At the beginning of the year, President Eisenhower’s approval rating had been as high as 77 percent, but by June, as a result of the U-2 incident and the increased East-West tensions, it had plummeted to 50 percent. The perceived loss of respect by the American people, combined with the growing threat of nuclear war, was devastating to the president. Then, in July 1960, things went from bad to worse.
Eighteen months earlier, thirty-six-year-old Fidel Castro had overthrown the longtime dictator of Cuba, and while the United States initially recognized the new Castro regime, Eisenhower subsequently severed diplomatic relations when Castro took over American-owned oil refineries that had been operating in Cuba for fifty years. In the ensuing months, Castro had become increasingly cozy with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, and on July 9, Khrushchev declared Cuba—which lies just ninety miles off the coast of Florida—a Russian satellite, threatening to use Soviet missiles against the United States “in case of necessity.”
Eisenhower responded publicly with a sharp warning that the United States would not tolerate the establishment of a regime dominated by international Communism in the Western Hemisphere. Behind the scenes, he had already authorized a Central Intelligence Agency plan to train a group of Cuban refugees to overthrow the Castro regime.
At this time, the 1960 presidential campaign was starting to get into full swing, and despite the president’s decline in popularity, it was widely accepted that Vice President Richard M. Nixon would have no trouble becoming the Republican nominee. For the Democrats, a young senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy was rising in the polls against the other major candidates, Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas and Adlai Stevenson II, the party’s nominee in the previous two elections. On July 14, 1960, at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Kennedy succeeded in receiving the party’s nominee for president. His decision to add his chief rival, Lyndon Johnson, to the ticket as vice president came as a shock to many, but appeared to be a shrewd move to fortify the party and strengthen the Democratic national ticket in the South.
Eleven days later, President Eisenhower flew to Chicago to attend the Republican National Convention in support of Vice President Nixon. His arrival there was as grand a reception as we had seen all over the world, with showers of confetti raining down on the motorcade as he rode through the downtown streets in an open-top car. The outpouring of respect for President Eisenhower was so phenomenal that even in the diehard Democratic areas of Chicago, people were hanging out of windows, cheering. Not surprisingly, Nixon received the nomination, with Henry Cabot Lodge as his running mate.
In the weeks before and after the convention, President and Mrs. Eisenhower vacationed in Newport, Rhode Island, staying in the commandant’s house at Fort Adams. It was a nice respite, not only for the president, but for the agents as well. Even though it was termed a “vacation,” the president still conducted meetings with visiting dignitaries and government officials and had daily National Security Council briefings. But no matter the situation, we could pretty much bet on eighteen holes of golf at the Newport Country Club on an almost daily basis. The ninety-two-foot presidential yacht, Barbara Anne—named after President Eisenhower’s first granddaughter—was sailed up from Washington, and while Eisenhower had rarely used the yacht previously, he delighted in using it almost every day as transportation between Fort Adams and his office at the Newport naval base. In order to protect the president on the water, the Secret Service had several small maneuverable jet boats that we used to provide a perimeter of security around the Barbara Anne. A group of Navy personnel drove the boats, while one or two agents would be aboard each one, responsible for keeping other watercraft a significant distance from the presidential yacht. Growing up in Washburn, North Dakota, my only previous experience with water activities had been swimming in the Missouri River, and now here I was zipping along the rocky Rhode Island coastline dotted with extraordinary mansions.
Between the trips to Newport, the convention, and a trip out to Denver somewhere in the middle, we had been away from Washington for a full month. It was great to get back home to Gwen and Chris, but somehow my own apartment hardly felt like home anymore. Chris had changed from a toddler into a little boy with a growing vocabulary, and Gwen had, out of necessity, become much more independent. There was always an adjustment period, and it didn’t seem to be getting easier. Being away from home was part of the job. If you didn’t like it, there were plenty of guys who’d jump at the chance to take your place.
ON THE MORNING of September 29, we got word that Mrs. Eisenhower’s mother, Mrs. Elvira Doud, had passed away at her home in Denver. She was eighty-two years old and had been ill for quite some time, but still, the news came with the sadness that death always brings.
A very private funeral was held at Mrs. Doud’s gray-brick home at 750 Lafayette Street, with just family and close friends. I was standing outside the house, keeping an eye on the crowd that had gathered across the street, when Mrs. Eisenhower came outside.
“Agents?” she called out in a soft voice, her eyes damp with tears. “I know some of you spent time here over the years. We’d like those of you who protected my mother to please join us for the service.”
It was, in the midst of her grief, a surprising but thoughtful gesture that showed the type of person Mrs. Eisenhower was, and I was touched to be included.
I nodded, walked toward her, and said, “I’d be honored, Mrs. Eisenhower.”
