Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir

by Clint Hill

  In early February, Jerry Behn, the Special Agent in Charge of the White House Detail, informed me that, after much discussion and several postponements, Mrs. Kennedy was going to India, and Pakistan as well. I would be in charge of the advance, working closely with Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith.

  “Mrs. Kennedy’s sister, Princess Radziwill, will accompany her on the trip,” Behn said, “and the tentative schedule I’ve been given has them traveling the entire month of March: four days in Rome, seventeen days in India, five days in Pakistan, and three days in London. But you know as well as I do, that schedule will change.”

  I laughed. “Jerry, with Mrs. Kennedy nothing is ever carved in stone.”

  He smiled. “Yes, I’m well aware that she prefers things to be—shall we say—unstructured?”

  “Yes, you could say that,” I said, with a smile.

  “But listen, Clint, whatever resources you need, just let me know,” Behn said. “I know it’s not going to be easy.”

  It was an ambitious itinerary—and the first time an American first lady had ever visited India or Pakistan. In both countries, Mrs. Kennedy would visit a number of different cities, and each one had to be advanced. There was no way Agent Jeffries and I could adequately protect Mrs. Kennedy on our own, so I selected a team of agents from the President’s Detail and other field offices, choosing men with whom I’d worked before on trips like this, and on whom I knew I could depend.

  Based on my past experience in that part of the world, I knew there was a good chance some of us were going to get sick, so I assigned two-agent teams at each location to do the advances. The itinerary was so complex that the teams of agents would need to leapfrog from one city to another, without a break. Advancing Mrs. Kennedy’s trip to India would be the most challenging assignment of my career thus far.

  So it was that on February 16, 1962, I and fourteen other Secret Service agents boarded a Pan Am flight at New York City’s Idlewild Airport headed to New Delhi. It would take us nearly two days to get there, with stops in London, Frankfurt, Munich, Istanbul, Beirut, and Tehran.

  For the guys who hadn’t been on Eisenhower’s India trip, New Delhi was an eye-opening experience. The U.S. Embassy security officer met us at the airport with a bunch of cars and drivers to take us to our hotel. As we drove through the streets of New Delhi, I watched the expressions on the faces of my colleagues as they saw what we were going to be dealing with.

  Sharing the road with trucks and cars were horse-drawn carts, stray cows, pigs, goats, rickshaws, tractors, and every so often, a camel strutting along, all seemingly oblivious to the traffic around them. Darting in and out of this chaos, were people on bicycles. Everywhere you looked there were bicycles. And there wasn’t just one person to a bicycle. More often than not, there would be two, three, or even four people pressed together, balancing with their legs dangling as the driver pedaled with all his might to propel the bike with the extra weight.

  Along the side of the road, vendors with street carts were selling fruits, vegetables, clothing, pots and pans, fabrics, tires, and sandals. People were cooking over open fires, as small, naked children with protruding bellies wandered amid stray animals and mounds of garbage. The dust and dirt created smog that made your eyes tear, while burning cow patties and elephant dung gave off an almost unbearable stench. Dotted throughout this slumlike environment were bright splashes of turquoise and pink and yellow as women in flowing saris and veils carried huge baskets of grass or clay pots of water on their heads. It was like we were in the middle of a traveling circus.

  Everywhere I looked, I thought of what Mrs. Kennedy would think, how she would react, and most important, what we were going to have to do to protect her in this unsanitary and unpredictable environment. She was scheduled to arrive on March 1, eleven days later, and we still didn’t have the final itinerary. Pakistan had its own set of problems, and I was going to have to fly to Karachi as soon as we got the India portion squared away.

  I pulled out a notepad and jotted down thoughts as they came to me: purified water, imported fruits, soap, medical supplies, gloves. Mrs. Kennedy wore gloves to church and often to formal banquets, but here I thought she could wear them not just for fashion, but also to keep her hands clean. She would need plenty of gloves.

  I had worked with the State Department to arrange hotel rooms at the elegant Ashoka Hotel in the diplomatic section of New Delhi for the duration of our stay there. The rooms were luxurious, and due to the favorable exchange rate between the dollar and the Indian rupee, were well within our per diem, which had recently been increased to sixteen dollars per day.

