by Clint Hill
14
Traveling with Mrs. Kennedy
Ravello
Clint Hill leads Mrs. Kennedy through the constant crowds in Italy
On August 8, 1962, Mrs. Kennedy, Caroline, Provi, and I departed from New York’s Idlewild Airport on a Pan American World Airways regularly scheduled overnight commercial flight for Rome. The excellent relationship that the White House transportation office and the Secret Service had with the major airlines enabled me to handpick most of the Pan Am crew. There were certain pilots and stewardesses we had flown with before who we trusted to provide not only reliable service but also a confidential environment. Mrs. Kennedy attracted so much attention wherever she went that the last thing I wanted was to have passengers and crew members bothering her on the flight. For additional privacy and comfort, we had reserved extra seats in the first-class section so that Mrs. Kennedy and Caroline could lie down across four seats. Provi and I sat across the aisle in our own first-class seats, both of us appreciative of the fact that we could never afford to travel like this on our own. There were certainly fringe benefits to our jobs.
We landed in Rome early the next morning and boarded a privately chartered aircraft for the short flight to Salerno. Agent Paul Rundle was there to greet us, along with Prince and Princess Radziwill, a group of cars, a police escort, and, thank God, no press in sight.
Ravello was only about a ten-mile drive from Salerno, but that was an adventure in and of itself over hazardous hairpin-turn roads high atop the cliffs along the Amalfi coast. There were stretches in the road where only a single car could pass, and even though the Italian police had blocked off the route to normal traffic for our arrival, it was still a nail-biter of a ride, as one minor swerve would send you careening into the sea below. The views were spectacular, however, with colorful stucco villas terraced into the steep and rugged terrain, with the sparkling acqua water below. Mrs. Kennedy loved it.
As our small motorcade entered the main piazza in Ravello, it was like we were driving into a festival—all in honor of Mrs. Kennedy and Caroline. Colorful hand-painted Welcome Jacqueline signs hung outside nearly every shop and restaurant, and the cobblestone streets were lined with townspeople and tourists, all waiting to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Kennedy and Caroline. We were greeted by the mayor, a group of dancing children, a live band, and, much to my dismay, an army of photographers. There must have been seventy-five or eighty photographers jostling and shoving each other to get in better position for their shots, and the police were having a difficult time keeping them behind the police lines that had been set up. While Mrs. Kennedy waved and smiled graciously, I could tell that she had the same immediate concerns that I did. Creating the privacy she desired on this trip was going to be an even bigger challenge than we had anticipated. We were going to have to do something about the press.
Finally we made our way through the chaos to the Villa Episcopio, where Mrs. Kennedy, Caroline, and the Radziwills would stay for the next two weeks. Perched high above the Mediterranean Sea, the nine-hundred-year-old stone villa was solidly built into the steep rocky hillside, like an eagle’s nest, overlooking the stunning beauty of the Amalfi Coast. Originally a bishop’s residence, and once occupied by King Vittorio Emanuele III, the villa with its stone archways and wrought-iron entry gates was like something out of a fairy tale.
As we walked through the cavernous living room, out to the veranda, it was like we were suspended one thousand feet above the crystal blue sea with a panoramic view of the entire area. Mrs. Kennedy turned to her sister and said, “Oh, Lee, it’s just magnificent.”
Lemon and orange trees grew all across the hillside, filling the air with their fragrant aroma, while red and fuchsia bougainvillea grew in long draping vines up and around the archways and gates. In all my travels, I had never seen a more beautiful setting.
While the villa had unmatched views, it was a long way from the water, so an additional house had been rented that had beach access. The Conca dei Marini beach was not an expansive strand like those in Cape Cod or Palm Beach, but a small spit of pebbly sand surrounded by high rocky cliffs. The beach house was actually more like a cliffside cottage, built into the rocks about one hundred and fifty feet above the beach, accessible by a narrow and very steep stone stairway. It was much smaller than the villa, but very comfortable, and its key purpose was to be used as a place to get out of the sun, for changing in and out of beach attire, bathroom facilities, and midday meals.
