Will we learn from the past or repeat it? This is the question millions of Americans are asking following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump (77) while giving a rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. Security failures in the Secret Service have put this unit of the Department of Homeland Security led by Kimberly Cheatle in check, who told ABC News that "the responsibility lies with me" and, despite everything, she does not intend to resign.
The Secret Service was formed in 1865 as part of the Department of the Treasury. In the second half of the 20th century, two important historical events stand out in which this federal agency attracted the world's attention. In 1981, the last assassination attempt took place when Ronald Reagan was ruling the White House with an iron fist, and in 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy died after being fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald. The next bullet was aimed at Jackie Kennedy, but Clint Hill's courage prevented the tragedy from being greater.
At 92 years old, the former Secret Service agent is the oldest survivor of the golden age of the presidential mansion's history. Anyone who watches the images of the assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963, can see how a man jumped to the back of the limousine to try to protect Jacqueline Kennedy, who had stood up as soon as she saw John Fitzgerald Kennedy fall dead in the seat. That person was Clint.
"It was like the sound of a melon hitting the cement (...) at that moment the blood, brains, and pieces of bone came out of the president's head and splattered on my face and clothes," he would recall decades later. He was the one who covered Kennedy's head with his jacket.
For four years, Clint Hill was Jackie's shadow. After working in counterintelligence in the army, he joined the Secret Service in 1958. He reluctantly accepted to protect the first lady at first since he had previously been the agent in charge of guarding the previous president, Eisenhower, so working with a first lady was considered a downgrade in his position. He feared the worst because some of his former colleagues only got bored going shopping or watching card games like canasta. When he met Jackie, his displeasure disappeared. The elegance and good manners of the first lady overshadowed him, especially since she was pregnant with John. "I'm due in a month and I plan to stay in Washington until then. But I don't want anyone following me like an animal," she warned Clint. On July 16, it will be 25 years since her death in a plane accident. The birth took place shortly before the presidential inauguration.
The story of Kennedy's assassination has been told thousands of times, so it is interesting to know what happened to the president's protector after his death. For another year, he served Jackie after she left Washington to move to the famous penthouse at 1040 Fifth Avenue in New York. He then rose again within the Secret Service to watch over the backs of Johnson (1963-1969), Nixon (1969-1974), and Ford (1974-1977).
During those years, Clint Hill suffered from intense post-traumatic stress to the point that at the beginning of Ford's term, he could not pass the physical tests, so he was discharged in the summer of 1975. He was 43 years old and received the nation's most important civilian decoration for his bravery. At that time, he was married to Gwen Hill, with whom he had two sons, Chris and Corey.
Without a job, he decided to move to North Dakota where he had a vast property to make a profit from the land, but it was impossible for him. He began to fall into drinking and smoked like a chimney. He confessed, "I sank so low that you probably wouldn't even recognize me. I didn't want to see anyone, I didn't want to talk to anyone. I couldn't sleep, so I drank a lot of whiskey and smoked two packs of cigarettes a day." The guilt of not being able to help the president haunted him throughout his life.
The feelings of guilt and shame persisted into old age, but then he found a cure in conversation. That's why he didn't hesitate to collaborate from 2009 with journalist Lisa McCubbin on a documentary and, subsequently, on the books Mrs. Kennedy and Me and Five Days in November. The work led to a friendship that turned into love. They got married in 2021.