harder for the protesters to approach closely
and cause a scene.

Another threat that would turn up in the EP specialist’s risk
analysis is unintentional embarrassment. One main source is peo-
ple who are physically near the principal or in some way associated
with him. For example, the agent might notice over time that,
even in fine restaurants, tables that seat six or more tend to harbor
louder, more raucous groups than small tables. That knowledge
gives the agent, when booking a table for the principal, one more
factor to work into the protective equation. Some seating loca-
tions make sense from a physical security standpoint, some from a
comfort and lack-of-embarrassment standpoint. Why not select
the spot that is both safest and least likely to be next to a distur-
bance that could become awkward or embarrassing? The distur-
bance could even come from the principal’s own party (perhaps
from an intoxicated guest). The astute agent could then discreetly
suggest that it is time for the protectee to leave.

Another source of unintentional embarrassment comes from
little physical mishaps in public places. During the 1996 U.S.
presidential campaign, Bob Dole fell off a stage in Chico, Califor-
nia, when a retaining wall gave way. His fall was broken by a rail-
ing and a few surprised news photographers standing in front of
the stage. Although he was not seriously injured-and in fact im-

mediately returned to his feet, resumed shaking hands, and retook
the stage-the accident gave the media an opportunity to remind
everyone of the large age difference between Dole (73) and Presi-
dent Clinton (50).22 Anything a protection specialist can do to
check for loose electrical cords that could be tripped over, shaky
chairs that could collapse, or other accidents waiting to happen is a
great service to the principal.

22 Thomas Hardy, “Dole Makes Strong Rebound After Fall,” Chit‘l2go Tribune,
September 20, 1996.

Accidental coincidences in public places, particularly hotels, are
another potential source of embarrassment. The careful EP spe-
cialist, before booking a hotel room for the principal, would find
out what groups are staying there at the same time. With that in-
formation, the EP specialist and the principal can then decide
whether to stay on a floor far from a potentially troublesome
group or use a different hotel altogether. For example, would a
female executive really want to stay on the same floor as an entire
college football team? Would the CEO of General Motors wish to
be photographed walking through a hotel lobby bedecked with
signs trumpeting a Ford dealers’ convention?

A final source of potential embarrassment to the executive is the
executive himself. The EP specialist needs to be able to speak up,
politely but plainly, if, for example, the executive decides to drive
after drinking too much. In such a case, the agent isn’t trying to be
the executive’s conscience; he is merely bringing to the executive’s
attention a matter that could become embarrassing (and deadly).

Injury (unintentional)

If the EP specialist’s job is to keep the executive alive, well, and
functioning at peak performance, providing protection against the
more dramatic threats-assassination, kidnapping, and violence on
the street and in the workplace-only goes so far. A look at offi-
cial vital statistics shows that it makes a lot of sense to protect the
executive against the more mundane but also more probable threats,
too. Death from car crashes, fire, drowning, falls, poisoning, and
choking represents a greater risk than death from the aforemen-
tioned dramatic threats. While most protectees are sensible achiev-
ers who already know safety precautions for reducing everyday risks,
the EP specialist can raise the effectiveness of his protective efforts
by reminding, encouraging, and actually helping the protectee to play
it safe. Protective measures are discussed later, but statistics clearly
show that injury is a significant source of danger to most people.

The annual death rate for all unintentional injuries together is
35.4 deaths per 100,000 population.P That stands in high contrast

23 Accident Facts (Itaska, Illinois: National Safety Council, 1995), p. 2.

to the murder rate, which is 8 per 100,000. The rate of death from
selected injuries is as follows: motor vehicle accidents, 16.5; falls,
5.1; fire, 1.6; and drowning, 1.5. Those figures are for the popula-
tion as a whole; for persons in the age ranges mostly likely to re-
ceive personal protection, the rates differ. Also, the rates for men
are in almost all instances higher than those for women. See the
table in the next section, on illness and medical emergencies, for
comparisons of some of the rates.

If an EP specialist is to assess a particular protectee’s risk injury,
the two best indicators are official vital statistics, analyzed for a
group that most closely resembles the protectee (for example, sta-
tistics for white females aged 55 to 64 years), and a close look at
the protectee’s style of living and personal exposure to injuries.
Injuries may seem like random accidents, but by modifying be-
havior and avoiding certain situations, the EP specialist and the
protectee obviously have some control over the likelihood of inju-
ries. In addition, by learning and practicing basic emergency medi-
cal techniques, the EP specialist can reduce the protectee’s likeli-
hood of death from injuries that are not prevented.

Illness or medical emergency

This category of threat resembles the preceding one, unintentional
injury. It is not dramatic in the way a kidnapping is, nor is it the
sort of exotic threat that would by itself merit executive protection
measures. However, the EP specialist with an eye on the bottom
line-keeping the executive alive and well-needs to analyze the
risk of illness or medical emergency, for it is a very great risk in-
deed. In analyzing it, he can look at both epidemiological statistics
and the protectee’s life style. Like injuries, illnesses and medical
emergencies are not completely preventable, but they are not com-
pletely random, either. In addition, the EP specialist’s knowledge
of basic emergency medical techniques can reduce the harm that
comes from illnesses and medical emergencies that are not prevented.

The following is a small sample of statistics from the National
Safety Council.>’ Additional data presented by sex, race, age, and

24 Accident Facts, p. 12.

more specific type of accident and illness is available in the Statisti-
cal .Abstract of the United States, published by the U.S. Department of
Commerce (available at most libraries).

Cause and Age		Death Rates
	Total	Male	Female
45 to 54 Years
Cancer	150.3	153.8	147.0
Heart disease	114.6	173.7	58.1
Unintentional injuries	27.3	41.0	14.2
Motor vehicle	13.6	19.0	8.4
Poison	2.9	4.3	1.5
Falls	2.2	3.5	1.0
Fires and bums	1.3	1.9	0.6
Drowning	1.2	2.2	0.3
Other	6.1	10.0	2.4
HIV	20.3	38.1	3.4
Stroke	17.5	19.3	15.7
Chronic liver disease	16.7	24.8	8.9
Suicide	14.7	22.4	7.3
Diabetes mellitus	1l.7	13.5	10.0
Chronic obstructive	18.3	8.7	7.9
pulmonary disease
Homicide	7.5	1l.8	3.3
55 to 64 Years
Cancer	437.8	513.4	369.7
Heart disease	346.5	503.9	204.9
Chronic obstructive	48.3	56.3	41.0
pulmonary disease
Stroke	46.4	53.2	40.3
Diabetes mellitus	34.0	35.9	32.3
Unintentional injuries	30.6	44.8	17.8
Motor vehicle	13.7	18.8	9.2
Falls	3.9	5.8	2.1
Fires, bums	1.9	2.7	1.2
Surgical, medical	1.5	1.7	1.2
complications
Poison	1.2	1.7	0.8
Other	8.4	14.0	3.3
Chronic liver disease	27.6	40.2	16.3
Pneumonia	16.5	21.2	12.2
Suicide	14.8	24.1	6.5
HIV	8.5	15.9	1.9

A few of those statistics are particularly worth noticing. The
threats against which an EP specialist traditionally protects an ex-
ecutive (such as homicide) barely make it onto the list of top
causes of death. Also, nearly every cause of death presents a much
greater risk to males than to females. Further, in the male, 45- to
54-year-old group, suicide is twice the threat that homicide is-a
situation that meshes well with the concerns of the next section,
threats from unexpected sources.

After analyzing these and similar statistics and observing the
protectee’s life style, the EP specialist can determine whether and
how forcefully to recommend risk-reducing changes in the pro-
tectee’s behavior. It is important to keep in mind that these statis-
tics are based on very broad population groups; the risk level may
be very different for a particular protectee.

In general, an EP specialist should not inhibit the principal’s life
style, so any advice regarding personal activities that may lead to
injury or illness should be given sparingly, if at all. Whatever in-
stinct the EP specialist must employ, it is not to be confused with
the maternal instinct. In some cases, it may be more advisable for
the EP specialist to steer the principal away from certain risky set-
tings and activities subtly, without the protectee even realizing it.

That which is least expected

How can an EP specialist prepare for the unexpected? Basically,
by reducing as much as possible the number of eventualities that
have not been considered. Those unexpected eventualities may
involve the source of the threat (a trusted insider), the type of
threat (an unanticipated style of attack), or another aspect of a
threat (an unusual time or place). As the principal becomes a
harder and harder target, most adversaries will be turned off-they
will look for easier targets somewhere else. However, an adversary
who is dedicated to attacking a particular principal will look hard
for a gap in the principal’s protection. That gap, naturally, will be
the one mistake in the defensive plan.

One especially painful tale of the least expected threat-the
kind that comes from an insider or former insider-is the story of
Sidney Reso, the New Jersey Exxon executive who was kidnapped

as he left his home April 29, 1992. He was shot in the arm when
he was seized, and he died five days later, bound and gagged in a
sweltering storage locker. The kidnappers were Arthur Seale, a
former Exxon security official, and Seale’s wife. Seale, who had
left Exxon five years earlier, reportedly was angry at the company
and resentful because former FBI agents were promoted over him
at the Exxon security division.²⁵ As the Roman satirist Juvenal
wrote, ”Who is to guard the guards themselves?”

The threat from current or former security personnel, or other
people deemed insiders, is for almost all protectees smaller than
the threat from outsiders, yet insiders are especially difficult to
protect against. They may know the EP specialist’s defenses and
be able to find gaps in them, or their insider status may enable
them to pass through normal security barriers without being scru-
tinized. An Arabic proverb rightly states, “Better a thousand ene-
mies outside the house than one inside.”

The death of Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin illustrates
the truth of that proverb. Rabin, assassinated November 4, 1995,
was killed not by a militant Palestinian or Islamic extremist but by
a fellow Jew. Yigal Amir, the 27-year-old assassin, passed easily
through security, approaching close enough to Rabin to shoot him
with a handgun. How did he manage it? Apparently, few Israelis
thought an Israeli would kill an Israeli. Gideon Ezrach, former
deputy head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret service, was quoted as
saying that when Rabin was in the West Bank town of Nablus, his
EP specialists were “more psychologically alert” than they were in
Tel Aviv, where Rabin was killed.>

Being on supposedly friendly grounds can create a false sense of
security. On February 25, 1997, police found a bomb planted in a
Jacksonville, Florida, synagogue just before a speech was to be
made there by former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Police
charged a 31-year-old kosher butcher with planting the bomb and
making a bomb threat that blamed the act on an Islamic group.

25 “Revenge Motive Seen in Exxon Kidnapping,” Chicago Ttibune,July 12, 1992.
26 “What Went Wrong? Baffled Israelis Ask,” Washington Times, November 6,
1995.

Again, being on home turf may statistically be safer, yet adversar-
ies, knowing that, may seize the opportunity to attack when secu-
rity staff are less vigilant.

Protecting against the least expected threat requires filling all
possible gaps in the protective plan. As Sun Tzu wrote, “He wins
his battle by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what es-
tablishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an en-
emy that is already defeated.” That, of course, is a tall order.

The task of executive protection resembles the many other en-
deavors in life that require triage or allocation of limited resources.
Before administering treatment, the battlefield medic first ascer-
tains who needs help most (or who has the best chance of surviv-
ing). Police dispatchers send officers to confirmed bank robberies
in progress before unconfirmed alarms at warehouses. Admirals
learn where the enemy’s ships are before sending their own ships
into battle. An EP specialist’s resources can only be allocated cor-
rectly if he thoroughly understands what is to be protected against.
To use another analogy, the twin activities of threat assessment
and risk analysis lay the foundation on which the entire protective
edifice is built.

The preparatory steps are time-consuming, and they require
hard thinking. Nevertheless, any serious agent will take the trouble
to perform those steps well. The prudent EP specialist does not
rush into a protection plan, disregarding the specific dangers that
threaten the principal. Addressing the House of Commons in
1792, the great British statesman Edmund Burke said, “Dangers by
being despised grow great.” His declaration rightly points out that
ignoring threats never causes them to disappear-it only allows
them to increase in severity.

The consummate leader cultivates the Moral Law
and stndfy adheres to method and discipline; thus
it is in his power to control success.

Sun Tzu

Chapter 2

The Philosophy of Protection

The preceding chapter discussed threat assessment, a process that
helps in painting the big picture. This chapter continues the
book’s progress from the general to the specific by presenting an-
other part of the big picture-the philosophy of protection. In
other words, after determining the range and degree of threats to
the client’s well-being, it is time to consider how best to minimize
those threats.

The task of protecting another human being is so complex, and
so much is at stake, and so clever are the adversaries that the only
way to make the task manageable is to apply some guiding princi-
ples. Such principles are like different lenses on a camera: some
view a large sweep of information, while others help to focus the
details. Some of the principles apply mainly to the EP specialist
and others to the executive. The guiding principles do not con-
stitute the only ways of looking at the challenge of executive pro-
tection, but they represent some of the clearest lenses through
which the protector and protectee can view the task. Moreover,
they serve as rules of thumb that agents can memorize for use in
making decisions.

The following principles are key tenets in the philosophy of
protection. They are not the practical steps (those will be pre-
sented later); rather, they are mindsets or ways to approach the
practical steps.

Shape destiny.
Anybody can protect anybody.
If you have to stop and think about it, it’s too late.
EP specialists get their clients out of trouble and keep
them out of trouble.
For the executive, security and convenience are usually
at opposite ends of a continuum.
The greatest tool in executive protection is the EP spe-
cialist’s mind; technology is of limited use.

Principle 1
Shape destiny.

Much about life and executive protection is beyond one’s con-
trol. However, much is within one’s control. The client and the
EP specialist should make a conscious decision to seize the prob-
lem-dangers threatening the executive-firmly, and wrestle it to
the ground. Perhaps executives and EP specialists do not need to
be reminded to take active measures to accomplish their goals; af-
ter all, both parties presumably got where they are by being ener-
getic achievers. Nevertheless, along the way, the client was proba-
bly not concentrating on his personal safety-it may not have been
an issue until the person became CEO or attained substantial
wealth or fame. Similarly, those who are interested in becoming
EP specialists often come from backgrounds where the governing
instincts are contrary to those required in executive protection; for
example, they often come from law enforcement, where a mindset
of aggression, rather than retreat, prevails.

Therefore, it is important to make a deliberate, firm commit-
ment to shaping one’s destiny. This is an exciting, positive way to
look at executive protection. It reminds the agent that good re-
sults-and good fortune-follow from thinking hard and working
hard to stay at least a step ahead of trouble. As many sages have

observed, “I find the harder I work, the more good luck I have.”
Another way to look at this comes from Friedrich Nietzsche, who
wrote, “Life is short, but the hour is long.” We do not live for-
ever, but we live long enough to accomplish much.

This principle-shaping your destiny-stands taller than all the
rest. It leads to many of the practical steps that will be discussed in
later chapters. In most of executive protection’s practical endeav-
ors, such as vehicle security, workplace security, and countersur-
veillance, it is necessary not to sit back and receive what comes but
instead to shape destiny:

to reach out mentally to anticipate threats
to catalog the protection program’s strengths and the
agent’s resources-in order to use them when needed
to identify the protection program’s vulnerabilities
(undoubtedly, the adversary is doing so)
to reckon the adversary’s probable approach and
thereby outwit him

The EP specialist should take charge of the client’s protective
needs, quietly dominating the risks he faces. Many examples of the
use of this principle appear in the following chapters; here is one
to illustrate the principle now. When protecting an executive dur-
ing travel, the agent should remember that hotel inspectors don’t
die if a poorly inspected hotel burns; the guests do. Therefore, he
can-and should-shape destiny by preparing an escape from
burning hotels and carrying smoke masks.

Principle 2

Anybody can protect anybody.

This principle is almost literally true, and the EP specialist
should bear it in mind to bolster his confidence. True, protecting
another human being-a complicated, unpredictable, mobile per-
son-is a daunting task. But must the agent stand seven feet tall?
Have a 180 IQ? Possess complete knowledge of all tasks required
in the protection of the principal? Of course not. To protect a
client, the EP specialist uses his own strengths-whatever they
may be-and fills in the gaps by delegating tasks to others with

different abilities. Perhaps a particular agent is brave, intelligent,
and strong but has little experience in defensive driving. That lack
does not disqualify him for the field of executive protection.
Rather, applying the principle that anybody can protect anybody,
the agent can decide to lobby for the hiring of a professional driver
or can become one himself through training and practice. Al-
though much of the action resides in the purely physical realm-
driving cars, watching for attackers, moving quickly to avoid
threats-executive protection is primarily a brain game. There-
fore, anyone-that is, anyone who is intelligent-can protect any-
one.

