Spring 2008 Issue

To Serve and Protect: Gordon Heddell

Gordon Heddell

Gordon Heddell’s ’75 EHS sense of commitment to public service came from John F. Kennedy, who inspired a generation through his now-famous call to public service: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Heddell took Kennedy’s call to action in 1966 when, as his first service to the American people, he applied for and was accepted into the Army’s Warrant Officer Aviator Program.

Heddell grew up in the twin cities of Festus and Crystal City, Mo., small towns situated just south of St. Louis along the Mississippi river. Nearby was a small dirt strip airfield separated from the Mississippi by a large bluff called Buck Knob. As a youngster, he spent many hours sitting alongside his father, an avid aviator, while they practiced take-offs, landings and shorthops along the Mississippi bluffs. Years later, Heddell would put his aviation knowledge to work as a rotary wing pilot in the U.S. Army, serving tours of duty in Korea and Taiwan, and in the U.S. as an Army flight instructor.

Heddell married a high school teacher who has supported him in his service to the public over the past 39 years. They have four children, the youngest of whom graduated from Wheaton College (Ill.) this year. Upon discharge from the military, Heddell finished his bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

The sea change that came after Kennedy’s assassination left no doubt that the world was a different place. The Warren Commission recommended a broad-scale reorganization and manpower buildup in the Secret Service. Thus, the Secret Service, which had only 300 agents at the time of Kennedy’s assassination, was still hiring new agents in 1971.

Heddell wanted to be part of that sea change; he and hundreds of others applied to the Secret Service for a limited number of newly created agent positions. Heddell believes his military and aviation background, as well as his lifelong interest in law enforcement, were significant factors in his selection.

But he didn’t hear back from the Secret Service right away. It was only after entering law school in Oklahoma that he got the call from the Secret Service offering him a position in its Springfield, Ill., field office. It was, Heddell said, “an offer that was too good to pass up.” And so, it was off to Springfield.

The Secret Service then and now has two distinct responsibilities: investigation and protection. The investigative arm of the Service protects the financial structure of the U.S. from various financial crimes, including counterfeiting, forgery and credit card fraud. “At first glance, these two different responsibilities might appear at odds,” he said. “But they’re not. They actually reinforce each other. The attributes that make for a good criminal investigator are the same attributes that make for a good protection agent.”

“A trained, experienced criminal investigator develops ‘street smarts,’” he explained. “He or she must be able to judge people and situations – quickly and accurately. It’s working with all kinds of people…good and bad…before agents are brought into the very unforgiving atmosphere of protection where even a small mistake can end in a national tragedy.”

Thus began Heddell’s second public service career: in the Springfield Secret Service field office, running down counterfeiters and forgers, and gaining the experience and skills that would one day take him into the fast-paced arena of dignitary protection.

One of Heddell’s first protection assignments was to accompany former President Richard Nixon back to California. Nixon’s first month was spent in the hospital in Long Beach, and then he went home to San Clemente, Calif. Heddell said this was historically interesting but nevertheless a very trying time for our country.

It was a year or so earlier that Heddell decided to go to graduate school. At that time, Sangamon State University, a new nontraditional higher educational institution, offered a graduate-level legal studies program. Heddell was concerned about the complexities of his job interfering with attendance requirements, but he was able to work all of that out with his professors and with the dean of his college. He graduated in 1975 with a master’s degree in legal studies. “I was not aware at the time how valuable that degree would be,” he said.

In 1976, Heddell’s next assignment required moving to D.C. to protect then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who traveled extensively and was very active in the process of promoting peace in the Middle East.

After the Kissinger detail, Heddell was assigned to the Vice Presidential Protective Division (VPPD) protecting Vice President Walter Mondale. More than a decade later, he would return to the VPPD, initially as the assistant and then as special agent-in-charge, responsible for the protection of Vice President Gore and his family. As special agent-in-charge, Heddell traveled extensively at home and abroad overseeing all of the physical, technical and administrative responsibilities of protecting the vice president while Mr. Gore discharged the duties of his office – duties that took the vice president around the world, including meeting with Chairman Yasser Arafat in Jericho, meeting with President Yeltsin at the Kremlin and representing the U.S. at the inauguration of the newly elected president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela.

