Protecting Jacqueline Kennedy

He lined up to go with us and then they also got a photographer, Mark Shaw, in New York, he was going to be there, so wherever we go, Chuck Spalding, Prince Radzi, appointed me a driver, photographer and a doctor to go to Sunshine Parkway. and we started walking south, towards Miami. Fortunately, the Parkway had not yet opened, there was no traffic and no cars, so he could walk and we walked and walked and periodically, sure enough, the president, Mrs. Kennedy, would come and they would walk maybe a quarter mile and a half mile to see where they were going.

I was there with my Florsheim shoes. These guys have been hiking for about three months. They had hiking stands and every type of equipment you can imagine. In all of it we did 50 miles and we came back because we went back to Palm Beach, so they had a little party and that's what the president had made a metal necklace and a paper necklace and had signed it up and said to dazzle the prize of the pacemaker the Secret Service will follow you to the Battle of Sunshine Parkway. I still have it, in fact, I still have it in my memory bank today, so this is mr.

Hill received her medal from the president, so you knew you had to protect a woman who had a true spirit of adventure. Here she is water skiing. You loved water skiing. I love water skiing. I liked the tandem water skiing with two people. I had never water skied in my life. I come from North Dakota. We had a lot of land, a lot of wheat. We were looking at the water and she thought it would be wonderful if she had learned. to water ski and I could skate with her, so we had a Navy guy driving the boat for us, Jim Bartlet, and she asked us if it was Jim.

Don't you think you could teach mr. Hill to water ski, the man said I don't know, he said I'll try it, he's from Maine, so when we were done, she was done for the day and came back to the house. Bobby was sure nothing was going to happen. I went out on the boat with Jim and learned to water ski. Yes, at first it was an absolute disaster. He spent more time underwater than on top. He finally got me to the top and then I was supposed to learn how to slalom. skiing so we could also ski ten, that didn't work believe me, so he eventually gave up on that idea, but I learned to water ski and for a short period of time you were also his tennis partner, which was very, very For a short period of time I played baseball in college and at American Legion High School.

I was a pretty good baseball player when it came to playing tennis, which was a completely different sport for me. She asked me if I played tennis with her and I told her I've never played tennis, but I'll try, so one day she met me on the south porch with two rackets and a bunch of balls and we went down to the tennis courts, of course, He was dressed in a suit, he told me. that he wasn't dressed properly, but we managed, we went there and she served and I hit the ball and I did it.

I went over the fence, she served and I hit the ball and just over the fence we came. Volleying back and forth from time to time, but finally, after this happened about two or three times on different days, one day he turned to me and said, "You know," he said maybe tennis isn't your game and we met and found a professional who taught us. They brought her to the White House to play tennis with her, so we've been talking about the fun side and the family side, but there were also crises around you, so you were in Virginia when these first reports came out about the missile crisis.

Cubans. We had been spending some time in Virginia and recognized from agents close to him and her that something was happening internationally because many unofficial meetings had been formed with the Executive Committee of the National Security Council and the people they were meeting with. They were specialists in Soviet relations and that kind of thing, so we knew something was going on, but they were trying to make it seem like there was nothing wrong and the president would eventually make a lot of trips out of town. They had to reveal to the American people what was happening, it was called the Cuban Missile Crisis.

He finally called one day when she was out of town and he wanted her to come back to the White House to make sure she was at the White House. Then we returned to the White House. I realized that she had to explain to him what we were going to do if something happened, because we had never really talked about what we were going to do for her and the children if there was an attack. this country for missiles and then I tried to explain to her that we were going to take her and the kids if they were in the White House to the bomb shelter that was under Dwight and we had secured it there until everything was all clear, she just looked at me and said that you took her to that shelter, Mr.

Hill, she said: I'm going to take Caroline and John, we'll walk hand in hand across the south grounds and now we'll stay there on the grass, if you want to come with us you can, she said. I am not going to allow that third-rate dictator to determine my future. She was determined not to give in to the threats that the Soviets and Castro had made. She is just an image of XCOM during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Again, other things happened during Kennedy's presidency. It's about the space program. John Glenn when he orbited the Earth. He is the vice president, the president.

Kennedy Arthur Schlessinger on her background, I'm watching it on TV, she was very interested in the space program which he was naturally, but John Glenn came to the cape and water skied with her, he fell but looked at her, so here it is where good for my enemy, that you accompany them on this journey, yes, we, this is an Orange Bowl in Miami, president, ma'am. Kane went to address the Cuban Brigade this is after the Bay of Pigs disaster and the Bay of Pigs veterans didn't all gather at the Orange Bowl and he spoke to them and she spoke to them in Spanish and this particular photo here is. talking to the leaders of that brigade and the former president of Cuba and you can see the massive crowd at the Orange Bowl at that time, this is the same group of people and many of them were amputees, they had been seriously injured and they had not been cared for properly. while they were prisoners in Cuba and this is as we were leaving that function from Miami on the helicopter, did she have any idea how powerful the symbol was?

How did she handle moments like this? Really I do not think so. She ever really knew how important she was to him as a political figure, but to the United States and the people in general, if you had been with her in India or Pakistan, you could see there because she was there without the President and She just She was idolized by these people wherever we went before their large crowds and sometimes more than we could stand, but I don't think she ever really acknowledged the fact that she had the influence that she did. You made some of those trips abroad, so you did the advance work on this trip to France.

Yes, 1961. They sent me in advance with Dish Baldrige. We made the breakthrough in Paris. The French government and the French place were very cooperative. There is so much that They took a new car and cut off the hood, put a plastic cover on it so people could see it because they knew that everyone in France wanted to see it and she was extremely popular for being of French descent and spending a lot of time in France. France spoke French President De Gaulle was really in love with ER and the French security people I met said today they had never seen him react to anyone the way they reacted to her and it was necessary with the lady. lady. de Gaulle in one of the functions that moved away from the president, which is me right behind the lady. de Gaulle I have the can, that's Mr.

Hill, just now, you weren't listening when I finished my preview in Paris in 1961. I was sent to Greece to preview a trip she was going to make to Greece and a few in about a week from Paris, her and the president. went to Vienna and met with President Khrushchev and from there they went to London they met with Prime Minister Macmillan but they also went to London for the baptism of Christina, her sister Lee's youngest daughter, and then she went to Greece and then we went to Greece. She went there at the invitation of the Prime Minister and Mrs.

Lease, although it was not an official visit, she was her guest and stayed in the villa owned by Mr. He and Niarchos made available to her the use of her yacht, the North Wind, this is on one of these, I think it's the Colosseum or the Parthenon in Athens and she loved this trip. Well, I'm right behind the lady. Kennedy, yeah, she was very young, I mean, in this photo, especially she reserves, well, she was only 30 29, she was 31 when they took office and this was in 61, so he's 32, not exactly 30 , Yes and no. I need to give too much away, but you were about the same age, so I was a year and a half younger in the budget, yeah, and you're still going to meet these heads of state that are on this trip, for example, we could see the king and the queen of Greece.

I met her daughters and her son cheated on me and took her for a car ride. How often did she run away? That was one of the few times that and he paid for it not through me but with the military help of the King. When we got to the first stop, the milk merchant got in the car, the lady was going to leave and I could hear them talking to her as we drove away and she was a little naughty, oh a lot, so he loved practical jokes, she just had a It's a great moment, this is an Epidaurus and it comes from Greece, it's an open-air theater that she wanted to attend, that's the north wind, the yacht she got there on, two girls gave her flowers , the gentleman next door with dark glasses is a man named nick friends he worked at the embassy in greece he was one of my concern security consultants a wonderful guy and there is a story there and here is a mexico mexico we had when they went to mexico Mexico City was the biggest crowd there had ever been.

What I had seen at the parade today was two million people and it was really difficult for the officers because the confetti and things being thrown off the buildings were so thick that they couldn't. We couldn't see anything, the elevation is much higher than a mile and running that through that paper and at that elevation was really tough for the ages I luckily was traveling at the time and here she is meeting some school kids leaning to school in Mexico City and then the trip that you have already alluded to, but the famous trip that she took. to India and Pakistan on her behalf and again you moved forward on this trip.

