Jacqueline Kennedy's historic trip to Pakistan 50 years ago today

Gordon Parks (WHACA) and Agent Clint Hill at the Khyber Pass
From the personal collection of Clint Hill

50 Years ago this week, Secret Service Agent Clint Hill was with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in Pakistan.  Here is Agent Hill (right) at the Khyber Pass.

Click below to watch this terrific video of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's historic trip to India and Pakistan from the JFK Library.  It is amazing how much the world has changed.  In MRS. KENNEDY AND ME, Clint Hill describes this incredible trip--the sights, the sounds, the challenging adventures--and reminds us of the almost inconceivable impact Mrs. Kennedy had on foreign relations.  She was a true ambassador.

Jacqueline Kennedy's Historic Trip to Pakistan and India

Video courtesy of John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Click here to buy MRS. KENNEDY AND ME

Publishers Weekly Reviews Mrs. Kennedy and Me

The reviews are beginning to come in.  Here's what the notoriously critical Publishers Weekly writes about Mrs. Kennedy and Me.

 

Mrs. Kennedy and Me:
An Intimate Memoir

Clint Hill with Lisa McCubbin. S&S/Gallery, $26 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4516-4844-7

In November 1960, Hill, who had been on President Eisenhower’s Secret Service detail, wasn’t looking forward to his new assignment—which he viewed as a demotion—of protecting Jacqueline Kennedy. But a disappointed Hill soon realized he was actually serving the president “by protecting the things that were most important to him, personally—his wife and his children.” Hill was completely won over by the first lady’s spontaneity, curiosity, sincerity, and joie de vivre. He accompanied her to Greece twice; on the first trip, in 1961, he was under strict if baffling instructions from JFK to keep his wife away from Aristotle Onassis. Hill was with Mrs. Kennedy on a Virginia hunt where she flew headfirst over her horse and a rail fence, through the death of infant Patrick and in Dallas when the president was assassinated. Hill is close-mouthed about JFK’s infidelities. His book is most valuable for his perceptive recall of the daily routine and problems faced by the Secret Service detail. This is a worshipful, competent insider’s glimpse of a matchless first lady whose diplomatic skills and glamour enabled her to do the unthinkable: briefly wrest the Mona Lisa from France. Photos. (Apr.)

Mrs. Kennedy and Me Gets Kirkus Star Review

The Kirkus Star

Awarded to books of remarkable merit

"Of the many words written about Jacqueline Kennedy, these are among the best."

Evocative memoir of guarding First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy through the young and sparkling years of the Kennedy presidency and the dark days following the assassination.

Secret Service Special Agent Hill had not looked forward to guarding Mrs. Kennedy. The action was with the president. But duty trumped preference, and he first met a young and pregnant soon-to-be First Lady in November 1960. For the next four years Hill would seldom leave her side. Theirs would be an odd relationship of always-proper formality combined with deep intimacy crafted through close proximity and mutual trust and respect. Hill was soon captivated, as was the rest of the world, by Mrs. Kennedy’s beauty and grace, but he saw beyond such glamour a woman of fierce intelligence and determination—to raise her children as normally as possible, to serve the president and country, to preserve for herself a playful love of life. Hill became a part of the privileged and vigorous life that went with being a Kennedy, and in which Jacqueline held her own. He traveled the world with her, marveling at the adulation she received, but he also shared the quiet, offstage times with her: sneaking a cigarette in the back of a limousine, becoming her unwilling and inept tennis partner. When the bullet ripped into the president’s brain with Hill not five feet away, he remained with her, through the public and private mourning, “when the laughter and hope had been washed away.” Soon after, both would go on with their lives, but Hill would never stop loving Mrs. Kennedy and never stop feeling he could have done more to save the president. With clear and honest prose free of salaciousness and gossip, Hill (ably assisted by McCubbin) evokes not only a personality both beautiful and brilliant, poised and playful, but also a time when the White House was filled with youth and promise.

Of the many words written about Jacqueline Kennedy, these are among the best.

Book of the Month Club Selection

Exciting news!  Mrs. Kennedy and Me by Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin has been selected by Book of the Month Club/Quality Paperbacks as a featured alternate in their early April 2012 catalog—and also a featured alternate of the Doubleday Book Club, the Literary Guild, and the History Book Club! 

But don't worry, if you're not a Book of the Month Club member, you can pre-order your copy now at:

Simon and Schuster 
Amazon.com
Barnes and Noble  or support my favorite independent booksellers:
bookpassage.com 
Anderson's Bookshop Naperville, IL 
Rainy Day Books 

In Memory of Secret Service Agent Jack Walsh

Jack Walsh, loyal agent to the Kennedy family was laid to rest today.

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Jack Walsh in September 2011, just four months ago, when Clint Hill spoke at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum.  Director Tom Putnam had arranged for Mr. Hill and I to go to the private "family room" upstairs in the library prior to the presentation.

We had been there just a few minutes when a group of people walked in, and Clint's face lit up with a smile as he recognized his old friend, Jack Walsh, whom he hadn't seen in more than thirty years.

"John Frances Michael Walsh!" Hill exclaimed.

As we sat on the sofas, the Kennedy memorabilia all around us, Jack and Clint reminisced about funny stories in New York City and at Hyannis Port.  Jack spoke with that lilting Boston accent and had such an exuberant personality, it was easy to imagine him with Caroline and John as young children.  It was a memorable evening and what a special treat to be there as these two old friends reconnected.

Clint Hill joins me in expressing our deepest sympathies to the Walsh family.  For a touching tribute to Jack Walsh, read this article in today's Boston Globe. jack-walsh-secret-service-agent-who-guarded-jfk-family

Recording History

Article in JFK Library Foundation LEGACY Magazine




Former Secret Service agent Clint Hill sits down with Kennedy Library metadata catalogers working on our digitization project. During the administration, Mr. Hill was assigned to protect Jacqueline Kennedy, and he became a nationally recognized figure because of his quick action during the events of November 22, 1963. Mr. Hill collaborated with former Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine and writer Lisa McCubbin (in photograph, on Mr. Hill’s left) on the recent book The Kennedy Detail. While here to do research for his own upcoming book with Ms. McCubbin on his experiences guarding Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Hill took the time to help our archivists and metadata catalogers with some of the unknown people and places in our photographic holdings.

The staff at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston have been invaluable to Clint Hill and me as we wrote MRS. KENNEDY AND ME.  We are so grateful to Laurie Austin and Maryrose Grossman in the audiovisual department who gave so freely of their time and expertise--their enthusiasm and devotion to their jobs is admirable.  

Click here to read the article