Oral History - Secret Service Agent Clint Hill

this is an oral history interview for the National Law Enforcement Museum former Secret Service agent when Clinton Jay Clinton Hill we're in the newly opened national law enforcement Museum in Washington DC today is Tuesday October 23rd 2018 in my bridal rooms great I'd like to start by asking a little bit about your background in the games okay I was a born in Larimore North Dakota my mother her name was Alma Peterson and she had separated from her husband she had five children before I was born it was January 4th 1932 that I was born and that put it right in the middle of the depression she was at that time a maid in a hotel and she was pregnant with me and when Tim came time to give birth she gave birth in a little house near her place of employment there and Larimore and then 17 days later on the 21st of January she took me to the largest city in the state Fargo North Dakota and had me baptized and it took me to the North Dakota Children's Zone and turned me over to them she couldn't take care of me so I was in the North Dakota Children's Home for about three months and then I was adopted by a wonderful couple Chris and Jenny Hill who had previously adopted a little girl Janis from that same facility and they took me back to their home in Washburn North Dakota and that's where I grew up Washburn is a small town on the Missouri River about 40 miles northwest of Bismarck the capital of the state of North Dakota time I was there the population was around 900 it was 912 when I left there to go to college in 1950 it was a basically a farming community the inhabitants were mostly in Norwegian Swedish or German and it was a wonderful place to grow up everybody in town know who you were so you didn't dare get in trouble because if you did your folks would know before you even got on and so I I had a wonderful time in school there I played in the high school band I played in all sport basketball football track played the American Legion baseball team in the summer sang in a we called played trumpet in the band and I my sister was an accomplished pianist and organist and she played as a church so every Easter I was recruited to play for the church services a solo was accompanied by my sister it was just a wonderful time for me to grow up and a great place to grow my adoptive parents they initially homesteaded in the country McClain County North Dakota on the edge of Fort Berthold Indian Reservation if you go there you can stand there and turn around 360 degrees you will not see a tree it is right out in the middle of the Great Prairie they built themselves a home very small they had I guess a small barn they had one horse there were about 20 to 25 miles from the nearest town of any size and so it was a very difficult period of time for them and then they moved into the town of Washburn and my father at that time became the county auditor and he remained in Washburn my father died in 1954 he was 67 years old and my mother lived until 1974 so I got back there a few times during that period of time that was gone I left in the fall of 1950 after graduating from Washburn high school I went to Concordia College in Moorhead Minnesota at Concordia I was active in all the sporting activities I played at that time you couldn't play in the varsity if you were freshmen so my freshman year I played freshman football freshman basketball I could play varsity baseball I did whenever became a sophomore I wasn't good enough to make the varsity basketball team but I was a varsity football player first string and I still played baseball sang in a glee club had a wonderful time at Concordia and made many many friends that I still have I was going to be a history teacher and I was going to coach athletics that was my goal and June of 1954 I graduated in the end of May I was notified by my draft board that it was time to report for active duty in the army and so I did so and I was sent to Fort Leonard Wood Missouri where I received my basic training upon completion of my basic training was ordered to report to Fort Holabird Maryland the Army Intelligence Center at that time and they trained me there to be a special agent in counterintelligence and so I finished that training in early 1955 was reassigned to fifth army headquarters in Chicago drove to Chicago they gave me free tickets to see a Blackhawks game and then they ought to me to report to do the hundred and thirteen CIC detachment region 9 in Denver Colorado and so I drove on to Denver and I lived in Denver for the remainder of my time in the counterintelligence Corps that's where I was working as a counterintelligence agent and people may think that's rather strange to have a counterintelligence office in Denver Colorado but the reason we were there was that just outside of Denver was a place called the Rocky Mountain Arsenal and one of the things that the Rocky Mountain Arsenal manufactured was nerve gas and so it was our responsibility to make sure that all the employees that worked there were cleared and that nothing happened at the facility or near the facility that would cause a problem we had little putts around the place with rabbits in it that we would we've had people that would check and periodically make sure they were still alive because any of them were dead we had a real problem because nerve gas is invisible you can't smell it you can't see it and it will kill you it dropped it was a selection on the part of the army to to send me to the army intelligence they're the only thing I can attribute it to is that my test results from the desolate took when I entered the army while I was in college I did do some work I got a job with a credit card company running investigations for them and that was the part-time job while I was going to college trying to make ends meet financially and that may have contributed to that I did add that kind of background well that was just that most of the other people lots of rabbits I didn't have to do that much I was more involved in running background investigations I had certain areas I had to cover the University of Wyoming University of Colorado Colorado State University at that time is called Colorado Teachers College in Greeley and a man a mining company up in the mountains of Colorado that was mining molybdenum which is a very important ingredient for the manufacture of steel I enjoyed the work immensely and so in 1956 was due to come out it was a two-year time with the draft I reenlist that I said I want to extend my period for another year also at that time my wife and I my wife was pregnant and we were expecting a baby and I was due to get out on the 13th of July and the baby was due in a couple weeks after that so that contributed to my decision to stay in the Army for another year and our son was born at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver but then in 1957 I did get a discharge from the Army and Lefty kind of intelligence Corps and I decided I wanted to really well I was going to explore to see what the possibilities were teaching history and coaching athletics so the first thing I did is I went back to my home state of North Dakota and went and traveled around the various cities that had openings and into the state of Minnesota and I found that what really wasn't what I was looking for so I went back to Denver got a job as a railroad detective for Chicago Burlington and Quincy railroad and applied for a job with the US Secret Service the reason I applied for the job of the Secret Service back in 1955 56 and 57 President Eisenhower would visit Denver periodically because his wife made me her mother lived in Denver it was her pretty much her hometown and I clicked to come out there play golf and also go trout fishing up in the mountains well he had a massive heart attack while in Denver and he was confined to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital now the Secret Service is there to providing protection but we as a part of the investigative arm of the US Army had responsibility to make sure everything was okay insofar as the army was concerned and so we got to know the agents that were there with President Eisenhower at that time and I found them to be extremely efficiently doing a wonderful job and I've really thought boy I'd sure like to be able to be in that organization and become one of them and so I applied for the Secret Service so it took them not too long to run my investigation because I'd lived my first 18 years in one house in one town in North Dakota and everybody knew me there and then I went away to the small college and that went on I was in the army and they included me for top secret with the gunner Intelligence Corps so the background investigation was just very easy to do and I was given a clearance and I became Secret Service agent in September of 1958 no there was not at that time I headed the service I was sworn in I was issued a handgun an ammo pouch six oh no I guess I was given 12 shells a badge my badge at that time was a silver Secret Service star number 50 which had been held previously by an agent who had just retired and who spotted just now filled and I was taken to the US Mint in Denver to qualify and then shortly thereafter I was on a protective assignment at the home of mrs. Eisenhower's mother mrs. Dowd we lived in Denver and was elderly and President Eisenhower had directed the Secret Service to have an agent in the house from 7:00 at night to 7:00 in the morning there was a nurse there with mrs. ice with mrs. Dowd and so I drew that particular short straw pretty frequently because I was a junior man in the office at the time and I had some unusual experiences in doing that one of which I've written about in a book I wrote called it was in I guess the book the Kennedy detail I was on duty at the doubt house my shift began at 11 o'clock one night I had relieved one of the other agents so I was downstairs on the first floor of this home it's a three level three-story home and mrs. Dowd was in a bed on the second floor her nurse was on the second floor in adjacent bedroom just waiting for mrs. Dowd to call mrs. Dowd's maid was on the third floor I heard mrs. Dowd call out for the nurse and there was no response so I waited awhile to see what was going to happen then I heard mrs. Dowd call out again and so I went upstairs to see what was going on and I walked into the bedroom where the nurse was positioned stationed and she was lying on the bed I walked over and touched her on her shoulder she had died she was already starting to become stiff like their oh my god what am I gonna do I was a brand new agent so I went up to the third floor said Miss a doubt I said somebody barrette with you and I went up and I woke up the maid and I said Mary I said the nurse has died you've got to come now and take care of mrs. Dowd and it scared her to death I guess I was a little bit too abrupt so then I went down and made - took care of mrs. Dowd now I had this problem mrs. Eisenhower and her sister had been there visiting her mother and they had left on the train going back to Washington DC I figured by the time that this happened they'd probably about going through Chicago but I knew if anybody saw a body coming out of that house then we're gonna assume it was mrs. Dowd the press