Principle 3

If you have to stop and think about it, it’s too late.

This guiding principle reminds the EP specialist that a thought-

ful, deliberate reaction to a dangerous situation will almost always
fail. Why fail? Isn’t this a thinking person’s business, an endeavor
based on careful planning and making the right decisions? Yes,
but when the threat, or attack, or danger actually arises, it typically
explodes onto the scene-leaving no time for that “thoughtful,
deliberate reaction.” By remembering this principle, the EP spe-
cialist can keep in mind the necessity of constantly practicing reac-
tions to different scenarios. Such practice may be physical,
whereby he rehearses protective movements and quick escapes or
practices driving or shooting. Or it may consist of little gedanken-
expenmente, the name Einstein used for the mental experiments he

conducted when physical experiments were infeasible. For an EP
specialist, that might mean constantly asking “what if?” during the
course of protection. If both physical practice and mental or
“what if?” practice are maintained, then he has a better chance of
being able to react to an emergency or potential emergency appro-
priately and immediately, without thinking-because the thinking
has already been done.

Assaults and assassination attempts start and end with aston-
ishing rapidity. A good example is the speed with which George
Wallace and President Reagan were attacked and how quickly

those incidents were over. In order for the protectee to have an
even chance of survival, the agent needs to use every possible ad-
vantage. Being mentally prepared to respond far outweighs the
value of any other precaution.

Principle 4

EP specialists get their clients out of trouble and keep
them out of trouble.

This principle points out that EP specialists are not fighters,
bodyguards, or soldiers. It’s not the agent’s primary job to knock
down, arrest, or kill the bad guys. It is his primary job to avoid the
bad guys-and any other danger, such as fire, street crime, or em-
barrassment. This principle reminds the EP specialist that in an
encounter with a would-be assassin, it is appropriate to push the
client out of harm’s way, shield him, and remove him from the
area as quickly as possible. It is not appropriate, when it can be
avoided, to stand and fight. An example of getting the client out of
trouble is the scenario in which, upon spotting an armed aggressor,
agents push their protectee into a car and speed the protectee away
to safety. An example of keeping the client out of trouble would be
an arrangement whereby the EP specialist and the client can com-
municate subtly, by a nondescript phrase or visual signal, that it is
time to leave certain company or a certain place before an embar-
rassing or dangerous condition arises.

Principle 5

For the executive, security and convenience are usually
at opposite ends of a continuum.

This principle reminds the agent and the client that total secu-
rity is not only impossible but also undesirable. Why is that?

Executive protection specialists often state that security and
convenience inhabit opposite ends of a continuum. At one end of
the continuum is total security, or the absence of all risk. At the
other end is total convenience, or the absence of inhibiting factors
on one’s life style. Movement toward one end results in an equal
movement away from the other end. In practice, that is an exalted

way of saying that the more security an executive demands, the less
convenience he will have, and that, likewise, the more freedom he
demands, the less security he will have.

Basically, this principle helps the agent and the client keep their
security measures in perspective. Obviously, neither extreme-
total convenience or total security-is suitable. The client and the
agent must discuss this concept and decide where on the contin-
uum-that is, closer to which end-the client wants to be. Even if
the extremes are avoided, it helps to be aware of the tradeoffs that
any locations on the continuum impose. Each time an EP spe-
cialist thinks up a new way to protect the executive, this principle
can serve as a reminder that increasing security beyond a certain
point may needlessly hobble the executive, making him less effec-
tive and hence a victim of protection instead of a victim of attack.

Moreover, this is not a static analysis. The protectee’s place on
the continuum shifts, as does the risk picture, moving closer to
security for a time and then back toward convenience again.

Principle 6

The greatest tool in executive protection is the EP spe-
cialist’s mind; technology is of limited use.

This principle serves as a reminder that protective equipment,
while necessary, is not sufficient. Firearms, alarm systems, ar-
mored cars, two-way radios-all these are useful tools in the EP
specialist’s collection, but not one of them-not even all of them
working together-can be wholly relied on to protect an executive.
The reason is twofold; its first part relates to the person protected,
the second part to the threat against him.

First, unlike a brick of gold, a valuable executive moves around.

He can’t be locked up in a vault or perpetually sequestered. If that
happened, he’d be no longer an executive but a prisoner, and the
protection would devalue him as thoroughly as any adversary
could. One can’t protect a living flower by locking it in a dark
vault; the same holds true for human beings. Executives aren’t
buildings that can be surrounded with fences, motion detectors,
and steel doors. Rather, they are constantly on the rnove, An

overreliance on security technology tends to place the protectee in
a vault.

Second, adversaries are more intelligent than equipment. A
dedicated adversary can defeat or circumvent alarms, disable ar-
mored cars, eavesdrop on two-way radios, ete. A protective agent
can hope to buy defensive time with equipment, but when the ad-
versary strikes, salvation lies in the agent’s brain power-his ability
to make conditioned decisions on how to remove the principal
from harm’s way. Certainly, in gun battles that have taken place in
the executive protection field, almost none have lasted more than a
few seconds; likewise, in every U.S. presidential assassination at-
tempt to date, there’s been no chance to return fire. Again,
equipment is necessary but not sufficient.

The preceding six principles are worth remembering. For some
readers they might serve as mindsets or philosophies; for others
they might serve as decision tools. For all readers they can serve as
quiet encouragements-reasons to see the task of executive pro-
tection, though challenging, as doable.

This is the last of the preparatory chapters. Now it is time to
put threat analysis and the philosophy of protection into action.

Without harmony in the state, no military expedition
can be undertaken; without harmony in the army, no
battle arrqy can be formed.

Sun Tzu

Chapter 3

Working the Principal

The defining relationship in the field of executive protection is the
relationship between the EP specialist and the principal. In some
ways, it is an odd relationship. The principal clearly plays the role
of the employer, the boss, yet the EP specialist must be able to
give orders to the principal in times of danger and advice at most
other times. Sun Tzu observed that a proper relationship must
exist between the general (analogous here to the EP specialist) and
the sovereign (the principal), in which the two remain in their
proper spheres. The general follows the wishes of the sovereign,
but the sovereign does not interfere in the duties of the general by
issuing impossible, unwise, or too numerous commands.

In executive protection, a professional, not too personal relation-
ship enables both protector and protectee to perform their jobs
freely. However, the relationship is not like other business relation-
ships: The agent may have to lay down his life for the principal, and
that is not something one does strictly for money. Meanwhile, the
executive places his life and reputation in the hands of the agent.

When the agent and the executive know what constitutes the
right relationship between them, and they work to develop and

maintain that relationship, the protective effort has the greatest
chance of success. That’s why this chapter discusses so many as-
pects of the protector-protectee relationship, including the neces-
sary characteristics of an EP specialist, the ways he should conduct
himself, the ways he should interact with the principal (including
physical, verbal, and attitudinal aspects), and a very important
bottom-line question.

The descriptions given are geared specifically to close, inner-
perimeter protection of the principal. Although it is impossible to
describe exactly what should happen in every conceivable contin-
gency, the following discussion should serve as the foundation of
proximity protection.

Characteristics of a Good EP Specialist

As mentioned earlier, the popular conception of executive protec-
tion has little to do with reality. The gap between fiction and fact
is particularly wide in the matter of what makes a good EP spe-
cialist. Movies, television programs, and novels often portray
“bodyguards” either as musclebound, ill-tempered, and dimwitted
or as dissolute, shady, and dishonest. In the real world, the attrib-
utes that make a successful agent are far different.

The ideal protection specialist bears some resemblance to a par-
ticularly upstanding Boy Scout-with a dash of worldly sophistica-
tion thrown in. Key attributes are similar to those an employer
would look for in any employee, except that the standard is set
higher, since the person will likely be responsible for protecting the
principal’s life (and possibly the lives of family members). A good
EP specialist has a large measure of common sense, loyalty, and
integrity. He is honest, discreet, alert, mentally fit, and physically
fit (and refrains from smoking). Further, a good EP specialist is
quiet, dignified, and, above all, effective. These characteristics are
desirable in themselves, of course, but in an EP specialist they are
also genuinely useful.

