Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir

24

Parkland Hospital

Doctors and nurses were everywhere—it was a blur of white coats—as we passed Trauma Room No. 2, where Governor Connally had been taken, and wheeled the president into Trauma Room No. 1. Mrs. Kennedy was holding on to the gurney, staring at her husband’s body, my coat still over his head and torso.

As someone reached to pull my coat off, I grabbed her firmly by the arm and said, “Mrs. Kennedy, let’s go wait outside.”

“No,” she said. “I’m staying in here with him.”

“Clint,” Roy Kellerman interrupted, “contact the White House. And keep the line open.”

I looked at Mrs. Kennedy, not wanting to leave her, but Kellerman was right. We had to let the White House know what had happened.

Paul Landis stood outside the door of the trauma room, while I found a telephone and dialed the number for the special switchboard in Dallas that would get me straight to the White House.

“This is Clint Hill. Give me Jerry Behn’s office in Washington and keep this line open.”

Just as Jerry Behn, the Special Agent in Charge of the White House Detail, answered, Roy Kellerman came out of the trauma room and grabbed the phone.

As Kellerman began to explain the horror of what had happened less than ten minutes before, a medic rushed out of the trauma room.

“Does anybody know the president’s blood type?”

“O. R-H positive,” Kellerman blurted out.

Just then, Mrs. Kennedy came out of the trauma room. Her face, still spattered with blood, was expressionless.

I strode over to her, afraid she might faint.

Landis called out, “Somebody get a chair for Mrs. Kennedy.”

There were agents and medical staff and policemen all over the place. People running around back and forth, in and out of the two trauma rooms. Somebody brought a chair and I said, “Mrs. Kennedy, sit down.”

She sat down and looked at me. Our eyes met, and it nearly broke me. The light was gone, and all that was left in those beautiful brown eyes was pain. Sheer, unbearable pain.

A medic rushed out of the room and called out, “He’s still breathing!”

Mrs. Kennedy stood up and asked, “Do you mean he may live?”

Oh God, I thought. Please, nobody answer her. I saw what happened.

Nobody answered, but as soon as Kellerman heard that the president was still breathing, he looked at me and said, “Clint, take the phone.”

I left Mrs. Kennedy with Paul and took the handset from Kellerman.

“Clint, what happened?” Jerry Behn asked.

“Shots fired during the motorcade. It all happened so fast,” I said. I tried to remain as composed as possible, as I kept my eyes on Mrs. Kennedy. “The situation is critical, Jerry. Prepare for the worst.”

Before Jerry could answer, the operator cut into the line. “The attorney general wants to talk to Agent Hill.”

The attorney general. Robert Kennedy. The president’s brother.

“Clint, what’s going on down there?!”

Staring at Mrs. Kennedy, I repeated, “Shots fired during the motorcade. The president is very seriously injured. They’re working on him now. Governor Connally was hit, too.”

“What do you mean seriously injured? How bad is it?”

I swallowed hard, as the image of the president’s head exploding replayed in my mind. The image of his lifeless body lying across Mrs. Kennedy’s lap. His eyes fixed. His blood and brains all over her, all over me.

How do I tell him his brother is dead?

Looking away from Mrs. Kennedy, I closed my eyes, squeezed the phone hard, and said, “It’s as bad as it can get.”

THE SECRET SERVICE agents from the President’s Detail who had been stationed at the Trade Mart had raced to Parkland Hospital as soon as they heard the president had been hit. With them was Admiral George Burkley, the president’s physician. Dr. Burkley had been in the VIP bus at the back of the motorcade. He had no idea how bad the situation was until he got into Trauma Room No. 1.

I knew the doctors at Parkland Hospital, along with Dr. Burkley, were doing everything they could to save the president, but I knew there was no hope.

Dr. Burkley walked out of the trauma room, his face contorted with pain.

Mrs. Kennedy stood up as soon as she saw him and said, “I’m going in there.”

