Nice "Inside the Capital" story.
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washingtonpost.com
Official Brings Order To the Senate Floor
Ex-Secret Service Agent Considers Safety Priority
By Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 29, 2003; Page A17
The King of Jordan is early. His polished black Cadillac approaches the secure VIP entrance on the Senate side of the Capitol. "He's here," says Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Pickle, flying down a set of stairs to beat the entourage. By the time King Abdullah steps from his limo, Pickle is calmly standing on the red carpet with his outstretched hand, the first to greet Jordan's leader on behalf of the U.S. Senate.
Escorting Abdullah through the hallways of the Capitol, Pickle makes small talk about motorcycles and shooting.
"He's an athlete and a Cobra pilot, lots of daredevil stuff," Pickle said, after delivering the king to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee chambers.
Pickle knows this not from doing a Google Internet search, but from spending 26 years as a Secret Service agent, possibly an ideal background for a sergeant-at-arms in the age of terrorism. A patronage job that once primarily enforced protocol, the Senate's chief administrative officer now needs to be more James Bond than James Bond's butler.
Pickle estimates that 30 to 40 percent of his job is ensuring the safety of 5,400 people, including members of the Senate and their staff.
"The rest of my time is devoted to running a small city," says Pickle, who is in charge of 860 employees and responsible for Senate telecommunications, information technology, postal services, the TV and radio recording studio, and the press galleries. All Senate pages and doorkeepers are also his responsibility.
Pickle was tapped by Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who as the new majority leader got to choose a sergeant-at-arms when the Republicans took control of the Senate in January. In the $153,000-a-year job, Pickle is executing Frist's top priorities: security and technology. The emphasis on security is reflected in Pickle's 2004 budget request of $198 million -- up 26 percent from 2003 -- with $21 million earmarked for safety.
For someone preoccupied with the evils of terrorism, Pickle's manner is sanguine and smooth. His love for Civil War history is on display on his office walls with oil paintings of Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, both on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. His other hobby -- fossil-hunting -- is represented on his neat desk: a pair of 40 million-year-old fossils of sea creatures.
Since becoming sergeant-at-arms, Pickle has presided over several changes around the Capitol, but slowly, because "this is a place that cares deeply about customs and traditions." Each senator has now been issued a Blackberry, though some stubborn Luddites keep theirs buried in a desk drawer. When a black staffer complained that the Senate barbershop carried too few ethnic hair products, Pickle's office investigated.
His official title is "sergeant-at-arms and doorkeeper," a holdover from 1789 when the job duties included rounding up enough senators to form a quorum. Pickle has the power to arrest anyone violating Senate rules. His closest scrape occurred when he was summoned to the floor by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who had become angry when several Frist staffers were standing in the back of chambers during a contentious debate on the energy bill. Boxer wanted them tossed, but Pickle consulted his thick book of rules and told her there was no basis to eject them.
"They left on their own," Pickle says, the relief still visible in his face, "in the name of order."
There are some other unpleasant responsibilities. It was the Senate sergeant-at-arms who presented President Andrew Johnson in 1868 with notification of his impeachment trial in the Senate chamber. In 1999, Sergeant-at-Arms James W. Ziglar traveled to the White House to perform the same duty.
But, there are some perks. Pickle has lifetime privileges on the Senate floor, one reason the K Street lobbying crowd is already starting to woo him. Pickle says he doesn't know what he'll do when his stint as sergeant-at-arms is over, but retirement holds no appeal.
A self-described "child of the rural South" born in Roanoke, Pickle was accepted to the University of Tennessee in 1968 but went to Vietnam instead as an infantryman with the First Air Cavalry Division. Wounded by grenade shrapnel, he volunteered as a door gunner on Med Evac flights, leaving the Army in 1970 with a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, seven air medals and a combat infantryman's badge.
After Vietnam, which Pickle described as "the defining event of my life," he took a job in a national forest in Colorado marking timber. He had no desire to go into law enforcement until he witnessed a U.S. flag being burned at an antiwar protest. As a young Secret Service agent, one of his duties was interviewing the imprisoned Charles Manson every 90 days.
Pickle got his first taste of Capitol Hill when he was appointed by the Secret Service to supervise the congressional liaison office. After leading the unit protecting Vice President Al Gore, Pickle returned to Colorado to become the federal director of the Denver International Airport.
Washington kept calling. Last year, Pickle was one of the top candidates considered for running the Secret Service. The director's job eventually went to his friend, W. Ralph Basham. Pickle was on the verge of signing a lucrative contract with a high-tech company when he received a call from Frist, who needed a new sergeant-at-arms. Frist had met Pickle at a 1999 University of Tennessee football game, when Pickle was protecting Gore.
When he first heard the term "sergeant-at-arms," Pickle imagined a courtroom bailiff. Frist jokingly described it as one of the worst jobs around because there are 100 bosses.
"Bill is always going to have a lot of opportunities in a post-9/11 America," says Mike Feldman, a senior adviser to Gore and now a partner with the Glover Park Group. "He had lots of opportunities to cash in, but he has always had a definite sense of purpose. He's got everybody's trust."
Pickle won't disclose his party affiliation. "Just call me a die-hard American," he says.
The day he escorts King Abdullah around to various Senate offices, Pickle receives a call from a law enforcement source who alerts him to a delicate situation: A potential Senate nominee for a high-level government position needs more vetting to clear up possible links with groups connected with terrorist activities.
"We never had to worry about these things 15 years ago," Pickle says. "The one thing you want never to happen is for the business of Congress to stop. My job is to make sure the Senate can meet to perform its duties."
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