Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey With Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford

by Hill, Clint

  The two presidents rode in the host country limousine—an open-top Mercedes convertible—waving back to the thunderous crowd nearly the entire way. It was the largest, most exuberant reception he received on the entire trip, and by the end of the twenty-seven-hour visit, he and Ceauşescu were arm in arm.

  Nixon’s trip concluded with a stop in Great Britain to meet with Prime Minister Harold Wilson before returning to Andrews Air Force Base late on Sunday night, August 3, where once again I was there with Vice President Agnew for the formal arrival ceremony in, as luck would have it, a torrential downpour.

  Throughout the president’s trip, I devoured the news reports and watched the television coverage with mixed feelings. In the seven months I had been with Vice President Agnew, we had developed a very good relationship. He was extremely respectful to our team of agents, and he trusted us to the point that if we made a recommendation or told him not to do something, he complied without question. President Nixon, on the other hand, was much more distrustful of the agents, and clearly he was taking risks that flew in the face of Secret Service recommendations.

  Still, even with the stress and anxiety that came with being on the president’s detail, I couldn’t help but be jealous of the guys who were there. That’s where the action was, and that’s where I wanted to be.

  SPIRO AGNEW, HAVING been born and raised in Baltimore, was a huge fan of the Baltimore Colts football team. As we were heading into the fall of 1969, Vice President Agnew’s assistant Art Sohmer and his advance man J. Roy Goodearle came to me one day and asked if I had any concerns about taking the vice president to a professional football game.

  “I don’t see any problem with that,” I said. “As long as we have plenty of time to advance the situation. We’ll just make sure we have agents strategically placed.”

  With my nod of approval that it wouldn’t be a security problem, they sat down with Agnew, and as they went through the hundreds of events for which he had received invitations to speak, any event in a locale that happened to coincide with the Colts’ schedule got priority.

  We watched the Los Angeles Rams beat the Colts in Baltimore, and the next week we saw another crushing loss to the Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis. But as the season went on, Don Shula’s team gained momentum. And so it was that I happened to see thirty-six-year-old Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas set a National Football League record with sixteen straight pass completions in a victory over the New Orleans Saints at Tulane Stadium—in a game that, by chance, was the same weekend the vice president had agreed to speak at a Republican fund-raiser in New Orleans.

  As we were flying to New Orleans, playing a game of cards, Agnew asked me, “Clint, have you ever been to Brennan’s?”

  “Brennan’s?” I asked. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “Oh my God,” he said with a look of astonishment. “The best shrimp creole you have ever eaten in your entire life.”

  I accompanied Vice President Agnew to Brennan’s restaurant in New Orleans, where they knew what he wanted when he walked in the door—a double order of shrimp creole. That’s where Spiro Agnew introduced me to Cajun food, and I’ve loved it ever since.

  IT WAS AROUND this time that Vice President Agnew started garnering a lot of attention for his rather unique choices of words during some of his speeches—speeches he was urged to make on behalf of the administration so President Nixon could remain above the fray. Spiro Agnew was a good speaker, and along with the talents of speechwriters William Safire, Pat Buchanan, and Cynthia Rosenwald, he came up with some memorable lines that really caught people’s attention as he went on the offensive against Nixon’s detractors. It all started that weekend in New Orleans.

  Anti–Vietnam War sentiment had continued to escalate, and on October 15, on college campuses and city streets across the nation, one million Americans—most of them students and people in their twenties—staged the largest protest against the war to date, calling it Moratorium Day. More than 20,000 marchers descended on New York’s Bryant Park; 15,000 in Philadelphia; 10,000 in Minneapolis; 15,000 in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and over 20,000 in Washington, D.C.

  Agnew was disgusted by the demonstrators. In his speech at the fundraiser in New Orleans, he said, “Education is being redefined at the demand of the uneducated to suit the ideas of the uneducated. The student now goes to college to proclaim rather than to learn. The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as ‘The Generation Gap.’ A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete core of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.”