In order to get to and from the main villa and the beach house on the steep, windy roads, we had acquired the use of two open-air motorized beach buggies that held six or eight passengers. Made by Fiat, they were fun little vehicles—kind of like a cross between an oversized golf cart and a Volkswagen beetle. I’m not sure who enjoyed them more—the agents or the children.
All of the agents, meanwhile, had rooms at the Hotel Palumbo, which was conveniently located just a short walk down the street from the Villa Episcopio. Like most of the places in this elite area, the Hotel Palumbo was quite pricey, but the advance agents had arranged a deal with management that made it affordable for us. We were living with and among the rich and famous, but we had to do it on sixteen dollars a day.
Unlike the official state visits, there was no set schedule for this trip. Advances could only be conducted once Mrs. Kennedy told me what she wanted to do, and I knew often we would have no advance notice at all.
“Just come to the villa each morning, Mr. Hill,” Mrs. Kennedy told me, “and we’ll take each day as it comes.”
I was deeply concerned about the press—especially the overly aggressive Roman freelance photographers, the original paparazzi. Fortunately the Italian police were just as concerned, and they immediately laid down some ground rules for the overzealous photographers: no beach, water-skiing, or swimming pictures; no photographs at the entrance to the villa; photographers will be allowed to stand in the public garden forty meters from Mrs. Kennedy; they may photograph her from a distance in Ravello or boarding a speedboat in nearby Amalfi.
Clint Hill in working attire, Ravello, Italy
I had seen how these paparazzi operated, however, and I was not convinced they would follow the “rules.”
The morning after our arrival, I got up, had a quick breakfast of a biscotti and espresso, and packed a bag to bring along with me. There would be no need for a suit and tie, but I had to be ready for waterskiing, a cruise on a yacht, or anything else Mrs. Kennedy might want to do. There was no agenda. Once we left the area of the villa there was no opportunity to go back for something you forgot or to change clothes, so I had to be prepared for just about anything. I dressed in a black golf shirt with black trousers, and filled an airline flight bag with everything I might need: bathing suit, my Secret Service Commission book, diplomatic passport, and extra ammunition. I slipped my handgun into my holster and wore my shirt on the outside to cover it, but when I wore my swimsuit, the gun would have to go in the airline bag, too. The last thing to go in the bag was a bar of chocolate and a small package of nuts I’d stashed away from the flight. One of the first things you learn as an agent is to eat whenever you have the chance, and use the bathroom whenever the opportunity presents itself. There were plenty of days you’d go for ten or twelve hours without a chance to do either, and a bag of peanuts often became lunch or dinner.
When I arrived at the villa, Benno and Nicole Graziani were there, and everybody was sitting around drinking coffee, laughing, and telling stories. It was nice to see Mrs. Kennedy so relaxed, among friends and family with whom she didn’t have to put up any pretense. The group had decided to go to the beach that morning, so we called the police to let them know the plan. Police boats would patrol the coast, and both uniformed and plainclothes officers would be scattered around the area.
We piled everybody into the umbrella-topped beach cars and headed down the steep, curvy streets to the seaside town of Amalfi, where we would then take a boat to the Conca dei Marini. The children loved the min
iature cars and everybody was laughing and kidding around.
We had arranged to have a boat available for waterskiing, sightseeing, and just getting from one point to another. This boat was not your average rental boat, however. It was a Riva—a sleek Italian-made Chris-Craft type boat about twenty-four feet in length that had a highly varnished mahogany hull and an extremely powerful engine. The boat was named Pretexte and came with its own operator, who was on standby for the duration of our stay. He spoke very little English, but we managed to communicate in a sort of charades-type system in which I tried to act out what it was we wanted to do, and he would respond by nodding his head and rattling off in Italian. Somehow it worked.
By the time we got the beach cars down to Amalfi, word had gotten out, and there was a line of photographers waiting on the pier. Their cameras were snapping away as they called out, “Jackie! Jackie! Look here! Over here! Smile Jackie!”