A nurse tried to stop her, but Dr. Burkley intervened and led Mrs. Kennedy back into the trauma room, so she could be with her husband when he took his last breath.

I was still on the line with Jerry Behn, when two priests arrived.

“Two priests just walked into the trauma room,” I said.

Perhaps they will be of some comfort to Mrs. Kennedy, I thought. At least they’ll know the right things to say.

A few moments later, Agent Roy Kellerman walked out of the room and came toward me. In a low voice, he said, “The priest has just administered Last Rites. This is not for release, and is not official, but the president is dead.”

I had known it, of course. There was no way he could have survived. But still, to hear it said out loud. I could hardly breathe.

“What is it, Clint?” Jerry Behn asked on the other end of the phone. “What did Kellerman say?”

My chest tightened as I took a deep breath.

“The president is dead, Jerry. Roy said it’s not to be released, but the president is dead.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Jerry Behn had been the Special Agent in Charge since President Kennedy’s Inauguration. He was with the president all the time, just like I was with Mrs. Kennedy. They had a great relationship. The president loved him, trusted him. With the campaign getting ready to get started, Jerry had decided to take a week off, to get some things done around the house. We all understood how that went. His first annual leave in three years. And now, the president was dead.

The world had stopped, but I had to keep going. Bobby’s words echoed in my mind.

How bad is it?

“Jerry,” I said, “I think you should advise the attorney general and the other members of the president’s family immediately. They need to know before they hear it in the press.”

The president is dead. Oh dear God. The president is dead.

KENNY O’DONNELL, ONE of President Kennedy’s closest friends and his chief of staff, had been riding in the follow-up car. He was beyond distraught.

“Clint,” he said, “I need you to call a funeral home. We need a casket.”

A casket. For the president. For Mrs. Kennedy’s husband.

At least I had something to do. As long as I had something to do, the images would leave for a few minutes. When I stopped, or when I looked at her, still caked in blood, I couldn’t see anything but the car moving away from me, the sudden explosion, and then Mrs. Kennedy, climbing onto the back of the car.

As long as I had something to do, that slow-motion picture in my mind would pause for a while, and I could hold it together. Keeping busy was the only way I was going to get through this day.

I found one of the hospital administrators and said, “I need to contact a mortuary and obtain a casket.”

“Yes, sir,” the man said, as he led me to a small office. He found the number for the Oneal Funeral Home—they were the best, he said—and left me to make the call.

My hand trembled as I dialed the number.

“I need a casket delivered to Parkland Hospital’s emergency entrance. Right away. The best one you have.”

“What’s your name, sir?”

“My name? My name is Clint Hill. Put it in my name. I need the best damn casket you have. Do you understand?”

Oh, God. Oh, God.

“It’s for the president . . . the casket is for President Kennedy.”

I hung up the phone and went back into the hallway. Paul Landis was still standing outside the door to the trauma room. Stoic and strong, he was holding it together. Somehow, we were all holding it together.

Mrs. Kennedy walked out of the trauma room, followed by the two priests.

“Thank you,” she said to them, looking each of them in the eyes. “Thank you so very much.”

I started walking toward her.

Down the hall, I heard Emory Roberts’s voice telling some of the agents to get to Love Field. He wanted everything secured, all the buildings cleared.

“Only our people and local law enforcement. That’s it. And call Colonel Swindal and tell him we’re heading back to Washington.”

I LOOKED AT my watch and realized the casket should be here any minute.

We were going back to Washington—with the president in a casket. Oh God.

I went back to the room with the phone and dialed the Dallas White House Switchboard.

“This is Clint Hill. I need to speak to Bob Foster, immediately.”

As I waited for Bob Foster, the lead agent on the children’s detail, to get on the phone, I nearly lost it.

The president’s words as he said good-bye to his almost three-year-old son played over and over in my mind.

Take care of John for me, won’t you, Mr. Foster?

John would be waiting for the helicopter. When he heard the helicopter, he’d run to the window, knowing his daddy was in the helicopter. But this time, his daddy was coming home in a casket.

