White House picks Transportation security chief

The White House has picked former Secret Service Director John Magaw to head the new Transportation Security Administration. Magaw, a veteran federal law enforcement official who is currently acting executive director of the Office of National Preparedness at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is President Bush's nominee to lead the new agency, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announced Monday. As the first undersecretary of Transportation Security, Magaw would be charged with building a corps of federal baggage screeners, law enforcement officers and air marshals to protect the nation's aviation system. This security force must also provide efficient customer service to the flying public, Mineta said. "We have to be able to deal with the safety and security of the traveling public," said Mineta. "We have to make sure the business of America is not slowed down." Magaw rebuilt the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms following its 1989 confrontation with the Branch Dividian cult in Waco, Texas. His law enforcement career began in 1959 as a trooper with the Ohio State Patrol. He joined the Secret Service in 1967 and was eventually appointed director of the agency in 1992. In 1995, Magaw received the Presidential Rank Distinguished Executive award. If confirmed by the Senate, Magaw will have a five-year term at the Transportation Security Administration. He will be eligible for a performance bonus equal to 30 percent of his pay each year. While Magaw must wait for Senate confirmation to take the reins of the new agency, he will begin sitting in on planning sessions immediately, according to Jim Mitchell, a Transportation spokesman. Under legislation passed by Congress last month, department officials must move quickly to begin background checks and training for more than 28,000 new screeners and 2,200 federal law enforcement officers who will work at the nation's airports. All screeners must be trained by August 2002 and must be deployed three months later. Magaw's experience at the ATF will be an asset as he builds the new Transportation agency, said Mitchell. "There aren't very many people with experience in creating a law enforcement agency," said Mitchell. "[Magaw's] done the next best thing, which is to take an agency [the ATF] and rebuild it." Magaw is expected to sail through confirmation in the Senate.