Mrs. Kennedy and Me

by McCubbin, Lisa;Hill, Clint

  “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.

  THERE 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.

  WHEN 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 Whit
e 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.

  As I watched this sad ceremony unfold, Agent Paul Rundle, a close personal friend, approached me.

  “Clint, is there anything I can do?”

  I simply shook my head no; there was nothing anyone could do. There was nothing anyone could do to relieve the pain, the anguish, the sense of failure and guilt I felt.

  Mrs. Kennedy, along with her friends and family, went up to the second-floor living quarters. I went to my office in the Map Room and wrote some notes about what had happened. After being reassured Mrs. Kennedy was in her quarters with no immediate plans, I got in my car and drove across Memorial Bridge to my apartment in Arlington. It was 6:00 A.M.

  I arrived home to find my seven-year-old son, Chris, and two-year-old son, Corey, still asleep. My wife, Gwen, was there to greet and console me. I managed to shave, shower, and eat a little something before I was back in the car on the way to the White House. There was no time to grieve. No time to rest.

  When I got to the White House, I went straight to my office. Paul Landis had arrived at the same time. I shut the door, and we talked about the events of the past twenty-four hours. It was tough. We were both exhausted—mentally, physically, and emotionally shattered.

  Nobody would ever be able to understand what we had been through. Nobody. Not our families, our friends, not even the other agents. To know the president and Mrs. Kennedy like we did, and to see him assassinated before our very eyes, was the tragic bond that Paul and I shared.

  But there was no time for mourning—we still had Mrs. Kennedy to protect.

  25

  The Funeral

  It had rained overnight, and now the rain was coming down steadily, but gently. It was as if the heavens were shedding tears, mourning right along with the rest of the world. I hadn’t seen a television, didn’t know it at the time, but word of the assassination had spread from Dallas to New York to England, France, and Ireland; to Germany, Greece, Italy, India, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and the Soviet Union; down to Mexico and South America. President John F. Kennedy had touched the world, and now the world was in mourning.

  The agents on the President’s Detail were rotating shifts for President and Mrs. Johnson, and their daughters. Setting up additional security at the Elms—the vice president’s private residence—doing all the advance work for the venues planned for the state funeral. They were short of manpower and working double shifts. Paul Landis and I were the only agents with Mrs. Kennedy. There was nobody to relieve us.

  A private Mass was scheduled in the East Room at 10:00 A.M. Paul and I watched as Mrs. Kennedy gathered with members of the Kennedy family and close friends, as they cried and prayed together, near the casket of the slain president.

  When it concluded, Mrs. Kennedy came up to me and said, “I want to go to the president’s office. Will you please get Mr. West?”

  We called J. B. West, the chief usher, and he met us in the Oval Office. She wanted to make note of the president’s personal things. Things she wanted to bring with her. The packing had already begun. As we walked around the room, everything was a reminder of a special memory. There was his rocking chair, the glass-encased coconut shell from his PT-109 rescue, family photos, the scrimshaw carved into a whale’s tooth she had given to him as a gift the previous Christmas.

  She took one last look at President John F. Kennedy’s office, and we walked out the door.

  I returned to my office and began to add to my notes about the past two days. I knew sooner or later the word would come down: Write a report on all activities of the first lady and yourself and have it ready tomorrow. I wanted to be prepared.

  Early that afternoon Mrs. Kennedy called and said, “Mr. Hill, I need to go to Arlington National Cemetery in a little while. Can you have the car ready?”

  Arlington Cemetery. She had to choose a burial plot for her husband.

  “Of course, Mrs. Kennedy. I’ll be waiting for you in the Diplomatic Reception Room when you are ready to go.”

  I called Sergeant Watkins, the driver assigned to Mrs. Kennedy, and he brought her Chrysler limousine to the south grounds, along with a follow-up car. It was almost 2:00 P.M. when Mrs. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Mrs. Jean Smith, and Mrs. Pat Lawford came down in the elevator.

