Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir (55 page)

The next morning, back at the White House, I received a call from Chief Jim Rowley.

“Clint,” Mr. Rowley said, “there is going to be a ceremony tomorrow morning
at eleven o’clock in the fourth-floor conference room in the Treasury Building. You are going to receive the Treasury Department’s highest award for bravery. Secretary Douglas Dillon wants you there at ten-thirty. Your wife and children are invited to attend as well.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Mrs. Kennedy plans to be there,” Rowley added. “Congratulations, Clint.”

I didn’t know what to say.
Why am I getting an award?
I had heard that Rufus Youngblood, the agent who was with Lyndon Johnson in Dallas, was getting an award. He had jumped on top of the vice president and shielded him from the sniper. He was successful.

I don’t deserve an award. The president is dead.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Thank you,” I finally said.

I hung up the phone and told Paul what the chief had said. Paul congratulated me, but he knew how I felt.

I called home to tell Gwen.

“It looks like you are finally going to meet Mrs. Kennedy,” I said.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, I arranged for Gwen to park on West Executive Avenue—the driveway of the White House. When she and the boys arrived, I walked out to meet them, and together we walked next door to the Treasury Building.

There was a small room next to the fourth-floor conference room. Paul Landis had brought Mrs. Kennedy, her sister, Lee, and the president’s sisters Jean Smith and Pat Lawford. I was surprised to see them there—the president’s sisters.

I introduced them to my family and Mrs. Kennedy said, “You have such fine-looking young sons, Mr. Hill.”

I looked into her eyes, still so filled with pain.
Did mine look the same?

“Thank you, Mrs. Kennedy. They are good boys.”

At eleven o’clock, we went into the conference room for the ceremony. Some of the press were there. They snapped pictures and took notes as Treasury secretary Douglas Dillon made a speech and presented me with the award. I was embarrassed by all this undeserved and unwanted attention, but I accepted the award and thanked Secretary Dillon, as Mrs. Kennedy stood and watched.

My family went home, and I went back to my office, glad it was over.

F
RIDAY
, D
ECEMBER
6, was moving-out day. Two good friends of President and Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. and Mrs. Averell Harriman, had graciously offered their home in Georgetown as a temporary residence to Mrs. Kennedy and the children. Everything had been packed and sorted, with most of the belongings being sent into storage until Mrs. Kennedy decided where she and the children would live on a permanent basis.

President Johnson had also decided to award the Medal of Freedom, posthumously, to John F. Kennedy, at a ceremony in the State Dining Room, on this day. As Attorney General Robert Kennedy accepted the award on behalf of his brother, Mrs. Kennedy watched, sitting in a small adjacent room, behind a folding screen, her presence unannounced until the ceremony was over.

Everything had been packed and loaded into trucks. Now it was time to say good-bye. Mrs. Kennedy said good-bye to Chief Usher J. B. West and the household staff—staff that had grown to love John and Caroline. It had been such a joy to have children in the White House. Throughout the entire house, from the upstairs maids to the stewards in the Navy Mess, tears were flowing.

A few days earlier, Secret Service Chief Jim Rowley had called me into his office.

“Clint,” he said, “President Johnson has requested the Secret Service provide protection for Mrs. Kennedy and the children for at least one more year. We have agreed to do so.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Rowley. I think it’s a good decision.”

“The president told Mrs. Kennedy, and said she could have any agents she wanted. Take her pick.”

I nodded. A lump filled my throat. I would do whatever Rowley requested—he was my boss. I would understand completely if she didn’t want me. Every time she sees me, it must bring back the horrible memories of that day, that dreadful day in Dallas. But I couldn’t imagine not being with her.

“Clint, Mrs. Kennedy didn’t hesitate. She wants Bob Foster, Lynn Meredith, and Tom Wells to stay with the children.”

I nodded. Held my breath.

“And for herself, she said there was no choice to be made at all. She wants Paul Landis and Clint Hill.”

Tears welled in my eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Rowley. Thank you.”

Clint Hill, Mrs. Kennedy, and Caroline arrive at
Harriman residence, 12/6/63

So on December 6, as Mrs. Kennedy and the children moved out of the White House, so did I. I would no longer have my office in the Map Room. Jerry Behn said Paul and I could share a desk in his office temporarily, but we’d have to figure something else out. We were no longer on the White House Detail.

Mrs. Kennedy, Miss Shaw, Caroline, and John got into the limousine at the South Portico and we drove from the White House together for the last time. It was quiet. Nothing was said. There was just a heavy sadness inside all of us.

