 In August 2009, he told author Lisa McCuffin, quote, I do not talk ever about that day. He also told Lisa, I never, never will write a book. But many discussions followed their first meeting. Clint learned that he could trust Lisa with stories that he had never told before. Writing together became therapeutic for both of them. They have now written in public three bestsellers. In their writing and in their travels, they also found each other. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Lisa McCuffin and the genuine American hero of mine, Clint Hill. Please. But he went on to figure out that his language was more important titles, including one that was president, not of the United States, but of an organization. But the biggest and best title I can think of is Friend, because Tom has really befriended the Secret Service and its members. And without his help, it would not be the organization that it is today. So on behalf of all the agents of the Secret Service, I'd like to thank you, Tom, for what you've done for us. Thank you. We want to give you a glimpse into our latest book, Five Presidents, my extraordinary journey with Eisenhower and Kennedy, Johnson Nixon, Ford, and Lisa McCuffin, who is the writer. We'll be asking you some questions. Well, thank you all. We're so glad to be back here in Austin. Clint Hill was born in January of 1932. He was in the middle of the Great Depression. His mother already had five children, and she realized she could not care for him properly. So she had him baptized. And when he was 17 days old, she dropped him off at the North Dakota Children's Home in Fargo, North Dakota. Luckily for Clint, when he was three months old, a wonderful family, Chris and Jenny Hill adopted him. They also had a daughter, Janice, that they had adopted. And he grew up in the small town of Washburn, North Dakota, in this home, population 912. Clint, growing up in this tiny town in North Dakota, did you always think that you wanted to be a secret service agent? No, not at all. I majored in history and physical education and minor in education, so I wanted to teach history and coach athletics. It ended the Korean War. And so I had to go into the military. After basic training, they sent me to Fort Halberd, Maryland, the Army Intelligence Center, and they trained me to be a special agent in counterintelligence. And I did that for a number of years. It was time to get out. I was looking around for an organization that would have a similar investigative background as the Secret Service, that's the Counterintelligence Corps. And I found the Secret Service, which at that time had only 269 agents in the entire organization. And so there were no openings. But a man retired, and I finally got that job. And I started out in Denver, Colorado. So he had only been in the Secret Service for less than a year, and he was transferred to the elite White House presidential protective detail. President Eisenhower was the president at the time. And this is Clint standing in the doorway there. That was back when they wore hats. And so what was it like working for President Eisenhower? Well, he was a military man, so he brought that military bearing right with him into the Oval Office. If you gave him a schedule and told him that he had to loop, we had to be departing the White House at 9.30 AM. At 9.29.30, he was in the car ready to go. He was relying on us a great deal. But we were not his favorite people, and he wouldn't call us by name. He would simply treat us like he treated the troops. He'd just say, agent, and we would respond. But we had a great deal of respect for him, and we enjoyed working with him a great deal. And shortly after you were assigned to this detail, I think it was only about a month, you got to go on quite a trip. It was your first overseas trip ever. Yes, and the Air Force had just acquired 3707 jets, made them available, so President Eisenhower decided to take advantage of them. So one day, we took off, manned his Air Force base, flew to Rome, Italy, and rolled the anchor up, anchored down to Caracci, up to Cabo, down to New Delhi. New Delhi over to Tehran, Tehran to Athens, grabbed the USS Des Moines, and went across the Mediterranean to Tunis, got back on the Des Moines, went over to Toulon, France, to the train to Paris, got back on Air Force One, flew down to Madrid to see Dennis Morfranco, and then flew down to see the King of Morocco. And then we were able to come home. That was your first trip? It was my first trip for a kid in North Dakota. That was quite an adventure. You can see from all these photos, they had open cars wherever they went, and crowds everywhere. And then, Clint, you were given a particular assignment during the election of 1960. In 1960, when Nixon was running against Kennedy, and I was working, I was assigned to President Eisenhower, and he hadn't done much for the Nixon campaign in that year. So in the very end of the campaign, he decided he needed to do something. So he decided he wanted to go to New York. So they sent an advanced crew to New York. Stu Knight, Harvey Henderson, Paul Rudd, went myself. I was a junior agent. And we had our own assignments. Mine was the motorcade up from the Helik Port at Wall Street up through the canyons to Harold Square and onto the Waldorf. And this is what you saw as you proceeded. The vice president and the president, both in the same open car, going up the canyons of New York City at noon. It was a mess. And I was scared to death. But thank God for the New York police and the New York City field office, we made it okay. So then in 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president. And that was quite a transition. Yes, we went from 70-year-old grandfather to a 43-year-old father to just a three-year-old girl, a 31-year-old wife who was very, very present. And so we knew the activity level was gonna be completely different. So now normally Clinton had been assigned to the president and now with a new president. You assumed you were going to be assigned to John F. Kennedy, but that's not how it happened. Not at all. I was with President Eisenhower down at Augusta National down to the day after the election. And they told me I had to go back to Washington because the chief wanted to see me. So I went in to see the chief. I thought maybe I'd done something wrong. They sat me down. It was the chief, the deputy chief, and three inspectors and they started to interrogate me going over my entire background. That day I already investigated. They knew exactly what was in my background. But it took about 90 minutes. And they finally gave me and said, okay, you're being assigned to Mrs. John F. Kennedy. So how did you feel about that? I was angry, disappointed, disgusted, mad. I didn't want that job because I knew what the agents was best for when they made me Eisenhower dead. Then with the fashion shows, what you can ask to gain. I wanted to be where the action was. And that was always with the president. But as it turned out, he had the best assignment in all of the secret service being assigned to John F. Kennedy. Yes, we went everywhere. There they are coming out of church up in Cape Cod. This is Kennedy and the president. And this is going into the church service. You can see the crowd that was there. No matter where we went with them, it was a maximum crowd situation. Crowd control became a major problem. And so you got to know the president very well