On the Detail

Story Behind the Cover of Mrs. Kennedy and Me

2012-01-14T15:39:00.000-05:00

After months of deliberation, sorting through thousands of photos, and dealing with two authors with strong opinions, the wonderful team at Simon & Schuster revealed the book jacket for Mrs. Kennedy and Me by Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin.

In the end, the front photo was chosen because we felt it epitomized the close and intensely personal relationship between First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her trusted Secret Service Agent, Clint Hill.

This photo, taken in the summer of 1962 in Amalfi, Italy is from Clint Hill's personal collection, and has never before been published.

It is just one of more than eighty photos--many of which have rarely been seen--throughout the book that chronicles Clint Hill's four years with the woman he always called, "Mrs. Kennedy."

As we gear up for the release of the book on April 4, 2012, we will keep you posted on what's happening, and insights into how this book came about.

"Like" the Mrs. Kennedy and Me Facebook Page for more info and updates.

Washington Post Article honors Bob Faison

2011-12-16T07:30:00.002-05:00

In memoriam: Robert R. Faison, 1929-2011

ASSOCIATED PRESS/ASSOCIATED PRESS - As U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's highly guarded car rounds the corner taking him on "L" street and then to the Capitol building he lost balance, but regained it with the help of Mrs. Edmund Brown, wife of California governor, Sept. 17, 1964, in Sacramento, Calif. Secret Service agent Robert Faison is at far left.

After several years of struggling with recurring cancer, it became obvious to Faison that he was nearing the end of his fight. He recognized the signs, having lost both a wife and son to cancer; his eldest son, Gregory, succumbed to the disease in 1997. Though Faison’s health was declining, he was reluctant to relinquish his love of traveling, so Faison and his wife embarked on a jazz cruise to the Caribbean in early 2011. But Faison wasn’t strong enough to tour the islands as they had so many times before, and they had oxygen delivered to the cabin. Their new limitations led Faison and his wife to a difficult conclusion.

“I realized then, and I think he realized, that that was going to be our last cruise together,” Jacquelyn says. After their return, Faison turned his energies to a subject he had long tried to avoid: himself. He set to work on his own obituary.

As Faison saw it, he was the only one who could tell his story, since no one knew the details as he did. He worked quietly from their family room, sitting at the round table at which he regularly toiled over the bills and balanced their accounts. Using a yellow legal pad, he began to reconstruct the facts of his life. “Robert R. Faison,” he began, “affectionately known as Bob, was born in Montclair, New Jersey on August 12, 1929. ...”

For weeks he worked on a draft. He wrote about the small Southern town where he was raised (Seaboard, N.C.), and the cousin who took him in and treated him as her own; the university where he graduated from with honors (North Carolina A&T), and the prestigious fraternity that he was an active member of for 51 years (Alpha Phi Alpha). He wrote of his pride in being promoted to chief warrant officer, and acknowledged the church he and Jacquelyn had joined after leaving Silver Spring for retirement in Palm Coast, Fla. He remembered those he loved and lost, and those who were left behind to “cherish his memory.”

Regarding his profession, he wrote, “He was the first African American permanently assigned to the White House and had the pleasure of serving six U.S. presidents during his career and traveled to more than 30 countries until he retired in 1995.”

A month before he died, Faison presented the legal pad to Jacquelyn, who was surprised but relieved. The draft was so thorough that she typed it verbatim, and used it in the programs at two of the three of the services held in his honor. The only addition she made was one her husband, so modest and matter of fact, would never have included. Robert Faison “was the epitome of a gentleman, loving, kind and always good-natured.”

Inspired by Clint Hill

2011-09-11T10:18:00.000-04:00

Gainesville native helped protect 3 presidents while in Secret Service

Courage, Strength, and Dignity A Conversation with Caroline Kennedy | Parade.com

2011-09-04T09:24:00.001-04:00

Courage, Strength, and Dignity A Conversation with Caroline Kennedy | Parade.com

Read this wonderful interview with Caroline Kennedy about the tapes her mother Jacqueline Kennedy made shortly after JFK's assassination. For even more insight into what Jackie Kennedy was really like, read MRS. KENNEDY AND ME By Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin. Available April 2012 (Gallery/Simon and Schuster).

