Most Popular Books by Lisa McCubbin

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Five Presidents and The Kennedy Detail comes an “insightful and beautifully told look into the life of one of the most public and admired first ladies” (Publishers Weekly)—Betty Ford. Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer is the inspiring story of an ordinary Midwestern girl thrust onto the world stage and into the White House under extraordinary circumstances. Setting a precedent as First Lady, Betty Ford refused to be silenced by her critics as she publicly championed equal rights for women, and spoke out about issues that had previously been taboo—breast cancer, depression, abortion, and sexuality. Privately, there were signs something was wrong. After a painful intervention by her family, she admitted to an addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. Her courageous decision to speak out publicly sparked a national dialogue, and in 1982, she co-founded the Betty Ford Center, which revolutionized treatment for alcoholism and inspired the modern concept of recovery. Lisa McCubbin also brings to light Gerald and Betty Ford’s sweeping love story: from Michigan to the White House, until their dying days, their relationship was that of a man and woman utterly devoted to one another other—a relationship built on trust, respect, and an unquantifiable chemistry. Based on intimate interviews with her children, Susan Ford Bales and Steven Ford, as well as family, friends, and colleagues, Betty Ford is “a vivid picture of a singularly influential woman” (Bookpage).

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller Mrs. Kennedy and Me comes another New York Times bestseller, which reveals never-before-told stories of Secret Service Agent Clint Hill’s travels with Jacqueline Kennedy through Europe, Asia, and South America. Featuring more than two hundred rare and never-before-published photographs. While preparing to sell his home in Alexandria, Virginia, retired Secret Service agent Clint Hill uncovers an old steamer trunk in the garage, triggering a floodgate of memories. As he and Lisa McCubbin, his coauthor on three previous books, pry it open for the first time in fifty years, they find forgotten photos, handwritten notes, personal gifts, and treasured mementos from the trips on which Hill accompanied First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as her Secret Service agent—trips that took them from Paris to London, through India, Pakistan, Greece, Morocco, Mexico, South America, and “three glorious weeks on the Amalfi Coast.” During these journeys, Jacqueline Kennedy became one of her husband’s—and America’s—greatest assets; in Hill’s words and the opinion of many others, “one of the best ambassadors the United States has ever had.” As each newfound treasure sparks long-suppressed memories, Hill provides new insight into the intensely private woman he always called “Mrs. Kennedy” and who always called him “Mr. Hill.” For the first time, he reveals the depth of the relationship that developed between them as they traveled around the globe. Now ninety years old, Hill recounts the tender moments, the private laughs, the wild adventures, and the deep affection he shared with one of the world’s most beautiful and iconic women—and these memories are brought vividly to life alongside more than two hundred rare photographs, many of them previously unpublished. In addition to the humorous stories and intimate moments, Hill reveals startling details about how traveling helped them both heal during the excruciating weeks and months following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. He also writes of the year he spent protecting Mrs. Kennedy after the assassination, a time in his life he has always been reluctant to speak about. My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy unveils a personal side of history that has never been told before and takes the reader on a breathtaking journey, experiencing what it was like for Clint Hill to travel with Jacqueline Kennedy as the entire world was falling in love with her.

The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir by Clint Hill that Kirkus Reviews called “clear and honest prose free from salaciousness and gossip,” Jackie Kennedy’s personal Secret Service agent details his very close relationship with the First Lady during the four years leading up to and following President John F. Kennedy’s tragic assassination. In those four years, Hill was by Mrs. Kennedy’s side for some of the happiest moments as well as the darkest. He was there for the birth of John, Jr. on November 25, 1960, as well as for the birth and sudden death of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy on August 8, 1963. Three and a half months later, the unthinkable happened. Forty-seven years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the one vivid image that never leaves Clint Hill’s mind is that of President Kennedy’s head lying on Mrs. Kennedy’s lap in the back seat of the limousine, his eyes fixed, blood splattered all over the back of the car, Mrs. Kennedy, and Hill as well. Sprawled on the trunk of the car as it sped away from Dealey Plaza, Hill clung to the sides of the car, his feet wedged in so his body was as high as possible. Clint Hill jumped on the car too late to save the president, but all he knew after that first shot was that if more shots were coming, the bullets had to hit him instead of the First Lady. Mrs. Kennedy’s strength, class, and dignity over those tragic four days in November 1963 held the country together. This is the story, told for the first time, of the man who perhaps held her together.

Documents the events leading up to and following the assassination of the thirty-fifth president as revealed by the Secret Service agents who were present, in an account that also draws on letters written by Jackie Kennedy in the immediate aftermath and other previously undisclosed sources.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Kennedy and Me and Five Days in November reflects on his seventeen years on the Secret Service for presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. The assassination of one president, the resignation of another, and the swearing-in of the two who followed those traumatic events. Clint Hill was there, on duty, through Five Presidents. After an extraordinary career as a Special Agent on the White House Detail, Clint Hill retired in 1975. His career spanned the administrations of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald R. Ford. A witness to some of the most pivotal moments in the twentieth century, Hill lets you walk in his shoes alongside the most powerful men in the world during tumultuous times in America’s history—the Cold War; the Cuban Missile Crisis; the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy; the Vietnam War; Watergate; and the resignations of Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Nixon. It was indeed a turbulent time—and through it all, Clint Hill had a unique insider perspective. His fascinating stories will shed new light on the character and personality of each of these five presidents, as Hill witnesses their human sides in the face of grave decisions.

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.

The New York Times bestselling authors of Mrs. Kennedy and Me share the stories behind the five infamous, tragic days surrounding JFK’s assassination—alongside revealing and iconic photographs—published in remembrance of the beloved president on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. On November 22, 1963, three shots were fired in Dallas, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the world stopped for four days. For an entire generation, it was the end of an age of innocence. That evening, a photo ran on the front pages of newspapers across the world, showing a Secret Service agent jumping on the back of the presidential limousine in a desperate attempt to protect the President and Mrs. Kennedy. That agent was Clint Hill. Now Secret Service Agent Clint Hill commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the tragedy with this stunning book containing more than 150 photos, each accompanied by Hill’s incomparable insider account of those terrible days. With poignant narration accompanying rarely seen images, we witness three-year-old John Kennedy Jr.’s pleas to come to Texas with his parents and the rapturous crowds of mixed ages and races that greeted the Kennedys at every stop in Texas. We stand beside a shaken Lyndon Johnson as he is hurriedly sworn in as the new president. We experience the first lady’s steely courage when she insists on walking through the streets of Washington, D.C., in her husband’s funeral procession. A story that has taken Clint Hill fifty years to tell, this is a work of personal and historical scope. Besides the unbearable grief of a nation and the monumental consequences of the event, the death of JFK was a personal blow to a man sworn to protect the first family, and who knew, from the moment the shots rang out in Dallas, that nothing would ever be the same.

Während er sich darauf vorbereitet, sein Haus zu verkaufen, entdeckt der pensionierte Geheimdienstagent Clint Hill einen alten Überseekoffer in der Garage. Als er und seine Frau Lisa McCubbin diesen zum ersten Mal seit fünfzig Jahren öffnen, finden sie vergessene Fotos, handgeschriebene Notizen, persönliche Geschenke und wertvolle Erinnerungsstücke von den Reisen, auf denen Hill First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy begleitete und die sie von Paris nach London, durch Indien, Pakistan, Griechenland, Marokko, Mexiko und Südamerika führten. In seinem neuesten Buch erzählt er zum ersten Mal von der Tiefe ihrer Beziehung, von besonderen Momenten, privaten Lachern, den wilden Abenteuern und der tiefen Zuneigung, die zwischen ihnen bestand. Auch enthüllt Hill, wie er Jackie Kennedy nach der Ermordung von Präsident John F. Kennedy im November 1963 beschützte – und wie ihnen die Reisen beim Heilen halfen. »Meine Reisen mit Mrs. Kennedy« offenbart eine persönliche Seite der Geschichte, wie sie noch nie zuvor erzählt wurde, und lässt das Leben einer der ikonischsten und schönsten Frauen des 20. Jahrhunderts atemberaubend Revue passieren.