Five Days in November

August 19, 2013
What this book—whose contents we’ve waited 50 years for—lacks in artistry, it makes up for in immediacy. Hill was one of the Secret Service agents beside J.F.K.’s car at the time of his assassination, and he managed to clamber onto the trunk in an attempt to protect the chief executive and his wife. Hill continues to feel guilty over the president’s death. His account offers new, minute details of the events in Dallas and Washington, D.C., immediately before and after J.F.K.’s death. Sometimes those details are unnecessary and his precise recollection of them seems difficult to believe. But the book’s photographs—some rare, some probably never seen before—are a particular strength. Astonishingly, however, none of them is captioned, nor are any of the locations, figures, or events in them identified. This inexplicable omission is unlikely to dent the book’s appeal to aficionados of the period. But for those less knowledgeable about the Camelot era and its tragic end, the lack of captions represents a lost opportunity.

October 1, 2013
Jackie Kennedy's secret service agent Hill and co-author McCubbin team up for a follow-up to Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) in this well-illustrated narrative of those five days 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Since Hill was part of the secret service detail assigned to protect the president and his wife, his firsthand account of those days is unique. The chronological approach, beginning before the presidential party even left the nation's capital on Nov. 21, shows Kennedy promoting his "New Frontier" policy and how he was received by Texans in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth before his arrival in Dallas. A crowd of more than 8,000 greeted him in Houston, and thousands more waited until 11 p.m. to greet the president at his stop in Fort Worth. Photographs highlight the enthusiasm of those who came to the airports and the routes the motorcades followed on that first day. At the Houston Coliseum, Kennedy addressed the leaders who were building NASA for the planned moon landing he had initiated. Hostile ads and flyers circulated in Dallas, but the president and his wife stopped their motorcade to respond to schoolchildren who held up a banner asking the president to stop and shake their hands. Hill recounts how, after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots, he jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine. He was present at Parkland Hospital, where the president was declared dead, and on the plane when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. Hill also reports the funeral procession and the ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. "[Kennedy] would have not wanted his legacy, fifty years later, to be a debate about the details of his death," writes the author. "Rather, he would want people to focus on the values and ideals in which he so passionately believed." Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2013

As Jacqueline Kennedy's secret service guard, Hill leapt onto the car in Dallas after shots resounded and hung on for the race to the hospital. Here he offers a minute-by-minute insider's account of unfolding events. Interest is building; note that Hill has also authored the best-selling Mrs. Kennedy and Me.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.