Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey With Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford

by Hill, Clint

  When it came to the president’s hospitalization, Eisenhower said, without hesitation, “Be absolutely frank. That is the key. Put out the absolute truth, and that will be the best thing you can do.” He also recommended the doctors issue periodic bulletins to ease the concerns of the American public and to give the press something concrete so they didn’t find the need to speculate.

  The secretive meeting lasted just twenty-four minutes, and then we whisked President Johnson back to the White House before anyone knew he had been gone. That afternoon, a press conference was held to announce the president’s upcoming surgery.

  The surgery was successful, and after two weeks of recuperation in the hospital, the president could hardly wait to be released. He returned to the White House for one day, and then on October 23 we were off to the LBJ Ranch, where we would spend fifty-seven of the sixty-eight days left in the year.

  The airstrip at the ranch might as well have been a runway at National Airport, there were so many flights coming and going. Aides, military advisors, cabinet members, secretaries, congressmen, senators, the press—if they wanted to meet with the president or the president wanted to meet with them, they had to come to Texas. The days were consistently unpredictable, with rarely a dull moment. The anniversary of the assassination came and went, and while that day, along with Thanksgiving and Christmas, was an exceptionally difficult one for me—it always would be—at least when I was working, my mind was occupied.

  The day after Christmas happened to be a Sunday, and as usual the president and Mrs. Johnson drove to Johnson City in the white convertible to attend the eleven o’clock service at the First Baptist Church. There were a few members of the press there, and at the conclusion of the service, the president posed for photos with members of the congregation and the tourists who had gathered. After a few minutes, he turned to Mrs. Johnson and said, “Bird, let’s go on over to the boyhood home and say hello.”

  Restorations had recently been completed so that his boyhood home, which was just a few blocks away from the church, was now open to the public. So President and Mrs. Johnson got back into the convertible, with our team of six agents following closely behind in Secret Service vehicles.

  The president drove slowly down Avenue F, and after crossing Main Street, just as he turned the corner, I heard a loud explosive noise. It sounded like a firecracker.

  Oh God. Across the street, a teenage boy was walking across the front yard of a home with a .30-30 rifle in his hands.

  I jumped out of the car and ran toward the boy with my arms outstretched and waving above my head, yelling, “Put the gun down! Put the gun down!”

  The boy turned as white as a starched shirt as he dropped the gun at his feet.

  Meanwhile, the other agents, with guns drawn, raced to surround the president’s car as it moved out of sight.

  “What are you doing, son?” I asked the boy.

  He was so distraught he could barely speak. “I’m uh, I was, uh, I was going hunting.”

  “Did you just shoot that gun?” I asked. The sound seemed to have come from a different direction, but here was the boy standing there with the gun.

  “No, sir,” he said. “I was just heading to my truck. I had no idea the president would be driving by. I guess I picked the wrong time to go hunting.”

  As it turned out, the noise had indeed come from another direction—where a young girl had set off a firecracker. The teenage boy was from San Antonio and happened to be visiting his grandparents, who had known the Johnsons for nearly thirty years. It turned out to be a series of unfortunate coincidences; as the boy said, he had picked the wrong time to go hunting. President Johnson was completely unfazed by the incident and carried on with his day as if nothing unusual had happened.

  Each president deals with the stress of the office in his own way. Lyndon Johnson found relaxation at the LBJ Ranch, and in 1965 alone he spent more than 110 days there—nearly a third of the year. For the press and many of the agents, the long stretches of time at the LBJ Ranch were really miserable. For me, the Texas Hill Country reminded me of the simplicity of my childhood, and in retrospect I’ve come to realize that, as frustrating as President Johnson’s unpredictability was, I thrived on the constant activity. The workdays were so long and exhausting—both mentally and physically—that by the time I fell into bed, sleep came easily. The busier I was, the fewer the nightmares. As it turned out, being on the Johnson detail kept me sane.

  24

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  Traveling with LBJ: Honolulu and Mexico City

  The Warren Commission made a number of recommendations for changes within the Secret Service, many of which required additional funding and authorization by Congress. When LBJ took office, however, one of his major directives was that his White House budget and the number of staff in his administration never exceed that of President Kennedy’s, and thus, despite the Warren Commission’s findings that the Secret Service had inadequate personnel, outdated equipment, and insufficient resources to adequately protect the president and his family, President Johnson was reluctant to increase the agency’s budget.

  Fortunately, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon refused to allow politics to override our mission, however, and in early 1965 he boldly appeared before Congress asking for $4 million more than President Johnson had appropriated. At that time we had 130,000 open threat cases, and we were still using a manual index card filing system. When the president traveled anywhere, sorting through the potential threats in a given area was slow, tedious, and most likely incomplete. The chances that we would miss a potential assassin, even if we had him on file, were huge. The money Dillon was requesting would be used to purchase an automated database, hire 183 new agents, and procure two new armored vehicles—a presidential limousine and a Secret Service follow-up car—built to Secret Service specifications. Before Congress even began deliberating, however, President Johnson stepped in and flat-out rejected the request for the two new vehicles, which together had a price tag of $522,000, saying he would not use nor condone the use of the cars for his protection. It made no sense to those of us whose responsibility it was to protect the man, but he was the president; we were not.

  In the end, we did not get the cars, but Congress approved the other requests, and in November of 1965—two years after the assassination—the Secret Service was authorized to hire new agents. At the same time, the agency underwent a complete reorganization.

  James J. Rowley’s title was changed from chief to director, giving him equal rank to that of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and the organization was divided into four divisions—administration, investigations, intelligence, and protective services—each of which would be headed by an assistant director. SAIC Rufus Youngblood was promoted to assistant director of protective services, and would oversee not only the White House Detail but also the protection of the vice president and his family, former presidents Truman and Eisenhower and their wives, as well as the Kennedy Protective Detail, which protected Mrs. Kennedy, John, and Caroline.

  ASAIC Lem Johns became the Special Agent in Charge of the White House Detail, and in January 1966 I was promoted from shift leader to Assistant Special Agent in Charge. My new position came with a slight increase in pay, much more responsibility and decision-making authority, and more direct contact with the president.

  Shortly after my promotion, Assistant Director Youngblood summoned me to his office for a confidential briefing.

  “Clint,” he said, “President Johnson has just confirmed plans to meet General Westmoreland in Hawaii for a summit with Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky and Chief of State Nguyen Van Thieu. I don’t have all the details yet, but I need you to get to Honolulu as soon as possible to lead the advance. The trip will be announced Friday, and the president leaves Saturday.”

  This was a Tuesday. I had less than four days to get to Hawaii and make security arrangements for a critical meeting between the President of the United States, his military advisors, and the lead
ers of the South Vietnamese government.

  The purpose of the trip was a firsthand exchange of views between those who actually lived in Vietnam and those who were working on the Vietnamese problem in Washington. There were significant risks to having the heads of both the American and South Vietnamese governments together in one place, and it was an especially dangerous trip for the Vietnamese officials whose government was susceptible to a coup. There was a lot at stake, but everyone on the advance team had been handpicked, and all had experience with international events, so I was confident we could get the job done, even with such limited time.

  When President Johnson arrived at Honolulu International Airport on the evening of Saturday, February 5, about five thousand people were there to greet him. And while the majority of the crowd was supportive, there were plenty of antiwar demonstrators chanting and holding up signs like MURDERER GO HOME! and STOP JOHNSON’S WAR!

  Undaunted by the protestors, the president headed straight for the fence—much to our dismay—and reached into the crowd to shake a few hands before getting into the car and heading to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

  The next morning, arrangements had been made to take the president to church services at St. Augustine Church, accompanied by some staff and the governor of Hawaii, John Burns, and a number of senators and congressmen. All went well until we were driving back to the hotel and President Johnson spotted a Dairy Queen.

  “Pull over here!” he called out. “Let’s get some ice cream.”

  Traffic was already a mess, and now we were about to make matters worse. The motorcade came to a stop, and much to the surprise and delight of the tourists and locals lining the street, the president got out of the car and walked up to the Dairy Queen stand as the agents sprang into action around him. He bought four ice cream cones, shook hands with some of the people, and got back into the car, grinning like a kid who had just pulled a fast one on his parents. Not the usual Sunday outing for a president attending an international conference.

  When the Vietnamese delegation arrived that evening, President Johnson met the party planeside with the typical arrival ceremonies, and in his remarks he addressed those who were pressuring him to retreat from our involvement in the Vietnam conflict.

  “Were we to follow their course, how many nations might fall before the aggressor?” he implored. “Where would our treaties be respected, our word honored, our commitment believed?” He argued that in the early years after World War II, the United States stood firm in Europe to protect freedom, and now, like then, “Our stand must be as firm as ever. If we allow the Communists to win in Vietnam, it will be easier and more appetizing for them to take over other countries in other parts of the world.”

  The summit lasted for three days, resulting in the Declaration of Honolulu, in which the Republic of Vietnam and the United States of America declared their common commitment to defend against Communist aggression. The discussions included further increases in the number of U.S. troops, which was now over 200,000, in addition to an investment in broad social programs with the belief that progress in agriculture, education, health, and democracy building was essential to winning the war.

  Hope prevailed, but both sides knew the end of the war was nowhere in sight.

  IN EARLY APRIL 1966 it was announced that Mrs. Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk would be traveling to Mexico City to unveil a statue of Abraham Lincoln that had been commissioned as a gift from the United States to Mexico. Shortly after the official announcement, Lem Johns informed me that they wanted me to handle the advance. It turned out that there was more to the trip than was being presented to the press. In fact, President Johnson would be going on the trip as well. It would be his first overnight visit to a foreign country since taking office nearly two and a half years earlier, but he didn’t want anyone to know about it until the last possible minute.

  “You know the president,” Lem said. “He believes the element of surprise is the best security plan there is.”

  President Johnson’s decision to send thousands of American troops to the Dominican Republic was not popular with some factions in Mexico, and there was a concern that opposition groups would stage large and potentially violent protests if they had enough lead time before the president’s visit. There was a lot riding on this trip to begin with, but setting up the appropriate security arrangements for the President of the United States in a foreign country without letting on that he was actually going to be there would be a real challenge.

  Our advance team included Bill Moyers from the White House press office, Jack Valenti on the political side, a representative from WHCA to handle communications, and a USAF military aide. We were all given explicit instructions to not even allude to the fact that President Johnson would be accompanying Mrs. Johnson until the last possible minute.

  Our team flew down to Mexico City about a week prior to the Johnsons’ arrival, set up a base at the U.S. Embassy, and got straight to work on the arrangements for the clandestine presidential visit. In meetings with officials of the Mexican government, we discussed only Mrs. Johnson’s attendance at and participation in the unveiling and dedication of the statue, with no mention of the president, but in the course of the discussions it became apparent to me that the Mexican officials were aware President Johnson was coming. Still, neither side acknowledged it, continuing on with the ruse that everything being planned was strictly for the first lady.

  Forty-five hours before the scheduled arrival time, the White House made the announcement that President Johnson had decided “on the spur of the moment” to accompany Mrs. Johnson to Mexico City, along with their daughters, Luci and Lynda. This somewhat quiet visit by the first lady was now turning into a full-fledged official visit, which required a completely different protocol. It was a huge relief to be able to deal openly with my Mexican counterparts, but now we had very limited time to get all the details in place. My biggest concern was the ten-mile motorcade from the Mexico City Airport to Los Pinos, the presidential palace.

  I had arranged to have the armored presidential limousine flown in on a C-130, but now the Mexican officials were insisting that President Johnson ride with Mexican president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz in their convertible presidential limousine—with the top down.

  Two vivid memories collided in my mind: the enormous crowds that turned out for President and Mrs. Kennedy’s visit to Mexico City four years earlier—two million people along the motorcade route, storms of confetti so thick that by the end the open-top convertible was filled to the brim with the stuff—and the image of President Kennedy’s head exploding in Dallas. There was no way we could allow President Johnson to ride through the streets of Mexico City in an open-top car. No way.

  Our ambassador to Mexico, Tony Freeman, spoke with Mexico’s foreign minister, hoping to find a solution that would appease both sides, but none of the options he returned with were acceptable to us. Ambassador Freeman explained that the president of Mexico never rode in an enclosed vehicle in these types of motorcades—it was culturally important for him to be seen by the people. So, basically, we had three choices: one, the president and Mrs. Johnson ride in our limousine, and President Díaz Ordaz rides in his open limo; two, both presidents ride in the open limo; or three, we cancel the visit.

  None of us wanted our president to ride in an open car, but the whole purpose of this trip was to show our alliance with the Mexican people, and if Johnson didn’t ride in the same car as the Mexican president, it would appear that there was a rift between the two leaders. Moyers and Valenti decided the only thing to do was to lay out the situation to President Johnson and let him decide.

  President Johnson wasn’t too pleased that our advance team couldn’t work this out, and he told Valenti, “I really don’t care what kind of car I ride in. Hell, I’ll ride a burro if that’s the only way to get to the city. Whatever you and Moyers and Ambassador Freeman decide, that’s okay with me.”

  I was adamant that President Johnson ride in a
closed vehicle, but Valenti and Moyers argued that that would be a diplomatic disaster. In the end, President Johnson and his staff decided that he would ride with President Díaz Ordaz in the Mexican presidential limousine, with the top down. The two first ladies, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Díaz Ordaz, would ride in a closed car a short distance behind the presidential vehicle, followed by an additional closed car carrying Lynda and Luci. The decision was out of my hands, but the responsibility to keep everyone safe was entirely on my shoulders.

  Unbeknownst to me, Valenti had called FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to get his perspective on the matter. Our intelligence agents were already working with the FBI and the CIA, but the next thing I knew, Marvin Watson, President Johnson’s chief of staff, sent me a Top Secret message informing me that the FBI was sending fifty agents to bolster our protective forces, and I should arrange to use them in the best way possible.

  We also had more than six thousand Mexican police working with us, and their efforts were critically important. Not only did they provide crowd control, but they were responsible for securing every building along the route, as well as providing snipers in strategic locations. As a means of additional precaution, the Mexican government took care of hundreds of known dissidents in their own way, by rounding them up and jailing them during LBJ’s visit, while potential troublemakers were kept under surveillance. Still, my biggest concern was, and always would be, the lone wolf who just hadn’t popped up on anybody’s radar. The Secret Service agents were the last line of defense, and the key would be to keep agents close to the president at all times.

  At 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 14, just before dusk, Air Force One 26000 made its grand arrival at Benito Juárez International Airport. This was not scheduled as a state visit, but you wouldn’t know it from all the ceremonial trappings that had been arranged—all supposedly in less than forty-five hours. Thirty-foot-tall paintings of both President Díaz Ordaz and President Johnson had been placed on top of the terminal, while thousands of spectators were on hand at the airport, standing on rooftops, balconies, and special viewing stands. There was a full arrival ceremony complete with twenty-one-gun salute, a reception committee, and an exchange of remarks by both presidents.