He Was Promoted, But He Blamed Himself for JFK's Death

Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who leaped onto the back of John F. Kennedy's limousine after the president was shot, then was forced to retire early because he remained haunted by memories of the assassination, has died. He was 93. Hill died Friday at his home in Belvedere, California, according to his publisher, Gallery Books. A cause of death was not given. Although few may recognize his name, the footage of Hill, captured on Abraham Zapruder's chilling home movie of the assassination, provided some of the most indelible images of Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, the AP reports. More footage showing Hill's actions emerged last year.

• Hill received Secret Service awards and was promoted for his actions that day, but for decades blamed himself for Kennedy's death, saying he didn't react quickly enough and would gladly have given his life to save the president.

• "If I had reacted just a little bit quicker. And I could have, I guess," a weeping Hill told Mike Wallace on CBS' 60 Minutes in 1975, shortly after he retired at age 43 at the urging of his doctors. "And I'll live with that to my grave." It was only in recent years that Hill said he was able to finally start putting the assassination behind him and accept what happened.
• On the day of the assassination, Hill was assigned to protect first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and was riding on the left running board of the follow-up car directly behind the presidential limousine as it made its way through Dealey Plaza. Hill told the Warren Commission that he reacted after hearing a shot and seeing the president slump in his seat. The president was struck by a fatal headshot before Hill was able to make it to the limousine.

• Zapruder's film captured Hill as he leaped from the Secret Service car, grabbed a handle on the limousine's trunk and pulled himself onto it as the driver accelerated. He forced Mrs. Kennedy, who had crawled onto the trunk, back into her seat as the limousine sped off.
• Hill grew up in North Dakota. He served in the Army and worked as a railroad agent before joining the Secret Service in 1958. After the assassination, he became the agent in charge of the White House protective detail and eventually an assistant director of the Secret Service, retiring because of what he characterized as deep depression and recurring memories of the assassination.

(More Clint Hill stories.)