would immediately grab that headlines president's mother-in-law dies mrs. Eisenhower would hear that while on the train and it would be terrible so I contemplated what I should do so I called my boss Earl Schiller was his name you've been the former chief marshal and the Wyoming territory before he became a Secret Service agent well he knew everybody in the city of Denver I called him I told him what had happened he said don't worry just hang in there said I'll have a friend of mine there shortly the coroner he's bringing a special vehicle over and he'll tell you what we got to take care of the situation so but he's doing a big black car backs into the driveway guy gets out and he opens up the back door on the passenger side in the front door and that port that myth center pillar had been removed so he and I went upstairs and we wrapped the nurse in a sheet we had to come down a stairway with a it gets a 180-degree turn and we had a horrible time because she was not a small lady we finally got her down later in the car he took off nobody ever knew the difference and I went back to my office that morning and I had to write an extensive report knowing in the back of my mind the nurse didn't die on my watch he died on the previous agents watch he should have been the one writing this report not me but just turned out did I was the one that had to do all the paperwork in 1957-58 rather when I came in we were handling counterfeit investigations some there was some counterfeit currency not a great deal in the Denver area but some but there were a great deal of forgery of good US government checks the checks used to come always in the mail and all the pit recipients whether they be retirement checks of Social Security checks or whatever oftentimes would be stolen and then we would work with the US Postal Service inspectors to find out who did this and run an investigation and sometimes it got a little difficult because of the type of people that actually committed these types of crimes they're not high society by any means and they could be problems at times and but it was a continuous effort to try and quell the the forgery of government checks come bonds that kind of thing that was the biggest investigative work that we had at that time well they have a great deal to do today with financial crimes forgery is not the biggest problem because most cheques are direct deposit electronically today counterfeiting is still a problem and it's international in scope a great deal of counterfeit comes out of South America some other places but South America is a big source they also are involved with credit card fraud with identification problems if you are having problems with your financial identification problem so I the Secret Service would get involved so they're involved in a number of things they're also right now involved they have and it's really not part of their official duty but they're involved with missing children in the United States so they have a number of things that their involvement no you don't but the that's something they're incident they're also interested now with the school shootings they did a study back in the 1990s regarding that subject and came up and with some recommendations that most schools try to follow where he mentioned about training so while I was in Denver I was sent back to the White House what's called the White House detail the number of agents at the White House protecting the president and I was back there for a 30-day evaluation period and during that period the agency worked with and the supervisors the value what you as you tier ability or capabilities and are you the type of person they want around the president and in my case was shortly thereafter I was permanently assigned to the White House detail to present eyes now official schooling there was at that time we called T Lots Treasury law enforcement training school comprised of Secret Service and all these were Treasury agents agencies Alcohol Tobacco Firearms US Customs Service Internal Revenue Service what else a Drug Enforcement Agency and the Secret Service we all trained together and the facility that we trained in a classroom was a one-room classroom on the second floor of a commercial building in right downtown Washington DC firearms training was neither at the indoor range in the basement of the US Treasury Building or outdoors at the Arboretum where we trained with handguns shotguns 45 caliber submachine guns and eventually the ar-15 but that training was somewhat limited you really learned most of the things on the job working with other agents well at that time there were only when I came in in 1958 there were only 269 ages in the Secret Service worldwide that was all and there were roughly at the time I guess about 36 assigned to the White House that number was increased by four up to 40 during the Kennedy administration the detail worked three shifts of of agents at that time I believe there were nine men on a shift then there were two agents assigned to mrs. Eisenhower greater detail with the Eisenhower grandchildren in Gettysburg Pennsylvania and Vice President Nixon who was Nix was Eisenhower's vice president there were two agents sometimes three that worked with him mostly a full-time basis but sometimes he didn't want the agents around and it was Marlin necessity that they were there sometimes especially we left the country then they would send an additional few agents to help him but he he managed to get in trouble and Venezuela at one time Caracas and the agent said do is surround his car dodge the rocks as they were being thrown at them but we managed to gather the situation okay but the White House when I first was assigned there you know I was in Oz I walked down the pathway to the West executive office Boeing reported to James J Rawley the special agent in charge that time I was the junior agent and I was the bottom of the shift so that meant that anything that nobody else really wanted to do I managed to get to do but it was a wonderful training ground for anybody you had to memorize all the members of the president's staff you had to know them facially know who they were what their position was and you got to know all of the members of the cabinet the vice president his staff so it was a it was a very interesting time for a young kid from North Dakota who hadn't been out of the country during that first 30-day period that I was there I went to Canada to leave the United State for the first time because the Queen of England was coming to Canada to they were dedicating the st. Lawrence Seaway I guess it was and Eisenhower and and the Queen we're going to participate and then in the fall of the 1959 the US Air Force acquired three 707 commercial type aircraft and they made them available as executive aircraft to the president when this happened Eisenhower realized he could now travel internationally rather freely and so in the fall of 1959 we took off on a trip we flew from Andrews Air Force Base to Rome Italy had our official visits in Rome then we flew to Ankara Turkey from and we went to Karachi Pakistan from Karachi to Kabul Afghanistan from Kabul to New Delhi India from New Delhi to Tehran Iran but Tehran to Athens Greece got on the USS Des Moines went across the Mediterranean to Tunis met with the leader of Tunisia took the Des Moines back over across the Mediterranean Toulon France got on a train went to Paris saw de Gaulle got on Air Force One Flew to Madrid to see Generalissimo Franco continue down to Morocco to meet with the King of Morocco and then finally flew back to the United States that was my first real trip out of the country I'd been given a diplomatic passport as the other agents had as well and made this miraculous wonderful trip it felt like they were in a movie script or something because it was just so unreal and the people turned out to see and pay their respects to President Eisenhower like nothing I'd ever seen before it got so bad in India for example that when we left the airport to go into the city we had Prime Minister Nehru in the car with President Eisenhower and people had blocked all the streets and so Prime Minister Nehru always carried a little swagger stick with him and he got out of the car he went out in front of most of his presidential vehicle and started to beat on the people to get them to get out of the way so the motorcade could continue and that's how we got to the palace there in New Delhi it was just something you just would never believe happened but it did I was fortunate to have a somewhat of a good relationship with mrs. Eisenhower because of my time with her mother in Denver and she would come to him sometimes come there and visit and when she did she would always make sandwiches for the agents who were working that night and we would talk to them briefly and had a nice relationship so I got to know her quite well and through her a little bit to know President Eisenhower a little bit better than normal but he was a general he had come out of the military that was his old career except for his presidency at Columbia mrs. Eisenhower preferred to call him general rather than miss president she always referred to him as the general and he was a wonderful man to work with he was its very military in that he was so prompt if we told him that we had to leave for a scheduled event and we should leave at 9:30 9:20 9.30 he was in the car ready to go you never had to question him he was always that way always so prompt it was not a politician when he ran in 1952 both parties the Democratic Party and the Republican Party went to him to try and get him to be their candidate and he decided to run as a Republican but he was not a politician he didn't wade into crowds to shake hands he was the ideal type of person to have as a protectee because he he did the things that made it much easier for you to actually protect very much snow he was he was easily guided so there was never really any problem with present eyes now well he exposed himself in big crowds in India in Korea Korean crowds were immense and yes he did expose himself in those certain circumstances but it wasn't like other politicians like today into the crowd they go and so that was beneficial to us well I would say at the end of President Eisenhower's term in office toward the end during the election of 1960 Richard Nixon running against John F Kennedy President Eisenhower really didn't do a lot of campaigning on behalf of his vice president Richard Nixon toward the end of the campaign just before the election he decided to do certain things he went to New York City he went to Cleveland he went to Pittsburgh I was a part of a advance team that was sent to New York to set up the trip for both the President Eisenhower and the vice president because they were going to visit there together and been stopped in Westchester County better stop in Long Island then we had a big motorcade in downtown New York City and then we had the Madison Square Garden event I drew the motorcade so I was working with the New York field office and with the bureau special services and investigations of the New York City Police Department and decided that we would have the motorcade at about 11:30 in the morning but between 11:30 and 12:00 which meant that we would block the streets