Happy Birthday President Kennedy

2011-05-29T09:17:00.000-04:00

On May 29, 1963 President John F. Kennedy celebrated his 46th birthday. Sadly, it would be his last.

Mrs. Kennedy arranged a surprise birthday party on the yacht Sequoia for family and close friends.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President. May you rest in peace.

Secret Service Agent Haunted by JFK Assassination

2011-05-05T01:45:00.000-04:00

http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/cleveland_metro/jfk-secret-service-agent-breaks-his-silence-on-assassination-of-president-48-years-ago

By Leon Bibb CLEVELAND - A former U.S. presidential secret service agent, who was with President John Kennedy the day the president was assasinated, now walks the quiet halls of the Western Reserve Historical Society, a Cleveland museum dedicated to the history of Northeast Ohio.
Paul Landis was in Dallas as part of the Kennedy secret service detail November 22, 1963, when bullets flashed through the sunlit Texas air, striking the president, killing him.

"I heard the gunshot," said Landis. "It came over my right shoulder."

Landis was within a few feet of the presidential limousine, the top of which had been removed at the president's request. Movies of that day show Landis and several other secret service agents trailing the limousine as each man watched for any unusual movement in the crowds of people who had lined Dallas streets to get a view of the nation's chief executive.

Landis said when he heard the first shot, his eyes turned toward where he thought the shot had originated. Still searching the crowd, there came another shot in quick succession.

"And when my eyes came back to the president again, it was a third shot and that was the one that hit him in the head," Landis remembered.

Dressed in a blue sweater with an shirt underneath, Landis sat quietly in one of the rooms of the Western Reserve Historical Society, where he has worked as a security guard for many years. Without emotion, he told the story of how he had joined the Secret Service.

After a time on the force, he was transferred to duty at the White House, where his responsibilities included guarding First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and the couple's children, Caroline and John Jr.
Photographs in a book, "The Kennedy Detail," written by former JFK secret service agent Gerald Blaine, show the men of the security team assigned to the White House. Throughout, there are photographs of Landis with the Kennedy children or Mrs. Kennedy.

In one photograph, Landis is running alongside a galloping horse ridden by Caroline. On the book's cover is a picture of President and Mrs. Kennedy shaking hands with supporters at the Dallas Airport only moments before they rode in the motorcade toward Dealey Plaza, site of the fatal shooting of the president.

In the cover photograph is Landis, wearing sunglasses, in between the President and Mrs. Kennedy. All around there are smiles, including on the First Couple's faces. Minutes later, the smiles through Dallas and the rest of the United States, and much of the world would turn to grieving and mourning faces.

"We had a job to do and that was to protect the president or whomever we were assigned to and if you fail, you fail," he said.

Landis said he and the other agents were haunted by the assassination. He said he grieved inwardly for decades. Oddly, he said, agents rarely spoke of their inner feelings on the death of the president. There was no professional psychological counseling for the Secret Service agents who witnessed the murder of the president.

"No, that wasn't even thought of and heard of," said Landis, matter-of-factly. But the hurt was there in his mind and in his memory. "Very much so," he added.

It was Blaine's 2010 book that prompted the Secret Service agents from the 1963 White House to gather and tell their stories in support of each other. The Discovery Channel produced a documentary, "The Kennedy Detail," where each man told his story of the assassination and how it had impacted the life of each.

"Up until then, I never said much about the Secret Service or of working on the presidential detail in 1963," said Landis. "The conversation would always then turn to the assassination."

It was Blaine's book and the documentary, which provided a therapy for Landis.

"That's the best thing that's happened to me since the assassination," said Landis.
He added he is no longer haunted by the event that day, which many sociologists contend robbed American of an innocence. He now talks teasily of the Kennedy Detail and of what he saw and heard that November day in Dallas.

From that day, presidents were secured even more. Landis noted how heavily armed agents are these days, although their weapons are not easily visible under their jackets.

