Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir (36 page)

The night before we were to leave for New York City, I was at home, packing for the trip, when I got a phone call from the agent on duty at the White House.

“Clint,” he said, “we just had some unusual activity here that I thought you should know about.”

Unusual activity?

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, the President and Mrs. Kennedy decided to take a spur-of-the-moment walk outside the White House grounds.”

“Spur of the moment?”

“Yes, that’s right. It was completely unannounced. They just came down the elevator, and walked out the Southwest Gate. We had to scramble all the agents from their posts to provide protection.”

This
was
highly unusual. In the two years President and Mrs. Kennedy had
been in the White House, I’d never known them to walk outside the White House grounds without informing the agent in charge—especially at night.

“Were there any incidents?” I asked.

“No. Everything was fine, and we got them covered by the time they left the Southwest Gate. They simply took a leisurely stroll around the perimeter fence to the Northwest Gate and came back inside. They were only gone about twenty minutes.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” I said. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but this little spontaneous walk proved to be a predecessor of things to come.

In New York, Mrs. Kennedy stayed at their suite at the Carlyle Hotel, while Caroline stayed at the Smith residence. The president’s sister Jean Kennedy Smith and her husband, Steve Smith, had two young sons, Stephen Jr. and William. Stephen, or “Stevie” as he was called, was about Caroline’s age, and the two were close. The Smiths’ luxurious apartment was located across the street from Central Park, just a couple of blocks from the Carlyle.

The week in New York City was filled with activity—Mrs. Kennedy met friends for lunches at Giovanni’s and Le Pavillon, and one evening at Le Club, the European style nightclub Oleg and Igor Cassini started—but she also spent a lot of time showing Caroline around the city, sharing with her daughter the things she loved about New York. Walks in Central Park, visits to museums, and even a visit to the United Nations. They were having such a wonderful time, and toward the end of the week Mrs. Kennedy informed me that the president would be joining them on the weekend.

“We want to keep it private,” Mrs. Kennedy said. “No police escorts, no motorcades, no official functions. We just want to enjoy the city like we used to.”

When it was just Mrs. Kennedy and Caroline, we were able to come and go without attracting too much attention. But when the president arrived, keeping a low profile was a much bigger challenge. There would always be at least five or six Secret Service agents around the president, and trailing closely behind the president’s limousine was the not so unobtrusive follow-up car.

As soon as the president arrived in New York, he came straight to the Carlyle to see Mrs. Kennedy, and then, surrounded by his Secret Service detail, walked the two blocks to his sister’s apartment to see Caroline. Of course he was instantly recognized, and while he made it to Jean’s place without incident, the word was out that the president was in town, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

That evening, the president and Mrs. Kennedy had dinner with friends at Le Pavillon, before going to the theater to see
Beyond the Fringe,
a satirical British comedy featuring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. The night was capped off by an after-theater party at the Earl E. T. Smith’s residence, a friend from Palm Beach who had been U.S. ambassador to Cuba.

I could see that after two years in the White House, they were yearning for a sense of “normalcy.” It was a real challenge for the Secret Service agents to keep these presidential movements private yet still maintain an adequate amount of protection, without police escorts or the blocking of streets, but we managed. Both the president and Mrs. Kennedy appreciated the effort and they thanked each of the agents personally.

The next morning, the president wanted to take Caroline to Central Park before church. Once again he walked from the Carlyle to the Smith residence, and picked up Caroline and her cousin Stephen. Agents were posted outside the door of the apartment building, which caused some attention, and by the time the president came out with the two children, a crowd had gathered.

This was exactly what the president had hoped to avoid. Not wanting to ruin
the children’s outing, he left Caroline and her cousin with Agents Bob Foster and Tommy Wells, and returned to the Carlyle, where he went in the main entrance at Seventy-sixth Street. He was really distraught about not being able to do something so simple as take a walk with his five-year-old daughter in Central Park, so the agents came up with an idea. We took him through the hotel and snuck him out a little-used back door on Seventy-seventh Street, where we had an unmarked car waiting. We drove the short distance to the park, and got the president out without anyone noticing, then met up with Caroline, Stephen, and the Kiddie Detail agents. The president walked around the park with the children for about twenty minutes in complete anonymity. No public interference and no press. President Kennedy loved it.

It was wonderful to see the president able to have this special time—just a father spending time with his daughter in Central Park.

The next item on the agenda was Mass, and the president got back to the Carlyle just in time to pick up Mrs. Kennedy and her sister, Princess Radziwill, to drive to St. Ignatius of Loyola Church. I took my place in a pew directly behind Mrs. Kennedy, while Agent Art Godfrey sat next to me, behind the president. The other agents were scattered around the church.

When it came time for the collection plate to be passed around, we all knew what to expect. The president would reach his hand behind him, holding it out, palm up. Neither he nor Mrs. Kennedy ever carried cash, so one of the agents would put a twenty-dollar bill in the president’s hand for the collection.