and everybody that was coming out of the building to go across the street to have lunch could not so they'd it would be a built-in crowd we had Vice President Nixon and President Eisenhower in the same vehicle an open car there are photographs of it Vice President Nixon standing towards the front of the rear seats and President Eisenhower sitting on the rear deck and it was my responsibility to get him through that situation safely and fortunately for all the help with the Newark Police Department and your Secret Service Office and everybody else that was there to help us we were managed to do that but I was extremely nervous to say the least it was one of those situations that I don't think you'd find themselves in today I'm sure you wouldn't well we were trying to make sure that well you get to the streets first of all because that people were in the high rise buildings throwing confetti out the windows so I mean we couldn't close windows we were just concentrating on getting to the point of where speech that it was at Herald Square and we want to get there as quickly as we could because they never speech there then go on to the wall of a story of where they were stay but it was crowd control it was you're looking at the intelligence information it was a very perilous situation I was very nervous believe me I was pretty young and we managed to get through there okay and after the election of 1960 I can mainly went to need to Middleburg or to get his Bergen voted came back the Kennedys were up at Cape Cod Nixon I guess I I think he was in DC but he had wanted to California the next day after the results came in and Kennedy had won Eisenhower decided to go to Augusta Georgia to play golf so I accompany of him to Augusta Georgia after the first round of golf my boss came to me into some of the other agents and gave us our new assignments because they were now creating a presidential elect detail to cover president-elect Kennedy and he was in Cape Cod but coming from Cape Cod flying down through Washington DC to Palm Beach Florida it's gonna drop what mrs. Kennedy often Washington DC and then he was going on to Palm Beach so the agent in charge gave you instructions to move the agents there were three guys here besides myself who were getting the instructions so he came to me I was the last one that he talked about he said Clinic said we want you to go back to Washington DC the director chief he was called the chief at that time wants to see you in his office so tomorrow morning Quincy the chief he wants to talk to you he didn't tell me why I had no idea why and I thought I must have done something wrong I must be going to be disciplined in some way so I went back to Washington the other agents went on to Palm Beach went in to see the chief chief Huey Baumann he was there his deputy was there there were some inspectors there and I walked in there and they had me sit down and they started to ask me questions and all the questions they asked me I knew they knew the answers because of my background investigation but they were going through the process anyway and this lasted for about 90 minutes and they finally that went over in the corner and discussed what they were going to do and the chief came back to me and said okay agent hill we've made a decision you're being reassigned to mrs. John F Kennedy you had a report up to her home there was agent Jim Jeffries out there you introduce you to mrs. Kennedy I was devastated I thought I was going to be assigned to the president because that's where all the action always was with a president I knew how the agent said had to do work with mrs. Eisenhower and with mrs. Truman they went to fashion shows they sometimes went to ballet sometimes they just did nothing but watch the Canasta games and I didn't want any part of that but I didn't have any choice in the matter so the next day I went out and I introduced was introduced to mrs. Kennedy and she really didn't want me or any of the agents there because she didn't want somebody looking over her shoulder 24 hours a day but she knew she had no choice just like I had no choice she was at that time very pregnant he was about to deliver a baby and so uh I got to in meeting this mrs. Kennedy and I became the number two guy on that detail at that time I subsequently walked with her because she was trying to get some exercise every day we'd walk on the canal path and have conversations and on Thanksgiving Day President Kennedy came back from Florida to spend Thanksgiving with mrs. Kennedy and the daughter Caroline in their end Street house in Washington DC and Georgetown and toward the evening when the dinner was over and everything the president decided to go back to Florida so I had talked to mrs. Kennedy she was going to just turn in for the night and so I went home the other agents to her other agents there on perimeter security so I didn't worry about it at all I hadn't been home too long phone right the angel told me that mrs. Kennedy had gone into labor they had called an ambulance the ambulance had taken her to Georgetown she was about to deliver a baby I better get over to Georgetown posthaste and so I quickly drove over to Georgetown to the hospital went in went up to the delivery room where she was it was an emergency situation and she had a little baby boy they eventually named him John F Kennedy jr. the president was in Florida plane he'd flown down on there was a Carolina family owned plane it was kind of a slow core of a god bear the press said it had a plane of their own which is much faster so he got on the press plane they turned it around and they flew him right back to DC he got back around 4:00 in the morning so I was there as the baby was brought out of the delivery room to be placed in an incubator and I saw John F Kennedy jr. before the president I was pacing back and forth like an expectant father although I wasn't one and it was an interesting evening and then from there on the inauguration day we were to I was down in Florida and I was requested by the president mrs. Kennedy to stay in Florida with Caroline and John and a detail of agents well they went back to Washington to attend the inauguration which in itself was disappointing for me because I had never been to an inauguration that I had been looking forward to it and now that wasn't going to happen so it was a kind of a this one that the nature of your relationship is mrs. Kennedy and I got to be pretty close friends I was with her almost all you know continuously I was I did her advance work in places like Paris and India and Pakistan and as I got to know the family because we spent a lot of time either in Middleburg Virginia at Hyannis Port Massachusetts or in Palm Beach Florida and during those times when the president was there I also got to become somewhat close to the president so much so that if mrs. Kennedy was traveling at say she's going to New York on one occasion I know I call definitely what happened she found out that former president mrs. Truman were in New York so she decided she wanted to go visit with him but she thought well maybe I'd better clear that with the president first so she had me call the president's office and get clearance for it so I called and president secretary answered the phone Evelyn Lincoln she's a just medic Clint next thing I know president's on the line and he's given me instructions of days for what she should or should not do and it turned out that she didn't want her to go see the Truman's at this particular time and we did not but that was rather typical of what would happen and she would want to do certain things and if we were out of town I and if calling the president's office and invariably ended up talking the president if we were in DC at the White House oftentimes I'd to get a call president wants talk to you in the office and I'd go to the office specifically if I were going out on a dance on a trip that mrs. Kennedy was going to take where he was not going to be along I'd be given certain instructions and so I got to know and work on behalf of the president quite frequently mrs. Kennedy trusted me implicitly and that was very important and so I was present all the time whenever there was anything going on and sometimes it got a little bit curly away at one time and we were in Florida and the president's brother-in-law and best friend were there and they were gonna go on a hike and president mrs. Kennedy decided that they better have an agent with them out there on this hike so that somebody would be responsible and somebody could immediately get in touch with the home base if necessary in and they recommended that I be that agent and so I ended up going on a little hike 250 miles with Prince Stanislas Rhett long as you will it Chuck's balding but it was you know unusual for an agent to have to do that kind of thing but I was requested to do that and so I was someone close to them we traveled a lot I was gone most of the time away from Washington and the summer of 1963 mrs. Kennedy was pregnant and she spent the summer in Hyannis Port on August 7th she went into labor taken to Otis Air Force Base Hospital we had established an emergency hospital room therefore in case this kind of thing did happen and it did president was back at the White House at the time and she gave birth to a little boy well president was notified he quickly grabbed a jet Air Force One was unfortunately not available at the moment it was being tested somewhere for some kind of a problem so he had to take a different aircraft but he flew up to Otis Air Force Base got there shortly after the baby was born and there was a problem with the baby with his lungs and so they decided to maybe had to go be taken to Boston where there were better medical facilities and we couldn't fly him because of his lung problems so we had taken by ambulance my assistant rode in the ambulance with him and President Kennedy flew on his own on a helicopter back to Boston to be with him and he stayed in Boston with him and unfortunately on the morning of August 9th young baby died they had named him Patrick Bouvier Kennedy and he died from this lung condition and it was devastating to both President and mrs. Kennedy previous to that generally in public they didn't show any real emotion twenty you know it wasn't obvious that they were so in love but after that happened after that baby died they really didn't care what people thought and they were holding hands and doing things they'd never before done in public it was nice to see but it was really devastating when part of both of them for both of them dad this happened as you describe it no it was never confusing to me maybe some other people thought it was but I knew exactly what my position place in life was I knew when I could participate in something or when I should not do and I should stay out of the way and when I had to be in closer I I knew pretty well exactly how I had to handle a situation but it was because she trusted me so implicitly in and he to that I was placed in or that possessions most times most agents wouldn't be in that kind of a position well that we then because of the situation we were then went mrs. Kennedy was suggested she take a vacation leave for a while so her sister came in and said that she had a friend who had a yacht