also and you spent a lot of time up in high end support with them. We did, they had a regular schedule. They would go to high end support for the summer usually for at least the fourth of July up to Labor Day. Then go down to Newport, Rhode Island to Mrs. Kennedy's mother's home for a few days. Come back there on Thanksgiving. The winter time they would spend Christmas three years in Easter at Palm Beach floor. But here is a typical situation. President has arrived. He is flown in over to the Kennedy compound from Otis Air Force Base where he landed in Air Force One. It's going by helicopter. We put this golf cart out for him. He'd get off the helicopter and walk out, get on the golf course, yell out, anybody for ice cream and all of his nephews and nieces and Carol and John and come running, get on board. It's two blocks away to the ice cream store and he'd have to put the bill. You were around presidents all the time and even when they're on vacation, they're really not on vacation. No, that's just typical. This is up on the cape. Everybody's having a good time. The family's with the president in the background. You see they're on the phone and that was very typical of any president, this one included. They're never really off. There's always something going on somewhere that they're involved in. Here he is on the phone. Can't even be talking to his family. So Clint, you got very close to Mrs. Kennedy and she trusted you implicitly over those years and sometimes she would ask you to do things that were a little bit outside the job description of a secret service agent. Way outside. They went to the floor the one weekend in February of 1963. I'm there, Mrs. Kennedy educated me and she and the president were going to go to her friend's house for dinner. So I left my assistant there, Paul Landis. I went to the motel we stayed in. About eight o'clock at night, I was sitting on the edge of my bed and my shorts and t-shirt and a phone around. There was Mrs. Kennedy. She said, oh, Mr. Hill, the president I would like to have you do something for it. I said, fine, man, what's that? She said, well, you know, Prince Radzie was here. That was her brother-in-law and Chuck Spaulding. That was president's closest friend. And they're going to go on a little hike and occasionally the president and I are going to go out and check on them and we know the secret service is going to have to have somebody out there when we do that and we think that should be you. I said, fine, man, but when do they want to start? She said, oh, about midnight. I said, fine, man, I'll be right there. So I hung up, sat back in the bed and said, now what the heck am I going to wear to go on this little hike? Now wait, how long was this little hike? 50 miles. So I had a pair of four-shine shoes that were pretty sturdy. We had dress winged chips. So that's what I put on. Drove over, picked up the prints and Chuck Spaulding in the way we went. Started walking down and it was a newly constructed sunshine hike. Now you see the prints out there in front and the right. That's me in the dark behind him. Mrs. Kennedy's sister, Lee. Chuck Spaulding's a tall gentleman and Mrs. Kennedy checking us out. Then the president would stop by. There you see the two men are resting. The president has actually given me a bad time because I've allowed them to rest. What I didn't know was that there was a wager involved. The president had bet them they could not go 50 miles. They bet him they could. The president didn't want me to allow them to rest. He wanted me to make them walk continuously so they couldn't make it. But we made it. Got to the end of the 50 miles. Put them in the car, drove back to Palm Beach. I was so anxious to get back to the motel to a hot shower and a bed. Got there, the agent said, the president wants to see you. I thought, oh, not again. So I went in and they were having a little party. And the president and Mrs. Kennedy had prepared a little metal construction paper with a chain made out of crepe paper that I hang around my neck. And it said, for Dazzle, that was my code name, Dazzle. February 23, 1963, the order of the pacemaker, in whom the Secret Service will follow into the battle of the Sunshine Highway. I'm John S. Kennedy. And Clint still has that. It's one of his prized possessions. So we want to give you an idea of what it was like for these agents back then to protect presidents when they traveled. Clint, how many agents were on the detail at that time? There were 40 agents total. Three assigned to the two children. Two of us assigned to the first lady. Five assigned to the transportation section. And 30 assigned to the president. That was three shifts of 10. But on each shift, there were a certain number of agents who were on either annual leave, sick leave, or on advance assignment. So I have generally speaking left only five agents with the president at any one time. Here we are in Dublin, Ireland. You can see the crowds. People hanging out of windows on balconies, on top of buildings. Any place they could get to see the president, this is in Costa Rica. Had to call the military out to get to the crowd. It was so dense. Then we went into Mexico City. Mexico City sits up around 9,000 feet. But that's not snow. That's confetti. So much confetti that has filled up the open car we were using, which was the Mexican president's car, filled it up right to the top of the seats. And this is the Ink, Ben, I, and Berliners' speech site in Berlin. President Kennedy made that famous speech, Ben, I, and Berliners. Thousands of people on top of buildings, on balconies, open windows, every place that they could be. And we had 11 number of agents around the president. Five to 10 secret service agents protecting the president. And there were no magnetometers at that time. So, Clint, how did the trip to Texas, why did that come about? Well, President Kennedy, that was Vice President Johnson and Governor Connolly and El Hazard in the spring of 1960. They decided that in order to win the election in 1964, they needed to carry the two biggest states in the South with the most electoral votes, Florida and Texas. So they decided that Kennedy would go into Florida, which he did the weekend of November 16th, 17th, and 18th. And then he would come to Texas to be joined by Vice President, Mrs. Johnson, and Governor Connolly and his wife, Nellie. And they would travel throughout Texas. And they wanted it to be a maximum exposure trip so that as many people as possible could see it, the Kennedys with the Vice President and the Governor, Mrs. Connolly. And they wanted it to be an up close and personal visit. We had flown this car, SS-100X, from Washington to San Antonio, which was our first stop. This is at San Antonio International Airport. See the people on top of the terminal. The inside of the terminal was absolutely packed with people as well, as we prepared for the motorcade there in San Antonio. We traveled through the streets of San Antonio on our way to the Brooks Medical Facility, which was being dedicated that day as an aerospace medical facility. And President Kennedy was to give a speech, as you see in her speaking. And on the platform you see Vice President Johnson off to the right next to Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Johnson and then Governor Connolly and Mrs. Connolly and Senator Yarrow. They were all there to dedicate this facility. So we finished that, drove