An Evening with Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin

in August 2009 he told author police of the cutting quote I do not talk ever about that date the also coalition never never will write a book but maybe the judge followed their first reading let learn that he could trust Lisa with storage that he had never told before writing together became therapeutic for both of them they have now written in public three bestsellers in their writing and in their travels they also found each other ladies and comin please welcome Lisa McCubbin and the genuine American hero of mine Clint Hill please [Applause] [Applause] fifty-two years he was a White House Fellow but he went on to bigger and better things with more important titles including one that was president not up the United States but of an organization but the biggest best title I can think of is friend because Tom has really befriended the Secret Service and its members and without his help it would not be the organization that reduce today start to happen all the agents in the Secret Service I'd like to thank you Tom for what you've done for us [Applause] I wanna give you a glimpse into our latest one five presidents my extraordinary journey Eisenhower Kennedy Johnson Nixon Ford and Lisa become who is the writer we'll be asking you some questions so well thank you all we're so glad to be back here in Austin Clinton Hill was born in January of 1932 was in the middle of the Great Depression his mother already had five children and she realized she could not care for him properly so she baptized and when he was seventeen days old she dropped him off at the North Dakota children's home in Fargo North Dakota luckily for Clint when he was three months old a wonderful family Chris and Jenny Hill adopted him they also had a daughter Janice that they had adopted and he grew up in the small town of Washburn North Dakota in this home population 912 plant growing up in this tiny town in North Dakota did you always think that you wanted to be a Secret Service agent my goal was to become a history teacher I majored in history and physical education and minored in education so I wanted to teach history coach athletics but I graduated college ready at the end of the Korean War and so I had to go into the military after basic training day sent me to Fort Holabird Maryland the Army Intelligence Center and then training me to be a special agent in counterintelligence and I did that for a number of years which time to get out of looking around for an organization that would have a similar investigative background in the Secret Service that's the counterintelligence core I found the secret service which at that time had only 269 agents in the entire organization and so there were no openings but a man retired and I finally got that job and I started out with Denver Colorado so he had only been in the sequence for less than a year and he was transferred to the elite White House presidential protective detail President Eisenhower was president at the time and this is Clint standing in the doorway there that was back when they wore hats and so what was it like working for President Eisenhower well you know he was a military man so he brought that military bearing right with him into the Oval Office if you gave him a skill and told him that he had the lead we had to be departing the White House at 9:30 a.m. at 9:20 9.30 leaves in the car ready to go he was either lying on us a great deal but we were not his favorite people and he wouldn't call us by name they would simply treat us like the treated the true see to say engine and we would respond but we had a great deal of respect for him and we enjoyed working with him a great deal and shortly after you were assigned to this detail I think was the only about a month you got to go on quite a trip it was your first overseas trip ever yes and the airport's of just acquired three 707 Jets made it available saw present I have now decided to take advantage of it so one day we took off man whose Air Force be floated Rome Italy is on the anchor up Accra down to karachi karachi up due to cobble cobble down to New Delhi there down over to take arrived Tehran dasom's grab the USS Des Moines it took went across the Mediterranean to gymnast got back the night Des Moines went over to Toulon France took a train to Paris got back my hair before swine flew down to the dream to see General Franco and then to down to see the Kingdom Morocco and then we were able to come up my first kid in North Dakota that was quite the adventure and you can see from all these photos they had open cars wherever they went and crowds everywhere and then Clint you were given a particular assignment during the election 1960 in 1960 when Nixon was running against Kennedy and I was working I was assigned to President Eisenhower and he hadn't done much for the Nixon campaign in that year so in the very end of the campaign he decided he needed to do something so he decided he wanted to go to New York so they sent an advance crew to New York Stu night Harvey Henderson for round one myself I was the junior agent we had our own assignments mine was the motorcade from the heliport at Wall Street up through the canyons to Harold square and on to the Waldorf and this is what you saw and proceeded the vice president and the president both in that same office are going up the canyons of New York City at noon it was a mess and I was scared to death but thank God for the New York police and the New York City field office with me okay so then in 1960 John F Kennedy was elected president and that was quite a transition yes we went through 70 year old grandfather to a 43 year old father there's a three year old girl a 31 year old wife who was very very pregnant and so we knew the activities member was going to be completely different so now normally planet been assigned to the President and now with a new president you assumed you were reassigned to John F Kennedy but that's not how it happened not at all I was with present Eisenhower donut Augusta National you've doubted the day after the election and they told me I had to go back to Washington because the chief wanted to see me so I went in to see the chief I thought maybe I done something wrong they set me down as chief treatment 3 inspectors and he started to interrogate me going over my entire background a bit that date already investigated they knew exactly what was in my background but it took about 90 minutes and then five gave me and said okay you're being assigned to mrs. John F Kennedy I was angry disappointed disgusted mad I didn't want that job because I knew what the English was best Truman that maybe Eisenhower dead and what the fashion shows what's that the game to be where the action was that was always with the president but as it turned out he at the best assignment in all the Secret Service being assigned to Jacqueline Kennedy yes we went everywhere oh they are coming out of church up in Cape Cod that's this is Kennedy the president and this is going to church sermons you can see the crowd that was there no matter where we went with them there's a maximum crowd situation crowd control became a bigger problem and so you've got to know the president very well also and you spent a lot of time I've been Hyannisport with them we did they had a regular schedule they would go to Hyannis Port for the summer usually for at least the fourth of July up to Labor Day then down to Newport Rhode Island to mrs. Kennedy home for a few days come back there on Thanksgiving the winter times they would spend Christmas New Year's in eastern Long Beach floor but here is a typical situation president has arrived is flown in over to the Kennedy compound from Otis Air Force Base where you landed in Air Force One going by helicopter we put this golf cart out for him he get off there the helicopter and walked out another golf course yellow anybody for ice cream and all of his nephews and nieces and Caroline's and John come running get on board there's two blocks away to the ice cream store you have to put the bill all the time even when they're on vacation they're really not a vacation no that's typical this is up on the cake there everybody is having a good time the families but the president in the background you see they're on the phone and that was very typical of any president this one included they're never really off there's always something going on somewhere that they're involved in areas on the phone can't even be talking to his family so Clint you've got very close to mrs. Kennedy and she trusted you implicitly over those years and sometimes she would ask you to do things that were a little bit outside the job description of a Secret Service agent way outside they went the Florida one weekend in February of 1963 and we got there mrs. Kenney indicated me that she and president we're going to go to a friend's house for dinner so I'll have my assistant there Paul Anna's I went to the motel we stayed in buddy o'clock at night I was sitting on the end of my bed my shorts a t-shirt and a full rap there was mrs. Kennedy she said Oh mr. Hill the president and I would like to have you do something for me I said to fine man what's that she said well you know Prince Radzi was here that was her brother-in-law and shucks balding that was presidents closest friend and then I'm going to go on a little hike and occasionally the president I are gonna go check on them and we know the Secret Service is going to have to have somebody out there when we do that and we think that should be you I said fine man but when do they want to start she said Oh Bob midnight supply then we're right there so I hung up that back of the bed said now what am I going to wear to go on this little line fifty miles so I had a pair of fortune shine shoes that were pretty sturdy we addressed wingtips so that's what I put on drove over picked up the prints and chucks balding in the way we went started walking down a little so do deconstructed sunshine highlight now you see the prints up there in front on the right that's me in the dark behind him this is Kennedy sister Lee juck Spaulding's a tall gentleman and mrs. Kennedy checking us up then the president would stop by there you see the two men are resting the president is actually given me a bad time because I've allowed them to rest what I didn't know was that there was a wager involved the president had bet them they could not go 50 mile they bet him because the president didn't want me to allow them to rest he wanted me to make them walk continuously so they couldn't make it but we ladies got to the end of the 50 miles put in the car drove back to Palm Beach I was so anxious to get back to the motel to a hot shower and a bed got their behavior said the president wants to see have a little party and the president mrs. Kennedy had prepared a little met construction paper with a chain made on a crate paper to hang around my neck and it said for dazzle that was my codename dad February 23 1963 the order of the pacemaker aim whom the Secret Service will follow into the Battle of the sunshine highway I'm John F Kennedy one of the surprise possessions so we might give you an idea of what it was like for these agents back then to protect presidents when they traveled Clinton how many agents were on the detail at that time there were 48 keys total three assigned to the two children two of us assigned to the first lady five assigned to the transportation section the 30 assigned the president that was three shifts of ten but on each shift there were certain number of agents on either annually sick leave or on advanced assignment so that generally speaking left only five ages with the president at any one time here we are Dublin Ireland you've see the crowds people hanging up windows on balconies on top of it buildings in any place they could get to see the president this is this pasta Rica I had to call the military out to get the President to the crowd it was so dense then we went into Mexico City you know Mexico City sits up around 9,000 feet but that's not snow that's insane so much you can say that it filled up the open car over he was English was the Mexican president's car filled it up right to the top of the seats and this is the ink bin ein Berliner speech site in Berlin President Kennedy made that famous speech bin ein Berliner thousands of people on top of buildings on balconies open windows every place to take it be and we had eleven number of Ages around the present five to ten Secret Service agents protecting the president and there were no magnetometers at that time so Clint how did the trip to Texas why did that come about well President Kennedy that was Vice President Johnson and governor Connally in El Paso in the spring of 1969 they decided that in order to win the election of 1964 they needed to carry the two biggest states in the south with the most electoral votes Florida and Texas so they decided that Kennedy was going to Florida which he did the weekend of November 16 17 and 18 and then he would come to Texas and be joined by Vice President mrs. Johnson and governor Connally and his wife Nellie and then we traveled throughout Texas and they wanted it to be a maximum exposure trip so that as many people as possible could see if the Kennedys with vice president and the governor and mrs. godly and they wanted them to be an up-close-and-personal business we had flown this car it says 100 eggs from Washington to San Antonio which was our first stop this is at San Antonio International Airport see the people on top of the terminal the inside the terminal was absolutely packed with people as well as we prepared for the motorcade there in San Antonio we travel through the streets of San Antonio on our way to the drugs medical facility which was being dedicated that day as an aerospace medical facility and President Kennedy was to give a speech you see and her speaking and on the platform you see Vice President Johnson off to the right next to mrs. Kennedy and mrs. Johnson and then Governor Connally and mrs. Connolly and citizen government they were all there to dedicate this facility so we finished that drove up to Kelly field where they owned Air Force wanna give the motorcade a longer journey through the city for more people and we went from San Antonio to Oh to Houston dr. Houston and there was a large crowd there and president mrs. Kennedy went immediately to them to shake hands who is very typically am but not very typical of