  On November 3, President Nixon addressed the nation in a live television broadcast in which he explained, in basic terms, the complexities of the Vietnam War he had inherited and his plan for peace. He gave a name to those who were not speaking out against the war—“the great silent majority” and asked for their support. In the hours and days following the speech, telegrams and letters of support poured into the White House by the tens of thousands. The response from the public was overwhelmingly positive. But the television news networks and newspaper editorials were lukewarm at best. The speechwriters went to work.

  On November 13, in a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, Vice President Agnew castigated the national news media and challenged people to stand up to the powerful news outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times.

  “In the United States today,” he said, “we have more than our share of nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H club—the hopeless, hysterical, hypochondriacs of history.”

  After that speech, Agnew began to develop something of a cultlike following, and the media had a field day. People could hardly wait to hear what was going to come out of his mouth next. No longer did anyone ask “Spiro who?”

  IN THE LATE fall of 1969, I was consulted about the vice president making a trip to the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, with stops in Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, Nepal, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, and a return stop again in Hawaii. We decided a pre-advance trip needed to be done, so a team was put together with me representing the Secret Service, along with a representative each from the military aide’s office, WHCA, the vice president’s staff, and press advance. The State Department would be represented in each location by the ambassador.

  We departed Andrews Air Force Base on an Air Force 707 and stopped at each location except Vietnam. That part of the trip was kept secret for security reasons. It was a quick, exhausting survey trip, but we had few difficulties. When we returned to the United States we submitted our report and recommendations. Our biggest concerns were, not surprisingly, the anti-American factions against the U.S. role in Vietnam, but we believed we could provide adequate security for the vice president.

  As a result of the pre-survey, the official trip was sanctioned, so my staff and I put together the necessary advance teams, and they were dispatched immediately. The twenty-six-day trip would begin the day after Christmas 1969 and would encompass 37,000 miles to eleven countries plus Guam and Hawaii, returning to Washington on January 19, 1970.

  It would be my third time visiting the region during the Vietnam War, and I knew anti-American sentiment had only grown more fervent. Fortunately, because of my demand for more agents on the Vice President’s Detail, we had a terrific team already in place that worked extremely well together, and most important, we had a very good relationship with Vice President Agnew. I had confidence that we could keep Agnew safe, but I also knew that we couldn’t possibly predict what might happen. One thing I didn’t anticipate was having my name appear on the front page of the newspapers again, with the words “bomb” and “assassination” in the headlines.

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  Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts

  The purpose of the vice president’s trip to Southeast Asia was to further the Nixon Doctrine—urging Asian nations to develop economic balan
ce and self-sufficiency without relying on the United States to bail them out—but at the same time reassuring Asian leaders that the United States intended to stand by its treaty obligations. In addition to the typical staff and press people on the trip, Vice President Agnew had invited Apollo 10 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Tom Stafford, and their wives, to join him. As head of the space program, Agnew and his wife, Judy, had become good friends with some of the astronauts and their wives—several times we had taken the vice president to backyard barbecues at the Cernans’ home—and it was thought that bringing the astronauts along would add some star power to the trip.

  On a personal level, I was fortunate to be able to spend quite a bit of time with both Cernan and Stafford on this extended trip, and it was truly an honor and a privilege.

  We departed from Andrews Air Force Base on December 26, 1969, and, after a refueling stop at Travis Air Force Base, headed to Hawaii for an overnight stay, then on to Guam, finally landing in Manila, Philippines, on Monday, December 29. The trip coincided with the inauguration of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, who had recently been reelected for a second term. There was a large contingency of detractors who despised Marcos’s connection to the United States, however, and there had already been a number of threats to Marcos’s life. Vice President Agnew’s planned attendance at the inauguration only added fuel to the fire.

