Secret Service rushes to Alaska city for Trump-Putin talks

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

The call to Beau Disbrow was unlike any the Anchorage realtor had ever received. His short-term rentals typically house tourists bound for glaciers or business travellers passing through. This time, the request came from the US Secret Service. The Secret Service is still waiting for Russia to formally approve the full security plan.(AFP)
'Most of my short-term rentals were booked, but I did manage to put some of them into one home,' he said.
It was not the last inquiry connected to the highly anticipated summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin set for Friday. Soon after the Secret Service call, the Russian consulate in New York phoned Disbrow with the same request. With no vacancies left, he referred the officials to a friend with furnished homes sitting empty.
When Trump announced the Alaska meeting a week ago, the lone agent assigned to the Secret Service's post in the Last Frontier began preparing to host hundreds of reinforcements in the days ahead. The agency's mission was unusually complex: to protect both the American and Russian presidents at the same site, each surrounded by a heavily armed security detail.
Four people familiar with the planning said the operation became an all-out sprint, compressed into a single week. Because the meeting is on American soil, the Secret Service can move weapons, communications equipment and medical gear without foreign restrictions. But the geography presents its own hurdles.
Anchorage has limited hotel rooms and a small rental-car market, so vehicles and other assets are being flown in or driven from other parts of the state. Motorcade SUVs are arriving from the lower 48 on cargo planes.
The summit will take place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska's largest military installation. A Cold War listening post less than a thousand miles from Russia, the base offers controlled airspace, fortified gates and instant access to military units — and, as an active base, is closed to the public.
'We're in the height of tourist season, so hotels are tight, cars are tight,' Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said on Bloomberg Television on Thursday. 'Having this on the base alleviates a lot of issues.'
While Anchorage has played host to the Pope and to former President Ronald Reagan in years past, the summit is 'one of the biggest things to happen' in the city, said Dunleavy, a Republican.
State Department protocol is shaping much of the plan. In a bilateral meeting, officials said, reciprocity rules mean every courtesy extended to one leader must be matched for the other. Russian security will control Putin's immediate movements while the Secret Service maintains an outer ring.
Neither side will open the other's doors or ride in the other's vehicles. If 10 US agents are posted outside a meeting room, 10 Russian agents will stand on the other side. Everything is matched body for body, gun for gun, one person said.
That symmetry will extend from the arrival motorcade to the placement of translators in the room. Both sides will bring their own language teams. Even the number and size of hold rooms — secure waiting areas for each leader — are being negotiated.
The Secret Service is still waiting for Russia to formally approve the full security plan, the people said.
'The safety of the President is our highest priority,' the Secret Service said in a statement. 'In order to maintain operational security, the Secret Service does not discuss the specific means and methods used to conduct our protective operations.'
The Alaska deployment lands with the agency also protecting Vice President JD Vance in the United Kingdom, preparing for the United Nations General Assembly in New York next month and providing protection for former presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden and George W. Bush and for former Vice President Kamala Harris. Twenty agents and officers have also been assigned this week to support Trump's federal takeover of the DC police department.
Now, hundreds of agents have descended on Anchorage. Downtown hotels are full, and rental car lots have been cleared for convoys. Agents in suits and earpieces are posted at intersections, while others, in plain clothes, blend into coffee shops and parking garages. Alaska state troopers and local police are folded into motorcade routes that have been mapped down to the turn lane.
Every movement of both leaders' vehicles is being choreographed to keep them apart while ensuring each is fully protected.
Trump has described the 'feel-out' meeting as an effort toward ending Russia's war in Ukraine, suggesting a territorial swap could be part of a deal. Putin has sought to strengthen his rapport with Trump ahead of their summit, praising the US leader's efforts to broker an end to the war in Ukraine and dangling the promise of economic cooperation as well as a new arms control treaty.