"Back on Nov. 22, 1963, a team of Secret Servicemen failed in their task to protect the life of the president of the United States"

October 15, 2011
Paul J. Nyden: The JFK assassination: Agent recalls dark day
By Paul J. Nyden
The Charleston Gazette
Advertiser

"The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence"

By Gerald Blaine and Lisa McCubbin

Simon & Schuster Gallery Books, 427 pages. Hardcover, $28.

Back on Nov. 22, 1963, a team of Secret Servicemen failed in their task to protect the life of the president of the United States.


Jerry Blaine, a member of that elite team, tells his story for the first time in his book, "The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence."

Blaine also writes about the tragic memories of several of his fellow Secret Service agents. Kennedy often banned them from his car [bullshit!]and frequently jumped into crowds of people gathered around him, giving little notice to his protectors.

Blaine is the first member of Kennedy's Secret Service detail to write a book about the assassination [false: Chief U.E. Baughman, Bill Carter, Rufus Youngblood, and Abraham Bolden all wrote books years before Blaine].

On that tragic day in 1963, there were only 43 Secret Service members assigned to protecting Kennedy. The Secret Service's annual budget of $4.1 million funded 300 agents.

After JFK was killed, the agency expanded. Today, the Secret Service has 4,000 agents and an annual budget of more than $1.6 billion.

Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots that day [false]. The first shot was fired at Kennedy, and the second hit Texas Gov. John Connally. When the third shot hit Kennedy in the head, Secret Service agents immediately knew, Blaine recalls, that the devastating wound would prevent him from functioning as president, even if he were not killed [what about the KNOWN missed shot that even the Warren Commission acknowledged???].

Kennedy's trip to Texas was the first time his usually private wife Jacqueline made a political appearance with him since he was elected president three years earlier [false---the trips to Canada, France, Mexico, and Costa Rica immediately spring to mind].

During his trip Kennedy received warm welcomes from people in Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth [and Dallas before the shooting].

"It was the hidden loner the Secret Service agents worried about most," Blaine writes.

And while there are no apparent ties with Oswald, the "Dallas Morning News" printed a full-page advertisement the day of the assassination paid for by the American Fact-Finding Committee. The ad accused Kennedy of being a traitor who supported communism.

In a foreword to Blaine's book, Clint Hill, a fellow Secret Service agent also on duty in Dallas that day, wrote: "No matter how much training you've had, nothing prepares you for the emotions and nightmares that follow the horror of seeing a human being alive one instant, their head blown open the next."

Throughout his book, Blaine and his fellow agents tell how friendly the president, his wife and children were to them.

Blaine vigorously dismisses "baseless and unreasonable conspiracy theories" about the assassination, despite a growing literature that argues Oswald was not acting alone.

Blaine also rejects more personal gossip, including the story that Kennedy had an affair with actress Marilyn Monroe [not a "story": it is true]. He argues a president has the right to privacy, and the Secret Service is obligated to protect that privacy.

Immediately after Kennedy's death, the exhausted team of Secret Service agents switched to protect Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and other top government figures.

Blaine offers a variety of other intriguing stories, including the drama of his own first encounter with Johnson, hours after Kennedy died.

Reassigned to Johnson, Blaine was on duty outside the back door of Johnson's large two-story house in Washington, D.C.

About 15 minutes into the watch, Blaine heard someone walking toward him from the clockwise direction. That alarmed Blaine because agents routinely walked counter-clockwise when moving around buildings where any president was located.

Blaine activated his Thompson submachine gun, put it against his shoulder and prepared to fire. Despite the noise of the gun, the person kept coming closer. With his finger on the trigger, Blaine said, "Let me see your face, you bastard." [What?!?!? THAT is not in the book---???]

He could not immediately identify the person who rounded a corner. He pointed his gun directly at the man's chest, ready to pull the trigger.

The man turned out to be President Johnson.

"Fourteen hours after losing a president, the nation had come chillingly close to losing another one," Blaine writes [if false, unbelievable...if true, unbelievable].

Lisa McCubbin, a reporter who has worked for three major television news networks, co-wrote the book. Blaine also gives major credit to other Secret Service agents, both living and dead, who shared memories, reports, oral histories, diaries and other personal documents.

Clint Hill, assigned to protect Jacqueline Kennedy in Dallas, was particularly helpful. Hill will appear with Blaine at the West Virginia Book Festival at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 22 in West Virginia Room 105 at the Charleston Civic Center.

Shortly after the assassination, Blaine left the Secret Service and provided high-level corporate security for companies, including IBM. He retired in 2003 and now lives in Colorado with his wife.
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Posted By: ANonyMouse


There's a bit of rewriting of history here. In his book, Mr. Blaine agrees with the findings of the Warren Commission except for 1 serious area: Secret Service agents on the scene insist that they saw all 3 shots hit targets in the limo, as stated in your article. The problem with that is that one shot hit a curb way down the street near the underpass and a piece of that curb struck a bystander, James Tague, who was standing beside the road. The only way a bullet could have hit that curb is if it had missed the occupants of the limo. A bullet hitting JFK or Connally would have had to go through the windshield to get to that curb and that didn’t happen. The Warren Commission recognized this problem and decided that one bullet, the "magic bullet", must have hit both JFK and Connally. If agents saw all three shots hit people, a fourth shot must have hit the curb, meaning 2 shooters. So Mr. Blaine actually lends credence to the conspiracy theories he doesn’t believe, with this information.

At Concordia, former Secret Service agent talks about day JFK assassinated

At Concordia, former Secret Service agent talks about day JFK assassinated

MOORHEAD – A local link to a dark day in U.S. history shared his experiences Wednesday at Concordia College.

By: Amy Dalrymple, INFORUM

MOORHEAD – A local link to a dark day in U.S. history shared his experiences Wednesday at Concordia College.
Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent assigned to Jackie Kennedy the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, spoke to an overflow crowd.
The Washburn, N.D., native and 1954 Concordia graduate is receiving an Alumni Achievement Award this week.
Hill, 79, shared some lighter moments with the crowd of 800, such as the Secret Service agents’ efforts to teach toddler John Kennedy Jr. to salute with his right hand rather than his left.
He also spoke openly about Nov. 22, 1963, a day Hill didn’t talk to anyone about for decades following the assassination.
Hill received national recognition for “exceptional bravery” for jumping onto the presidential vehicle in an attempt to shield the Kennedys from more gunshots.
Journalist Lisa McCubbin, co-author of “The Kennedy Detail,” joined Hill onstage at Concordia.
Hill credited McCubbin with getting him to talk about the assassination, which Hill says has helped with the depression he suffered for years.
“It was like I was stuck in a dungeon. I couldn’t get out,” Hill said.
Hill and McCubbin also are collaborating on the book “Mrs. Kennedy and Me,” due out this spring.
An audience member asked Hill which president he protected was the most difficult. Hill also served during the administrations of Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
“They’re all difficult, but all difficult in a different way,” Hill said. “They are just down-to-earth people. Some egos are a little bit bigger than others.”
Another asked about reports of President Kennedy’s infidelities.
“He never asked me about my sex life, and I never asked him about his, either,” said Hill, prompting laughter and applause.
Wednesday was the first time Hill returned to Concordia, where he excelled at football.
In attendance was Gordon Dahl, Hill’s college roommate, who came from Great Falls, Mont., to hear him speak.
Dahl was called out of class one day to be interviewed by two Secret Service agents who were doing a background check on Hill. Dahl said he followed Hill’s career over the years.
“It was a thrill to hear him tonight,” Dahl said. “I’m really proud of him.”
Mike Rehder of Fargo was born 11 years after Kennedy’s assassination, but considers himself a student of that day and has read many of the books.
“It’s still tough to grasp that it actually did happen,” Rehder said.
The crowd also included many of Hill’s relatives, including second-cousins Timothy Hill and Becky Long.
They had never met Hill before but had followed his career. Long remembered her parents always looking for Hill on TV.
Most who attended the event didn’t have a connection to Hill but wanted to hear about that historic day from someone who lived it.

Memories of JFK assassination haunt former Secret Service agent and North Dakota native

Memories of JFK assassination haunt former Secret Service agent and North Dakota native

MOORHEAD - Nov. 22, 1963, is on Clint Hill’s mind every day. The former Secret Service agent assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated is still haunted with guilt nearly 50 years later.

By: Amy Dalrymple, INFORUM

Former Secret Service agent Clint Hill talks about the day JFK was assassinated

MOORHEAD - Nov. 22, 1963, is on Clint Hill’s mind every day.

The former Secret Service agent assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated is still haunted with guilt nearly 50 years later.

The Washburn, N.D., native and Concordia College graduate was on the running board of the car behind the presidential limousine in Dallas. He heard the first shot and jumped onto the presidential vehicle in an attempt to shield the Kennedys from gunshots. Hill made it just as the first lady was reaching for the top of Kennedy’s scalp.

He received recognition for “extraordinary courage and heroic effort in the face of maximum danger.”

But Hill, who battled depression and alcoholism for years as a result of that day, still wonders if he could have done more.

“I still have a sense of responsibility and a guilt feeling I should have been able to do more, because I was the only one who had that chance,” Hill said in an interview last week with The Forum.

Hill, who served five presidents during his time with the Secret Service, will return to Concordia this week to accept an Alumni Achievement Award.

“I tried to tell them that I didn’t think I was worthy of the honor, but they insisted,” said the 79-year-old, who now lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

Hill also will give a public talk on Wednesday night, along with Lisa McCubbin, co-author of “The Kennedy Detail,” which gives the Secret Service agents’ account of the assassination.

North Dakota native

Hill was born in 1932 in Larimore, N.D., and was adopted as a baby by Chris and Jennie Hill of Washburn.

Hill graduated from high school in Washburn and attended Concordia, where he majored in history and physical education and excelled at football and baseball.

After Hill graduated from Concordia in 1954, he served in the U.S. Army as an intelligence agent.

Hill’s Secret Service career began in 1958.

When Kennedy was elected, Hill anticipated he would be assigned to protect the president because he had been assigned to President Dwight Eisenhower.

He was shocked to learn that he’d instead be protecting the first lady.

“I was very upset about it,” Hill said. “I didn’t really want that assignment.”

But it turned out to be the best job in the Secret Service at the time, Hill said.

Jackie Kennedy and Hill built up a trust and became friends, though she always called him Mr. Hill, and he always called her Mrs. Kennedy.

“We shared secrets, and we got to know each other very well,” Hill said.

That historic day in Dallas was unusual because the first lady was campaigning with Kennedy, something she often shied away from doing.

During the motorcade, Hill was positioned behind Jackie Kennedy on the follow-up car and was scanning people taking photos from a grassy area off to the left.

Then he heard an explosive noise over his right shoulder, and his eyes scanned past the presidential vehicle.

“I saw the president grab at his throat and kind of move to his left. I knew something had happened,” Hill said.

“I jumped from the follow-up car and ran toward the presidential vehicle,” he said. “My attempt was to get on the back of the presidential car and place my body above the president and Mrs. Kennedy so that I would shield them from anything that was a possibility of happening.

“There was a second shot, apparently, but I didn’t hear it because I was running.

“Then the third shot happened just as I was approaching the presidential vehicle. I slipped, had to regain my steps, got up on the car. The president had been hit in the upper right rear of his head with that third shot.

“There were blood and brain matter and bone fragments throughout the entire area, including myself. He slumped to his left. Mrs. Kennedy came up from her seat onto the trunk of the car trying to grab some of the material that came off his head. … I grabbed her and put her back into her seat. When I did that, the president’s body fell into her lap.

“The right side of his face was up, and I could see his eyes were fixed. There was a hole in the upper right rear of his head. It appeared to me that he was dead.”

Hill gave a thumbs-down to the follow-up car, and agents yelled to the lead driver to go to Parkland Hospital. Hill continued lying on the back of the car to shield the Kennedys as the car sped 80 mph to the hospital.

‘Downward spiral’

After the assassination, Hill continued to be assigned to the first lady and the children until the election.

He was then assigned to President Lyndon Johnson and served him during the tumultuous time that included the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

Hill also protected Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

In 1970, a promotion had Hill working an administrative desk job, and for the first time since the assassination, he had time to think. That day in Dallas was never far from his mind.

“I gradually deteriorated emotionally, and that affected my physical well-being,” Hill said.

In 1975, doctors said he wasn’t fit for the Secret Service, and he retired at age 43.

Hill returned to North Dakota and worked on his sister’s farm for about six weeks, “trying to get everything out.”

That year, he also spoke about the assassination for the first time in a famous interview with Mike Wallace of “60 Minutes.” Prior to that, Hill hadn’t talked about that day with anyone, not even his family.

Hill’s emotional state only worsened in his retirement.

“By 1976, I was once again in a downward spiral, and that lasted until 1982,” Hill said. “I had a great big bottle of scotch and a carton of cigarettes, and I laid on a couch in my very dark basement.”

Then in 1982, a doctor told Hill he either had to change or die.

“I decided I wanted to live,” Hill said.

Without any help, Hill quit drinking and did some security work for Chrysler, Mesa Petroleum and Billy Graham during the 1980s.

Decades after the assassination, Hill was still not talking about that day. He declined to be interviewed in 2003 for the 40th anniversary of the event.

“I didn’t want to talk about any of this type of thing and never did,” Hill said. “We as agents never talked about the assassination among ourselves. I never discussed it with any member of my family.”

Then fellow Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine and journalist Lisa McCubbin began working on the book “The Kennedy Detail.”

Hill said McCubbin convinced him that it would benefit history if he revealed details of that day from his perspective.

Contributing to the book proved to be beneficial for Hill, and he’s now talking more openly about that day for the first time, nearly 50 years later.

Hill and McCubbin also are collaborating on a book, “Mrs. Kennedy and Me,” that will be published in the spring of 2012.

In 1990, Hill did something he wishes he would have done earlier: He returned to Dallas and walked Dealey Plaza and looked out the window of the sixth floor.

“I came to the conclusion that on that particular day, because of everything involved, the weather, the angle of the building, the way the street was configured and the way the motorcade was running at the time that I did everything I could, and I really couldn’t have done any more than that,” Hill said.

First lady delivers thank-you to Secret Service

First lady delivers thank-you to Secret Service

By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — This is what passes for dinner table conversation in the Obama White House:

Sasha wants Scott. So does Malia. The first lady wants Beth. So does Barack.

Turns out everyone's dickering over who gets which Secret Service agent.

Michelle Obama revealed the tongue-in-cheek family feud as she paid a visit to Secret Service headquarters on Wednesday to thank workers at the agency that, among its many duties, protects the first family.

It was another of her periodic visits to government offices around town. But this visit was more personal than most.

"You all have really made us feel at home and safe, and there is no amount of thanks that I could convey that would give you a sense of how important you all are to us," Mrs. Obama told hundreds of Secret Service employees. She spoke to the group for about five minutes after touring classified areas of the building, including the protective intelligence division and the joint operations center.

The first lady paid tribute not just to the agents who protect the Obamas, but to all the workers behind the scenes, "whether it's filing or looking at terrorists."

"The work you do here is pretty scary," she said. "All I can say, after my little tour, is ignorance is bliss. I just don't want to know. You all can handle that. Just tell me where to run."

The first lady said the Obamas have a special affinity for the agents assigned to protect them.

"People always ask what it is like to have Secret Service around," Mrs. Obama said. "It's like having family around. ... We have a fight among our family over who's getting which people.

"Sasha will come in, it's like, 'You took Scott!'" Mrs. Obama said. "Malia's like, 'You took Scott? That's not fair!' And then I'll say the same thing to Barack. It's like, 'Why did you get Beth?' It's dinner table conversation."

Mrs. Obama said a good relationship with the agents is important "when you're trying to live a normal life and raise a couple of girls in the White House."

The president, in an interview with ABC News this week, said it's a challenge to give his daughters plenty of "space to make mistakes, be teenagers" while also ensuring they're protected.

"They're still going to the mall. And they're still going to movies. But they've got this guy with a gun following them around," Obama said. "Our Secret Service detail is terrific about it. But it's a balance that has to be struck."

"Banal, like a PR piece for Secret Service"-The Kennedy Detail

2.0 out of 5 stars Banal, like a PR piece for Secret Service, October 5, 2011
By David A. Woerner (Houston, Texas area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence (Hardcover)
This book is very boring and banal, and reads like a public relations piece for the Secret Service. Everyone is competent and a complete professional. Not a word about Kennedy's private activities. Not worth your time to read, nothing to learn here

A Continuation of the Myth---"The Kennedy Detail"

A Continuation of the Myth, October 1, 2011
By John B. Howarth (Richland washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) This review is from: The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence (Hardcover)
Although it was heartwarming to read Clint Hill's preface, this book is truly a disappointment in its lack of objectivity...As a result, Gerald Blain's blindness and Kennedy veneration made this entire book lacking in credibility.

I do not consider myself a conspiracy nut by dismissing the findings of the fairy tale explanation offered up by the Warren Commission. As a retired Police Officer I simply view the assassination as a crime requiring cold and calculating objective investigation- regardless of the emotional attachments that clouded the event and still to this day have rendered sober analysis a near impossibility with a great number of people.

In November 1963, the murder of a POTUS was not a Federal crime and therefore regardless of the desire to spare Mrs. Kennedy any further grief by remaining in Dallas, the Secret Service, and particularly people like Kenny O'Donnell, Dave Powers and Robert Kennedy had absolutely no authority to have JFK's corpse illegally removed from the Texas authorities prior to an autopsy, and coupled with the destruction of physical evidence in the Limo was itself obstruction of justice.

Even if Oswald had survived his own assassination, it would have been interesting to see how the prosecution would explain the contamination of physical evidence and total destruction of the chain of custody. The botched and questionable autopsy at Bethesda was in itself a farce and a sham to any forensic scientist conducted by unqualified military syncopates.

Blaine and his Kennedy worshiping co-author did not do reality any favors with this whitewashed and sterile attempt at explaining the truth and should be ashamed.

Ex-secret service agent reveals secrets of Jackie Kennedy - an ‘accomplished flirt’

Ex-secret service agent reveals secrets of Jackie Kennedy - an ‘accomplished flirt’

There was a reason for her signature style choices

By ANTOINETTE KELLY,IrishCentral.com Staff Writer


Published Saturday, October 1, 2011, 8:24 AMUpdated Saturday, October 1, 2011, 8:24 AM




Jackie O wore those over-sized glasses for a reason.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis had an undefinable allure in life and it's legend will live on forever it seems.

Although her candid interviews with Arthur Schlesinger Jr in 1964 released earlier this month surprised and even shocked many, there's little doubt they will do serious damage to the former First Lady's reputation.

This week a series of new interviews with her closest friends has revealed even further details about Jackie, who passed away in 1994.

Former Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who worked closely with her husband JFK in the White House, spoke to People magazine this week about the woman he remembers.

Speaking of the couple he said: "They relied on each other. They were very, very close."

But in all the time he knew them he very rarely ever saw them show any physical affection in public.

The Kennedy marriage was by no means perfect either, it emerged. While the public was shocked to hear of JFK's infidelities after his death in 1963, his wife was not the last to know.

Laurence Leamer, author of The Kennedy Women called her the "queen of denial," referring to her ability to overlook what she knew to be a fact.

And Kennedy was by no means a retiring bloom when it came to social interactions.

"I don't think I've met a more accomplished flirt," admitted friend John Perry Barlow. "It was the best I'd ever seen because it was based on genuine interest. She could be talking to five or six guys and have each of them think he was the real object of her focus."

READ MORE:

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Jackie Kennedy disliked Catholics, said they always felt persecuted


As for her personal style, one of the things that defined her, there was a reason she adopted some signature accoutrements, it turns out.

The large round sun glasses that became her calling card were actually adopted to allow her to watch other people without them knowing, Jackie Style author Pamela Keogh revealed.

And as for those ubiquitous white gloves, "It was to hide her hands," Keogh said. "She was self-conscious because she bit her nails."

It's now 17 years since Jackie died from non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but there's no question the mystique that surrounds her and her husband is undiminished.