Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who attempted to shield President John F. Kennedy on the day of his assassination, passed away at the age of 93 on February 21st, 2025.
Clint Hill was born on January 4th, 1932, in the small town of Larimore, North Dakota. Hill’s biological mother was unable to care for him, so he was baptized and handed over to the North Dakota Children’s Home. He was adopted by Chris and Jennie Hill, who raised him alongside their other adopted child, Janice. Hill was an active student in school, participating in many activities such as football, baseball, and band. After graduating in 1950, Clint Hill attended Concordia College in Minnesota but frequently returned to his hometown to work in various jobs which consisted of building the Garrison Dam: “was a surveyor’s helper for the McLean County Engineers Office; worked on farms for his aunts and uncles; and did various jobs for the Holtan Mercantile Company in Washburn – the first of which paid him 18½ cents per hour.” stated on the website of the Governor of North Dakota.
Hill attended college and intended to teach history, but he was required to serve in the military. Clint Hill served for about 3 years, where he was trained as a Counter-Intelligence Agent. By age 26, “Hill was accepted into the U.S. Secret Service in the Denver field office. One year later, he was assigned to the elite White House Detail responsible for protecting President Dwight D. Eisenhower. When President John F. Kennedy was elected, Hill was one of two agents assigned to protect First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.” In the aftermath of the Kennedy Assassination, “Clint Hill rose within the Secret Service and became the Special Agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, and in 1971, during the Richard M. Nixon administration, he was promoted to Assistant Director, responsible for all Secret Service protective forces.” At the age of 43, Clint Hill would retire as an Agent of the Secret Service, although he was haunted by the fact that he could have saved President Kennedy.
On the day of Clint Hill’s passing, NPR wrote an article that brought up the 60-minute interview he did back in 1975. In this interview, Hill broke down: “If I had reacted about five-tenths of a second faster, maybe a second faster, I wouldn’t be here today,” Hill said.
“You mean you would have gotten there and you would have taken the shot?” Wallace asked. “The third shot, yes, sir,” Hill said. “And that would have been all right with you?” “That would have been fine with me,” Hill responded. In 2006, in an interview with the Late Larry King, Clint Hill gave credit to the 60-minute interview, stating that it helped me recover: “I have to thank Mike for asking me to do that interview and then thank him more because he’s what caused me to finally come to terms with things and bring the emotions out where they surfaced,” he said. “It was because of his questions and the things he asked that I started to recover.”
Clint Hill was an extraordinary man whose service has inspired many, and his story should never be forgotten. Hill wrote several memoirs and interviews, one of which we will share to commemorate the life of Clint Hill. In the following paragraphs, we will look at one of the presentations Clint Hill did a few years ago, titled Protecting Jacqueline Kennedy. The summary includes quotes from the outlined transcript of the presentation.
Summary of Protecting Jacqueline Kennedy
This presentation was delivered with this statement: “So, knowing that we were going to have this interest in Jacqueline Kennedy, we thought who would be better to help launch our Forum Series for this fall and open up this discussion about Jacqueline Kennedy, especially during her years in the White House, than Clint Hill?”
One of the first questions addressed to Clint Hill, from Tom Putman, the host, was whether he (Clint Hill) had always imagined joining the Secret Service and how his life brought him to that moment. Clint Hill said that from a young age, he had no intention of joining the Secret Service, stating that his original plan was “to be a teacher teaching history and coaching athletics. And, when I finished college, I had to go into the army. And the first thing after basic training, they selected me to go to army intelligence school. And I became a special agent in counterintelligence for the Department of the Army.” After 3 years, in his final year of serving the army, he came across the Secret Service and was assigned to the city of Denver, Colorado. It was the people he got to meet there and President Eisenhower’s frequent visits to the area that sparked Hill’s curiosity to continue this path.
When describing his experience while protecting Eisenhower, Hill mentioned Eisenhower’s rank of a 5-star general and how Eisenhower would say “Hey, agent!” when he needed something. Clint Hill also mentioned how quick Eisenhower was, including a moment that followed with laughter: “If they were supposed to leave the house at 9:05, at 9:04:58, he was in the car ready to go.” In light of all this, Clint Hill recalled Eisenhower’s trip on a jet, in which he traveled to various countries in Europe, South America, “you name it,” Hill stated. This was an unforgettable experience for Hill, as he had never been on a jet plane before, and this was an exciting moment in his life.
