Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir (51 page)

The crew of Air Force One had removed some seats in the rear of the aircraft to make room for the casket. Now we had to get the casket up the steps into the back of the plane.

Paul stayed with Mrs. Kennedy, while I helped my fellow agents lift the casket out of the hearse. Silently, and with as much dignity as possible, we heaved the heavy bronze casket up the narrow steps of the portable staircase. Everybody was emotionally shattered. You couldn’t stop to think about what it was you were actually doing. Step by step, we finally made it to the top, only to discover that the casket was too wide to go through the door.

We had to get it in. There was no choice. We had to get the casket onto Air Force One. So we broke off the handles, and jammed the casket through the door, as Mrs. Kennedy watched from the bottom of the steps.

Once the casket was in place, Mrs. Kennedy walked up the stairs and sat in the seat next to the casket. She was joined by O’Donnell, Powers, and Admiral Burkley. For all intents and purposes, Lyndon Johnson was now the president, so the agents on the 4:00–midnight shift were guarding him, guarding the new president. I was concerned about how that might make Mrs. Kennedy feel. Also, having witnessed the tense scene at Parkland Hospital regarding removal of the body, I thought it best that an agent stay with the casket to verify that Admiral Burkley had remained with the casket as well.

I needed to confer with ASAIC Kellerman about plans for our arrival, so I went to Agent Stewart Stout, the shift leader, and said, “Stew, I think, out of respect for President Kennedy, an agent should stay with the casket.” He agreed and Agent Dick Johnsen went back to sit with Mrs. Kennedy and the others.

Everyone was eager to get wheels up and get out of Dallas, but now we had another problem. We learned that Vice President Johnson needed to be sworn in while still on the ground in Dallas. That required a federal judge. Calls were made, and federal judge Sarah Hughes arrived and boarded Air Force One.

Before the swearing-in ceremony began, I was notified that Mrs. Kennedy wanted to see me, in the presidential cabin. I walked through the aircraft, past Vice President Johnson and his staff, and into the compartment.

She was standing there, still in her pink suit. Less than six hours earlier, I had seen her in Room 850 at the Hotel Texas, putting on the finishing touches—the hat, the gloves—and now, the accessories were gone, and the beautiful suit was crusted with blood. We had tried to convince her to change her clothes, but she refused. “Let them see what they have done,” she said.

“Yes, Mrs. Kennedy, what do you need?”

She walked toward me, extended her hands, and grasped mine.

Looking into my eyes, she asked, “What’s going to happen to you now, Mr. Hill?”

Tears welled in my eyes and my lips trembled. “I’ll be okay, Mrs. Kennedy. I’ll be okay.”

With all her sorrow and heartbreak,
I thought,
to have concern for me at this time. She really is a remarkable lady.

I returned to my seat in the forward section of the aircraft as Mrs. Kennedy joined Vice President and Mrs. Johnson for the swearing-in ceremony. I stood behind Kellerman with Colonel James Swindal, the pilot of Air Force One, at my side, and we watched Lyndon Johnson become the thirty-sixth president of the United States.

Colonel Swindal went back to the cockpit, I took my seat, and Air Force One lifted off the runway from Love Field in Dallas. It was 2:47
P.M.

The flight to Andrews Air Force Base was marked with a solemn, sad, quiet atmosphere. And yet, there was work to be done and plans to be made. The Johnson administration people were calling and planning for their future. The Kennedy people were subdued but making plans as to what to do on arrival in Washington. It was decided to have the autopsy conducted at Bethesda Naval Hospital since President Kennedy was a former naval officer. We would go there by motorcade. President Johnson would go by helicopter to the White House.

T
HERE WAS A
large crowd waiting when we arrived at Andrews, at 5:58
P.M.
Air Force personnel and their families, members of the cabinet, the House and Senate, the diplomatic corps, the media—they were all there to pay their respects to the assassinated president, and his young widow.

As soon as Colonel Swindal brought the plane to a stop, the front steps were put in place and the Air Force moved in a hydraulic lift at the rear door of the plane, to lower the casket down to ground level.

I had moved to the rear of the aircraft to be near Mrs. Kennedy. There was a flurry of activity in the front section, and bursting down the aisle, not paying attention to anyone, came Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He embraced Mrs. Kennedy and touched the casket, his eyes filled with tears.

Several of us moved the casket onto the lift, and then Mrs. Kennedy, the attorney general, and members of the fallen president’s staff surrounded the casket as it was lowered to the ground. Agents, staff members, and Air Force personnel helped place the casket in the waiting Navy ambulance.

Bobby Kennedy, Mary Gallagher, Mrs. Kennedy, and Clint Hill watch as casket is loaded into Navy ambulance

Mrs. Kennedy once again insisted on riding in the back with the president. This time the attorney general joined her. On the plane, Mrs. Kennedy had requested Bill Greer drive the ambulance.

He was the president’s driver. He should have the honor of driving him one last time.