out to Kelly Field where they had moved Air Force One to give the motorcade a longer journey through the city for more people. And we went from San Antonio to Houston. Got to Houston and there was a large crowd there. President and Mrs. Kennedy went immediately to them to shake hands. It was very typical of him, but not very typical of her. We then got on the interstate and were highly there and Houston was going to downtown to the Rice Hotel and traffic just stopped and people got all over the place. So there we're starting into the Rice Hotel. That's myself on the left, I don't know what I'm doing with my hand. And there's a flight with President, Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Johnson on the right hand side. So then within the hotel there was a group having a meeting called the Lulac Group with the Hispanic group. And so we went there and President Kennedy introduced or tried to talk to the people. Then he turned and introduced Mrs. Kennedy to the crowd. And she spoke to them in Spanish and the place just erupted with applause. And when she finished, then Vice President Johnson was to give some remarks. And he simply stood up and said that I think everything has been said, it needs to be said. I knew he couldn't follow that. We then went over to the Coliseum for a testimonial dinner to Congressman Elton Thomas who had brought the aerospace industry to Houston, Texas. They were honoring him that night. Back on Air Force Swannock flew over cars while Air Force Base at Fort Worth got in there pretty late at night, it was raining likely. And we then traveled down to the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth. So here we're trying to get into the hotel. You see the President's there and I'm near right behind Mrs. Kennedy. Right behind me is Rufi Shunbud and behind me is Vice President Johnson. And so we had to fight our way through this crowd of thousands of people trying to get into the hotel in Fort Worth. So that was the first day all of that took place November 21st. So then Friday, November 22nd, you wake up and you're in Fort Worth. And the first thing that happened was there were so many people who wanted to see and hear President Kennedy that we had to establish a special speech outside the hotel in a parking lot. That was not on the original schedule. It had to be at. So it was raining likely that morning and President Kennedy came out with Vice President Johnson, Speaker Jim Wright, and he addressed the crowd there in the parking lot, in the rain. And then he had to go into a breakfast within the hotel. So when he finished the breakfast in the hotel, he and Mrs. Kennedy would be going through the streets of Fort Worth, back to Air Force One and cars were there for us. And you can see the people that turned out. The city had turned out the schools, permitted the students to get let out and go see this, see the President and Mrs. Kennedy and vice president, Mrs. Johnson and put some of their high school bands in various intersections. It was a real carnival atmosphere as we traveled through the city. It was a remarkably large and zoom-er-th and friendly crowd. There was hardly no negativity whatsoever. So now you're going to, let me get this straight, fly from Fort Worth to Dallas. It didn't make much sense to us either, believe me. But the political people wanted a photograph of President and Mrs. Kennedy coming off the rear of Air Force One in Dallas at Lovefield. And so it took us longer to taxi on both ends of the flight and it did the flight. So we did that. And Mrs. Kennedy and President came off the rear of Air Force One to be greeted by Vice President and Mrs. Johnson, who they just saw 10 minutes before over at Fort Worth. So they then went through the receiving line, went out, President decided to want to shake hands with the crowd by the fence. Mrs. Kennedy went along with it, which was somewhat unusual for her to do. She didn't really like to do that kind of thing, but she knew that she was going after to support him in his 1964 bid for the election. The press was going crazy. With the photographers getting up on anything to take it up on. So it had a feel to it. We worked our way down the line of the crowds and got into SS100X, which had been flown from San Antonio now to Dallas. This car in the front seat are the driver, Bill Greer, and the supervisor, Roy Kellerman. Governor Connelly sitting immediately in front of President Kennedy in what we call a jump seat. It folds from the front to the back. The back of that jump seat is right up against the President's knees. In front of Mrs. Kennedy was Connelly. You see that aluminum brace that runs across the top of the car, which is the front attachment for a bubble top if you were going to use it. And that makes it impossible for the agent who's in the right front seat to get into the back without getting out of the car. But that's the way that car was constructed. And we were instructed that there would be no bubble top, that it was to be an up close and personal trip and around Texas, that they didn't want it to appear that there was anything between themselves and the people who were going to vote. It was because Mrs. Kennedy was there. So your main protection was Mrs. Kennedy that day. Mrs. Kennedy was my responsibility, yes. So as you go into Dallas, what was the feeling like? Large crowds. So large they could not be contained on the sidewalk. Extremely friendly. Very exuberant. Something that the politicals were hoping for. Didn't think that would happen, but it did. They were very pleased. Governor and Mrs. Connelly were pleased as well. So were the Kennedys. You see people doze and this is all along Main Street. This is what you saw all along the route. That's correct. So there you see we're driving down the street and you see me on the back of the car now and the reason I am is that the driver was keeping the car to the left-hand side of the street. President Kennedy was in the right rear. That kept him away from the crowd on the right-hand side. But that put Mrs. Kennedy right up next to the crowd on the left-hand side. So I would get off the follow-up car which was right behind the President's car and get up on top of the back of the presidential vehicle to be as close to Mrs. Kennedy in those situations as they could and you'll notice the driver has now opened his door to use as a wedge to keep people back away from the car. This was all along Main Street and then as you came upon this area known as Dealey Plaza the motorcade was really almost over at this point and then the crowds dropped off. So you weren't on the back of the car? I was not on the back of the car. Some people have said, well why didn't you go straight down Main Street because our destination was the trademark. We had to get on the Stemids Freeway going toward the trademark. If we went straight down Main Street there was a concrete barrier that prevented us from going right. And so we had to turn right on Houston, left on Elm to get to that Stemids Freeway going in the proper direction. Well that put us right in front of the Texas School Book Depository. And you can see that turn there that where they're going to make that left turn is a very sharp turn. So that meant the cars had to slow way down. Normally we were running 10 to 12 miles per hour. The distance between the presidential car and the follow-up car under most conditions was about three feet. And in