Secret Service Gets New Director
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WASHINGTON — Lewis C. Merletti, who led the Treasury Department’s investigation of the deadly 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, was sworn in Friday as the 19th director of the Secret Service.
Merletti, 49, an agency veteran, replaces Eljay B. Bowron, who resigned to become president of the security monitoring division of Ameritech Corp. He was sworn in by Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin.
Most recently, Merletti served as assistant director of the 132-year-old agency’s office of training. Earlier, he had been special agent in charge of the presidential protective division.
In 1996, he oversaw security for President Clinton’s visit to Egypt and Israel and, the same year, for his trip to Bosnia. In 1990, he directed security for President Bush’s visit to U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
Merletti joined the Secret Service’s Philadelphia office in 1974 after graduating from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pa., and serving with Army Special Forces in Vietnam, where he was awarded a Bronze Star.
The Secret Service is responsible for protecting the president and vice president and their families, former presidents and visiting foreign officials, among others.
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