FIVE PRESIDENTS
My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford
Clint Hill (with Lisa McCubbin)
Simon & Schuster
449 pages; Rs 799
Clint Hill is the US Secret Service agent who leapt on to the moving open-topped limousine to wedge himself between his charge, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and the bullets that killed President John K Kennedy on that fateful morning in Dallas in November, 1963.
But by the time Mr Hill, who had been jogging alongside the limousine to protect Mrs Kennedy from surging crowds along the motorcade, hauled himself on to the vehicle, a third bullet had shattered the back of JFK’s head. Mr Hill was the only agent near the specially modified Ford Lincoln Continental SS-100-XX to obey the dictates of his training. JFK’s own bodyguards scarcely moved, a fact that contributed to the incessant conspiracy theories surrounding his assassination.
Readers looking for an elaboration of these conjectures in Five Presidents, will be disappointed. Mr Hill steadfastly sticks to the official “lone gunman” theory and his experiences of that day. The book, an account of his days as a Secret Service agent under Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford, is also free of self-congratulation or prurient gossip.
Mr Hill does not need scandal to make this book work; much is implicit in the dispassionate retelling. Helped by a gifted writer, who co-authored a 2011 book on the Kennedy security detail, Five Presidents is an unexpectedly absorbing memoir of a man who, almost literally, walked beside history, as he titled his first chapter.
Mr Hill is no unctuous retainer, however. His 17 years in the Secret Service encompassed the Cold War, the U2 Spy incident, the Cuban Missile crisis, the assassinations of Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, Watergate…. “In less than two decades, America went from being unquestionably the most respected and admired nation in the world to a country whose image became tarnished by violence, scandal and deceit,” he writes.
Of the five presidents he served, only Eisenhower served two full terms. Kennedy’s term lasted 1,000 days, Johnson chose not to run for a second term, Nixon became the first US president to resign; his vice president, Spiro Agnew, had resigned in disgrace the year before so Gerald Ford became president having never been elected to the office.
The 93-year-old organisation Mr Hill joined in 1958 was no sinecure; the work involved months away from families and little luxury; on outstation visits they had to subsist on a daily allowance of $12 for all boarding and living costs ($16 for overseas trips). Mr Hill frequently recalls going 10-13 hours without a meal. Agents also smoked and drank alcohol despite the high levels of physical fitness the job demanded.
Eisenhower was the first US president to travel extensively and Mr Hill accompanied him on an 11-nation tour that took in India and Pakistan. It is possible to enjoy his naiveté when he sees the enormous crowds that turned out in the two countries. Unfamiliar with the rent-a-crowd talents of south Asian governments he touchingly wonders at Eisenhower’s popularity here.
He also points to the vulnerability of overseas visits, since the Secret Service had to rely on the host nation’s resources. In India, he recounts, the motorcade stalled when Indian security services lost control on the drive from the airport to Rashtrapati Bhavan. “Suddenly Prime Minister Nehru got out of the car and started swinging a swagger stick at the people. I could hardly believe my eyes. The Indian Prime Minister was hitting his own people!”
Contrast this chaos with the awesome dominance of Barack Obama’s security detail when he attended the 2015 Republic Day parade. Unlike the tank-like “Beast” that bore Mr Obama down Rajpath, the world’s most powerful man frequently rode around in open cavalcades in those days – a bubble top on the SS-100-XX was on standby for bad weather.
When Mr Hill was assigned to Jacqueline Kennedy’s detail, he considered the job a demotion. His account of how he changed his mind is recorded in a movingly intimate if ungrammatically titled 2012 best-seller Mrs Kennedy and Me. Even in Five Presidents it is clear that the lad from Washburn, North Dakota was deeply, if respectfully, besotted with the charming, cultured East Coast socialite. Mrs Kennedy, just three years older at 31 years and married to a charismatic womaniser 12 years her senior, was not immune to this personable man – he resembled a light-eyed Dodi Al-Fayed – who became her confidant.
If the Kennedy era was Camelot, working on the Johnson detail was like “being tossed overboard into an aluminum trough filled with ice cold water”. His new boss was “crude, demanding, boisterous and intolerant” yet Mr Hill developed a grudging respect for the man and the commitment to his “Great Society” agenda. Mr Hill’s description of the Nixon years provides some unexpected facts about that unpalatable regime, including an unsolicited offer from Elvis Presley offering the president his services to fight, of all things, the drug culture.
Mr Hill was decorated for his actions in Dallas but it brought him little solace. He always thought he should have moved faster and taken the bullet that killed Kennedy. He suffered post-traumatic stress order that developed into a drink problem, which he had the courage to recognise. He passed on an offer for higher responsibilities and, when he failed a physical exam, took early retirement at the age of 43. For him, this book is a dignified catharsis. In the process, he has provided an unusual worm’s eye view of American history too.
