How the Secret Service Saved Bill Clinton
In reading an online bio article of President Bill Clinton, I was surprised to learn of an assassination attempt on Clinton's life during his presidency. It occurred not on US soil, but in the Philippines in 1996 when Clinton was attending The Asia Pacific Economic Corporation Forum in Manila, and the plotter behind the dirty deed was none other than Osama Bin Ladin. The incident is reported in Professor Ken Gormley's book The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs.Starr.
According to Professor Gormley, Clinton escaped the assassination attempt shortly before his car was supposed to drive over a bridge where a bomb had been planted. Gormley writes that he was told the details of the bomb plot by Louis Merletti, a former director of the Secret Service. Clinton had been scheduled to visit a local politician in central Manila, when secret service officers intercepted a message warning of the attempt that would be made on Clinton's life. A transmission used the words "bridge" and "wedding", the latter word being one that the secret service understood to be a terrorist's code word for assassination. Based on this. Clinton's motorcade was re-routed and the US agents later discovered a bomb planted under the bridge. The report said the subsequent US investigation into the plot "revealed that it was masterminded by a Saudi terrorist living in Afghanistan named Osama bin Laden". Gormley wrote "It remained top secret except to select members of the US intelligence community. At the time, there were media reports about the discovery of two bombs, one at Manila airport and another at the venue for the leaders' meeting".
Gormley's book is actually about the impeachment proceedings against Clinton. I haven't read it. but it sounds very detailed and very long, as gleaned from this review from Publisher's Weekly:
[W]hen you've finished reading about President Clinton and special prosecutor Ken Starr, you may want to take a long shower. Gormley, a professor of law at Duquesne, reviews the entire sordid business of Clinton's foolishness and his enemies' efforts to bring down his presidency. It's not an edifying tale. Very few of the book's cast come off well, except for Secret Service officials and a judge or two. If there's a sympathetic character, it's Susan McDougal, who refused to rat on her friends. Starr makes error after error and confuses vindictiveness with duty. While not altering the basic story in any way, Gormley gains much from effective interviews 10 years after with participants and his use of newly available documents. While his book is too long, Gormley remains in control of the details, and this riveting first look at events that only future history will put into full relief shows how affairs of sex and enmity can become affairs of state.
According to Professor Gormley, Clinton escaped the assassination attempt shortly before his car was supposed to drive over a bridge where a bomb had been planted. Gormley writes that he was told the details of the bomb plot by Louis Merletti, a former director of the Secret Service. Clinton had been scheduled to visit a local politician in central Manila, when secret service officers intercepted a message warning of the attempt that would be made on Clinton's life. A transmission used the words "bridge" and "wedding", the latter word being one that the secret service understood to be a terrorist's code word for assassination. Based on this. Clinton's motorcade was re-routed and the US agents later discovered a bomb planted under the bridge. The report said the subsequent US investigation into the plot "revealed that it was masterminded by a Saudi terrorist living in Afghanistan named Osama bin Laden". Gormley wrote "It remained top secret except to select members of the US intelligence community. At the time, there were media reports about the discovery of two bombs, one at Manila airport and another at the venue for the leaders' meeting".
Gormley's book is actually about the impeachment proceedings against Clinton. I haven't read it. but it sounds very detailed and very long, as gleaned from this review from Publisher's Weekly:
[W]hen you've finished reading about President Clinton and special prosecutor Ken Starr, you may want to take a long shower. Gormley, a professor of law at Duquesne, reviews the entire sordid business of Clinton's foolishness and his enemies' efforts to bring down his presidency. It's not an edifying tale. Very few of the book's cast come off well, except for Secret Service officials and a judge or two. If there's a sympathetic character, it's Susan McDougal, who refused to rat on her friends. Starr makes error after error and confuses vindictiveness with duty. While not altering the basic story in any way, Gormley gains much from effective interviews 10 years after with participants and his use of newly available documents. While his book is too long, Gormley remains in control of the details, and this riveting first look at events that only future history will put into full relief shows how affairs of sex and enmity can become affairs of state.