  I had vivid memories of the last time I was in Manila with President Eisenhower in June 1960, when four million people lined the motorcade route and nearly overwhelmed us with their exuberance. President Eisenhower was a hero to the Phillippine people, and America was held in the highest esteem. Now, less than a decade later, the world had changed dramatically. Anti-American protestors had come to be expected almost everywhere we went—be it in the United States or abroad. And just six months earlier, in this same city, a potential assassination attempt on President Nixon had been thwarted. Everyone was on the highest alert.

  The advance agent did an excellent job of keeping the airport crowd restricted to a few hundred people, and after Agnew made a brief statement, we got into the prepositioned cars and headed to the presidential Malacañang Palace, where the vice president and his party would be staying. The crowds were relatively small, with hundreds of Phillippine police and security agents out in force.

  We had time for just a brief rest and a change of clothes before it was time to go to the evening event—a formal reception in honor of Vice President Agnew at the U.S. Embassy. Meanwhile, a group of about one hundred protestors had gathered outside the embassy and were awaiting the vice president’s arrival.

  It was a two-mile drive between the palace and the embassy, and I rode in my standard position—in the right front passenger seat—with Vice President Agnew directly behind me in the rear of the car. We had insisted on closed-top cars—no convertibles—and knowing Agnew as well as I did, I was not concerned that he might try something like Nixon had.

  As we got closer to the embassy, we could hear chanting: “Agnew go home! Go home!” and soon we came upon the crowd, many of them carrying signs that said: AGNEW GO HOME—YOU’RE NOT WELCOME HERE! and AGNEW—CROCODILE OF THE U.S.

  Just as we approached the embassy gate, I heard an explosive noise that came from behind. My head whipped around toward the noise, and I saw a plume of white smoke about fifteen feet behind our car.

  “Get inside, fast!” I said to the driver. At the same time, the agents in the follow-up car jumped out and surrounded our car and ran alongside until we got inside the embassy gate.

  It turned out to be what they called a Molotov “bomb”—a glass bottle filled with powdered explosive material (as opposed to a Molotov “cocktail,” which contains liquid explosives)—and while it had given us a jolt, even if it had hit the car, it would not have caused significant damage. The vice president was unfazed, and fortunately no one was hurt. But most of all, I was pleased with the way our agents had handled the situation.

  The U.S. press made it seem like a much bigger deal than it actually was, with headlines like: “Agnew Eludes Assassins at Manila Inauguration” and “Filipino Hurls Bomb at Agnew’s Auto.”

  Some of the articles—written by reporters who knew me well—mentioned me by name: “Secret Service agent Clint Hill sat in front of Agnew. Hill, in charge of U.S. security for the Agnew visit, is the man who jumped on the convertible of President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.”

  I certainly didn’t want any publicity, and I hoped this incident was not indicative of what we could expect for the rest of the trip.

  The security at President Marcos’s inauguration was extremely tight and well executed. There were five thousand people in the crowd, and when Vice President Agnew was introduced, there was polite clapping. Moments later, Apollo 10 astronaut Eugene Cernan was presented to the crowd, and the place erupted with a thunderous roar of applause, whistles, and cheers.

  That turned out to be the case everywhere we went. Cernan was with us on the first leg of the trip, and Stafford would join us a few days later; and every time they appeared, they were a big hit. The astronauts had brought trunks full of gifts along with them—unique gifts straight from space. For each country’s leader, slivers of moon rock were encased in plastic bubbles mounted on wooden stands that contained the recipient country’s flag. They’d also present a photo of the country taken from space, and each time it was given, Cernan would quip, “If you look closely, you can see your house.” The leaders loved it. No doubt about it, the astronauts were major diplomatic assets.

  AS THE CALENDAR turned from the 1960s to the 1970s and people around the world were celebrating with champagne and kisses, I was on Air Force Two, headed to Saigon, South Vietnam, with Vice President Agnew. While en route, we received the weekly casualty report: in the last week of 1969, 86 Americans had been killed and 557 wounded. That number pushed us over a sobering milestone—in the past ten years that the United States had been involved in the Vietnam conflict, 40,000 Americans had died. It was hard to fathom. One could only hope that Nixon’s plan would get us the hell out of this mess.

  On arrival at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vice President Agnew immediately boarded a helicopter and we flew to meet with President Thieu at Independence Palace. From there we were scheduled to fly by helicopter thirty-seven miles northwest to Firebase Kien—the first gun base operated jointly by U.S. and South Vietnamese troops under President Nixon’s “Vietnamization” plan as part of the Nixon Doctrine. But while the vice president was meeting with Thieu, I received information that there had been sniper fire in the area around the base. I gathered as much information as I could, and when Agnew came out of the meeting, I pulled him aside.

  “Mr. Vice President, we have substantiated reports of sniper fire near Firebase Kien, where we were planning to go next. Now, I am not too concerned, but I wanted to make sure you are fully aware of the situation. Do you want to proceed as scheduled?”

  “I’ll leave it up to you, Clint,” he said. “If you think we can go, let’s go.”

  “Yes, sir. Let’s play it by ear. I’ll stay on top of the situation, and if we need to turn back at the last minute, we can do that.” That was typical of my relationship with Agnew. He trusted my judgment and never questioned my decisions.

  We went ahead as planned, and fortunately didn’t run into any trouble. Agnew remained upbeat, and he clearly enjoyed talking with the servicemen.

  “People back home are pretty darned proud of you and what you’re doing over here,” he said to one group. “Don’t be misled by what you might read in some publications. It just doesn’t reflect the feeling of the American people about the job that’s being done by American fighting men in Vietnam.”

  The young men, in general, seemed in high spirits, but at one point as the vice president was shaking hands with a group of GIs, one of them looked at him earnestly and asked, “Mr. Vice President, when will we be going home?”

  I took a deep breath and squinted, look
ing away, as I waited to hear how the vice president would answer. How many had asked the same question—if not directly, in their minds or in their prayers? Forty thousand of them hadn’t come home. I didn’t want to think how many of these soldiers would die here too.

  Agnew didn’t try to lie to the young man. He looked him directly in the eye and said, “I hope for your sake you’ll be out soon. But I don’t know what soon means.” The soldier nodded, and the vice president moved on down the line.

  We stayed for just fifty minutes and then flew to Fire Base Patton, where Agnew told the troops of the 25th Infantry Division, “I hope this year is the end of this.”

  Meanwhile, President Nixon had flown to his coastal residence in San Clemente, California, to spend a quiet New Year’s Eve with his family, followed by a two-week working vacation at the Western White House. Four thousand people had been waiting in the rain for hours to greet him at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. For nearly fifteen minutes, he and Mrs. Nixon shook hands with an exuberant crowd, and when a reporter asked him what his hopes were for the New Year, he said, confidently, “I expect peace in Vietnam before another Christmas.”

  In the past ten years, four presidents had tried to find a way to resolve the situation peacefully and with honor. None had struggled more than President Johnson. But now President Nixon was in the hot seat, and the eyes of the world were on him.

  THE REST OF our trip through Asia went well, without any major incidents. From Taipei to Bangkok and on to Nepal, moon rocks were handed out at every stop, and the astronauts continued to be immensely popular.

  From Nepal we flew in a propeller-driven DC-6 to Kabul, Afghanistan. This was a nostalgic moment for me, as I remembered arriving at the same airport in 1959 with President Eisenhower on his multination tour, driving on the same roadway past similar crowds of Afghan people in turbans and bright-colored robes. The airport and roadways built with the aid and assistance of the Soviets. There was a smattering of anti-American, antiwar demonstrators—one held up a sign that said: STOP KILLING VIETNAM PEOPLE—but very few. Everything looked the same as it did in 1959, with the exception of a new Intercontinental Hotel—a plush oasis in the center of rather primitive surroundings.