Clint Hill, Secret Service agent who tried to save John F. Kennedy, dies

BarcelonaClint Hill, the US Secret Service agent who threw himself into the back of President John F. Kennedy's limousine after the first shots were fired at the moment he suffered the assassination attempt that ended his life, died last Friday at the age of 93, according to his publisher, Galler, this morning.

Few people may recognize his name, but they will surely have seen his image in the famous and historic recording of the shooting made by Abraham Zapruder. This citizen, who was recording the passage of Kennedy's motorcade through Dealey Plaza, captured one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the 20th century in the United States, on November 22, 1963, in Dallas.

That day Hill was assigned to protect the first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, and was traveling in a car behind the presidential vehicle when the first shot was heard. He immediately ran to the limousine in which the couple was travelling and began to climb in as a second shot rang out. President Kennedy died as a result of that shot, which hit him in the head. The first bullet entered his shoulder and exited his throat, also wounding Governor John Connally, according to the final official report of the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination.

Recurring memories of the assassination

Hill was promoted for his actions and later became the agent in charge of the White House protective detail. He eventually rose to become assistant director of the Secret Service. Despite his various decorations, he felt guilty for decades about Kennedy's death. He believed he had not reacted quickly enough and claimed he would have gladly given his life to save the president's. Hill retired at the age of 43 at the urging of his doctors because of deep depression and recurring memories of the assassination.

"If I had reacted five-tenths of a second faster, maybe a second faster, I wouldn't be here today," Hill said in a 1975 interview on the program 60 minutes "You mean I would have gotten there in time and gotten shot?" asked the interviewer, Mike Wallace. "Yes, sir... I would have been fine with that," he replied. "I feel very guilty about that. If I had turned in another direction I would have gotten it. It's my fault. I'll live with this until I die." In recent years the former officer had said that he had begun to accept what had happened, but claimed that he had not yet forgiven himself. In an interview with CBS News last year he still replied that "maybe there was something I could have done" when asked if he still felt guilty.

His life and his actions in Dallas on the day of the assassination served as the basis for the film In the line of fire (1993), by Wolfgang Petersen, a film that tells the story of agent Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood), a veteran of the Secret Service who was part of the team in charge of protecting John F. Kennedy on the day of his assassination. Tormented by guilt for not having been able to save him, Horrigan is still active thirty years later, but is questioned by some of his colleagues for his age. Finally, he has the opportunity to redeem himself by preventing the president's death in a new assassination attempt. But Clint Hill never got a second chance.

Hill was born in 1932 in Washburn, North Dakota. Before joining the Secret Service in 1958, he enlisted in the Army and worked as a railroad agent. After leaving the profession, he became a lecturer and author of several books about his experience in the Secret Service. In 2021, he married journalist Lisa McCubbin, after meeting in 2009 while writing his memoirs. Mrs. Kennedy and me. An intimate memoirIn 2018, he was awarded the highest civilian honor the state of North Dakota can bestow, the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award.