this situation we slowed down below 10 miles an hour briefly as we tried to make that turn onto Elm Street. This is the follow-up car. I'm in the front position on the running board. There's an agent behind me, two agents on the other side of the running board. Two agents in the back of that car, one with their rifle. Two of President Kennedy's assistants are in the car, Kenny O'Donnell and Dave Powers. And then the driver and the supervisor in the front seat. So we were traveling down Elm Street. And notice the motorcycles right next to them on either side. As we were traveling down I was looking over to the left towards the grassy area. There were a few people there and then I was looking straight ahead. There was a triple underpass. We had to go under. There was a policeman up there I noticed. So all of a sudden I hear this explosive noise over my right shoulder from the rear. I didn't recognize it as a gunshot initially. So I started to turn toward the noise to see what it was. And in doing so, my eyes passed across the back of the presidential car. Now the agents on the other side of the car were doing the same thing. They were turning to see if they could locate what this noise was. And the people in the crowd, if you noticed, many of them were looking up toward the Texas School Book Depository. They've come there to look at the president but that's not what they're looking at. Because of the noise from the gunshot they were looking up at the Texas School Book Depository. When I recognized it as a gunshot because I saw the president grab at his throat like this and then he started to fall to his left. I knew then that it was a gunshot. I jumped off the car, started to run toward the presidential vehicle. My intention was to get up on back and form a shield there to protect both president and Mrs. Kennedy. I had to negotiate my way between a motorcycle officer and the car I was on. There was a lot of engine noise. I didn't hear the second shot. The agents told me later there was one while I was running the noise and the engines prevented me from hearing that. When I got close to the presidential vehicle there was another shot. President Kennedy at that time his head had gone down. His chin was on his chest. He was leaning up against Mrs. Kennedy's face and the shot hit him back here but it erupted right here out of this portion of his head. It was a real eruption of blood, bone fragments, brain tissue and that material got all over the back of the car all over me, all over Mrs. Kennedy. She then came up on the trunk. She tried to grab some of that material that had come out of the president's head and she did get ahold of some of it. When I got up there I grabbed her and put her in the back seat. When I got her into the back seat the president's body fell to its left. Now his head was in her lap. Right side of his face was up. You can see his eyes were fixed. There was a hole in the skull. I could see there was no brain tissue in that area whatsoever. I thought it was a fatal wound. I turned and gave a thumbs down to the follow-up car crew to tell them how serious it was. Screamed at the driver to get us to a hospital. Chief Curry from Dallas got in front of us in a lead car and led us to Parkland Hospital. And you can see the position Clint is in. They were racing down Stemins Freeway at speeds of 70 to 80 miles per hour as he was in this position. Now there were only three shots. He didn't know there were only going to be three shots. He fully expected more were coming and he kept his body in this position the four minute horrifying ride to Parkland Hospital. So what happened when you arrived at Parkland? When we got to Parkland we had a difficult time because we had to remove Governor Connolly from the car first because of the way he was seated in the car. We couldn't do anything for the President before we removed Governor Connolly. We got him up on a gurney. They rushed him into the emergency room in front of me in trauma room two. Then we were going to try and help the President. So Mrs. Kennedy had a hold of him and she wouldn't let go. I said, please Mrs. Kennedy let us help the President. I got no response at all. I pleaded with her again. Nothing. Then I realized I'd been with her now for a little over three years. I knew her pretty well and I thought well she doesn't want anybody to see the condition the President is in because it was deplorable. So I took off my suit coat covered up his head, his upper back. As soon as I did that she let go. We lifted him up, put him on the gurney and rushed him into trauma room one. Then their doctors came from all over the hospital to do what they could for him. But by one o'clock they said we're sorry the President is dead. Online to the White House. I'd been instructed to call the White House by my supervisor to let make sure our offices knew exactly what was happening. I told the operator to keep the line open. I was talking to my senior supervisor Gerald Bain the operator cut in and said Mr. Hill, the Attorney General wants to talk to you. I said okay. Yes, Mr. Attorney General. He said Clint, he said what's going on down there? So I explained to him that both the Governor and the President had been shot. That we were at Parkland Hospital. The doctors were doing everything they could. He said well how bad is it? I did not want to tell Bobby Kennedy that his brother was dead. So I said it's as bad as it can get. And as soon as I said that he hung with the phone and he knew the condition of his brother. So then Clint, you were charged with getting a casket and you and the other agents then loaded that casket onto Air Force One? Correct, we did. We took the casket up to Air Force One the rear door of the Air Force crew had removed seats from the rear of the Air Force One. So we could place it there we had a problem when we got to the door with the handles on you see the big handles there it was just a little bit too wide so we had to rip and tear at the handles until we got them off in order to get the casket inside Air Force One. Then Vice President, Mrs. Johnson were on board they had been conferring with Washington and the decision had been made that he would be sworn in while we were still on the ground in Dallas. We were told that required a federal judge they located Sarah Hughes who was brought on board to do that. Mrs. Kennedy in the meantime was in the next room sitting by the presidential casket. She sent word to me I was in the forward portion of Air Force One that she wanted to see me. So I went back to the presidential compartment to where she was seated and grabbed my hand and she said oh Mr. Hill what's going to happen to you now and I said I'll be okay Mrs. Kennedy I'll be okay. She was concerned about how I was reacting as well as the other agents because she knew how much we thought of the president. So then Mrs. Kennedy went to stand by as Vice President Johnson took the oath of office and became president of the United States. She changed clothes and she had not cleaned up because she said she wanted the people to see what had been done. And you were there. I'm standing in the doorway behind Limb Johns and Roy Kellerman and I witnessed this swearing in ceremony. So then Clint was on that long flight back to Washington D.C. He arrived around six o'clock that evening. Bruce says the Naval Hospital sent an ambulance out there for us to transport the president's casket in the Air Force had put a hydraulic lift there at the rear aircraft so we would have an easier time of moving the casket which was extremely heavy from the doorway down to the level of the ambulance. Mrs. Kennedy was joined by Robert Kennedy there on Air Force One and was gripped by vehicle to the Naval Hospital. Meanwhile, President Mrs. Johnson exited the aircraft and President Johnson spoke for the first time since the assassination as the president just outside of Air Force One there at Andrews Air Force Base. So for the next four days the world basically stopped as people tried to understand what had gone on. On November 25, 1963 was the funeral for President John F. Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy then indicated she wanted to walk behind the case on during the cortege movement in the funeral. I was very concerned about the security matters involved because of the numbers of people that were going to be there. There were going to be about 100 visiting heads of state and I finally thought maybe she should have shortened the distance she was walking so she only walked from the White House to St. Matthews on up Pennsylvania Avenue and that's what you see here. Robert Kennedy, Mrs. Kennedy and Teddy Kennedy in the front row it's myself on the left her half brother Jamie Sergeant Trevor, Steve Smith her brother-in-law and another agent and then you see living good, agent Youngblood agent Thompson Boring, Bain and Kevitt on the right. We then started to walk and behind us came about 100 plus heads of state that were there including Charles de Gaulle Queen Frederica of Greece King Boudouan of Belgium Crown Prince Harold of Norway Prince Philip from the Great Britain and highly salacity Emperor of Ethiopia those are just a few of the names all walking through the streets of Washington DC the president had just been assassinated it was a security nightmare after the services former presidents Truman and Eisenhower who attended the services came out and came up to the vehicle that Mrs. Kennedy was in to express their condolences I'm standing there on the left as they both talked with Mrs. Kennedy that's Margaret Truman behind her father and then we took the body to Arlington National Cemetery for the burial and it was getting toward evening as the ceremony concluded at Arlington National Cemetery What happened to you then after the assassination? I was ordered to remain with Mrs. Kennedy by the president and then a new legislation was passed protecting for Mrs. Kennedy for life or until she remarried and for the children until they reached the age of 16 so I was sent to be with Mrs. Kennedy and remained with her for a year she moved to New York just in October of 64 we were in New York President Johnson was campaigning and he came to the city of New York City Robert Kennedy was running for the U.S. Senate from New York and he came to see Mrs. Kennedy at a residence 1045th Avenue as myself in the middle as they bid farewell that day So then in right after the election what happened to you? November of 1964 I was transferred from Mrs. Kennedy back to the White House and became part of the White House detail assigned to President Johnson So what was that transition like going from Jacqueline Kennedy to LBJ? Well it was considerably different different type personality different type activity completely different we weren't going to Cape Cod we were going to the LBJ Ranch and Johnson City Texts as it looked at one time early in the administration see the house there with the pool that's a hanger up back in the background that White House turned out to be our security house but it became this after the transformation buildings painted that Army green I guess you'd call it some of it is White House Communications Agency Communications Equipment and Personnel Ready Personnel Capability for Air Force Pilots because we had a jet star on standby there we also had helicopters there we had to have helicopter crews and maintenance personnel there and then we had our own agents there we had to have fire department equipment because of the aircraft so it was quite an operation there at the LBJ Ranch He said he was always on LBJ's personality like in that respect Well if he didn't tell anybody what he was going to do nobody could do him harm and so a lot of times we didn't have a clue what he was going to do such as this one day the valet Air Force Steward comes out of the house he's got a hang up bag and a little suitcase now we knew the valet wasn't going anywhere that meant the present was so the jet star crew ran from the ready room out to get into the jet star because we didn't know if we were going to fly to St. Louis Detroit or Houston the helicopter crew ran out to get in the helicopter because we might be going into Austin and the agents ran to get the cars ready because we might be going over to the Morrison's or maybe to the Lewis Ranch or up to the lake we didn't know we never knew but you see back there the golf cart's coming the president's in the golf cart we didn't have much time to get ready to wherever we were going to go but that was rather typical and the president, President Johnson loved his ranch there and along the Pertinellis River so much so that he had press conferences on the front lawn he would bring in head to state and head to government but he would also bring in members of the cabinet here you see the secretary of defense and the members of the joint chiefs of staff conferring on the front lawn about the defense department budget for the next year or he might want to go and it was an everyday occurrence twice a day we'd go out and drive through the various ranches to check the cattle it was the dance, the Lewis, the Sharon horse we weren't sure where we were going but we knew we were going to one of those ranches that's one thing I learned writing this book is President Johnson loved to check on his cattle every day he might want to go over to the lake because he went over to the lake he would have guests and he loved when he had a female guest to get her in this little car and drive her around and all of a sudden go down a ramp right into the lake while she screamed help we're going to drown he's saying I don't have any brakes and this happened to be President Kennedy's sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver in this particular situation that's Paul Glenn one of the Air Force stewards that worked with President Johnson in the back but it was all in good fun everybody had a good time so then Clint you were there during the inauguration as well this is in 1965 that's me on the right rear of the car that car by the way is the same car that was used in Dallas that President Kennedy was writing in when he was assassinated shortly after the assassination the car was returned to the Ford Motor Company it was completely enclosed with armor and bullet resistant glass so that's what we used in the inauguration parade in 1965 but then President Johnson had a way around that yes we'd go out and he wanted to be among the people so he either get on top of the car or just stand in the doorway anything to be among the people so this was very typical I don't know if you can see Clint is back there in the backs what are you thinking I'm back in a follow up car saying come on get back in the car so this is a typical operation then we went down to Australia and we had some great reception but some not so friendly in one