"I carried a .38 pistol," said Landis.

At Parkland Hospital, where President Kennedy was rushed, Landis sat in a hallway with Mrs. Kennedy. He said she stared into space and said nothing. The nation saw her that day, dressed in a pink suit with a matching pillbox hat, which she had helped make popular.

In the hospital, on the Air Force Once trip back to Washington, and in front of the television news cameras that captured her image as she left the presidential jet, the world saw the blood of President Kennedy on her skirt with trails of blood running along her legs.

She had cradled John Kennedy's head in the backset of the limousine as it sped from Dealey Plaza to Parkland Hospital.

At the WRHS, Landis' job is to walk its hallways and guard the items that are housed in the museum. One of the items there, ironically, is a Lincoln Continental convertible, similar to the car in which President Kennedy rode in that day in Dallas.

For Landis, memories of the assassination are never far away. Forty-eight years later, he said they surface at times. He is talking about that day which, he said, at times seems far away. Certainly, however, it was turning point in his life. He was guarding the president the day shots blasted through the air, fataling striking President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

A year later, Landis left the U.S. Secret Service. He has lived quietly in a Cleveland suburb since 1975.

Daily Herald Article on The Kennedy Detail

2011-05-03T04:25:00.000-04:00

Secret Service agents visit Naperville to discuss JFK’s death

By Marie Wilson

Daily Herald April 19, 2011

When conspiracy theories started to run rampant in the months and years after the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, the Secret Service agents who protected him made very few statements about them.

But when former Secret Service agent Jerry Blaine retired, he began reading some of the theories online, and ideas claiming presidential drivers or agents had a hand in the murder “got personal,” he said.

“What the agents decided to do is set the record straight and make sure we at least had a say in history,” Blaine said Saturday while discussing his book “The Kennedy Detail” at Anderson’s Bookshop in downtown Naperville. “It was not until June of last year that we sat down and emotionally discussed the assassination.”

Blaine joined co-author and former Naperville resident Lisa McCubbin and former Secret Service agent Clint Hill for the discussion and book signing attended by about 200 people.
Blaine described the hectic routine of his job as one of less than 50 men assigned to protect Kennedy and his family.

And Hill, one of the agents closest to Kennedy when shots were fired, told the assassination story from his point of view.

On what was a warm November day in Dallas, windows were open at the high-rises surrounding the streets where the president’s vehicles proceeded to a campaign stop, Hill said. He was scanning a building to his left when he heard an “explosive noise” from his right, which turned out to be the first gunshot fired from a sixth-story window by Lee Harvey Oswald.

After the first shot:
“What I saw was the president grabbing at his throat and moving to the left,” Hill said, speaking quickly, as though his words were memorized and well-practiced. “I knew he was in trouble and something was wrong.”

After the second shot:
Hill said he tried to “cover and evacuate,” a Secret Service technique that would have allowed his body to block those of the president and Jackie Kennedy.

After the third shot:
Hill saw a “gaping hole” in Kennedy’s head as blood, brains and bone sprayed out from the gunshot wound, covering his clothing as well as Jackie Kennedy’s.

“I assumed the wound was fatal,” Hill said.

In an era of what Blaine called “pre-technology agents,” grief counseling wasn’t available after the assassination. Neither was time to discuss the tragedy and its emotional effects.

“One thing you never got on the detail was sleep,” Blaine said. “After you finished 20-hour days, all you could do to wind down was talk to the guys you worked with. . . . We became like brothers because we spent our entire lives together. We were traveling 80 percent of the time.”

Writing “The Kennedy Detail” helped Blaine, Hill and the other agents McCubbin interviewed finally to speak about Kennedy’s assassination and find a bit of an emotional release, McCubbin said.
“It turned out to be a real healing process for these men writing this book,” she said.

View from Minneapolis: A Review of "The Kennedy Detail"

2011-04-30T07:52:00.000-04:00

View from Minneapolis: A Review of "The Kennedy Detail"

Thank you to Tom, a newspaper executive at the Star Tribune and former Secret Service Agent for his personal feelings and review of THE KENNEDY DETAIL.

Midwest Tour for THE KENNEDY DETAIL

2011-03-28T02:47:00.001-04:00

I am thrilled to announce the long-awaited Midwest Tour for THE KENNEDY DETAIL. Join Jerry Blaine, Clint Hill and me for a discussion about what it was like to be a Secret Service Agent for JFK and Jackie Kennedy, and get your personalized signed copy of the book!

Because books have sold out at nearly every event, I strongly suggest you call ahead to pre-order.

CHICAGO

April 15 - The Standard Club, Chicago @12:00 pm. Tickets required. Call the Book Stall for more details: 847.446.8880
April 16 - Anderson's Bookshop, Naperville @2:00 pm. Free. 630.355.2665

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY, Lansing, MI

April 18 - 20 - Michigan State University - times for events coming soon

ST. LOUIS

April 21 - St. Louis County Library Auditorium @7:00 pm. Free. Books sold by Pudd'n Head Books: 314.918.1069

Mrs. Kennedy and Me on Facebook

2011-03-28T02:32:00.000-04:00

Mrs. Kennedy and Me is now on Facebook. Click here to see the latest news and photos. LIKE the page for constant updates.

https://www.facebook.com/mrs.kennedyandme

Protecting Our Nation's Leaders

2011-02-18T02:44:00.000-05:00

By Ken Gormley and Former Director of the Secret Service Lew Merletti
From The Huffington Post
The recent carnage in which a gunman went on a spree, shooting Representative Gabrielle Giffords and killing six bystanders in Tucson, serves as a stark reminder that political assassinations are a reality that require constant vigilance.
The angry, inflamed political culture that has produced dysfunction in Washington and across the nation, reaching a fevered pitch of late, has made the threat of assassinations greater than ever. Many of our problems trace back to the Clinton-Starr imbroglio over a decade ago.

In 1998, as Independent Counsel Ken Starr launched an investigation into whether President Bill Clinton had engaged in a sexual affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and lied about it in a deposition, both sides threw every bomb within reach. The Clinton-Starr bloodbath marked the popularization of partisan warfare. It produced an impeachment trial that sullied America; it ushered in red states and blue states. Each side was willing to fight to the death, in the name of defending its own version of American virtue.

One of the many self-destructive aspects of the Clinton-Starr debacle, that still haunts us today, was the decision by Mr. Starr's office to subpoena Secret Service agents to the grand jury, as part of its quest to pin the tail on President Clinton. One newspaper trumpeted: "Sexgate Stunner, Secret Service Agent to Testify: I SAW THEM DO IT." No such evidence turned up. Yet Secret Service agents were unceremoniously dragged before the grand jury and forced to tell all.

Clint Hill, the agent who had been pushed off the bumper of President Kennedy's limousine in 1963, only to watch the President murdered in cold blood, was one of the first to sound the alarm during the Clinton-Starr battles. He warned Secret Service Director Lew Merletti that allowing Starr's prosecutors to force agents to testify about the private conversations and movements of the president was a nightmare waiting to happen.

Agent Hill, still haunted by the ghosts of Dallas four decades earlier, told Merletti: "If agents have to testify, then 'Katie bar the door.'" Once agents were required to act as spies, presidents would distance themselves from their protective details. Said Hill: "And if they start pushing you back, look out."

Certainly, if an agent witnessed criminal wrongdoing, he or she was obligated to step forward. Otherwise, agents had to be close-lipped. Evidence had to be gathered in other ways, if prosecutors wanted to conduct investigations of the president, absent extraordinary circumstances.

Director Merletti made an urgent plea to Attorney General Janet Reno and then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, convincing them to support a "protective function privilege" in court. He also implored Representative Henry Hyde, Chair of the Judiciary Committee, who seemed unmoved. Later that same day, a paranoid-schizophrenic named Russell Eugene Weston entered the Capitol, stormed into the office of a Congressman, opened fire with a gun, and killed two Capitol Police officers.