her we then got on the interstate or the highway there and used to be went to downtown to the race hotel and traffic just stopped and people got old all over the place so there when we start into the rice itself that's myself on the Left I know what I'm doing with my hand like this president miss Kennedy and mrs. Johnson right-hand side so then within the hotel there was a group having a meeting called the LULAC group which with a Hispanic group and so we went there the President Kennedy introduced or tried to talk to people then he turned and introduce mrs. Kennedy to the crowd and she spoke to them in Spanish and the place just erupted with applause and when she finished then vice president Joss was to give some remarks and he simply stood up and said I think everything is but the Senate needs to be said we couldn't follow that we then went over to the Colosseum for a testimonial dinner to congressman Gelber Thomas who brought this aerospace industry to Houston Texas they were honoring him that night back on the Air Force wanna pull over Cardwell Air Force Base Fort Worth but they're pretty late at night it was raining lightly and when they traveled down to the hotel Texas in Fort Worth so here we're trying to get into the hotel you see the presidents there and I'm here right behind us it's Kennedy right behind me is Rufus Youngblood and yeah I name is spike President Johnson and so we had to fight our way through this crowd of thousands of people trying to get into the hotel in forward so that was the first day all of that took place November 21st so then Friday November 22nd we wake up and you're in Fort Worth and the first thing that happened was there were so many people who wanted to see it here for the Kennedy that we had to establish an aide a special speech sight outside the hotel in a parking lot that was not on the original schedule it had to be at so it was raining like new that morning and President Kennedy came out with Vice President Johnson speaker Jim Wright and he addressed the crowd there in the parking lot in the rain and then he had to went to a breakfast within the hotel so when he finished the breakfast in the hotel he and mrs. Kennedy would be going through Fort Worth back airports wanted Carswell Air Force B and you've seen the people that turned out the same day it turned out the schools permitted the students to get out and go to see this to see the president mrs. Kennedy invited to visit Johnson and put some of their high school band in various intersections it was a real carnival atmosphere as we traveled through it was a remarkably large exuberant and friendly crowd there was hardly don't negativity whatsoever so now you're going to let me get this straight fly from four ports to Dallas didn't make much sense to us either Philippe what the political people wanted to photograph the president mrs. Kennedy coming off the rear guard force one in Dallas at Love Field and so took us longer than taxi on both damage of the flight an addictive life so we did that and this is Kennedy president come off the rear of Air Force One to be greeted by the vice president mrs. Johnson who they just saw ten minutes before so they then went through the receiving line when a president decided want to shake hands with the crowd by the fence this is Kenny went along with it which was somewhat unusual for to do she doesn't really like to do that kind of thing but she knew that she was going after to support him in his 1964 a bit little bit like press was going crazy with the photographers getting up on anything to take it get up I don't happen to feel that we've worked our way down the line of the crowd just got back yes that's one other - which had been flown from San Antonio now to Dallas this car in the front seat or the driver bill Grier and the supervisor Roy Kellerman governor Connally sitted city immediately in front of President Kennedy in what we call a jump seat it falls from the front to the back the back of that jump seat is right up against the president's knees in front of mrs. Kennedy was Nellie Connally you see that aluminum bracelet runs across the top of the car which is a front attachment for a bubble top if you were going to use it and that makes it impossible for the agent who's in the right front seat to get into the back without getting out of the car but that's the way that car was constructed and we were instructed that there would be no bubble top then it was to be an up-close-and-personal trip in and around Texas that they didn't want it to appear that there was anything between themselves and the people who were going to vote click the reason you were there on that trip is because mrs. Kennedy was there so your main protection was mrs. Kennedy that day mrs. Kennedy was my responsibility yeah so as you go into Dallas what was the feeling like large crowds so large they could not be contained on the sidewalk extremely friendly very exuberant something that the politicals were hoping for didn't think that would happen but it did they were very pleased governor and mrs. Connolly were pleased as well so were the Kennedy that's correct so there you see we're driving down the street and I'm let you see me I'm on the back of the car now and the reason I am is that the driver was keeping the car to the left-hand side of the street the candidate President Kennedy was in the right rear that kept him away from the crowd on the right-hand side but that put mrs. Kennedy right up next to the crowd on the left-hand side so I was get off the follow up car which was right behind the president's car and get up on top of the back of the presidential vehicle to be as close to mrs. Kennedy in those situations as I could and you'll notice the driver has now opened his door to use as a wedge to keep people back away from the car I was not on the back of the car some people have said well why didn't you go straight down Main Street because our destination was a trademark we had to get on the Stemmons freeway going toward the Trade Mart if we went straight down Main Street there was a concrete barrier that prevented us from going right and so we had to turn right on Houston left on Elm to get to that Stemmons freeway going in the proper direction well that foot is right in front of the Texas School Book Depository and you can see that turn there they're going to make that left turn it's a very sharp turn so that meant the cars had to slow way down normally we were running 10 to 12 miles per hour the distance between the presidential car and the fall of car under most conditions was about three feet in this canoe situation we slowed down below 10 miles an hour briefly as we tried to make that turn onto Health Street this is the follow-up car I'm in the front position on the running board it's an agent behind me two agents on the other side of the running board two agents in the back of that car one with a rifle to a President Kennedy's assistants are in the car Kenny O'Donnell at Dave powers and then the driver and a supervisor in the front seat so we're traveling down Elm Street and notice the motorcycles right next to him on either side as we were traveling down I was looking over to the left that toward a grassy area there were a few people there and then I