Protective work is likely to bring the specialist into contact with
unfamiliar places, settings, activities, and people. Common sense
guides him through any alien territory. An agent’s loyalty and discre–

lion give the principal enough comfort to allow him protective ac-
cess to important, sensitive, or personal settings-without any fear
that the agent will intentionally harm or embarrass the principal.
Integn:ty and honesty give the agent the courage to speak up about a
threat to the principal’s interests, even when the principal may not
wish to hear what must be said. Alertness and mental fitness enable
the agent to spot and recognize dangers and opportunities, even
after long hours and in the face of distractions. Although an agent
does not need prodigious physical abilities, basic physical fitness (plus
a little extra) helps him act effectively when physical intervention is
needed. For example, the agent might have to use the “fireman’s
carry” to remove the principal from a dangerous situation, and he
should be able to subdue an attacker, to box, and to use martial
arts. Physical fitness also builds the physical and mental endurance
needed during long shifts and far-flung travels. Being a nonsmoker
is, in a sense, a small point, but it illustrates the agent’s desire to
put duty ahead of self. Refraining from smoking frees the agent’s
hands for sudden activity, reduces distractions, and keeps him
from inadvertently attracting attention through the sight or smell
of smoke or the need for matches and ashtrays. Chewing gum also
sends the wrong signals. Behaving in a quiet and dignified manner
makes it feasible for the agent to accompany the principal into im-
portant, formal settings (such as business meetings, black-tie din-
ners, weddings, and political events), where a less serious de-
meanor would not be allowed. The agent’s presence in such places
makes him more iffeclive.

Of utmost importance, among all the requirements of character
and intellect, is the need for a selflessness that enables the agent to
subordinate his well-being, and even life, to that of the principal.
That important bottom-line consideration is examined in this
chapter’s last section, “The big question.”

The Agent’s Command of Self

The EP specialist is his own best implement in the effort to pro-
tect the principal. The most important resources at the agent’s
disposal reside inside. The way he dresses and carries himself

sends a message to the protectee, those with whom the protectee
does business, and any potential attackers. The basic equipment
the agent carries makes a big difference in what he can do on the
spot, at the moment of need. His practice of scanning the sur-
roundings and thinking constantly about potential threats and es-
cape measures makes quick response to trouble a more real possi-
bility. Finally, his dedication to professional behavior supports all
of the preceding.

Appearance and equipment

Body language, expressed through both the clothes the agent wears
and the way he stands and moves, serves several purposes in ex-
ecutive protection. The agent usually wants to blend into the set-
tings in which he protects the principal, whether they are business
meetings, formal parties, or recreational activities. Most principals
prefer that the agent not attract attention; doing so may unneces-
sarily affect the setting. For example, in the business environment,
if the EP specialist has too strong a presence, others may be dis-
tracted and may not be able to conduct their business comfortably.
Therefore, in such a setting the agent would want to be dressed in
a civilian, businesslike manner. If the agent comes from a military
or police background, where uniforms are the norm, that may be a
challenge.

Fortunately, anyone who wants to dress properly for business
can readily consult books or magazines for practical tips on se-
lecting suitable clothes. Other sources of help in dressing appro-
priately include displays at upscale clothing stores, experienced
tailors, and observation of the principal’s style of dress. (Note: it is
important for the agent not to dress better than the principal; do-
ing so may draw unwanted attention to the agent and unfavorable
comparisons with the principal.) A few tips specific to dressing
for protective work include these:

If the agent plans to carry a firearm under his jacket, he
should wear the weapon when having the suit tailored.
That way, the tailor can reduce any potential bulging
from the weapon.

The agent may well need to wear the proverbial “belt
and suspenders”-the belt to hold equipment and the
suspenders to hold up the pants.
The agent should avoid the tough guy or too-cool look
that comes from wearing overly stylish sunglasses. Sun-
glasses are especially to be avoided indoors-the agent
doesn’t want to look like a television bodyguard. Of
course, it’s fine to wear sunglasses in bright sunlight.

The correct look depends not just on what the agent wears but
also on how he wears it. Clothes must be pressed, cleaned, profes-
sionally laundered-whatever is appropriate. The agent’s personal
cleanliness is also extremely important. It might seem like a too-
basic observation, but clean hands, a clean-shaven face, and other
marks of personal cleanliness project a more professional image.
They also make it easier for him and the client to spend long peri-
ods around each other.

The flip side of appearance considerations (and this applies not
just to clothing but to the agent’s total appearance) is that, while
still blending in as far as ordinary observers are concerned, the
agent may wish to be noticed by potential assailants. An EP spe-
cialist looks more effective if he refrains from holding a drink, if
he keeps his hands out of his pockets, and if he stands erect, not
leaning against walls or doorways.

Appearing to be fit and alert is not a minor consideration; it is
part of presenting a hard target. The hard target concept will be
illustrated throughout the book in various protective settings, but
in general it means that certain adversaries can be deterred by the
impression that a particular target will be difficult to attack. They
then move along and select another target. Not all adversaries are
affected that way; some may have a grudge against a particular ex-
ecutive and want to harm only him. However, many potential at-
tackers, be they as humble as street criminals or as sophisticated as
international terrorists, look at a particular protectee as a type-a
representative of something the attackers hate or a source of eco-
nomic gain. In such cases, if one protectee seems hard to reach,
the adversaries may move on and choose an easier target.

For example, Arthur Bremer stalked President Nixon for
months, trying to find a suitable opportunity to shoot him. Fi-
nally, frustrated over and over by the protection around the Presi-
dent and the speed at which the President’s motorcade always
passed by, Bremer changed targets and successfully attacked presi-
dential candidate George Wallace. Bremer’s muddled diary shows
that he wanted to shoot someone famous and become famous
himself, and that he held vague, confused grudges against anyone
he saw as connected with U.S. power in general and with U.S. in-
volvement in Vietnam. Thus, his intended victims were somewhat
interchangeable “types.”

Note that the President’s protective measures did not counter
or repel Bremer’s attack; they prevented it from ever occurring.
Preventing an attack from occurring is always better than at-
tempting to halt an attack that has already started. The main rea-
son is that certain types of attacks are nearly impossible to defend
against once they are initiated. Bremer’s diary shows he had no
particular interest in escaping after he shot his target; he wrote,
“Still don’t know whether it’s trial and prison for me or-bye bye
brains. I’ll just have to decide that at the last few seconds. Must
succeed. Gota.”27 To use another example, it is better to discour-
age the kamikaze pilot from taking off in the first place than to
defend against him once he is flying straight at your ship.

Therefore, by appearing to be a professional, alert, organized
EP specialist, and by performing his job correctly, the agent pro-
tects the principal by discouraging adversaries from even attempt-
ing an attack. As Sun Tzu describes it, “To fight and conquer in
all your battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence
consists in breaking the enemy’s will without fighting.” This ob-
servation is part of Sun Tzu’s strategy of winning by use of the
“sheathed sword.”

In addition to presentation and an effective image, the EP spe-
cialist is responsible for carrying the right equipment and under-
standing its uses and limitations. Later chapters will discuss the

27 Arthur H. Bremer, An Assassin’s Diary (New York: Harper’s Magazine Press,

1972), p. 106.

equipment appropriate for particular settings, but certain items are
needed in almost all assignments. The item that first springs to
most people’s minds when they think about executive protection is
a firearm. Without a doubt, there is a place for firearms in most
executive protection assignments; in the most extreme situations,
the agent might absolutely need to use a gun. However, the utility
of firearms is much more limited than one might expect.

Firearms as protective instruments are overrated, and for the
untrained they can be counterproductive. If shooting starts, the
correct response is to remove the principal from the situation, not
to stop and attempt to shoot the assailant. A classic example is the
March 1981 assassination attempt against President Reagan in
Washington, D.C. Dozens of firearms were drawn by police and
Secret Service agents in response to John Hinkley’s gunfire, yet not
a single shot was fired in return.

There are several reasons for that approach. An agent’s return
shots could miss, with the result that time that could have been used
to move or shield the principal is wasted in shooting; the agent’s
shots could injure bystanders; or the agent’s shots could hit the as-
sailant, leaving him a good ten seconds to fire off six or eight shots
before expiring. None of those scenarios is very desirable.

An agent might consider himself well trained in marksmanship
and tactical shooting, yet real-life conditions are starkly different
from range conditions. On the range, the shooter is primed and
ready to react, he fires on command, and no obstacles stand be-
tween him and the target. By contrast, in real life the agent does
not know when or from which direction the attack will come and
is constantly exposed to false stimuli-the man with one hand in a
pocket may just be reaching for a handkerchief.

