CNN
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Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who died Friday, on November 22, 1963, encountered the fire boundary to protect President John F. Kennedy and the First Lady of Dallas. He was 93 years old.
Hill’s heroic scramble to protect Jackie Kennedy in the moment after the president was shot and killed became an indelible image of the 1963 assassination. Bouncing across the back of the limousine, pushing the first lady down from the trunk of the car into her seat covering her and the fatally wounded president.
In a statement Monday, the US Secret Service praised Hill’s “unwavering dedication and exceptional service.”
“Clint’s career exemplified the finest ideals of public service,” the statement said. “We lament the loss of our respected colleagues and our dear friend, whose contributions to our agency and nation will be remembered forever.”
Hill was assigned to the First Lady detail that day, riding in the car just behind the president while the motorcade drove the Dealey Plaza. As the shot rang, Hill jumped over the dashboard and said he was looking at Kennedy as he lowered his thumb to the other Secret Service agents as the car was spitting out.
That day, Hill remained tortured by his memory, speaking in a sparse number of public interviews he had conducted over the years.
“I had a responsibility to protect the president that day and there was a sense of failure,” Hill told CNN’s Jake Tupper years later.
“I was the only person who had the opportunity to do something,” he said. “The way everything was developed, how all other agents were placed, I was the only person who had the opportunity to get to the car and do anything. And I couldn’t get there quickly enough. .”
Born in Lalimore, North Dakota, Hill, given the code name “Dazzle” as an agent, he also served under four other US presidents: Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
He was ultimately forced to retire at 43 due to post-traumatic stress disorder from Kennedy’s assassination. In a statement Monday, the Hill family said his service in the White House will span the Cold War, Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of JFK and his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights He said. Movement, the Vietnam War, and Watergate.
He was survived by his wife, Lisa McCubin Hill, son and grandchildren, the statement said.