was looking straight ahead there was a triple underpass we had to go under there was a policeman up there I noticed so all of a sudden I hear this explosive noise over my right shoulder from the rear I didn't recognize it as a gunshot initially so I started to turn toward the noise to see what it was and in doing so my eyes passed across the back of the presidential car now the agents on the other side of the car were doing the same thing they're returning to see if they could locate what this noise was and the people in the crowd if you noticed many of them are looking up toward the Texas schoolbook depository they've come there to look at the president but that's not what they're looking at because of the noise from the gunshot they were looking up at the Texas schoolbook depository when I recognized it as a gunshot because I saw the president grabbing his throat like this and then he started to fall to his left I knew then that it was a gunshot I jumped off the car started to run toward the presidential vehicle my intention was to get up on back and form a shield there to protect both president mrs. Kennedy I had to negotiate my way between a motorcycle officer and the car I was on there was a lot of engine noise I didn't hear the second shot the agents told me later there was one while I was running the noise and the engines prevented me from hearing that when I got close to the presidential vehicle there was another shot President Kennedy at that time his head had gone down his chin was on his chest he was leaning up against mrs. Kennedy's face and the shot hit him back here but it erupted 'add right here out of this portion of his head it was a real eruption of blood bone fragments brain tissue and that material got all over the back of the car all over me all over mrs. Kennedy she then came up on the trunk she tried to grab some of that material that had come out of the president's head and she did get a hold of some of it when I got up there I grabbed her put her in the back seat when I got her into the back seat the president's body fell to its left now his head was in her lap right side of his face was up you see his eyes were fixed there was a hole in the skull I could see there was no brain tissue in that area whatsoever I thought it was a fatal wound I turned and gave a thumbs down to the follow-up car crew to tell them how serious it was screamed at the driver to get us to a hospital chief Currie from Dallas got in front of us in a lead car and led us to Parkland Hospital you can see the position Clinton they were racing down Stemmons freeway at speeds of 70 to 80 miles per hour as he was in this position now there were only three shots he didn't know they were only going to be three shots he fully expected more were coming and he kept his body in this position the four-minute horrifying ride to Parkland Hospital so what what happened when you arrived at Harper when we got to Parkland we had a difficult time because we had to remove governor Connally from the car first because of the way he was seated in the car we couldn't do anything for the president before we remove governor Connally we got him up on a gurney they rushed him into the emergency room and program Tomic trauma room to then we were gonna try and help the president so I mrs. Kennedy had a hold of it and she wouldn't let go I said please mrs. Kennedy let us help the president I got no response at all I pleaded with her again nothing then I realized I'd been with her now for a little over three years I knew her pretty well and I thought well she doesn't want anybody to see the condition the president is in because it was deplorable so I took off my suit coat covered up his head his upper back soon as I did that she let go we lifted him up put him on the gurney and rushed him into trauma room one as soon as we got him in there doctors came from all over the hospital to do what they could for him but by one o'clock they said we're sorry the president is dead I'd been instructed to call the White House by my supervisor to let make sure they our officers knew exactly what was happening I told the operator to keep the line open was talking to my senior supervisor Geraldine and the operator cut in and said mr. Hill the Attorney General wants to talk to you I said okay so noise yes mr. Attorney General is it Clint he said what's going on down there so I explained to him that both the governor and the president had been shot that we were talking hospital the doctors were doing every they could he said well how bad is it I did not want to tell Bobby Kennedy that his brother was dead so I said it's as bad as it can get and as soon as I said that he onto the phone and he knew the condition of his brother you were charged with getting a casket and you and the other agents then loaded that casket onto Air Force One correct we did we took the casket up to Air Force One the rear door the Air Force crew had removed seats in the rear of the Air Force One so we could place it there we had a problem when we got to the door with the handles on you see the big handles there it was just a little bit too wide so we had to rip and tear at the handles until we got him off in order to get the casket inside the Air Force One then vice president mrs. Johnson were on board they had been conferring with Washington and they'd the decision been made that they would he would be sworn in as president while we were still on the ground in Dallas we were told that required a federal judge they located Sarah Hughes who was brought on board to do that mrs. Kennedy meantime was in the next room sitting by the presidential casket she sent word to me I was in the forward portion of Air Force one that she wanted to see me so I went back to the presidential compartment to where she was seated she stood up she grabbed my hand and she said Oh mr. Hill was gonna happen to you now and I said I'll be okay mrs. Kennedy I'll be okay she was concerned about how I was reacting as well as the other agents because she knew how much we thought of the president so then mrs. Kennedy went to standby as vice president Johnson took the oath of office and became president of the United States she had not changed clothes and she had not cleaned up because she said she wanted the people to see what had been done there I'm standing in the doorway behind LEM John's and Roy Kellerman and a witness did this swearing-in ceremony so then Clint was on that long flight back to Washington DC arrived around 6 o'clock that evening we arrived at Andrews who says the Naval Hospital of today ambulance out there for us to transport D as its casket in the Air Force had put a hydraulic lift there at the rear aircraft so we would have an easier time of moving the casket which was extremely heavy from the doorway down to the level of the ambulance mrs. Kennedy was joined by Robert Kennedy there on Air Force one to make that trip by vehicle to Bethesda Naval Hospital meanwhile president mrs. Johnson exited the aircraft and President Johnson spoke for the first time since the assassination as the president just outside of Air Force one there at Andrews Air Force Base so for the next four days the world basically stopped as people try to understand what had gone on nobody could