Further, mental reliance on being armed may leave the agent
mentally disarmed when it is time to travel to a destination where
he may not bring a gun-whether that is another state or another
country. Before carrying a firearm, he must research the local laws
on that subject; before traveling with one, he must research the
laws at the destination and the laws of each jurisdiction through
which he will pass. An EP specialist must not under any cir-
cumstances carry a fireann contrary to Jaw.

If an agent is going to carry a firearm, it is his responsibility to
learn to become proficient, to practice firing it often, and to deploy
it in the most effective manner. Applicable practice means firing
the weapon in cold weather, in hot weather, during the daytime, at
night, in rain and snow, and from a moving car-not just in a
controlled firing range environment. It is also important to get
away from the idea that only the largest, most powerful handgun
will do. That type of gun is actually more of a hindrance than a
help. The trained EP specialist knows gun types and, more im-
portandy, ballistics. That way he can select the right weapon and
ammunition for the job. In addition, it is useful for everyone on
the protection team to carry the same type of firearm, so that in an
emergency one agent can use another agent’s gun without any dif-
ficulty.

The bottom line on firearms is this: an EP specialist must de-
pend much more on his brain power, his powers of observation,
and his physical conditioning and reaction times than on any fire-
arm.

Other tools with which the agent may need to equip himself in-
clude a pager (which should be set to vibrate, not beep); a small
notebook, an electronic organizer, or 3xS index cards for jotting
down important details; a miniature flashlight; a first-aid kit and
smoke mask; a multi-tool, such as a Gerber multi-pliers or a well-
equipped Swiss army knife; and, if trained and certified to carry
one, an ASP (a type of expandable baton).

While it is necessary for the agent to carry a certain amount of
equipment around, he should never inadvertently display any gear,
such as a weapon or radio, that identifies him as a protection spe-
cialist. (A recent trend is the dramatic reduction in the size of
9mm handguns. Both Glock and Sig Sauer produce fully func-
tional, small, semiautomatic pistols that help reduce the bulge un-
der the coat.) The agent should select suit coats whose cut hides
the equipment, yet he must keep coats unbuttoned to facilitate ac-
cess to the equipment. Even in hot weather, if removing the coat
would reveal a gun or radio, the coat should stay on.

Scanning and calculating

When working a principal, an agent will find that conditions
change. The agent may safely bring the principal to a particular
destination, such as a conference at which he is making a speech,
but the job does not stop there. Once inside a meeting hall, for
example, the agent should start scanning and calculating-that is,
scanning the surroundings for items, people, or arrangements that
appear potentially threatening or seem somehow out of place, and
calculating possible reactions should trouble arise.

Even during a long speech, as in this example, the agent needs to
stay alert, constandy scanning the hall. What about that fidgety, in-
appropriately dressed man in the front row? Who are those people
in the back with signs, pushing their way through the crowd? What
if a fire broke out in the catering area? Where are the exits in rela-
tion to the principal? This is the time for the agent to notice
things–especially people’s hands, objects they may be carrying, and
visible signs of nervousness-and constandy to ask himself, ”What
if?” That is the operating premise that drives the professional.

As Chapter 2 pointed out, when trouble arises, if the agent has
to stop and think about what to do, it’s too late. Fortunately, the
act of scanning and calculating keeps him ready for split-second
reaction. It’s as if he were a computer placing all available data
temporarily into RAM. Such a computer could process data and
execute programs immediately, without pausing to load data stored
on the hard drive.

The act of scanning and calculating also provides data to use in an
important post-event activity-that is, asking the question, “Have I
been visited?” In other words, the EP specialist asks himself whether
anything that occurred during a particular protection assignment was a
clue to a future threat. Was the man who lurked by the principal’s car
scoping it out for a future bombing? Was the fellow who brushed
against the agent checking whether he was armed? Was the odd man
in the front row, who seemed to disapprove so strongly of the princi-
pal’s speech, stockpiling anger to fuel a future attack?

The “what if?” exercise helps the agent bring to mind and
thereby prepare for incidents for which there are no visual clues.

If the principal has enemies in a particular country or region, those
enemies might well choose to attack when the principal is in a dif-
ferent region altogether, calculating that the protective services will
not be looking for them there. For example, a protectee from the
Middle East who faces a high level of threat at home is not im-
mune to attack when traveling in the United States. A careful
threat analysis might show the risk of attack to be lower in the
United States, but the risk doesn’t drop to zero. In fact, the EP
specialist’s rational expectation that the risk is substantially lower
may be enough to raise the likelihood of such an attack-
conducted by adversaries from the Middle East who travel to the
United States for a better attack opportunity. Alternatively, a pro-
tectee whose main threat comes from foreigners when he is visit-
ing their countries might unexpectedly be attacked at home by a
fellow countryman, as in the Rabin assassination. Accordingly, the
EP specialist needs to keep his guard up at all times.

Professional behavior

When an agent is working a principal, professional behavior is not
just the icing on the cake; rather, it is the cake itself. In other
words, the hallmarks of professionalism-such as punctuality, de-
pendability, responsibility, discretion, and high-quality perform-
ance-are highly practical attributes in executive protection.

Regarding punctuality, “being there” on protective assignments
constitutes a large part of the challenge and accomplishes much of
the agent’s goaL In most cases, providing executive protection re-
quires getting up early (certainly earlier than the principal), arriving
on tirne (at least) or ahead of schedule (better), and staying up late.
An agent who stands by the principal’s side cannot prevent every
threat, but an agent who has not yet arrived at the principal’s side
cannot prevent any threat. The agent’s presence also adds to the
principal’s image as a hard target.

Dependability and responsibility help the agent maintain an ef-
fective safety shield for the principal-no gaps, no cracks, no
holes. Being dependable, responsible, and alert keeps the concen-
tric rings of protection in place. Implementation of concentric
protection is discussed in the next major section, but the theory is

this: To protect the principal, who is a moving, living, and some-
what unpredictable target, the agent creates a multi-layer safety
zone around him. That way, threats must pierce several defenses
before harming the executive. The concentric rings are real, of
course, consisting of different protective measures spaced at vary-
ing distances from the principal. However, the rings are also a
theoretical construct that helps the agent remember to protect the
principal against attacks originating from any direction. EP spe-
cialists refer to 360-degree protection when they discuss the need
to scan constantly in all directions.

Rather than creating a shield to keep hazards from getting in,
discretion-that is, quietness about what the agent and principal
do, where they go, and what the agent sees-creates a security net
around the principal, keeping vulnerabilities from getting out and
being exploited. It’s the old “loose lips sink ships” story. When
Arthur Bremer was stalking President Nixon, he watched televi-
sion to learn motorcade routes. At one point, he asked a police
officer along the route, “Where’s a good place to watch the Presi-
dent?” The officer pointed out an advantageous corner.P An-
other time, Bremer followed signs from a hotel lobby to a place
called the “White House Press Room.” He walked in and saw no-
tices on a bulletin board giving a detailed schedule of Nixon’s
movements for the next day. “I wrote it all down,” he observed in
his diary. “The papers and T.V. had not given this out so de-
tailed.”29 There’s simply no point in handing potential adversaries
information that makes their job easier. A discreet agent does his
part by keeping mum.

Finally, high-quality performance, achieved 100 percent of the
time, is the most practical of a professional’s attributes. It may
seem like an uncomfortably demanding standard, but few attacks
against protectees succeed when the EP specialist does everything
right. Almost always, an attack succeeds only if some small mis-
take allows it. As Chapter 1 pointed out, Sun Tzu believed firmly
in this high standard: “He wins his battles by making no mistakes.

28 Bremer, p. 70.
29 Bremer, P: 84.

Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for
it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.” A more
recent formulation of much the same idea comes from the Irish
Republican Army. After exploding a bomb at the Grand Hotel in
Brighton in 1984, in an unsuccessful attempt to kill Prime Minister
Thatcher and other ministers, an anonymous IRA caller was
quoted by newspapers as telling the government, “Today we were
unlucky. But remember, we have only to be lucky once. You will
have to be lucky always.” However, what is needed always is not
luck but skill and professionalism.

