The purpose of the vice president’s trip to Southeast Asia was to further the Nixon Doctrine—urging Asian nations to develop economic balance and self-sufficiency without relying on the United States to bail them out—but at the same time reassuring Asian leaders that the United States intended to stand by its treaty obligations. In addition to the typical staff and press people on the trip, Vice President Agnew had invited Apollo 10 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Tom Stafford, and their wives, to join him. As head of the space program, Agnew and his wife, Judy, had become good friends with some of the astronauts and their wives—several times we had taken the vice president to backyard barbecues at the Cernans’ home—and it was thought that bringing the astronauts along would add some star power to the trip.
On a personal level, I was fortunate to be able to spend quite a bit of time with both Cernan and Stafford on this extended trip, and it was truly an honor and a privilege.
We departed from Andrews Air Force Base on December 26, 1969, and, after a refueling stop at Travis Air Force Base, headed to Hawaii for an overnight stay, then on to Guam, finally landing in Manila, Philippines, on Monday, December 29. The trip coincided with the inauguration of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, who had recently been reelected for a second term. There was a large contingency of detractors who despised Marcos’s connection to the United States, however, and there had already been a number of threats to Marcos’s life. Vice President Agnew’s planned attendance at the inauguration only added fuel to the fire.
I had vivid memories of the last time I was in Manila with President Eisenhower in June 1960, when four million people lined the motorcade route and nearly overwhelmed us with their exuberance. President Eisenhower was a hero to the Phillippine people, and America was held in the highest esteem. Now, less than a decade later, the world had changed dramatically. Anti-American protestors had come to be expected almost everywhere we went—be it in the United States or abroad. And just six months earlier, in this same city, a potential assassination attempt on President Nixon had been thwarted. Everyone was on the highest alert.
The advance agent did an excellent job of keeping the airport crowd restricted to a few hundred people, and after Agnew made a brief statement, we got into the prepositioned cars and headed to the presidential Malacañang Palace, where the vice president and his party would be staying. The crowds were relatively small, with hundreds of Phillippine police and security agents out in force.
We had time for just a brief rest and a change of clothes before it was time to go to the evening event—a formal reception in honor of Vice President Agnew at the U.S. Embassy. Meanwhile, a group of about one hundred protestors had gathered outside the embassy and were awaiting the vice president’s arrival.
It was a two-mile drive between the palace and the embassy, and I rode in my standard position—in the right front passenger seat—with Vice President Agnew directly behind me in the rear of the car. We had insisted on closed-top cars—no convertibles—and knowing Agnew as well as I did, I was not concerned that he might try something like Nixon had.
As we got closer to the embassy, we could hear chanting: “Agnew go home! Go home!” and soon we came upon the crowd, many of them carrying signs that said: AGNEW GO HOME—YOU’RE NOT WELCOME HERE! and AGNEW—CROCODILE OF THE U.S.
Just as we approached the embassy gate, I heard an explosive noise that came from behind. My head whipped around toward the noise, and I saw a plume of white smoke about fifteen feet behind our car.
“Get inside, fast!” I said to the driver. At the same time, the agents in the follow-up car jumped out and surrounded our car and ran alongside until we got inside the embassy gate.
It turned out to be what they called a Molotov “bomb”—a glass bottle filled with powdered explosive material (as opposed to a Molotov “cocktail,” which contains liquid explosives)—and while it had given us a jolt, even if it had hit the car, it would not have caused significant damage. The vice president was unfazed, and fortunately no one was hurt. But most of all, I was pleased with the way our agents had handled the situation.
The U.S. press made it seem like a much bigger deal than it actually was, with headlines like: “Agnew Eludes Assassins at Manila Inauguration” and “Filipino Hurls Bomb at Agnew’s Auto.”
Some of the articles—written by reporters who knew me well—mentioned me by name: “Secret Service agent Clint Hill sat in front of Agnew. Hill, in charge of U.S. security for the Agnew visit, is the man who jumped on the convertible of President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.”
I certainly didn’t want any publicity, and I hoped this incident was not indicative of what we could expect for the rest of the trip.
The security at President Marcos’s inauguration was extremely tight and well executed. There were five thousand people in the crowd, and when Vice President Agnew was introduced, there was polite clapping. Moments later, Apollo 10 astronaut Eugene Cernan was presented to the crowd, and the place erupted with a thunderous roar of applause, whistles, and cheers.
That turned out to be the case everywhere we went. Cernan was with us on the first leg of the trip, and Stafford would join us a few days later; and every time they appeared, they were a big hit. The astronauts had brought trunks full of gifts along with them—unique gifts straight from space. For each country’s leader, slivers of moon rock were encased in plastic bubbles mounted on wooden stands that contained the recipient country’s flag. They’d also present a photo of the country taken from space, and each time it was given, Cernan would quip, “If you look closely, you can see your house.” The leaders loved it. No doubt about it, the astronauts were major diplomatic assets.
AS THE CALENDAR turned from the 1960s to the 1970s and people around the world were celebrating with champagne and kisses, I was on Air Force Two, headed to Saigon, South Vietnam, with Vice President Agnew. While en route, we received the weekly casualty report: in the last week of 1969, 86 Americans had been killed and 557 wounded. That number pushed us over a sobering milestone—in the past ten years that the United States had been involved in the Vietnam conflict, 40,000 Americans had died. It was hard to fathom. One could only hope that Nixon’s plan would get us the hell out of this mess.
On arrival at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vice President Agnew immediately boarded a helicopter and we flew to meet with President Thieu at Independence Palace. From there we were scheduled to fly by helicopter thirty-seven miles northwest to Firebase Kien—the first gun base operated jointly by U.S. and South Vietnamese troops under President Nixon’s “Vietnamization” plan as part of the Nixon Doctrine. But while the vice president was meeting with Thieu, I received information that there had been sniper fire in the area around the base. I gathered as much information as I could, and when Agnew came out of the meeting, I pulled him aside.
“Mr. Vice President, we have substantiated reports of sniper fire near Firebase Kien, where we were planning to go next. Now, I am not too concerned, but I wanted to make sure you are fully aware of the situation. Do you want to proceed as scheduled?”
“I’ll leave it up to you, Clint,” he said. “If you think we can go, let’s go.”
“Yes, sir. Let’s play it by ear. I’ll stay on top of the situation, and if we need to turn back at the last minute, we can do that.” That was typical of my relationship with Agnew. He trusted my judgment and never questioned my decisions.
We went ahead as planned, and fortunately didn’t run into any trouble. Agnew remained upbeat, and he clearly enjoyed talking with the servicemen.
“People back home are pretty darned proud of you and what you’re doing over here,” he said to one group. “Don’t be misled by what you might read in some publications. It just doesn’t reflect the feeling of the American people about the job that’s being done by American fighting men in Vietnam.”
The young men, in general, seemed in high spirits, but at one point as the vice president was shaking hands with a group of GIs, one of them looked at him earnestly and asked, “Mr. Vice President, when will we be going home?”
I took a deep breath and squinted, looking away, as I waited to hear how the vice president would answer. How many had asked the same question—if not directly, in their minds or in their prayers? Forty thousand of them hadn’t come home. I didn’t want to think how many of these soldiers would die here too.
Agnew didn’t try to lie to the young man. He looked him directly in the eye and said, “I hope for your sake you’ll be out soon. But I don’t know what soon means.” The soldier nodded, and the vice president moved on down the line.
We stayed for just fifty minutes and then flew to Fire Base Patton, where Agnew told the troops of the 25th Infantry Division, “I hope this year is the end of this.”
Meanwhile, President Nixon had flown to his coastal residence in San Clemente, California, to spend a quiet New Year’s Eve with his family, followed by a two-week working vacation at the Western White House. Four thousand people had been waiting in the rain for hours to greet him at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. For nearly fifteen minutes, he and Mrs. Nixon shook hands with an exuberant crowd, and when a reporter asked him what his hopes were for the New Year, he said, confidently, “I expect peace in Vietnam before another Christmas.”
In the past ten years, four presidents had tried to find a way to resolve the situation peacefully and with honor. None had struggled more than President Johnson. But now President Nixon was in the hot seat, and the eyes of the world were on him.
THE REST OF our trip through Asia went well, without any major incidents. From Taipei to Bangkok and on to Nepal, moon rocks were handed out at every stop, and the astronauts continued to be immensely popular.
From Nepal we flew in a propeller-driven DC-6 to Kabul, Afghanistan. This was a nostalgic moment for me, as I remembered arriving at the same airport in 1959 with President Eisenhower on his multination tour, driving on the same roadway past similar crowds of Afghan people in turbans and bright-colored robes. The airport and roadways built with the aid and assistance of the Soviets. There was a smattering of anti-American, antiwar demonstrators—one held up a sign that said: STOP KILLING VIETNAM PEOPLE—but very few. Everything looked the same as it did in 1959, with the exception of a new Intercontinental Hotel—a plush oasis in the center of rather primitive surroundings.
From the cool remoteness of Kabul we flew three thousand miles to tropical Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was nighttime as Air Force Two descended into the modern, prosperous Malaysian capital, and with the tall buildings all lit up, it seemed like we had passed through a time warp from Nepal and Afghanistan.
We had recognized during the pre-survey trip that security in Kuala Lumpur would need to be extremely well planned and orchestrated in light of some strong anti-American sentiment there. In the days leading up to the vice president’s arrival, left-wing political groups circulated pamphlets attacking Agnew’s visit and U.S. policy in Vietnam. Some of the language was very harsh, demanding revenge for the death of a Chinese man shot during anti-American protests when President Johnson visited in 1966. Additionally, riots between the Malay and Chinese factions had been ongoing for the previous seven months, and 1,200 citizens had been killed.
Throughout the trip, I had been pleased with the security arrangements made by the advance agents, and in Kuala Lumpur once again they had done an outstanding job. The sixteen-mile motorcade into the city was well secured, with armed military personnel lining the route and helicopters flying surveillance and cover overhead as we drove from the airport to the Merlin Hotel.
The official activities started early the next morning and included a visit to the Malaysian Rubber Institute for a tour. The vice president’s attempt to slice open a rubber tree to watch the oozing of the latex failed, but astronaut Tom Stafford, who had joined the trip in Nepal, was successful, much to the amusement and pleasure of the Malaysian officials. Agnew appeared to be getting upstaged by the astronauts at every turn, but he didn’t seem to mind a bit. He had a great sense of humor, and he knew how much their presence had added to the success of the trip.
From Kuala Lumpur it was on to Singapore for a relatively relaxing one-night stay that included a round of golf with the prime minister, and then to the Indonesian isle of Bali.
During the advance, we realized that everyone would be exhausted by this point in the trip, and, as it turned out, we were. We had scheduled a stop in Bali as an unofficial visit for rest and recuperation purposes—having just visited eight countries in eleven nights—before heading to Australia and New Zealand. The only problem was that it was the weekend of Super Bowl IV—the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Minnesota Vikings—and there was no coverage in Bali, which was disappointing to the vice president.
On Tuesday, January 13, we left the tropical paradise and had an easy five-and-a-half-hour flight to Canberra, Australia. Prime Minister John Gorton and officials of the Australian government were there to meet the vice president on arrival, as well as a small group of very vocal antiwar demonstrators. We skirted around them with no problems and then drove directly to the Australian War Memorial. Apparently word had gotten out that we would be there, and there were upward of three hundred people surrounding the monument, many of them holding signs that said: AGNEW IS A DIRTY FASCIST PIG, BEWARE OF GIFT BEARING GREEKS, and MOON ROCKS AND MURDER.
As we got out of the car, the agents and I stayed close to Vice President and Mrs. Agnew, who tried to ignore the chanted slurs as they walked into the courtyard of the elegant white stone monument building. The vice president placed a wreath on the tomb and seemed quietly contemplative as he spent some time reading some of the names of those who had been killed in various wars. When we came out of the monument, Vice President and Mrs. Agnew waved to the crowd—which responded with a chorus of both boos and cheers. Suddenly, a small group started throwing tomatoes, and we rushed to get into the cars before anyone was hit by a splattering red mess.
That evening a dinner was held at the prime minister’s residence, and we were receiving reports that antiwar groups were bringing in busloads of demonstrators from Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide for a protest the next day at Parliament House during the time Agnew was scheduled for a cabinet luncheon meeting there. Fortunately, only about two hundred showed up. They shouted “Go home, you murderer!” at the vice president and “Go home, CIA!” at the agents working the outer perimeter—lots of people confuse the Secret Service with the Central Intelligence Agency, but we are two distinctly different organizations. Vice President Agnew’s response to these protests was usually to smile and wave—acting like it didn’t faze him a bit—but after a while, I would think that anyone would get tired of being called such terrible names on a regular basis.
We faced similar protests in New Zealand two days later. Large numbers of protestors battled with police near the Intercontinental Hotel in Auckland, shouting and waving signs with creative messages like WE IMPUDENT SNOBS ARE FOR PEACE, but we managed to get into the hotel without incident. I was informed early the next morning that a man who appeared to be emotionally disturbed had entered the hotel overnight and threatened to kill Vice President Agnew. He was swiftly arrested and taken into custody.
The next day we got a respite from the ever-present protestors as we flew by helicopter across the lush countryside, landing near a town called Whatawhata in the Waikato region, where the Agnews toured sheep, cattle, and stud horse farms. The bucolic reprieve was much appreciated by all of us but short-lived, for the protestors were back in force that evening outside the hotel, chanting “One, two, three, four, kick Agnew, end the war!” as the Agnews attended a state dinner.
The angry mobs and the arduous country-hopping schedule had taken a toll on the entire vice presidential party, and the next day, as we took off in Air Force Two and headed back to the United States, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
It was always a good feeling when we landed on American soil after a foreign trip, but landing in Honolulu, where they greet you with garlands of flowers, was especially nice. It was the perfect way to start a few days of rest before returning to Washington. The only appointment on the vice president’s schedule was a Sunday-morning meeting with Admiral John McCain, Commander in Chief, U.S. Forces Pacific (CINCPAC).
When we got the Agnews checked into the Kahala Hilton near Diamond Head, I discovered that Arnold Palmer and his wife were also guests, and I had an idea.
“Mr. Vice President,” I said, “we’ve learned that Arnold Palmer is staying here this weekend. Would you be interested in playing a round of golf with him if I could arrange it?”
Agnew looked at me with wide eyes. “Of course I’d be interested, Clint. The question is, would he want to play with me?”
“Well, I know he enjoyed playing with President Eisenhower—I got to know him a little bit during my days with Ike—and I’d be happy to make the introduction.”
“Wow, Clint,” Agnew said. “Sure. That would be a great opportunity.”
I contacted Mr. Palmer, and he said he’d be honored to play with the vice president, so a golf game between the two was arranged. They got along so well that Palmer and his wife and the Agnews ended up having dinner together as well.
Despite the consistent protests, the trip had been very successful overall, but to end it with a golf game between the vice president and one of his golf idols was a nice final note.
SHORTLY BEFORE WE had embarked on the Asian trip, I had been advised that when we returned, I was being promoted to Deputy Assistant Director of Protective Forces (DAD-PF), and my office would move to Secret Service headquarters. I had very mixed emotions about this promotion. I recognized it was an acknowledgment of my work, but I was enjoying my position as SAIC of VPPD, and I hated to leave. The Vice President’s Detail was like a family. We worked well together, relied on each other for support, and trusted each other implicitly.
During the year I had been with Vice President Agnew, I had seen him go from “Who is Agnew?” to being number three on the Gallup poll’s most admired list—just behind President Richard M. Nixon and the Reverend Billy Graham. It seemed people either loved him or despised him.
At the time, Mickey Mouse watches had become very popular, and there was a joke going around that Mickey Mouse wore a Spiro Agnew watch. A creative entrepreneur manufactured watches modeled after the Mickey Mouse watch that had a caricature of Spiro Agnew on the face, with his arms spinning around pointing to the time with red-gloved hands permanently affixed in a “V” sign. The Spiro Agnew watches were hugely popular, and I just happen to have one.
For me personally, I got along very well with Vice President Agnew and his wife, Judy. They were genuinely kind, fun-loving, and family-oriented, and they treated all the agents with a great deal of respect.
That weekend in Hawaii, I tried to stay out of everyone’s way, letting my assistant, Sam Sulliman—who would be taking over as SAIC—and his deputy, John Simpson, begin to take charge. I spent most of the time sitting on the balcony of my hotel room overlooking the beautiful waves crashing onto Waikiki Beach, trying not to think about the past, yet wondering what a future behind a desk might hold.