“As an agent,” he said, “I witnessed history first hand.”

Chief Warrant Officer Heddell stands alongside a UH-1 Iroquois Helicopter, March 1967.

In the thirteen years that passed between his assignments providing protection for Vice Presidents Mondale and Gore, Heddell was assigned to serve as the Secret Service’s liaison to the Central Intelligence Agency on counterterrorism and protective intelligence. In the early ’80s, he was reassigned from the liaison position to the D.C. field office as the head of the Protective Intelligence Squad – the largest investigative squad in the Secret Service at that time – identifying and resolving hundreds of threats made every year against the president and vice president. “Not every threat turned out to be serious,” said Heddell. “But there were those that were real and needed to be resolved quickly and effectively. There were people we knew that, if given the opportunity and the proximity, would hurt the president. It was our job to prevent that.

“It’s a federal crime to threaten the president for any reason,” Heddell pointed out. “We investigated each and every threat without exception.”

After the V.P. detail, Heddell was promoted to one of the six assistant director positions – nearly the pinnacle in the Secret Service. “I had accomplished more in my Secret Service career than I had ever dreamed. I am thankful that I had the foresight to go back to school to get that master’s,” he said. “Frankly, when I got my master’s in ’75, people didn’t realize how valuable and important a higher degree could be. It’s paid off for me.

“I can’t tell you the number of times it might have made the difference,” he continued, “especially in an organization where you’re competing against the cream of the crop.”

Several opportunities – including his current position as inspector general of the U.S. Department of Labor – were brought to his attention around the year 2000: thus began the third phase of Gordon Heddell’s commitment to public service.

Inspectors general conduct and supervise audits and investigations relating to programs within their departments. While technically part of their departments, IGs operate independently from their agencies to maintain the objectivity needed to “call it as they see it.” According to Heddell, IGs provide leadership, recommend policies and are expected to prevent and detect fraud and abuse. And, most importantly, they provide a means for keeping the head of the department and the Congress fully informed on the operations of each of the government’s multi-billion dollar agencies. “I viewed this as a great opportunity to continue my life-long goal of public service,” he said. “And, it has turned out to be just that!”

By law, IGs are appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate, without regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability. Heddell had the B.A. and the M.A.; he had been in the military and he had spent nearly 30 years as a civilian public servant, climbing the ranks and paying his dues. Heddell was nominated by a Democrat, President Clinton, to be the inspector general at the Department of Labor in March 2000, and confirmed by a Republican Senate in December 2000.

Heddell’s IG responsibility at the Department of Labor is unique to other inspectors general in that he has a program responsibility. Within his office is a division known as the Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations. That division has responsibility to enforce the law and conduct criminal investigations, and to root out labor racketeering and organized crime influence in unions.

Recently, under Heddell’s leadership, the Department of Labor’s Inspector General’s office obtained an 80-count indictment of 62 people in perhaps one of the most significant organized crime cases ever. The case involved racketeering, conspiracy, theft of union pension funds, embezzlement and murder. Over the investigation’s five-year period, other federal and local law enforcement agencies joined what became a major task force that focused on key figures in the Gambino, Genovese and Bonanno crime families.

Also under his leadership, the inspector general conducted audits of the Department of Labor’s mine safety agency, which identified shortcomings in effectiveness that jeopardized miners’ lives. Recently, one of his audits found that the mine safety agency was negligent in approving a roof control plan for a mine in Utah whose roof eventually collapsed, killing six miners and three rescue workers. The Office of Inspector General also found “serious breakdowns” in the process that led to a settlement agreement between the Department and corporate giant WalMart, resulting in the Department giving WalMart inappropriate concessions regarding the correction of child labor law violations.

Heddell’s strength as a leader, his integrity and his ability to see an assignment through to the end, even though the reverberations may be serious, all speak to his clarity of purpose and his commitment to the country and public service. At some point, Heddell stopped looking at himself as just a pilot or an agent. Today, he views himself first and foremost as a leader – a leader who has a responsibility to safeguard the public’s trust in government, and to that end, when necessary, to speak truth to power.