The Secret Service Code Names Of Past U.S. Presidents – And The Startling Stories Behind Them

After beating his Democrat opponent, single-termer Jimmy Carter, in the 1980 election Ronald Reagan moved into the White House as the 40th U.S. president. Famously, his political career had followed a successful stint as a Hollywood actor. His breakthrough into public life came in 1967 when he was victorious in the Californian governorship election by a landslide one million votes.

For an explanation of Reagan’s secret service code name, Rawhide, we need look no further than his time as a movie actor. He acted in more than 80 films and TV shows, often taking the lead, and a fair chunk of those were Westerns. He’d graced cowboy titles such as Wagon Train, Law and Order and Santa Fe Trail. So Rawhide made perfect sense.

Eleanor Roosevelt moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1933 and lived there until 1945, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt died. That 12-year spell in the White House made hers the longest stint of any First Lady in U.S. history. She filled the role with great aplomb and the White House website goes as far to call her “most revered women of her generation.”

So how to explain her secret service code name, Rover? According to the National Parks Service, it was assigned to her after she traveled to Britain in 1942 as WWII raged. Obviously, her security was an acute concern in the circumstances, and that was when she was given the title. Perhaps it just recognized her enthusiasm for travel – she also visited the South Pacific during the war. Rover’s Rangers was the name assigned to the agents who guarded her.

Richard Milhous Nixon entered the White House in 1969 and then won a second term of office in the election of 1972. Looking at the positive side of his administration, he did extricate America from the imbroglio of Vietnam. Nixon also thawed relations between his country and China and the Soviet Union. But it was during Nixon’s second term of office that disaster struck his presidency in the shape of the Watergate scandal.

In 1972 the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the capital’s Watergate Building suffered a break-in. Those responsible, it emerged, were connected to the Republican Committee to Re-elect the President. Nixon was implicated in an attempted cover-up of the affair and stepped down in disgrace. So his secret service code name of Searchlight came to have a cruel irony, since his misconduct was so starkly exposed.

Starting in 1981, Barbara Bush served two full terms as First Lady. She’s said to have been a popular incumbent, with the White House website pointing out that she described her own persona as “everybody’s grandmother.” She also said that people related to her because “I’m fair and I like children and I adore my husband.”

Given her personality, it seems that Mrs. Bush’s Secret Service code name, Tranquility, was apt. This was confirmed by words written by former Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow in a 2018 CNN article. He stated that her title “exemplified her demeanor and its calming, humanizing and gentle effect on those around her.”

Gerald Rudolph Ford was vice president when Richard Nixon resigned from office in 1974 and so replaced the disgraced president in the Oval Office. He served until 1977, leaving office after losing the previous year’s election to Jimmy Carter. And during his time in the White House, Ford had very pressing reasons to be grateful to his Secret Service agents.

Ford was the target of two assassination attempts by different women in September 1975. Bodyguards foiled the first incident without the assailant’s weapon being fired. A couple of weeks later, though, a bullet missed the president before agents bundled him into his limo and drove off at speed. No doubt Ford’s code name, Passkey, was used during those incidents. Some have remarked on the presumably unintended significance of the name, as one of Ford’s acts as president was to pardon Nixon.

Lady Bird Johnson became First Lady in November 1963 after the tragic death of President John F. Kennedy. Her tenure in the White House lasted until 1969 as her husband, Lyndon Johnson, decided not to stand for election for a second time in 1968. She distinguished herself through her campaigns for environmental improvements.

Mrs. Johnson’s given first name was Claudia but her distinctive nickname Lady Bird dated back to her early childhood. With such an unusual name, you might have expected the Secret Service to come up with an exotic code handle. But they chose instead to go for the somewhat conventional Victoria. They seemingly weren’t a very imaginative lot.

Pat Nixon’s Secret Service code name, Starlight, had more than a hint of glamour. But sadly for her, President Nixon ended his political career with the ignominy of forced resignation amid the Watergate scandal. Despite her husband’s skullduggery, though, Mrs. Nixon was recognized by many as a talented and dedicated First Lady.