Former President George H.W. Bush wrote a strong letter supporting Merletti's protective function privilege proposal. Although he was no fan of Bill Clinton's indiscretions in the White House, the elder Bush stated: "I can assure you that had I felt [Secret Service agents] would be compelled to testify as to what they had seen or heard, no matter what the subject, I would not have felt comfortable having them close in."

Despite these compelling arguments, Ken Starr's prosecutors barreled forward. Eager to find a smoking gun that might prove Bill Clinton had lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, they forced agents in the President's inner circle to testify. No smoking gun was found. Yet the protective shield of trust was shattered.
It is time to undo that damaging precedent.

The angry political divide that originated in the Clinton-Starr wars 13 years ago, when both political parties lost their compass, has produced horrible consequences for our nation. It has demeaned the once-noble calling of public service. It has inflamed citizens. It has made disrespect, contemptuous language and threats of violence acceptable currency in our political discourse. It has put our leaders at risk more than ever, creating a Petri dish from which troubled and disturbed individuals can and will emerge.

While there is no evidence that the Tucson gunman who shot Representative Giffords was acting on behalf of a particular party or political creed, it is no coincidence that he chose a political gathering as his target. Once we ratchet up the hate rhetoric and begin attacking the political opposition as evil-doers, imbalanced people like Jared Lee Loughner can and will step out of the shadows and seek to murder our highest officials.

We need to do more than wear lapel ribbons to show our concern for this dangerous state of affairs. As Director Merletti and Clinton Hill warned officials of both parties during the Clinton-Starr bloodbath, if we do not remain ever- vigilant, "the guns will sound again."

The Secret Service investigates an average of 3,000 threats to the president each year. It intervenes numerous times each month to halt or apprehend individuals whose goal is to harm or kill top public officials. Eleven of the last thirteen presidents have been targets of assassination attempts. Protecting our highest officials is serious business. The attempted assassination of a country's chief executive jeopardizes its national security, the safety of its people and the stability of its democratic government.

Although nothing in the U.S. Constitution requires a protective function privilege, there is a reason that agents historically were kept out of grand juries and the political fray, for more than a century. The agency's motto, "Worthy of Trust and Confidence," is not an empty pledge. These agents dedicate their lives to creating protective shields around public officials; this is impossible without first earning the officials' absolute trust.

As part of regaining our national soul, this undermining of our Secret Service agents must cease. Congress should swiftly enact a law creating a protective function privilege for federal agents who put their lives at risk each day, protecting the President and other high-ranking public officials. Agents need to be able to do their jobs, without being forced to act as spies and informants with respect to the very individuals whom they are sworn to protect.

There are other, far less destructive ways to gain information, even to determine if future presidents have engaged in extra-marital affairs in the White House.
Ken Gormley is Dean and Professor at Duquesne Law School and author of the bestselling The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr released February 1 in paperback by Broadway Books. Lewis C. Merletti was the 19th Director of the United States Secret Service. As a member of the Presidential Protection Division he was assigned to protect Presidents Ronald Regan, George H.W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton.

White House Chef for the Kennedys Dies

2011-02-05T02:23:00.001-05:00

By Emma Brown

Washington Post

Rene Verdon, a French--born chef who brought an air of continental sophistication to the White House under the Kennedys, and then left his post after a clash with the Johnson administration over frozen vegetables and garbanzo beans, died Feb. 2 at his home in San Francisco of undisclosed causes. He was 86.

Verdon, who later ran an acclaimed San Francisco restaurant and won admirers including Julia Child and Jacques Pepin, was perhaps most renowned for his five--year tenure at the White House.
When he arrived at the executive mansion in spring 1961, he took over a kitchen that had long been run by caterers and Navy stewards and not known for producing fine food.

That changed under Verdon — a "culinary genius," the Washington Post said, with refined tastes admired by Jacqueline Kennedy.

A veteran of some of Paris' best restaurants, Verdon championed seasonal, local food long before it became fashionable. He grew vegetables on the White House roof and herbs in the East Garden.
"I cooked everything fresh," he told the New York Times in 2009. "If the ingredients are superb, then the cooking can be, and must be, simple."

In April 1961, his White House debut — a luncheon for British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan — made the front page of the New York Times.

Verdon served trout cooked in Chablis, roast fillet of beef au jus and artichoke bottoms Beaucaire. Dessert was a vacherin, or meringue shell, filled with raspberries and
chocolate ice cream.

"The verdict after the luncheon," wrote the Times' Craig Claiborne, "was that there was nothing like French cooking to promote good Anglo--American relations."

Media coverage of Verdon's menus helped burnish the Kennedys' reputation as tastemakers and spurred home cooks across the United States to begin investigating French cuisine. When the classic "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," cowritten by Child, appeared in 1961, a wave of Francophile homemakers began turning out souffles, pates and pork rillettes.

Verdon continued working at the White House for more than two years after President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but tastes were decidedly different under Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson — "more South," Verdon once said.

The Kennedys had asked for quenelles de brochet and mousse of sole with lobster. The Johnsons wanted barbecue, spoonbread and chili.

"You can eat at home what you want, but you do not serve barbecued spareribs at a banquet with the ladies in white gloves," he told The Post.

In 1965, the Johnsons hired a Texan "food coordinator" to cut costs. Her bargain--hunting brought frozen and canned vegetables to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., a change Verdon couldn't stomach.
"I don't think you can economize on food in the White House," he said. Plus, "I don't want to lose my reputation."

He resigned at the end of the year "in a Gallic huff," according to Time magazine, after he was asked to prepare a cold puree of garbanzo beans — a dish he described as "already bad hot."

Rene Verdon was born June 29, 1924, in the village of Pouzauges on France's west coast, where his parents owned a bakery and pastry shop.

He grew up helping his father deliver bread and apprenticed to a chef at a hotel in Nantes. From there, he went to Paris, where he worked in restaurants such as the Berkeley before moving to the United States in the late 1950s.

He was working as an assistant chef at the Carlyle Hotel in New York, where the Kennedys had a penthouse, when John F. Kennedy was elected president.

After leaving the White House, Verdon spent several years hawking electric kitchen appliances and then settled in San Francisco. He wrote several books, including "The White House Chef Cookbook" (1968) and "The Enlightened Cuisine" (1985).

In 1972, he started Le Trianon, a French restaurant hailed in the Times for its "Old--World charm."
Survivors include his wife, Yvette, a former House of Chanel director who ran the front of the house at Le Trianon.

Verdon presided over several state dinners, but his favorite, he said, was held in 1961 at Mount Vernon — George Washington's estate on the banks of the Potomac River — in honor of the president of Pakistan.

The mansion had neither a kitchen for Verdon nor modern toilets for the 132 guests who arrived by boat. And Mount Vernon's swampy grounds were thick with mosquitoes.
Verdon prepared a simple meal at the White House — an appetizer of avocado and crabmeat followed by chicken casserole — that was trucked 16 miles to Mount Vernon. When he saw Park Service employees spraying insecticide to battle the bugs, he threatened to quit.

"I'm not going to be responsible," he cried, "for the number of deaths from DDT!"

He was calmed after Secret Service officers taste--tested several dishes. Guests ate under a tent and listened to the National Symphony Orchestra, and the night was pronounced a triumph.

"Onlookers have speculated as to what marks the end of the Kennedy era," read a 1965 editorial in The Post. "The resignation that truly signals the end of the Kennedy era is that of Chef Rene Verdon."

