Please note that the following is a digitized version of a selected article from White House History Quarterly, Issue 57, originally released in print form in 2020. Single print copies of the full issue can be purchased online at Shop.WhiteHouseHistory.Org No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All photographs contained in this journal unless otherwise noted are copyrighted by the White House Historical Association and may not be reproduced without permission. Requests for reprint permissions should be directed to rights@whha.org. Contact books@whha.org for more information. 2020 White House Historical Association. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions.
GROWING UP A Secret Service Agent’s Daughter Life with My Father Rufus W. Youngblood
LBJ PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
R E B E C C A YO U N G B L O O D VAU G H N
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years before my father’s transfer, the Secret Service had protected the president from an assassination attempt in an all-out gunfight outside of Blair House. On November 1, 1950, two assassins were shot down, two officers were wounded, and Private Leslie Coffelt, a White House Police Force officer, was killed while protecting the president.4 Despite this attack, President Truman continued his morning strolls around the city. My father was often among the protective unit accompanying him. Secret Service Chief U. E. Baughman voiced concern for the president’s safety during these predictable outings, but the president remained an avid walker. “Contrary to popular belief, the Secret Service doesn’t tell the president what he can and cannot do,” my father wrote.5
IN EISENHOWER’S SERVICE On January 20, 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the thirty-fourth president, and my father was among the agents providing protection during the Inauguration. At that time, the president rode in an open-topped limousine and stood without protective barriers during the ceremony and parade viewing. And the Trumans left the capital without Secret Service protection. On the following morning, my father escorted President Eisenhower to the Oval Office, providing him a mini-tour of the West Wing along the way. For the next eight years, my father would protect President Eisenhower—his commander in chief
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The author (in her mother’s arms) surrounded by her siblings and government officials, looks on as her father, U.S. Secret Service Agent Rufus Youngblood, accepts the U.S. Treasury’s Exceptional Service Award from President Lyndon Johnson, December 4, 1963. above
Agent Youngblood (circled on right) poses with fellow agents assigned to Eisenhower’s 1953 Inauguration detail. opposite Agent Youngblood (on driver’s side) runs beside the Eisenhower’ s open limousine at the U.S. Naval Air Station, Quonset Point, Rhode Island, 1957.
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m y fat h e r , ru f u s w. y o u n g b l o o d, had already served half of his twenty-year career in the U.S. Secret Service by the time I was born. He was hired in 1951 as a special agent in the Atlanta Field Office, where he investigated forged check cases. It was a fitting beginning since “safeguarding the nation’s currency” was the original mandate of the Secret Service. He explained in his memoir, 20 Years in the Secret Service, “It was counterfeiting that brought the Secret Service into being,” ironically conceived in 1865 during the Lincoln administration, the first president to be killed by an assassin.1 Presidential protection wasn’t added to the Secret Service’s responsibilities until almost four decades later, after the assassinations of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley. Beginning in 1902 with President Theodore Roosevelt, the Secret Service assumed full-time responsibility for the protection of the president.2 Fifty years later, in 1952, my father was transferred to the capital to begin his journey in presidential protection as President Harry S. Truman was completing his presidency. My father described his impression of working on the White House Detail: “It was, to me, a rarefied atmosphere.”3 President Truman had recently moved back into the White House after residing in Blair House for more than three years during the White House reconstruction. During that time, just under two
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mother, including the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. It had been suspended during World War II and the Truman renovation and resumed during the Eisenhower administration. Joy remembers feeling at home on the White House Grounds when she saw the Secret Service agents among the crowd; many greeted her by name. Agent Art Godfrey introduced her to Mamie Eisenhower who, in turn, graciously welcomed Joy to the White House. At the Eisenhower White House staff Christmas parties, Joy recalls how magical the White House appeared with decorations everywhere. She remembers Mamie Eisenhower as “outgoing and friendly,” and Mark remembers the president’s charismatic smile, like “none other.” One year, Santa Claus passed out toys to the children and gave Joy a metal White House dollhouse (flat until assembled) and Mark a toy bear. Each Christmas, President Eisenhower gave the staff a Hallmark reproduction of one of his paintings. My father favored the Colorado landscape of St. Louis Creek since he had protected President Eisenhower on Byers Peak Ranch where the president had painted it. In September 1955, President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while in Denver, and my father and his fellow agents rushed him to Fitzsimons Army Hospital for treatment. Afterward, President Eisenhower was restricted from traveling to the Colorado Mountains due to the altitude, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, became his new refuge. In 1958, two years after my sister Candy was born, our father requested and received a transfer back to Atlanta for “another tour of duty in the field . . . to improve chances for advancement.”7 Having family nearby to provide childcare enabled our mother to work a secretarial job to supplement our father’s government income. Dad was still assigned to protect President Eisenhower, especially when the president traveled to the Augusta National Golf Club. After three years, our father requested a transfer back to the White House Detail, and our family moved back to Virginia, near the capital. On the morning of January 20, 1961, before John F. Kennedy became the thirty-fifth president, my father accompanied President Eisenhower in the West Wing one last time as “Ike” bade farewell to his staff of eight years.8 After the Inauguration, the Eisenhowers moved to their home in Gettysburg, no longer under Secret Service care.