believe this and on November 25th 1963 was the funeral for a president john f kennedy and mrs. Kennedy's indicated she wanted to walk behind the caisson during the court eyes movement and the funeral I was very concerned about the security matters that involved because of the numbers of people that were going to be there they're going to be off about a hundred visiting heads of state and I finally convinced her that maybe she should have shortened the distance she was walking so she only walked from the White House to st. Matthews on up Pennsylvania Avenue and that's what you see here it's Robert Kennedy mrs. Kennedy and Teddy Kennedy in the front row it's myself on the left her half brother Jaime sergeant Shriver Steve Smith her brother-in-law and another agent and then you see President and mrs. Johnson Lucy and Linda and Aaron on the left is agent Livengood 8th Youngblood agent Thompson boring they and Kevin on the right we then started to walk and behind us came about a hundred plus heads of state that were there including Charles de Gaulle Queen Fredrika of Greece King butuan of Belgium Crown Prince Harold of Norway Prince Philip from the Great Britain and Haile Selassie the Emperor of Ethiopia those are just a few of the names the president had just been assassinated it was a security nightmare after the services former presidents Truman and Eisenhower who attended the services came out and came up to the vehicle that mrs. Kennedy was in to express their condolences I'm standing there on the left as they both talked with mrs. Kennedy let's market Truman behind her father and then we took the body to college the National Cemetery for the burial and it was getting for an evening as the ceremony concluded at Arlington National Cemetery I was ordered to remain with mrs. Kennedy and by the President and then a new legislation was passed creating protection for mrs. Kennedy for life or until she remarried and for the children until they we reached the age of 16 so I was sent with to be with mrs. Kennedy and remained with her for a year she moved to New York laughs just in October of 64 we were in New York President Johnson was campaigning and he came to the city of New York City Robert Kennedy was running for the US Senate from New York and they came to see mrs. Kennedy at at residence 10:40 Fifth Avenue as myself in the middle as they did farewell that day in right after the election what happened to you November of 1964 I was transferred from mrs. Kennedy to the went back to the White House and became part of the White House detail assigned to President Johnson so what was that transition like going from jacqueline kennedy to LBJ well it was considerably different it was a different type of personality different type activity completely different wasn't we weren't going to Cape Cod we were going through the LBJ Ranch in Johnson City Texas and here we are at the LBJ Ranch as it looked at one time early in the administration see the house there with a pool that's a hanger up back in the background that White House turned out to be our security house but it would became this as a after the transformation these buildings painted that army green I guess you'd call it just some of this White House communications agency communications equipment and personnel ready personnel capability for Air Force pilots because we had a jet star on standby there we also had helicopters there we had have helicopter crews and maintenance personnel there and then we had our own agents there we had to have fire department equipment because of the aircraft so it was quite an operation there at the lpj rank well he had a belief that if he didn't tell anybody what he's going to do nobody could do him harm and so a lot of times we didn't have a clue what he was gonna do such as this one day the ballet this airforce Stewart comes out of the house he's got a hang up bag and a little suitcase now we knew the valium wasn't going anywhere that meant the president was so the jet stock crew ran from the ready room out to get in the Jetstar because we didn't know if we're gonna fly to st. Louis Detroit or Houston the helicopter food crew ran out to get in the helicopter because we might be going into Austin and the agents ran to get the cars ready because we might be going over to the Morrisons or maybe to the Lewis Ranch or up to the lake we didn't know we never knew but you see back there the golf carts coming the presidents in the golf cart we didn't have much time to get ready to wherever we were gonna go but that was rather typical and the president President Johnson loved his ranch there in along perdón Dallas River so much so that he had press conferences on the front lawn he would bring in heads of state and Heads of Government but he also bring in members of the cabinet area see the secretary defense and the members of the joint Steve can join chiefs of staff conferring on the front lawn about the Defense Department budget for the next year or he might want to go and then it was an everyday occurrence twice a day we'd go out and drive through the various ranches to check the cattle it was the dance the Lewis the Cheyenne horse we weren't sure where we were going but we knew we were going to one of those ranches every day you might want to go over to the lake because he went over to the lake he would have guests and he loved when he had a female guest to get her in this little car and drive her around and all of a sudden go down a ramp right into the lake while she screamed help we're gonna drown he's saying I don't have any brakes and this happened to be President Kennedy's sister eunice Kennedy Shriver and in this particular situation that's Paul Glenn one of the air force stewards that worked with President Johnson in the back but it was all in good fun everybody had a good time so then you were there during the inauguration as well this is a 1965 that's me on the right rear of the car that car by the way is the same car that was used in Dallas that President Kennedy was riding in when he was assassinated shortly after the assassination the car was returned to the Ford Motor Company it was completely enclosed with armor and bullet resistant glass and so that's what we use in the inauguration parade in 1965 yes we'd go out and he wanted to be among the people so he either get on top of the car or just stand in the doorway anything's to be among the people so this was very typical well I'm back in a follow-up car saying come on get back in the car so this is a typical operation then we went down to Australia and we had some great reception but some not so friendly in one case they started throwing balloons filled with paint and that's roof with John but on the back covered in paint LEM John's on the left front it was so bad that the agents had to go to the hospital to make sure their eyes were cleansed so they didn't have to didn't suffer any permanent damage but all while this was going on out in front of the White House and almost every place we went there were demonstrators anti-war demonstrators across the street in front of Lafayette Park demonstrators along did the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument demonstrators over at the Pentagon demonstrators no matter where we