Feb. 24 (UPI) — Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who was seen jumping onto the back of a limousine carrying President John F. Kennedy after he was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, has died. Hill died Friday at his home in California at the age of 93.
“It is with a broken heart that I must announce the passing of my remarkable husband, Clint Hill. He died peacefully at home, in my arms on Feb. 21,” his wife, Lisa McCubbin Hill, confirmed Monday in a post on Instagram.
Hill, who was 31-years-old on Nov. 22, 1963, was assigned to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s security detail in Dallas on the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Hill was photographed leaping onto the back of the convertible limousine to shield the president and first lady the instant he heard shots fired.
“I was running as fast as I could, my arm reaching for the handholds on the trunk but it was like my legs were in quicksand,” Hill wrote in his memoir, My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy. “Mrs. Kennedy was climbing out of the back seat, her terrified eyes looking but not seeing me, like I wasn’t there.”
Hill told the Warren Commission that he reacted as quickly as he could, climbing onto the back of the limousine and forcing the first lady back into her seat before the motorcade sped off.
Hill retired early from the Secret Service at the age of 43 after he was consumed with guilt over the president’s death, despite being promoted for his actions that day and receiving Secret Service Awards. Hill said, “It was my fault.”
“If I had reacted just a little bit quicker. And I could have, I guess,” Hill told Mike Wallace on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in 1975. “And I’ll live with that to my grave.”
It is still painful to hear Clint Hill — one of the secret service agents protecting JFK in Dallas – describe his deep guilt for not taking the fatal shot instead of the president. “I’ll live with that to my grave.” pic.twitter.com/jnmNkJBWpI— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) December 4, 2017
Hill eventually came to terms with the assassination and even posted to X last year on the 61st anniversary of Kennedy’s death.
“On Nov. 22, 1963, three shots were fired in Dallas,” Hill wrote in 2024. “The horrific images are still vivid. I was a 31-year-old unknown Secret Service agent, suddenly thrust into history. At 92, I have come to terms with my place in history. I tried. I was unsuccessful, but at least I tried.”
On November 22, 1963, three shots were fired in Dallas. The horrific images are still vivid. I was a 31-year-old unknown Secret Service agent, suddenly thrust into history. At 92, I have come to terms with my place in history. I tried. I was unsuccessful, but at least I tried. pic.twitter.com/WDNncBU1it— Clint Hill (@ClintHill_SS) November 22, 2024
On the day of the assassination, UPI White House reporter Merriman Smith was in the press car four cars behind Kennedy’s open limousine and asked Secret Service agent Hill about the president’s condition.
“How badly was he hit, Clint?” Smith asked after the gunfire.
“He’s dead,” Hill replied curtly, according to Smith. Smith, who called in and dictated the first news bulletin that shots were fired at Kennedy’s motorcade, later won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
In rare footage — an 8mm color film by amateur photographer Bill Carpenter Sr. discovered in 2010 — Hill is seen clinging to the back of the limousine. Hill shielded the first lady as the limousine reached speeds of up to 80 mph. At one point, Hill was reported to have turned to the follow-up car and signaled “a grim thumbs down,” as the motorcade sped toward Parkland Memorial Hospital.
Before joining the Secret Service in 1958, Hill served in the Army and worked as a railroad agent. Hill, who was born in 1932, was raised in North Dakota and attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn.
Hill served under five U.S. presidents, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Gerald Ford, before retiring in 1975. The 1993 Clint Eastwood movie, “In the Line of Fire,” about a former Secret Service agent impacted by the JFK assassination, was inspired in part by Hill.
During his retirement, Hill rarely spoke about the Kennedy assassination, except for his emotional interview with Wallace.
“If I had reacted about five-tenths of a second faster, maybe a second faster, I wouldn’t be here today,” Hill said.
“You mean you would have gotten there and you would have taken the shot?” Wallace asked.
“The third shot, yes, sir,” Hill replied.
“And that would have been all right with you?” to which Hill answered, “That would have been fine with me.”