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Agent Youngblood often protected Eisenhower on the golf course. He is seen posing as his caddy (on the back right) during a game at Cherry Hills Golf Course in Colorado. Youngblood carried a set of dummy club heads and a submachine gun in his golf bag, 1953. opposite
Youngblood (seen here just to the right of President Kennedy) looks on as Kennedy receives a briefing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. During the Kennedy years, Youngblood was often in charge of protection for Vice President Johnson, who congratulated Peggy Youngblood on the author’s birth in 1961.
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who had been his revered supreme commander during World War II when my father served in the 8th Air Force. In addition to working at the White House, my father spent months in Denver, Colorado, protecting President Eisenhower at the “Summer White House,” and on many domestic and international trips. Moreover, he guarded the president in “pursuit of a golf ball over endless miles of roughs and fairways.”6 These were exciting, yet challenging times for my mother, Peggy Denham Youngblood, who was raising two young children, often without her husband in town. However, she was inspired by her surroundings, and, with the capital as their playground, she engaged my older siblings in the many activities around them. They visited monuments and museums, and she emphasized the historical significance of their environment. My oldest sister, Joy, and my brother, Mark, attended many White House holiday events with our
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PRESIDENT KENNEDY’S AND VICE PRESIDENT JOHNSON’S DETAILS My father briefly served on the Kennedy Detail, and he considered President Kennedy “a pleasure to work around.”9 However, when the president began sending Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson abroad, my father was selected as one of two agents in charge of the vice president’s newly created detail. With a small unit of agents, my father accompanied the tireless vice president around the world as he delivered President Kennedy’s message of goodwill. I was born that summer, in July 1961. “Thank heaven for little girls!” wrote Vice President Johnson in a warm, congratulatory letter to my mother.10 Vice President and Mrs. Johnson, known as LBJ and Lady Bird, were “down-to-earth,” per my father.11 They addressed our parents by their first names, often calling my father “Rufe,” and sent them cards on their birthdays. They also hosted a poolside party at their home, The Elms, for the families of the Vice Presidential Detail. Secret Service protection for the vice president
at this time was designated “at the vice president’s request,” and Johnson, with taxpayers’ costs in mind, often did without. Thus, the detail fluctuated in size until October 15, 1962, when President Kennedy signed an amendment designating vice presidential protection to the Secret Service on a full-time basis.12 The Cuban Missile Crisis began the next day. Vice President Johnson had been campaigning across the country for the 1962 midterm elections when the crisis began. On October 20, the vice president raced back to the capital from Hawaii on a commercial flight accompanied by two agents, my father and Agent Jerry Kivett, to attend the Executive Committee National Security Council meetings.13 My father couldn’t divulge the details of this emergency to my mother. She learned of the nuclear threat along with the rest of the country while watching President Kennedy’s televised announcement two days later. As did millions of people, she purchased supplies to prepare for a nuclear disaster.
