Clint Hill - Mrs. Kennedy and Me - An Intimate Memoir

After three successful days in New Delhi, I was off to Karachi, to set up everything in Pakistan, while Mrs. Kennedy was off to Agra and the Taj Mahal, Benares, and Udaipur. The press followed her everywhere, and from the daily newspaper articles, it appeared as if everything was going smoothly.

She would tell me later the details of what I had missed—watching the spectacle of the young men diving fifty feet into the water tank at Fatehpur Sikri in their underwear, spending hours at the Taj Mahal with a mob of tourists and photographers who wouldn’t leave her alone, riding an elephant with Lee at the Amber Fort in Jaipur, riding down the Ganges in a riverboat as thousands of people ran to the shores to watch her go by.

At the time, however, I had no way of knowing what was happening with Mrs. Kennedy and the trip after I left India, and I didn’t have time to worry about it. Pakistan was going to be a whole different set of problems.

THE CAPITAL OF Pakistan had been moved temporarily from Karachi to Rawalpindi in the late 1950s and was in the process of being permanently moved to Islamabad, but most of the U.S. Embassy business was still being handled in Karachi in 1962. Located on the Arabian Sea, Karachi was one of the most squalid places I had ever visited. When I was there with Eisenhower, we actually brought in a U.S. Navy ship and kept it anchored offshore, and that’s where the Secret Service agents and staff slept and ate. I was working the midnight shift and will never forget the sight of trucks patrolling the streets in the predawn hours, as a laborer poked at the bodies lying on the side of the road to see which ones were alive and which were dead. They’d throw the dead ones into the back of the truck and continue on. The poverty was mind-numbing.

Fortunately, Pan Am had made arrangements with one of the hotels in Karachi, in which they had a completely separate area for their flight crews. It was very basic, but Pan Am brought in all the food, water, and linens so it was up to American standards—and they graciously allowed me to stay there while I advanced Mrs. Kennedy’s trip.

Meanwhile, as I ironed out the wrinkles in the proposed schedule for Pakistan, I was confident that Mrs. Kennedy was being well taken care of by her hosts in India, and that the agents I had assigned to each place were capable of handling any problem that should arise. I had no way to communicate with them, except through the embassies.

ONE NIGHT, SHORTLY before Mrs. Kennedy was due to arrive in Pakistan, I was sound asleep in my room when I heard someone pounding on the door.

“Mr. Hill! Wake up! Mr. Hill, wake up!”

I jumped out of bed and opened the door. One of the Pan Am staff was standing there with a piece of paper.

“What’s going on?” I asked, groggy-eyed.

“Mr. Hill, we just got a call from the U.S. Embassy. You need to report there immediately. There is a top secret message for you at the command center. They said it couldn’t wait until morning. I’ve already arranged a driver to take you there.”

I had no idea what could be going on, but I quickly got dressed and headed to the embassy.

When I got there, there was not one, not two, but three messages addressed to me, all labeled “Top Secret.”

One was from Secret Service Chief James Rowley, one was from Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and the third was from the National Security Council on behalf of the President of the United States.

All three said the same thing:

PROCEED FIRST AVAILABLE FLIGHT TO LAHORE, PAKISTAN. UPON ARRIVAL OF MRS. KENNEDY IN LAHORE ON MARCH 21 FROM NEW DELHI, YOU ARE TO ASSUME COMMAND OF FIRST LADY’S PROTECTIVE DETAIL.

There was no additional explanation. Something had gone terribly wrong in India.

11

Traveling with Mrs. Kennedy

Pakistan

Ambassador McConaughy, Ayub Khan’s military aide, Clint Hill, and Mrs. Kennedy

When I read the three top secret messages, I was stunned. I called Paul Rundle, the senior agent I had assigned to the advance in Lahore, explained the situation, and told him I’d be on the next flight from Karachi to Lahore.

When I arrived at the Lahore airport to greet Mrs. Kennedy on March 21, I could hardly believe the crowd of people that had already gathered for her arrival. Agent Rundle had done an excellent job of working with the Pakistani security forces in creating a roped-off area for the people, but there had to be at least eight thousand people waiting to greet Mrs. Kennedy. It was like a carnival with balloons and welcome banners, children in school uniforms waving little American flags, and a mass of people packed behind the rope lines waiting just to see Mrs. Kennedy get off the plane.

“My God, Rundle,” I said to Paul. “What did you do? Put a notice in the newspaper saying she was going to hand out twenty-dollar bills?”

Rundle shook his head. “I know. It is unbelievable. Reminds me of the receptions we used to get for Ike, but I’ve never seen anything like this for a first lady.”

In fact the government had declared the day a holiday. A holiday in Pakistan for the arrival of America’s first lady. Unbelievable.

President Mohammad Ayub Khan had sent his personal Vickers Viscount turboprop airplane to pick up Mrs. Kennedy in New Delhi and to have available for her use throughout her stay in Pakistan. When the door of the plane opened and Mrs. Kennedy stepped onto the portable stairwell, dressed in an exquisite blue silk coat with oversized buttons and a straw hat in the same color, the crowd went absolutely nuts.

She had a bubbly smile on her face and I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was thrilled by the enthusiastic reception. There was no hint that anything was wrong. Since receiving the confidential messages, all I had learned was that Jeffries had been called back to Washington. I could only assume that the ongoing personality conflicts between him and Mrs. Kennedy had reached a boiling point and she had requested his removal.

President Ayub Khan and other dignitaries were lined up at the bottom of the steps to greet her. As she walked carefully down the stairwell, she turned to look where she knew I would be, and her eyes said, It’s wonderful to see you, Mr. Hill.

I remained in close proximity to her as she went through the receiving line and entered the waiting convertible Oldsmobile with President Ayub Khan. Mrs. Kennedy and the president got into the backseat, while I squeezed into the front bench seat, between the driver and the president’s military aide.

The lead vehicle in the motorcade was a press truck—an open flatbed truck with rails around the outside—filled with about a dozen photographers. This was typical when you expected large crowds along a motorcade route for a president, but I’d never seen it, prior to this trip, for a first lady. Behind the press truck were six Pakistani policemen on motorcycles, and then the presidential car. Our two Secret Service guys followed in another open-top car, along with the president’s security men, while Princess Radziwill, the U.S. ambassador Walter McConaughy, other officials, and still more press were scattered in cars and trucks behind.

It had rained earlier in the morning, and then, shortly before Mrs. Kennedy’s plane landed, the clouds parted, the rain stopped, and the sun came out. As we drove from the airport to the residence of the governor of West Pakistan, where Mrs. Kennedy would stay, the weather remained clear and pleasant.

The crowds along the route to the governor’s residence were large, dense, and enthusiastically noisy. Bands with booming drums and bagpipes played along the way, as the people cheered and thousands upon thousands of schoolchildren waved small, handheld American flags. The cars were going about ten miles per hour, and the president convinced Mrs. Kennedy to stand up so the people could see her better. So there she was, behind me, standing in an open-top car as we drove through Lahore. The Pakistani flag hung alongside the American flag over the street at one point, and at another, a huge banner read: LONG LIVE THE AMERICAN FRIEND-SHIP.