Dan Emmett, in chronicling his career as a member of the Secret Service, harrumphed at those associated with serving the executive branch who got gossipy. It was unprofessional and vulgar, said he. Perhaps, but when the executive is himself unprofessional and vulgar, and living off the public dole in the sums of millions per year (thinking of salary and the various perks of office), I say they’re fair game. The First Family Detail, based on interviews and memoirs of secret service agents past and present, mixes criticism of the Service’s decline along with some fairly gossipy and very entertaining revelations about the men, women, and children who have enjoyed (or tolerated, or despised ) Service protection. These include not only the president and his family, but vice presidents, presidential candidates, and (by their association with the president) various members of DC’s cabal. The ‘serious’ parts of this book address the decline of the Secret Service, due to its politicization (the service competes for funds with other agencies, so it often kowtows to the demands of executives for less protection so as not to make the grand poobah grumpy at them at money-dispensing time), the expansion of its mission to cover non-presidential events like winter Olympics, and a growing culture of corruption and carelessness. Part of this owes to the men themselves: Clinton was such a profligate skirt-chaser that one of his mistresses would arrive as soon as Hillary had left the executive campus, and that this particular mistress was never entered on the books. Biden, as vice president, wanted to maintain his average Joe status by reducing his motorcade, while at the same time making multiple trips back and forth between his private home and D.C. on the public dime, and with such unpredictability that the agency was forced to maintain extra agents and run the ones they had absolutely ragged. Long hours means little time for P.T. or weapons training.

The protectees themselves run the gamut from considerate and respectful (the Bushes, especially Laura, are apparently loved, as are the Obamas) to hostile and abusive (Hillary). Kids who have grown up in the White House change their attitudes over time: Chelsea originally referred to the agents as “pigs”, aping her parents, (this from The Residence, not Kessler) but became a model first daughter as she grew up. Jenna and Barbara Bush were teenage nightmares, frequently attempting to escape from protection and possibly inspiring the several “first daughter gone rogue” films of the 2000s, like Chasing Liberty and My Date with the President’s Daughter.* Some executives varied their behavior depending on if their wife was around: Ronald Reagan was just as personable off-screen and loved to chat with anyone he encountered, but was marshalled a bit by Nancy who regarded her husband as too open & trusting of others and wanted to protect both him and his time. Clinton, meanwhile, was often brusque and inconsiderate, but when by himself liked to smoke a cigar and hang out with the agents. A lot of the information was square in line with other things I’ve read: the absolute abhorrence that was Johnson, Hillary’s vile and dehumanizing abuse of staff, Kennedy and Clinton’s inability to not like act randy chimpanzees (agents would literally steer pretty woman away from areas Billy boy was being transported to), etc. There were surprises, though: Carter and Ford ,who I regard as genuinely good and unpretentious people, apparently had their bad sides: Ford was a bit of a miser, and Carter was far less a man of the people around staff, ignoring them. (Also: despite SNL taunting him as a klutz, Ford remained a nimble athlete in office, and sometimes taunted agents who couldn’t keep up with him on the slopes. Be nice, Jerry.) While presumably no one likes being constantly shadowed and told they can’t do this-or-that (especially when they’re el presidente), some protectees are openly hostile and contemptuous of staff and agents, like Hillary — who insisted staff disappear at her approach, again verified by The Residence. Judging from the agent interviews here, few would want to be around her. Another surprise was Johnson’s own randiness: I’m not surprised that he was a skirt-chaser, but more surprised any woman would consent to be groped by such a repugnant human being, who would consort with mistresses in the presidential suite of Air Force One while his wife sat outside. At least Jack and Bill were young, trim, and charming.

First Family Detail was a fun but gossipy read, something of a guilty-pleasure to go along with the more serious presidential reading of earlier weeks. Given how popular the Bushes are and how disliked the Clintons are in this book, it could very easily be perceived as partisan, but the positive coverage given Obama and the few shots fired at Gerald Ford ameliorate this to some degree. That said, the good nature of the Bushes (’41 and ’43) toward staff and agents, and the more arrogant attitude taken by the Clintons, has appeared in other books so I’m largely satisfied in thinking Kessler’s reportage is in he area of fair-minded.

Coming up: Mike Collins’ excellent Carrying the Fire, and over the weekend Tom Stafford’s We Have Capture. Hoping to finish that one before another theme week kicks off. This year’s space camp deliberately involved the memoirs of three men who worked together (albeit not at the same time — Collins and Young were together on Gemini 10, and Young and Stafford on Apollo 10) to see how accounts lined up or did not.

Some highlights:

Even in summer, Nixon insisted on a fire in the fireplace. One evening after he had left the presidency, Nixon forgot to open the flue damper. “The smoke backed up in the house, and two agents came running,” says a former agent who was on the Nixon detail. “Can you find him?” one of the agents asked the other. “No, I can’t find the son of a bitch,” the other agent said. From the bedroom, a voice piped up. “Son of a bitch is here trying to find a matching sock,” said Nixon.

After he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Reagan remarked, “Well, there must be a positive side to this. Maybe I’ll get to meet new people every day,” former agent Sullivan says. “He tried to make light of it, which is classic Ronald Reagan,” Sullivan observes. “Even though there was bad news, he’d try to put you at ease.”

Biden’s seven-thousand-square-foot home in Greenville, the hometown of many Du Pont family descendants, sits on four acres on a lake. Like the vice president’s home, it has a pool. Biden also owns a small carriage house on his property, where his widowed mother, Jean, lived until she died in 2010. The Secret Service now rents it from Biden for $2,200 a month. [Emphasis added. How I loathe DC.]

When in public, Hillary smiles and acts graciously. As soon as the cameras are gone, her angry personality, nastiness, and imperiousness become evident. During the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, a Secret Service uniformed officer was standing post on the South Lawn when Hillary arrived by limo. “The first lady steps out of the limo, and another uniformed officer says to her, ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ ” a former uniformed officer recalls. “Her response to him was ‘F— off.’ I couldn’t believe I heard it.”

[*] Starring Eric from Boy Meets World! One I watched multiple times on VHS back in the day.