Agents revisit Tampa, Florida 47 years later

2011-01-22T01:04:00.000-05:00

On Friday, January 21, three former Secret Service Agents reunited in Tampa, Florida to discuss how President John F. Kennedy's visit there impacted decisions made in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Watch Jerry Blaine, Clint Hill and Chuck Zboril as interviewed by ABC Action News in Tampa.
http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_tampa/JFK%27s-Secret-Service-agents-write-about-guilt,-events-leading-to-assassination-in-Kennedy-Detail

Read the full story in THE KENNEDY DETAIL: JFK's SECRET SERVICE AGENTS BREAK THEIR SILENCE by Gerald Blaine and Lisa McCubbin, with Foreword by Clint Hill. Click here to buy the book. http://www.amazon.com/Kennedy-Detail-Secret-Service-Silence/dp/1439192960

Secret Service Agent Clint Hill talks to 60 Minutes' "Overtime"

2011-01-13T03:11:00.000-05:00

Secret Service Agent Clint Hill discusses the recent shooting of Congresswoman Giffords with 60 Minutes. The link includes Mike Wallace's emotional 1975 interview with Hill. This interview, and the never before told story of the second interview that occurred, is described in great detail in The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence by Gerald Blaine and Lisa McCubbin.

Secret Service Warns Of Putting Too Much Info On The Web CBS Dallas / Fort Worth – News, Sports, Weather, Traffic and the Best of DFW

2010-12-30T12:24:00.000-05:00

Secret Service Warns Of Putting Too Much Info On The Web CBS Dallas / Fort Worth – News, Sports, Weather, Traffic and the Best of DFW

On Mrs. Kennedy's Detail

2010-11-26T08:56:00.000-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/opinion/22hill.html

Read Clint Hill's moving Op Ed piece in the New York Times.

The Kennedy Detail (A book review)

2010-11-07T06:10:00.000-05:00

The Kennedy Detail by Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin (A book review) - Hartford Books | Examiner.com

Review of The Kennedy Detail

2010-11-02T06:25:00.000-04:00

Book Review: 'The Kennedy Detail'

Posted: October 31, 2010 - 12:00am

By Lee Scott

"It was one of those rare moments in history when time stood still and people the world over remember where they were and what they were doing."
I was at Ernie's gas station, hanging out with the guys. Ernie always kept the TV on, so we were all aware of the events in Dallas. It was surreal. The usual banter was gone. We were West Virginians - our state had put him in over the top. Our president was dead.
One of the younger neighborhood boys wandered in. He stood there, as we silently watched the TV. Then he said he was glad the Catholic ***** was dead, obviously mouthing words he had heard a prejudiced parent say.
All eyes turned his way. Then one, then another, started hitting him. Surrounded, he crumpled on the floor, a bloody mess. The group backed away. He got up crying and ran home. We turned back to the television. Not another word was said.
"The Kennedy Detail," which comes out Tuesday, is a book by and about the Secret Service agents whose job it was to protect the president that day. It will bring the memories and emotions flooding back.
Written by former agent Gerald Blaine and journalist Lisa McCubbin, it gives an intimate, behind- the-scenes account of the Kennedy presidency, those fateful minutes in Dallas and the mournful aftermath.
It has been 50 years since John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected and most of the Secret Service agents, especially those closest to the Kennedys, have not uttered a word about this period outside of their official statements about the assassination.
Although Blaine is listed as the author, he gives credit to the other agents, both living and deceased, who contributed saved memoranda, reports, personal memoirs, oral histories and other correspondence to the effort. Clint Hill, who was on Mrs. Kennedy's detail, was particularly forthcoming, sharing with Blaine information that he had never before made public.
The shared guilt literally oozes from pages - their sole mission was to protect the president and they failed - as Blaine takes us back to the beginning when the agents were sent to Palm Beach to cover then President-elect Kennedy.
The stressed-out agents would soon realize their job would change radically covering the highly charged "Boss," his lovely, and extremely popular, young wife and their budding family.
We follow the Kennedys through the Camelot years with detail and insight presented in an almost reverential fashion. The Kennedys liked the agents, and the agents liked them.
Although anecdotes abound, conspiracy theorists will find little support in this straight-forward rendition. Blaine does try to refute some of the "tabloid fodder," especially that surrounding Marilyn Monroe.
Hill's account of the actual assassination - he was the agent who jumped on the back of the car - and the confusion at the hospital is tough to read, but one that has needed to be told.
And what most don't realize, once the president was declared dead, the exhausted, confused, emotionally overwrought agents' job was not over - they had a new president to protect.
This extraordinary work will not be the last account of what went on in Dallas, but it will be one referred to by all future writers.
Blaine's revelation that he almost shot new President Lyndon Johnson the night after the assassination is the sound bite that will be overused when referring to this book, but the poignant passages describing the interaction between the agents and Mrs. Kennedy and her children are what will ensure that it will be read and cried over.
Lee Scott lives in Avondale.