After her death in 1993, the Los Angeles Times quoted George H.W. Bush’s words about Mrs. Nixon. The ex-president said she was “a gracious First Lady who ranks among the most admired women of postwar America.” Which surely makes you think that she deserved better than the quagmire of dishonor that her husband dragged her into.

Nancy Reagan took up residence in the White House in 1981 and would remain there for the next eight years. Her given name was Anne but her mother nicknamed her Nancy, which stuck for the rest of her life. Like her husband, Reagan had been a Hollywood actress in her younger days. Her final film actually saw her share the screen with Ronald in the 1957 feature Hellcats of the Navy.

So why was Mrs. Reagan assigned the Secret Service code name Rainbow? Sadly, a definitive answer to that question appears to have been lost to history. But we do know that in 2016 the Santa Susana High School Choir gave a rendition of “Over the Rainbow” at her funeral. Perhaps that’d been her favorite song, hence the handle.

Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower took over the reins of power after he won the presidential election of 1952. But he was no stranger to power when he entered the White House, since he’d served as the European commander of the Allied Forces during World War Two. This meant he was immensely popular in America. So we can be fairly sure he’d have won the election even without his snappy slogan “I like Ike.”

When it comes to Eisenhower’s name, there’s something of a mystery. It seems that he was christened David Dwight but his mother for reasons unknown switched his forenames when he was an infant. His Secret Service code handle was Providence, perhaps because of his WWII successes. But somewhat mischievously this was changed to Scorecard after he left office. Apparently, he spent a lot of time on the golf course.

Betty Ford, christened Elizabeth Anne Bloomer, moved into the White House in 1974. That came after her husband was promoted from the position of vice president thanks to the resignation of Richard Nixon. Her stay at the White House was relatively short, since President Ford lost at the polls in 1976. Even so, she made a lasting impression on American public life. She’s probably best remembered for the work she did to help people recovering from addiction.

You might have noticed a pattern in the code names of First Ladies: all of them have the same initial as that of their husbands. So in Mrs. Ford’s case, her handle was Pinafore, while President Ford’s was Passkey. Pinafore, it has to be said, seems a rather sedate name for a woman who was well known for her frank and forthright opinions.

George Herbert Walker Bush, the first of his clan to make it to the White House, stepped into the Oval Office in 1989 after two terms as vice president. He was a bona fide war hero, the youngest man to win his navy pilot’s wings during WWII. He went on to make almost 60 combat sorties and once was downed over the Pacific by the Japanese and saved by an American submarine.

So with this background, Bush’s code name, Timberwolf, seems like a perfect fit. And he lived up to it during his presidency. When the Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait in 1990, it was Bush who galvanized international opinion against the dictator. America provided the bulk of the military force that then expelled Saddam from the Gulf nation.

James Earl Carter, Jr., universally known as Jimmy, enjoyed his single presidential election victory in 1976, beating the Republican Gerald Ford at the polls. Famously the owner of a peanut farm in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, Carter brought a certain homespun ambience to the Oval Office. But his time in office was blighted by the Iranian hostage crisis, when Islamic militants snatched 52 U.S. citizens in Tehran.

Carter’s Secret Service code name was Deacon, the title that’s given to someone who’s an ordained official in the Protestant faith. Carter actually did hold the position of deacon at the Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown. And according to Encyclopedia Britannica, even while serving as president he carried on holding Sunday school sessions.

Jacqueline Lee “Jackie” Kennedy married John F. in 1953 and went on to become First Lady after her husband’s presidential election victory of 1960. The combination of her stylish good looks and her young kids was a breath of fresh air for the White House. Her glamorous image also made the choice of Secret Service code name, Lace, entirely apt.

The White House website highlights her passion for all things cultural and credits her with increasing the nation’s appreciation of the arts. On a less creditable note, though, it’s been said that she was something of a shopaholic. By some accounts, one year she paid out more than $120,000 on clothes. Sadly, she’ll always be remembered as a First Lady who had to live through the grueling ordeal of her husband’s assassination.

