BOSTON — The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is paying tribute to Clint Hill, the secret service agent who famously jumped onto President Kennedy’s motorcade after the president was shot and killed in Dallas in 1963.
“The JFK Presidential Library and JFK Library Foundation mourn the loss of Clint Hill, a member of President Kennedy’s secret service detail and who was there protecting the President and First Lady on November 22, 1963,” the JFK Library Foundation said in a Facebook post on Monday afternoon.
His publisher, Gallery Books, said Hill died Friday at his home in Belvedere, California, the Associated Press reported. He was 93.
Hill received Secret Service awards and was promoted for his actions on the day of Kennedy’s assassination, the Associated Press reported.
For decades, he blamed himself for the president’s death, and he was forced to retire early because he remained haunted by the memories, the Associated Press reported. In later years, he wrote about his Secret Service years and the Kennedy assassination.
Hill was the secret service agent in charge of Jacqueline Kennedy’s secret service detail. He spoke at a JFK Library forum in September 2011 about his experience protecting the first family, the foundation said in its post.
“He got to know each and every agent by name, called them by name,” Hill said of the slain president in 2011. “Then he knew what your wife’s name was, knew what your children’s names were.”
In 2011, Hill also recalled the frantic moments inside Parkland Memorial Hospital on the day of the assassination, as the first lady watched doctors tried to save the president following the shooting.
He’s credited with there being no photographs taken at the Dallas hospital, where the 46-year-old president was later pronounced dead.
“I knew what she wanted was absolute privacy, and she didn’t want photographs taken of the president,” Hill said of the first lady at the time. “His condition was such that there shouldn’t have been any photographs taken.”
“And so, I just told the photographers and told the White House photographers, ‘No pictures. No photos.’ And they agreed, and they didn’t,” Hill said in 2011.
The first lady insisted on being in the hospital room with her husband, he recalled at the time.
“There were so many doctors involved. I mean, they were doing everything they could to resuscitate him. They worked vigorously to try and get him back to life, but it wasn’t to be,” Hill said solemnly in 2011.
“A priest was called and (the president was) given the last rites, and he was declared dead at 1 o’clock that day,” Hill said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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