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jfk’s assassination
Clint Hill, the secret service agent employed to protect Jackie Kennedy has recounted the terrifying moments after JFK’s assassination in 1963, and how the First Lady scrambled to reach his limp body.
In a memoir, Mrs Kennedy and Me, Clint Hill, now 80, reveals his sheer determination to throw himself between the Kennedys and the bullets as parts of JFK’s brain and skull splattered over his shirt.
As the secret service agent moved towards Jackie Kennedy, he watched her reaction: “Her eyes were filled with terror. She was reaching for something. She was reaching for a piece of the President’s head.”
Clint Hill was alongside the presidential vehicle when John F. Kennedy was shot in the neck and head before he slumped into his wife’s arms while driving through Dallas, Texas in November 1963.
The secret service agent is the figure in the famous Zapruder film of the shooting which shows him climbing onto the back of the president’s limousine.
In his book Mrs Kennedy and Me, Clint Hill recalled the crowds cheering for the motorcade and the moment he heard an explosion. He looked around and saw the president grab his throat.
“Somebody had fired a shot at the President, and I had to get myself between the shooter and the President and Mrs. Kennedy,” Clint Hill wrote.
“Nothing else mattered.”
Before he could reach them, two more bullets were shot – the final one hitting the president in the head, just above his right ear.
“The impact was like the sound of a melon shattering onto cement,” Clint Hill remembered, adding that John F. Kennedy’s blood and parts of his skull splattered over his clothes, face and hair.
In his memoir, Mrs Kennedy and Me, Clint Hill reveals his sheer determination to throw himself between the Kennedys and the bullets as parts of JFK's brain and skull splattered over his shirt
Pulling Jackie Kennedy into her seat, the president’s body fell into her arms with his eyes open. “Jack, Jack, what have they done to you?” she wailed.
Clint Hill, who has previously said he could have taken the third bullet had he moved a second sooner, then had the thought: “How did I let this happen to her?”
Speaking to People magazine, which published excerpts of the book, Clint Hill added: “Because of the angles, the weather, where we were – everything – I did all I could. But I still feel guilt.”
He then goes on to describe the scene at Parkland Hospital, where he waited outside the trauma room with Jackie Kennedy. He describes how “the light was gone” from her eyes.
While there, Clint Hill took a call from the president’s brother, Robert Kennedy, who was demanding to know how bad the situation was.
Haunted by the image of JFK’s head being hit by the final bullet, but uncertain how to tell Robert Kennedy that his brother had been killed, Clint Hill said simply: “It’s as bad as it gets.”
As a doctor approached the group, they knew it was terrible news and Jackie Kennedy ran to be at her husband’s side. An agent approached Clint Hill and told him the president had died.
Later, the book recounts, Clint Hill accompanied Jackie Kennedy and Robert Kennedy to see the body.
Clint Hill remembers how, once there, Jackie Kennedy lovingly cut her husband’s hair with scissors that her secret service agent had brought, leaving chestnut locks on the blades when she gave them back.
He continued to work as Jackie Kennedy’s agent for a further year after the death. During his time working with the family, Clint Hill had grown close to the former first lady, which he admits was unusual.
Clint Hill recalled stories of sneaking cigarettes together in the back of the car during drives, and offering her advice ahead of the trip to Dallas after she expressed fears about their safety.
But despite what has been claimed in the past, Clint Hill did not love Jackie Kennedy.
“I admired her,” Clint Hill told People magazine.
“We grew closer and closer [but] I don’t think you can say I was in love with her.”
A year after the assassination, Clint Hill went to work for Lyndon Johnson. But he quit in 1975 after guilt he felt from the shooting made him turn towards alcohol.
Although Clint Hill kept in touch with Jackie Kennedy for a few years after he stopped working for her, when he heard about her struggle with cancer in 1994, he could not bring himself to lift the phone.
“I knew that the mere sound of my voice would take her back to that day that changed everything,” Clint Hill wrote.
“And the sound of her voice would do the same to me.”