The Kennedy Detail Book Tour

2010-10-17T03:09:00.000-04:00

Here is a list of confirmed events. Check back often as new events are being added every day.

THE KENNEDY DETAIL – CALENDAR OF EVENTS

RADIO AND TELEVISION

11/8 ABC Radio Tour, 8:30 - 10:00 am

11/11 Morning Joe, MSNBC, 8:50 am

11/12 Premiere Radio Tour, 8:00 - 11:00 am

11/18 KERA’s “Think!” with Krys Boyd, 12 Noon

BOOK SIGNINGS

Boston, MA

11/3 Harvard Coop Talk/signing, 7:00pm, 3^rd Flr.

1400 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA 02138

(617) 499-2000

www.harvard.bkstore.com

Washington, DC

11/8 Discovery Channel Premiere & Reception.

Georgetown/Gaston Hall - By invitation only

Discovery will film the event and the footage will be

featured on their website

11/9 National Press Club Book Fair & Authors’ Night Signing, 5:30pm

529 14th St. NW, 13th Flr.

Washington, DC 20045

202-662-7500

http://press.org/bookfair

New York

11/11 Barnes & Noble (82nd and Broadway) Talk/signing, 7:00pm

2289 Broadway

New York, NY 10024

212-362-8835

http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/store/1979

Dallas, TX

11/17 Stonebriar Country Club – Private event

11/20 Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza Talk/signing, 2:00pm

411 Elm St.

Dallas, TX 75202

(214) 747-6660

http://www.jfk.org

San Francisco, CA

11/30 Book Passage Talk/signing, 6:00pm

1 Ferry Building # 42

San Francisco, CA 94111-4231

(415) 835-1020

www.bookpassage.com

12/1 San Francisco Yacht Club – Private event

San Diego, CA

12/3 Warwick’s Talk/signing, 7:00pm

7812 Girard Ave

La Jolla, CA 92037-4287

(858) 454-0347

http://www.warwicks.com

Los Angeles, CA

12/6 Book Soup– Talk/signing, 7:00pm

8818 W Sunset Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90069-2125

(310) 659-3110

booksoup.com

Bakersfield, CA

12/7 Russo’s Books Talk/signing, 6:00pm

9000 Ming Avenue

Bakersfield, CA 93311

(661) 665-4686

russosbooks.com‎

Denver, CO

12/9 Denver Press Club Talk/signing, 12:00pm

1330 Glenarm Pl

Denver, CO 80204-2115

(303) 571-5260

denverpressclub.org‎

New York City Book Signing with Jerry Blaine and Clint Hill

2010-10-08T11:38:00.000-04:00

Join us for a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet two Kennedy Detail Secret Service agents, and get your personal copy of The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence signed by these living legends. Joining Jerry Blaine and I for a book signing at Barnes & Noble in New York City on Thursday, November 11, will be Clint Hill, who wrote the Foreword.

In the writing of The Kennedy Detail, I have had the honor and privilege of getting to know these two amazing men, and trust me, you don't want to miss this. If you have a Kennedy fan in your family, what better Christmas present than a signed copy of The Kennedy Detail?

Details:
Date: November 11
Time: 7:00 pm
Place: Barnes and Noble
           2289 Broadway @ 82nd Street
           New York, NY 10024
           Tel: 212-362-8835

Jerry Blaine

Clint Hill

The Kennedy Detail to be released November 2, 2010

2010-09-04T06:02:00.000-04:00

Simon & Schuster has announced that The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence will be released November 2, 2010. Jerry Blaine and I will be on a book tour that is scheduled to include New York City, Dallas, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. We are thrilled to be joined by former Secret Service Agent Clint Hill who wrote the Foreword and contributed a great deal to the book.