BELVEDERE, CALIFORNIA—On Friday, February 21, the former Secret Service agent under five Presidents including former President John F. Kennedy (JFK) and former First Lady Jacqueline O. Kennedy, Clint Hill, passed away. He was 93.
Hill was on duty on November 27, 1963, when JFK was shot in Dallas, Texas. Hill was the agent depicted in the famous photo stepping up onto the limousine after the President was shot.
He used his body as a shield to protect the President and First Lady from additional gunfire. Hill passed away at his home in Belvedere. No cause of death was given. Reports indicate that he lived with COPD in his later years and was relying on oxygen.
His wife, Lisa McCubbin Hill, spoke fondly of her husband:
“He was the epitome of a gentleman. Humble, selfless, confident, brave, an encyclopedia of knowledge and experience about the 20th century until now. He knew history because he lived it.”
According to his biography, he was born on January 4, 1932. His biological mother, who already had five children, placed him for adoption. He was adopted as an infant by Chris and Jennie Hill. He and his adopted sister, Janice were raised in Washburn, North Dakota.
In 1954, he graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, with a degree in History and Physical Education. He was drafted into the United States Army, where he served as a Special Agent in the Army Counter-Intelligence Corps.
Clinton J. Hill was a U.S. Secret Service Agent from 1958 – 1975, serving five presidents—Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. He was in the motorcade in Dallas on November 22, 1963, assigned to protect First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
In 1958, Hill applied and was accepted into the U. S. Secret Service as a Special Agent in the Denver field office. A year later he was assigned to the elite White House Detail protecting President Dwight D. Eisenhower. When John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960, Hill was assigned to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s [security] detail, and he remained with Mrs. Kennedy, Caroline, and John Jr. for one year after the assassination.
Hill was reassigned to the White House in November 1964 and eventually became the Special Agent in Charge of Presidential Protection during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration.
When Richard M. Nixon became president in 1969, Hill was the Special Agent in Charge of Vice-Presidential Protection with V.P. Spiro Agnew. When Hill retired from the Secret Service in 1975, he was the Assistant Director responsible for all protective forces.
“All of that is ingrained in my mind, it never goes away,” Hill stated. He recounted the story often. It consumed him and was the reason for his resignation.
In December 2013, the U.S. Secret Service honored him at the James J. Rowley Training Center with a permanent bronze plaque next to a street they named Clint Hill Way.
Clint and Lisa McCubbin Hill authored multiple books together on Clint’s experiences during his time with the Secret Service including, Mrs. Kennedy and Me, My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy, Five Days in November, Five Presidents, and the newly published, Betty Ford. The books are published through Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