and agreed to go there and spend some time so we flew to Athens Greece got on board to Christina which was a big yacht owned by Onassis and but chief mrs. Kenney was accompanied by Franklin Delano Roosevelt jr. and his wife Sue and a number of other friends so there was nothing out of the ordinary didn't went on and then we when we left there she told me that she was going to accompany the president on his trip into Texas which is going to occur in November so on November 21st 1963 President mrs. Kennedy left the White House by helicopter and flew to Andrews and then flew on down to Dallas for down to oh I'm sorry down to Texas and we first stopped with San Antonio president dedicated a aerospace medical center there and then we moved on to Houston there were a couple stops there one at the rice hotel or an Hispanic group and another you know the Colosseum for a commemorative and appreciation dinner for the local congressman who had brought the Space Center to Houston over Thomas and then we got on Air Force One Flew Over to Carswell Air Force Base just outside of Fort Worth because they wanted to be in Fort Worth that night and the next morning so on the morning of November 22nd I woke up and President had a scheduled breakfast that morning in the hotel but there was such a demand of people to see him the hotel breakfast area would only hold 2,500 people and there were thousands that want to see him we had to set up a place outside the hotel where he could speak to this large crowd so we set it up out in the parking lot I at the time was when he went out to the parking lot I went to the suite to stand by for mrs. Kennedy because she indicated she wasn't going to the breakfast that he was going to attend so he came in after speaking to this group we went to this breakfast there was such a demand there on the part of the people to see mrs. Kennedy that the president called each advance agent over and had him call me I was up on the eighth floor with mrs. Kennedy and the agent called me build up there was his name he said clinic said that president wants you to bring mrs. Kennedy gown right away but said she's not expecting to go to this breakfast we're supposed to be staying to suite and tell time to go we're gonna go you meet Annie the Air Force one bill said to Clint he said you didn't get the message the president wants you to bring mrs. Kennedy down here now I said oh I got the message we'll be right there so like explain it to her and down we went and the place just erupted when she walked in their president was very pleased we then got in cars after this speech and going to motorcade out through the streets of Fort Worth they had let out the schools they put their high school marching bands at the intersections the crowd was enormous and it's very friendly we got out to Carswell got on board Air Force One we flew from cars with Air Force Base at Fort Worth's over to Love Field in Dallas now if you know the distance between those two spots if you've ever flown on an airplane between you'll never fly from Fort Worth to Dallas it took long ruts longer to taxi on each end than it did to fly and so the reason that we had to do that was for political reasons the politicians wanted a photograph of the president getting off the plane in Dallas this was a real political trip there was maximum exposure open cars president had instructed us not to be up on the back of the car he wanted it not to appear there was anything between he and the people he wanted the people to have the belief that he was just one of them and so that's the way we went in the motorcade from Love Field into downtown Dallas the crowds grew from the time we left the airport and they just got bigger and bigger and bigger we got down to Main Street and it would point at some points it was difficult to get through the crowd with the motorcade the local police were doing everything they could but it was a challenge and so he finally got to the end of Main Street we were turning right and finish that big crowd we turned right on Houston Street and then we went about a block turn left on Elm and that put us in the middle of Dealey Plaza and at the corner of elm and Houston sits a building it's seven stories I call D Texas School Book Depository as we approach the building we the agents in the follow-up car the car immediately behind the president which is an open car like the president's car viewed that building we noticed that there were like three windows opening the less aside of the building that we were approaching there were some work when sitting in one of those three windows didn't see anybody and then in the other two now we didn't think much of it because all the way up and down Main Street there were windows open and people hanging out of windows on balconies or fire escapes on top of buildings and so just kind of the norm we made the left on Elm now this is a big car the presidential vehicle and the turn was oh gosh it was more than a 90 degree turn it was much more Solent so he had to really slow down and he slowed down and we started to pick up speed after they slowed down is with we're moving in it on a slope toward an underpass and there weren't many people in the area of Dealey Plaza some on both sides of Street but not a great number and I was on the front of the follow-up car front left running board which put me the closest position to mrs. Kennedy who was in the left rear of the presidential vehicle the president being in the right rear I was surveying the area see was there anything unusual looking ahead at the underpass there were some police up there did see anything unusual and all of a sudden I heard this explosive noise over my right shoulder from the rear I didn't recognize it as a gunshot so I started to turn toward it to see if I could identify what it was as did all the other agents as I turned toward it my eyes had to pass over the back of the president's car and I saw what happened in the backseat I saw President Kennedy grabbing his throat like this and then he started to fall to his left I at that point realized it was a gunshot and so I jumped from my position on a running board of the follow-up car I had to get between and motorcycle officer was on my left pretty close to the car and the follow-up car I was on and the noise from the engine of the motorcycle and the follow-up car prevented me from hearing the second shot that was fired while I was running and then as I approached the presidential vehicle the third shot rang out and at that point President Kennedy's he had fallen to his left far enough so his head was down kind of like this right up against mrs. Kennedy's cheek and the third shot that hit him because the first shot hit him also we thought out but the first shot had entered just below the neck line and in the back and exited through the throat had nittany hard surfaces but this shot entered here at the back of the head and erupted here above the year and this part of the skull a big portion of it just without the scalp being cut off flipped forward and material just erupted from that wounded it was the blood and bone fragments and brain matter all over me got over misses getting over back in the car some got in the windshield of follow-up car I managed to get up on top of the back of the car because my goal was to get up there and form a barrier there to prevent anything further map need to either mrs. Kennedy or the president or any of the other occupants of the car but as I got up on the back of the car she at that point came up on the truck out of her seat she was trying to grasp some of that material that came out of the President's head and she did manage to get a hold of some of it and had it in her hands and I grabbed her and got her into the back seat when she got back into the seat itself the president's body fell farther to its left and had ended up in her lap the right side of his face was up so I'm up on top of both of them above the rear I'm just lying up above the rear seat looking down at him and I can see his eyes appear to fixed I see the hole in the skull there was no brain matter in that area it was all gone I assumed it was a fatal wound so I turned and I gave a thumbs down to the follow-up car crew so they would know how serious this was and then I screamed at the driver to get us to a hospital the Chief of Police from Dallas he got in front of us in his car and he led us to Parkland Hospital it took us about four minutes to get there we were running 70 to 80 miles an hour I was hanging on for dear life I turned my head at one time my sunglasses blew off so then we got to the hospital there was nobody there to meet us even though they'd been alerted what had happened was the our advance agent jumped out of the lead car ran into the emergency room when he found that the the orderly that was trying to bring Gurney's out because they had gotten word to Connolly had been shot too and he had they were used trying to break out two at one time and he couldn't do it so the agent grabbed one and he button that he orderly brought out the other one the way the car was configured that president mrs. Kennedy and the governor and mrs. Connolly were in the governor mrs. Connolly receded immediately in front of president mrs. Kennedy the seats fold back from the front toward the rear for them to sit on the back of the seat that Governor Connally sat on was right up against the knees of President Kennedy and likewise the seat that mrs. Connolly was on was right up against the needs of mrs. Kennedy so in order for us to help the president we first had to move Governor Connally out of that position and so we managed to get him up and on a gurney and they ran into the emergency room put him in trauma room - then we were going to help president well mrs. Kennedy had a hold of his body and I pleaded with her I said please mrs. Kenney let us help the president I never even got a response she just wouldn't let go and then I pleaded with her again and no response now I'd been with her for a little over three years I recognized what the problem probably was and she didn't want anybody to see the condition he was in because it was terrible and so I took off my suit coat I covered up his head and his upper back as soon as I did that she let go lifted him up but he wanted her and he ran into the emergency room put him in trauma room one we no more got him in there then the doctor started to write from all over the hospital at one point I got it 17 they were in and out some were in there permanently I mean just doing things they were trying their best to do whatever they could for him it was absolutely nothing he could do meanwhile my supervisor told me to open the line to the White House telephone line to the White House makes sure that all of our people knew what was going on so I called and we had a switchboard in Dallas that the White House communications agency it set up and I got a hold of that switchboard told him to open the line to the White House keep it open don't let anybody interrupt and I got ahold of my the agent in charge of president's apprentice called it agent charge of White House detail at that time general Dane and I was explaining to him what had happened as I was doing that the operator cut in it said mr. Hill the Attorney General must talk