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Agent Youngblood, assigned to protect Vice President Lyndon Johnson, is seen between the partially visible vice president and Lady Bird Johnson as they greet First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy upon her arrival in Dallas, November 22, 1963. opposite top
President Johnson, ( front center) and Rufus Youngblood, to his right, stand during the graveside ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery for President Kennedy, November 25, 1963. opposite below
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discomfort, she would later learn, had been my father’s weight on him. Upon hearing gunfire, my father had pushed Johnson to the floor of their car, then used his body to shield him from further shots. He maintained this position during the ride to the hospital. My mother mourned the news that fellow agent and friend Jerry Kivett had been killed. For several hours, friends and relatives of Agent Kivett, whose initialed name was J. D. Kivett, confused his name with that of Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit, who had been shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.16 At 2:35 p.m. EST, my mother watched Walter Cronkite deliver the devastating news that President Kennedy was dead.17 She was shocked and deeply saddened, as was the rest of the nation. When 13-year-old Mark came home from school, he tried to be strong for our distraught mother. When our father returned after midnight, it was our mother who was strong for him. He had maintained his composure and professionalism all day, but when he came home to her, he broke down and cried.18
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She readied our basement-turned-bomb-shelter for five of us. In the event of a missile attack, our father would evacuate and protect Vice President Johnson. The following year, on November 22, my father was the special agent in charge of Vice President Johnson’s protection and was riding with him two cars behind the presidential limousine on that fateful day in Dallas. My mother had been grocery shopping when she heard that President Kennedy had been shot. Early news reports erroneously stated that Vice President Johnson had been injured and that a secret service agent had been killed.14 Terrified, she rushed home to be near the phone and call other agents’ wives for information. Even though we had a phone with a direct line to the White House, the lines were flooded with calls, and she was unable to obtain details. Watching the broadcasts, my mother learned that Johnson was unharmed. A reporter had mistakenly assumed the vice president injured when he had emerged from the motorcade car bracing his arm.15 The source of Vice President Johnson’s
President Johnson inscribed a note of thanks for Agent Youngblood on the photograph documenting his taking the Oath of Office on Air Force One, November 22, 1963. Agent Youngblood was standing to the right of the photographer when the picture was taken.
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I was two and a half years old and recall few details of this time, but my siblings remember the utter sadness of witnessing President Kennedy’s funeral procession. We stood in the cold along the White House North Portico driveway on Sunday. November 24, as the military honor guard escorted the horse-drawn caisson carrying the president’s body to the Capitol. My brother remembers a soft murmur develop as the crowd whispered the news that Lee Harvey Oswald had just been shot.
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AGENT YOUNGBLOOD RECEIVES EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE AWARD We returned to the White House on December 4, 1963, to stand beside our father as he received the U.S. Treasury’s Exceptional Service Award for his actions protecting Vice President Johnson in Dallas. Mark recalls feeling guilty for smiling in the aftermath of President Kennedy’s death. We met our father in the Cabinet Room, where photographers had congregated. President Johnson emerged from the Oval Office and spoke to us as cameras whirred. This moment could have resulted in a good family photo. However, I had an unsightly, mouthful of chewing gum, given to me by my siblings in a failed attempt to quiet me. We walked outside and assembled on the marble steps in the Rose Garden for the ceremony. It was a chilly but bright, sunny morning. As Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon presented our father the award, I presented President Johnson my chewed gum. My mother, with her great sense of humor and forward-thinking, recorded my exchange with the president on the back of a photograph. “Keep it, honey,” President Johnson told me before walking to the microphone to deliver his praise of our father. clockwise from top left
Photographers prepare to document the moments before, during, and after the presentation of the Exceptional Service Award to Rufus Youngblood. As the Youngblood family gathers in the Cabinet Room, the restless author plays with her gloves. Pacified with gum supplied by her siblings, the author is carried in her mother’s arms as President Johnson directs the family to the Rose Garden. Just ahead of the ceremony, the author attempts to share her gum with President Johnson, who advises her to “Keep it.” Rufus Youngblood, seen holding his award, is surrounded by his proud family following the ceremony.
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Lady Bird Johnson and her daughters, Lynda and Luci, walked around during the parties, graciously greeting guests. Whenever Mrs. Johnson saw my mother, she warmly addressed her by name and reached out to her. She also bent down and welcomed Candy and me. In December 1966, Lynda, gracious like her mother, hosted a children’s Christmas party, and she sat with us in the theater. Our father, usually working elsewhere during these parties, dropped by when feasible. He always looked so important to me—tall and thin and dapper in his suit and polished black shoes. The other agents seemed to respect him. Former fellow Agent Clint Hill validated my observation when he wrote, “He was respected by me and my fellow agents, not because he demanded our respect, but because he earned our respect.”19 Observing my father in this setting, I remember asking him once, very sincerely, “Dad, when are you going to be president?” I can still visualize how he leaned down to answer me. His blue eyes met mine, and he said, very sincerely, “Never! Honey, I wouldn’t have that job for all the money in the world.”
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above and opposite below Prepared for White House visits by etiquette lessons, the author is seen with her mother and sister Candy in front of the Blue Room Christmas tree in 1967 and front and center (in red jumper) with her sister Candy (second row in blue jumber) at a children’s Christmas party hosted by Lynda Johnson (seated far right) in 1966.
