Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir

by Clint Hill

  Every day Mrs. Kennedy would come up with a new idea, sending people scurrying around to get the necessary permits. If anyone raised the possibility that something might not be able to be accomplished, Mrs. Kennedy would reply softly, in her most convincing tone, “Of course it can be done.” She was in complete control of the countless details to make her production come together, and had steadfast confidence in her staff and their willingness to do whatever it took. I don’t think she ever knew how several behind-the-scenes incidents nearly turned the evening into a disaster.

  The guests were split up between the Sequoia, the Honey Fitz, a PT boat, and a Navy yacht. They boarded at the Washington docks and sailed down the Potomac to the Mount Vernon dock. It was decided that they would make the return trip by car, which in and of itself was confusing and logistically difficult, as there needed to be far more cars than boats. Then there was the mosquito infestation problem. There had been a lot of rain, and the mosquitoes were rampant. So, on the day of the event, the area was sprayed with mosquito repellant once in the morning, once around midday, and again one hour prior to the guests’ arrival.

  Chef Verdon had worked with Mrs. Kennedy to come up with a menu that could be prepared largely at the White House and then transported in military vehicles to the estate. As the food was being offloaded, he saw the repellant being sprayed and became concerned that the noxious spray would poison the food. He was terrified that the guests would become ill and he would be blamed. It was too late to prepare more food. René was beside himself. Fortunately, Tish Baldridge came up with a solution.

  “Why don’t we have some Secret Service agents taste the food?” Tish suggested. “If they don’t become sick and die, then we know the food is fine for our guests.”

  René acquiesced so two agents were given the task of gorging themselves on samples of every item of food that was to be served. They started with the George Washington Mint Julep, then the Avocado and Crabmeat Mimosa Salad, moved on to the Poulet Chasseur, to the Couronne de Riz Clamart, to the Framboises à la Crème Chantilly, and finally the Petits Fours Secs. There wasn’t much time, so they had to eat and drink quickly. As it turned out, the food was not tainted, but the agents felt sick simply from the mass quantity of food they had each consumed. This satisfied René that all was well and he could safety serve the president, first lady, and all the guests without danger of his reputation being damaged beyond repair.

  It was a beautiful evening and by the time the guests arrived, everything was in place. Mrs. Kennedy looked regal in a white lace sleeveless Oleg Cassini dress with a wide green sash around her waist and elbow-length white gloves, as she and President Kennedy escorted President Ayub Khan and his daughter, Begum Nasir Aurangzeb.

  After a tour of Washington’s home, it was time for the battle reenactment. The Army’s Colonial Color Guard and Fife and Drum Corps performed a military drill, and then a group of musket-carrying soldiers, wearing powdered wigs, aimed their muskets and fired. It just so happened that the sixty or so members of the press corps were right in the line of fire, and even though the guns were loaded with blanks, the noise and smoke were realistic, causing more than a few members of the press to jump at the sudden gunshots. I glanced at Mrs. Kennedy, and when I saw the smile on her face, I had little doubt that the placement of the press, directly in the line of fire, was all part of her master plan.

  I stayed off to the side, always near Mrs. Kennedy, observing everything going on around her. I had noticed the table settings with several forks, spoons, and knives, of different sizes, lined up in a particular order outside the plates. Growing up in Washburn, North Dakota, I had never been to a restaurant or event that required so many different types of cutlery. As I watched Mrs. Kennedy confidently choose the appropriate utensil for each course, I took mental notes should I ever be in a situation myself that would require me to know which fork was for salad, and which spoon was for dessert.

  Everybody commented on the ambience, the delicious food, and the extraordinary theater of the evening. By all accounts the dinner for President Ayub Khan was a smashing success. President Kennedy knew how much effort his wife had put into the occasion and he seemed particularly proud of her.

