I returned to my seat in the forward section of the aircraft as Mrs. Kennedy joined Vice President and Mrs. Johnson for the swearing-in ceremony. I stood behind Kellerman with Colonel James Swindal, the pilot of Air Force One, at my side, and we watched Lyndon Johnson become the thirty-sixth president of the United States.
Colonel Swindal went back to the cockpit, I took my seat, and Air Force One lifted off the runway from Love Field in Dallas. It was 2:47 P.M.
The flight to Andrews Air Force Base was marked with a solemn, sad, quiet atmosphere. And yet, there was work to be done and plans to be made. The Johnson administration people were calling and planning for their future. The Kennedy people were subdued but making plans as to what to do on arrival in Washington. It was decided to have the autopsy conducted at Bethesda Naval Hospital since President Kennedy was a former naval officer. We would go there by motorcade. President Johnson would go by helicopter to the White House.
THERE WAS A large crowd waiting when we arrived at Andrews, at 5:58 P.M. Air Force personnel and their families, members of the cabinet, the House and Senate, the diplomatic corps, the media—they were all there to pay their respects to the assassinated president, and his young widow.
As soon as Colonel Swindal brought the plane to a stop, the front steps were put in place and the Air Force moved in a hydraulic lift at the rear door of the plane, to lower the casket down to ground level.
I had moved to the rear of the aircraft to be near Mrs. Kennedy. There was a flurry of activity in the front section, and bursting down the aisle, not paying attention to anyone, came Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He embraced Mrs. Kennedy and touched the casket, his eyes filled with tears.
Several of us moved the casket onto the lift, and then Mrs. Kennedy, the attorney general, and members of the fallen president’s staff surrounded the casket as it was lowered to the ground. Agents, staff members, and Air Force personnel helped place the casket in the waiting Navy ambulance.
Bobby Kennedy, Mary Gallagher, Mrs. Kennedy, and Clint Hill watch as casket is loaded into Navy ambulance
Mrs. Kennedy once again insisted on riding in the back with the president. This time the attorney general joined her. On the plane, Mrs. Kennedy had requested Bill Greer drive the ambulance.
He was the president’s driver. He should have the honor of driving him one last time.
Roy Kellerman, Dr. Burkley, and Paul Landis joined him in the front seat. I rode in the car immediately behind the ambulance with Dr. John Walsh and members of President Kennedy’s “Irish Mafia”—Ken O’Donnell, Dave Powers, and Larry O’Brien.
The forty-five minute drive to Bethesda Naval Hospital seemed endless. Sitting in the front seat, staring at the taillights of the ambulance. The events of the day playing over and over in my head. The sounds of grown men weeping in the backseat. Tears would well up in my eyes, and I’d blink them back. Swallow hard.
WHEN WE ARRIVED at Bethesda, the body was taken to the autopsy room accompanied by Dr. Burkley, and Agents Roy Kellerman and Bill Greer. Paul and I escorted Mrs. Kennedy to the presidential suite on the seventeenth floor. We set up a security post as friends and family began to arrive to see Mrs. Kennedy. Paul and I were the only ones that could identify these people, so we became the gatekeepers. Phones were ringing, people were coming and going, and yet the night was going by very slowly. We were waiting for the autopsy procedure to be completed and it was nerve-racking.
At about 2:45 A.M., the phone rang. It was Roy Kellerman.
“Clint, we need you to come down to the autopsy room.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll be right down.”
I left the seventeenth floor with Paul in charge and went to the autopsy room. As I approached the door Kellerman stepped out and said “Clint, before the autopsy is closed, I need you to come in and view the president’s body.”
I had a good idea as to why I had been selected to do this. I knew I had to do it, but I dreaded it. I simply nodded to Kellerman that I understood.
“I know this isn’t going to be easy,” he said, “but we decided that since you are the closest to Mrs. Kennedy, it’s important for you to see the body, in case she has any questions.”
I took a deep breath, as Kellerman opened the door.
Lying on a table, covered with a white sheet, was the body of President Kennedy. Only his face was exposed, and it looked like he was sleeping.
Bill Greer was there, and Dr. Burkley, and General Godfrey McHugh, President Kennedy’s Air Force aide. There were additional people I did not recognize. A man in a white coat stood beside the table. I’m sure they told me his name, but it didn’t register.
The man gently lowered the sheet just enough to expose the president’s neck, and he began describing the wounds to me. A wound in the front neck area where a tracheotomy had been performed at Parkland Hospital in an effort to revive the president. He said it covered an exit wound. Then, rolling the president gently over to one side, he pointed out a wound in the upper back, at the neckline, quite small. This, he said, was the entry wound that corresponded to the exit wound at the throat.
Moving the body back and slightly to the left he pointed out the wound in the upper-right rear of the head.
I swallowed hard, listening closely, as the doctor explained what had happened. It appeared that the impact of the bullet hitting the president’s head was so severe, it caused an explosive reaction within the makeup of the skull and brain, so portions of the brain erupted outward, and a portion of the skull
