Jackie Kennedy's Secret Service Agent Announces New Book
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Secret Service agent Clint Hill was assigned to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's protection detail after President John F. Kennedy's election. He protected her from 1960 through 1964, and was with her that fateful November day in Dallas—when he leapt onto the back of the open-top car in front of Jackie.
He retired from the Secret Service in 1975, and since, has become a public speaker and author. His newest book, My Travels With Mrs. Kennedy, began when Hill rediscovered a long-forgotten trunk in his basement, filled with letters, photos, and memorabilia from his travels with Jackie Kennedy through Europe, Asia, and South America. The book will be published on October 11, and the cover features a photo of Kennedy on a yacht owned off the Amalfi Coast, taken by Mark Shaw.
Hill co-wrote the book with his wife, Lisa McCubbin Hill, and it will feature more than 200 rare or never-before-seen photos, along with Hill's personal recollections from their travels. "When you travel with someone, you experience things that can't fully be appreciated by anyone who wasn't there," Hill explains in the book description.
"This book takes you on this journey, back to that time through the eyes of Clint and Mrs. Kennedy," McCubbin-Hill says. "It's very uplifting. It provides history but also shows what a great ambassador she was as first lady for America. And there's the very sweet story of the great relationship she and Clint had. You feel the magic and the bond that develops along these travels."
"At the White House, she was more buttoned-down. But once we got away, she was more open, carefree, enjoying life," Hill told People.
He's previously written two books: Mrs. Kennedy and Me, published 2012, and Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, published 2017. However, Hill will forever be remembered as the Secret Service agent who tried to save John F. Kennedy's life.
In his statement following Kennedy's assassination, he recalls, "I heard a noise similar to a firecracker. The sound came from my right rear and I immediately moved my head in that direction. In so doing, my eyes had to cross the Presidential automobile and I saw the President hunch forward and then slump to his left. I jumped from the follow-up car and ran toward the Presidential automobile. I heard a second firecracker type noise but it had a different sound— like the sound of shooting a revolver into something hard. I saw the President slump more toward his left."
He continues, "I jumped onto the left rear step of the Presidential automobile. Mrs. Kennedy shouted, 'They've shot his head off,' then turned and raised out of her seat as if she were reaching to her right rear toward the back of the car for something that had blown out. I forced her back into her seat and placed my body above President and Mrs. Kennedy."
Hill, now 90, is the last surviving person who was in Kennedy's presidential limousine that day following the death of Nellie Connally, former First Lady of Texas, in 2006.
Hill remained on Jackie Kennedy's protection detail following the assassination through November 1964. When Hill tweeted the announcement of his book, he wrote "I think we could all use a little Camelot right now." My Travels With Mrs. Kennedy is currently available for preorder.
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