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The Secret Service Code Names

Posted in Barack and Michelle Obama, Frank Sinatra, Jackie Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Kennedys, the, PEOPLE, POLITICS & GOV'T, Prince Charles of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Queen Elizabeth II, RELIGION, Ronald Reagan (& Nancy), ROYALTY/NOBILITY, tagged Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, biographies of politicians, Frank Sinatra, George H. Bush, George W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Hillary Clinton, Jackie Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy, John McCain, Laura Bush, Lyndon Johnson, Michelle Obama, pictures of Kennedy assassination, pictures of Reagan assassination attempt, Pope John Paul II, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth, richard nixon, Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, Secret Service agent Clint Hill, the White House, U.S. Presidents, U.S. Secret Service code names on February 9, 2011| 11 Comments »

The U.S. Secret Service provided security for Pope Benedict XVI at the Papal Mass in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2008. Although the agents have no official uniform and can be seen wearing anything from tuxedos to blue jeans, they are often identified by their dark sunglasses, listening devices, and lapel pins bearing the agency's gold star logo.

The United States Secret Service uses code names to refer to the President of the United States, his family, other officials, and places. Originally, these code names were designed to protect sensitive communications, back in the day before restricted communications were routinely encrypted. Nowadays, there is no need to keep these names secret. Nevertheless, The Secret Service who guards the First Family and other U.S. officials continues to use the code names for clarity, brevity, and tradition. (1)

The U.S. Secret Service Star Logo. The U.S. Secret Service protects the President and First Family, other officials of the U.S. government, and visiting dignitaries.

General Code Names

President of the United States: POTUS

First Lady of the United States: FLOTUS

Vice President of the United States: VPOTUS

The Obamas

Barack: Renegade

Michelle: Renaissance

Malia: Radiance

Sasha: Rosebud

The Bushes

George W.: Tumbler

Laura: Tempo

Barbara: Turquoise

Jenna: Twinkle

The Clintons

Bill: Eagle

Hillary: Evergreen

Chelsea: Energy

The Bushes

George H.: Timberwolf

Barbara: Tranquility

The Carters

Jimmy: Deacon

Rosalynn: Dancer

Amy: Dynamo

Secret Service agents respond to the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. on March 30, 1981. President Reagan took a bullet in the abdomen but made a full recovery.

The Reagans

Ronald: Rawhide

Nancy: Rainbow

The Fords

Gerald: Passkey

Betty: Pinafore

The Nixons

Richard: Searchlight

Pat: Starlight

The Johnsons

Lyndon: Volunteer

Lady Bird: Victoria

Lynda Bird: Velvet

Luci Baines: Venus

A motorcade carries President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy through the streets of Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Texas Governor John Connally and wife Nellie ride in front of the Kennedys.

: Secret Service agent Clint Hill stood on the running board of the car behind the Kennedy’s limo.

: Agent Hill heard the first shot that hit President Kennedy. Mr Hill is the figure in the famous Zapruder film of the killing which shows him climbing onto the back of the president’s limousine. “I heard the first shot, saw the president grab his throat, lurch left, and I knew something was wrong,” recalled Hill in the book, The Kennedy Detail. Jackie Kennedy can be seen crawling out the back of the car onto the trunk to get help for her slain husband, slumped in the seat.

Agent Hill got in the back seat with Mrs. Kennedy and the president and shielded them with his body on the way to Parkland Hospital.

The Kennedys

John F.: Lancer

Jackie: Lace

Caroline: Lyric

John Jr.: Lark

Other Individuals

Queen Elizabeth II: Kittyhawk, Redfern

Prince Charles: Unicorn

Frank Sinatra: Napoleon

Pope John Paul II: Halo

Sarah Palin: Denali

John McCain: Phoenix

Places

The White House: Castle

The Capitol: Punchbowl

(1) Source: Wiki “Secret Service Codename”

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Teddy’s Bear

Posted in Teddy Bears, Teddy Roosevelt, tagged Booker T. Washington, Clifford Berryman, Rose and Morris Michtom, teddy bear, Teddy Roosevelt, U.S. Presidents on January 27, 2009| 6 Comments »

11/16/1902 Washington Post cartoon by Clifford Berryman, "Drawing the Line in Mississippi"

Everyone knows that the teddy bear is named after the twenty-sixth president of the United States, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, but they may not know why.

It happened in November of 1902. Teddy Roosevelt was on a bear-hunting trip through Louisiana and Mississippi. It was an “exasperating” hunt, said Roosevelt, and after five days, he never got a shot. Out of pity, his companions corraled and roped a bear for his prey. But Roosevelt refused to kill a defenseless animal. The press printed the story and the public applauded their president’s restraint. But the story really caught fire when a political cartoon appeared on the front page of the Washington Post two days later, with cartoonist Clifford Berryman portraying Roosevelt as “turning away with disgust, with sloped rifle,” from a “very black bear being roped around the neck by a very white catcher.” (1)

Berryman was commenting on Roosevelt’s race relations. Roosevelt thought that “negroes” as a group were far inferior to whites. He, however, also believed that individual blacks could rise to social heights. In 1901, he became the first president to invite a black man to the White House when he sat down to dinner with African-American educator Booker T. Washington.

Anyway, whether or not the readers of the Post picked up on Berryman’s allegory is not what we remember today. What is recalled is that the cartoon sparked a full-scale teddy bear craze. (2) The public fell in love with the cartoon bear. People wrote and begged Berryman to draw more “bear cartoons,” which he did. In subsequent cartoons, he made the bear rounder, smaller, and cuter, and thus all the more endearing with its prickly pear ears, imploring eyes, and scraggly fur.

Skip to a candy and toy shop in Brooklyn. Shop owner Morris Michtom had seen Berryman’s cartoon. He asked his wife Rose to create a stuffed bear like the one in the cartoon.

That night, Rose cut and stuffed a piece of plush velvet into the shape of a bear, sewed on shoe button eyes and handed it to Morris to display in the shop window. He labeled it, “Teddy’s bear.” (3)

To Michtom’s surprise, not just one but a dozen customers wanted to buy the bears. Michtom received Roosevelt’s permission to use his name on his product and began the mass production of the cuddly toy bears which sold for $1.50.

Oregon family c.1900 with prized family teddy bear

Today the teddy bear craze is still going strong and we think of teddy bears as being toys for children. But, back at the beginning, women bought the teddy bears for themselves, made them clothes they read about in Ladies’ Home Journal, and carried them with them everywhere.

(1) Morris, Edmund. Theodore Rex. Random House: New York, 2001.
(2) History.com: http://www.history.com/home.do
(3) Jewish Virtual Library: www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org