Clint Hill, the secret service agent who jumped on the back of the limousine of President John F. Kennedy after the president was shot, died at the age of 93.
Hill died on Friday in his house in Belvedere, California, according to his publisher, Gallery Books, a print by Simon & Schuster. A cause of death was not given.
The heroic agent was forced to retire early in his career because he remained chased by memories of the murder.
Although few perhaps recognize his name, the images of Hill, recorded on the horrifying home film of the murder of Abraham Zapruder, some of the most indelible images of Kennedy's murder in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Hill received Secret Service Awards and was promoted that day for his actions, but the fault was blamed for the death of Kennedy for decades and said that he did not respond quickly enough and would have liked to have given his life to save the president.
'If I had responded a little faster. And I think, I thought, “A crying hill told Mike Wallace 60 minutes from CBS in 1975, shortly after he retired at the age of 43 at the insistence of his doctors. “And I will live in my grave.”
It was only in recent years that Hill said he could finally start putting the murder behind him and accepting what happened.
On the day of the murder, Hill was assigned to protect First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and drove on the left -hand board of the follow -up car directly behind the presidential limousine when it makes its way through Dealy Plaza.
Clint Hill, a member of the Late First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's Secret Service Detail, speaks to the media after he had laid a wreath on the JFK -Teston Beyond the Hilton Hotel in 2013
President John F. Kennedy sinks down in the backseat of the presidential limousine while it accelerates along Elm Street in the direction of the Freeway Viaduct of Votmons in Dallas, Texas, after he has been deadly shot, November 22, 1963. Lady Jacqueline Kennedy leans About the president as the president as the president as the president as Secret Service Agent Clint Hill pushes her back to her chair
Hill told the Warren committee that he responded after hearing a shot and seeing the president in his chair. The president was hit by a fatal headshot before Hill was able to reach the limousine.
The Zapruder film conquered Hill when he jumped out of the car of the secret service, grabbed a handle on the trunk of the limousine and pulled himself on while the driver accelerated. He forced Mrs. Kennedy, who crawled on the trunk, back in her chair while the limousine ran away.
Hill later became the agent who was responsible for the protective detail of the White House and ultimately an assistant director of the secret service, retired because of what he characterized as deep depression and recurring memories of the murder.
The 1993 Clint Eastwood -thriller in line with Vuur, 'about a former agent of the secret service by the JFK murder, was partially inspired by Hill.
Hill was born in 1932 and grew up in Washburn, North Dakota. He went to the Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, served in the army and worked as a railway police officer before he joined the secret service in 1958. He worked in the office of the Agency for about a year before he was assigned to the elite group of agents to protect the president and first family.
Since his retirement, Hill has publicly talked about the murder only a handful of turning, but the most moving was his interview from 1975 with Wallace, in which Hill broke several times.
“If I had responded about five tenths of a second faster, maybe a second faster, I wouldn't be here today,” Hill said.
“You mean that you would have come there and you would have made the shot?” Asked Wallace.
Clint Hill lives the New York Première at 'Always At The Carlyle' in the Paris Theater on May 8, 2018
“The third shot, yes, sir,” Hill said.
“And that would have been good to you?”
“That would have been good for me,” Hill replied.
In his Memoires from 2005, “Between You and Me,” Wallace remembered his interview with Hill as one of the most moving of his career.
In 2006, Wallace and Hill reunited on 'Larry King Live' from CNN, where Hill credited that first 60 minutes of interview with him to finally start the healing process.
“I have to thank Mike for asking to do that interview and then to thank him more because he is what I have led me to finally come to terms with things and to bring out the emotions where they pop up,” he said . “It was because of his questions and the things he asked to recover.”
Decades after the murder, co -author of various books – including 'Mrs. Kennedy and Me 'and' Five Presidents' – About his secret service with Lisa McCubin Hill, whom he married in 2021.
“We had that unique love that everyone hopes for,” said McCubbin Hill in a statement. “We were soul mates.”
Clint Hill also became a speaker and gave interviews about his experience in Dallas. In 2018 he received the state of the highest civil honor of North Dakota, the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award. A portrait of Hill adorns a capitol gallery of colleague -Honores.
A private funeral service will be held on a future date in Washington, DC.
