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

back to Washington. Knowing the difficulty Mrs. Kennedy had had with her earlier pregnancies, I was concerned, and hoped to God that both she and the baby would be all right.

I hadn’t been there too long when the door opened, and a nurse walked out.

“Sir, I’m supervisory nurse Mrs. Robinson. I’m pleased to tell you that the delivery was successful. At 12:22 A.M., Mrs. Kennedy delivered a six-pound three-ounce baby boy and both mother and child are doing fine. Since he is premature, however, the baby is being placed in an incubator as a precautionary measure.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, just as Agent Jeffries walked toward us.

“It’s a boy,” I said with a smile. “Nurse Robinson says that Mrs. Kennedy and the baby are both doing fine.”

Just then another nurse came out of the operating room holding the baby, swaddled in a blanket.

The nurse said, “I’m taking him to the incubator now.”

As Agent Jeffries went with the nurse and the baby, I caught a glimpse of the new member of the Kennedy family, his perfectly shaped face, his eyes closed, completely oblivious that he was the son of the future president of the United States.

Then the realization hit me: we had a new person to protect and to worry about. More responsibility, the need for more people. The baby was the first child to ever be born to a president-elect. Another new challenge for the Secret Service and me—an infant in the White House.

President-elect Kennedy arrived about 4:30 in the morning. He first went in to see his wife, who was sleeping and still under sedation, and then to see his son for the first time. He was ecstatic—a father again, but this time of a son, born just two days before Caroline’s third birthday.

The early birth announcement spread like wildfire as newspapers across the country rushed to post the news in the morning editions.

IT’S A BABY BOY FOR THE JOHN KENNEDYS!

STORK BEATS KENNEDY’S PLANE;

NEW SON ARRIVES

Over the next few days, Agent Jeffries and I rotated shifts outside Mrs. Kennedy’s room, carefully screening guests and inspecting the countless bouquets of flowers that arrived for Mrs. Kennedy. Most of the flowers were fairly modest and equal in size so when a particularly large one arrived, I was especially curious. Not only was the arrangement larger and more elaborate than the others, but the container was unique as well. The flowers sprung out of two receptacles on either side of the back of a ceramic donkey, being carried like cargo in baskets. The donkey itself was about the size of a full-grown cocker spaniel and was very authentic looking. The significance, of course, was that the donkey was the symbol of the Democratic Party. A card was attached and when I read whom it was from, I couldn’t have been more surprised. The arrangement had been sent by Frank Sinatra.

The baby boy was named John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. and despite being premature, he was thriving. The president-elect would visit Mrs. Kennedy and their newborn son each day, in between the never-ending meetings with staff and advisors in preparation for the start of his administration. Each time he came to the hospital, he was extremely cordial and always called me by name.

“How are you doing today, Clint?” he’d ask.

“I’m fine, Mr. President-elect. Thank you.”

“And how did Mrs. Kennedy fare through the night?”

I’d tell him whether she had slept well or had called for the nurses on occasion. He wanted to have as much information as possible before striding into her room. It was obvious he was sincerely concerned, and despite the endless decisions that needed to be made as he prepared for the presidency, the well-being of his wife and son was uppermost in his mind. The more I got to know him, the more I liked him, which made the fact that I was not on his protective detail all the more disappointing.

A week after his son’s birth, on December 2, the president-elect flew back to Palm Beach, taking young Caroline and the nanny, Maud Shaw, with him, while Mrs. Kennedy and young John remained as patients in the hospital. Both Mrs. Kennedy and the baby were recovering well, but there wasn’t much activity other than the comings and goings of visitors. Mrs. Kennedy was largely confined to the bed in her room, and spent most of her time poring over reference materials about the White House. Frequently she would ask for me to come in to the room because she had some questions. Since Agent Jeffries had not worked on the White House Detail prior to this assignment, he had little knowledge of the type of information she wanted. So, she asked for me.

I’d go into her room and she’d be sitting in bed, propped up with pillows. Dressed in her bedclothes, with no makeup on, she looked younger and more fragile than she had prior to John’s birth, and I could tell she was physically drained. Still, her thick eyebrows and eyelashes framed her big brown eyes against the pallor of her skin, and even in the drab hospital room, she exuded a natural, timeless beauty. With me, she had no need to impress. She had already become accustomed to my constant presence and realized I would see her at her best and her worst.

She was focused on learning as much as possible about the White House—its history, its décor, and how everything worked on a daily basis. Who did the grocery shopping? Who handled the housekeeping? Where would the family eat their private meals? Was there any privacy? What about functions and dinner parties? What were the various rooms—the Red Room, the Green Room, the Blue Room—used for?

She would have a list of questions written out on a lined, yellow legal pad, and as I answered her, she would listen intently, taking voracious notes and interposing questions as they occurred to her. She was savvy and smart, and it was clear that she was eager to