Take care of John for me, won’t you, Mr. Foster?

Agent Foster and I decided that John and Caroline should be taken to Mrs. Kennedy’s mother’s home in Georgetown. They’d be safe there.

And John would be spared the sound of the helicopter.

I swallowed hard and walked back into the hallway.

I looked at Mrs. Kennedy, now sitting in the ordinary portable straight-backed chair that had been drug into the hallway. She looked so all alone. Paul was with her, there were people all around, and yet she was alone in her sorrow. Oh how I wished I could relieve her pain.

EMORY ROBERTS CAME to me and said, “Clint, we need to get Vice President Johnson to Air Force One and go back to Washington. We don’t know how big this situation is and we need to remove him from the area.”

“That makes sense,” I replied.

“He wants Mrs. Kennedy to come with him—tell her that.”

“I’m sure she will not leave the president. But I’ll ask.”

I walked over to her. She looked so fragile.

“Mrs. Kennedy, Vice President Johnson is going to go back to Washington and he would like you to go with him.”

She looked up at me. Her eyes told me before she said it.

“Tell the vice president I’m not going anywhere without the president.”

There was no mistaking the determination in her voice.

“Thank you, Mrs. Kennedy.”

I went back to Roberts with the answer to his question.

Soon the answer came back from Roberts. Vice President and Mrs. Johnson were going to Love Field and would board Air Force One, but would not leave until Mrs. Kennedy went with them.

The casket arrived and I signed the receipt. We were wheeling it in and I could see Paul, Ken O’Donnell, and Dave Powers trying to shield Mrs. Kennedy from seeing it. The sight of the casket made everything so final. I could see the anguish on her face, I could feel it in my heart, and there was nothing I could do.

WE STILL HAD no idea who was behind the assassination. Was it one person? A conspiracy? Were they after the vice president or others?

What we did know was the sooner we got out of Dallas, onto Air Force One, and back to the White House, the better. But Vice President Johnson wouldn’t leave on the presidential plane without Mrs. Kennedy, and Mrs. Kennedy wasn’t leaving without the body of the president.

And now there was another problem. The Dallas County medical examiner had arrived and informed us that we could not remove the president’s body from the hospital until an autopsy had been performed. Texas state law required that, in the case of a homicide, the victim’s body could not be released until an autopsy was performed in the jurisdiction in which the homicide was committed.

A homicide? The president has just been assassinated. This is no ordinary homicide.

It could be hours or perhaps a day or more before the procedure would be complete. This was completely unacceptable.

Roy Kellerman, Ken O’Donnell, and Dave Powers tried to convince the authorities that since this involved the President of the United States, we should be able to take his body back to the nation’s capital for an autopsy.

The Texas authorities said no.

The discussion continued and became somewhat heated. Very heated. This was all happening in a very small area—a hallway, really. Paul Landis and I looked at each other. We knew what was going to happen. Texas law or not, we were taking the president’s body back to Washington.

Inside the trauma room, the president’s body was being placed in the casket. The hearse from Oneal Funeral Home was waiting at the emergency room entrance. Andy Berger, one of the agents from the President’s Detail, was sitting in the driver’s seat. Paul stayed close to Mrs. Kennedy as I made sure the corridor between Trauma Room No. 1 and the hearse was secure.

Finally, the Texas authorities conceded—with one stipulation. We could take the president’s body and return to Washington, as long as there was a medical professional that stayed with the body and would return to Dallas to testify.

“We have the right man for the job,” I said. “Admiral George Burkley, the president’s physician.” The discussion was over.

Mrs. Kennedy walked silently with us, as we wheeled the casket down the hall. She watched as we strained to lift the casket, with her husband’s body inside, into the back of the hearse, and then as Admiral Burkley got in there with it.

I turned to Mrs. Kennedy and gently touched her arm. “We can ride in this car right behind the hearse, Mrs. Kennedy.”

She looked at me, her eyes pooled with pain. “No, Mr. Hill, I’m riding with the president.”

