Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir by Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin (4 stars)

Clint Hill has written a very personal account of his time protecting first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. It casts Mrs. Kennedy in a positive light and doesn't raise any scandal, as you may expect from someone writing about their former employer and not interested in burning their bridges. It also gives the reader a good insight into the lives of the first family and what it's really like to be a Secret Service agent on protective detail. Protecting the first lady is considered a second-string detail compared to the president, but despite that, Clint Hill was amazingly steadfast in his devotion to the job and obviously had a strong personal relationship to the family.

Mr. Hill assumed great personal cost to do his job. He was rarely home, and Mrs. Kennedy's choices to travel constantly and evacuate DC at every opportunity essentially blocked him from being involved in his child's early years.

As a taxpayer I was fairly horrified by the immense costs incurred by Mrs. Kennedy's jet-setting lifestyle. Lavish vacations overseas and semi-official tours of India and Pakistan driven by personal interest were all huge logistical operations for the secret service that would have resulted in large costs borne by the taxpayer.

While it's tempting to see these visits as pure junkets, I somewhat agree with this statement that building personal capital via the first lady can be useful for the leader of the free world. Sadly he probably didn't get the chance to call in these favors:

You don’t even realize the impact you have, how much you are admired, how you just single-handedly created bonds between the United States and two strategic countries far better than any diplomats could have done.

For Mr. Hill the Secret Service job was everything from security and logistics to shopping for swimsuits and transporting horses gifted to Mrs. Kennedy back to the US:

Thus it was that I became a frequent shopper on Worth Avenue, buying swimwear for the president, toys for the children, and personal items for Mrs. Kennedy. This was not in the job description the Secret Service had for me, but it was just one more way to make life a lot easier and less confrontational for Mrs. Kennedy. She appreciated my efforts, and I considered it a good protective move to remove her from public exposure as much as possible.

...all I could think was how the hell are we going to get this damn horse back to Washington? 

It's an interesting read, even if it skips over the more scandalous events such as rumored affairs, and Hill's own deep personal struggles after JFK's death.

4 stars.