I was. I just organized the trip to India in March 1962. We went there in February. We got there. I mean, they kept delaying the trip, so we were there for weeks ahead and it was a very complicated trip with many stops and then when she left for Delhi for the outlying cities of India, I went to Pakistan to organize her trip to Pakistan. This is her in India. I think it's June Banaras or who died poor, she went to both places, she went to Jaipur, she went to part of her Creek seat, I had a wonderful time, I rode an elephant, what did that do to a Service agent Secret when the pharrell we knew knew this was going to happen?

This happens, I mean it's all set up so it doesn't surprise me too much and riding an elephant isn't a problem. Riding the camel was a little problem. There they are on a camel, of course, this is a camel owned by a very famous camel. driver's name is Bachelor last year and he is famous because before Mrs. Kennedy going to Pakistan Vice President Johnson had been in Pakistan and one day he was driving down the road and there were some camel drivers and he did it. The guy stopped and picked his only camel driver and it turned out to be Basheer and he did He, a celebrity brought him to the United States, had him on various TV shows, various things and then when he came back to Pakistan, he was a celebrity, so when we went to Pax, it was arranged for him to be there with his camel. his wife with his children so that she could see him and then he was not there, the camel was not supposed to get up when they got up just for the photographic purposes that were going to be the end, they insisted that the camel get up . and his sisters, so the best years kept looking, okay, you know, let him come up, so the camel got up and they went for a walk, then they wanted to try to get the camel to run, luckily Basheer listened and we didn't let the camel rock this is in Lahore Pakistan, that's the president.

He was leading his horse and we had just been at the International Horse Show in Lahore and the president. I was going. He had gifted her a horse named Sardar on behalf of the Pakistani government. that's his photograph and his handler was a problem because we had to take Sid back to the United States in India, the Air India people had given him to the tiger cubs and although the first two tiger cubs died on second day, then they replaced them. them and now we had to bring the tiger cubs and the horse back to the United States.

Well, there are certainrestrictions and rules you know, you just don't bring a horse to the United States and that's it, there's quarantine and everything. kind of thing, well, she pleaded with her husband, don't let the poor horse go through all this anguish. I mean, he'll hate it enough to get dizzy, you shouldn't have to quarantine yourself and treat him like that. You already know Prince Philip's polo shirt. ponies, they had no problem with them, why should I have a problem with my new horse? Well, finally the president, you know, was okay and contacted Orville Freeman, who was the Secretary of Agriculture, and he reached an agreement that the horse reached.

Andrews Air Force Base, but he had to be in some kind of quarantine, so she took him to Fort Myer and they put him in a stable, of course, she didn't like that either, so we went to Fort Myer to make sure for the horse to come out. from the stable like no other horse had ever done and she could see the horse and how God had sent this guy with the horse and then he said it didn't take long but he stayed for a while to make sure the horse was fed properly and well groomed and well cared for because I left, I didn't want anything to happen to the horse, this is her right, this is her riding a cigar in the central area of ​​the burg jumping a fence, she was an easy to excellent horse woman, so I thought she talked about the summer of '63, they rented a place on Square Island and you spend the summer there, but any memory of that to kill the summer, she was pregnant at the time she came to see me in early 1963 and I He said he was going to have to cut back.

I was very happy about our activities because she was pregnant and that summer we went to the Cape and I rented a house on Swan Island instead of staying at his house after they owned the house there, but Emily was at the Kennedy compound, which made it quite complicated with all the other family members, so we stayed there too and this is her and some members of the collection that we had with us, that's Charlie, the dog, with Caroline, who has a clipper in the upper right corner, he is a German shepherd, handing it to her. by his father-in-law who is Wolfie lying in the background next to Almanera Clippers, the dumbest German Shepard Euler, who we sent to obedience school and he didn't learn anything and that dog next to young John is Shannon, who was a gift from the Friends of Ireland, this is the president with his father and that's it, I guess. and Gargan in the background, Ambassador Kennedy suffered a stroke in December 1961, when we returned, we have been on a trip to Puerto Rico.

Caracas and Bogotá returned to Palm Beach and met us at the airport. I met them and they. They went to this they had Paul's residents and he went to his residence the president had caught a cold and he went to bed and he stayed in bed he was supposed to return to Washington it was the last day so the next day he was going to Go and the ambassador came down and accompanied him to the airport, then the ambassador went back to playing golf and the lady. Kennedy and Caroline went from the fall residence to the Bassett residence to swim and as he returned from this golf outing, I learned that they had not been gone long enough to play golf.

He looked very good and said something to her. He talked a little and went up to his room and shortly after we found out that he had had a stroke and that they just called him and took him to the hospital and he never fully recovered, tells a story that you and this body decided since then. They were going to spend the entire summer on Square Island that you rented a small cabin for your family and one day she suggested that, since her children were about the same age as yours, you invite them to your house so they could play together. , I wanted to do one I could bring my two children to play with Caroline and John my son was born in 5746 Caroline was born in 57 so they weren't that far apart hmm John was born in 60 Cory was I was born at 61, but I could see it.

My oldest son pushed Caroline down and something happened, a broken tooth or something. She was going to be in Butte Montana the next day and I finally convinced her. I told him it's just not a good idea. I am a government employee you are the president's wife they are the president's children I don't think it is a very good idea for my two children to play with your children and something should happen. She finally understood the problem and said okay, now related to that, even though you clearly got very close as she trusted you immensely, you always referred to each other as you called me ma'am.

Kennedy she always called me sir. Hill was never anything different, but one moment again when you were there for her was the moment she gave birth to that child. Patrick, someone else on that, yes, he had gone with Caroline that morning to go out to the stables with Caroline Road and Agent Landis. I took him there and one of the other agents that followed the night, you actually had a day off that day and I was home and yet we have the house that I rented there in Hyannis Port and the phone rang and it was a look that It said that Paul had was back at the Kennedy compound with the lady.

Kennedy, they were calling for a helicopter, she was having labor pains, they wanted to get to her Lotus Air Force base as quickly as possible. We had set up a place there so she could in case of an emergency and her OB, Dr. Walsh had agreed and luckily she would live there in the Cape for the summer, just in case, so they put her on a helicopter and took her to Otis. I ran with Otis in the car. I got there almost at the same time and dr. Walsh came and gave birth to a boy, they named him Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, he developed lung problems and they decided they had to transport him to Boston in the meantime, the president was in Hawaii, Washington White House, so we notified him, but it was happening .

So he requested that Air Force One be available immediately, it turned out that Air Force One was in the air doing something or not available, so they seized a couple of jet cars that were small, about eight airliners, and they flew, and Otis came directly to the hospital to see her and then we had taken JA or Patrick at that time to Boston. Agent Landis had gone with him and then the president went to Boston to be with Patrick. The first thing they did was that this was going to be so serious. but it turned out that she was very serious and she died two days later you stay with her I said Otis Air Force I miss her the president came and told her what had happened the funeral was held in Boston she wasn't he couldn't go because she was in the hospital and she went into a very deep depression, she was very upset and it was decided that maybe she needed to get away for a while, so it was arranged for her to go to Greece and go on a cruise.

He traveled with her and as we took her to Greece Athens, we went aboard a yacht there called Cristina, owned by Aristotle Onassis and she and her sister-in-law and her brother-in-law Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his youngest son and his wife some other people and We sailed around the Greek Islands to Turkey and one of the things she wanted to do was see the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and we got up to go to Turkey and the current is very strong in that area that Kristina was going to. one way and I had to go from the Kristina to the Blue Mosque to set it up and make sure it was right and they brought a boat to the side so I could get on and go there but they couldn't get it.

Right next to the boat because the current was terribly strong there was about four or five feet of space between the Christina and they voted and I was standing there and I had to do that because I knew if I didn't I was going to go. underneath, you know, and I jumped in, did it, got there and set it up and then they took her and the other guests on board and we toured the Blue Mosque. She really enjoyed it, so what was it like for a kid from North Dakota? Being on Aristotle Onassis was a good yacht, it is an experience you will never have.

I guess they were treated very well. It was meant to be every day. A seaplane delivered the newspapers, so we were up to date and aware of current events. a helicopter on board that gave me I needed an emergency there was a pool on the aft deck what if you didn't want to go swimming? I need to press a button the bottom of the pool erases the surface of a ceramic slab you could use for the dance floor, he was a bar, the schools were covered with whale skin, gold to sit on, gold gilded things on the side of the bar and whale teeth for some kind of our dolls.

I mean, it was pretty luxurious, but it was a wonderful time we had. Almost ten days at that and then we flew from there to Morocco on the Rocco game plane to be a guest of the King of Morocco in Marrakech. I might have this slide because there is a story about your wife related to this event. The Blighters are the Black Watch in the White House and this was 1963, they came and performed on the Southern grounds and we had all been invited to bring our families and my wife had never met Mrs. Kennedy or the president and she I was really hoping that I would introduce them that day, but I never felt comfortable doing so, so I didn't and she never met her until after the terrible events that occurred at the end of November of that year, but I was hoping that I would be able to introduce them to her, but It didn't, so we spoke to Mrs.

Kennedy, but clearly you also have information about President Kennedy and your interactions with him and anything you want to share. You know, I explained to him what Eisenhower was like in general. We were the troops with President Kennedy when he became president. He chose that he started in Palm Beach, he knew each and every agent by name, he called them by name, then he found out who his wife's name was, he knew who his kids' names were, one day one of the new agents came down and had been in Palm Beach. he was posted at the post, he had just come from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he had been with the eyes and our grandchildren and he was wearing a nice charcoal gray wool suit, heavy because it was gold and he had his bird with a hat on his feet. in the booth and the president by the pool, you know, in a bathing suit, going through some papers, he saw an agent standing there sweating like crazy and he just, you know what the hell he says, he walked up and said, what's your name?

You? My name is Harry. Sir. The president said: Why are you standing here in the sun? You could move there in the shade. Why do you wear those winter clothes so well? President, this is my position, I can't move there, that's not where I'm supposed to be. He said I'm wearing these clothes because I just got back from Pennsylvania. It's cold in Pittsburgh, so he just shook his head, turned around and walked. He left, went into the house, came back out with a whole stack of popsicles, walked over, handed it to Harry, said, now you're wearing this, you can't do your job when you feel uncomfortable, like you're sweating and all right. those heavy clothes, and give him one. from these to each of the other agents who are suicidal here I want everyone to feel comfortable and do the job they want to do but do it comfortably and that's how he was he was a very personable individual he called us by name I tried a lot with him on a personal level for being with the lady.

Kennedy and the children, many times he would be somewhere and she would want something clarified and I would call back and she would always call Evelyn Lincoln, her secretary, and Evelyn would always come in and tell her that I was in. On the phone she had this question. and I was hoping Evelyn would come back and give me the answer which never happened. The next voice I heard was him telling me exactly what he wanted me to do and why I could do this and why you should do it. It's not just the boy from Gondor who does that, a lot of things happen to enjoy down there, underwater.

He loved the Honey Fitz or the Patrick J or the Manitou, one of the boats we had available. He loved it and I got it. So I loved it too, so we made the decision to accompany him on the political trip to Texas. This was a real surprise to me because she had not really been active or attended any political events in 1960 because she was pregnant, but he did not participate much and now we had just returned from Greece and she told me that she was going to go with the president on this trip to Texas, first the president was going to go to Florida, which he did, but then the trip to Texas was set up so he was going to go from we're going to go from Washington to San Antonio hunt to Houston to Fort Worth to Dallas to Austin I'm going to the LBJ Ranch where they are going to spend the ranch weekend with the vice president, Mrs.

Johnson, so we went first to San Antonio and they went to a hospital and dedicated that hospital, then to Houston, where they raised money for our congressman, and then to Fort Worth to spend the night and have a morning rally outside the hotel where they were staying and then a breakfast and that morning I got up at 6:00 and the president had to be out at 8:00 and then he came to breakfast and I always received a copy of her agenda and everything that she had done in her diary. A note written in red pencil next to breakfast probably wasn't going to do this, so I didn't take it that she was going to practice, but I had gone to her room, Richards, her room was right next to mine and I waited. there and I told him.

He knew what I thoughtI was ready to do something and pretty soon the agent's phone rang and downstairs at breakfast and he said the president wants me to bring the lady. Kennedy down here breakfast right now is fine, yeah, so I go into the suite and color the president would like you to come to breakfast right now, they're waiting for you down there, I was very surprised, she didn't think about it. that she was supposed to go so fast that they pulled themselves together and we went down we went to breakfast, that's what this photo is.

We are entering breakfast in Fort Worth, Texas, the morning of November 22, 1963 and then again Mr. Hilton these photos are a Love Field this is a log field in Dallas that is mr. Hill arrived so you know that the moment is etched in all our memories for those who do not know mr. Hill was the Secret Service agent who got into the car after the shooting and rushed to the hospital. He was also the person blamed for no photographs being taken at the hospital and he wanted to protect Mrs. Kennedy, he knew her, what she wanted was absolute privacy and she did not want photographs taken of the president.

Her condition was such that her photograph should not be taken, so I simply told the photographers until the White House photographers no, no, no, no. photographs and they agreed and did not insist on being in the room with her husband if in the room when she could be or in it there were two trauma rooms one and two the president was wrong the governor was not the other lady. She and Connolly were in a sort of little hallway between them and when she could she went in there, but there were so many doctors involved, I mean, they were doing everything they could to resuscitate him, they were working vigorously to try to get him back. to life, but he was not going to be a priest, they called him a priest, they gave him the last rites and they declared him dead at one in the afternoon that day, you accompany, you listened back to Air Force One, we returned to Air Force One and we got on. board they had to arrange for a judge to come on board to take the oath the vice president is president and you tell a story it was truly an extraordinary moment that happened just before this photo was taken maybe she couldn't share that with us she was any application Of course, we had placed a casket with the president's body, she and Dave Powers and Ken O'Donnell and an agent Dick Johnson and I were in the front of the plane trying to make arrangements in Washington and they were right there trying to swear to him, that's the judge standing there in front of Johnson.

I found out that she wanted to see me and so I came back from the fun part of the plane through the presidential compartment to where she was and she just stood up and extended her hand and said, Oh, what's going to happen to you now, sir? Hill, she was much more concerned about my well-being and the well-being of the other officers involved that she wanted to make sure that we were going to be okay and I told her I'm going to be okay, ma'am. Kennedy, I'll be fine, she hadn't changed her clothes yet, she hadn't cleaned up or done anything, she was just in shock and she was more worried about us than herself and then you're with her during the entire funeral.

It was a story about young John learning how to greet Dajun. He tried to teach her how to salute at her request because on November 11, 1963 the president was going to college and the National Cemetery and if you wanted John to be hers, John loved her military love. The helicopters loved the uniforms and she wanted him to learn to salute so he could pay tribute to his father, so the officers were trying to get him some salute and they got him to do it pretty well, except he didn't do his right hand. He kept shooting with his left hand and they just couldn't get him out of the habit and the day the president's body was placed in the US Capitol, young John and Caroline were there, John got a little unruly with the officers that they took.

She took him down the hall to a separate room and while they were there they thought what the hell is he keeping busy, making me say hello, so they were there trying to get him to say hello to me, same old story that it was a Marine colonel standing in at the door he was looking at all this stuff, he just shook his head, you know, and walked in, he said, John said that's not the way to do it and showed him how to say hello and fuck me, it took maybe five minutes. For this colonel to teach the boy how to salute with his right hand, it took the agents six weeks and they never managed to turn him to the right.

