Who Rejected Secret Service Protection After His Presidency

U.S. | NIXON DROPPING PROTECTION BY SECRET SERVICE

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/13/us/nixon-dropping-protection-by-secret-service.html

NIXON DROPPING PROTECTION BY SECRET SERVICE

March 13, 1985

Credit... The New York Times Archives

See the article in its original context from
March 13, 1985

Section A , Page

13Buy Reprints

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.

About the Archive

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

Former President Richard M. Nixon has decided to do without the Secret Service detail that has accompanied him since he left the White House in 1974, and he plans to choose protection that will not by paid by the taxpayer.

Mr. Nixon has commissioned ''a complete study of his security needs,'' his assistant, John Taylor, said today. ''Once that's done, he will decide how to proceed.''

Mr. Nixon is the first former President to refuse Federal protection.

He notified the Government of his decision Friday in a note that was hand-delivered to Treasury Secretary James A. Baker 3d, whose department includes the Secret Service.

Mr. Taylor said Mr. Nixon's sole reason for the move was to save the Government money. The Secret Service will stay with him until private guards are hired, and at no time will the former President be unprotected.

Cost of U.S. Protection

The yearly cost of providing protection for Mr. Nixon has been estimated at $3 million. The Secret Service declined to furnish a precise amount. In 1982 an official told Congress that protection of former Presidents and their wives cost $10.7 million, but the figure is believed to be $26 million today.

A Secret Service spokesman, Jack Taylor, said the agency had a $286.5 million budget for the current year, which included protection for visiting heads of state and other activities.

Under a law passed in 1965, only the President and Vice President are required to accept protection. Others permanently on the service's current protection rolls are former Presidents Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter; Lady Bird Johnson, the widow of President Johnson, and the Secretary of the Treasury.

At her request, protection was dropped last year for Mr. Nixon's wife, Pat.

Approval by Ford

Mr. Ford, in Clearwater, Fla., today to attend a business center dedication, told a reporter for The St. Petersburg Times that he approved of Mr. Nixon's action but would keep his own detail until some time in the future, when it would be gradually eliminated.

At Mr. Carter's office in Atlanta, an aide, Toni Brown, said she had no statement from the former President.

Mr. Nixon's bodyguards have a command post on his estate in Saddle River, N.J., which John Taylor said was refurbished and was maintained at the former President's expense.

''This is something he's been thinking about for quite a while,'' Mr. Taylor said.