went there were demonstrators it became a real problem he became pretty good friends with this gentleman on the Left Prime Minister Harold Holt of Australia in December of 1967 we got word that Prime Minister Holt had drowned while swimming in the ocean off of Australia I had been appointed special agent in charge of presidential protection and so President Johnson decided he wanted to go down to Australia for the funeral so we flew down to Australia now we were pretty aware that this wasn't just going to be a funeral trip there are very few people who knew exactly what the trip was going to entail Jim crossed the pilot he knew Rufus Youngblood he knew from the secret service point of view and jack valenti knew pretty much because he was the contact with what turned out to be the Pope so what happened was after the funeral we took off from we were in Canberra we took off but we didn't head back to the United States we headed toward Thailand we landed in Darwin had refueled and flew on into Karate Air Force Base in Thailand president Johnson wanted to debrief some of the pilots who had just came in from a bombing run over Vietnam this is what they did from Herat we flew down to Cameron Bay in Vietnam that's President Johnson and general Westmoreland on the back of that Jeep and that's myself in the dark suit behind them as they trooped the line then President Johnson wanted to go in and shake hands with the troops he would ask them where they were from how long they'd been there he wanted to make sure they understood he cared so then from there we flew over to Karachi Thailand because president wanted to meet with president I hope Khan so he met him there in a hangar near the aircraft there stripped and spent a looped inaud just a few about an hour and a half there at one point President Johnson turned to me and said plenty said get the president here some refreshments so I had to steward some Air Force One : find out what they wanted they were able to provide them with some beverages but then we took off from Karachi and we flew to Rome President Johnson wanted to see the president of Italy and the Pope so when that concluded we got back on Air Force One we were going to head back to the United States a little more than that but it wasn't much more than that it was I had slept hardly at all nor had any other agents so between the time we took off from Rome and the next stop was gonna be the Azores to refuel President Johnson when he got on board in Rome put on his pajamas went to bed and the Presidential Suite so when we were airborne I laid down myself to get a little nap Jim cross a pilot had radioed ahead to the commander of the air force base in the Azores and asked them to keep the Post Exchange open because it was now Christmas Eve and nobody on the aircraft had been able to do any Christmas shopping and so we were going to stop there to refuel and he asked him to keep the PX open so the president is in this suite sleeping wheel and they bring up a couple Air Force buses everybody gets off the plane and gets into buses I told him I'd stand there with the president gwanak-gu shopping so I'm down at the foot of the ramp walking back and forth thought the president was up there sleeping all the Sun is it hey Clint where is everybody said well mr. president you know it is Christmas Eve they've opened the PX and they've gone to the PX to buy some Christmas presents for their families said well I haven't been shopping either let's go now he's standing up there in his yellow pajamas he's got his slippers on reaches back in a closet pulls out a trench coat puts that on comes walking down the steps I grabbed an Air Force driver and car put him in the backseat way to the post exchange we go get to the PX walking there open the door you could have heard a pin drop nobody in there could believe the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces the leader of the free world was walking around in the middle of night in his pajamas buying Christmas presents lucky for him the press had gone on to Shannon to refuel they never caught a picture yes it was the end of March 1968 I'd gone home I knew the president were gonna make a speech from the Oval Office didn't have to stay there for that so I was home I had my TV on listening to the speech we got to the last line he said I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president I almost fell out of my chair I had no idea he was going to do that here he was he had been the leader of the Senate he had been the vice president of the United States and now he was President of the United States and he was giving that up why well one of the reasons was he did some things you don't oughta win probably in the middle of night he'd get up he'd pick up the phone call the situation room and have them give him the numbers how many killed how many wounded he kept that every night it was really starting to get to him then once in a while he'd have us take him to a Catholic Church down on Main Avenue where Lucy had gone to church and he'd go in and sit and talk to the monks didn't stay there long but it gave him a chance to just talk to them he knew that they'd never say anything and the Vietnam situation was bothering him so much I think it became a major reason why he decided not to run again in 1968 so then four days after this speech Martin Luther King was assassinated yes he was assassinated in Memphis and we learned about it immediately and as you see here's the president is there and he's probably on a phone with J Edgar Hoover trying to find out as much information as he could as members of the staff are watching your reports on the three TV sets that were in the Oval Office [Music] yes about 2:00 in the morning phone rang I had a phone right next to my bed direct line to the White House switchboard rang so I knew it was the president already something really urgent so picked it up it was president said Klan he said you know we're going to that memorial service out at National Cathedral for King tomorrow said yes first read it we're already said look says I want you to keep the cars close to the arrival door as if you possibly can and I want you to stay as close to me as white on rice all through the services and so that's what I did here you see us coming out that's me immediately behind him those are other senior agents on either side I see Tom Johnson there behind Bob Taylor this was the services for dr. King he was anxious he was concerned that this could happen to him what happened to dr. King and then just two months later Robert Kennedy was assassinated and you got another middle-of-the-night phone call yes notified that he had been killed and immediately President Johnson contacted Rufus Youngblood directed that all candidates that were running for the office of president be protected immediately and he later signed a document authorizing that protection which became law and is still in effect today as we stood there and watched him sign that declaration so then Richard Nixon won his party's nomination for for the presidency in 1968 yes and so the President Johnson thought he would be a good gesture to invite President Nixon come down to the ranch and he could brief him there so they set a date and he can food out