Photo By Erin Thompson | Agent Clinton Hill crouching on the back bumper of the presidential limousine on Main...... read more read more
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by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
FORMER CIC AGENT WITNESSES KENNEDY ASSASSINATION
On 22 November 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. The entire event was witnessed by Clinton Hill, a former Army counterintelligence agent, who was serving as the Secret Service agent assigned to protect First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
Clinton Hill grew up in Washburn, North Dakota, where he distinguished himself as a star athlete. After graduating high school, he attended Concordia College in Moorehead, Minnesota, and graduated in 1954. That same year, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, where he was given multiple written intelligence tests. According to Hill, “my scores on those tests gave them an indication that I had something the Army was looking for…” He was instructed to report for duty two weeks later at the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) School at Fort Holabird, Maryland.
Hill described his four-month training at Fort Holabird as “rigorous and intense,” with classes focused on investigative techniques, surveillance, and interrogations. "We would be assigned to interrogate someone who was suspected of committing a crime or sent on a mission to surveil a suspect around Baltimore and the surrounding area. They were real-life situations, with our professional instructors role-playing the parts of the suspects, using every con artist and thug trick in the book to try to mislead us, and I found it both fascinating and challenging."
In January 1955, Hill was assigned to the 113th CIC Detachment, Region IX field office in Denver, Colorado. His job primarily consisted of security clearance background investigations for government employees. While assigned to the 113th, Hill also investigated employees of a local hospital after President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack and was treated there while visiting Denver.
Hill was honorably discharged in 1957 and decided to use his counterintelligence training for various investigative jobs, including as a credit investigator and railroad detective. In 1958, he applied to work for the U.S. Secret Service and was accepted due to his background in Army counterintelligence. In the summer of 1959, he was assigned a position in the White House and spent the next two years on President Eisenhower’s Secret Service detail. After John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960, Hill was assigned to protect the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy. Hill became close with the president, stating, “Kennedy, he knew your first name. He knew if you were married. He knew if you had kids…we had the utmost respect for him.”
In November 1963, President and Mrs. Kennedy traveled to Texas to campaign for the 1964 presidential election. President Kennedy requested that Secret Service agents not ride on the back of the presidential limousine during parades, as was standard procedure. The limousine was specifically designed with handholds and a step on the back for Secret Service agents to remain as close to the president as possible.
On 22 November 1963, the Kennedys arrived in Dallas. They were joined in the presidential limousine by Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, during a parade through the city. Agent Hill rode on the side of the car immediately behind the president but briefly crouched on the back of the limousine on several occasions when it veered too close to the enormous crowds. When the president and Governor Connally were shot, Hill raced up to the limousine as it began accelerating out of the area. In one famous photo of the incident, Hill can be seen reaching for Mrs. Kennedy as he leaped onto the limousine, then climbed over the top of the vehicle to shield the passengers.
Hill continued serving with the Secret Service until 1975, through the presidencies of Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford. He went on to publish several books about his experiences: Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012), Five Days in November (2013), and Five Presidents (2016).
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| Date Taken: | 11.15.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 11.15.2024 17:40 |
| Story ID: | 485462 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 261 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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