to you now the Attorney General was Robert Kennedy president's brother so I said yes mr. Attorney General what can do it for you and he said quit he said what's going on down there so I explained that both the president and the governor had been shot and we were in Parkland Hospital and they were doing whatever they could for both of them and he said well how bad is it I did not want to tell him that the president was dead his brother and so I just said it's as bad as it can get and as soon as I said that he just hung up the phone and that's how he found out that his father his brother had died then the doctor came out and said I'm sorry but the president has died so then the chief of staff came out Kenny O'Donnell said Clinton you said we need a casket can you get a casket for us take the president back to Washington so I didn't know anything about Dallas so I asked the administrator of the hospital put me in touch with the mortuary and he did in order to best casket they had me brought to with Parkland Hospital emergency room and they brought it assigned port and the nurses were preparing the president's body for transporting back to Washington about that time and one of the officials walked in and said what do you guys do it said we're getting ready to leave we're going back to watch it you can't do that - just stay long Texas says it you cannot remove the body of anyone who's been a homicide victim before there's been an autopsy so how long will that take they said Oh at least an hour maybe whole day you know we said oh that's not acceptable we're gonna leave anyway said well if you're gonna leave anyways and you make sure you have a a medical professional with the president's body all the time until the autopsies performed was it okay General George Berkeley is here he's the president's personal physician signed by the military he'll stay with the body that satisfied him but so we put them to casket out and put it in the rear of the person brought mrs. Kennedy out and I said mrs. Kenney we can ride in this car right behind her I don't know she says I'm gonna ride in the back of the hearse with the president was it okay so adamant Berkeley they're already climbed into the back of the hearse so now if she climbs into the back of the hearse then I climbed in right behind her so there were three of us back there with the casket and as we drove from the Parkland Hospital to a Love Field to get on board Air Force One we the agents myself we took the casket out of the purse started carried up the rear steps to Air Force One we got up to the door because the crew chief and the people on Air Force One had removed some of the seats in the rear of the aircraft so we could put the casket in the rear what we hadn't planned on was that the casket was slightly too wide to go through the door with the handles on it so as we get up to the door we realized the situation and we ripped and torn till we got the hands loose and weren't able to get it into the rear of the aircraft and set it down then mrs. Kennedy came on board and she said very near the aircraft drag very nearly basket and the members of the president's staff were there in the rear whither a Kenny O'Donnell Dave Bowers and Larry O'Brien so then we got word that president vice-president mrs. Johnson were on board we were not aware but vice president mrs. Johnson were already on board we assumed it they had gone over to Air Force two but they were on board and they're preparing to fly back to Washington DC on this aircraft so then we find out that the vice president has been in contact with people in Washington and the decision has been made that he should be sworn in while we're still on the ground in Dallas they said that that required a federal judge we didn't have a federal judge with us so he had to find one and there was a recently appointed federal judge as a female in the area she was located and brought on board and she actually swore in Vice President Johnson to be the new president while all this was transpiring and mrs. Kennedy was seated near the casket and I was up in the forward portion of Air Force One I get word that she wants to see me so I go back through the presidential suite where Johnson's are and all of his staff and to go back and she stands up he grabs my hand and she says Oh mr. Hill what's gonna happen to you now I said I'll be okay missus give me I'll be okay but it was just amazing the team was concerned about not only me but all the other agents as well who had been there and were unable to prevent this from happening she was concerned about our well-being so then they went on with the swearing-in mrs. Kennedy went in stood beside by President Johnson is he took the oath of office and then we took off for Washington DC on the way back front to Washington there was a great deal of confusion on the aircraft as to what was going to happen when we got back to Washington and the problem was decisions were being made without confronting or conferring with the people who had the final say namely mrs. Kennedy and/or now President Johnson and so they had us doing things that they didn't the people didn't want us to do so they ended up that president mrs. Johnson and the staff would go from Air Force One at Andrews after arriving and after the president made a speech to the nation brief speech they would go directly and fly to the White House mrs. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy the Attorney General who had run out to the aircraft after it landed in Andrews would accompany the president's body by motorcade out to Bethesda Naval Hospital that's where the autopsy would take place so that's what we did I went with mrs. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and the president's body out to the possession Naval Hospital when we got there they took the casket in the body in the casket immediately into the autopsy room two of our agents agent Kellerman and Greer went with it they were met by four FBI agents who also went in there and there were a number of doctors in there and I took mrs. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy up to the 17th floor to a Presidential Suite to stand by for the autopsy to be concluded and now people started to arrive relatives of mrs. Kennedy or mother and stepfather relatives of Robert Kennedy his wife and President Kennedy's sister and we kept them all up on the 17th floor about 2:00 in the morning phone rings and it's the agents down with present in the autopsy room and they said sequani said they want you to come down here right away to view the body so that if mrs. Kennedy has any questions we know that she'll ask you not one of it anybody else and you could give her the answers said okay so I went down and went into the autopsy room the doctors were there they uncovered the body they pointed out the various wounds or his entrance room what was an exit room wound one of the strange things that developed was that while the President had been lying on the gurney at the Parkland Hospital when the doctors examined him they never turned him over to see anything in the back but so they didn't realize that the wound that appeared in the front and the stroke was actually an exit room from an entrance to the rear about the neck line and they didn't realize that this gaping hole in the skull had been caused by an entry of a bullet lure in the back of the head and skull and that was also an exit wound and so it was amazing that they hadn't discovered that before that but they had not and then after they explained everything to me I went back to the 17th floor now mrs. Kennedy never did ask me any questions about mrs. about the president's wounds or anything in that nature whatsoever ever so it wouldn't have been necessary but it was something that the agent necessary to have done just in case and I think that was the right thing to do my code eventually was brought to me back in Washington DC and a brown paper bag I took it home and I burned it in my outside barbeque pit Gordon the pit it was a stand-up barbecue kettle and bread my shirt my my coat because it was just completely saturated with blood every everything that blood on it I burned so that there was never any availability for anybody to get any information from oh yeah I I know we had no chance well they offered mrs. Kennedy a chance to change in the presidential suite and she turned them down she said I want the people to see what has been done and so she was covered most of the her legs were covered mostly it had already started to cake and then her and her coat and skirt the coat was skirt are in the Smithsonian and they're not to be released I don't think tis for another 50 years or so I don't know for sure I know they were at the Smithsonian but her her hat they've never located it like to happen if she was running I had it once myself after the assassination I turned it over to someone so I'm pretty sure I know where it at least I know where it was where it is I'm not sure hmm well she was very very depressed she was in shock initially and so we went we a few days the assassination occurred on the 22nd of November the funeral was on the 25th of November which also had to be John F Kennedy juniors third birthday and she did manage to have a little party for him up on the third floor I mean of the White House because he had promised him when we left for Texas that he would have a birthday party then that Thursday I guess it was which would be 28th either 27th or 28th we flew to Cape Cod she wanted to explain exactly what she knew to the president's mother and father and so we were up at that Highness port and she the president she was in the president's home she in her she in the president's home and the 28th was Caroline's birthday and on the 29th which was a Friday she decided to give an interview to a newspaper reporter for Life magazine Teddy white it was a nasty night it was raining he arrived in New York and he talked to her for quite a long time and then he was going to type up his story so I I had him use my typewriter or let him use my typewriter and he typed historian and they went over it and then he called it in to the bureau near in New York and it was a difficult period of time she was very very depressed so then we came back to DC and she went out to see the gravesite again on the night of this funeral when president's on the 25th I took her and Bobby to the well I like some great site late at night nobody else was there just another agent myself in a military police officer and the superintendent of the cemetery and it was just so they could spend some time alone without the crowds being around him it was 11:30 at night so then she had he was going to move out of the White House but took some time and she didn't actually move out of the White House until December 6th and she really didn't have any place to go she could've gone out to Middleburg I guess but she wanted Caroline to continue her schooling and everything so and but Asador Averell Harriman and his wife moved out of their home in Georgetown and they had mrs. Kennedy and the children move in but after staff there and we she stayed there and lived there she what didn't participate hardly in any activities then we went to Florida to spend Christmas and New Year's and her sister came in from London