case they started throwing balloons filled with paint and that's roof which on the back covered in paint Lem Johns on the left front it was so bad that the agents had to go to the hospital to make sure their eyes were cleansed so they didn't suffer any permanent damage but all while this was going on out in front of the White House and almost every place we went there were demonstrators anti-war demonstrators across the street in front of Lafayette Park demonstrators along the reflecting pool between the Lake Memorial and the Washington Monument demonstrators over at the Pentagon demonstrators no matter where we went there were demonstrators it became a real problem he became pretty good friends with this gentleman on the left Prime Minister Harold Holt of Australia in December of 1967 we got word that Prime Minister Holt had drowned while swimming in the ocean off of Australia and Clint by this point where were you in your career I had been appointed Special Agent in Charge of Presidential Protection and so President Johnson decided he wanted to go down to Australia for the funeral so we flew down to Australia now we were pretty aware that this wasn't just going to be a funeral trip there were very few people who knew exactly what the trip was going to entail Jim Cross the pilot he knew Rufus Youngbud he knew from the Secret Service point of view and Jack Valenny knew pretty much because he was the contact turned out to be the Pope so what happened was after the funeral we took off from we were in Canberra we took off but we didn't head back to the United States we headed toward Thailand we landed in Darwin and refueled and flew on into Karat Air Force Base in Thailand President Johnson wanted to debrief some of the pilots who had just came in from a bombing run over Vietnam we said what they did from Karat we flew down to Kamran Bay in Vietnam that's President Johnson in General Westmoreland on the back of that Jeep and that's myself in the dark suit behind them as they trooped the line then President Johnson wanted to go in he would ask them where they were from how long they'd been there he wanted to make sure they understood he cared so then from there we flew over to Karachi, Thailand because President Wanda Neat was President Ayub Khan so we met him there in a hangar near the air strip and spent just a few about an hour and a half there at one point President Johnson turned to me and said Clinton get the President here some refreshments so I had the stewards from Air Force One come and find out what they wanted and they were able to provide them with some beverages but then we took off from Karachi and we flew to Rome President Johnson wanted to see the President of Italy and the Pope so when that concluded we got back on Air Force One we were going to head back to the United States so this had been to all in 24 hours or something or two? a little more than that but it wasn't much more than that and you had barely slept? I hadn't slept hardly at all nor at any of the agents so between the time we took off from Rome and the next stop was going to be the Azores to Refuel President Johnson when he got on board in Rome put on his pajamas went to bed and the President was asleep so when we were airborne I laid down myself to get a little nap Jim Cross the pilot had radioed ahead to the commander of the Air Force Base in the Azores and asked them to keep the post exchange open because it was now Christmas Eve and nobody on the aircraft had been able to do any Christmas shopping and so we were going to stop there to refuel and he asked him to keep the PX open so the President was in his sweet sleeping we land they bring up a couple of Air Force buses everybody gets off the plane and gets into buses I told him I'd stay there with the President go out and go shopping so I'm down at the foot of the ramp walking back and forth thought the President was up there sleeping all of a sudden he said where is everybody? said well Mr. President you know it is Christmas Eve they've opened the PX and they've gone to the PX to buy some Christmas presents for their families said well I haven't been shopping either let's go now he's standing up there on his yellow pajamas he's got his slippers on reaches back in a closet pulls out a trench coat puts that on I grabbed an Air Force driver in a car put him in a back seat way to the post exchange we go get to the PX walk in there open the door you could have heard a pin drop nobody in there could believe the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces the leader of the free world was walking around in the middle of the night in his pajamas buying Christmas presents lucky for him the press had gone on to Shannon to refuel they never caught a picture the end of 1967 and then we go into 1968 which was quite a year yes it was the end of March 1968 I had gone home I knew the President was going to make a speech from the Oval Office didn't have to stay there for that so I was home had my TV on listening to the speech he got to the last line he said I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President I almost fell out of my chair I had no idea he was going to do that here he was he had been the leader of the Senate he had been the Vice President of the United States and now he was President of the United States and he was giving that up why? well one of the reasons was he did some things you don't unaware of probably in the middle of the night he'd get up he'd pick up the phone call the situation room and have them give him the numbers how many killed how many wounded he kept that every night and it was really starting to get to him then once in a while he'd have us take him to a Catholic church down on Main Avenue where Lucy had gone to church and he'd go in and sit and talk to the monks didn't stay there long but it gave him a chance to just talk to them he knew that they'd never say anything and the Vietnam situation was bothering him so much I think it became a major reason why he decided not to run again in 1968 so then 4 days after this speech Martin Luther King was assassinated? yes he was assassinated in Memphis and we learned about it immediately and as you see here the President is there and he's probably on a phone with J. Edgar Hoover trying to find out as much information as he could members of the staff are watching your reports on the 3 TV sets that were in the Oval Office yes about 2 in the morning phone rang I had a phone right next to my bed direct line to the White House switchboard it rang so I knew it was the President already something really urgent so I picked it up and it was the President said Clint he said you know we're going to that memorial service out at National Cathedral for King tomorrow said yes Mr. President we're already said look I want you to keep the cars close to the rival door as you possibly can and I want you to stay as close to me as white on rice all through the services so that's what I did here you see us coming out that's me immediately behind him those are other senior agents on either side I see Tom Johnson there behind Bob Taylor this was the service this was the services for Dr. King he was nervous at that point anxious he was concerned that this could happen to him what happened to Dr. King and then just two months later Robert Kennedy was assassinated and you got another middle of the night phone call yes notified that he had been killed and immediately