Another question addressed to Hill was about his family. Clint Hill had his first son in 1956, and he stated he was gone for about 60 percent of the time. At this point of the conversation, he brought up the time he was first assigned to Jacqueline Kennedy, former first lady of the United States. He recalled himself in Augusta, along with other agents, who were working the golf course the day after the election. Hill’s boss came up to him and said he urgently had to discuss with him (Clint Hill) and two other agents. After this discussion, it was revealed that Hill would have to travel back to Washington because the director had to discuss specific issues. Ultimately, Clint Hill was informed that he would be assigned to Mrs. Kennedy and stated, “I was really disgusted.” You may be asking yourself why Hill was not looking forward to this; well, in the conversation, he observed what former first ladies did, including ballet school and fashion. While Hill did accept this role, he would have no idea that the assignment would lead to him building trust/friendship with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, whom he had immense respect for: “And we started to establish a relationship that gradually grew. But it got stronger and stronger as we went along. And then, as things would happen, shortly thereafter, young John was born.”
In a later segment, Hill recalled his arrival in the Secret Service. When he first began, there were “269 agents worldwide.” Hill stated that 34 agents were “assigned to the president, to the detail, to the White House, to the president. Two of us were assigned to the first lady. And we had three agents assigned to the two children. So that meant 39. And that was the total.”
Back then, the Secret Service’s training programs were on the job. Today, to be recruited as a Secret Service agent, you have to go to law enforcement training stationed in Georgia. “Then, if you finish that successfully, you go to the academy in Washington at Belleville for another eight weeks. If you finish that, they will then make you an agent.”
Tom Putman asked Clint Hill to comment on the story of an agent trying to help her (Jacqueline Kennedy) up on a horse. Jacqueline Kennedy needed help getting up on a horse, and one agent in particular, “a pretty buff guy, muscular as could be. And he’s from Chicago” was there. Mrs. Kennedy asked for assistance, although Clint Hill recalled that this agent had no experience of “putting ladies on a horse.” This is the memorable part of the moment in Hill’s words: “So she asked him for help. And he walked over. And she expected him to cup his hand and lift her up. Not Joe. [laughter] Joe grabbed her around the waist and up. [laughter] Trouble is, he put her right over the top of the horse. [laughter] And she came down on the other side. [laughter] But it worked right all right. She wasn’t injured. So that was—.”
Putnam then directed his attention to discussing the Cuban Missile Crisis. If you are unaware of the Cuban Missile Crisis, here is a breakdown of the event between the US and the Soviet Union. This event was considered the tipping point between both countries because this was the closest the US and the USSR were to having nuclear warfare.
As stated on the Office of the Historian website, in 1962, the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, reached an agreement with Cuba to place nuclear missiles on the island, “to deter any future invasion attempt. US Intelligence discovered the buildup of missiles in Cuba in late summer of 1962, and on September 4, 1962, President Kennedy issued a warning about introducing “offensive weapons into Cuba.” President Kennedy would seek advice from his advisors about what course of action should be taken by the United States to resolve this conflict. On one side of the aisle, I quote “argued for an air strike to destroy the missiles, followed by a U.S. invasion of Cuba; others favored stern warnings to Cuba and the Soviet Union. The President decided upon a middle course. On October 22, he ordered a naval “quarantine” of Cuba. The use of “quarantine” legally distinguished this action from a blockade, which assumed a state of war existed; the use of “quarantine” instead of “blockade” also enabled the United States to receive the support of the Organization of American States.”
On October 22nd, Kennedy wrote a letter to Khrushchev that the United States would not tolerate offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba and demanded that the Soviets “dismantle the missile bases already under construction or completed, and return all offensive weapons to the U.S.S.R.” On October 28th, Khrushchev announced that Soviet missiles “would be dismantled and removed from Cuba.” If you wish to learn more about the Cuban Missile Crisis and the drastic turn that took place, visit the following website.
Now returning to the conversation between Putnam and Clint Hill, Clint Hill found himself in Virginia when he heard the news about the Cuban Missile Crisis. As quoted from the website: “we recognized—agents that were close to he and she—that something was going on internationally, because there were a lot of off the record meetings with National Security Council. The Executive Committee had been formed. And the people that they were meeting with were specialists in Soviet relations and that type of thing. So we knew there was something happening.”
From this moment on, Clint Hill informed Mrs. Kennedy about what was going to happen, considering the agents had previously not discussed how they were to respond, “if there was an attack on this country by missiles. And so, I tried to explain to her that we were going to take she and the children, if they were at the White House, down into the shelter, the bomb shelter, which was underneath the White House. And we’d secure them there until everything was all clear.”