So I opened the door of the hearse and Mrs. Kennedy climbed in. I climbed in right behind her, and we scrunched together, sitting on our knees, still in our bloodstained clothes. There we were, in the back of the hearse—a casket containing the President of the United States, Admiral Burkley, Mrs. Kennedy, and me.

LOVE FIELD HAD been completely sealed off from the public. Agent Andy Berger drove the hearse to the rear steps of Air Force One, and I helped Mrs. Kennedy out. Paul Landis had ridden in the car behind us, and rushed to Mrs. Kennedy’s side.

The crew of Air Force One had removed some seats in the rear of the aircraft to make room for the casket. Now we had to get the casket up the steps into the back of the plane.

Paul stayed with Mrs. Kennedy, while I helped my fellow agents lift the casket out of the hearse. Silently, and with as much dignity as possible, we heaved the heavy bronze casket up the narrow steps of the portable staircase. Everybody was emotionally shattered. You couldn’t stop to think about what it was you were actually doing. Step by step, we finally made it to the top, only to discover that the casket was too wide to go through the door.

We had to get it in. There was no choice. We had to get the casket onto Air Force One. So we broke off the handles, and jammed the casket through the door, as Mrs. Kennedy watched from the bottom of the steps.

Once the casket was in place, Mrs. Kennedy walked up the stairs and sat in the seat next to the casket. She was joined by O’Donnell, Powers, and Admiral Burkley. For all intents and purposes, Lyndon Johnson was now the president, so the agents on the 4:00–midnight shift were guarding him, guarding the new president. I was concerned about how that might make Mrs. Kennedy feel. Also, having witnessed the tense scene at Parkland Hospital regarding removal of the body, I thought it best that an agent stay with the casket to verify that Admiral Burkley had remained with the casket as well.

I needed to confer with ASAIC Kellerman about plans for our arrival, so I went to Agent Stewart Stout, the shift leader, and said, “Stew, I think, out of respect for President Kennedy, an agent should stay with the casket.” He agreed and Agent Dick Johnsen went back to sit with Mrs. Kennedy and the others.

Everyone was eager to get wheels up and get out of Dallas, but now we had another problem. We learned that Vice President Johnson needed to be sworn in while still on the ground in Dallas. That required a federal judge. Calls were made, and federal judge Sarah Hughes arrived and boarded Air Force One.

Before the swearing-in ceremony began, I was notified that Mrs. Kennedy wanted to see me, in the presidential cabin. I walked through the aircraft, past Vice President Johnson and his staff, and into the compartment.

She was standing there, still in her pink suit. Less than six hours earlier, I had seen her in Room 850 at the Hotel Texas, putting on the finishing touches—the hat, the gloves—and now, the accessories were gone, and the beautiful suit was crusted with blood. We had tried to convince her to change her clothes, but she refused. “Let them see what they have done,” she said.

“Yes, Mrs. Kennedy, what do you need?”

She walked toward me, extended her hands, and grasped mine.

Looking into my eyes, she asked, “What’s going to happen to you now, Mr. Hill?”

Tears welled in my eyes and my lips trembled. “I’ll be okay, Mrs. Kennedy. I’ll be okay.”

With all her sorrow and heartbreak, I thought, to have concern for me at this time. She really is a remarkable lady.

I returned to my seat in the forward section of the aircraft as Mrs. Kennedy joined Vice President and Mrs. Johnson for the swearing-in ceremony. I stood behind Kellerman with Colonel James Swindal, the pilot of Air Force One, at my side, and we watched Lyndon Johnson become the thirty-sixth president of the United States.

Colonel Swindal went back to the cockpit, I took my seat, and Air Force One lifted off the runway from Love Field in Dallas. It was 2:47 P.M.

The flight to Andrews Air Force Base was marked with a solemn, sad, quiet atmosphere. And yet, there was work to be done and plans to be made. The Johnson administration people were calling and planning for their future. The Kennedy people were subdued but making plans as to what to do on arrival in Washington. It was decided to have the autopsy conducted at Bethesda Naval Hospital since President Kennedy was a former naval officer. We would go there by motorcade. President Johnson would go by helicopter to the White House.