  Colonel Gordon Parks from the White House Communications Agency (WHCA)—we called it “Waca”—had come with us to set up a secure telephone and radio system so that we could communicate directly with the White House. It never ceased to amaze me how, even in a third-world country like India, he could pull out a stainless steel case filled with wires and electronics, piece it all together, and voilà!—we had a phone line to the White House. While this was normal procedure when the president traveled, it was highly unusual for a first lady’s solo trip. But there was a specific reason WHCA came along.

  Shortly before I left on the trip, President Kennedy had called me into his office.

  “Clint,” he said—he always called me Clint—“I want you to stay in touch with Jerry Behn’s office and Tish, and make sure any changes Ken Galbraith wants, you clear with us before they’re put on the schedule. He’s trying to make this jaunt to India last forever, and I don’t want Mrs. Kennedy overscheduled.”

  So, shortly after checking in, while Gordon was setting up the secure phone connection in a hotel room at the Ashoka, my first order of business was to meet with Ambassador Galbraith at the U.S. Embassy.

  I had heard that Galbraith was extremely tall, but still, when he approached me with his lanky, six-foot, seven-inch frame, I was somewhat taken aback. He had to bend down to shake my hand, and I felt like I needed to stand on my tiptoes to look him eye to eye.

  “Welcome to India, Mr. Hill,” he said with a kind smile. His voice was gravelly, and somewhat high-pitched for a man. “We are all very excited for Mrs. Kennedy’s visit.” He laughed and added, “It has been the talk of the country for three months now.”

  “I can assure you, she is very much looking forward to this trip, Ambassador.”

  As it turned out, when he showed me his plans for Mrs. Kennedy, nothing was the way it had been presented to me when I left Washington two days earlier. I quickly understood the problem President Kennedy had predicted. Ambassador Galbraith wanted Mrs. Kennedy to be able to see as much of the country as possible during her stay, and he had her crisscrossing from New Delhi to Calcutta to Bombay and all the way down to Bangalore and Hyderabad, up at 7:00 every morning and going nonstop until midnight.

  The ambassador was so enthusiastic, I almost felt sorry for him. This was somewhat ironic since besides towering over me physically, the ambassador was also intellectually intimidating. He was a renowned economist and one of President Kennedy’s most trusted political advisors, and here I was in the middle of these negotiations. One wrong move would not only be the end of my career, but could easily turn this trip into a full-blown international disaster.

  “Why don’t we plan to meet every afternoon, say around five o’clock at my residence,” Galbraith said at the end of the meeting. “That way we can brief each other and handle any problems before they arise.”

  “That sounds great, Ambassador. I’ll see you tomorrow at five.”

  The meeting had gone well, and I liked Ambassador Galbraith. He really had the best of intentions and wanted nothing more than to show Mrs. Kennedy the India he had come to know and love. But if he had his way, she would be trekking from one end of India to the other for six weeks. I had to get on the phone to Washington right away.

  There was a ten-and-a-half-hour time difference between India and Washington, D.C.—I had never heard of time zones in half
hour increments but so it was in India—so when it was daytime in Washington, it was nighttime in New Delhi. Later that night I called SAIC Jerry Behn, while Gordon worked the frequency. Unfortunately, the shortwave radiophone connection was terrible—not by any fault of Gordon’s; it was just that international telecommunications at that time were still rather primitive. There were echoes and delays and often we would just get cut off completely. With all the stops and starts, I didn’t get to bed that night until after 3:00 A.M.

  So that became my routine. Early evenings at Ambassador Galbraith’s residence, followed by a midnight call to Washington that usually lasted two or more hours, catch a few hours sleep, up at dawn to work logistics, meet with Indian security officials and political representatives. Then report back to the ambassador’s residence and start the cycle again.

  I would get the ambassador to remove two stops from the schedule, and then he’d come back the next day with one more. It was two steps forward and one step back. The White House staff was the source of another major problem—they kept changing Mrs. Kennedy’s departure date.