with her husband and their children two children Tony and Tina and we spent Christmas in Florida it was extremely sad time for the agents to see these children trying to enjoy Christmas mrs. Kenney trying to have somewhat of a you know what uplifting spirit that that just didn't exist it was really sad and it's difficult to to go about your daily work seeing all this knowing at the same time that we had the responsibility to protect him and we failed to do so so that really bothered me deeply during that old time so then we finally came back to Washington in January she decided she wanted to get away for a while so she and I flew with mrs. mrs. Mellon from Gettysburg to Antigua not Gettysburg Middleburg to Antigua and spent about a week there in Antigua Caroline and John hello Caroline anyway she went skiing with Bobby Kennedy's children get away from Washington then when everybody came back to what to DC the house right across the street from the airmen house came up for sale and so mrs. Kenney when we went over and looked at it she liked it and so she bought it and so she moved into that house and in January I guess was then a word get out that she and the children were living there and the tourists started to come to the house and there was a company in Washington a touring company and he they began to run tour buses by the house and it really got to be a problem people were almost getting up to the front door trying to get look in the windows I mean the agents were you know doing their best to keep everybody away but it was really good to be annoying and the kids would come out and be able to holler at him you know we're gonna want a picture and all this kind of stuff so he eventually mrs. Kennedy she and I discussed it and she said you know I want to go to New York and look and see I might well I might move to New York one of the reasons being New York City she walked out a street nobody paid attention to her New Yorkers are so involved in their own lives and so busy that they don't have a time for paying attention took notables so she and I went to New York she found a place at Ted 45th Avenue and she bought it and we moved she moved her to New York most of the agents that had been with Caroline and John all of them effect except one decided not to go to New York so I had to have all new people in New York for Caroline and John and myself and my assistant who had been originally with the kids and now is with business Kennedy were the only familiar faces that were around her which created somewhat of a problem at first but it worked its way out so but we spent the time in New York she had leased a place out in Long Island to take the kids out there when they had time to go away from the city so she aunt entered the Caroline and John at school in New York City and it was going pretty well and so in the fall of 1964 the election was coming up and President Johnson came to New York to campaign and Robert Kennedy was running for the Senate from New York and so they came to 10:40 Fifth Avenue C mrs. Kennedy I was there it was an interesting meeting that he didn't spend a lot of time but they at least paid two respects she she was still very very depressed and I got word then that I was going to be transferred like mentioned it to her told her about it and she understood so because my family was living in Virginia now I hadn't spent in hardly any time with my family for the previous four or five years so was really unusual that I wasn't home but it was just making things worse so after the election in 1964 Johnson ran and beat Goldwater and he added at Humphrey as his running mate you don't be became vice president and then at that time I left mrs. Kennedy was replaced by another agent they had a little party for me at New York for this is Kennedy and her staff but I was very very nice and so I returned to Washington DC back to the White House detail and now they made me a a shift leader I was one of the responsible on one of the shifts for President Johnson yeah and that was November of 1964 so one of the first things that happened was time for Thanksgiving and Johnson goes to the ranch Don Texas so I'm down there too and I'm walking past his kitchen window one day it back to the security room he sees me and he recognizes me is that that agent who had been with the Kennedys so he contacted my supervisor and said I see that he'll like you guys here I don't know that I can trust him I think you better have you removed so agent young but who was the senior agent at the time and who Johnson trusted it's implicit he really trusted him went in and sat down and talked to him and told him that it was in his best interest if I stayed there that I'd been with Eisenhower and I would then I was assigned to the Kennedys yes but I was professional and he should reconsider what he had requested and they were gonna keep me there if they could and so he said okay give it a try oh this is 1964 so I was at that time of shift leader eventually I moved up to assistant to the Special Agent in Charge spent a lot of time one-on-one with Johnson especially at the ranch then in 1967 I was promoted to the special agent in charge of presidential protection so I was the agent responsible for Johnson's well-being in safety and you know at that time we were getting along very well and he was a challenge it was a different atmosphere than had been around the Kennedys and the Vietnam War was going full-bore and we had been to Vietnam we had been all over the world and in the fall errands of toward the winter of 1967 it was just before Christmas the Prime Minister of Australia drama-filled old and he and Johnson had become pretty good friends so Johnson wants to go down to Australia to attend the funeral so Johnson had the attitude that if he didn't let people know what he was doing chances are they wouldn't have a chance to do anything to him bad because they wouldn't know what he was doing so he decided not to tell anybody what he's going to do now in this case he had to tell a couple people he had to tell the pilot he told my mediate supervisor because he trusted him and he told his number-one guy Jack Valenti what he wanted to do well I guys put it all together because we were gonna be in Australia now it's really not too far from Vietnam or Thailand and so just about Christmas and it's err enough he wants to go see the troops in Vietnam so we fly to Australia and we go through the funeral and all that stuff and we're gonna take off for her destination uh no there were I came over there one or two press planes accompanying us plus a backup plane of our own but that was Air Force so that was our own we control that so the pilots of the press point didn't even know what our destination was when we took off from Cantera so we take off and we fly not toward the United States when we fly toward Thailand and we land over in Darwin the other side of Australia to refuel then the press plane lands that refuel the press are madder than hell cuz they the agents had instructions when they land lock them in a hangar make sure there are no telephones available nobody can know where we're going the press wants to know where we were going they wanted to file the stories so our relationship with the press deteriorated sufficiently right then and there so we take off we fly to Thailand we lend it kirat Air Force Base in the middle of the night some of the pilots who just come back with bombing run over Vietnam so Johnson wants to debrief them finally put he gets to go to bed for about two hours and officers from officers quarters most people didn't go to bed at all and then we get him up and we take off with flight a camera on bake in Vietnam we met there by Westmoreland and as I'm getting off the plane coming down the ramp the advanced agents at the foot of the ramp he says Clint he said look down the end of runway I said see that plane sitting there he said yeah said there's a pilot and a co-pilot in it right now engines are running there's any incoming missile flood fire your instructions are to take the president and Westmoreland head for that aircraft get on board and get the hell out of here it's thanks a lot you know so we go through the entire procedure the Westmoreland the president are gonna turn the truth in a Jeep around looking at the troops so I get in the back of the troop a Jeep with him trying to cover Johnson's back and best like good and and he wants to get off and walk into the middle of the troop so I go with him in the middle of troops all this stuff is documented in film so then we get off finished our time in Vietnam we get airborne and he now wants to go to Karachi Thailand or Karachi Pakistan he might want to meet with President I you caught so we have planes flying in our every which direction agents trying to get there ahead of Air Force One and we land in Karachi and I'm concert he's waiting in a hangar we take it Johnson off the plane twin the hangar to see I've gone spent about an hour and a half two hours I didn't talking to him get back in the play and he wants to go to Rome he wants to see the president of Italy he wants to meet with Pope so we arrived back in Rome and flawed some helicopters in cargo planes over to Spain standby just in case and when they had the word we were heading for Rome they headed for Rome in the cargo planes from that they had to get the helicopters off the plane and put them back together that's why we could use it well by the time we got to Rome they weren't quite ready so there were a couple of helicopters there at the airport and they were we took them borrowed them and flew president Johnson over to see the president of Italy at his summer place so then the pilots of our own helicopters the United States my name is Marine Corps or Army Academy which at that time they had both units got him ready and they're ready to go so they flew over to the presidential summer place to pick us up to fly us into the Vatican they had never flown into the Vatican before it's starting to get dark they didn't even have a map they had got some postcards at the airport showing the Vatican and what to look for and that's all they went my and they managed to get the president and the rest of us into the Vatican and out again it's amazing how well these guys do so then we get back on Air Force One it's now just about Christmas Eve so bring the pilot didn't bring the president on board get ready take off take off Johnson was into his suite puts on his yellow pajamas goes to bed he's sound asleep so Jim cross pilot he readies ahead to the commanding of the officer everybody said the Azores tells them they look we're gonna have to refuel they're coming in there and we got a load of VIPs on this aircraft they've none of them had any chance to do any Christmas shopping keep the PX open they're gonna want to buy something for their families so we land at the Azores and they bring buses around it takes people into the PX I tell everybody you guys go ahead I'll stay here with John sandy sound asleep so I'm down to further their app walking back and forth but everybody else is gone all of a sudden I hear hey Clint where the hell is everybody they turn around and they're extending up their new yellow pajamas said mr. president I said they've all gone to the post-exchange you you