Three months after Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865 the Treasury Department created the Secret Service to assist in tracking down counterfeiters. In 1901 the mission to protect the president and vice president was added. In 1972, the Secret Service was assigned the task of protecting all presidential candidates. Other tasks include protecting foreign leaders.

Partly due to its name, but primarily due to its missions, very little is known about the agents who make up the Secret Service. The government likes the intrigue surrounding its agents even though few pictures or television shots are made without at least one agent appearing near the president.

What is the makeup of these special agents? Why do they volunteer to give their own life, if necessary, to protect their president or any of the visiting foreign dignitaries they are assigned to protect? What stories could they tell if the wraps of secrecy were taken off?

Now George Rush exposes the life of a secret agent as seen through the eyes of Marty Venker, an agent who protected Presidents Nixon, Carter and Reagan. Although Venker eventually had a nervous breakdown from the pressures of his duties, he nonetheless has fascinanting tales to tell.

Venker claims to have gotten along well with the people he protected with the exception of Jimmy Carter with whom he got off on the wrong foot. It seems Carter hit a secret "panic button" thinking it was a flush toilet button - and Venker responded by bursting into the room while the president was still zipping up his trousers. There are secret buttons scattered throughout the presidential quarters and members of the Secret Service are instructed to break into any room immediately whenever the alarm button is hit. Carter failed to see the humor of having a secret agent barge into his toilet with drawn pistol.

Venker has fascinating stories about other members of the various presidential families as well as some interesting tales about foreign dignitaries and candidates.

According to Venker, Imelda Marcos frequently visited New York City where agents watched as jewelers brought in suitcases of "pearls, rubies, necklaces, you name it . . . in a single trip, the couriers would bring her as much as $250,000 in crisp bills." According to Venker, the former first lady of the Phillipines spent some $30 million during trips between 1973 and 1986.

Other gossipy tales concern the former presidents - Gerald Ford taking coffee and sandwiches out to agents guarding him in inclement weather at Camp David, listening to Amy Carter's music lessons, taking Richard Nixon to the neighborhood post office, keeping President Ford from being impaled upon a clarinet.

Eventually the fast-track and pressures of the service conflicted with Venker's needs to lead his own life and his mind snapped. After weeks of rest Venker finally succeeded in becoming a Manhattan diskjockey where his life and experiences are nearly as fascinating from a totally different perspective. Unfortunately, Rush spends too much time covering Venker after he left the Secret Service. However, for the reader who relishes a little presidential gossip, most of "Confessions of an Ex-Secret Service Agent" will more than satisfy their appetite.

- Miles Hedrick resides in Newport News

* Novel by George Rush

Donald L. Fine. 298 pages. $17.95