President Johnson contacted Rufich Ungblood directed that all candidates that were running for the office of president be protected immediately and he later signed a document authorizing that protection which became law and is still in effect today as we stood there and watched him sign that declaration so then Richard Nixon won his party's nomination for the presidency in 1968 yes and so President Johnson thought he would be a good gesture to invite President Nixon to come down to the ranch and he could brief him there so they set a date and he flew down to the ranch brought with him Vice President nominee Agnew Dick Helms ahead of the CIA the press secretary President Nixon President Johnson Ambassador Cyrus Vance Bob Haldeman Jim Jones Tom Johnson and Secretary State Dean Rusk enjoying a lunch and laughing at some remark the president had just made then he wanted to take Richard Nixon out and sit and talk to him one on one just outside the ranch house notice the clothing that President Johnson is wearing these are his ranch clothes that day after Nixon and his staff left the ranch Clint you received a package I received the package that morning and I opened it up and it was a pair of clothes a shirt and a pair of pants and I wasn't too sure it was from the president but didn't know quite why so I just put them back in a package and so we went through the day Nixon and Agnew get on the plane and leave and I went back and the phone rings President Johnson he said Clint he said you get that package I said yes yes Mr. President wonderful set of clothes I thank you very much he said no I want to see you in them he said you put them on I'm out here at the pool you can walk out here I want to see what it looks like so I put them on walked out by the pool you see the presence in the pool that's one of his Air Force stewards there as I stood there and modeled them now if you don't think it was embarrassing for me to put those clothes on in the command center where all the agents were you know it was but they were very very high quality nice clothes it was a set of ranch clothes they really were so did you wear those around the ranch I didn't want to get them dirty so I didn't wear them get the Johnson treatment oh yeah I had a sore breast bones from the Johnson treatment because he loved to get up close and personal even closer than that now here he's telling me a story so that was fun but if he had something that was very serious on his mind and occasionally I didn't even know what he was talking about and he would get up really close and then he'd start this oh it hurt but it gave him relief and that was fine so you just then take it so then Richard Nixon was elected president once again Clint was not assigned to the president you happen to be assigned to the vice president they came to me and said you know Clint said you were assigned to the Kennedy's you worked with the Johnson's we don't think you're going to get along with the Nixon's I said I think you got that right so they said here's what we want to do we want to make you the agent in charge of vice presidential protection and I said okay so we made some changes staffing required that the vice president have a dedicated aircraft required that the vice president have a dedicated position required a certain number of agents on the detail and they agreed to all that so that's how that detail began so you were with Spiro Agnew for about a year and you got to do some fun things we went down for the launch of the manned space shuttle to the moon there we are I'm there with vice president Mrs. Agnew there's vice president or then Mrs. Johnson and right behind president Johnson is Tom Johnson who seated there in the front row enjoying that launch vehicle shop so quickly tell us what was Nixon like in comparison well we knew him as a vice president but when he came back as a president sworn in in 1969 he was a different person he everybody who runs for office is really happy about getting that in the Oval Office and that's where they sit and they work and they love it Nixon established an office over an executive office building across the street he spent as much time there as he did in the Oval Office for some reason he would like to be alone and that's where he would meet and discuss things with people so then in 1972 one middle of the night I get a phone call it's the intelligence division informing me that they'd been a break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters they'd made some arrests so I said what's that got to do with us they said well we're not sure but here are the names of the people that were arrested so they read off none two three four they got to the fifth name and they said James McCord I thought well gee the name is so much familiar but I'm not sure okay thanks very much so I waited so that early that next morning about 8 o'clock I thought I would call the deputy director who was close with the Nixon staff his name was Pat Boggs so I called and told Boggs what had happened and then I started to read off the names I said James McCord and all I could hear was his profanity at the end of the phone I knew I had struck a chord that there was something going on then I remembered who he was former CIA agent specialty was in eavesdropping and bugging and we knew him very well and at that time he was employed by an agency we referred to as CREEP committee to re-elect the president he was working for President Nixon and the Republican Party so things started to unravel and then separately Vice President Agnew resigned ultimately Nixon resigned and Gerald R. Ford became president and you were there during that transition as well yes on this morning on August 9th President Nixon made a speech in the East Room to his staff saying goodbye and then they came out on the south grounds to get on a helicopter and Nixon walked up the steps and he gave it the usual and I was standing in the back and I said to myself I said what the hell does he think he's won he's leaving in disgrace but that was just the way he was so then President Ford took the oath of office and made a speech in the East Room in which he said our national nightmare is over and for all intents and purposes it was so then the first trip President Ford made was to Chicago outside the city of Washington he went to the VFW National Convention there in Chicago and so I went along I wanted to see how the agents on the detail were getting along with he and his staff and I found out it was doing an excellent job but it was very enjoyable to see this gentleman as he was really well received by the VFW there in Chicago so then in July of 1975 in the middle of President Ford's administration Clint retired from the secret service he was 43 years old Clint I know you said that originally growing up in Washburn, North Dakota you never had any intention of being a secret service agent you wanted to be a history teacher well as it turned out you have become a wonderful history teacher thank you we would like to have any questions that you have there's a microphones in the aisle please use them we have a few minutes take about 10 minutes of questions so if you want to just come up to the microphones walk over to the microphone it doesn't matter what the question is I think I've heard them all Lisa, President Kennedy loved history Clint I majored history and ended up a registered nurse my father I found out after you talked he