Five Days in November by Clint Hill with Lisa McCubbin

Clint Hill is the Secret Service agent assigned to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy during the Kennedy presidency. It is Mr. Hill in that iconic home movie footage who is seen jumping onto the trunk of the presidential limousine to push Mrs. Kennedy back down into the car after it passed the Book Depository in Dallas that fateful day in November of 1963.  

This book, with its many glossy photos and relatively scant text is essentially a coffee table book, but it does thoroughly chronicle the assassination and funeral of the President from the vantage point of Mr. Hill who was a constant presence during that time.  I felt it was worthwhile going through it.

Mr. Hill is a man with a story to tell; by the end of his career as a Secret Service agent he had served under five presidents.  I highly recommend this interview with Mr. Hill before even picking up any of his books.  He is a dispassionate storyteller (though he does finally share how the assassination impacted him personally) and he remains impartial about politics and personalities which allows the reader to distill what Mr. Hill has to say and then form one’s own opinions about the high pro-file people and events Mr. Hill encountered in his career.