Clint Hill, secret service agent who jumped into the car in the murder of John F. Kennedy, dies at age 93. Hill received awards from the Secret Service and was promoted for his actions that tragic day.
Clint Hill, the secret service agent that jumped on the rear of the John F. Kennedy limousine after The president was shotand then he was forced to retire in advance because he was still tormented by the memories of the murder, he has died. I was 93 years old.
Hill died Friday at his home in Belvedere, California, according to his editor, Gallery Books, a Simon & Schuster printing press. A cause of death was not provided.
Although few recognize their name, the images of Hill, captured in the chilling home recording of Abraham Zapruder of the murder, provided some of the most indelible images of Kennedy's murder in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Hill received awards from the Secret Service and was promoted for his actions that day, but for decades he blamed himself for Kennedy's death, saying that he did not react quickly enough and that he would have gladly given his life to save the president.
“If I had reacted a little faster, I could have done it, I suppose,” said Hill, crying, to Mike Wallace in an interview for the “60 minute” program of the CBS chain in 1975, shortly after retiring at 43 years by recommendation of his doctors. “And I will live with that to my grave.”
Only in recent years, Hill said he could finally start leaving the murder behind and accept what happened.
On the day of the murder, Hill was assigned to protect the first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and was mounted on the left stirrup of the follow -up car directly behind the presidential limousine when she advanced through Dealey Plaza.
Hill told the Warren commission that he reacted after hearing a shot and seeing the president collapse in his seat. The president was a deadly shot in the head before Hill could reach the limousine.
Zapruder's recording captured Hill when he jumped from the secret service car, grabbed a handle in the limo trunk and climbed to her while the driver accelerated. He forced the Jacqueline Kennedy, who had dragged on the trunk, back to her seat while the limousine moved away at high speed.
Hill later became the agent in charge of the White House protection detail and eventually a deputy director of the Secret Service, and retired due to what he characterized as a deep depression and recurring memories of the murder.
The 1993 Clint Eastwood Eastwood Thriller “on an exagent of the Secret Service marked by JFK's murder, was inspired by Hill.
Hill was born in 1932 and grew in Washburn, North Dakota. He attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, served in the army and worked as a railway agent before joining the secret service in 1958. He worked in the agency's office in Denver for approximately one year, before joining the group of elite of agents assigned to protect the president and the first family.
Since his retirement, Hill had publicly talked about the murder only a few times, but the most moving was his 1975 interview with Wallace, during which Hill broke several times.
“If I had reacted approximately five tenths of a faster second, maybe a faster second, it would not be here today,” Hill said.
“Do you mean you would have arrived and would have received the shot?” Wallace asked.
“The third shot, yes, sir,” Hill replied.
Clint Hill also became a speaker and gave interviews about his experience in Dallas. In 2018, he received the highest civil honor in the state of North Dakota, the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award. A portrait of Hill adorns a gallery of the Capitol of other honorees.