Clint Hill (Secret Service)

Hill was married to his wife Gwen at the time of Kennedy's assassination. The couple had two sons. In his 2012 interview with Brian Lamb, Hill suggested that he had been divorced or separated from her for many years. As of 2013, Hill lived near San Francisco. Since 2016, Hill has been in a relationship with his co-author, Lisa McCubbin. On December 5, 2021, Hill announced on his Facebook page that he and Lisa were married at their home in Belvedere, California, the previous day.

On October 5, 2018, Hill received the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award from Doug Burgum, the Governor of North Dakota. The award is North Dakota's award for residents and former residents of North Dakota.

In 2016, Hill released Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, which summarized his entire Secret Service career.

As the hospital staff attended to Kennedy and Connally, Hill received a telephone call from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the president's brother. Hill declined to tell Kennedy over the phone that his brother was dead, saying in a 2013 interview: "I explained to him that both the president and the governor had been shot and that we were in the emergency room at Parkland Hospital. So then he said, ‘Well, how bad is it?’ Well, I didn't want to tell him his brother was dead. I didn't think it was my place. So I said, ‘It's as bad as it can get.’”

In November 2013, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the assassination, Hill's book Five Days in November was published, giving his view of the events.

Hill was interviewed by Brian Lamb on C-SPAN's talk show Q&A in May 2012.

In April 2012, the book Mrs. Kennedy and Me was published, in which Hill looked back at his career and described his working relationship with Jacqueline Kennedy. The same year, Hill was inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame, a signature event of the North Dakota-based organization Norsk Høstfest.

In 2012, Hill was reported to have lived in Alexandria, Virginia, for "many years."

Hill wrote the foreword to Gerald Blaine and Lisa McCubbin's 2010 narrative, The Kennedy Detail.

In a BBC Today interview, broadcast in December 2010, Hill recalled the assassination and his first visit to Dallas in 1990 since the events of 1963, during which he surveyed the scene of the shooting. Asked whether he thought that the President's life might have been saved if things had been done differently, Hill replied that "He [Lee Harvey Oswald] had all the advantages that day. We had none. And it was a very easy job to accomplish because of the way everything was laid out."

During the assassination, Hill ran from the Secret Service followup car, behind the presidential limousine, leaped onto the back of it and shielded Jacqueline Kennedy and the stricken president with his body as the car raced to Parkland Memorial Hospital. This action was documented in the Zapruder film. Since the death of Nellie Connally in September 2006, Hill is the last surviving person who was in the presidential limousine that day.

In a 1975 interview with Mike Wallace, Hill tearfully surmised that if he had reached the vehicle a second earlier, he would have been able to take the third shot to his own body, and felt a great deal of regret for not having been able to reach there in time.

Hill, along with Secret Service agents Kellerman, Greer, and Rufus Youngblood, provided testimony to the Warren Commission in Washington, D.C. on March 9, 1964.

Hill remained assigned to Mrs. Kennedy and the children until after the 1964 presidential election. He then was assigned to President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House. In 1967, when Johnson was still in office, Hill became the Special Agent in Charge (SAIC) of presidential protection. When Richard Nixon came into office, Hill moved over to SAIC of protection of Vice President Spiro Agnew. Finally, Hill was assigned to headquarters as the assistant director of the Secret Service for all protection. He retired in 1975.

President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, during a motorcade through the city, en route to a luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart. The president and Mrs. Kennedy were riding in an open limousine containing three rows of seats. The Kennedys were in the rear seat of the car, the governor of Texas, John Connally, and his wife, Nellie Connally, were in the middle row, Secret Service agent William Greer was driving and the Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Roy Kellerman, was also in the front row.

Hill was born in Larimore, North Dakota, to a Norwegian mother, Alma Pettersen. His birth parents homesteaded near Roseglen. "At 17 days old his Mother, (separated from his Father), had him baptized and she then placed him in the North Dakota Children's Home in Fargo. After 3 months" he was adopted by another Norwegian family, Chris and Jennie Hill of Fargo. Originally named Haugen, the family later changed its name to the English version of the name; Haugen means "the hill" in Norwegian. Hill's new family took him to Washburn, where he eventually graduated from Washburn High School. He attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where he played football, basketball, and baseball, studied history, and graduated in 1954. After college, Hill joined the army and became a Counterintelligence (CI) Special Agent, serving until 1957. After his military service, Hill joined the Secret Service and was assigned to the Denver office. In 1958, Hill served on the detail for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. After John F. Kennedy was elected president of the United States, Hill was assigned to protect the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy.

Clinton J. Hill (born January 4, 1932) is a former U.S. Secret Service agent who served under five United States presidents, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Gerald Ford. Hill is best known for his act of bravery while in the presidential motorcade on November 22, 1963 when United States President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.