“Thank you for all you did for her,” she replied with a sad smile. “She appreciated all of you so much.”
The service was brief but very personal to the family, and as I stood there with my head bowed, the memories of those many nights on duty, right here in this house, swept through my mind: eating those horrible sandwiches Mrs. Eisenhower’s sister Mike made for the agents; spending nighttime hours reading President Eisenhower’s paperback Western novels; and, of course, the unforgettable night we carried the nurse’s dead body down the stairs and quietly slipped her into the coroner’s car. It had been an unusual assignment my first year in the Secret Service, and I was honored to be standing there alongside the Eisenhower family as we mourned Mrs. Doud together.
ON OCTOBER 14, 1960, President Eisenhower officially became the oldest U.S. president when he turned seventy. It called for a grand celebration, and someone decided it would be a good idea to invite the general public to a party on the White House lawn. The gates were thrown open, and six thousand people flooded onto the South Grounds.
When President Eisenhower emerged from the South Portico, the crowd burst into a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday,” after which he walked along the temporary fence line that had been installed, shaking hands, pinching ears, and patting heads of youngsters, and graciously accepting small gifts while trading quips with the people in the crowd.
It was a short event, and agents were spaced around the crowd, but in 1960 there were no magnetometers, no snipers on the roof, no attack dogs. Looking back now, I shudder at the thought. But those were different times. We were still living in an age of innocence.
IN THE WEEKS leading up to the election, President Eisenhower did very little campaigning for Vice President Nixon—in large part because Mrs. Eisenhower and the president’s physician intervened. They were so concerned about Ike’s stress level that they convinced Nixon to dissuade the president from accompanying him. In the final week, however, the race had become so close that the Republicans had to pull out all the stops, especially in New York, where forty-five electoral votes were on the table, and Kennedy appeared to have the lead. It was time to bring in the GOP’s biggest asset, the President of the United States.
A daylong swing through New York was set for November 2 that included two rallies in different cities, a ticker tape parade through Manhattan ending with a rally in Herald Square, and an evening rally at the New York Coliseum. I was one of four agents assigned to do the advance, and as we had just a few days to get all the logistics and police reinforcements lined up for each location, we had no time to spare. Special Agent Stu Knight—who would later become director of the Secret Service—was in charge, and he assigned me the motorcade and Herald Square rally.
Nixon’s campaign staff had devised the general plan, and it was up to us to implement it. The motorcade would begin in the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan and end at Herald Square at Thirty-fourth Street and Broadway—a distance of more than four miles through the canyons of high-rise buildings in the most densely populated city in America, with the president and the vice president traveling together in an open-top car. The event was scheduled for noon, a time when people would naturally be emerging from their offices to go to lunch, and with many side streets blocked off by uniformed police officers, there would automatically be a massive crowd, making it look like the entire city of New York was Republican. I was not at all familiar with New York City, but having traveled around the world with President Eisenhower, I knew this would be a security nightmare.
Fortunately, a couple of agents from the New York City Secret Service Field Office were assigned to assist me. New York was their territory, but most important, they had a great relationship with the New York City Police Department and the city’s Bureau of Special Services and Investigations (BOSSI). These guys knew the city inside and out—not only the names and locations of every medical facility and specialist in case of emergency but also where potential trouble spots were throughout the city and who might stir up problems. My biggest concern was how to corral overflow crowds on the sidewalks and streets to allow the police motorcycles and the vehicles in the motorcade plenty of space to move. Two weeks earlier, Senator Kennedy had campaigned here, drawing uncontrollable crowds estimated at well over a million, in a scene similar to what we’d seen in New Delhi and Manila. It was my responsibility to make sure that didn’t happen during President Eisenhower’s visit.
The weather was crisp and cool on Wednesday, November 2, a perfect day for a fall parade, and New York City was abuzz. The Nixon campaign people had released the motorcade route to the press a couple of days earlier, and the crowds had started gathering up and down Broadway. Our relationship with the NYPD had paid off, and the city’s entire force was called in to assist with security. Preparations started at dawn, blocking off side streets, strategically posting officers along the parade route and speech sites, and readying mounted officers on horseback for additional crowd control.
At 11:55 a.m. President Eisenhower arrived at the 30th Street Heliport, right on schedule. We whisked him to the beginning of the parade route in lower Manhattan, where a string of cars filled with dignitaries was lined up and ready to go. Tens of thousands of people packed the area, turning Wall Street into a sea of people, with NIXON FOR PRESIDENT banners and WELCOME TO OUR COUNTRY’S FIRST TEAM signs bobbing overhead. The Republican committee had supplied tons of multicolored paper to the high-rise offices, and as soon as Nixon and Eisenhower emerged, a swirling blizzard of confetti poured down from above as the crowd erupted into cheers and applause.