know it's Christmas Eve and they haven't a chance to buy anything for their families so that's what they're doing hello I don't exercise body they either let go so it's tentative jazz I thought what the heck disc so he turns around grabs a coat out of a closet there and puts it on comes down in his slippers and his yellow pajamas in this coat I grabbed an Air Force car and driver tonight don't just stick to the PX just don't say anything so we get to the PX and walk in the door and it had been you know busy everybody's having fun as soon as we walked in that door people saw him it was you could have heard a pin drop nobody could believe it here at present United States own commander of Armed Forces walking around his pajamas in the middle of night buying stuff for his grandson and it was really crazy so that's 67 1968 was a year that I'll never forget because one of the first things that happened was the assassination of Martin Luther King and we had word of it at the White House it was a shock to everybody then they decided to have a memorial service the next day at the National Cathedral and so we started late plans for it I went home I had at my home I had a White House phone right next to my dead direct line when it rang it was neither the White House operator or the president always so I rang about two o'clock in the morning it was the president he said Clady says you know we're going to the National Cathedral for this memorial service for King they said yes mr. president we're all set to go he said look he said I want you to when we arrived there I want you to get that cars close to the doors you can get it when I get out of that car I watched you as close to me on it as white on rice during the entire services I said aw don't worry much but that's exactly the way it'll be that's what I did I was just gone him later and closer than I haven't been anybody so I guess he was pleased with that then June campaign is going Bobby Kennedy looks like he's probably going to get the nomination he's out in California and he gets shot so they going to have the memorial service at st. Patrick's in New York and then they're gonna bring him to DC by train and bury him and call the National Cemetery near his brother and so Johnson wants to go to the funeral in New York and he wants to attend the burial services at Arlington so he mr. Youngblood who is really close to him said that he he wanted to go through that service in New York with him so he came on Air Force One and he was right next to him all time during the services of New York and we came back down to Washington we waited do enough so he got word that the train was coming it was didn't get into DC till late that night like 10 o'clock and we went to the Union Station to meet it and then we accompanied the motorcade over to varlet National Cemetery and I was there with President Johnson I had a chance to briefly talk with mrs. Kennedy at the Union Station in Washington district over my condolences for the loss of her brother-in-law and she enquired how I was doing that was the last time I ever saw her talked to mrs. Kennedy so then that fall the election takes place and Nixon wins the Secret Service approached me and said that you know when I was a SC I see a PPD at the time presidential protective is said you know you were with the Kennedys you're with Johnson we don't think you're going to get along with Nixon we have a proposal we would like to have you take over the SAIC of the vice presidential protective division and I said oh okay I said based on what I have witnessed in the past regarding the vice presidential protective division in order for me to do that I said they're gonna have to meet you changes made because they and when Humphrey was the vice president they had very few agents and they were traveling a lot and they were all burned out and they were actually getting physically beaten up on the road by demonstrators because of Vietnam and so they serviced agreed to put some more agents with the vice president I asked then I would like to have a aircraft designated full-time for the vice president because when Humphrey was vice president sometimes they go to Andrews and there wasn't even a plane available so they agreed to do that and then I asked for a full-time doctor to be assigned to the vice president military doctrine II signed one out of the White House medical unit and so they did that so then I became the vice presidential protective division SAIC and I spent that year of 1969 with Spiro Agnew and he and I got along very very well we traveled a lot but we had into some interesting times then in January of 1970 I was transferred to headquarters as a deputy assistant director of protective forces and the first thing they did was they sent me to the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville Virginia and I went through that school there came back I worked in the office of the Deputy Assistant Director protective forces for the river rainy of that year and then in 1971 my immediate supervisor was promoted to Deputy Director and they promoted me to assistant director responsible for all protective forces so that was in 1971 so then we started getting ready planning for the 1972 election because we were going to be now be responsible for all candidates prior to Bobby Kennedy being shot in in June of 1968 the Secret Service had nothing to do with presidential candidates until after the election but after that happened to Robby Kennedy it was the secret service were made responsible for protecting candidates for the office of president over a specified period of time prior to the election which was a big change in responsibility for the Secret Service well what they did was they had a number of candidates they had to protect immediately I can give you an example of some dr. Spock Julius opsin here from the District of Columbia who was a terminal cancer patient who was the only one who actually declined the protection and all of these different people and if what they did was the service took some of the experienced people off the permanent detail and the presidential we took some people off the presidential detail and they brought in agents from field offices all over the country and when they would go on a trip anywhere they would supplement those field office agents doing perimeter security with agents from either ATF or Drug Enforcement you know or IRS or Customs so we were getting all these agents from all these other organizations and we had to train them in very brief training periods so they knew what exactly what they were supposed to do it was very difficult and very demanding I mean people were working months and months without days off or being near their families and so it was very difficult during 1968 by 1972 we had made an adjustment that we knew were going to have to do this they had given us additional manpower some not a great deal and so we had some training programs that we lined up for all the agents to go through before the 72 election and then we assigned the agents as the candidates became notable one of the guys that we protected was George Wallace he was here in the DC area campaigning he was out in Maryland and he was making his speech and they always had an armored armored rostrum for him for everyone but then he left the stage out there in Maryland walked out to the crowd and then there's about the second or third row of that crowd stood an individual who pulled the gun and fired he hit the governor he hit aides Arvest one of our agents and he hit an Alabama State Trooper he leave his name was Bethan and severely wounded the government he was crippled for life from that point on and so that was just another indication we needed more manpower and we needed more restrictions on activity of the candidates that we can manage that this is almost impossible because it's political campaigns then at that same time in 1972 the president of France came to the United States and he had been to two came over we've been in New York but he's been in what Chicago when he was in Chicago he and his wife got spit on by crowd unruly crowd and Nixon was just incensed so he directed that the Secret Service had sent it came to New York to evaluate the protection that Department of State Security was giving visiting heads of state because up until that point it was their responsibility Secret Service had nothing to do with it plus they were with the president so we go out to New York we came back and said they're not doing the job that they should do they need more manpower better training more money and Nixon decided well rather than do that we'll just turn the response to be only off the Secret Service so then in that that's 68 we have two candidates for president now in 72 we acquired the responsibility for all visiting heads of state heads of government and so so now another manpower drain on the Secret Service 1971 a discussion was had and I was part of the discussion about hiring women as agents or as uniformed officers and I was all for it because I knew what it was like being with mrs. Kennedy I could have used a female ageism hundreds of times and so I was pushing for it they decided that they would give it a try they would hire seven but they would hire them and make them uniformed officers so that's what they did didn't hired seven women made them uniformed officers well we kept borrowing the uniformed officers to act as agents with various details that we had going and so it was finally decided they were going to make some of these beautiful officers female uniformed officers and agents and there were seven there would have made all seven but one of them was pregnant and couldn't go through training so he took six and to this day I guess that seventh one calls me a pig because of that incident sure not being allowed to become an agent at that time but it really worked out well and today I can't give you an exact percentage but there are perhaps as many as 30% women in the agents agent category when and they do a wonderful job they're very devoted and there was just needed it's all I can say as they really are needed so your days with the service in the spring or in you know late early when early spring of 1975 I went to possess a naval officer the hospital to have my annual physical exam which is where we did it every year and I knew the doctors and the staff that were doing my exam one of them had been vice president Agnew s-- military physician and I do him really well friend so I've got my physical done and I was waiting for the results and this particular doctor came out you know kind of sad he walked when he said when he says I don't I'll tell you this you didn't pass your physical they're gonna have to retire you later what I knew I'd been having trouble because I had the events of Dallas had been catching up to me it was eating at me emotionally and mentally that we should have done better we should have fulfill that responsibility of protecting the president when we didn't and that had been driven into me way back when I was a child that if you're given a job or a task to do you perform it until it's done and done properly and so it just ate at me that we had not been able to protect President Kennedy and that's what was causing my physical deterioration so I retired