She insisted on walking here behind her. She recognized at a later date Matthew's Cathedral behind the caisson and insisted on walking. We all try to talk her out of it, that's the agent, if you're looking at the photo on the left side, that agent is Bill Livengood standing there, if you ever watch a presidential speech from a joint session of Congress, you see someone give him the thumbs up. Welcome Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States, that's the person over there, she's a retired agent, she's up in arms now in the United States House of Representatives, but she insisted on walking and we tried to dissuade her, but that was in vain and he had incredible composure, oh.

She held her own so well, she was so brave, her composure and her ability to do what she did held the rest of us up and you tell a story about it later that night, later that night, after it was all over, she called, wanted to. to return to the cemetery and she was at the attorney general's office she took a bouquet of flowers she wanted to see the eternal flame at night and pay her respects again in private because if you know it was just the mass of people. And that's what we did and she took her there and she spent about 10 or 15 minutes in the cemetery that night, right after the services there, all the heads of state came to the White House and she spoke to them and this is what occasion when Senator Edward Kennedy there is and his battle Duke with his back to the camera, General McHugh on the left side McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor with the glasses on the right under the arch is Nancy Tuckerman, who is the lady.

Kennedy's social secretary and I are on welfare with white gloves on like me on the right side and then you were assigned and remained unheard of for a year after the murder she motivated yesterday. Congress approved the law that grants it protection. and protection for the two children until the children were 16 years old and for her until her life unless she remarried and I was given the responsibility of administering that protection and I had to call several people who I am sitting in the first row. John Francis Michael Walsh is a Bostonian from Southie and he stayed with the Kennedy children longer than anyone.

He stayed until he was 16 years old. Well, we had a good group of kids and we had a very difficult time, especially the first six weeks because that included Christmas and Thanksgiving and Christmas and Christmas in 1963 was a disaster for me trying to keep her and the kids' spirits up, you know. , they didn't really know what had happened, they just weren't old enough to see it. Spending this Christmas alone was really hard to handle, then things got a little better and it got really active when I skied in Stowe Vermont I went to Antigua that summer in '64 we came back to Italy we did various things and then out to the world to the World's Fair in New York she and Caroline John didn't go to that, but Caroline did, so we kept the kids busy and busy for as long as she would live.

At first she was in Georgetown, the house she would be donated to. to be used by Ambassador Heifer Herman, then she bought a house across the street in Georgetown, on the same street, but the tourist was just terrible and they wouldn't let her leave her alone, the buses came by every day and she just could not. put up with it more and she said I'm going to look in New York, so he came to New York and looked for a place for her to live and he found it. This is Nancy Chuckerman and 1040 Fifth Avenue and she moved there in 1964.

They were difficult. dates for you too and like you told Mike about sixty minutes, I mean, you were tormented and you felt some responsibility for those events in them, but then you visited Dealey Plaza, you actually went to the museum on the sixth floor and you worked things out on your own mind we want. To talk about that, well, I stayed in the service until 1975 and I went, I was promoted, I was a presidential protection agent, a vice president's protection agent and eventually deputy director and then I retired and I went through a really difficult time for a number of people. years finally in 1990 I started to face the problem and I went to Dallas and I went to Dealey Plaza I spent quite a bit of time there I walked around the area I looked at everything I could I went up to the sixth floor where the shooting had occurred I looked Given that, I finally came to the conclusion that There was nothing I could have done that I didn't do and what happened happened, I couldn't have changed it in any possible way, it was just one of those things that was completely out of character. my control, so I will now move on to your question: is there anything about the lady?

Kennedy, which the public is generally not aware of that you would like us to know well, other than you know she was a wonderful lady, was very interested in the arts, as everyone knows, she was very concerned about everyone around her , is a closet smoker. I don't know and I turned on that question. I was her facilitator. I was the guy with the cigarettes and the lighter, so you can blame me, but that was one of the things she didn't want anyone to really know she smoked. and that he tried to keep it as private as possible.

Someone would appear when she was smoking a cigarette. She was no longer a smoker. I was famous and she and her husband didn't have much money. They never carried anymore. Know? things that you simply accepted if you went to mass when the light came so did her hand, you know and because there is none and she was the same and she would want something like she loved reading magazines, the scandal sheets, especially if it was about her, but I didn't want anyone to know I read, so I bought them, you know, we do a lot of things like that that people just don't understand.

