One agent, who was part of the Bush twins’ advance detail, had earlier been beaten up badly after getting mugged when he went out for a night on his own in the city. Details of these incidents emerged on what is a black date for the Secret Service: the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas 43 years ago.
A local newspaper in the Argentine capital reported that a pair of thieves removed the purse from under a table despite Ms Bush’s apparently oblivious bodyguards sitting nearby.Some sources suggested that Ms Bush had not been in “the immediate proximity” of her bag when it was snatched and that “at no point was there any risk of harm”.
Mr Bush has had his own security problems this week after an extraordinarily accident-prone journey across Asia and the Pacific. First, the tyres came off when the brakes on Air Force One malfunctioned as it landed in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
No one was hurt, but later, Gregg Pitts, the acting director of the White House Travel Office, was robbed and beaten in Waikiki, Hawaii, on Tuesday morning outside a nightclub. Then, as the President left Hawaii, three police motorcycle outriders in his convoy slipped and crashed, leaving two of them seriously injured.