Harvey Lee Oswald was accused of firing the three shots that killed John F. Kennedy. As he was being transferred to jail, he was shot in the stomach by a man, Jack Ruby, in the crowd.
Harvey Lee Oswald died in the hospital where John F. Kennedy had passed away 48 hours earlier.
According to an explosive new book by retired CIA agent Brian Latell, which is set to be released next month, Fidel Castro had advance knowledge that President John F. Kennedy was about to be killed in 1963.
Rumors about Fidel Castro’s involvement in a plot to murder his fierce adversary have swirled for almost half a century since communist sympathizer Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK during a trip to Dallas in November 1963.
Now author Brian Latell, who studied Cuban affairs as a CIA analyst in the 1960’s and later became the agency’s chief intelligence officer for Latin America, says he is certain that Fidel Castro at least knew the attack was going to happen.
On the morning of November 22, 1963, the day JFK was killed, Fidel Castro ordered a senior intelligence officer in Havana to stop listening for non-specific CIA radio communications and concentrate instead on “any little detail, any small detail from Texas”, Brian Latell claims in his new book “Castro’s Secrets – the CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine”, set for release next month.
Four hours later, the airwaves came alive with news that John F. Kennedy was dead.
Fidel Castro had advance knowledge that President John F. Kennedy was about to be killed in 1963, claims Brian Latell in his book
Brian Latell also claims that Fidel Castro was aware that Lee Harvey Oswald, who had been denied a visa to visit Cuba at the country’s embassy in Mexico City, told staff there that he was going to murder JFK to prove his allegiance to the communist cause.
“Fidel knew of Oswald’s intentions and did nothing to deter the act,” Brian Latell writes in the book.
In an interview published in The Miami Herald, Brian Latell, now a respected senior lecturer on Cuba at the University of Miami, says he discovered the information in interviews with former Cuban intelligence officers, backed up by declassified US government documents.
“I don’t say Fidel Castro ordered the assassination, I don’t say Oswald was under his control. He might have been, but I don’t argue that, because I was unable to find any evidence for that,” Brian Latell said.
“[But] everything I write is backed up by documents and on-the-record sources.
“Did Fidel want Kennedy dead? Yes. He feared Kennedy. And he knew Kennedy was gunning for him. In Fidel’s mind, he was probably acting in self-defense.”
Brian Latell’s book, billed as the first in-depth study of Fidel Castro’s intelligence operations in the years after the Marxist revolutionary seized power in a 1959 coup, says there is other strong supporting evidence.
The book claims, for instance, that CIA wiretaps of Cuban intelligence agents in the immediate aftermath of the assassination revealed that they already had surprising level of knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald’s background when only scant details had been reported by the media.
But it is Brian Latell’s interview with former Cuban intelligence officer Fiorentino Aspillaga Lombard, who was in charge of Fidel Castro’s listeners at his Havana compound, which will raise eyebrows.
Fiorentino Aspillaga Lombard, who defected to the US in 1987, told the author that he informed the CIA at his debriefing that Fidel Castro personally issued the order to listen specifically for anything about Texas.
But that information was never revealed publicly, and he never repeated it until he was interviewed for the book.
After his defection, Fiorentino Aspillaga Lombard lifted the lid on Fidel Castro’s lavish lifestyle, giving details of his fleet of luxury yachts, numerous lavish properties in each of Cuba’s provinces and a secret Swiss bank account containing millions of dollars.
But he said that while the population realized that “Fidel has ruined Cuba”, a fear of their leader meant few would ever speak up.
“Who can sanction Castro? What parliament or national assembly can ask for an explanation of what is done with that money?” Fiorentino Aspillaga Lombard said.
The claim that Fidel Castro was aware of Lee Harvey Oswald’s promise to Cuban embassy officials that he was going to murder John F. Kennedy comes from several sources, including a former FBI informant and “superspy” Jack Childs, who penetrated the dictator’s inner circle.
Jack Childs said that Fidel Castro told him that Lee Harvey Oswald “stormed into the embassy, demanded the visa, and when it was refused to him headed out saying: <<I’m going to kill Kennedy for this>>.”