It felt like we were being surrounded by a swarm of locusts.
“Just ignore them,” Mrs. Kennedy whispered to Caroline. “They’ll tire of us soon enough.”
I knew better. Jacqueline Kennedy had become an international star—more popular than Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, and Grace Kelly all put together—and these photographers knew that a picture of the First Lady of the United States of America in a bathing suit was worth big money. The question was, how to get them to stop? Obviously the “rules” set out by the police weren’t working.
When Mrs. Kennedy emerged from the beach house in a dark green one-piece bathing suit with a low-cut back, the photographers went crazy. Some were snapping pictures from balconies in villas perched above the bay, while others were hazardously zipping around in motorboats trying to get a different angle. Benno Graziani, Mrs. Kennedy, and Lee were wading in the water with the three young children trying their best to ignore the circus-like scene that was getting worse by the minute. Benno wasn’t taking any pictures, but his mere presence was creating a problem.
Agent Paul Rundle had been trying to resolve the situation with the police and the photographers, and he had learned that the other photographers felt that Graziani had exclusive access to Mrs. Kennedy, which was unfair to the rest of them. They refused to back off. So Rundle and I came up with an idea. What if we got Mrs. Kennedy to give them ten minutes of photos if they would agree to back off and leave her alone after that? The photographers thought that sounded reasonable. Now I had to get Mrs. Kennedy to go for the idea.
I waded into the water to Mrs. Kennedy, who was pushing Caroline and Tony around on a raft. Her hair was pinned up in the back, with her long bangs hanging wispily in front of her eyes.
As soon as she saw me, she said, “Oh Mr. Hill, these photographers are horrible. Can’t you do something about them?”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about. Apparently they are upset that Benno has almost unlimited access to you, while they are restricted to distant shots. They’ve agreed to stop this aggressive behavior, and promise to give you some privacy if you will just pose for one good photo in your bathing suit.”
“Do you really think they’ll do as they say with just one photo session?”
“I honestly don’t know, but I will tell them that one session is what they get and then they must withdraw and quit harassing you. If they don’t comply, we will make their lives miserable.”
“Oh Mr. Hill, can’t you make their lives miserable without me having to pose?” she asked.
I knew this was asking a lot of her, and was so outside of her comfort zone, but there didn’t seem to be an alternative, other than have her spend the entire holiday inside the villa.
“I think in all fairness, Mrs. Kennedy, you have to give them something or the harassment will only continue to get worse and worse.”
This still didn’t satisfy her. She looked at me pleadingly.
“Can’t you just round them all up and have them sent away somewhere?”
I wanted to laugh, but she was dead serious.
“Unfortunately, Mrs. Kennedy, they have a right to be here, too, because it’s public property.”
Remembering President Kennedy’s instructions to me, I knew he wouldn’t be thrilled about seeing his wife posing for the cameras in her bathing suit, but the alternative was that someone was going to get a shot of Mrs. Kennedy in an awkward position, and that would be even more embarrassing and potentially humiliating.
“All right, if you think it will work, I’ll allow a brief photo session.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Kennedy,” I said. “I’ll arrange it and we’ll try to just get it over with.”
A short while later, Mrs. Kennedy posed on the landing area just below the beach house, in front of a big Welcome Jacqueline! sign the locals had hung from the rocks. The photographers had a field day. She was very cooperative and when they asked for photos of her with the children and Lee, she even agreed to that.
Agent Rundle even got into the action and posed in his bathing suit next to Mrs. Kennedy, the children, Benno Graziani, and the caretaker of the beach cottage.
The next day, hoping the photographers were going to be less intrusive, Mrs. Kennedy decided to go water-skiing.
Mrs. Kennedy poses for paparazzi with Tony, Caroline, and Lee
“It’ll just be Caroline and me,” she said.
