"Five Presidents"

Four weeks into 2023 and I've finished the first of the books I received for Christmas: "Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford" by Clint Hill with Lisa McCubban, a gift from LaDonna.

Hill served in the U.S. Secret service for 17 years, beginning in 1958 with his assignment to the detail protecting Elvira Dowd, the mother-in-law of President Eisenhower. Hill was quickly promoted to the White House where he has assigned to the details protecting Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Hill was in the vehicle immediately behind the one carrying John and Jaqueline Kennedy in Dallas, and was the agent who raced to the car, pushing Mrs. Kennedy from the top of the trunk of the presidential vehicle into its back seat. She had, Hill recounted, been trying to retrieve the top of the President's skull that had been blown from his head. The trauma Hill experienced watching as Jaqueline Kennedy cradled her husband's dying body in her lap covered with brain matter deeply affected him and contributed to his early retirement at age 43.

Hill's stories of serving the simultaneous bully and passionate advocate for civil rights that was Lyndon Johnson were fascinating. Five Presidents  does an excellent job of describing Johnson's experience of the crushing burden of Vietnam. Hill's book certainly bears out the accounts in Robert Caro's biography of LBJ. Richard Nixon comes in for nothing good although Hill had only positive regard for the man who was his next assignment, Spiro Agnew.

The unaddressed trauma and feelings of guilt in connection with the Kennedy assassination coupled with grinding work led to Hill's early retirement, thence to years of depression. At no time did I feel that Hill was seeking sympathy; his accounts were straightforwardly descriptive and he assiduously avoided the scandalous. Hill's story is one of quiet and effective dedication to service. I learned much and wholeheartedly commend the book to others.