July 31st 1975 I was 43 years old I immediately went to my home state of North Dakota to my sister's farm and worked as hard as I could on that I'm just clear my head more than anything while I was out there there were two attempts on President Ford's life and I was there I was trying to get information that's exactly what had happened but because I had retired and I wasn't cleared I couldn't get the information I wanted to ask you about what had happened it was very frustrating eventually I went back to Washington in September the Secret Service had a retirement party for me at the Hilton Hotel here in Washington DC and some notables showed up but mrs. Eisenhower came down from get his verb to wish me well the Agnew's were there my friend Humphrey was there someone who was a quantity event then I got word that 60 minutes wanted to talk to me wanted to interview me and I didn't think much of it I thought okay sure why not so I went and did the interview the first went quite well I thought about the next week I get a telephone call from Mike Wallace who was a reporter for CBS doing interview because when he said you know he said we had some technical problems we're gonna have to do shoot some of that interview over again he said that'd be okay I said I suppose so I said nothing you can do about it he said you meet us at the Madison Hotel and on such-and-such a day we'll have lunch and then do it shoot over again oh by the way stand make sure you wear exactly the same clothes so wonder why I have to wear the same clothes you must join it could include the old tape with the new tape or something sure enough I go and do the interview and the first thing Mike did was hit me with Dallas now I have never discussed Dallas with anybody the agents that I had never discussed it I had never talked about it with my family no nobody and when Mike hit me with Dallas I broke on-camera emotionally and it was really devastating after it was over I went home and first thing I got a call from my sister saying how sorry she was for me and I realized how bad it must have looked to everybody my breaking on camera and I went into a really depressed state myself and it just got worse and I saw like I started to self-medicate and yeah because I couldn't sleep at night so I would drink heavily I kept people a man you for made Scotch in business and I smoked terribly through three packs a day 1982 my doctor's genuine said Clint you have to quit what you're doing or you're gonna be dead not too short of time that shocked me and so I quit cold turkey good drinking quit smoking started to feel better started work out this is 1982 eight years later in 1990 the Secret Service retirement group like called a Association of former agents of the US Secret Service was having a convention in San Antonio Texas and so I decided to go it was the first one I would have been to and everybody was pleased that I came and they were a little bit leery of how I was going to act I think I remember the first day attending a luncheon and the waiter came around and took the orders and for drinks and when it came to me you could have heard a pin drop and I said I'll have some iced tea and everybody breathes a sigh of relief but I still felt that sense of guilt and responsibility it just it wouldn't go away 2009 a former agent who was a friend of mine he had replaced me in the Denver office and we had worked together on the detail his name was Gerald Blaine he had left the Secret Service a few months after the assassination and becomes in charge of security for IBM eventually and then he also was in charge of security for a major oil company but now I was retired he had decided he was going to write a book about the agents that were assigned to President Kennedy and what it was like and all of that thing so he had apparently written this book which is voluminous and wasn't going anywhere and then he contacted a family friend Lisa McGovern who he asked to help him rewrite what he had done and so it would be something that they'd be willing to buy you know the publishing company Gerry had not been in Dallas he was on a midnight shift he worked in Fort Worth and he immediately went to Austin to get ready for the next night tonight into the 22nd so yeah it wasn't in Dallas so when they got to the part of the book talking about Dallas Lisa my coven said hey I need to talk to somebody who was there Jerry Blaine said well the guy you need to talk to is Hill but he didn't talk to anybody so she pleaded with him so he said he would contact me and see if I'd be willing so he called me up and I first I told him to I but not going to do that and I'm not doing any part of it he kept on and so finally I said okay I said I'll talk to her when it's weird but I'm not going somewhere just do it here in the Washington DC area so pretty soon when I get a telephone call from Lisa McGovern and she makes arrangements to meet with me I told her I'd give her two hours I met her at the hay-adams hotel they had made a one of their business officers available to her she was there with her son and she began to interview me the two hours are up and I really hadn't told her a great deal if she couldn't got off the internet I guess and she said you know I might have some follow-up questions she said would you mind if I got your telephone number and I made the mistake of giving a tour from that point on she began to call me she called me you know maybe twice a week and then it was four times a week and then it was every day it was twice a day and it was three times a day and to fill in all these stories that I was revealing more and more all the time and actually started to feel a little better after I did this so one day she had been bugging me I called her up and I said look I'll just tell you the whole damn story and so I did and I guess it was like 10 days or a week before her deadline I think she was ready to kill me about that time and she rewrote the story filling in the blanks with all the information I had given her but I realized that this made me feel better all of this just getting that story out there and the publisher then accepted the book and book was published and then they wanted to they were going to have a little book to her and mr. Blaine was injured in the Korean War one of his ears eardrum was removed or he couldn't hear anything out of that here the other one was only about ten percent so when they went in the book tour they wanted somebody to go with him besides mr. McGovern who knew the story and could help him and so I was given that chore and so in that process I got to know Lisa becoming more and more eventually she came to me and said what you know you should write a book I'm never gonna write a book she's well you know you can write a book and make it a tribute to mrs. Kennedy I thought about it for a while said you know that's not a bad idea so she and I collaborated on the book my the first book we wrote was mrs. Kennedy and me and that was a success it was a New York Times bestseller so then 2013 comes along and it's a 50th year anniversary of the assassination the publisher says we'd like to have you write a book about the assassination so Lisa McGovern and I put our heads together we wrote the book five days in November that was successful so then we're talking to the publishers and they said why don't you just write a book about your entire career and so that developed into the book five presidents my extraordinary journey with Eisenhower Kennedy Johnson Nixon and Ford and that was the last book we've written now it was published in 2016 okay what do you what would you say about law enforcement to say I think law enforcement is a wonderful career especially if you're dedicated to helping your community the well-being and welfare of the the area in which you live is I can't think of any higher calling than to be there to help somebody when they're in trouble or keeps a lot of trouble so I really recommend it it's not for everybody obviously but if you have the inkling and you're willing to put forth the effort I recommend it highly well I think a museum like this is going to give the general public a better idea of what police work really involves and the things that they have to do and why they have to do the things that they do every portion of this museum is dedicated to just explain things to people what actually goes on out in a law enforcement OH whether it be federal state local County they're all different in some respects but they all are similar in many respects and it it's essential I think for young people especially to have the opportunity to see something like this to have that experience and you have a better understanding of what their local law enforcement agencies are doing and why they're doing relieving a lot of because he didn't get in counseling and really his own account yeah you lived through a very traumatic experience which colored your life what would you say to other people in law enforcement to defend similar certain degree but other circumstances where they recover the bet the best thing that someone in my situation best thing you can do to find somebody you trust and talk about what had happened you have to get it out there you have to be willing to confront the issue and talk about it otherwise it'll eat you up and I've I've talked to people in the military coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan there's something for PTSD and that's the best advice I can give them as find someone you trust and talk about what is really bothering you when I went to Dealey Plaza in 1990 I spent a considerable time they're walking Dealey Plaza went up in that at that time the what is now called the sixth floor museum had just opened I went up guys signed a phony name because I didn't want anybody know who I was and I went up in there and that really helped me understand that I had done everything that day that I could have done there wasn't anything else I could have done and so that gave me some sense of relief even so I still had that sense of guilt for failing not to fulfill my responsibility and I think that was bred into me by my parents who always told me you never quit you always do the job right to the bitter end no matter how much you don't like I guess that sustains with me all my life I know I know my sense myself but it still bugs me I mean it just the fact that it happened and and and it was really nothing considering everything considering his attitude it's a political situation at the time his not wanting anybody up on top of the back of the car and that developed the previous Monday and Tampa Florida because they were up in the back of the car and he noticed them and he told him he didn't want him up there anymore because of the fact he didn't want the people to feel there's anything between them and em and it wasn't anything negative I mean he wasn't against the Secret Service he was a real friend I mean lead along great with him but thank you sir thank you thank you

Channel: National Law Enforcement Museum

Views: 244,451

Rating: 4.69871 out of 5

Keywords: Clint Hill, Secret Service, Oral History, National Law Enforcement Museum, Kennedy, JFK, Law Enforcement

Id: sdO5ixuMr1s

Length: 127min 31sec (7651 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 17 2019