Five Days in November

Five Days in November 1 Leaving the White House
The day we left for Texas begins like countless other presidential trips. People hustling through the halls to get last-minute changes to speeches typed; secretaries and press staff clamoring to be added to the manifest of authorized personnel; the presidential staff and assistants coordinating all the details for the president and the first lady. Everyone wants to make sure this trip goes without a hitch. Not only because this unofficial start to the 1964 campaign is critically important politically, but also because First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy will be accompanying her husband on the three-day swing through the Lone Star State. Mrs. Kennedy prefers to stay out of politics and, in the three years of the administration thus far, never before has she traveled with the president on a domestic political trip. This is a first. As the Special Agent in Charge of Mrs. Kennedy's Secret Service Detail, it is my job to make sure nothing happens to her.

As with every trip the President of the United States takes, the schedule is planned to the minute. The political staff has designed the trip to maximize President Kennedy's exposure to the press and the general public, while simultaneously adding funds to the campaign coffer: grand Air Force One arrivals with plenty of pomp and circumstance; multiple motorcades through the main streets of each city; and breakfasts, luncheons, and dinners reserved for deep-pocketed donors.

Typical politics.

It was just yesterday that I returned to Washington with Mrs. Kennedy. She's spent the past several days riding her beloved horse, Sardar, at the Kennedys' newly finished residence near Middleburg, Virginia. After reviewing the typewritten schedule for the trip to Texas, she made some handwritten notes-both for her benefit and mine-about a couple of events she will not attend, and one in which she plans to make a short speech in Spanish. She uses her initials-JBK-for Jacqueline

Clint Hill is a retired United States Secret Service agent who will forever be remembered for his courageous actions in the presidential motorcade during the John F. Kennedy assassination. Assigned to protect Jacqueline Kennedy, Hill remained with Mrs. Kennedy and the children for one year after the tragedy. In 2012, he penned his remarkable memoir, Mrs. Kennedy and Me, which became a #1 New York Times bestseller. Lisa McCubbin Hill is an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author. She is the author of the acclaimed biography Betty Ford: First Lady Women's Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer and coauthor (with Clint Hill) of the New York Times bestsellers Mrs. Kennedy and Me; Five Days in November; Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford; and My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy. She met Clint Hill while writing her first book, The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence (with Gerald Blaine). Previously, Lisa was a television news anchor, reporter, and talk-radio host. In 2021, Lisa McCubbin married coauthor Clint Hill. Visit her at LisaMcCubbin.com.