I’ve never published a blog quite like this one. Over the last 24 hours, a friend’s Facebook post triggered a memory. That memory triggered another.
A news story kicked up still another.
Today’s edition of Ubi Libertas Blog will say nothing about The Mountain or Ozarkansas. No burning trash, no deer and no knives. No pictures, either.
This is what’s rattling around inside my head. It’s a long read, so settle in.
“Ain’t the years gone by fast? I suppose you have missed them.”
from “Sandman”
When December 31st, 1975 turned to January 1st, 1976, I was reveling at a hotel in Newport Beach, California. The party was hosted by a big group of Ohio State football boosters, ahead of the next day’s Rose Bowl game (which the Buckeyes lost).
It was one helluva party. Alcohol from the open bar flowed freely, and there was an enormous all-you-can-eat buffet. Still, at 18 and surrounded by drunken people three times my age, I was bored out of my mind.
Fortunately, I connected with one of the few other young folks there, an attractive twenty-something blonde woman. She had a car. She knew the area. After midnight, we left the party.
Delayed only briefly by a local cop who pulled her over for a burned-out taillight (yeah, right), she drove us out to the ocean beach. There we found a tidy bonfire, around which were gathered a couple dozen young people. Two of the guys had guitars, playing and singing for and with the assembled.
And damn, they were good.
The young lady and I hung out for a couple of hours, drove back to the hotel and went our separate ways. By the time the sun came up, I realized that I didn’t remember her name.
I still don’t. Doesn’t matter.
Some months later, while sitting around the fraternity house listening to music, I picked up an album cover. On the back was a photograph of the band, three guys exuding typical ’70s coolness and nonchalance.
Two looked strikingly familiar — shit, I thought, those were the guys on the beach on New Year’s Eve!
Their names: Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley. The band: America.
I always appreciated America’s acoustic style, in particular their early stuff. They unapologetically put strong 12-string rhythm lines up-front, which I found appealing since I was slingin’ a 12-string myself at the time.
Last night, an old friend of mine went to see America in concert. Yes, they’re still around, still touring — well, sort of. The trio became a duo in 1977 when Dan Peek found Jesus and left the band. Peek died in 2011.
Then early this year, Gerry Beckley retired from touring. So when America took the stage in Denver last night, only Dewey Bunnell remained from the original lineup.
Like the Lynyrd Skynyrd that Deb and I saw in 2009 — with Gary Rossington the only original member (and now he’s gone) — America is one banana peel away from being a tribute act.
Incidentally, the guy America got to fill the voice and guitar voids does a pretty good imitation of Beckley.
He also prefers “he/him.”
Left Coast bullshit.
In June of 1998, “The Art of the Motorcycle” opened at the Guggenheim in New York City. The woman I was dating at the time worked for the exhibit’s corporate sponsor and wrangled me an invitation to the grand, celebrity-studded soirée held the night before. Since she’d be occupied professionally while the party was going on, however, she arranged a “safe date” for me.
My companion was a woman of considerable social and financial standing, the ex-wife of a man who founded the investment firm that bears his name. (I won’t identify it, but you probably can figure it out.) I found her charming and genuine, and we hit it off immediately.
As the evening wore on, it became clear that neither of us was having an especially good time. These receptions tend to be lousy with people who are a lot less important than they think they are, NPCs, well-known but inconsequential.
My arranged date, practiced at surviving such affairs, put up a valiant fight but her misery was evident. Noticing, I took a chance.
“I know a place,” I said with a wink. “You game?”
She smiled, visibly relieved. “Let’s go!”
I walked her outside, hailed a taxi and instructed the cabbie to head downtown. We hopped out at 35th and Third and ducked into a place that couldn’t’ve been more different than the reception we’d fled.
Jackson Hole — or, as it’s known to many, “Jackson’s Hamburger Hole” — serves up massive burgers and cold beer in bottles. We grabbed a table, ordered Rolling Rocks (the first of several) and picked out the fattest, greasiest offerings on the menu.
It was a long way from caviar and chardonnay, that’s for sure. We had a blast.
The experience also confirmed that this refined lady of means and influence was, in fact, a burgers-and-beer woman. I’d suspected as much.
The reception was over by the time we got back to the Guggenheim. We said our goodbyes. I never saw her again, nor did we keep in touch.
My chosen profession, when I had one, was corporate communications. For over 25 years I crafted messages in the best interest of my employers, whether I agreed with them or not. I edited and wrote everything from brochures and instruction manuals to speeches and congressional testimony. I coached spokespersons for media appearances and did hundreds of press interviews myself.
Often I practiced what’s known as “crisis management” — mitigating the effects of undesirable developments, whether external or self-inflicted.
It was heady stuff. The pressure was intense, relentless. I was good at my job and was compensated accordingly.
Because of the executive company I kept, on many occasions I found myself in the presence of security professionals — former cops, agents and contractors specializing in the protection of an institution’s reputation and high-value human assets. I had the opportunity to learn more about that discipline than I ever thought I would. I was fortunate to be around a number of guys who trusted me enough to let me into their world.
One of my employers, a Fortune 50 company, had three layers of security. The most obvious, and the only one that most people acknowledged, were the men and women who checked IDs at building entrances and escorted terminated employees from the premises. They wore gray pants, blue blazers, white shirts and red neckties, unarmed but for radios.
The second layer was Corporate Security. This cadre comprised mostly ex-cops (state and local), with a few former FBI agents in the mix. They were responsible for securing facilities and ensuring the physical safety of corporate executives, up to and including deploying shadow details and sweeping company vehicles (cars and aircraft) for electronic surveillance and incendiary devices.
They were armed. Always.
A person could work at that company for decades and never know about its third layer of security. That was by design — its activity, even its existence, was hidden from view.
I became aware of Investigative Services one Friday in the late ’90s. The president of the company was in the middle of delivering the shareholders speech I’d written for him. I was posted in the wings, offstage, where he could see me.
About halfway through the address, a member of the Corporate Security team walked up behind me, put his hand on my shoulder and whispered that the company president was needed urgently, a matter that couldn’t wait for him to finish his speech. I nodded, turned to face the stage and crossed my hands in front of my chest — our pre-arranged signal that he needed to abort and leave the podium.
He saw my signal, gracefully skipped to the last page and walked off the stage. I accompanied him to the elevator, where the Corporate Security guy stepped in front of me.
“Sorry,” he said, “but this is as far as you go.”
The company president intervened. “Where I go, he goes.”
When the doors closed, the security guy unlocked a panel to expose a keypad. He punched in a code, a muffled chime sounded, and the car began to descend.
I watched the display as we passed the basement, and then the utility level. We kept going down.
When the elevator bounced to a stop, the doors opened onto an efficient-looking room divided by cubicle walls. The handful of men in the room all stood up and looked in our direction. Each nodded respectfully.
I noticed that they all had really good posture. Ramrod bearing, in fact.
Nice suits, though not expensive. Shoulder holsters.
This was Investigative Services.
Every man in that room was either ex-Bureau or ex-Agency. Their work was covert, unheralded and absolutely essential — from background checks (inside and outside the corporation) to uncovering fiscal misconduct or corrupt actions that could sink the company, to assembling so-called “platter cases” they presented to prosecutors.
When the presidential debate came to town and the incumbent POTUS spent the night at the company’s secure lodging complex, it was Investigative Services that coordinated with Secret Service.
We were in their lair that day because of an active threat at another company facility. It involved an armed and barricaded individual, and it wasn’t yet clear if he’d taken hostages. He demanded to speak to someone in authority, thus our presence.
I can tell you that the incident was resolved without loss of life or serious injury. That said, why am I telling you about this at all?
You’ve seen the news reports by now — at 6:44am yesterday in New York City, a masked man pulled out a suppressed semi-automatic pistol and murdered the CEO of the biggest health-insurance company in the US.
I’ve looked at the surveillance video. This was an assassination. In broad daylight. Carried out by a man who’s clearly adept at handling a firearm. And though it’ll be fascinating to learn more about the gunman, his motives and his methods, right now I’m drawn to the matter of security.
The victim was the low-key CEO of a high-profile company — the 14th-largest company America, in fact, with market cap exceeding a half-trillion dollars. His name was on the corporate proxy. That combination made him a target.
As I understand it, he’d just crossed the street from the hotel where he was staying to the hotel where the company’s shareholder conference would begin at 8am. Apparently — and inexplicably — he was alone.
Look, this is precisely the sphere in which I once operated. (Hell, it’s the same industry.) With due humility, then, I’m gonna offer my thoughts about it.
I can assure you that it’s not uncommon for an executive to push back on his security detail, or even wave it off entirely. That’s fine, up to a point — but only up to a point. In this case, there were a ton of good reasons for security pros to override their protectee’s wishes.
First of all, shareholder confabs often are contentious, and they always attract kooks — every time. (Y’know, the guy who owns three shares and thinks he can show up and harass institutional investors.) Second, the venue, the schedule, and the corporate representatives who’d be present were published and certain — the SEC requires it.
Third, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it was common knowledge that company execs preferred to bunk at the Warwick (as opposed to the Hilton on the other side of Sixth Avenue, where the conference was to be held).
In short, there were more than enough known risks to make it prudent to expect unknown threats. Corporate security dropped the ball, and its protectee is dead.
I know that this company has the same (or better) security resources that I came to know during my time in the corporate world. They simply weren’t properly deployed.
Everyone in the executive-protection game, including executives themselves, had better take lessons from this.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB