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The Kennedy Detail (Enhanced Edition)

JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence

Foreword by Clint Hill

About The Book

Enhanced with stunning videos and photographs throughout, illustrating the impact of Kennedy’s presidency and death, the true story of the critical events leading up to and following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in full for the first time by the Secret Service agents who were firsthand witnesses to one of America’s greatest tragedies, and have lived for forty-seven years with unresolved guilt and grief.

Drawing on the memories of his fellow agents, Jerry Blaine captures the energetic, crowd-loving young president, who banned agents from his car and often plunged into raucous crowds with little warning. Here are vivid scenes that could come only from inside the Kennedy detail: JFK’s last words to his tearful son when he left Washington for the last time; how a sudden change of weather led to the choice of the open-air convertible limousine that day; Mrs. Kennedy standing blood-soaked outside a Dallas hospital room; the sudden interruption of six-year-old Caroline’s long-anticipated sleepover with a friend at home; the exhausted team of agents immediately reacting to the president’s death with a shift to LBJ and other key governmental figures; the agents’ dismay at Jackie’s decision to walk openly from the White House to St. Matthew’s Cathedral at the state funeral.

Most of all, this is a look into the lives of men who devoted their entire beings to protecting the presidential family: the stress of the secrecy they kept, the emotional bonds that developed, the terrible impact on agents’ psyches and families, and their astonishment at the country’s obsession with far-fetched conspiracy theories and finger-pointing. A book fifty years in coming, The Kennedy Detail is a portrait of incredible camaraderie and incredible heartbreak—a true, must-read story of heroism in its most complex and human form.

About The Authors

Photograph by Mauch Studio's Grand Junction

As a Special Agent of the Secret Service on the White House Detail, Gerald “Jerry” Blaine had the privilege of serving three U.S. presidents during one of the most tumultuous times in American history.  After resigning from the Secret Service following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Blaine embarked on a career path with IBM Corporation and became a leading expert in high-level security, lecturing worldwide on the use of computers in Criminal Justice and Intelligence. In 1990, Blaine retired from IBM and joined ARCO International Oil and Gas in Dallas, Texas as the Director of International Security, Government Relations and Foreign Affairs. After retiring from ARCO in 1999 Blaine spent four years with Hill & Associates, an Asian-based consulting company, as a Senior Consultant, and finally retired from the corporate world in 2003.  He now lives in in Grand Junction, Colorado with Joyce, his wife of more than fifty years. The couple has two children and four grandchildren.

Courtesy of Barbara Vaughn Photography

Lisa McCubbin Hill is an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author. She is the author of the acclaimed biography Betty Ford: First Lady Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer and coauthor (with Clint Hill) of the New York Times bestsellers Mrs. Kennedy and MeFive Days in November;  Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford; and My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy. She met Clint Hill while writing her first book, The Kennedy DetailJFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence (with Gerald Blaine). Previously, Lisa was a television news anchor, reporter, and talk-radio host. In 2021, Lisa McCubbin married coauthor Clint Hill. Visit her at LisaMcCubbin.com.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Gallery Books (November 12, 2010)
  • Length: 448 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781451631739

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