Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who jumped into action to protect Jackie Kennedy immediately after President John F. Kennedy was struck by an assassin’s bullets, died at his home in Belvedere, California, on Friday. He was 93.
Hill’s death was announced by his publicist, Jennifer Robinson, The New York Times reported. The decorated Secret Service agent is known for jumping onto the back of the Kennedys’ limousine moments after the president was shot in Dallas in 1963. In video footage of the assassination, Hill — who was assigned to protect the first lady — is seen running toward the limo and jumping onto the back of the vehicle as Jackie reaches for his help. Hill pushed Jackie back into her seat, protecting her from potentially falling off the back of the limo.
Kennedy aide David F. Powers later told the Warren Commission, which was tasked with investigating the assassination, that “Special Agent Clinton Hill saved [Jackie’s] life.” Powers added that Jackie “probably would have fallen off the rear end of the car and would have been right in the path of the other cars proceeding in the motorcade.’’ In the limousine, Hill recalled hearing the first lady say, “My God! They have shot his head off!” Hill then turned to the Secret Service agents in the car behind them and gave them a thumbs down, according to The Washington Post.
After JFK’s death, Hill continued working in the first lady’s security detail through the 1964 presidential election. Hill said that he became close friends with both President Kennedy and Jackie and was often invited to their social gatherings as a guest, not just as an agent on duty.
Hill retired from the Secret Service in 1975, but not before he became the assistant director in charge of all protective forces. Hill was also given the highest award given by the Treasury Department, which previously oversaw the Secret Service, 13 days after the JFK assassination for his “extraordinary courage and heroic effort in the face of maximum danger.”
In an op-ed for the Times in 2010, Hill wrote about the assassination that changed the trajectory of American history. According to Hill’s account, immediately after the first shot rang out, he turned to locate where the sound came from and then “scanned the presidential limousine and saw the president grab at his throat and lurch to the left.”
“I jumped off the running board and ran toward his car. I was so focused on getting to the president and Mrs. Kennedy to provide them cover that I didn’t hear the second shot,” Hill wrote. “I was just feet away when I heard and felt the effects of a third shot. It hit the president in the upper right rear of his head, and blood was everywhere. Once in the back seat, I threw myself on top of the president and first lady so that if another shot came, it would hit me instead.”
In an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN in 2012, Hill said he’s “always felt a sense of guilt” for President Kennedy’s death on his watch.
“I was the only agent present that had an opportunity to do anything because of the way everything happened,” Hill said. “When the shots came in from the right rear because I was on the left running board and my vision took me across the back of the president’s car, I saw the president grab at his throat and lunge to his left; I knew something was wrong. None of the other agents could do that because when they looked toward the shot, they looked away from the president’s car. So I was the only one who really had a chance, and that has [eaten] at me throughout the years.”
In 2021, Hill married journalist and author Lisa McCubbin with whom he collaborated on multiple books including “Five Days in November” and “My Travels With Mrs. Kennedy.” Hill is survived by his wife along with his two sons, Chris and Corey, whom he had with his first wife, Gwendolyn Brown. He is also survived by five grandchildren and two step-grandsons.