  Mrs. Kennedy and Ayub Khan at Mount Vernon dinner

  Mrs. Kennedy was beaming the entire evening. She was seated next to Ayub Khan, and while I couldn’t hear the conversation, it was clear they were truly enjoying each other’s company. She later told me that they spent much of the evening discussing a shared passion—their love of horses. Mrs. Kennedy was enthralled with Ayub Khan’s captivating stories of life in Pakistan—and intrigued by this part of the world that she had never visited. Naturally, Ayub Khan had offered an open invitation to President and Mrs. Kennedy to visit him in his homeland. As crazy as it sounded, I had a feeling that Mrs. Kennedy might find a way to take him up on the invitation.

  8

  Fall 1961

  Family photo at Hammersmith Farm

  During the summer of 1961, from the time we first went to Hyannis Port at the end of June, Mrs. Kennedy spent the better part of four months away from the White House. She did return on a few occasions to participate in official functions such as the Mount Vernon dinner in July, and another state dinner on September 19 for President Don Manuel Prado of Peru, but those were the only times during the summer that I was able to go home.

  After a brief stay in Washington for the state dinner for President Prado, we were off to New York City on September 24, so Mrs. Kennedy could attend the president’s speech to the United Nations the next day. Of course we stayed at the Carlyle—the president and Mrs. Kennedy in their luxurious apartment—with all the agents spread around the building, some of them three or four to a room due to lack of availability, and to cut down on expenses.

  The day after the president’s speech, we flew to Newport, Rhode Island, and on to Hammersmith Farm, the home of Mrs. Kennedy’s mother and stepfather, Hugh Auchincloss. The children, John and Caroline, had been driven there earlier by their Secret Service detail.

  I had been to Newport with President Eisenhower, so I was familiar with the area. Having been to Ambassador Kennedy’s stately homes in both Palm Beach and Hyannis Port, I expected that the Auchincloss estate would be on par with those residences. But as we drove up the long curving driveway to Hammersmith Farm for the first time, I was honestly taken aback by the grandeur of the home in which Mrs. Kennedy had spent many of her childhood years.

  Hammersmith Farm, Newport, Rhode Island

  The home was a Victorian-style mansion that looked like something straight out of the English countryside. Weathered shingles gave it a cottage-like feel, but you could hardly call this a cottage. Twenty-eight rooms were spread out among three levels; countless brick chimneys stuck out of the roof; and there was even a turret. The mansion was set on a rise in the middle of forty-eight acres—about eight times the size of the entire Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port—that overlooked Narragansett Bay. Most of the acreage was lawn, and I figured it had to take a whole staff of gardeners just to keep that grass mowed. Off to one edge of the property was a beautiful stable—plusher and much larger than the two-bedroom house in which I’d grown up in Washburn—with multiple stalls for the family’s horses.

  In between the stables and the main house was the tennis court. Gravel paths dissected the lawn, meandering around the property, leading from the house to the tennis court to the stables, and down to the dock, where there was a small, rocky beach. I could just imagine how it must have looked on September 12, 1953, when twelve hundred people attended the wedding reception for Jack Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier. It must have been spectacular.

  One of the presidential yachts, the Honey Fitz, had been sailed to Newport prior to the president’s arrival. It was berthed at the Newport Naval Station and brought to the dock at Hammersmith Farm every morning for the president’s use. This ninety-two-foot Navy yacht had been commissioned for use by the sitting president. During the Eisenhow
er administration, it was named the Barbara Anne, after one of the Eisenhower granddaughters. President Kennedy had it renamed the Honey Fitz after his maternal grandfather, John Frances “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald. Taking the Honey Fitz out for a lunchtime cruise became a daily activity, and just like in Hyannis Port, I would always be out on one of the jetboats, securing the area around the yacht.

  It was September, and the weather had turned from summer to fall, so that a light jacket or sweater was required when you were out on the water. One morning, as we were getting the boats ready to go out, Mrs. Kennedy called to the Secret Service Command Post.

  “Mr. Hill, I was hoping to go out water-skiing this afternoon. Will you please make sure you have my skis on the jetboat?”

