Clint Hill, Secret Service agent who leaped onto JFK's car after the president was shot, dies at 93

Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who leaped onto the back of President John F. Kennedy's limousine after the president was shot, then was forced to retire early because he remained haunted by memories of the assassination, has died. He was 93.

Hill died Friday at his home in Belvedere, California, according to his publisher, Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. A cause of death was not given.

Although few may recognize his name, the footage of Hill, captured on Abraham Zapruder's chilling home movie of the assassination, provided some of the most indelible images of Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

Hill received Secret Service awards and was promoted for his actions that day, but for decades blamed himself for Kennedy's death, saying he didn't react quickly enough and would gladly have given his life to save the president.

"If I had reacted just a little bit quicker. And I could have, I guess," a weeping Hill told Mike Wallace on CBS' 60 Minutes in 1975, shortly after he retired at age 43 at the urging of his doctors. "And I'll live with that to my grave."

It was only in recent years that Hill said he was able to finally start putting the assassination behind him and accept what happened.

On the day of the assassination, Hill was assigned to protect first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and was riding on the left running board of the follow-up car directly behind the presidential limousine as it made its way through Dealey Plaza.

Hill told the Warren Commission that he reacted after hearing a shot and seeing the president slump in his seat. The president was struck by a fatal headshot before Hill was able to make it to the limousine.

Zapruder's film captured Hill as he leaped from the Secret Service car, grabbed a handle on the limousine's trunk and pulled himself onto it as the driver accelerated. He forced Mrs. Kennedy, who had crawled onto the trunk, back into her seat as the limousine sped off.

Hill later became the agent in charge of the White House protective detail and eventually an assistant director of the Secret Service, retiring because of what he characterized as deep depression and recurring memories of the assassination.

The 1993 Clint Eastwood thriller "In the Line of Fire," about a former Secret Service agent scarred by the JFK assassination, was inspired in part by Hill.

Hill was born in 1932 and grew up in Washburn, North Dakota. He attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, served in the Army and worked as a railroad agent before joining the Secret Service in 1958. He worked in the agency's Denver office for about a year, before joining the elite group of agents assigned to protect the president and first family.

Since his retirement, Hill has spoken publicly about the assassination only a handful of times, but the most poignant was his 1975 interview with Wallace, during which Hill broke down several times.

"If I had reacted about five-tenths of a second faster, maybe a second faster, I wouldn't be here today," Hill said.

"You mean you would have gotten there and you would have taken the shot?" Wallace asked.

"The third shot, yes, sir," Hill said.

"And that would have been all right with you?"

"That would have been fine with me," Hill responded.

In his 2005 memoir, "Between You and Me," Wallace recalled his interview with Hill as one of the most moving of his career.

In 2006, Wallace and Hill reunited on CNN's "Larry King Live," where Hill credited that first 60 Minutes interview with helping him finally start the healing process.

"I have to thank Mike for asking me to do that interview and then thank him more because he's what caused me to finally come to terms with things and bring the emotions out where they surfaced," he said. "It was because of his questions and the things he asked that I started to recover."

Decades after the assassination, Hill co-authored several books — including “Mrs. Kennedy and Me” and “Five Presidents” — about his Secret Service years with Lisa McCubbin Hill, whom he married in 2021.

“We had that once-in-a-lifetime love that everyone hopes for,” McCubbin Hill said in a statement. “We were soulmates.”

Clint Hill also became a speaker and gave interviews about his experience in Dallas. In 2018, he was given the state of North Dakota's highest civilian honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award. A portrait of Hill adorns a Capitol gallery of fellow honorees.

A private funeral service will be held in Washington, D.C., at a future date.

FILE - Clint Hill, a member of the late First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's secret service detail, speaks to the media after he laid a wreath on the JFK Tribute outside the Hilton Hotel, Friday, Nov. 22, 2013. (Joyce Marshall/Star-Telegram via AP, File)

FILE - President John F. Kennedy slumps down in the back seat of the presidential limousine as it speeds along Elm Street toward the Stemmons Freeway overpass in Dallas, Texas, after being fatally shot, Nov. 22, 1963. First lady Jacqueline Kennedy leans over the president as Secret Service Agent Clint Hill pushes her back to her seat. (AP Photo/James W. "Ike" Altgens)

FILE - President John F. Kennedy slumps down in the back seat of the presidential limousine as it speeds along Elm Street toward the Stemmons Freeway overpass in Dallas, Texas, after being fatally shot, Nov. 22, 1963. First lady Jacqueline Kennedy leans over the president as Secret Service Agent Clint Hill pushes her back to her seat. (AP Photo/James W. "Ike" Altgens)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Pope Francis reappeared in Argentina's capital a year after his death, but it wasn’t a miracle: It was through the hands of a DJ-priest.