Vice President Harry S. Truman stepped into the shoes of Franklin D. Roosevelt when the latter died during the spring of 1945. He went on to win the election of 1948. Since he had to steer the U.S. to the end of WWII and then face the challenges of the Cold War, the handle General was appropriate enough.

But as a 2015 article in Vanity Fair pointed out, despite the code name Truman had never really been a general. Speaking to NPR, historian Michael Beschloss said, “Truman had been in the military. He’d been a captain in World War One, so maybe this is his Walter Mitty fantasy that he might’ve been a general.”

Edith Wilson, who claimed her family roots extended back to Pocahontas, became First Lady in 1915 when she married President Woodrow Wilson. He’d been elected to office in 1913 and his first wife, Ellen, had died the following year. Wilson himself suffered a severe stroke in 1919. So for the remainder of his presidency until 1921 Edith took over a number of his commitments, Encyclopedia Britannica notes.

Wilson’s handle of Grandma wasn’t an official Secret Service code name – those only came later in the 20th century. But she was the first presidential spouse to be assigned a Secret Service guard. “Grandma” was more in the nature of a nickname than a proper secret code name. It’s said to have been assigned to her while she was visiting President Wilson at the White House before their marriage.

Lyndon B. Johnson’s code name, Volunteer, isn’t entirely apt. He certainly didn’t volunteer to enter the White House, since he was thrust into the presidency by John F. Kennedy’s tragic death in 1963. But that was the code name he chose, though precisely why he did so remains unclear. Perhaps he was being ironic.

Even though the position of president wasn’t one that Johnson had originally sought, he fought and won the election of 1964. His victory was impressive, with the largest winning margin ever achieved in the popular poll, a majority of over 15 million votes. While he retained his code name following the election, he was even less of a volunteer after having actively sought the nation’s highest office.

Elizabeth Virginia Wallace, much better known to posterity as Bess Truman, entered the White House in 1945. That was the year Vice President Truman took office following President Roosevelt’s passing. Her Secret Service code name was Sunnyside, but in some respects she hardly lived up to that cheerful title.

Unlike many First Ladies of the modern era, Mrs. Truman’s public persona was almost non-existent. The Guardian newspaper quoted her words in a 2018 article. She said, “I am not the one who is elected. I have nothing to say to the public.” Her views were accurate enough but hardly offered a ray of sunshine to the American public.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt – or FDR as he’s often known – was elected to his first term as president in 1932 and went on to win three more elections. No other president has won the keys to the White House on four occasions. His code name of Don Quixote’s something of an anomaly, since it wasn’t bestowed by the Secret Service.

In fact, it was Winston Churchill who suggested that Roosevelt should give himself a code name for the purposes of a secret meeting during WWII. The conference, to discuss plans for the war, was to take place in the Moroccan city of Casablanca in 1943. Roosevelt responded to Churchill’s code handle request by calling himself Don Quixote. The president also dubbed his adviser, Harry Hopkins, Sancho Panza.

Marie “Mamie” Eisenhower became the nation’s First Lady in 1953 after her husband Dwight D. had won the election of the previous year. She’d met her future spouse, who was six years younger than her, in San Antonio, Texas, in 1915 and they wed the following year. The two of them went on to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for two presidential terms.

The White House website talks approvingly of Mrs. Eisenhower’s “sparkling blue eyes.” Perhaps this was the quality that inspired her Secret Service code name, Springtime. She earned a reputation as a skillful diplomat for the cheerful hospitality she gave to the many dignataries who visited the White House during her husband’s presidency.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, often shortened to JFK, won the presidential election of 1960. It was an era when the Cold War was at its height. His period in office included dangerous international incidents such as the Cuban missile crisis and the Berlin blockade. Even during such a time of hostility between the U.S. and Soviet Russia, though, he succeeded in negotiating a nuclear test-ban agreement.

JFK’s Secret Service code name was Lancer. One suggestion has it that this was connected to the fact that his presidency came to be known as Camelot, the legendary castle of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The best known of Arthur’s followers was Lancelot, hence Lance. It’s perhaps a tenuous theory, but there isn’t a better one as far as we know.