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I was forgiven for the chewing gum incident, but it was a prelude of things to come. During later visits to the White House, my behavior simulated “Eloise at the White House.” I would run down the East Colonnade, enjoying the echoing sound of my shoes; pick up hors d’oeuvres from elegant, silver trays, then put them back; and stuff handfuls of chocolates into my pockets. Fortunately for my mother, the White House movie theater, located on the ground level of the East Terrace adjacent to the East Wing, was accessible to the guests’ children, and I enjoyed watching cartoons on the big screen. My mother enrolled Candy (by default) and me in “White Gloves and Party Manners” etiquette classes offered at Lansburgh’s Department Store. Every Saturday morning for six weeks, she drove us from our home in Vienna, Virginia, to the Washington, D.C., store for classes. Afterward, my behavior vastly improved during White House visits. Gloves in hand, Candy and I accompanied our mother to the annual White House staff Christmas parties hosted by the Johnson family. Sometimes we brought a friend if our older siblings couldn’t attend. Our mother sewed matching dresses for us to wear, mimicking high-priced versions found in prestigious department stores. While details of the distinct parties have blurred over time, images of the White House—at once both regal and hospitable—remain strong. I remember light shining through the windows of the East Colonnade, casting shadows on the tile floor; the maroon-red carpets and golden accents everywhere; and the stately white columns in the Entrance Hall where the Marine Band was often stationed in the corner, welcoming guests with music. We walked through the colorful rooms of Green, Blue, and Red, greeting friends along the way. In the Blue Room, we posed for a photograph in front of the Christmas tree decorated with ornaments crafted by children from all over the world. In each room were trays filled with miniature, foil-wrapped Santa Claus chocolates, available for the taking. The real bounty of holiday hors d’oeuvres was found alongside elegant flower arrangements on long, whiteclothed tables, usually in the State Dining Room. Entertainment was ongoing in the majestic East Room, my favorite room, with its massive glass chandeliers. One year, ladies in colorful dresses square-danced on a stage in this room.
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Rufus Youngblood, at work as Lyndon Johnson takes the Oath of Office in 1965, looks out over the spectators as others focus on the ceremony.
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Joy’s age fell between the two Johnson sisters, and she shared the same birthday (month and day) with Lynda. One year, on their birthday, Lynda invited Joy up to the teen room in the first family’s residence for some birthday cake. Lynda jokingly cautioned Joy to go easy on her serving size since it was a rum cake. Joy remembers the room as cozy, with a TV, record player, and free-flowing soda bar. All three young ladies later married men who served in the military and shared the hardship of having a husband away at war. My father’s suitcase was always packed. He would often be gone for weeks, especially during the holidays when the Johnsons retreated to the LBJ Ranch. To express their appreciation to the agents who were separated continuously from their families, the Johnsons hosted a weekend at the ranch for the agents and their wives in December 1966. We attended many ceremonies on the South Lawn. I enjoyed listening to the military bands and admired the soldiers in their dress uniforms. I watched in awe as honor guards maneuvered their weapons with perfect precision and was inspired by the color guard’s presentation of the flags. These procedures instilled in me a deep sense of patriotism, present to this day. My parents attended many formal events at the White House over the years. While my father
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owned a tuxedo, my mother, a gifted artist and seamstress, made elegant, affordable gowns for the occasions. She carried a sketch pad while shopping, outlined features of dresses she admired, modified patterns, then sewed her outfit using material my father brought to her from some faraway country. My father maintained that she was “The Belle of the Ball” at each event. In 1967 my father was promoted to the position of deputy director of the Secret Service. Around this same time, Lynda Bird Johnson married U.S. Marine Corps Captain Charles Robb in a much-anticipated White House wedding. My parents were among the guests. Later, my parents hung a framed photograph of the newlyweds walking beneath the Marine Corps Arch of Swords. Next to it hung an autographed wedding photograph of Luci Baines Johnson and Patrick John Nugent cutting a towering wedding cake. These pictures were my two favorites, displayed on Dad’s “wall of presidents” in our family den. Though I was young, the following year, 1968, left indelible memories. I recall the heart-wrenching reports and photographs of the Vietnam War and the angry protests on the home front. I remember my parents’ surprise when President Johnson announced that he wouldn’t seek reelection and the shock and sadness when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Race riots ensued. We
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clockwise from top left The author’s parents enjoy a weekend for agents and their wives at LBJ’s ranch in 1966. In 1967 Rufus Youngblood, seen above in a group photograph of agents, was promoted to deputy director of the Secret Service. That same year, he and his wife were guests at Lynda Johnson Robb’s wedding and received a signed photograph. An artist and skilled seamstress, Peggy Youngblood often made the formal gowns she wore to special events, including the State Dinner for the prime minister of Iran, Amir Abbas Hoveyda, in 1968.