The Agent’s Dealings with the Principal

Once the agent has gained sufficient self-mastery, bringing his
skills and thought processes to a high degree of proficiency, it is
time to apply that self-mastery directly to the task of protecting the
principal. The agent’s interaction with the principal takes many
forms-physical and social, in calm and in crisis.

Relationship and communication

In general, the relationship between an EP specialist and a princi-
pal should be friendly but not familiar. The EP specialist needs to
know the executive in order to protect him successfully, yet some
emotional distance is needed so the agent can make rational, de-
tached decisions. A careful EP specialist stays one step removed
from the executive’s innermost circle, does not get involved in
company politics, and doesn’t become overly friendly with the ex-
ecutive’s family members. Since the EP specialist and the execu-
tive have to be able to get along with each other, it behooves the
agent to learn about the executive’s likes and dislikes, personal
goals, and political sentiments-and then to avoid making a faux
pas when speaking about any of those subjects.

Some protectees wish to be treated with deference; others may
be of a more egalitarian bent. Like the doctor-patient relationship,
this relationship requires that the agent know as much about the
executive as possible in order to treat him properly. And also as in
the doctor-patient relationship, keeping professionally distant en-

ables the agent to operate objectively. But the comparison with
the doctor-patient relationship isn’t perfect. The executive is
clearly the boss, so when it comes to developing a relationship, the
agent has to take his cue from the executive.

Adding to the complexity of the relationship is that the princi-
pal may wish to keep confidential the role of the protection spe-
cialist. Doing so may also help the protector disguise his job
function. One way for an executive to minimize the number of
people who know he employs a protection specialist is to assign
the agent a job title that obscures, or at least does not trumpet,
what he actually does. “Chief of operations” and “executive as-
sistant” are titles that might serve well.

Keeping quiet about protection is not a matter of trying to
avoid embarrassment. Rather, the point is that some potential ad-
versaries might become inflamed or emboldened if they knew that
someone they dislike has protection. And while presenting a hard
target is certainly appropriate sometimes, at other times the pres-
ence of an obvious protection specialist only serves as a signal to
evildoers that here is someone who can afford protection, some-
one who therefore might be worth attacking.

One other form of communication that the executive and the
agent should work out together is the subtle signal that one person
gives the other that means, “Let’s go.” An example could be the
scenario mentioned earlier, where the agent who is busily scanning
the auditorium for possible danger signs notices an agitated, sign-
carrying throng pushing through the audience. The agent cannot
approach and speak to the principal without being obvious to the
protesters, but the agent wants to spirit the principal out a side
door before the potential adversaries get too close. In such a case,
the EP specialist uses a physical, visible signal-known only to the
client and employed only in emergencies-that alerts the principal
to leave the area. Open communication makes the development
of such signals possible.

Another example would be a business lunch at a restaurant.

The person meeting with the executive is upset about a business
maneuver. Having drunk too many martinis, and being a hot-
headed sort, he begins to speak too loudly and then to shout. The

agent, a polite distance away, cannot tell whether the person’s be-
havior is becoming threatening, but the executive feels it is at least
embarrassing and possibly threatening. This time, the executive
sends the signal, the EP specialist steps up to announce that the
principal has a phone call, and the two depart before real trouble
develops.

Choreography

The physical positioning and the interaction between an agent and
a principal are crucial. The agent’s main mission is not to open
doors for the principal, or to help the principal wriggle out of
awkward social situations, or to fill the principal’s ears with defer-
ential comments. Those activities may be desirable or otherwise
useful at times, but the agent’s main mission is to keep the princi-
pal physically safe. That means being there, standing in the right
place, and moving the right way. It is a question of choreography.

Different protective settings require different approaches, and
the actual movements and placements needed in such situations as
travel, residential security, and workplace protection are discussed
in later chapters. However, some general comments can be of-
fered here.

In many protective scenarios, only one agent is available to pro-
vide security to the principal. The natural question is how the
agent should position himself, in terms of distance and bearing,
from the person he is trying to protect. An interesting rule of
thumb, from the perspective of the principal, comes from a former
high-ranking U.S. government official who is now receiving pri-
vate protection. He tells his protective detail: “Stand close enough
to protect me, but not so close that I have to introduce you.”

When the principal is walking, typically the protective agent
walks behind and to one side of him. That arrangement enables
the agent to look carefully in all directions without attracting undue
attention. However, walking behind the principal is not always the
best arrangement. For example, before the principal enters a
room, hallway, elevator, or stairwell, the agent should precede him
to make sure the area is safe. Politeness has its place, but holding
the door so that the principal may enter a room first is unchival-

rous if the effect is to send him unprotected into an attack. If nec-
essary, the agent should push ahead of the principal, saying
“Excuse me” perhaps, but nevertheless making sure to be the first
one into the room in order to bear the brunt of any assault that
may be lurking there.

It takes time for a principal and an agent to become comfort-
able with the space question. Most principals do not want EP spe-
cialists breathing down their necks or getting underfoot. However,
serious physical threats usually occur at close range, so it is coun-
terproductive to keep the agent at too great a distance. If the level
of threat is high enough, for whatever reason, the agent may even
have to accompany the principal into public rest rooms. Why?
The relative privacy of a public restroom facilitates several sorts of
crimes. For example, an unplanned mugging could easily take
place, or a well-planned child-molestation setup could be staged
there. If the agent and executive can overcome their reticence and
make it standard for the agent to accompany the executive into
isolated places, the mugger will likely wait for another victim and
the con artist or blackmailer will be foiled by the presence of a
witness.

As mentioned earlier, physical protection requires making the
executive a hard target. In some cases the EP specialist should
make it obvious that the executive is well protected, whereas in
other cases it is better to be noticed as little as possible. But re-
gardless of whether he appears to be a hard target, he should actuallY
be one. The target analogy works on several levels, especially if one
thinks of “hard” as both “strong or physically unyielding” and

“difficult.” Comparing the executive to a paper bull’s-eye and the
adversary to an archer, it is certainly harder to hit such a target if it
is (a) far away, (b) moving, or (c) encased in a steel box. The
analogous situations for a client are (a) staying out of the public
eye or keeping a significant physical distance away from crowds,
dangerous parts of a city, ete., (b) driving as fast as is practical
when traveling by car and not stopping when an adversary tries to
force a stop, and (c) being protected by a security perimeter,
whether that perimeter consists of a protection team, physical bar-
riers, or a combination thereof. Situations (a), (b), and (c) will be

covered in more detail in chapters on motorcade security, residen-
tial and office security, and protection during travel.

General observations about point (c), however, are that the
protective perimeter often consists of the principal’s protective
team. Proper positioning for a one-person protective effort was
discussed above; when the team consists of three, four, or more
EP specialists, the challenge for the team leader is to use the sev-
eral agents to best advantage. In executive protection, the phrase
“use your resources” is used frequently to remind agents that they
must make use of any advantage they can. In this setting, where
the advantage is having several EP specialists, that might mean
putting one agent in front of the principal, one behind the princi-
pal, and one across the street (for a better vantage point). The
agents must be able to move in a coordinated, natural flow, so as
not to trip each other up or make the principal feel surrounded.
This is true choreography.

The ideal is to maintain balanced, 360-degree coverage around
the principal. Two agents can do so by stationing themselves at
the protectee’s left and right, or front and back, or any two posi-
tions that are separated from each other by 180 degrees. They may
need to shift positions constantly to remain opposite one another.
They should try to avoid standing too close to each other, facing
the same direction, and leaving most of the area to their backs un-
observed. One of the agents should stand closer to the principal
in order to maintain verbal contact with him and be able to re-
spond quickly should an assault or other emergency occur. If a
third agent is available, he should stand at a greater distance and
provide general, overall surveillance.

Other formations, such as wedges, diamonds, and lines, may be
employed to deal with crowds, various building layouts, escalator
and elevator use, receiving lines, and other situations:

Moving the principal through a crowd, espe-
cially a hostile or exuberant crowd, is best done by
three agents in a wedge formation. In that arrange-
ment, one agent walks in front of the principal, one to
the principal’s left, and one to his right. The EP spe-
cialists can make the wedge even more effective by

linking their arms around the principal to keep others
from pressing in too close.