  “Water-skiing? Are you sure? Do you realize how cold the water is, Mrs. Kennedy?”

  “Oh, yes, that doesn’t bother me,” she answered. “I’ve got a skin-diving suit. I’ll be fine.”

  I laughed and said, “Mrs. Kennedy, I hope you realize that the press will be dying to get a picture of you in that wet suit. You are the first wife of a president to go water-skiing. I can tell you Mamie Eisenhower and Bess Truman never went water-skiing, with or without a wet suit.”

  She laughed. “Well, now you know I have to go, Mr. Hill.”

  Sure enough she put on a black neoprene wet suit, and we pulled her around with the jetboat. The calmest waters were in Potter Cove or near Bailey’s Beach, a private beach club, and you could practically see the word getting passed around as the people on the beach stood up and stared. Some members of the press had rented boats, and while we did our best to keep them away, there was not much we could do as long as they remained outside the security perimeter we would establish. Mrs. Kennedy didn’t like the attention, and neither did I. I kept thinking about how cold that damn water would be if I had to jump in after her. I didn’t have a skin-diving suit. Fortunately, she didn’t require my assistance, and I didn’t see any pictures in the newspaper the next morning.

  Around this time Mrs. Kennedy also decided to take up golf. I accompanied her to the Newport Country Club, where she took some golf lessons and practiced with her longtime friend Bill Walton. As with almost any sport she tried, Mrs. Kennedy was a natural. She hit the ball long and straight, and her form was so good she reminded me of some of the female pro golfers I had observed. She was determined to do well, and you could see it in her attitude that she really wanted to improve and was going to work hard to do so.

  The weather in Newport had been very pleasant with crisp temperatures, and a mixture of sun and clouds. But as is typical along the New England coast, the weather can change rapidly, and in the early evening hours of Friday, September 29, a cold, dense fog settled in, and decided to stay.

  We had just returned to Hammersmith Farm from an outing when I got a call that my wife had gone into labor and had been taken to Alexandria Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. I was taken by surprise because the baby wasn’t due for at least another two weeks.

  I immediately informed Mrs. Kennedy.

  “Mrs. Kennedy,” I said, “I just got word that my wife has gone into labor, so I’m going to need to get back to Washington as soon as possible.”

  “Oh, Mr. Hill,” she said with a look of sincere concern, “yes, absolutely. You must get there right away. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  Unfortunately, getting back to Washington on this particular night was going to be next to impossible. The closest commercial airport was in Warwick, but the fog was so dense that flights were grounded. The next option was the Naval Air Station at Quonset Point, which handled a variety of aircraft. They weren’t flying, either. We contacted the U.S. Coast Guard and they said they could see what they could do, but they got back to me with the same report: nothing was coming in or going out. There was nothing anybody could do. I was stuck in Newport.

  The next day, the weather cleared, and I was finally able to get a flight out. An agent from the White House Detail met me and we raced to the hospital, where I got to see and hold my son, Corey Jonathan, for the first time. He was a bit premature, but healthy, and I was thrilled to now be the father of two sons.

  The Kennedys’ hectic schedule was difficult for all the agents and their families. President Kennedy traveled far more than Eisenhower had, so the agents on his detail were often gone, too. The difference was that Mrs. Kennedy was rarely in Washington, which made my absences lengthier and more frequent. Fortunately the Secret Service wives had a good support network, and I was thankful for that. Many of us lived in the same area and had children around the same ages, so when the guys were traveling, the women stuck together.