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A selection of invitations to the White House. Secret Service group photo November 1968. Rufus Youngblood is standing in the center group, second to the right from President Lyndon B. Johnson. During the 1969 Richard Nixon inauguration, Rufus Youngblood stood just above Nixon in the third row, screening the crowd for danger. Lyndon B. Johnson introduces Rufus Youngblood to XX while Peggy Youngblood looks on.
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Rufus Youngblood, bottom left in the hat, protects President Eisenhower and Mamie Eisenhower in a car in XX, c.1955.
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President Richard Nixon’s 1969 Inauguration was Agent Youngblood’s fifth and final inaugural assignment. He is seen here two steps above outgoing President Johnson. above right
Agent Youngblood (circled on left) with Agent Art Godfrey (circled at top) and Agent Rufus Taylor (circled on right) are strategically placed as they protect President Nixon on his European tour, 1970. The three agents had worked together since the early 1950s.
RICHARD M. NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Vice President Nixon had been in office together. As the deputy director, my father often visited the three former presidents and their protective details. On March 28, 1969, former President Eisenhower, “the General,” died after a long battle with heart disease. He had once told my father, “Take good care of Mamie, Mr. Youngblood.” My father honored those words. He maintained a correspondence with NIXON Mamie Eisenhower, never forgetting her birthday, January 20, 1969, marked my father’s fifth and and visited her regularly. My siblings and I somelast Inauguration as an agent, although he didn’t times drove with him to Gettysburg to “go see realize it at the time. He stood on the Capitol steps Mamie.” surveying the crowds as Richard M. Nixon became With more administrative duties as deputy dithe thirty-seventh president. The Secret Service security had expanded to include armored cars, sur- rector, my father had less personal contact with veillance helicopters, and bulletproof enclosures. President Nixon than with his predecessors, although my father did make several trips with Nixon. Also, for the first time, the former president, in this The last was to Atlanta for Senator Richard B. case, President Johnson, was assigned a Secret Russell’s State Funeral. This trip to Atlanta, where Service detail who accompanied him out of the my father had begun his Secret Service journey, Capitol. After the Inauguration, Candy and I accompa- symbolized a full circle for him. Shortly afterward, in March 1971, he retired after twenty years in the nied our mother to a reception at the White House hosted by the Nixons for the staff and their families. Secret Service. During those twenty years, our family had to Julie Nixon, whom I admired, politely talked to me. She had married David Eisenhower the year before. share our father with the office of the president of the United States. Though he may have missed cerI thought it was sweet that they had known each tain family milestones, our father was always with other as children when President Eisenhower and watched the news showing major cities across the country on fire. My father stayed at the White House all weekend as Washington, D.C., burned, and I was terrified. And then, two months later, we were shocked and saddened again when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.
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Ephemera collected by Agent Youngblood during his service to five presidents documents the many historic events he witnessed and the special relationships he developed over the course of his twenty-year career with the Secret Service.
us in spirit. We knew how much he cherished being a part of the United States Secret Service, and we were proud of him. He was the everyman whose life interfaced with dignitaries and pivotal events of our nation’s history. As his family, there were moments when we also found ourselves, however peripherally, in that rarefied atmosphere. We cherish those memories as well. 1.
NOTES
Rufus W. Youngblood, 20 Years in the Secret Service: My Life with Five Presidents, 2nd ed. (Martinsville, Ind.: Fideli Publishing, 2018), 6.
2. Marcia Roberts, Moments in History: United States Secret Service (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Treasury, 2001), 4–5. 3. Youngblood, 20 Years in the Secret Service, 8. 4. Gerald Blaine, with Lisa McCubbin, The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence (New York: Gallery Books, 2010), 35–36.
6. Ibid., 27. 7. Ibid., 36. 8. Ibid., 45. 9. Quoted in Gary Goettling, “Eyewitness to the Death of a President,” Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, Spring 1992, 18. 10. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to Peggy Youngblood, July 25, 1961. 11. Quoted in Goettling, “Eyewitness to the Death of a President,” 18. 12. Youngblood, 20 Years in the Secret Service, 69. 13. Ibid., 68. 14. William Manchester, The Death of a President (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 169. 15. Goettling, “Eyewitness to the Death of a President,” 22. 16. Youngblood, 20 Years in the Secret Service, 106. 17. Manchester, Death of a President, 246. 18. Goettling, “Eyewitness to the Death of a President,” 22. 19. Clint Hill, foreword to 20 Years in the Secret Service, by Youngblood, xii.
5. Youngblood, 20 Years in the Secret Service, 30.
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