THERE WAS A large crowd waiting when we arrived at Andrews, at 5:58 P.M. Air Force personnel and their families, members of the cabinet, the House and Senate, the diplomatic corps, the media—they were all there to pay their respects to the assassinated president, and his young widow.

As soon as Colonel Swindal brought the plane to a stop, the front steps were put in place and the Air Force moved in a hydraulic lift at the rear door of the plane, to lower the casket down to ground level.

I had moved to the rear of the aircraft to be near Mrs. Kennedy. There was a flurry of activity in the front section, and bursting down the aisle, not paying attention to anyone, came Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He embraced Mrs. Kennedy and touched the casket, his eyes filled with tears.

Several of us moved the casket onto the lift, and then Mrs. Kennedy, the attorney general, and members of the fallen president’s staff surrounded the casket as it was lowered to the ground. Agents, staff members, and Air Force personnel helped place the casket in the waiting Navy ambulance.

Bobby Kennedy, Mary Gallagher, Mrs. Kennedy, and Clint Hill watch as casket is loaded into Navy ambulance

Mrs. Kennedy once again insisted on riding in the back with the president. This time the attorney general joined her. On the plane, Mrs. Kennedy had requested Bill Greer drive the ambulance.

He was the president’s driver. He should have the honor of driving him one last time.

Roy Kellerman, Dr. Burkley, and Paul Landis joined him in the front seat. I rode in the car immediately behind the ambulance with Dr. John Walsh and members of President Kennedy’s “Irish Mafia”—Ken O’Donnell, Dave Powers, and Larry O’Brien.

The forty-five minute drive to Bethesda Naval Hospital seemed endless. Sitting in the front seat, staring at the taillights of the ambulance. The events of the day playing over and over in my head. The sounds of grown men weeping in the backseat. Tears would well up in my eyes, and I’d blink them back. Swallow hard.

WHEN WE ARRIVED at Bethesda, the body was taken to the autopsy room accompanied by Dr. Burkley, and Agents Roy Kellerman and Bill Greer. Paul and I escorted Mrs. Kennedy to the presidential suite on the seventeenth floor. We set up a security post as friends and family began to arrive to see Mrs. Kennedy. Paul and I were the only ones that could identify these people, so we became the gatekeepers. Phones were ringing, people were coming and going, and yet the night was going by very slowly. We were waiting for the autopsy procedure to be completed and it was nerve-racking.

At about 2:45 A.M., the phone rang. It was Roy Kellerman.

“Clint, we need you to come down to the autopsy room.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right down.”

I left the seventeenth floor with Paul in charge and went to the autopsy room. As I approached the door Kellerman stepped out and said “Clint, before the autopsy is closed, I need you to come in and view the president’s body.”

I had a good idea as to why I had been selected to do this. I knew I had to do it, but I dreaded it. I simply nodded to Kellerman that I understood.

“I know this isn’t going to be easy,” he said, “but we decided that since you are the closest to Mrs. Kennedy, it’s important for you to see the body, in case she has any questions.”

I took a deep breath, as Kellerman opened the door.

Lying on a table, covered with a white sheet, was the body of President Kennedy. Only his face was exposed, and it looked like he was sleeping.

Bill Greer was there, and Dr. Burkley, and General Godfrey McHugh, President Kennedy’s Air Force aide. There were additional people I did not recognize. A man in a white coat stood beside the table. I’m sure they told me his name, but it didn’t register.

The man gently lowered the sheet just enough to expose the president’s neck, and he began describing the wounds to me. A wound in the front neck area where a tracheotomy had been performed at Parkland Hospital in an effort to revive the president. He said it covered an exit wound. Then, rolling the president gently over to one side, he pointed out a wound in the upper back, at the neckline, quite small. This, he said, was the entry wound that corresponded to the exit wound at the throat.