Sure enough, the president’s hand came back toward Art Godfrey. Godfrey looked at me, then rolled his eyes, and it was all I could do not to laugh. He pulled out his wallet and put a twenty in the president’s hand. The president took the bill, looked at it, and then, without saying anything, stuck his hand back again. Godfrey turned to me and opened his wallet to show me it was empty. So I pulled out my wallet, and placed another twenty-dollar bill in the president’s hand. Once again he looked at it and then stuck his hand back. Now Godfrey was cracking up. All I had left was a ten, so I placed that in the president’s hand and hoped he didn’t reach back again. Fortunately, fifty dollars was sufficient on this particular Sunday.

We would always get reimbursed by the president’s secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, but providing cash to the President of the United States for the collection plate was one of those things we all joked about.

After the services, the president, Mrs. Kennedy, and Mrs. Radziwill got into the unmarked Secret Service car we were using, and we proceeded to the
restaurant Voisin, where they were going to meet Prince Radziwill and Chuck Spalding for lunch. I was in the follow-up car, and suddenly, at Sixty-seventh Street and Park Avenue, the president’s car stopped.

Agent Roy Kellerman jumped out of the front passenger seat of the president’s car and said, “The president and Mrs. Kennedy would like to walk the rest of the way to the restaurant.”

Walk? In New York City? In broad daylight?

I knew Kellerman didn’t think this was a good idea, either, but I guessed that this was at Mrs. Kennedy’s urging. It was a beautiful day in New York City, and I knew how she hated being driven anywhere when there was the possibility of walking. So we got out and walked with the president and Mrs. Kennedy to Voisin. It was just four and a half blocks, but it was rather unnerving to have the president and first lady so exposed, without any advance preparations.

I had a feeling the same thing would happen on the way back to the Carlyle after lunch, and sure enough it did. The president and Mrs. Kennedy walked partway back to the Carlyle, talking and laughing as they walked briskly down Park Avenue. It was challenging for the agents to cover this extemporaneous activity, but it was wonderful to see them thoroughly enjoying themselves—like they were just an ordinary couple—thrilled to be expecting a child, with so much to look forward to.

On the flight back to Washington later that afternoon, I thought about the spontaneous activity that had taken place in New York City and outside the grounds of the White House. This was inevitably going to be the new standard.

Our jobs just became a little more difficult.

Mrs. Kennedy, Chuck Spalding, Lee, Clint Hill, and Prince Radziwill

T
he next weekend it was back to Middleburg, where the new home was under construction on Rattlesnake Mountain, then back to Washington by helicopter for a couple of days. I had just enough time to get my laundry done, retrieve clothes from the cleaners, and repack. Now we were off to Palm Beach for a few days in the sun.

Once again, President and Mrs. Kennedy returned to the C. Michael Paul residence, which they had rented for the winter of 1962–63. By the time we got to the Paul residence it was after eleven o’clock, and when my head hit the pillow in my room at Woody’s Motel, it was after midnight.

Fortunately, Mrs. Kennedy took the next morning easy, while the president
played with John on the beach and took Caroline and some friends out on the
Honey Fitz.
That evening they had a dinner invitation at the Wrightsman residence. Paul Landis had relieved me, and I was comfortable that Mrs. Kennedy was in a secure environment. I was looking forward to getting to bed early for once, and getting a full night’s sleep.

A White House phone had been installed in my room so that I had a direct line to the Palm Beach White House switchboard in case of an emergency. I had barely gotten out of my clothes, and was sitting on the bed in boxers and a T-shirt when the White House phone rang.

I picked up the phone.

“This is Clint.”

“Oh, Mr. Hill,” the breathy familiar voice said, “the president and I would like you to do something for us.”

I looked at my watch. It was eight o’clock. Paul Landis was there, as well as the President’s Detail agents.
What could they possibly need me to do?
I didn’t have a good feeling about this.

The previous month, President Kennedy had unwittingly started a fad that had by this time spread from coast to coast, and of which I was about to become a spontaneous participant. It all began when the president came upon a 1908 executive order in which President Theodore Roosevelt set forth rules for Marine officers to be able to complete a fifty-mile hike. President Kennedy sent a memo to Marine Corps commandant David Shoup suggesting that a similar fifty-mile challenge would be a good test to see how the present-day officers could perform the task.

Concerned that the average American was becoming more and more unfit, President Kennedy announced that he would put his White House staff to the fifty-mile test as well. It was meant to be a publicity stunt to kick-start a national fitness campaign, and the press ate it up. Poor Pierre Salinger, who was himself a poster child for the “soft American,” declined the challenge but publicly vowed to increase his daily dose of exercise. Meanwhile, the president’s brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, readily accepted the challenge and completed his own fifty-mile hike in just seventeen hours.