‘I wrapped the president’s exploded head in my jacket’: Jackie Kennedy’s secret service agent relives horrifying moments after JFK was assassinated

Everything that Secret Service agent Clint Hill has said over the years about those horrific events in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated contradict the official findings of the Warren Commission. At least this article uses the term “accused” in relation to Oswald. JFK’s skull and brain matter went up and back to the left from the fatal shot. It covered Clint Hill and the left rear trunk Jackie was climbing out to retrieve a piece of the skull. Another bone fragment was located behind the limousine’s position and on the other side of Elm Street. Dallas motorcycle escort cop Hargis, riding to the left rear, was hit so hard with bone fragment that he stopped, thinking he had been shot. Clint Hill consistently reports having seen a “fist-sized hole” in the rear of JFK’s head, a wound consistent with all the Parkland Hospital doctors and nurses recollections from treating Kennedy that day. Only a shot from the right front, entering above the right ear and exiting the back of his head could have caused that wound. However, the Warren Commission concludes that a glancing shot from the Book Depository above and behind JFK clipped out a piece of his skull above his right ear and no exit wound is in the rear. Kennedy’s reaction to the head shot, lifting up and slamming back and to the left at over 100 mph, cannot have been caused by a shot from behind him. The article below has many good photographs and an embedded video of the Today Show interview with Hill about his book. Revealing.

‘I wrapped the president’s exploded head in my jacket’: Jackie Kennedy’s secret service agent relives horrifying moments after JFK was assassinated
By London Daily Mail Reporter
5 April 2012

For amazing photos see full article at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2125086/Clint-Hill-memoir-Jackie-Kennedys-secret-service-agent-recounts-day-JFK-assassinated.html#ixzz1rBh1Vn5R

Also, see video of Clint Hill interview on Today Show, MSNBC
http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46962719#46962719

The secret service agent employed to protect Jackie Kennedy has recounted the terror following the president’s assassination in 1963, and how he wrapped John F. Kennedy’s shot head in his jacket.

Speaking on the Today show, Clint Hill, now 80, recounted his determination to throw himself between the Kennedys and the bullets as parts of the president’s brain and skull splattered over his shirt.

When a third bullet hit the president’s head and the motorcade sped to hospital, Hill said the First Lady refused to leave the car, fearful that onlookers would see her husband’s horrific injuries.

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Painful memories: Jackie Kennedy’s secret service agent Clint Hill appeared on the Today show to talk about his new memoir, in which he recounts John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963

‘I recognised that the problem was she didn’t want anyone to see him,’ Hill told the Today show. ‘It was a gory situation. And so I took my jacket off and I covered his head and upper back. Then she let go.’

The heartbreaking scene came just minutes after John F. Kennedy was hit in the neck and head by accused gunman Lee Harvey Oswald while driving through Dallas, Texas in November 1963.

In his new memoir, Mrs Kennedy and Me, Hill recalled the crowds cheering for the motorcade and the moment he heard an explosion. He looked around and saw the president grab his throat.

‘Somebody had fired a shot at the President, and I had to get myself between the shooter and the President and Mrs. Kennedy,’ he wrote. ‘Nothing else mattered.’

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On the lookout: Hill, dressed in black and sunglasses, can be seen standing on a vehicle’s running board as President Kennedy drives through the streets of Dallas, Texas before the shooting

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Horrifying moment: A different angle shows Hill climbing towards Mrs Kennedy, who is leaning over her husband slumped in the back of the car. Hill says she was reaching for part of his skull

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Haunting image: Clint Hill, Jackie Kennedy’s former secret service agent (left), pulls himself towards her after her husband, John F. Kennedy, is shot in November 1963. Hill recounts the tragic day in a memoir

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Haunting: In footage, Hill pulls himself towards the Kennedys, desperate to get in the way of the bullets

Hill is the figure in the famous Zapruder film of the shooting which shows him climbing onto the back of the president’s limousine as it continues to move.

As he moved towards Mrs Kennedy, he watched her reaction: ‘Her eyes were filled with terror,’ he wrote. ‘She was reaching for something. She was reaching for a piece of the President’s head.’

Before he could reach them, two more bullets were shot – the final one hitting the president in the head, just above his right ear.

