Standing Next to History

A former Secret Service agent revisits his twenty-three-year career, including his time as Ronald Reagan's bodyguard, in this "engaging" memoir (Publishers Weekly).

Joseph Petro served for twenty-three years as a special agent in the United States Secret Service, eleven of them at the White House and four of those as the man on the shoulder of Ronald Reagan.


From his days as an investigator in the field, to his time as the man on whom the life of the president depended, Petro's journey through history is a singular look inside the most discreet law enforcement agency in the world; an unparalleled insight into Ronald and Nancy Reagan; plus an up-close-and-personal view of the late Pope John Paul II, whom Petro protected during his historic and extraordinary ten-day tour of the United States in 1987.


The cast of characters in these never-before-told stories ranges from the Reagans and the Pope, to Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Mikhail Gorbachev, Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand, the Shah of Iran, George H. W. Bush, Dan and Marilyn Quayle, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford, and would-be assassins.

"A close-in view of how 'the Great Communicator' charmed critics and won loyal followers." —The Christian Science Monitor
"A fascinating portrait of Secret Service life." —Library Journal