Pointing to the water skis and motioning out to the water, I tried to explain to the Italian boat captain what we wanted to do. I spoke in English with my best Italian accent, hoping that perhaps some of the words might sound familiar. Mrs. Kennedy was doubled over with laughter as both of our hand motions got bigger and our voices louder in an effort to communicate. Finally, Mrs. Kennedy interpreted, and off we went.
The police had closed a stretch of water near the beach house so that other boats wouldn’t be a nuisance, and we had Secret Service agents in another couple of boats, but this in itself created attention, and soon traffic was snarled on the hilly road overlooking the bay. I kept watch in the back of the Pretexte as Mrs. Kennedy, wearing a one-piece black bathing suit, easily popped up out of the water on a slalom ski. She skied back and forth across the wake, pulling tight on the rope, leaning back, in complete control, as the growing audience ashore whooped and hollered.
Not wanting to encourage the crowd, Mrs. Kennedy simply ignored them. We made a few loops around and then she gracefully let go of the rope and slid into the water. We raced around to pick her up, but instead of climbing into the boat, she looked at Caroline and said, “Do you want to ski with me, Caroline?”
“Yes! Yes!” Caroline squealed.
Oh God.
“Mrs. Kennedy, I’m not so sure this is a good idea. How are you going to do this?”
“Oh, Mr. Hill, don’t worry. She can stand on top of the skis. Toss me the other ski.”
I knew there was no way I was going to talk her out of this, so I motioned to the agents in the other boat that Caroline was getting in the water.
Little Caroline was such a good swimmer that even though the water was a bit choppy, she had no problem treading water while the driver slowly pulled the boat around to get the rope taut. Mrs. Kennedy put Caroline in front of her on the skis, and, with bended knees, leaned slightly forward so Caroline could hold on to the wood handle of the towrope.
When the rope was taut and straight, I called out, “Are you ready?”
“Ready!” Mrs. Kennedy yelled.
The captain put the boat in gear, and as he accelerated, Mrs. Kennedy popped out of the water with Caroline balanced on the top of the two skis. It was a photo-perfect picture and the press who witnessed it were having the time of their lives.
The ski duo didn’t last but a few seconds, though, as they hit a small wave and both of them toppled into the water. Caroline wasn’t keen to try again, but she didn’t want to get back in the boat, either.
“I’m going to swim all the way to shore, Mummy,” she proclaimed.
Not wanting to squelch her daughter’s enthusiasm, Mrs. Kennedy agr
eed to let her go, provided she have the inflatable ring, and of course a Secret Service agent.
I motioned to the other boat and yelled, “Caroline wants to swim back.”
Agent Paul Landis immediately jumped into the water and swam with Caroline back to shore, while Mrs. Kennedy did a bit more water-skiing.
Sure enough, one of the press photographers with a very long telescopic lens on his camera had caught Mrs. Kennedy and Caroline together on water skis, and the next morning they were front-page news around the world. It ended up causing quite a controversy, especially in Great Britain, where one London newspaper ran the headline:
PLEASE MRS. KENNEDY, DON’T DO IT AGAIN!
The article proclaimed that mothers everywhere were cringing at the picture, and “water skiing is hazardous for grown-ups. For a 4-year-old girl it’s madness.”
I knew what an accomplished water-skier Mrs. Kennedy was, and how strong a swimmer Caroline was, so I never felt they were in any danger. Just as the president wanted to pass along his love of sailing to his daughter, Mrs. Kennedy wanted to expose Caroline to the sport that she loved. Nonetheless, I got the feeling that Mrs. Kennedy may have received some strongly worded advice from her husband either by telegram or telephone shortly thereafter. Caroline did not water-ski with her mother again during our stay in Italy.
It became our routine to go to the beach house around ten o’clock each morning, and have a swim and then lunch, followed by an afternoon activity ashore or on the boat. When Mrs. Kennedy was at the beach house, the Italian caretaker and his wife handled everything. This middle-aged Italian couple adored the children and were eager to do anything for their famous guests. The wife cooked lunch every day while her husband hauled the beach toys, towels—and often the children—up and down the steps.