Roy Kellerman, Dr. Burkley, and Paul Landis joined him in the front seat. I rode in the car immediately behind the ambulance with Dr. John Walsh and members of President Kennedy’s “Irish Mafia”—Ken O’Donnell, Dave Powers, and Larry O’Brien.

The forty-five minute drive to Bethesda Naval Hospital seemed endless. Sitting in the front seat, staring at the taillights of the ambulance. The events of the day playing over and over in my head. The sounds of grown men weeping in the backseat. Tears would well up in my eyes, and I’d blink them back. Swallow hard.

W
HEN WE ARRIVED
at Bethesda, the body was taken to the autopsy room accompanied by Dr. Burkley, and Agents Roy Kellerman and Bill Greer. Paul and I escorted Mrs. Kennedy to the presidential suite on the seventeenth floor. We
set up a security post as friends and family began to arrive to see Mrs. Kennedy. Paul and I were the only ones that could identify these people, so we became the gatekeepers. Phones were ringing, people were coming and going, and yet the night was going by very slowly. We were waiting for the autopsy procedure to be completed and it was nerve-racking.

At about 2:45
A.M.
, the phone rang. It was Roy Kellerman.

“Clint, we need you to come down to the autopsy room.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right down.”

I left the seventeenth floor with Paul in charge and went to the autopsy room. As I approached the door Kellerman stepped out and said “Clint, before the autopsy is closed, I need you to come in and view the president’s body.”

I had a good idea as to why I had been selected to do this. I knew I had to do it, but I dreaded it. I simply nodded to Kellerman that I understood.

“I know this isn’t going to be easy,” he said, “but we decided that since you are the closest to Mrs. Kennedy, it’s important for you to see the body, in case she has any questions.”

I took a deep breath, as Kellerman opened the door.

Lying on a table, covered with a white sheet, was the body of President Kennedy. Only his face was exposed, and it looked like he was sleeping.

Bill Greer was there, and Dr. Burkley, and General Godfrey McHugh, President Kennedy’s Air Force aide. There were additional people I did not recognize. A man in a white coat stood beside the table. I’m sure they told me his name, but it didn’t register.

The man gently lowered the sheet just enough to expose the president’s neck, and he began describing the wounds to me. A wound in the front neck area where a tracheotomy had been performed at Parkland Hospital in an effort to revive the president. He said it covered an exit wound. Then, rolling the president gently over to one side, he pointed out a wound in the upper back, at the neckline, quite small. This, he said, was the entry wound that corresponded to the exit wound at the throat.

Moving the body back and slightly to the left he pointed out the wound in the upper-right rear of the head.

I swallowed hard, listening closely, as the doctor explained what had happened. It appeared that the impact of the bullet hitting the president’s head was so severe, it caused an explosive reaction within the makeup of the skull and brain, so portions of the brain erupted outward, and a portion of the skull with skin and hair attached became like a flap.

The image of what I saw when I was wedged up above the backseat came flashing back into my mind. The head wound was exposed to me and I could see into his brain, part of which had exploded outward. It looked like somebody had flipped open the back of his head, stuck in an ice-cream scoop and removed a portion of the brain, then scattered it all over Mrs. Kennedy, the car, and myself. It was a horrific sight. And I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

“Yes, Doctor,” I said. “That is exactly what happened. I know. I saw it. I was five feet from the president when the impact occurred.”

If only I had run faster, reacted a little quicker . . .

The explanation by the doctor and my observation of the body was concluded. I thanked the doctor and returned to the seventeenth floor.

“What did they want?” Paul asked.

I told him what had just transpired. “They assume Mrs. Kennedy will at some point want to know the details of the president’s wounds. I am quite sure that will never happen.”

Paul shook his head. “No, that will never happen.”

Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell had gone to a nearby mortuary and purchased a mahogany casket to replace the one from Dallas that we had damaged. Sometime after 3:00
A.M.
we were notified that the procedures had all concluded and everything was ready to leave for the White House.

Family members were still present so a small motorcade was set up. The casket bearing the body of President Kennedy was placed in the Navy ambulance. Once again, Mrs. Kennedy and the attorney general got in the back with the casket. Agent Greer drove with Mr. Kellerman in the front seat. I followed in White House car No. 1 with the president’s sister Mrs. Jean Smith, Mrs. Robert Kennedy, Secretary of Defense McNamara, and Dr. Walsh. Paul rode in car No. 2 with O’Donnell, O’Brien, Powers, and Dr. Burkley.

We arrived at the White House at 4:24
A.M.
A U.S. Marines honor guard met us at the Northwest Gate and marched in formation in front of the ambulance as we drove up to the North Portico entrance to the White House. The sight of those young Marines, their chins held high, paying respect to our fallen president, in the black of night, was almost more than I could bear.

We left here two days ago with a young, vibrant, active man as President of the United States, and now we are bringing him home in a casket.

Military body bearers removed the casket from the ambulance and carried the president into the White House to the East Room. There the casket was placed on a catafalque identical to one used for Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The
family gathered around and an honor guard was formed and placed on duty around the casket.