  Frustration reigned on all sides and it was a bit like I was in the middle of a diplomatic game of tug-of-war. Just when it seemed the trip might not happen at all, President Kennedy called Ambassador Galbraith himself. I don’t know what was said, but after the phone call, the ambassador rather sheepishly accepted everything I had proposed and the schedule was finally set. What had started as a seventeen-day itinerary in India alone, had been successfully whittled down to nine days.

  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky as Mrs. Kennedy stepped off the plane at the New Delhi airport on Monday, March 12, 1962. Dressed in a bright pink silk coat and matching hat, she looked absolutely stunning. The crowd of three thousand people that were standing behind fence lines on the tarmac broke into a welcoming roar.

  A group of about twenty press people had accompanied Mrs. Kennedy and her sister Lee on the flight, including Frances Lewine from the Associated Press, Sander Vanocur from NBC, Marjorie Hunter from the New York Times, and Barbara Walters from NBC’s Today show. They were eager for comments from Mrs. Kennedy, but she largely ignored them.

  Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, together with Ambassador Galbraith and an array of government officials were there to greet her and as she went down the receiving line, I could tell by the enthusiastic smile on her face that she was truly excited to be here. After greeting her hosts, she looked around and saw me. Our eyes connected and she mouthed, “Hi, Mr. Hill,” before carrying on with her hosts.

  Agent Jim Jeffries had accompanied her from New York, along with another agent from the New York Field Office. As the Special Agent in Charge, Jeffries would be with her throughout the trip, while I would continue supervising the other agents conducting the advances throughout India and Pakistan. At least that was the original plan.

  MORE THAN ONE hundred thousand people lined the roadway as we proceeded by motorcade into central New Delhi. I couldn’t believe it. Mrs. Kennedy and Lee sat in the back of a convertible Mercedes sedan, provided by the Indian government, with Agent Jeffries in the front seat, while I rode in the follow-up car. Snake charmers, men on the backs of camels, bullock carts and their drivers, all lined the route waving and shouting, “Jackie! Jackie! Welcome Mrs. Kennedy!”

  I had seen this kind of reception in Paris and South America, but on those trips she had been with the president. Here, all of these people had come out just for her.

  We took her to the guesthouse arranged by the U.S. Embassy, where she had a short time to relax. Her first official visit was with President Rajendra Prasad at his 350-room presidential mansion, the Rashtrapati Bhavan. As it turned out, President Prasad had just addressed Parliament and as was the custom, would be traveling in a grand procession filled with pomp and circumstance from Parliament back to his mansion. Upon arrival at the airport, Prime Minister Nehru had mentioned this to Mrs. Kennedy and suggested that she might like to see the parade prior to her meeting with Prasad.

  She of course loved the idea. Agent Jeffries immediately tried to squash the improvised plan because it hadn’t been advanced.

  “Let her do it, Jim,” I urged my supervisor. “We’ll get her in a safe position and make sure she’s covered.”

  I had told Mrs. Kennedy the first time I met her that our job was to allow her to do the things she wanted to do, and keep her safe at the same time.

  Jeffries acquiesced and we got her to a viewing platform where she could watch. The seventy-seven-year-old president arrived riding in an open, horse-drawn carriage surrounded by spear-carrying horse-mounted bodyguards in scarlet tunics and high turbans. It was like a scene out of a movie and Mrs. Kennedy loved it. She really enjoyed pageantry of this sort—people in traditional costumes, showcasing their country’s history and civilization. Like her husband, Mrs. Kennedy was a history buff, and this seemed to bring history to life. She couldn’t thank Nehru enough for suggesting it.

  After a brief formal meeting with the president, our entire entourage of Indian security officials, dignitaries, an army of press, and our small contingent of Secret Service agents headed to Old Delhi to the site where Mohandas K. Gandhi had been cremated, after his brutal assassination in 1948. Hundreds of women and children, all dressed in bright colors, lined the gravel path that led to the tomb, and they applauded as Mrs. Kennedy walked past.

  Prior to her trip, Mrs. Kennedy had studied the history of India and Pakistan so that she would be knowledgeable in her discussions with the country’s leaders. She was well aware of Gandhi’s significance to the country, and how his life had ended so suddenly, at the hands of a lone gunman, just fourteen years earlier. I remember how she so carefully took the wreath of white roses someone handed to her and gently placed it on Gandhi’s simple tomb. And then she stood there, silently, in prayer, for a full minute of respectful contemplation.

  THE NEXT COUPLE of days were nonstop: lavish luncheons and dinners interspersed with cultural tours and poignant visits to children’s hospitals, and a ceremony in which she presented to Indira Gandhi a portable American classroom equipped with art materials, known as the “Children’s Carnival of Art.”

  Everywhere we went Mrs. Kennedy caused a sensation. At one point, a baby elephant was paraded in front of her and she asked, “May I touch him?”

  Agent Jeffries said, “No, Mrs. Kennedy that’s not a good idea,” at the same time the elephant’s handler said, “Yes, it’s fine.”

  Mrs. Kennedy reached right over to touch its trunk, and the little elephant reacted as if it were being tickled, wrapping its stubble-covered trunk around her hand. She was laughing hysterically—she just loved animals—while Jeffries looked like he was about ready to physically remove her from the situation.

  He wasn’t much happier when Mrs. Kennedy showed up in full riding attire—jodhpurs, boots, blazer, and helmet—to go riding at the exercise grounds of the President’s Bodyguard. The President’s Bodyguard is the elite cavalry regiment of the Indian army, and they had magnificent horses and exquisite training grounds. Mrs. Kennedy was in her element as they brought out a mare named Princess for her to ride around the beautiful jumping course. I had no worries at all as I watched her expertly take the jumps, her eyes shining, and a look of sheer exhilaration on her face. I had convinced Ambassador Galbraith to arrange this respite in the itinerary for her, and she loved it.

  After three successful days in New Delhi, I was off to Karachi, to set up everything in Pakistan, while Mrs. Kennedy was off to Agra and the Taj Mahal, Benares, and Udaipur. The press followed her everywhere, and from the daily newspaper articles, it appeared as if everything was going smoothly.

  She would tell me later the details of what I had missed—watching the spectacle of the young men diving fifty feet into the water tank at Fatehpur Sikri in their underwear, spending hours at the Taj Mahal with a mob of tourists and photographers who wouldn’t leave her alone, riding an elephant with Lee at the Amber Fort
in Jaipur, riding down the Ganges in a riverboat as thousands of people ran to the shores to watch her go by.

  At the time, however, I had no way of knowing what was happening with Mrs. Kennedy and the trip after I left India, and I didn’t have time to worry about it. Pakistan was going to be a whole different set of problems.

  THE CAPITAL OF Pakistan had been moved temporarily from Karachi to Rawalpindi in the late 1950s and was in the process of being permanently moved to Islamabad, but most of the U.S. Embassy business was still being handled in Karachi in 1962. Located on the Arabian Sea, Karachi was one of the most squalid places I had ever visited. When I was there with Eisenhower, we actually brought in a U.S. Navy ship and kept it anchored offshore, and that’s where the Secret Service agents and staff slept and ate. I was working the midnight shift and will never forget the sight of trucks patrolling the streets in the predawn hours, as a laborer poked at the bodies lying on the side of the road to see which ones were alive and which were dead. They’d throw the dead ones into the back of the truck and continue on. The poverty was mind-numbing.

  Fortunately, Pan Am had made arrangements with one of the hotels in Karachi, in which they had a completely separate area for their flight crews. It was very basic, but Pan Am brought in all the food, water, and linens so it was up to American standards—and they graciously allowed me to stay there while I advanced Mrs. Kennedy’s trip.

  Meanwhile, as I ironed out the wrinkles in the proposed schedule for Pakistan, I was confident that Mrs. Kennedy was being well taken care of by her hosts in India, and that the agents I had assigned to each place were capable of handling any problem that should arise. I had no way to communicate with them, except through the embassies.

  ONE NIGHT, SHORTLY before Mrs. Kennedy was due to arrive in Pakistan, I was sound asleep in my room when I heard someone pounding on the door.

  “Mr. Hill! Wake up! Mr. Hill, wake up!”