Moving the body back and slightly to the left he pointed out the wound in the upper-right rear of the head.

I swallowed hard, listening closely, as the doctor explained what had happened. It appeared that the impact of the bullet hitting the president’s head was so severe, it caused an explosive reaction within the makeup of the skull and brain, so portions of the brain erupted outward, and a portion of the skull with skin and hair attached became like a flap.

The image of what I saw when I was wedged up above the backseat came flashing back into my mind. The head wound was exposed to me and I could see into his brain, part of which had exploded outward. It looked like somebody had flipped open the back of his head, stuck in an ice-cream scoop and removed a portion of the brain, then scattered it all over Mrs. Kennedy, the car, and myself. It was a horrific sight. And I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

“Yes, Doctor,” I said. “That is exactly what happened. I know. I saw it. I was five feet from the president when the impact occurred.”

If only I had run faster, reacted a little quicker . . .

The explanation by the doctor and my observation of the body was concluded. I thanked the doctor and returned to the seventeenth floor.

“What did they want?” Paul asked.

I told him what had just transpired. “They assume Mrs. Kennedy will at some point want to know the details of the president’s wounds. I am quite sure that will never happen.”

Paul shook his head. “No, that will never happen.”

Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell had gone to a nearby mortuary and purchased a mahogany casket to replace the one from Dallas that we had damaged. Sometime after 3:00 A.M. we were notified that the procedures had all concluded and everything was ready to leave for the White House.

Family members were still present so a small motorcade was set up. The casket bearing the body of President Kennedy was placed in the Navy ambulance. Once again, Mrs. Kennedy and the attorney general got in the back with the casket. Agent Greer drove with Mr. Kellerman in the front seat. I followed in White House car No. 1 with the president’s sister Mrs. Jean Smith, Mrs. Robert Kennedy, Secretary of Defense McNamara, and Dr. Walsh. Paul rode in car No. 2 with O’Donnell, O’Brien, Powers, and Dr. Burkley.

We arrived at the White House at 4:24 A.M. A U.S. Marines honor guard met us at the Northwest Gate and marched in formation in front of the ambulance as we drove up to the North Portico entrance to the White House. The sight of those young Marines, their chins held high, paying respect to our fallen president, in the black of night, was almost more than I could bear.

We left here two days ago with a young, vibrant, active man as President of the United States, and now we are bringing him home in a casket.

Military body bearers removed the casket from the ambulance and carried the president into the White House to the East Room. There the casket was placed on a catafalque identical to one used for Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The family gathered around and an honor guard was formed and placed on duty around the casket.

As I watched this sad ceremony unfold, Agent Paul Rundle, a close personal friend, approached me.

“Clint, is there anything I can do?”

I simply shook my head no; there was nothing anyone could do. There was nothing anyone could do to relieve the pain, the anguish, the sense of failure and guilt I felt.

Mrs. Kennedy, along with her friends and family, went up to the second-floor living quarters. I went to my office in the Map Room and wrote some notes about what had happened. After being reassured Mrs. Kennedy was in her quarters with no immediate plans, I got in my car and drove across Memorial Bridge to my apartment in Arlington. It was 6:00 A.M.

I arrived home to find my seven-year-old son, Chris, and two-year-old son, Corey, still asleep. My wife, Gwen, was there to greet and console me. I managed to shave, shower, and eat a little something before I was back in the car on the way to the White House. There was no time to grieve. No time to rest.

When I got to the White House, I went straight to my office. Paul Landis had arrived at the same time. I shut the door, and we talked about the events of the past twenty-four hours. It was tough. We were both exhausted—mentally, physically, and emotionally shattered.

Nobody would ever be able to understand what we had been through. Nobody. Not our families, our friends, not even the other agents. To know the president and Mrs. Kennedy like we did, and to see him assassinated before our very eyes, was the tragic bond that Paul and I shared.

But there was no time for mourning—we still had Mrs. Kennedy to protect.