was in that children's home a lot before you were he's from Wapit and I told you anyway Lisa if it wasn't for you that would have been lost think of the tragedy of not having what he saw what he thought what he experienced thank you I was in Corman in Vietnam I came under fire when those shots rang out you had no clue how many were going to come you just reacted I saw from what happened to me but you reacted you saved probably Mrs. Kennedy thank God you weren't hurt if God wanted to take President Kennedy he didn't take you thank you for your service Mr. Hill could you talk about the visit from Elvis Presley well I was in headquarters at the time I was assistant director one day my secretary come running in she said Mr. Hill you're not going to believe this Elvis Presley just showed up in the Northwest Gate he wants to see the president he said do you have an appointment they said no I don't have an appointment to see him I said well you got to turn him away you know well ok so then they said one of the guys that was working they said we better let the staff know so they notified the president's staff Elvis had showed up well they said oh this is an opportunity so let's get a hold of him he was staying at the hotel so they got in touch with him and they had him come over and he went in to see the president he wanted to give the president a gun so we had to take the gun away and examine it and all that kind of stuff but there he was and they took photographs and you'll see him very popular photograph of Nixon and Elvis Presley in the Oval Office but I mean it was one of those things that just had to be there to believe it well we got maybe one here yes sir did you keep in touch with any of the people you protected after you left Mrs. Kennedy and I kept in touch a little bit she when I left she would phone me periodically usually because there was a problem with the agents who were dealing with the children and so we would discuss it and how I'd get it resolved for but last time I ever saw or talked with her was at Robert Kennedy's funeral in 1968 that was the last time I have seen Caroline a couple of times since then but you know we're not social friends or anything well you don't really in 1963 I think it was that summer a number of the agents requested transfers away from the White House detail because the travel was just too much and their wives were just about fed up and they were going to file for divorce for myself I was gone about 90% of the time I was never there for my children's birthdays any of the holidays and so they pretty much grew up without a father their mother really raised them fortunately for me my two sons and I are closer now than ever it was a long time before that really occurred it was a it's very difficult the conditions that were limited for us at that time to maintain a family and have that kind of job for the assassination in Dallas you would have had to take some sort of personal time were you allowed any time away from post or did you choose to take it or not take it we were not given any counseling I can give you my schedule the assassination occurred on the 22nd we brought the president's body back to the White House at 4.30 in the morning on the 23rd 6 o'clock in the morning on the 23rd I went home showered, shaved, changed clothes came back to work because the agents had been with President Kennedy were now with President Johnson that left the two agents that had originally been assigned myself and one other with Mrs. Kennedy the three agents who were with the children with the children and a few agents from the Washington field office to supplement us at midnight but other than that we had no days off for the foreseeable future and we spent some time a lot of time away from Washington we left that week the funeral was on the 25th which is Monday was also with John F. Kennedy Junior's birthday by the way 3rd birthday the 27th was Caroline's birthday the 28th was Thanksgiving and we flew to Cape Cod so Mrs. Kennedy could brief her in-laws came back to Washington on December 6th to a house in Georgetown owned by Avril Harriman he and his wife moved out just let her have the house with the kids then we took Mrs. Kennedy and the children to Florida where they spent Christmas and New Years so we didn't have any time for ourselves at all yes sir Mr. Helt, it's not a fair question but I'm going to ask you which president are you most fond of well you know I get that asked all the time I really don't have a favorite each one of them they're so different the one thing that all five of the presidents I worked with hadn't come was a large ego it's not as large as some egos at present but it was large but they had different mannerisms, different likes they were just completely different people and I got along better with some than others but I didn't have a favorite really I really asked who you were most fond of but I'm going to let it go and just say what a great opportunity to be able to be fond of presidents the way you were well thank you yes sir Mr. Helt, is your belief that Lee Harvey Othell was the sole assassin of President John F. Kennedy in my opinion all the data I've seen and I've seen a lot there were only three shots fired in Dealey Plaza that day they all came from the 6-4 window of the Texas School Book Depository fired out of one rifle that they were located there hidden behind some boxes when the police went into that area they found three spent shell casings on the floor of what we call the sniper's nest all that material was traced back to an individual who used a phony name in acquiring these items the rifle was purchased in a mail order house in Chicago sent to this address in Dallas and it turned out to be an alias that Lee Harvey Oswald always used and had used many times before in my opinion there was one assassin he operated alone his name was Lee Harvey Oswald thank you very much let's take one final question last but not least so Mr. Hill I'm curious after the assassination have you ever returned to the point of Dallas where it occurred I went back to Dallas in 1990 for the first time alone walked the area of Dealey Plaza and went up to Texas School Book Depository to the 6th floor looked out that window really needed to see exactly what we had faced I checked everything wind that day the angles, the car everything, the elevation and I came away knowing that there was nothing more I could have done that day than what I did do that it was just one of those things that happened we didn't have a chance he had all the advantages we didn't have any he was shooting us from behind shooting him there was just not much we could do but it really affected me because we had a responsibility to protect the president and we failed to do so and so I had that sense of guilt that we hadn't performed our duty and I was brought up by a family that's the one thing you do if you're given a job to do you carry it out and result or you never quit and so it just haunted me for years and years and years it wasn't until I actually talked with Lisa McCubbin and she got me to really unload, start to talk about that day and the events surrounding it that I got to feel better and that was in 2009 that was 46 years after the event occurred just once again thank Lisa thank Clint, Lisa if you walk over please for what is I think just an extraordinary perspective of history perhaps that nobody else possibly thank you very much