  When we returned to the White House on October 27, I presumed our time in Newport and on the Cape was pretty much finished for the year. Only Thanksgiving left. I was really looking forward to sleeping in my own bed each night for a month, and spending some time with my family. But, that wasn’t to be. It was back to Hyannis Port the next weekend, and then back to Newport, before returning to Washington for a few days to entertain the visiting prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his daughter, Indira Gandhi. I was realizing that Mrs. Kennedy made every effort to be away from the White House as much as possible. It turned out that she no more wanted to attend ladies’ luncheons and tea parties than I did. She really abhorred being in the spotlight, and having to make small talk. She would pick and choose which events were important to her, yet there were plenty of times she committed and then changed her mind. It was frustrating to Tish Baldridge, who would have to find replacement hostesses when Mrs. Kennedy told her she felt ill or had changed her plans—only to learn that we had gone off to Middleburg.

  When it came to visiting heads of state, however, Mrs. Kennedy would throw herself into the planning of an event. I think the success of the dinner at Mount Vernon really boosted her confidence, and also showed her that she could think big when it came to entertaining on behalf of the White House. One of the most important and memorable events was the night Pablo Casals came to play.

  “Mr. Hill, do you enjoy music?” Mrs. Kennedy asked me one day when we were up in Newport.

  “I love music, Mrs. Kennedy,” I replied. “In fact, one thing you probably don’t know about me is that I used to sing in a quartet in college.”

  “Really?”

  She looked like she was about to burst into laughter, as if the idea of me, the tough Secret Service agent, singing in a quartet was beyond her comprehen-sion.

  “Yes, really,” I said, with a smile. “And I also played the trumpet. I wasn’t bad, if I do say so myself.”

  She laughed and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Hill. I don’t mean to laugh, but you are always so serious—I never thought of you as being someone who would sing and play an instrument.”

  “I am serious about my job, Mrs. Kennedy, that’s for sure. But I can have fun every now and then, too, you know.”

  “I didn’t mean to insinuate that you don’t have fun, Mr. Hill,” she said, laughing. “But now that I know you appreciate music, you’ll have to make sure you’re on duty for the state dinner for the governor of Puerto Rico.”

  I was aware that Governor Luis Muñoz Marin and his wife were being honored at a state dinner, but I couldn’t figure out what this had to do with whether I enjoyed music.

  “And why is that, Mrs. Kennedy?”

  “We’re going to have a very special after-dinner concert. Pablo Casals, who is perhaps the world’s greatest cellist, has agreed to play for us. He hasn’t played in the United States in thirty-three years. Isn’t that exciting?”

  Her subtle enthusiasm was contagious. “I’m sure it will be fantastic,” I said. “I guess I better take my tuxedo to be dry-cleaned.”

  On November 13, 1961, I did wear my tuxedo, and while I wasn’t an invited guest, I did stand at the back of the East Room when eighty-four-year-old Pablo Casals played the cello, accompanied by pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski and violinist Alexander Schneider, in what was the most mo
ving concert I had ever heard.

  Being able to showcase the very best talent in the world to emphasize the importance of the arts was one of Mrs. Kennedy’s favorite things to do, and she was very successful at getting the most sought-after performers to come to the White House. For this spectacular evening, she and the president had invited people who truly appreciated this once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear Casals perform in the United States. The guest list included composers Leonard Bernstein; Aaron Copland; Eugene Ormandy; and Leopold Stokowski; as well as Henry Ford II; Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM; oil tycoon Edwin Pauley; and Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, who had been in attendance the last time Casals played at the White House in 1904. Thus it was not just Casals himself, but also the collection of guests that made the night so memorable. I was privileged to have been one of them.

  Mrs. Kennedy was in her glory and as usual, she looked ravishing. It was a white-tie event and everyone in the room was dressed in their most formal attire, but Mrs. Kennedy stood out among everyone with the way she carried herself, and the smile that lit up her face the entire evening.

  There had been a lot of publicity surrounding Casals’s performance at the White House, and while Mrs. Kennedy thoroughly enjoyed the event, when it was over she was eager to get out of Washington. So the next day we headed to Middleburg, for a few days at Glen Ora.

  Still beaming from the success of the Casals performance, Mrs. Kennedy had a stack of newspapers she brought with her. As I drove, she sat in the front passenger seat and read some excerpts of the rave reviews to me.