Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir

F
or 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
.