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

Marc Notes: Includes index.; Originally published in hardcover in 2010 by Gallery Books. Table of Contents: Prologue / Gerald Blaine -- Foreword / Clint Hill -- Introduction: When Time Stood Still -- Part 1. The Men -- 1. On the Detail -- 2. The President-Elect Detail -- 3. The Threats -- 4. The Advance -- 5. The Risks -- 6. The First Lady's Detail -- Part 2. The Job -- 7. The Summer of '63 -- 8. The Reelection Campaign -- 9. Rising Tensions -- 10. Texas -- Part 3. That Day -- 11. The Final Hours -- 12. Six Seconds in Dallas -- 13. Breakdown -- 14. The Unimaginable -- 15. Darkness Falls -- 16. No Time for Tears -- 17. Burial -- Part 4. Our Lives -- 18. The End of Camelot -- 19. The Johnson Detail -- 20. The Pendulum Falls -- 21. The Verdict -- 22. Confronting Conspiracies -- 23. Clint Hill: Witness to History -- 24. Clint Hill: Don't Call Me Hero -- Epilogue / Gerald Blaine -- Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations and Code Names -- Index. Publisher Marketing: The extraordinary true story of the critical events leading up to and following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, as told by the Secret Service agents who were firsthand witnesses to one of America's greatest tragedies. THE SECRET SERVICE. An elite team of men who share a single mission: to protect the president of the United States. On November 22, 1963, these men failed--and a country would never be the same. Now, for the first time, a member of JFK's Secret Service detail reveals the inside story of the assassination, the weeks and days that led to it and its heartrending aftermath. This extraordinary book is a moving, intimate portrait of dedication, courage, and loss. Drawing on the memories of his fellow agents, Jerry Blaine captures the energetic, crowd-loving young president, who banned agents from his car and often plunged into raucous crowds with little warning. He describes the careful planning that went into JFK's Texas swing, the worries and concerns that agents, working long hours with little food or rest, had during the trip. And he describes the intensely private first lady making her first-ever political appearance with her husband, just months after losing a newborn baby. Here are vivid scenes that could come only from inside the Kennedy detail: JFK's last words to his tearful son when he left Washington for the last time; how a sudden change of weather led to the choice of the open-air convertible limousine that day; Mrs. Kennedy standing blood-soaked outside a Dallas hospital room; the sudden interruption of six-year-old Caroline's long-anticipated sleepover with a friend at home; the exhausted team of agents immediately reacting to the president's death with a shift to LBJ and other key governmental figures; the agents' dismay at Jackie's decision to walk openly from the White House to St. Matthew's Cathedral at the state funeral. Most of all, this is a look into the lives of men who devoted their entire beings to protecting the presidential family: the stress of the secrecy they kept, the emotional bonds that developed, the terrible impact on agents' psyches and families, and their astonishment at the country's obsession with far-fetched conspiracy theories and finger-pointing. A book fifty years in coming, "The Kennedy Detail "is a portrait of incredible camaraderie and incredible heartbreak--a true, must-read story of heroism in its most complex and human form. *** A medic burst out of the trauma room, and instinctively Clint Hill took a step toward Mrs. Kennedy. "He's still breathing," the man said as he rushed past. Mrs. Kennedy stood up. "Do you mean he may live?" she asked. No one answered. Kellerman handed the phone back to Hill and rushed back into the trauma room. "Clint, what happened?" Jerry Behn asked earnestly. "Shots fired during the motorcade," Clint said as he kept an eye on Mrs. Kennedy across the hall. "It all happened so fast. We were five minutes away from the Trade Mart. . . . The situation is critical. Jerry, prepare for the worst. . . ." The operator cut into the line, "Attorney General Robert Kennedy wants to talk to Agent Hill." "What's going on down there?!" Bobby Kennedy demanded. "Shots fired during the motorcade," Clint repeated. "The president is very seriously injured. They're working on him now. Governor Connally was hit too." "Well, what do you mean, seriously injured? How serious?" Clint swallowed hard. It was all he could do to keep it together. "It's as bad as it can get." --From "The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence" Contributor Bio:  Blaine, Gerald As a Special Agent of the Secret Service on the White House Detail, Gerald "Jerry" Blaine had the privilege of serving three U. S. presidents during one of the most tumultuous times in American history. After resigning from the Secret Service following John F. Kennedy's assassination, Blaine embarked on a career path with IBM Corporation and became a leading expert in high-level security, lecturing worldwide on the use of computers in Criminal Justice and Intelligence. In 1990, Blaine retired from IBM and joined ARCO International Oil and Gas in Dallas, Texas as the Director of International Security, Government Relations and Foreign Affairs. After retiring from ARCO in 1999 Blaine spent four years with Hill & Associates, an Asian-based consulting company, as a Senior Consultant, and finally retired from the corporate world in 2003. He now lives in in Grand Junction, Colorado with Joyce, his wife of more than fifty years. The couple has two children and four grandchildren. Contributor Bio:  McCubbin, Lisa Lisa McCubbin is an award-winning journalist who has been a television news anchor and reporter, hosted her own radio show, and spent more than five years in the Middle East as a freelance writer. She is the coauthor of the "New York Times" bestsellers "Mrs. Kennedy and Me", "Five Days in November", " "and" The Kennedy Detail". Visit her at LisaMcCubbin.com. Contributor Bio:  Hill, Clint Clint Hill is the "New York Times" bestselling author of "Mrs. Kennedy and Me" and "Five Days in November". A former United States Secret Service agent who was in the presidential motorcade during the John F. Kennedy assassination, Hill remained assigned to Mrs. Kennedy and the children until after the 1964 presidential election. He then was assigned to President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House and later to Richard Nixon, eventually becoming the Assistant Director of the Secret Service for all protection. He retired in 1975.