My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy

by Clint Hill, Lisa McCubbin Hill Narrated by Clint Hill

Overview

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller Mrs. Kennedy and Me comes another New York Times bestseller, which reveals never-before-told stories of Secret Service Agent Clint Hill's travels with Jacqueline Kennedy through Europe, Asia, and South America. Featuring more than two hundred rare and never-before-published photographs.

While preparing to sell his home in Alexandria, Virginia, retired Secret Service agent Clint Hill uncovers an old steamer trunk in the garage, triggering a floodgate of memories. As he and Lisa McCubbin, his coauthor on three previous books, pry it open for the first time in fifty years, they find forgotten photos, handwritten notes, personal gifts, and treasured mementos from the trips on which Hill accompanied First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as her Secret Service agent-trips that took them from Paris to London, through India, Pakistan, Greece, Morocco, Mexico, South America, and “three glorious weeks on the Amalfi Coast.” During these journeys, Jacqueline Kennedy became one of her husband's-and America's-greatest assets; in Hill's words and the opinion of many others, “one of the best ambassadors the United States has ever had.”

As each newfound treasure sparks long-suppressed memories, Hill provides new insight into the intensely private woman he always called “Mrs. Kennedy” and who always called him “Mr. Hill.” For the first time, he reveals the depth of the relationship that developed between them as they traveled around the globe. Now ninety years old, Hill recounts the tender moments, the private laughs, the wild adventures, and the deep affection he shared with one of the world's most beautiful and iconic women-and these memories are brought vividly to life alongside more than two hundred rare photographs, many of them previously unpublished.

In addition to the humorous stories and intimate moments, Hill reveals startling details about how traveling helped them both heal during the excruciating weeks and months following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. He also writes of the year he spent protecting Mrs. Kennedy after the assassination, a time in his life he has always been reluctant to speak about.

My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy unveils a personal side of history that has never been told before and takes the reader on a breathtaking journey, experiencing what it was like for Clint Hill to travel with Jacqueline Kennedy as the entire world was falling in love with her.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

08/29/2022

Husband-and-wife coauthors Clint and Lisa McCubbin Hill (Mrs. Kennedy and Me) deliver an immersive behind-the-scenes account of life in the Kennedy White House. Inspired by their recent rediscovery of a steamer trunk full of mementos, the authors recount how Clint Hill was assigned to be Jackie Kennedy’s personal Secret Service agent after a stint with President Eisenhower. Though the reassignment initially felt like “being moved from the starting lineup to the bench,” Hill soon discovered that the young, stylish, and multilingual first lady was unlike her predecessors. He describes how Jackie (an “elegant” yet “down to earth” woman with “a sense of adventure”) conversed easily with heads of state on visits to India, Pakistan, Latin America, and Europe, and even negotiated with France’s minister of culture for the Mona Lisa’s first U.S. tour. Hill also spent holidays with the first lady, and shares reminisces and photographs of summers in Hyannis Port, weekends in Virginia, and a getaway to Ravello, Italy. On a more somber note, Hill documents the family’s distress and his own lingering trauma after John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Packed with rare images and fond reminiscences, this is a page-turning portrait of the Camelot era. Photos. Agent: Keith Urbahn and Matt Latimer, Javelin Literary. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

"Packed with rare images and fond reminiscences, this is a page-turning portrait of the Camelot era." —Publishers Weekly

“A fond remembrance of a glamorous, bygone era.” —Kirkus

Kirkus Reviews

2022-07-20
A follow-up to the bestselling Mrs. Kennedy and Me.

Teaming up again with his co-author (now wife) on previous books, Hill, a distinguished former Secret Service agent, remembers his days traveling the world as Jacqueline Kennedy’s trusted bodyguard. After John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Hill received a medal for valor in protecting the president and his wife, Jackie, from Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullets. Later, the medal vanished along with photos of the author's travels with Mrs. Kennedy as a Secret Service bodyguard. Hill recounts how his search for an old award he never wanted yielded an even greater treasure: forgotten images of his globe-trotting adventures with the first lady. The photographs—some in color, some in black and white—immediately transported the bewitched author back to the glittering heyday of Camelot. Images of Jackie in Paris brought memories of the president’s first major state excursion to France, in 1961, where the otherwise very private first lady was “the center of all attention.” Numerous other diplomatic trips followed—to England, Greece, India, Pakistan, and across South America. Everything Jackie did, from visiting ruined temples to having lunch with Queen Elizabeth, was headline news. Hill dutifully protected her from gawkers and paparazzi not only on public occasions, but also more private ones such as family retreats to the Amalfi Coast and the Kennedys’ country home in Middleburg, Virginia. In three short years, the never-romantic bond between the two deepened to a place “beyond friendship” in which “we could communicate with each other with a look or a nod….She knew that I would do whatever she asked—whether it was part of my job as a Secret Service agent or not.” Replete with unseen private photos and anecdotes of a singular relationship, the book will appeal mostly to American historians but also anyone interested in the private world inhabited by one of the most beguiling but enigmatic first ladies in American history.

A fond remembrance of a glamorous, bygone era.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178917619
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/25/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: The Trunk
1 THE TRUNK ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, 2019

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