Receiving lines. The key to securing a principal who is
shaking hands with guests in a long receiving line is to
maintain surveillance of the line at some point before
guests reach the principal and to watch carefully both
behind and on the opposite side of the protectee. The
agent should remember to watch individuals’ hands,
rather than their eyes, especially in very crowded condi-
If a person is approaching the principal with his
hands in his pockets, the agent should feel free to ask
him, politely but firmly, to take his hands out. Most
people will not take offense at such a request.
If two agents are available, their arrangement
in a hallway or lobby while waiting with the principal
for an elevator to arrive is as follows: the first agent
stands facing the closed elevator doors, while the prin-
cipal and the second agent wait off to one side, out of
direct view from within the elevator car. As the doors
open, the first agent, who is in a position to block the
view from within the car, enters first, turning around to
hold the doors back as the principal and second agent
enter. The second agent moves to the rear of the car,
behind the principal, and the first agent stands in front,
facing the doors. That way, when the doors open
again, all three are in a good position for forward
movement. If only one agent is working the principal,
he should make the movements suggested for the first
agent.
If two agents are available, one should stand
in front of the principal, looking forward and to both
sides, and the other should stand behind the principal,
looking behind and to both sides. If a staircase paral-
lels the escalator, one agent should walk on the stairs
alongside the principal (who is on the escalator) and the
other should ride close behind the principal.

The ring or concentric rings of protection may consist of four
agents standing around the principal in a diamond formation, or it
may consist of one agent standing next to the principal while oth-
ers hold positions somewhat farther away. If the concentric rings
consist of both personnel and equipment, and a high level of secu-
rity is in order, the levels of defense would theoretically be devised
as follows. At the illustrated level of security, it is likely that law
enforcement assistance would be required.

Outer perimeter. This is composed of surveillance or
counter-sniper agents or teams (on the ground and
possibly in the air), response cars, and uniformed law
enforcement officers on static post assignments. The
idea is that an attacker must first pass through this line
of defense.
Middle perimeter: This consists of EP specialists and pos-
sibly police officers. Some agents would be assigned to
checkpoints at corridors, doors, and elevators; would
operate magnetometers at those checkpoints; and
would conduct bomb sweeps. Other agents would
guard the specific rooms and hallways the principal is
expected to use.
Inner This is the last layer of defense protect-
ing the principal from the outside. It consists exclu-
sively of the principal’s protective staffers, who arrange
themselves around the principal in the ways discussed
earlier.

Another aspect of the physical interaction between the principal
and the protection specialist involves courtesy and thoughtfulness
that go beyond ordinary good manners. An agent charged with
protecting a principal who will be making a speech should see that
all electrical wires are safely taped down on the path the principal
will take to the dais. Tripping off a stage is no better for an execu-
tive than being knocked over by a mugger. The agent should con-
stantly scan for little hazards and take a few extra steps to prevent
them. The agent might feel it beneath his level of sophistication to
spend time looking for such everyday sources of injury, but loose

rugs, slippery steps, ice patches, inhaled smoke, and car crashes
injure more people than muggers do. It is not a mark of success to
protect an executive from agitated shareholders only to have him
crack his head when he trips over a loose wire right at the EP spe-
cialist’s feet.

Of course, this does not mean to suggest that the boss is
clumsy. On the contrary, many protectees practice activities that
require great agility and training-and their agents had better be
able to keep up. If the principal likes to sail, the agent should
know how to swim (of course, every agent should know how to
swim), and maybe even how to sail. Likewise, an agent protecting
an equestrian principal had better be able to ride a horse. It isn’t
necessary for an agent to master all the activities the principal par-
ticipates in, but the agent has to be able to keep up.

Action vs. reaction

This is the time when all of the agent’s instincts, training, and con-
dition come together. When an attacker pulls a knife, ftres a shot,
rams the principal’s car with his own, lunges at the principal, or
makes some other clearly dangerous, aggressive move, there’s no
time for the agent to stop and ponder. In fact, it’s amazing how
quickly such an incident can arise and be played out. The whole
sequence, from the agent’s first sighting of the threat to evacuation
of the principal, might take as little as four seconds. What makes
the agent’s task even more difficult is that he must react correctly
the first time.

A good example of how fast an attack can happen and how fast
the correct response must take place is the March 30, 1981, assas-
sination attempt against President Reagan outside the Washington
Hilton. John Hinckley fired six rounds in less than three seconds.
On hearing the shots, Secret Service agent Jerry Parr reacted in-
stinctively and pushed the President into a waiting limousine,
which rushed to George Washington University Hospital. Many
responses happened at once. In a matter of seconds, with no time
to stop and think, some members of the protective detail shielded
the President with their own bodies, others pushed him into the
car, and others surrounded and piled on top of the assailant; and

the “wheel man” knew where to take the wounded President.
These quick reactions come from a degree of mental and physical
rehearsal that had created the possibility of a conditioned (that is,
automatic) response. This episode was a classic example of “cover
and evacuate.”

When an attack occurs, what should happen is that the agent re-
acts immediately. He can do so because he has been scanning and
calculating, is in the proper physical position with respect to the
principal (standing nearby or driving the car), and has mentally re-
hearsed the several actions that he must take in the next few sec-
onds. The alternative is to stand there confused, after the incident,
wondering what all the commotion was about.

Note that having to take these emergency actions-even if the
agent performs them successfully-indicates a partial failure al-
ready: the principal should be kept out of harm’s way as much as
possible. Allowing a close-range incident to occur is riding much
too close to the edge of disaster. The lifeguard who rescues a
drowning child is only a partial hero if it was his job to keep
swimmers from going out too deep in the first place.

One accepted action chain consists of four main parts. The
short, memorizable names for those parts are arm’s reach, sound off,
cover, and evacuate. How would that action chain work in an inci-
dent where a man draws a handgun and points it at the principal?
Arm:r reach defines the agent’s first reaction. It is the point at
which he decides whether to go after the attacker or shield the
principal from harm. Basically, if the attacker is within an arm’s
reach of the agent, the agent should move to immobilize him. If
the attacker is beyond an arm’s reach of the agent, the agent
should move to cover the principal.

If the agent decides to go after the shooter, he should push the
shooter’s gun down and away and then use hand-to-hand tech-
niques to subdue him. There are several reasons to push the gun
down instead of up: it is easier to hold something down than to
hold it up, and pushing the gun down aims it at less-lethal targets,
such as the floor or someone’s legs or feet, while raising it may end
up pointing it at someone’s head. The best approach is to neu-
tralize the weapon first, then the attacker.

Another factor that influences the decision about whether to
reach for the principal or subdue the attacker is the totality of
other physical circumstances. For example, if several agents are
guarding a principal, one would grab the principal and others
would disarm the attacker. If there was only one EP specialist but
the incident took place in the middle of a crowd of people, then
the second step in this four-part action chain, sound df, might bring
assistance from bystanders, who could grab the attacker while the
agent shielded and evacuated the principal.

The second step, sound ojJ, means shouting out “Gun!” or “Gun
to the right!” or something similar. The message should state the
type of weapon displayed and the direction, in relation to the pro-
tectee, from which it is coming. Sounding off tells other agents to
spring into action and attempts to involve other people in the
situation. This is something to shout, not whisper; if there are
only a few seconds in which to evade the problem, there’s no time
for other agents or the public to respond, “Pardon me?”

Cover means something quite serious here. It isn’t limited to
finding cover, meaning a safe place for the agent and the principal
to flee to. It primarily means that the agent has to cover the prin-
cipal’s body with his own-to be, as the English monarch’s pro-
tective staffers phrase it, a “bullet-catcher.”

If the decision is made not to disarm the attacker (because of
distance or other factors) but instead to shield the principal, the
agent moves immediately to cover him, with the agent’s own body,
from the impending attack. The object is not only to shield the
principal but also to make him a smaller target. Shielding can be

performed in several different ways and must be done immedi-
ately, without apology or explanation. One method is to grab the
principal by the belt against his back and, pulling hard, simultane-
ously push down on his shoulders from the back-essentially,
folding the protectee in half. Another method is to grab the lapel
of the principal’s suit, from the front, and pull him down to the
floor. A third method, called the “cave-in,” can be used when sev-
eral EP specialists are working together to shield the principal-
they simply cave in around the principal, falling on top of him and
pulling him to the ground. However, bringing the principal to the

ground presents some risk of injury. Therefore, it should be done
only in situations where immediate evacuation is not possible.

