Jackie Kennedy’s Secret Service Agent Revealed What She Was Really Like Behind Closed Doors

Hill was Jackie’s bodyguard, the man whose job it was to be at her side constantly and protect her from harm. He’d already had experience before he joined her security detail – he had spent the early part of the ’60s protecting President Eisenhower and traveling the world as part of his team. He’s an old man now, but his memory of those days is still sharp.

And Hill remembers being assigned to protect Jackie. He told North Dakota Living magazine in 2013, “I got the word… that I was to go back to Washington for a new assignment. After an intensive interview, they advised me I was going to be assigned to Mrs. Kennedy. I was very disappointed.”

Hill had been crestfallen because the task of keeping the First Lady safe seemed so far away from the excitement of protecting the President. He told the magazine, “I had seen what life was like for the agents assigned to Mrs Eisenhower, Mrs Truman and other First Ladies. It meant they were going to tea parties and fashion shows.”

Straight away Hill had assumed that the assignment would mean “a very dull, boring life, and I didn’t want any part of it.” But of course, he was wrong. He remembered, “As it turned out, it was the best assignment anyone could have ever had, because [Jackie] was so happy and we did so many different things.”

Jackie certainly wasn’t about to be a quiet and submissive First Lady. Before she even married her famous husband she had been noted for her wit, intelligence, style and beauty. And she was ambitious, too. When she’d graduated high school in 1947, she’d had to note in the yearbook what her life goal was. Hers was “not to be a housewife.”

As soon as she was able, Jackie set about revolutionizing the role of the President’s wife. She was determined to make her mark, and one of the first things she did was head a massive project to restore the White House to its former glory. Its historical importance had been forgotten over the years, she thought.

In a 1961 interview with Life magazine Jackie bemoaned the fact that the thousands of annual visitors looking round the historic edifice could see “practically nothing that dates back before 1948.” She went to insist, “Everything in the White House must have a reason for being there. It would be sacrilege merely to ‘redecorate’ it – a word I hate. It must be restored – and that has nothing to do with decoration. That is a question of scholarship.”

Jackie’s project succeeded in every way possible. She started a committee dedicated to preserving historical White House artifacts and had some of the most important pieces restored and put on display. She also worked on the Oval Office, and she’s a big part of the reason it looks as grand as it does today.

Arguably Jackie’s main career during her time in the White House was that of preservationist. She was also involved in preservation issues overseas – something that only enhanced America’s standing in the world. And she won an honorary Emmy Award for hosting a special TV show about the restored White House.

But despite her work improving the residence of America’s head of state, Jackie was actually not particularly interested in politics by all accounts. She tended not to even go with her husband when he made public appearances. Instead, according to Hill, she was utterly devoted to raising her young children.

Hill told North Dakota Living, “She was a very dedicated, devoted mother. She wanted her two children, Caroline and John, to grow up as unspoiled as possible. I always said that was not possible since they were the children of a President. But she really tried in every way to make sure that they didn’t become spoiled.”

The Secret Service agents had to play a role in this too. Hill remembered, “[Jackie] made sure that the agents who were around her didn’t help the children get up if they fell down; if they had a problem like that, that was something they had to handle themselves. We wanted to keep them safe, but she asked us to allow them as much natural growth as children as possible.”

Hill admired Jackie a great deal. Whenever they went overseas, he told the magazine, “Mrs Kennedy would attract large crowds. The president would draw 50,000 people at an event. But, when she was with him, the crowd would be 100,000 – it would double.” Indeed, the agent described Jackie’s star factor as “a definite diplomatic asset for the United States.”

It probably goes without saying that Jackie’s life is of interest to Hollywood. The story of her time in the White House, which came to such an infamously tragic end, has often been played out on screen. Actresses including Katie Holmes, Jacqueline Bisset, Ginnifer Goodwin and Natalie Portman have all portrayed her.

Of all those performances, Portman’s is probably the best-known today. She played the starring role in 2016’s Jackie, directed by Pablo Larraín and written by Noah Oppenheim. The actress, who was already highly acclaimed as a performer, earned her second Academy Award nomination for playing the grieving Mrs Kennedy.

In 2017 Portman talked with magazine The Hollywood Reporter about the difficulties of playing a famous historical figure. She said, “It’s different if they’re still alive – then you have this responsibility to them. So maybe it was freeing, in a way, knowing that she wasn’t going to watch it, you know?”

But there’s one person who wasn’t so sure about the much-praised film – Clint Hill. He was, after all, a witness to many of the events the movie depicted, and he didn’t feel like the film captured the real Jackie Kennedy at all. In 2017 he told the I newspaper about his issues with Jackie.

Hill said in the exclusive interview, “I walked away shaking my head because of the inaccuracies in the film. They made [Jackie] seem like she was a chain smoker, when she was not – she did smoke, but it wasn’t continuous. They invented that she drank heavily and she did not.”

And he was angry that the filmmakers had invented some scenes, too. Hill told the magazine, “They had her coming to me and asking me a question about the assassination and she asked me what caliber gun it was – that never happened.” Unsurprisingly, Hill still vividly remembers all the details of that event.

Hill’s issue wasn’t with Portman’s actual performance though. The former agent told The Hollywood Reporter, “She did a remarkable job, especially in her speaking. I know that it had to have been very difficult and she must have worked very hard. It would be great if she could win the Oscar.” Of course, in the event Portman missed out, with Emma Stone scooping the gong for La La Land.

Actor David Caves plays Hill in Jackie, but he doesn’t get a lot of screen time. Hill expressed frustration about that in the interview, saying “From the time the assassination occurred through to the funeral, I was with [Jackie] every waking moment.” He also added that Oppenheim hadn’t consulted him about the screenplay.

Hill said of Jackie, “I was really her confidant. We were very, very close. She and I had a wonderful relationship, very professional. We discussed many things. When she went to Italy in 1962, she didn’t take any staff with her except for her personal assistant, her maid and me. I ended up being her social secretary, her press secretary, her ambassador.”

Though many years have passed since Jackie’s death, Hill continues to write about her, the relationship they shared, and life at the White House when the Kennedys were there. Books he’s written include Five Days in November and Mrs. Kennedy and Me. He also talks in interviews about the woman he saw when the cameras were off.

In 2013 when asked to describe his former friend, Hill told North Dakota Living, “Most people saw Mrs Kennedy as a Barbie doll sitting on a pedestal. That’s not who she was. She was really down-to-earth – a very elegant and classy lady, but she had a very bawdy sense of humor.”

And she had plenty of hobbies outside of her restoration work, too. Hill remembered her as “very active and athletic,” and said, “She loved to ride horses and was an excellent horsewoman. She loved to water-ski, loved to play golf, loved to play tennis, and walk. It kept me on my toes.”

While protecting Jackie, Hill might have even invented a new cocktail along the way. The “Clint” – a double Campari, a single vodka, soda, ice and an orange slice – was apparently created by Hill himself in 1962 when he accompanied the First Lady for a sailboat vacation on Italy’s Amalfi coast.

Hill has an Instagram account now, and he often shares stories about Jackie on there. In May 2019 he made a post marking the 25th anniversary of Jackie’s death from cancer. Sadly, his own mother had passed away on the exact same date 20 years prior to Jackie, so it bore a lot of significance to him.

On that landmark date Hill wrote on Instagram, “I was fortunate to know Mrs Kennedy on a personal level and I have fond memories of our time together in India, Pakistan, Morocco, Italy, and France, as well as Palm Beach, Hyannis Port, and Middleburg, VA. I can still see the joy on her face as she rode her favorite horse across the Virginia countryside.”

He finished, “Yes, she had the grace, dignity, and style that people still write about to this day, but to me, she will always be that woman the public didn’t see. We went through so much together, Mrs Kennedy and me. More than anyone can imagine. More than anyone can ever know.” Yet there is one intriguing period of Jackie’s life that Hill was not present for. We’re talking about her time on the island of Skorpios with Aristotle Onassis.

Situated on the Ionian Sea, Skorpios is one of the Greek Islands. It lies to the west of the mainland and east of Lefkada island. And while the private retreat is unusual in its shape, it roughly covers an area of 3,280 feet by 4,921 feet. Today, it boasts sandy beaches and thick forests. This, however, wasn’t always the case.

That’s because Skorpios was largely barren when Aristotle “Ari” Onassis purchased it as a private retreat back in 1962. The Greek shipping tycoon bought the land for 3.5 million drachmas, which is the equivalent of around $12,000 in today’s money. And Ari soon set about transforming the arid island into an inviting idyll.

In order to create a tranquil retreat, then, Ari imported more than 200 types of trees to Skorpios. He then established great forests running the whole length of the island to make for a leafy landscape. And alongside helping to create widespread woodlands, he also made East Beach with sand taken from Greece’s Salamis Island.

So in Ari, Jackie seemingly found love and some semblance of security, and the couple married in October 1968. At the time of their wedding, the shipping magnate was 23 years older than his new bride. Yet despite Ari also being one of the richest men on the planet, his nuptials with the former first lady were surprisingly intimate.

The couple actually married in a traditional Greek Orthodox service. Jackie’s children – Caroline and John Jr. – were both involved in the celebration, as was Lee Radziwill, the bride’s sister. The nuptials were also attended by approximately 40 guests who were largely family members and close friends of the pair.

And following the couple’s wedding on Skorpios, they and their guests boarded the businessman’s super yacht Christina for the reception. The island would therefore remain a special part of the pair’s lives and formed one of their six residences. Aside from the private island, you see, the newlyweds owned homes in Paris, Manhattan, New Jersey and Athens — and they also lived on board the Christina.

So thanks to the couple, Skorpios became one of the best known private islands on the planet. The retreat’s fame, however, came at a cost to the pair’s own privacy. In 1971, in fact, Jackie was snapped sunbathing naked on one of the island’s beaches. The photographs were subsequently published in Italy in 1972, provoking outrage in the States.

It turned out that Settimio Garritano had taken the revealing nude photographs of Jackie. The Italian paparazzo had actually managed to gain access to Skorpios by pretending to be a gardener. And after learning that the former first lady sometimes sunbathed naked, he took a boat to her preferred spot and hid the vessel behind some undergrowth.

From Garritano’s concealed position, then, he leered on as Jackie undressed until she was completely nude. In 2009 the photographer confessed that he’d struggled to believe the rumors about her habits at first. He told The Telegraph, “It didn’t seem possible.”

But as Garritano had peeked out from behind the undergrowth, he had seen Jackie laid bare with his own two eyes. He later revealed, “Suddenly, she appeared and wandered around the patio area. I concentrated on just taking the pictures, not composing them. It was a matter of moments, not even minutes.”

At first, though, Garritano had struggled to sell the nude images that he’d captured of Jackie. That’s because a number of editors had simply refused to print them. However, the snaps then appeared in a 1972 edition of Italian magazine Playmen. And while the decision to print the pictures caused a stir in the former first lady’s native U.S., her husband seemed unconcerned by the uproar.

Following the furor that the naked photographs created, you see, Ari reportedly said, “Sometimes I take my clothes off to put on a bathing suit. So does my wife.” The images were eventually published by the American magazine Hustler in 1975 too. That edition consequently became the publication’s all-time best-seller.