in the ranch brought with him vice president nominee Agnew dick Helms head of the CIA the press secretary to President Nixon or then nominee Nixon President Johnson ambassador Cyrus Vance Bob Haldeman Jim Jones Tom Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk enjoying a lunch and laughing at some remark the President had just made then he wanted to take Richard Nixon out and sit and talk to him one-on-one just outside the ranch house these are his ranch clothes now that day after Nixon and his staff left the ranch Clinton you received a package I'd received a package that morning and I opened it up and and it was a pair of claws a set of clothes a shirt pair of hands and I wasn't too sure you know it was from the president but didn't know quite why and so I just put him back in a package and so we went through the day Nixon and Agnew get on the plane and leave and I went back to the command center and phone rings President Johnson he said yeah Clady said you get that package I said you said yes mr. president of the wonderful set of clothes I've thank you very much said no nice eh don't want to see you I in them he said you put them on I'm out here at the pool you come walking out here I want to see what it looks like so I put him on walked out by the pool you see the presence in the pool that's one of his airforce stewards there as I stood there and modeled him now if you don't think it was embarrassing for me to put those clothes on in the command center where all the agents were you know it was but they were very very high quality nice clothes I didn't want to get them dirty so I didn't wear them the Johnson treatment oh yeah I had a sore breasts bones from the Johnson treatment because he loved to get up close and personal even closer than that now here he's telling me a story so that was fun but if he had something that was very serious on his mind and occasionally I didn't even know what he was talking about and he would get up really close and then he'd start the oh it hurt but it gave him relief then that was fine so I just Dan and take it so then Richard Nixon was elected president once again Clint was not assigned to the president you happen to be assigned to the vice president they came to me and said you know Clint he said you were assigned to the Kennedys you worked with the Johnsons we don't think you're going to get along with the next I said I think you got that all right so they said here's what we want to do we want to make you the agent in charge of vice presidential protection and I said okay so we made some changes and staffing required that the vice president have a dedicated aircraft required that might spread and have a dedicated physician required a certain number agents on the detail and they agreed to all that and so that's how that detail began and we went down for the the launch of the manned space shuttle to the moon there we are I'm there with Vice President mrs. Agnew there was vice president then print former president and mrs. Johnson right behind President Johnson is Tom Johnson who seated there in the front row enjoying that launch vehicle shot so quickly tell us what was Nixon like in comparison well we knew him as a vice president but when he came back as a president warning in 1969 he was a different person he everybody who runs for office is really happy about getting that Oval Office that's where they sit and they work and they love it Nixon established an office over in the executive office building across the street he spent as much time there as he did in Hill the walls for some reason he would like to be alone and that's where he would meet it and discuss things with people so then in 1972 one middle of the night I get a phone call it's the Intelligence Division informing me that there'd been a break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters they'd made some arrests so I said well what's that got to do with us they said well we're not sure but here are the names of the people that were arrested so they read off none too or they got to the fifth name and they said James McCord I thought well gee name is so much familiar but not sure okay thanks very much so I waited so that early that next morning by 8 o'clock I thought I would call the deputy director who was close with the Nexen staff his name was Pat Boggs so I called told Boggs what had happened and then I started to read off the names and I got to I said James McCord and all I could hear was this profanity at the end of the phone I knew I had struck a chord that was something going on and I remembered who he was former CIA agent specialty was in eavesdropping and bugging and we knew him very well and at that time he was employed by an agency we referred to as creep committee to re-elect the president he was working for President Nixon and a Republican Party so things started to unravel and then separately vice president Agnew resigned ultimately Nixon resigned and Gerald our Ford became president and you were there during that transition as well yes on this morning on August 9th President Nixon made his speech in the East Room to his staff saying goodbye then they came out on the South grounds to get on a helicopter and Nixon walked off the steps and he gave it the usual and I was standing in the back and I said to myself I said what the hell does he think he's won he's leaving in disgrace but that was just the way he was so then President Ford took the oath of office and made a speech in the East Room in which he said our national nightmare is over and for all intensive purposes it was so then first trip the president Ford made was to Chicago outside the city of Washington he went to the fort the VFW National Convention there in Chicago and so I went along I wanted to see how the agents on the detail were getting along with he and his staff and I found out it was a different doing an actual job but it was very enjoyable to see this gentleman as he was really well received by the VFW there in Chicago so then in July of 1975 in the middle of President Ford's administration Clint retired from the Secret Service he was 43 years old Plante I know you said that originally growing up in Washburn North Dakota you never had any intention of being a Secret Service agent you wanted to be a history teacher well as it turned out you have become a wonderful history teacher thank you [Music] we would like to have any questions that you have there's speaker there's microphones in the aisle please use them we have a few minutes of questions so if you want to just come up to the mic walk over to the microphone and it doesn't matter what the question is I think I've heard them all okay my father he was in that children's home long before you were memories from Wahpeton I told you anyway Lisa if it wasn't for you this mystery would have been lost that would have been divorced think of the tragedy of not having what he saw what he thought what he experienced [Music] [Applause] I was in the apartment in Vietnam came under fire when you were when those shots rang out you had no clue how many we're going to come you just reacted I know it happened to me but you reacted you saved probably mrs. Kennedy thank God you weren't hurt if God wanted to take President Kennedy at