‘The impact was like the sound of a melon shattering onto cement,’ he remembered, adding that the President’s blood and parts of his skull splattered over his clothes, face and hair.

Pulling Mrs Kennedy, as he always called her, into her seat, the president’s body fell into her arms with his eyes open. ‘Jack, Jack, what have they done to you?’ she wailed.

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Haunted: Clint Hill, who is now 80, said he did ‘everything I could, but I still feel guilt’ about the assassination

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Now and then: Clint Hill, left, has written a memoir about his time working with the Kennedys

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Good friends: Hill and Mrs Kennedy are pictured in Washington, D.C. three months after her husband’s death. Hill continued to work for the former First Lady for another year after the assassination

He added on Today: ‘That’s the one thing that I can’t get out of my mind – the picture of him lying in her lap with his head exposed to me, looking into the back of his head.’

Hill, who has previously said he could have taken the third bullet had he moved a second sooner, said he then had the thought: ‘How did I let this happen to her?’

Speaking to People magazine, which published excerpts of the book, Hill added: ‘Because of the angles, the weather, where we were – everything – I did all I could. But I still feel guilt.’

He then goes on to describe the scene at Parkland Hospital, where he waited outside the trauma room with Mrs Kennedy. He describes how ‘the light was gone’ from her eyes.

While there, Hill took a call from the president’s brother, Robert Kennedy, who was demanding to know how bad the situation was.

Haunted by the image of the president’s head being hit by the final bullet, but uncertain how to tell Robert that his brother had been killed, Hill said simply: ‘It’s as bad as it gets.’

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Unaware: The president and his wife riding in the motorcade before he was shot. Hill is standing in the top left

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Fears: Mrs Kennedy, dressed in pink, cradles her husband seconds after he was shot. ‘Jack, Jack, what have they done to you?’ Hill remembers her saying on the way to hospital

As a doctor approached the group, they knew it was terrible news and Mrs Kennedy ran to be at her husband’s side. An agent approached Hill and told him the president had died.

Later, the book recounts, Hill accompanied Mrs Kennedy and Robert Kennedy to see the body.

Hill remembers how, once there, Mrs Kennedy lovingly cut her husband’s hair with scissors that her secret service agent had brought, leaving chestnut locks on the blades when she gave them back.

Hill continued to work as Jackie Kennedy’s agent for a further year after the death. During his time working with the family, he had grown close to the former first lady, which he admits was unusual.

He recalled stories of sneaking cigarettes together in the back of the car during drives, and offering her advice ahead of the trip to Dallas after she expressed fears about their safety.

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Struggle: Hill told the Today show that he well into a deep depression following the assassination

‘I admired her a great deal,’ he told the Today show. ‘We shared a lot of things together. We had a very deep, deep bond between the two of us.’

But despite what has been claimed in the past, he did not love her. ‘I admired her,’ he told People magazine. ‘We grew closer and closer [but] I don’t think you can say I was in love with her.’

A year after the assassination, he went to work for Lyndon Johnson. But he quit in 1975 after guilt he felt from the shooting made him turn towards alcohol.

‘I had problems sleeping,’ he told Today. ‘I had nightmares, I went into a very deep depression, I cut myself off from friends and family.’

Although he said he had never wanted to write a book about the job, he said putting together his memoir had been cathartic.

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Torn apart: John and Jackie Kennedy pictured together (left). Mrs Kennedy is shown on her husband’s funeral on November 26, 1963 (right), with her children and brothers-in law Ted (L) and Robert (R)
Mourning: A military honor guard escorts President John F. Kennedy’s casket from the White House

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Mourning: A military honor guard escorts President John F. Kennedy’s casket from the White House

He kept in touch with Jackie Kennedy for a few years after he stopped working for her but when he heard about her struggle with cancer in 1994, he could not bring himself to lift the phone.

‘I knew that the mere sound of my voice would take her back to that day that changed everything,’ he wrote. ‘And the sound of her voice would do the same to me.’

Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of firing the three shots that killed John F. Kennedy. As he was being transferred to jail, he was shot in the stomach by a man, Jack Ruby, in the crowd.

He died in the hospital where Kennedy had passed away 48 hours earlier.