STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Our next guest spent 29 years with the Secret Service, the agency that protects the president. A.T. Smith is the Secret Service's former deputy director. He's now an independent consultant and an analyst for CBS News. Mr. Smith, good morning.
A T SMITH: Good morning. Thank you.
INSKEEP: In your judgment, did the system work in this case?
SMITH: It did. And, of course, everyone has probably seen it by now - it played out on television - in terms of the way the Secret Service covers and evacuates a protectee, and in this case, two of them or more, and that is what they trained for day in and day out. And so the evacuation process, covering and evacuating, as well as keeping those protectees safe, went off in the way that they trained to do. It doesn't always happen split second.
You know, there have been some questions about why one was taken one way, another from the other side, in terms of the president, the vice president, as well as one left the stage slightly quicker than the other. So there's always those things. But in terms of the training protocols and the way that they're supposed to do this, they did that right. Beyond that, as we've now learned about this assailant, this individual, it seems like he planned this, and it seems like at the same time, he was sort of the worst of the scenarios that security professionals - Secret Service and so forth - have to deal with. And that was he seems to be a lone wolf.
INSKEEP: You say worst in this scenario because it's hard to see it coming. He didn't seem to have a big record that people might have picked up on from what we know so far. Is that what you mean?
SMITH: Yeah, exactly. I mean, he operated, it sounded like or sounds like, you know, independent, solely, didn't tell anybody. I mean, it does sound like he made some references to his family about doing something. But, you know, again, a lot of times when family members see something, they should say something, but it doesn't always register in the way that, you know, it might from someone else. So other than that, we've not heard much about him saying anything ahead of time.
INSKEEP: Let me ask you about some of the preparations for this particular site. Many people took note that the ballroom, which is way in the basement of that hotel was secure, but the rest of the hotel was not secured in the same way. Does that strike you as normal and appropriate for an event like this?
SMITH: Well, you want to secure and have a security plan that sort of encapsulates the whole. The Washington Hilton is a place that protectee go to. I've done advances there over the years, been there on many, you know, protection assignments. It is in some ways complex. It's difficult because on the one hand, you're trying to secure a particular location within that venue, and at the same time, you have to allow the Hilton to do its business, allow guests to come and go, you know, as unencumbered as possible. So it's complex. It's a little bit of a challenge.
They're probably going to have to or take a look now at how they will do this in the future. And, you know, the Secret Service is an agency that is really critical on itself. So they'll do a complete after wash (ph) on this and decide what can be improved. Again, I think the advantage to this individual was he didn't really forecast what was going on, and the fact that he was a guest there at the hotel probably aided somewhat in him being able to get to that level and get as close as he did with those firearms and knives, and that's not acceptable.
INSKEEP: I'm assuming that in the Secret Service, you would think about an incident like this the same way that airplane designers have to think about an airplane. You never want there to be a crash because of a single point of failure. Is that the way that the security would be designed for something like this? Maybe the guy gets past the outer perimeter, but he doesn't get within sight of the president. Somebody tackles him sooner. There was not a single point of failure, so far as we know.
SMITH: That's true. And again, you want to do exactly what you said. This preparation, preplanning and having a security plan in place that prevents all the things we just said is your goal. That's what you want. If you get to the point where you have to draw a gun and take a suspect down in this kind of proximity, then in some ways, the plan is not adequate, and you're going to have to address that. As we said, in this case, luckily, and through obviously the work of the Secret Service in that middle perimeter, the individual was not able to access the ballroom, and certainly those on the dais were safe.
INSKEEP: In Butler, Pennsylvania, it seems there was a single point of failure - an exposed rooftop - where an assassin almost succeeded. Do you think the agency has improved its performance since then?
SMITH: I believe it has in terms of their training protocols. I think they've taken more proactive look at what they're doing. And you can see, unlike Butler - of course, Butler was a different scenario because it was an outside venue.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
SMITH: And we've seen that there were difficulties brought about doing that as far as the advance work. But, you know, in terms of evacuating the president night before last, you saw how quickly the counterassault team deployed had him covered.
INSKEEP: Got to stop it there, I'm afraid. A.T. Smith is a former deputy director of the Secret Service. Thanks for your insights.
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