Meanwhile, Fidel Castro was claiming publicly that Lee Harvey Oswald’s visit to the embassy was “a minor matter” that had not been noticed by senior officials in Havana.
Subsequent investigations by the US security agencies, and the official Warren Commission inquiry into John F. Kennedy’s assassination, looked at Fidel Castro’s possible involvement but concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman acting independently.
Among other issues discussed in Brian Latell’s book are the CIA’s own attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro using a variety of methods, including exploding cigars and poison pens. Brian Latell says the efforts were called off after JFK died.
Recordings of the conversations between Air Force One and the White House communications office immediately after President John F. Kennedy assassination were made public this week.
One of the calls was between a White House radio operator who had to inform the Secretary of State that the President had been killed and that there was a new leader of the United States.
Another one was recorded between Vicepresident Lyndon Johnson and JFK’s mother was made by on board Air Force One just minutes after he was sworn in. The call reveals how he and his wife Lady Bird tried to console the Kennedy matriarch who was on the ground.
“I wish to God there was something that I could do and I wanted to tell you that we were grieving with you,” LBJ is recorded saying to Rose Kennedy.
“Thanks a mill- thank you very much, thank you very much. I know, I know you loved Jack, and he loved you,” Rose Kennedy responded.
All calls made on presidential plane are put through by a White House switchboard operator, which has a system in place to automatically tape the calls.
Mrs. Johnson is also recorded on the tapes, which captured the activity on the flight from Dallas, Texas to Washington on November 22, 1963, though part of her comments are cut off my an interjection by Rose Kennedy.
“Mrs. Kennedy, we feel like we just had-“Mrs. Johnson said.
“Yes, alright,” Mrs. Kennedy interjected.
“We are glad that the nation had your son as long as it did,” Mrs. Johnson continued.
“Yes, well thank you, Lady Bird. Thank you very much, goodbye!” Rose Kennedy said quickly.
Recordings of the conversations between Air Force One and the White House communications office immediately after President John F. Kennedy assassination were made public this week
The Johnsons called Rose Kennedy at home at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, about 30 minutes after they took off from Dallas’ Love Field Airport.
While the conversation was extremely brief, the plane ride was a busy one as President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in just minutes before the flight took off.
In the air, LBJ was preparing the speech he was going to give once the plane landed just over two hours later.
Conspiracy theorists have been known to obsess over every detail surrounding the assassination of JFK, and are likely going to find fault with the fact that the 42 minutes of tape are only just being released now.
The tapes were found after the death of JFK’s top military aide Army General Chester “Ted” Clifton Jr., when his family found the recordings.
They sold his copy to a historical documents dealer, who then gave a copy to the National Archives.
Also included in the tapes is the moment when a White House operator tell the news to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who was on a flight headed to Japan with several other cabinet members at the time.
“Kennedy apparently shot in the head,” said the unidentified radio operator.
“He fell face down in back seat of his car, blood was on his head, Mrs. Kennedy cried <<Oh no>> and tried to hold up his head.”
Another frantic notification call was included on the newly-released tape, this time of a military aide trying to look for his superior, General Curtis LeMay, who was often at odds with JFK.
General Curtis LeMay’s assistant called the White House call center and wanted desperately to be connected to his boss.
“General LeMay is in a C 140. … He’s inbound. His code name is Grandson. And I wanna talk to him. … If you can’t work him now, it’s gonna be too late, because he’ll be on the ground in a half-hour,” the aide said.
The urgency in the aide’s call will likely prompt some sinister speculation, though it is also easy to assume that he simply wanted to get the news of the assassination to his boss quickly.
The tapes confirm that, like Secretary of State Dean Rusk and several other cabinet members, Curtis LeMay was on various flights at the time.
The tapes of the calls from Air Force One come shortly after the Kennedy Library released some of the recordings from JFK’s last days in office.
While speaking to an aide three days before his death, then-President John F. Kennedy unknowingly refers to the day which would end up being his funeral as “a tough day”.
The conversation arises while his aides are attempting to sort out his schedule, which was expected to be very busy when he returned from his Dallas trip.
One of the meetings they were trying to schedule was with General Nasution of Indonesia.
“I will see him, when is here here? Monday?,” JFK says.
A staffer responds: “Monday and Tuesday.”
“Well that’s a tough day,” JFK remarks.
“It’s a hell of a day Mr. President. He’ll be coming back here though, I understand on Friday because I offered to entertain at dinner.”
The tapes also revealed JFK’s thoughts on the nearing 1964 election, a tender moment with his children, and conflicting reports about the ongoing operation in Vietnam.
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A team of historians and retired Secret Service officers led by historian Max Holland has used new technology to categorically confirm in their minds the judgement that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed John F. Kennedy 48 years ago.
Max Holland, who has investigated JFK’s assassination moment for years, led a team which digitally enhanced a number of home videos taken on November 22, 1963.
Max Holland’s team studied Abraham Zapruder’s famous footage as well as many other lesser-known films, and brought them all together for the first time to establish a narrative more clear than ever before.
The team will present their findings in documentary “JFK: The Lost Bullet” on the NatGeo channel this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. ET.
Max Holland told Fox News:
“I’d say a main thrust of it is to break the stranglehold that the Zapruder film has on our perception of what happened.”
“In a sense, we’ve all been <<Zaprudered>>. The film was so graphic, disturbing, mesmerising, that it became more of our perspective on the assassination than even the perspective of the assassin, which should never have happened.”
Max Holland, who has investigated JFK's assassination moment for years, led a team which digitally enhanced a number of home videos taken on November 22, 1963
The group also discovered, in the amateur footage taken that day by Robert Hughes, a shadowy figure moving on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building – a person believed to be Lee Harvey Oswald.
Lee Harvey Oswald was an employee at the Texas Schoolbook Depository, which overlooked the motorcade.
Contemporary investigators found that in March 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, using the alias “A. Hidell”, purchased a 6.5mm Carcano Model 91/38 rifle by mail order. It is widely agreed this was the gun which killed John F. Kennedy.
Max Holland told Fox News: “Our conclusion is that he fired three shots in about 11 seconds, which is almost double the <<Six Seconds in Dallas>> meme that most people know when they think about the assassination: six seconds, three shots in six seconds.
“We say three shots in 11 seconds, which is a much easier – for I’d say, someone of Oswald’s skill – effortless task.”
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he travelled in an open-top car in a motorcade through Dallas. Texas Governor John Connally was also injured.
Within two hours, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murder of a policeman, then early the next morning he was charged with assassinating JFK.
On the morning of November 24, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald as he was being transferred to the county jail.
There have been numerous conspiracy theories around JFK’s death, with everyone from the American Mafia and the KGB to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and sitting Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson accused of involvement.
Each theory and every year hundreds of sceptics flock to the site to discuss the latest developments and pay their respects.
When asked by Fox News if there are any “holy grails” of JFK assassination research still not investigated, Max Holland cited Lee Harvey Oswald’s tax returns, which have never been released.
It is widely believed that Lee Harvey Oswald shot three bullets from his rifle. One missed entirely, a second hit John F. Kennedy and passed through Governor John Connally, the third was the fatal shot to the President.
Through FBI testing it was established the gun could be fired by an experienced shooter three times within five to eight seconds.
But in Governor John Connally’s own words: “There were either two or three people involved, or more, in this — or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle.”
John Connally’s wife believed that her husband was hit by a bullet that was separate from the two that hit Kennedy.
In the Zapruder film, the JFK’s head appears to move backwards after the last, fatal shot, an indication to some that a bullet was fired from the front.
There have been witness statements that two men were seen on top of a grassy knoll to the west of the Texas School Book Depository before the shooting.
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The former First Lady, Jackie Kennedy talked about her disgust towards Martin Luther King after claimed he tried to arrange a sex party while in Washington for a march.
In the interviews that will be released in series starting with September 13, Jackie Kennedy also talks about how she could barely look at images of the iconic leader after he apparently also made derogatory remarks at JFK’s funeral.
Jacqueline Kennedy’s relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King became strained as a result of wire taps arranged by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
Those taps allegedly caught Dr. King Jr. trying to arrange a sex party in Washington, although this has been dismissed by some material concocted by Hoover to damage Martin Luther King.
Nonetheless, Jackie Kennedy branded Martin Luther King “tricky” and a “phoney” after hearing of the FBI recordings.
In the first interview that interviews to be broadcast on September 13, the former First Lady said:
“I just can’t see a picture of Martin Luther King without thinking, you know, that man’s terrible.”
Jackie Kennedy branded Luther King "tricky" and a "phoney" after hearing of the FBI recordings
Jackie Kennedy said Martin Luther King had mocked her husband’s funeral and Cardinal Richard Cushing, who celebrated Mass at the funeral.
“He made fun of Cardinal Cushing and said that he was drunk at it,” Mrs. Kennedy said.
“And things about they almost dropped the coffin.”
The Jackie Kennedy secret interviews also reveal that JFK saw U.S. participation in Vietnam as “hopeless” and scorned the idea of Lyndon Johnson succeeding him in office.
In the explosive memoirs from the secret tapes, Jackie Kennedy reveals that JFK was highly skeptical about victory in Vietnam.
The secret recordings will be revealed this month on the 50th anniversary of JFK’s first year in office, also describe how former President Kennedy feared what would happen if rival Lyndon Johnson took office.
Jackie Kennedy secret recordings will be revealed this month on the 50th anniversary of JFK's first year in office
JFK chose Lyndon Johnson, a Texas senator and former political rival, as his running mate in 1960 but later fretted about a LBJ (Lyndon Baines Johnson) presidency.
Jackie Kennedy’ secret tapes were recorded starting few months after JFk’s assassination in November 1963 by historian and former JFK aide Arthur Schlesinger.
In another interview of Jackie Kennedy with Arthur Schlesinger, she said:
“Jack said it to me sometimes. He said, <<Oh, God, can you ever imagine what would happen to the country if Lyndon were president?>>”
Jacqueline Kennedy also told how JFK and his brother, then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy even discussed ways to prevent Johnson from winning the Democratic nomination in a future contest.
“He didn’t like that idea that Lyndon would go on and be president because he was worried for the country,” she said.
“Bobby told me that he’d had some discussions with him.
“I forget exactly how they were planning or who they had in mind. It wasn’t Bobby, but somebody. Do something to name someone else in ’68.”
Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the 36th U.S. president on Air Force One just two hours after JFK’s assassination.
LBJ was re-elected in his own right in 1964, but declined to run for presidency in 1968.
Jackie Kennedy also told how JFK and his brother, Robert F. Kennedy even discussed ways to prevent Johnson from winning the Democratic nomination in a future contest
The “Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy,” book includes a series of revealing interviews with the former first lady.
Jackie Kennedy said JFK was highly about victory in Vietnam, a central battleground of the Cold War and the conflict that brought down Johnson’s presidency.
She also said that President Kennedy, a Democrat, had named Henry Cabot Lodge, a Republican he had defeated for a Massachusetts Senate seat in 1952, as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam because JFK was so doubtful of military success there.
“I think he probably did it… rather thinking it might be such a brilliant thing to do because Vietnam was rather hopeless anyway, and put a Republican there,” Jackie Kennedy said.
Kennedy increased the U.S. presence in Vietnam throughout his brief administration, adding military advisers to help train the South Vietnamese military.
Lyndon Johnson, while was president, escalated the war in Vietnam by later committing ground troops to the conflict despite initial promises not to. Historians still debate whether Kennedy would have done the same.
The interviews where the former first lady speaks candidly about life in the White House have been sealed in a safe until this year.
Over seven sessions with Schlesinger thought to have been recorded just months after Kennedy’s death, she recalled conversations on topics ranging from her husband’s reading habits to the botched Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba.
According to previous reports, the tapes would contain explosive content and include details of JFK’s affair with a White House intern and even theories that LBJ and a cabal of Texas tycoons were involved in JFK’s assassination.
Originally planned for one hour, the interviews will be aired during a two-hour ABC special on September 13, before being released in book form, “Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy” on September 14.