Evacuate refers to the overriding need to get the principal out of
danger. The difference between police or military personnel and
executive protection specialists-that the former are supposed to
pursue their opponents, while the latter are supposed to avoid their
opponents-cannot be overemphasized. It’s not a question of
bravery; rather, it’s a question of effectiveness in attaining one’s
goals. Stopping to fight an adversary when it would be quicker to
dash out a side door is simply ineffective; it raises, not lowers, the
odds that the principal will be injured.

In most cases, the protective detail should concentrate on shield-
ing and removing the principal, leaving apprehension of the attacker
to the police. There’s a tactical reason, too, for not surrounding the
attacker. Sun Tzu writes, ”When you surround an army, leave an
outlet free. This does not mean that the enemy is to be allowed to
escape. The object is to make him believe that there is a road to
safety, and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair.”

Although much of the mental preparation, risk assessment, intel-
ligence gathering, and projection of being a hard target may be con-
sidered part of the team’s offense, on the physical level, executive
protection is absolutely, solely defensive. From a legal standpoint,
too, it is better to err on the side of restraint. The defensive ap-
proach-removing the principal as quickly as possible from dan-
ger-is much less risky legally than standing and fighting. If shoot-
ing is involved, the last thing a principal wants is for his protective
staff to injure or kill an innocent bystander. Even if shooting is not
involved, there’s always the possibility of a misunderstanding. The
presumed attacker may not be attacking but may simply be pushing
through the crowd for an autograph. Wouldn’t it better to have
needlessly fled from the autograph-seeker than to have needlessly
wrestled him to the ground in front of dozens of witnesses?

Assuming the threat is real, however, the key is to remove the
principal immediately from the “kill zone,” which is the area de-
fined by a nine- to 12-foot radius around the principal. Most at-
tacks are waged from within that small zone. Long guns or other
stand-off weapons are rarely used in attacks against VIPs. Even

political leaders, against whom the assassination threat level is typi-
cally high, are almost never attacked from a long distance. The
assassination of President Kennedy is truly atypical. It is true that
bombs may be controlled from a distance or even detonated at
some distance from their target, outside the small kill zone; nev-
ertheless, in practice most attacks are waged in close quarters.

The good news about that is that the protective agent doesn’t
need to move the principal miles from the scene of the attack;
hustling the principal into another room or into a waiting car may
be enough to escape the kill zone. The smoothest, most effective
way to move the principal is to grab him by the belt (at the back)
or by the back of the collar, shove his head downward (to shield
it), and push him quickly out of danger. If the exit involves rush-
ing into a waiting car, the agent will typically push the principal
into the back seat and then lie on top of him to prevent injury and
to force him to stay down low.

When an evacuation is necessary, the importance of advance
surveys becomes obvious. It is essential that the agent know the
layout of the facility. Inadequate preparation can result in tragic or
embarrassing conclusions. The last thing the protective staff
needs, when an incident arises, is confusion about where to go.
No one wants to be in the position of having evacuated a protec-
tee to a locked exit door or other dead end.

In all cases, but especially where a male EP specialist is pro-
tecting a female client, the two should discuss in advance the fact
that the agent may have to grab the client bodily and even, as de-
scribed, get uncomfortably close for a minute or two. In addition,

no matter how formally or deferentially the executive normally
likes to be treated by the EP specialist, there are times when the
agent has to bark out a command. In those instances (active or
imminent crises), the executive-and his family-should under-
stand that following terse, forceful commands may be necessary
for survival. When the agent shouts “Get down!”, “Run to the
car!”, or “Slam on the brakes!”, the principal should do so imme-
diately and not take time to feel ill-treated.

The examples listed in this discussion of the arm’s reach-sound off-
cover-evacuate action chain involved a close-range shooting attempt.

For most protectees the risk of assassination is low, but many
other rather common threats-mugging, attacks by disgruntled
employee, etc.-require the same protective measures.

Protection and service

Another quirky aspect of working the principal is this: protection
service is both protection and service. That means the agent, al-
though performing a professional service, must also perform other
tasks that come along. Some of those tasks have a practical signifi-
cance to the protective effort. For example, when the principal and
the agent are traveling, the agent can reduce the principal’s exposure
to possible danger or undesired encounters by taking care of hotel
check-in and making arrangements for luggage handling in advance.
That way, the principal can walk briskly through the lobby, board an
elevator, and arrive quickly at the safety of his room.

Other tasks, however, may seem a little humble, probably be-
neath the agent’s real dignity, but nevertheless part of the job be-
cause the agent, more than anyone else, is there. Such tasks might
include taking care of the principal’s pets-even cleaning up after
them-so the principal won’t have to take them out for a walk in
an unsecured area, or even just because the principal doesn’t want
to do it and the agent is the only other person around. The job of
executive protection clearly contains an element of facilitation, and
some of that involves freeing the executive from undesired tasks
that consume his valuable time.

What the Principal and Agent Would Like to Tell
Each Other But Usually Don’t

Communication between the principal and the agent was discussed
earlier, yet there are certain comments that often go unsaid in the
relationship and that become awkward points. Agents typically
show deference to their protectees and hesitate to make comments
that might be taken as offensive. Nevertheless, some of those
comments are important to the protective effort. One is, “Let me
drive.” In most cases, it is best for the agent to drive and the prin-
cipal to sit in the right rear seat. The agent can watch for dangers,

is usually trained in evasive driving, and can relieve the principal of
responsibility for traffic tickets and other such problems. Mean-
while, the principal can make good use of the travel time to work
or rest and can more readily duck down low in case of an attack.

Another comment many agents would like to make is, “Don’t
draw me into long conversations.” On most public buses, signs
warn passengers not to talk to the drivers; the drivers have a lot on
their minds and need to concentrate. EP specialists have much
more on their minds than just driving and can do their jobs more
effectively if they are not engaged in long, complicated conversa-
tions. An EP specialist makes an expensive chatting buddy-a
distracting conversation with the agent could cost the client his
physical safety.

Of course, clients of EP specialists have a few matters they
would like to point out, too. One is, “Be there when I need you;
don’t be there when I don’t.” That’s a tall order, of course, a little
like Sun Tzu’s admonition to make no mistakes. Still, it’s a stan-
dard to reach for, like the seemingly invisible butler who refills
your glass before you knew it was empty and who then disappears,
or the parent who lets the child play and climb freely, materializing
only when the child falls and needs to be caught.

Another message from clients to EP specialists is, “Don’t em-
barrass me.” The ways in which an agent should conduct himself
in business settings were discussed earlier; the point here is that
some clients really do worry about being embarrassed. A good EP
specialist gives the client confidence that nothing untoward will
happen. An attentive agent notices whether he is often asked to

stay some distance from the principal or remain in the car and then
asks himself, “Is it me?” If so, he upgrades his appearance and
behavior as required.

The Big Question

The big question for a prospective EP specialist is this: “Are you
willing to risk your life to save the principal, even if that requires
deliberately putting yourself in the way of a bullet?” That’s an im-
portant question, and the answer has to be “yes.” However, the

question-in isolation-doesn’t paint the whole picture. No EP
specialist wants to get killed; after all, while executive protection is
for many agents a calling, it is also a job, and no salary is a good
deal if it requires getting killed.

What helps all of this make sense is the context and degree of
risk. No one walks in off the street, unskilled and inexperienced,
and becomes an EP specialist. Undertaking that work is an evolu-
tion, usually from law enforcement, security, or the military.
Along the way the person has learned to accept the risks-or else
has rejected them and chosen another line of work. It’s not a
question of wanting to be shot; it’s a matter of accepting the risks
that accompany the agent’s chosen career.

While the risk of death may seem high, it is not as high as the
risk in many other occupations. According to the U.S. Depart-
ment of Health and Human Services, the industries with by far the
highest annual rates of occupational fatalities are mining (31.9
deaths annually per 100,000 workers); construction (25.6); trans-
portation, communication, and public utilities (23.3); and agricul-
ture, forestry, and fishing (18.3).30

The occupational fatality rate for EP specialists is unknown. In
addition, the risk would have to vary substantially with the type of
client protected and the place where the work is performed. (In
other words, there’s a big difference between protecting a client in
Cincinnati and protecting one in Bogota.) It’s worth noting that
the large occupational group most similar to EP specialists-
police-isn’t anywhere near the top of the fatality list. The job of
executive protection has its risks, but they aren’t outlandishly high.

30 Fatal lnjuries to Workers in the United States, 1980–1989: A Decade of Suroeil/ance
(National Profile) (Washington: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
1993), p. xiii,