Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir by Clint Hil (love letters to the dead TXT) 📗

INSCRIBED IN A COPY OF JOHN F. KENNEDY’S PROFILES IN COURAGE

HE CALLED HER MRS. KENNEDY.

SHE CALLED HIM MR. HILL.

For four years, from the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in November 1960 until after the election of Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Clint Hill was the Secret Service agent assigned to guard the glamorous and intensely private Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. During those four years, he went from being a reluctant guardian to a fiercely loyal watchdog and, in many ways, her closest friend.

Now, looking back fifty years, Clint Hill tells his story for the first time, offering a tender, enthralling, and tragic portrayal of how a Secret Service agent who started life in a North Dakota orphanage became the most trusted man in the life of the First Lady who captivated first the nation and then the world.

When he was initially assigned to the new First Lady, Agent Hill envisioned tea parties and gray-haired matrons. But as soon as he met her, he was swept up in the whirlwind of her beauty, her grace, her intelligence, her coy humor, her magnificent composure, and her extraordinary spirit.

From the start, the job was like no other, and Clint was by her side through the early days of JFK’s presidency; the birth of sons John and Patrick and Patrick’s sudden death; Kennedy-family holidays in Hyannis Port and Palm Beach; Jackie’s trips to Europe, Asia, and South America; Jackie’s intriguing meetings with men like Aristotle Onassis, Gianni Agnelli, and André Malraux; the dark days of the year that followed the assassination to the farewell party she threw for Clint when he left her protective detail after four years. All she wanted was the one thing he could not give her: a private life for her and her children.

Filled with unforgettable details, startling revelations, and sparkling, intimate moments, this is the once-in-a-lifetime story of a man doing the most exciting job in the world, with a woman all the world loved, and the tragedy that ended it all too soon—a tragedy that haunted him for fifty years.

CLINT HILL is a former United States Secret Service agent who was in the presidential motorcade during the John F. Kennedy assassination. Hill remained assigned to Mrs. Kennedy and the children until after the 1964 presidential election. He was then assigned to President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House. In 1967, when Johnson was still in office, he became the Special Agent in Charge (SAIC) of presidential protection. When Richard Nixon came into office, he moved over to be the SAIC of the vice presidential protective division. In 1972, Hill was promoted to the position of assistant director of the Secret Service, responsible for all protective forces. He retired in 1975.

LISA McCUBBIN is an award-winning journalist who has been a television news anchor and reporter, hosted her own radio show, and spent more than five years in the Middle East as a freelance writer. She is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller The Kennedy Detail. Visit her at www.lisamccubbin.com.

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JACKET DESIGN BY ANNA DORFMAN

JACKET PHOTOGRAPHS © ASSOCIATED PRESS (FRONT COVER AND BACK COVER, TOP);

POLARIS IMAGES (BACK COVER, BOTTOM LEFT); CORBIS (BACK COVER, BOTTOM RIGHT)

COPYRIGHT © 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER

Gallery Books

A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright © 2012 by Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Gallery Books hardcover edition April 2012

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Designed by Renato Stanisic

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hill, Clint.

Mrs. Kennedy and me / Clint Hill; with Lisa McCubbin.—First Gallery Books hardcover edition.

p. cm.

1. Hill, Clint. 2. Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy, 1929–1994—Friends and associates.

3. Presidents’ spouses—Protection—United States. 4. United States. Secret Service—Officials and employees—Biography. I. McCubbin, Lisa. II. Title.

E843.K4H47 2012

973.922092—dc23

2011051017

ISBN 978-1-4516-4844-7

ISBN 978-1-4516-4847-8 (eBook)

This book is dedicated to the men and women of the U.S. Secret Service, both past and present, who have continued to steadfastly provide protection for the leadership of this great country as well as its financial interests. Your unwavering and selfless dedication to duty set an example for all to follow. I am proud but humble to have served among your ranks.

And to Caroline Kennedy, known as “Lyric” to the agents and “Buttons” to your father. I sincerely hope that many of the stories in this book bring back fond memories of your years in the White House. Your father adored you and John, and as you well know, your mother was extraordinary—a lady in every sense of the word.

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Contents

PART ONE: 1960

Chapter 1: Meeting Mrs. Kennedy

Chapter 2: The Family

Chapter 3: A Palm Beach Christmas

PART TWO: 1961

Chapter 4: Glen Ora

Chapter 5: Traveling with Mrs. Kennedy: Paris

Chapter 6: Traveling with Mrs. Kennedy: Greece

Chapter 7: A Summer in Hyannis Port

Chapter 8: Fall 1961

Chapter 9: Another Palm Beach Christmas

PART THREE: 1962

Chapter 10: Traveling with Mrs. Kennedy: India

Chapter 11: Traveling with Mrs. Kennedy: Pakistan

Chapter 12: André Malraux and Marilyn Monroe

Chapter 13: Another Summer in Hyannis Port

Chapter 14: Traveling with Mrs. Kennedy: Ravello

Chapter 15: October Crisis

Chapter 16: The Third Palm Beach Christmas

PART FOUR: