Clint Hill, Who Sprang to Kennedys' Side as Shots Were Fired, Dies at 93

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, irisblue:

Mon Feb 24, 2025: Sec Service agent Clifton Hill who covered Mrs Kennedy in Dallas has passed to glory

From question everything:

Mon Feb 24, 2025: Clint Hill, Secret Service agent who leaped onto JFK's car after the president was shot, dies at 93

Clint Hill, Who Sprang to Kennedys’ Side as Shots Were Fired, Dies at 93

A Secret Service agent, he leaped onto the president’s limousine in Dallas in 1963 and was credited with saving the first lady’s life. But he was haunted by his inability to save her husband.


The Secret Service agent Clint Hill clambered onto the trunk of President John F. Kennedy’s limousine in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, moments after shots were fired. As the first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, tried to climb out of her seat, he pushed her back, preventing her from falling to the ground. He was credited with saving her life. James W. Ike Altgens/Associated Press

By Richard Goldstein
Feb. 24, 2025, 2:32 p.m. ET

Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who leaped onto President John F. Kennedy’s limousine as it came under fire in Dallas and prevented a scrambling Jacqueline Kennedy from falling to the ground, died on Friday at his home in Belvedere, Calif. Mr. Hill, hailed for his bravery but long tormented by his inability to save the president’s life, was 93. ... His death was announced on Monday by Jennifer Robinson, his publicist.

It is a signature image of the Kennedy assassination, reproduced in an Associated Press photograph and the amateur motion picture footage known as the Zapruder film: A figure in a business suit grasps the trunk of the presidential limousine as Mrs. Kennedy, in her pink outfit and matching pillbox hat, climbs onto the rear of the auto. ... Mr. Hill, the man in the suit, who was assigned to protect Mrs. Kennedy, pushed her back into her seat, alongside her mortally wounded husband.

“I think Special Agent Clinton Hill saved her life,” David F. Powers, an aide to Mr. Kennedy who was riding in the backup Secret Service car, later told the Warren Commission investigating the president’s assassination. ... Mr. Powers said that Mrs. Kennedy “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.’’

Thirteen days after the assassination, in a ceremony attended by Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Hill received the highest award bestowed by the Treasury Department — the agency that oversaw the Secret Service at the time — for his “extraordinary courage and heroic effort in the face of maximum danger.”

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Mr. Hill hovered over the back seat of the president’s limousine as the car rushed to a Dallas hospital. Associated Press

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Mr. Hill appeared with Mrs. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and others as President Kennedy’s coffin was moved from Air Force One to an ambulance on arriving at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. Wally McNamee/Corbis, via Getty Images

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The CBS newsman Mike Wallace, right, interviewed Mr. Hill and his wife at the time, Gwendolyn Brown Hill, for a segment of “60 Minutes” in 1975. Mr. Hill spoke of feelings of guilt about not having saved President Kennedy’s life. via Getty Images

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Mr. Hill at a book-signing event in Coral Gables Fla., in 2014 promoting his 2013 account, “Five Days in November.” A 2012 memoir had been a best seller. Vallery Jean/FilmMagic, via Getty Images

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[LoisB]

1. R.I.P., Mr. Hill, you did your best.