After formally sharing a conversation with Clint Hill, Tom Putnam concluded the event with 4 final words: “Thank you, Mr. Hill.” Clint Hill expressed his sincere gratitude toward the Kennedy family and stated that JFK, despite being president and handling many policies, always made sure to spend time with his children whenever he had the opportunity to do so: “And when he was in the Oval Office, they built a little jungle gym type of thing out there near the Oval Office. And he could see them out there playing, the kids. And he would go out there periodically, see how they were doing, what they were doing. He spent as much time with the children as he possibly could.
If you wish to continue reading the written transcript for this presentation, here is the link. I will also leave the full video for those curious to see the family photos of the Kennedy family and Hill’s comments about each one.
A Tribute
To conclude this article, I would like to give my opinion on the matter, including those serving in the United States Secret Service. It is a job like no other. Each agent is tasked to protect the President and their immediate family. This job requires determination and sacrifice, because if the President faces an attempt on their life, the agent must be willing to put their life on the line. You’re putting yourself in harm’s way. Aside from protecting, the Secret Service is also in charge of handling financial crimes, including counterfeit of currencies, and “other U.S. Government obligations; forgery or theft of U.S. Treasury checks, bonds or other securities; credit card fraud; telecommunications fraud; computer fraud, identify fraud and certain other crimes affecting federally insured financial institutions.”
The Secret Service is no easy job, but anyone can join. However, it must be noted that every application undergoes a thorough background check, which typically varies according to the Secret Service website, for about 6 to 9 months. When are applications open? You can check via USAJobs, the period to apply has closed, and currently under review at this time.
The protective mission of the Secret Service is as follows: “We play a critical role in protecting U.S. and visiting world leaders, safeguarding U.S. elections through protection of candidates and nominees, and ensuring the security of key facilities and major, national-level events.” This can be traced back to 1901, following the assassination of President William McKinley. Congress passed legislation and allocated funds to the Secret Service to provide presidential protection. Since that moment, the Secret Service has continued to expand and will continue to do so for years to come. This job may appear challenging and emotional, yet those who join are committed to protecting the President of the United States, no matter what. If you wish to learn more about the Secret Service, here is the link.
To conclude this tribute, I want to note an award given to Clint Hill in 2018. Former Governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, presented the “Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award” to Hill. Hill then stated the following comments: “It’s a real honor to be recognized by one’s home state,” Hill said. “It’s one of those things that’s very unusual: to be singled out and identified by your home state for what I consider to be an enormous award. I feel that way because I am very fond of North Dakota. It’s still my home state insofar as I’m concerned, even if I haven’t lived there for years now. It’s such an honor to be recognized.”
Joe Scargill, a special agent of the Minneapolis Field Office, detailed the following statement about the work of a Secret Service agent: “It requires focus, commitment, dedication, and most of all sacrifice. Life on a detail requires being away. It requires being away from home, it requires being away from the warmth and comfort of your loved ones, and it requires disappointing those you love most to accomplish the mission: missing birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries. It requires long hours, working in inclement weather, traversing rough terrain, going days with no sleep, and ultimately being in the line of fire.” If you wish to continue reading the page written about Hill and the award given, here is the link.
Scargill’s words perfectly capture the life of a Secret Service agent. It’s a role that comes with great responsibility. Clint Hill demonstrated heroism and displayed courage on the day of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Clint Hill is an American patriot because he is a man who was willing to give his life to protect President Kennedy. As Scargill stated, “He leapt onto the back of a rapidly moving presidential limo and shielded the president and first lady with his body.” Clint Hill’s life should always be honored and shared for generations to come. He had no protective armour on him, meaning he was willing to take the bullet. This is an example of courage. Hill was a brave man who lived a life full of guilt following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Clint Hill eventually shared his story with the media, and as quoted earlier in the article, his interview with 60 Minutes helped him recover from this event. Hill also wrote several books, including “Five Days in November” back in 2013.
To end this article, I would like to share a comment made by Clint Hill himself on the day of the award ceremony: “The best decision I had ever made was to come into the Secret Service,” he said. “I worked with an enormous group of wonderful people. They were just the very best of the best. I couldn’t have asked for a better way of life. I couldn’t have asked for better people to work with. It was an honor for me to be accepted into the Secret Service, and I was very fortunate to be in the various places that I was at the times I was there.”
