Clint Hill, agent who leapt on to JFK’s car after US president was shot, dies at 93
Secret Service agent was promoted for his actions in Dallas on November 22, 1963 but for decades blamed himself for Kennedy’s assassination
Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who leapt on to the back of John F Kennedy’s limousine after the US president was shot, then was forced to retire early because he remained haunted by memories of the assassination, died on Friday. He was 93.
Hill died at home in Belvedere, California, according to his publisher, Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. A cause of death was not given.
Although few may recognise his name, the footage of Hill, captured on Abraham Zapruder’s chilling home movie of the assassination, provided some of the most indelible images of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Hill received Secret Service awards and was promoted for his actions that day, but for decades blamed himself for Kennedy’s death, saying he did not react quickly enough and would gladly have given his life to save the president.
“If I had reacted just a little bit quicker. And I could have, I guess,” a weeping Hill told Mike Wallace on CBS’ 60 Minutes in 1975, soon after he retired at age 43 at the urging of his doctors. “And I’ll live with that to my grave.”
It was only in recent years that Hill said he was able to finally start putting the assassination behind him and accept what happened.
