The Seaforth Highlanders

Aiding the King, 1881-1961

Paul Chrystal

• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781399052023
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

"...[a] solid account of various trials and tribulations that presidential candidates and presidents deal with throughout their campaigns and of service to country." — American Intelligence Journal Protecting the Presidential Candidates is the first book of its kind to examine how presidents and presidential candidates were protected during the presidential election cycles – from JFK to Biden. It is also the first book of its kind to tell the story of the role of state troopers and private bodyguards in protecting presidential candidates. Protection for candidates changed and evolved from the free-wheeling style of the 1950s and early 1960s, which afforded presidential candidates little or no protection, to the growth of bodyguard personnel, increased intelligence facilities and state of the art technology employed today to keep the candidates safe. Presidential candidates relish connecting with the public and it has given greater visibility to the bodyguards who are willing to place themselves between a presidential candidate and a would-be attacker. In the milieu in which the Secret Service operates, bodyguards have witnessed the terrors of election campaigns when presidential candidates have waded into crowds to shake hands with their supporters, rode in open-top cars, and made sudden but risky changes to their schedules – oblivious to the fact that in every campaign there have been people stalking candidates with ill intent. Many stories revealed in Protecting the Presidential Candidates have remained largely hidden from the public; some buried in newspaper archives and others in oral histories, presidential libraries or official government documents. The author draws on numerous sources, including FBI files, presidential biographies, vice presidential biographies, civilian bodyguard memoirs, Secret Service agent memoirs, White House staff memoirs and more so that these stories can now be told. The book also allows readers to gain an insight into the personal as well as professional relationships between the candidate and the bodyguards who protected them. Some candidates were so trusting of their bodyguards they embraced them as part of an 'inner circle' of advisers. Bodyguards have also witnessed embarrassing moments in a candidate's campaign and how intrusive they have been at the most delicate of moments. "The president's day is your day, " one agent said. "Nobody sees the president the way an agent does."

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Maps
• Chapter 1 Early Seaforth: The 78th (later 72nd) 1778–1793
• Chapter 2 The 78th Highlanders 1793–1881
• Chapter 3 Seaforth Highlanders 1st and 2nd Battalions: 1881–1899
• Chapter 4 The 2nd Seaforth Highlanders in the Second Boer War 1899–1902 and After
• Chapter 5 The Seaforth Highlanders in the First World War
• Chapter 6 The Territorials in the First World War
• Chapter 7 Striking Miners 1920–1921
• Chapter 8 The Seaforth Highlanders on The North West Frontier
• Chapter 9 Palestine and After
• Chapter 10 The 2nd Seaforth Highlanders in the Second World War – The Battle of France
• Chapter 11 Sergeant Eric Priest: One Seaforth Highlander’s Journey from the North West Frontier to Stalag 383, 1925–1945
• Chapter 12 1st Battalion Seaforth Highlanders in the Second World War and After
• Chapter 13 The 2nd Battalion after St Valéry
• Chapter 14 The Territorials in the Second World War
• Chapter 15 1945 and Beyond
• Appendix 1: The British Army Formations and Units 1939–1945
• Appendix 2: Seaforth Highlanders
• Appendix 3: Victoria Cross Recipients
• Notes
• Further Reading
• Plates