Secret Service Chief Resigns in Pursuit of Greener Turf

U.S. Secret Service Director Lewis Merletti is going from watching the Top Dog to keeping an eye on Big Dawg.

The Clinton White House’s top Secret Service man is leaving his job in Washington to join the reincarnation of the Cleveland Browns as the NFL expansion team’s vice president and director of stadium and security affairs.

One of his duties will include monitoring the Dawg Pound, home of the Browns’ notoriously rowdy, beer-drinking, biscuit-throwing fans, some of whom wore dog masks to games in the old Cleveland Stadium and who will have the same end-zone spot in the team’s new stadium.

“The Dawg Pound I’m quite familiar with in that I do have one confession that I have to make: I grew up in Pittsburgh,” Merletti said, referring to the Browns’ hated rival. “So I’m certainly aware of their tradition and I think it’s great and it’s the best there is in football.”

“I could not pass this up,” Merletti, 50, said. “This morning as I was leaving our headquarters my shoulder was nearly worn out by people giving me high fives.”

Merletti has a resume that includes 24 years with the Secret Service, the last 17 months as its director. Recently, he unsuccessfully fought independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s bid to force his agents to testify before the grand jury investigating the White House sex scandal. President Clinton accepted Merletti’s retirement with regret and said that on behalf of his family, “the former presidents and their families . . . I want to thank this distinguished director for his remarkable devotion to duty and country.”