least he didn't take you thank you for your service thank you mr. Hill could you talk about the visit from Elvis Presley well what one I was at the in headquarters at the time I was dissing director one day my secretary come around again she said mr. Hill you're not gonna believe this I always Presley just showed up at the Northwest gate he wants to see the president he said he'd say I have an appointment they said no I doesn't have an appointment he just wants to see him I said well you got to turn him away you know well okay so then they said one of the guys that was working I said we better let the staff know so they notified president's staff that Elvis had showed up well they said oh this is the opportunity so let's get a hold of him he was staying at the hotel Washington think it wasn't so they got in touch with him and they had him come over and he went in to see the president and he brought a gift a gun you want to give the president a gun so we had to take your gun away and examine it and all that kind of stuff but there he was and they took photographs and you'll see him very popular photograph of Nixon and Elvis Presley in the Oval Office but I mean it was one of those things that just had to be there to believe it well we got maybe one here yes sir did you keep in touch with any of the people you'll protected after you left uh mrs. Kennedy and I kept in touch a little bit she when I left she would phone me periodically usually because there was a problem with the agents who were dealing with the children and so we would discuss it and how I'd get it resolved for but I last time I ever saw her talk where there was that Robert Kennedy's funeral in 1968 that was the last time I have seen Caroline a couple times since then but you know we're not social friends or anything well you don't really in 1963 I think was that summer a number of the agents requested transfers away from the White House detail because the travel was just too much and their wives were just about fed up and they were gonna file for divorce for myself I was gone about 90% of the time I was never there for my children's birthdays any of the holidays and so they pretty much grew up without a father their mother really raised him fortunately for me my two sons and I are closer now than ever it was a long time before that really occurred it was a it's very difficult under the conditions that were limited for us at that time to maintain a family and have that kind of job in Dallas I imagine that you would have had to take some sort of personal time were you allowed any time away from we were not given any counseling I can give you my schedule the assassination occurred on the 22nd we've brought the president's body back to the White House at 4:30 in the morning on the 23rd 6 o'clock in the morning in the 23rd I went home showered shaved changed clothes came back to work because the agents had been with mrs. with the President Kennedy we're now with President Johnson that left the two agents that had originally been assigned myself and one other with mrs. Kennedy the three agents who were the children were the children and a few agents from the Washington field office to supplement us at Midnight's but other than that we I had no we'd had no days off for the foreseeable future and we've spent some time a lot of time away from Washington we left that week we the funeral was on the 25th which is a Monday was also with John F Kennedy Jr's birthday by the way third birthday the 27th was Caroline's birthday the 28th was Thanksgiving and we flew to Cape Cod so mrs. Kennedy could brief her in-laws came back to Washington moved him out of the White House on December 6th to a house in Georgetown owned by Averell Harriman he moved he and his wife moved out left their staff just let her have the house with the kids then we took mrs. Kenny and the children to Florida where they spent Christmas and New Year's so we didn't have any time for ourselves at all yes sir mr. Hill ask you which president are you most fond of yeah well you know I get that I get that asked all the time and I really don't yeah yeah I really don't have a favorite each one of them are they're so different the one thing that all five of the presidents I worked with had come was a large eagle it's not as large as some egos at present but it's large but they had different mannerisms different likes different looks like they were just completely different people and I got along better with some than others but I didn't have a favorite really well thank you yes sir mr. Hill is your belief that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin of President John F Kennedy in my opinion based on all the data I've seen and I've seen a lot there were only three shots fired and Dealey Plaza that day they all came from the sixth floor window at the Texas schoolbook depository fired out of one rifle that they was located there hidden behind some boxes when the police went in to that area they found three spent shell casings on the floor what we call the sniper's nest all that material was traced back to an individual who'd used a phony name in acquiring these items the rifle was purchased in a mail-order house in Chicago sent to this address in Dallas and it turned out to be an alias that Lee Harvey Oswald always used and had used many times before in my opinion there was one assassin he operated alone his name was Lee Harvey Oswald thank you very much it would make cleaning last but not least so mr. Hill I'm curious after the assassination have you ever returned to the point Dallas where it occurred I went back to Dallas in 1990 for the first time alone walk the area of Dealey Plaza I went up to Indy Texas School Book Depository to the 6th floor looked out that window because I really needed to see exactly what we had faced I checked everything when that day the angles the car everything elevation and I came away knowing that there was nothing more I could have done that day than that what I did do that it was just one of those things that happens it we didn't have a chance he had all the advantages we didn't have any he was shooting us from behind we couldn't see him there was just not much we could do but it really affected me because we had a responsibility to protect the president and we failed to do so and so I had that sense of guilt that we hadn't performed our duty and I was brought up by a family that's the one thing you do you're given the job to do you carry it out to the end result or you never quit and so it just haunted me for years and years and years wasn't until I actually talked with Lisa McGovern and she got me to really unload it start to talk about that day and the events surrounding it that I had got to feel better and that was in 2009 that was 46 years after the event occurred let me just once again thank Lisa or please before what is I think just an extraordinary perspective of history perhaps that nobody else possibly thank you thank you you

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Keywords: clint hill, lisa mccubbin, secret service, lbj library, friends of the lbj library

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Length: 74min 59sec (4499 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 01 2017