After Jackie Kennedy did the interviews, she steadfastly refused to publicly discuss any details with anyone else about that time in her life.
Jackie Kennedy had ordered that the tapes should not be released until 50 years after her death, with some reports suggesting she feared that her revelations might make her family targets for revenge.
An ABC source said last month that the tapes also revealed that she too had affairs – one with Hollywood star William Holden and another with Fiat founder Gianni Agnelli – as a result of the president’s indiscretions.
Jackie Kennedy died in 1994 from cancer aged 64 and now her daughter, Caroline Kennedy, has agreed to release the recordings early.
Jackie Kennedy Onassis believed Vice-President Johnson was behind husband’s assassination.
She revealed the affair with Hollywood star William Holden.
Secret recordings containing explosive details about who was behind the assassination of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy or spicy details about the love life of his former wife, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, will be released this fall.
Jackie Kennedy talked about JFK assassination
Audio documents have been made by a famous American historian, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. M, few months after JFK’s death, on 22 November 1963. The documents were sealed until now in a hidden safe of Kennedy Library in Boston.
Recordings will unveil her version about the assassination of JFK and show that she strongly believes that former U.S. President was assassinated at the Vice President, Lyndon B Johnson, and several businessmen, who had interests in the Vietnam War and Bano oil contracts, command. Lyndon B Johnson became the successor of the former U.S. leader.
“She became convinced that the then vice president, along with several businessmen in the South, had orchestrated the Dallas shooting, with gunman Lee Harvey Oswald – long claimed to have been a lone assassin – merely part of a much larger conspiracy,” wrote The Daily Mail.
Lyndon B Johnson (LBJ) was a Texas-born and served as the state’s governor and senator, completed JFK’s term and went on to be elected president in his own right.
Jackie Kennedy, who eventually married to Greek shipping tycoon, Aristotle Onassis, had ordered that recordings should not be released until 50 years after her death, with some reports suggesting she feared that her revelations might make her family targets for revenge.
The former First Lady died 17 years ago from cancer, aged 64, and now her daughter, Caroline Kennedy’s agreed to release the recordings early,although the term required by Jackie O. would accomplish in 2044.[googlead tip=”vertical_mic”]
Jackie Kennedy Onassis believed Lyndon B Johnson was behind JFK assassination
The tapes will be aired by U.S. network ABC, and the British broadcasters are in talks to show it in UK too.
ABC executives said the tapes’ revelations were “explosive”.
The secret recordings are believed to include the suggestion that JFK was having an affair with a 19-year-old White House intern, with Jackie Kennedy even claiming that she found knickers in their bedroom.[googlead tip=”lista_mica” aliniat=”stanga”]
The First Lady, Jackie Kennedy had an affair with Hollywood star William Holden
And they go on to reveal that she too had affairs. The first one was with the Hollywood star William Holden, and the other one with Gianni Agnelli, the Fiat founder – as a result of the president’s indiscretions. It has also been claimed that, in the weeks before former president Kennedy’s assassination, the couple had turned a corner in their relationship and were planning to have more children.
According to the historian Edward Klein, who has written several books on the Kennedy family,[googlead tip=”patrat_mic” aliniat=”dreapta”]
“Jackie regarded the pretty young things in the White House as superficial flings for Jack. She did retaliate by having her own affairs. “
“There was a period during which she was delighted to be able to annoy her husband with her own illicit romances.”
JFK, Jackie and Caroline Kennedy, who agreed to the early release the secret tapes in exchange for ABC dropping its $20million “The Kennedys” drama miniseries.
It is also believed that Caroline Kennedy, 53, agreed to the early release of the tapes in exchange for ABC dropping its $20 million the “The Kennedys”drama miniseries.
"The Kennedys" series
“The Kennedys”, starring Tom Cruise’s wife Katie Holmes as Jackie, critically charted the family’s political and personal trials and tribulations since the 1930s. The series was eventually broadcast on an independent cable channel, and on BBC2 in the UK, against Caroline Kennedy’s wishes.