The Harriman house was at 3038 N Street Northwest—just three blocks down from the house where Mrs. Kennedy and I first met. As we drove through the narrow streets with the historic redbrick homes on each side, the memories came flooding back. Three years earlier, she was eight months’ pregnant, and I was so disappointed to have been given this assignment.

John was carrying an American flag as he jumped out of the car and
went inside. A few neighbors and a handful of curious onlookers were standing nearby, watching us, but far fewer people than I had imagined would be gawking.

This looks pretty good. Maybe the people will leave her and the children alone, out of respect.

The Harrimans had left some of their household staff to assist Mrs. Kennedy, and that first night, it almost felt like they were staying in a hotel with personal servants there to help in every way.

The next weekend Mrs. Kennedy wanted to go to Atoka. “I guess we will have to drive,” she said. No longer did we have helicopters at our beck and call. She told me that from now on she was going to call the house at Atoka “Wexford,” after President Kennedy’s ancestral home in County Wexford, Ireland. It was nice to get back to the country again, to be around the horses she loved so. But still the smile did not return. The laughter was gone.

When we returned to the Harriman house in Georgetown, she informed me that she and the children would be spending Christmas and New Year’s in Palm Beach, staying at the C. Michael Paul residence again. We would leave the following Wednesday.

“I wanted to give you something, Mr. Hill,” she said as she handed me a typewritten letter. “I sent this letter to Secretary Dillon, and I thought you should know. I’d like you to pass it along to the other agents on our little detail, too. Go ahead, read it now.”

I began to read the letter—it was two-and-a-half pages long, single-spaced, so it took me a while.

Dear Douglas:

I would like to ask you one thing that was so close to Jack’s heart—he often spoke about it—

It is about our Secret Service detail—the children’s and mine. They are such exceptional men. He always said that, before he left office, he was going to see that the highest possible recommendation was left in each of their files—with the suggestion that each of them be really given a chance to advance, as they normally would, in the Secret Service.

She wrote that this in no way was speaking against the president’s detail—he was devoted to them all.

They were perfect and the President loved them.

But, my detail and the children’s were younger men. They all had children just the ages of Caroline and John . . .

You cannot imagine the difference they made in our lives. Before we came to the White House, the thing I dreaded most was the Secret Service. How wrong I was; it turned out that they were the ones who made it possible for us to have the happy close life that we did.

She wrote about how she had requested us to be firm with the children so they would not get spoiled, yet at the same time be unobtrusive so they weren’t viewed as special by their friends.

It seems to me now that the qualities they had to have to do this job so beautifully—so that I have two unspoiled children—and, so that I always felt free and unhindered myself, are really the most exceptional qualities . . . they needed tact, adaptability, kindness, toughness, quick wittedness, more than any other members of the Secret Service. And every one of them had it.

She wrote about how she and the president often discussed how sad it was that these “devoted and clever men” were taking John to the park and missing out on all the exciting work like state visits, and advance trips—the things that would help them advance their careers. They were afraid that because we had been so good with the children, that we would be forever “left in the backwater with no chance to advance” and that would be terribly unfair to men so devoted to their profession.

The point of the letter was to request that all the men on the First Lady and Children’s Detail be given special consideration to advance, at the end of this assignment, because Chief James Rowley “couldn’t find better men if he combed the earth.”

She listed the five men of whom she was speaking: Clinton Hill, Paul Landis, Lynn Meredith, Robert Foster, and Thomas Wells. Next to my name she wrote:

No need to tell you about him. He was a brilliant advance man before he was assigned to me. He was so much better than the rather dense USIA men the embassies sent when I went abroad, that I ended
up by having him handle all press and official details . . . he could do everything.

I couldn’t help but smile at that part. Oh, Mrs. Kennedy . . .

She concluded the letter with an apology for going on so long and finally:

They served the President as well as any one in his government, by protecting his wife and children with such tact, devotion and unobtrusiveness that it made our White House years the happy ones they were.

Tears welled in my eyes. I looked at her, looked into her brown eyes, those beautiful eyes the color of espresso that melted powerful men and created envy in women the world over. There were no secrets from me in those eyes.

I put down the letter, and wrapped my arms around her and held her for a moment.

“Thank you, Mrs. Kennedy, those are very kind words.”

We had been through so much together, Mrs. Kennedy and me. And now it was time to move to a new chapter in our lives. It wasn’t going to be easy, but we had to go on.

W
E HAD MADE
it through the first Thanksgiving, but Christmas in Palm Beach was exceptionally difficult. Ambassador Kennedy and much of the rest of the family were there, as well as Lee and Stash and their children, but there was
no
Honey Fitz
to take out for a lunchtime cruise, no anticipation of high-level meetings, far fewer Secret Service agents around.