Guilherme Peixoto is a Portuguese Catholic priest who, in his 50s, has become a celebrity in the world of electronic music. He hosted a rave Saturday in Buenos Aires in homage to the Argentine-born leader of the Catholic church who died in April 2025.

As young and old, Catholics and agnostics alike, danced to the music Peixoto controlled from his DJ booth, three enormous screens projected images of the late Popes Francis and John Paul II as well as white doves.

“God bless you, and let’s dance,” a voice-over said before Peixoto appeared in priestly attire and headphones at the historic Plaza de Mayo. He then placed his hands on the console and for the next two hours mixed techno and religious melodies.

“This is a unique opportunity to see him, and it’s free,” said Jesús Martín, a 54-year-old Spaniard and electronic music fan. “In Ibiza, you have to pay 150 euros, and up to 2,000 euros for VIP.”

Peixoto — better known as Padre Guilherme — has become a global sensation, performing around the world to large audiences and amassing a following of 2.8 million people on Instagram and over 220,000 monthly streams on Spotify. He was ordained a priest in 1999, partly out of religious vocation and partly to fulfill a promise his mother made to God when he suffered a life-threatening illness as a child.

Electronic music became a hobby alongside his priestly career. In the 2000s, he began playing at universities and organizing parties to raise funds for his parish, but he asked that no one take his picture for fear of reprisals from his superiors.

Those fears dissipated when Monsignor Jorge Bergoglio assumed leadership of the Catholic Church as Pope Francis in 2013.

“He often said, ‘Don’t be afraid,’ that we had to go out to the peripheries and that ‘We shouldn’t be afraid to use our hands.’ These messages were an inspiration,” Peixoto recalled in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of his performance in Buenos Aires.

So, he enrolled in a DJ school, contacted electronic music producers and began composing his own tracks. Eventually, invitations to participate in festivals and play in clubs across Portugal began to arrive.

The priest burst onto the world stage after his performances at World Youth Day in 2023, before the open-air Mass celebrated by Pope Francis.

“I will never lose this connection with Pope Francis," Peixoto said. "He was the one who touched my heart with this facet of music."

Many attending his Saturday rave knew little about the priest-DJ.

“I learned about him when the tribute to Francis was first announced. I came to remember the Pope, but I think what he does is very original, as long as it’s done respectfully,” Silvia Garaggiola, 60, said.

Saturday’s set list included Peixoto’s hit “El Grano de Mostaza” and remixes of Bad Bunny and Queen.

From the Medusa Festival in Cullera, Spain, to Dreamfields in Mexico, or the Hï Ibiza club — in that Spanish resort town often dubbed the “Vatican” of electronic music — Peixoto broadcasts a message of peace and coexistence to thousands of young people, the vast majority of whom are not practicing Catholics.

Amid the smoke of tobacco and marijuana cigarettes, several groups of teenagers danced and imitated the DJ priest’s hand movements, while laser lights gave Plaza de Mayo the appearance of a nightclub.

“It sounds really good,” commented 17-year-old Ileana González. “I have zero religion, but I’m having fun.”

The Curia’s resistance to modernization, its rejection of sexual diversity and the scandals involving the abuse of minors have erected a wall between the Catholic Church and younger generations —a barrier that Pope Francis sought to dismantle through his revolutionary papacy.

An admirer of English musician Carl Cox and the Italian American artist Anyma, Peixoto seeks to carry forward that mission from behind his DJ decks.

“I believe it is incredibly important to make young people smile, to help them feel happy with themselves, rather than associating happiness with merely possessing this or that material thing,” he said.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Portuguese Catholic priest, Padre Guilherme performs an open-air DJ set at the Plaza de Mayo, honoring the first year anniversary of Pope Francis' passing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Portuguese Catholic priest, Padre Guilherme performs an open-air DJ set at the Plaza de Mayo, honoring the first year anniversary of Pope Francis' passing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)