  Paul Landis and I accompanied them on the short drive from the White House, over Memorial Bridge to the National Cemetery. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was there to meet us. The five of them walked around a portion of the cemetery, comparing the views across the river, and finally settled on a certain spot. Looking across the Potomac at the Lincoln Memorial, and beyond that to the Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol. It was a beautiful location—so peaceful and serene—a place where the public could come and pay their respects. This would be the final resting place for President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

  Throughout the rest of the day, Mrs. Kennedy remained mostly in the second-floor living quarters, where she was conferring with her brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, and others about the funeral, and all activities leading up to it. She was actively engaged in each and every detail of the planning.

  I knew that she wanted it to be perfect, and I marveled at her strength. She had seen her husband brutally assassinated right next to her, the day before, and now she was directing the biggest state funeral our country had ever had. Not only would it be the final event she planned at the White House, but it would also be the most important and the most complicated. On top of everything, though, she wanted it to be personal.

  She remembered how the president had so enjoyed the Scottish Black Watch performance on the South Lawn just prior to the trip to Texas, with their bagpipes and drums and dances. She asked someone to track them down, and ask if they would so honor the president by marching in his funeral procession.

  At midnight, Paul and I were assured Mrs. Kennedy had retired for the night and we discontinued for the day. The next day was going to be busy—a private Mass in the morning for members of the family, friends, and White House staff, followed by a formal procession to the U.S. Capitol, where the president’s body would be taken to lie in state. We both went home, and tried to get some sleep.

  I CAME IN early on Sunday, November 24, knowing there would be endless details to coordinate, and I was thankful for that. As long as I had something to plan, something to arrange, I didn’t have to think about the events of November 22.

  I had been summoned to SAIC Jerry Behn’s office in the East Wing. He knew I was having a difficult time emotionally and wanted to thank me and try to lift my spirits. We were engaged in conversation when Eve Dempsher, Behn’s trusted secretary, interrupted.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Behn, but General McHugh is on the line for Mr. Hill.”

  “Put him through,” Behn said as he handed the phone to me.

  “This is Clint Hill.”

  “Clint, I’m in the mansion and we have a problem,” Godfrey said with urgency in his voice. “You better get over here to the East Room fast. Mrs. Kennedy wants to view the president.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  I excused myself from Mr. Behn and ran from the East Wing to the mansion. General Godfrey McHugh, President Kennedy’s Air Force aide, led me to the East Room, where Mrs. Kennedy was standing by the door with Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

  She was dressed in a black suit, with a knee-length skirt, and had a black veil over her hair. I could tell she hadn’t eaten, hadn�
�t slept. She looked so fragile.

  “What can I do for you, Mrs. Kennedy?”

  She looked at me with hollow eyes and said, “Bobby and I want to see the president.”

  The image of the white-coated doctor pointing out the wounds in the autopsy room flashed into my mind. She had not seen the president since the body was placed in the casket at Parkland Hospital, and I had no idea what her reaction might be. The last time Bobby had seen the president, his brother was alive.

  “All right, Mrs. Kennedy. Let me make sure everything is okay.”

  I motioned to General McHugh and we entered the East Room. He went to the officer in charge of the honor guard and said, “Please have your men do an about-face and leave the room so Mrs. Kennedy can have some privacy.”

  Before the officer could respond, Mrs. Kennedy said softly, “No, just have the men turn around, they can stay where they are. Just have them move away a little.”

  The officer gave the honor guard an about-face and had them take three steps away from the casket. General McHugh and I walked up to the casket, moved the flag down about midway, and opened the casket.

  The mortician had done a great job. The president looked so peaceful. I closed my eyes, swallowed hard, and stepped aside.

  Mrs. Kennedy and the attorney general walked up and looked into the casket. A few seconds went by and Mrs. Kennedy turned to me and said, “Mr. Hill, will you get me a scissor.”

  “Yes, of course, Mrs. Kennedy.”

  I walked briskly to the usher’s office and got a pair of scissors and brought them to Mrs. Kennedy. I turned around, and took a few steps away to give her and the president’s brother some privacy.

  As I stood there, I could hear the sound of the scissors. I knew what she was doing.

  Bobby lowered the lid of the casket, and as they turned and began to walk away, the sight and sound of their agony is something I will never forget. Mrs. Kennedy handed me the scissors and they walked to the elevator and went to the living quarters.