Records of the U.S. Secret Service: (Record Group 87)

These records consist mostly of the daily logs that the Secret Service maintained during the Presidency of Harry S. Truman. The logs record President Truman's arrivals and departures, and other activities at the White House.

Size: 1 linear foot, 4 inches (about 2,500 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: Documents created by U.S. government officials in the course of their official duties are in the public domain. Copyright interest in other documents presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Dennis Bilger (1981).
Updated by: Zoe Honeck (2017) as part of the Truman Library Internship Program.
Supervising Archivists: Randy Sowell and David Clark.

The U.S. Secret Service was founded in 1865 to reduce the number of counterfeit bills that were circulating throughout the American economy. After the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, the Secret Service's main priority shifted to protecting the President of the United States and the President's family. These responsibilities were later expanded to include the protection of former Presidents and Presidential candidates. Originally a division of the Treasury Department, the Secret Service was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.

The Records of the U.S. Secret Service: Presidential Movement Logs (Record Group 87) primarily consist of handwritten information on President Harry S. Truman's comings and goings at the White House and Blair House. The collection is arranged in one series, the Presidential Movement Logs File.

The daily logs record the times when President Truman and members of his family left and returned to the White House, the number of visitors attending White House tours, and the times and room locations of such events as the First Lady's Spanish lessons. In late 1948, the President and First Lady moved across the street to Blair House and lived there during the reconstruction of the White House, which was completed in 1952. The logs also include detailed information about accidents that occurred on the White House grounds, picketing outside the White House, and the attempted assassination of President Truman at Blair House on November 1, 1950. The logs contain similar information for the period from January 1, 1945 up to April 12, 1945, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt died and Truman became President. The entries begin again with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, and contain similar information about the first five weeks of Lyndon B. Johnson's Presidency through the end of 1963.

Related information at the Truman Library can be found in the Records of the U.S. Secret Service: Personnel Investigation Files (Record Group 87). Other Secret Service records at the Library, consisting of Protective Service Reports and Trip Files, are not open for research; please contact the Library's staff if you wish to request access to these records.