Wonderful girl, could you comment on the trip to Paris and Jacqueline Kennedy's relationship with Charles de Gaulle, an excerpt from the new book, quotes or criticizes de Gaulle, but other stories describe a reciprocal friendship. I think it was a reciprocal friendship and respect for him not only being the head of France at that time, but also what he had done for France during the war and from him to her because of his knowledge and he admitted that he knew more about the history of France, don't most French people? And they talked about the history of France while they were together there in 1961 in France and I was very impressed why it is more difficult to protect the first family now than during your time.

It's always hard and I guess it gets harder every year because of the new things that develop and the new things that happen around the world. more resources to use today to protect the president than those we had, we did not have armored vehicles in those days we had the problem of having a protectee in an open vehicle, which was his request today they never see, I pray that a protectee in an open vehicle auto , but what's more, today has to be more difficult than it was. I'm sure there was some special training to help handle the kids as a Secret Service agent in charge of handling the kids.

No, there was no special training at all. The guys involved had their own children, except one, and he had been with Eisenhower's grandchildren before, so they had the experience of being around children and had the right type of personality. I think today if you asked Caroline about the agents that were around her, including Jack Walsh, she says, you know, like Bob Foster, when Meredith, those guys, Paul Landis, Tommy Wells, were just her friends. I have a photo of Carolinas, about five years old, hitting a bubble with an agent's mouth like you do with a bubble. for her to blow bubbles by chewing gum.

I mean, that's the relationship they had, it was wonderful, but at the same time the lady. Kennedy insisted that there would be absolutely respect from children toward any adult, including agents, and whether there is any deviation from that, she wanted to know or the president wanted to know right away is a question here, but his relationship with her afterward . she left the White House and I thought it might be a good time for you to tell the story of your going away party after you had been with her for a year and then you found out you were being assigned to November 1964.

Headquarters decided that I he would be reassigned to the White House detail in Washington, it was the new President Johnson, so he would leave the lady. Kennedy I were in New York and Nancy Tuckerman was her chief of staff in New York and they decided to throw me a farewell party in New York and then Mrs. Kennedy was there and the staff members or one of the things they presented to me was a poster with a cutout profile of an agent with dark glasses and everyone had signed it, including the lady. Kennedy, including Robert Kennedy, other members of the Kenny family at the top of the sign said Wyoming welcomes its new citizen because everyone thought they were going to send me into the interior withsecurity.

The question about whether Mrs. Kennedy had a sense of humor, oh, she had a great sense of humor, she always tried to make practical jokes. I have some, we used to have protesters at Hyannis Board in various places and I'm sure she had some, one day she dropped a photo of some protesters with signs and with a note mr. You'll see what to expect next time you come back to hide the board from him or something. You know she always had a sense of humor. She was a great person to be around and enjoy JFK. She spend a lot of time with the children. as much as she could and obviously her time was limited, but whenever she had the opportunity she was with the kids and when she was in the Oval Office they built a little kind of jungle gym near the Oval Office and she could sit him down there playing with the children and if you came periodically to see how they were doing what they were doing, she spent as much time as possible with the children.

This has been a lovely evening. I'd like to end with a letter that Jacqueline Kennedy wrote to Douglas Dillon, who was the Secretary of the Treasury and oversaw the Secret Service, and I should also mention that we're joined by two other former Secret Service agents. Jack Haggerty and John Connolly, they had the honor of having you, Jack Walsh and this is what Mrs. Kennedy wrote to Douglas Dillon our Secret Service detailing that the boys in mind are such exceptional men that you cannot imagine the difference they made in our lives before arriving at the White House.

What he feared most was the Secret Service. How wrong I was. They were the ones who made it possible for us to have the happy life we ​​had by

protecting

us with such tact, devotion and discretion Ness, they made our years in the White House happy, so let me conclude this evening with four simple words: Thank you. You mr. Hill