When I saw the president and vice president climb into the back of Secret Service car 4-B—the black presidential convertible—I jogged to the front of the motorcade. The chief of the NYPD and SAIC Al Whitaker of the New York Field Office were in the pilot car out front, and as the advance agent for the motorcade, I would ride in the front passenger seat of the lead car—the car immediately in front of the presidential limousine—guiding the long string of cars behind us.
The portable radio crackled with the voice of the supervising agent in the follow-up car: “Providence departing.”
Using Eisenhower’s code name, it was the signal that the president was ready.
“That’s it,” I said. “Let’s go.” A team of NYPD motorcycle officers, lights flashing, pulled out ahead of us, and the motorcade was under way.
As we traveled up Broadway, hundreds of thousands of people were jammed on the sidewalks behind police barricades, while thousands more draped themselves out of windows, hurling bucketsful of confetti as we crept along at ten miles per hour. It felt like we were driving through Times Square on New Year’s Eve, and Vice President Nixon was in his glory, standing up in the back of the car, his arms outstretched to the cheering throng, getting a taste of what it would feel like to be president after having spent eight long years in Eisenhower’s shadow. Sitting a few feet behind him, Ike was perched on the backseat, waving and smiling, mindful that this was Nixon’s day to be in the limelight.
The sole purpose of this parade was for the candidate to be seen by as many people as possible, and from that standpoint, it was a roaring success. From where I was sitting, this entire situation—the president and the vice president riding together in a slow-moving open-top car, in broad daylight, surrounded by a million unscreened people—could hardly have been any more tense.
Fortunately, the NYPD did an outstanding job of crowd control, and while everyone was covered in confetti, we made it without incident to Herald Square. The president gave some glowing remarks about Nixon, took a few minor stabs at Kennedy’s lack of experience, and then turned the stage over to Nixon. As Nixon finished his stump speech, we got Eisenhower back in the car and drove straight to the Waldorf-Astoria, where, once the president was safely in his suite, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.
ON ELECTION DAY, Tuesday, November 8, while President Eisenhower helicoptered to Gettysburg to vote, I was assigned to secure the suite at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington, where Ike intended to visit vice presidential candidate Henry Cabot Lodge before giving a speech to supporters in the Grand Ballroom. If Nixon and Lodge won the election, I was instructed to remain there to protect Mr. Lodge.
At some point well after midnight, Mr. Lodge came out of the suite and said, “Agent, you might as well go home. We have lost the election.”
I couldn’t just leave without authorization from my supervisor, so I stayed at my post outside the door until shortly after dawn, when I got the word that I could go home. Throughout the night, I imagined what it would be like to protect the newly elected president, John F. Kennedy. I didn’t know much about him other than the fact that he was a forty-three-year-old senator from Massachusetts, and would be the first Catholic president of the United States. He seemed to have a vibrant, charming personality, and surely the mere age difference between Kennedy and Eisenhower would be an adjustment.
I thought back on the twelve months I’d been on the White House Detail—the privilege of traveling all over the world, witnessing historic events—experiences most people would never have in an entire lifetime. And in that time, those of us who made up the small group of Secret Service agents that covered the president had developed into a tight-knit team, bonded by our shared experiences. When we were away from Washington, we worked together, ate together, and often slept together in shared hotel rooms. We trusted and relied on each other like brothers. As the hours passed and I thought ahead to the future, I looked forward to being assigned to the new president.
THE DAY AFTER the election, President Eisenhower headed straight to Augusta for some post-election golf. The mood on the plane was somber, and some of the secretaries were even crying as they came to terms with the reality of their personal situation. Many had expected that Nixon would win and they would continue at the White House, but now Kennedy would be bringing in his own people. They would all have to find new jobs.
Ike played eighteen holes that afternoon, and when he was finished, Special Agent in Charge Rowley called two other agents and me into his office. Rowley explained that he needed to reassign some of the agents in order to continue covering President Eisenhower, as well as President-elect Kennedy, until the Inauguration on January 20.
Rowley told the other two guys to pack their bags and catch a flight to Palm Beach, Florida, to join the President-elect Detail. Kennedy was staying at his father’s residence there, and intended to stay through the holidays as he sorted out his administration. An uneasy feeling started to come over me as Rowley was talking, and I wondered why I wasn’t included and going with them.
Finally, he turned to me and said, “Clint, Defense Secretary Tom Gates is here briefing the president and is returning to Washington shortly. I want you to fly back with him, then go to Secret Service headquarters and talk to Chief Baughman. The chief is expecting you.”
My heart sank. Why? Why aren’t I going to Palm Beach? Have I done something wrong? Am I being fired? I had a dozen questions, but I simply answered, “Yes, sir.”
Like the secretaries on the plane down to Augusta, I was suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding.