JFK's Secret Service agent still doesn't know if there was "something I could have done" to protect president

Talking about JFK’s assassination with Mike Wallace helped Clint Hill work through feelings he had bottled up, he told “60 Minutes: A Second Look.” Wallace was the first person to hear Hill, who was with the president when he was shot, talk in detail about what happened on that November day in 1963.

Hill is forever seen in photos from November 22, 1963 climbing aboard the presidential limo to protect first lady Jacqueline Kennedy as the limo sped towards the hospital where JFK would be pronounced dead.

At the time of his 1975 60 Minutes interview, Hill said he thought he was to blame for JFK dying. If he'd just reacted "five-tenths of a second faster," the president would've been alive, he told Wallace.

Hill, who is 92 now, told “60 Minutes: A Second Look” host and CBS News correspondent Seth Doane he didn't blame himself anymore.

“Maybe there was something I could have done,” Hill said. “I don’t think so anymore. The reason being is it was over within less than seven seconds. They shot the president five times, and it was all over with.”

Hill told Doane that he's never “totally” forgiven himself about what happened.

“My father instilled in me, when you have an assignment, you carry it out until it’s completely concluded,” Hill told him. “I had an assignment to protect the life of the president and Mrs. Kennedy. I lost one of them. She survived, but one of them died on my watch. I’m never going to forgive myself, because of what happened on Nov. 22, 1963.”

Hill says Mike Wallace's interview was a cathartic experience

Clint Hill was 43 years old and recently retired when he talked to Wallace on 60 Minutes in 1975. Twenty years later, in 1995, Wallace wrote to Hill and asked to do an interview with him again.

Hill responded with a letter, and wrote, “My interview with you on 60 Minutes in 1975 turned into much more of an emotional experience than I thought possible when I agreed to do it.”

“I must admit I was a bit reluctant at doing it because it would require me to relive the emotions involved in the assassination of President Kennedy again after 13 years,” he went on to write. “It did turn out to be a cathartic experience for me and helped me release feelings that had been pent up for so many years.”

He says talking to Wallace was the moment when he realized, “If I don’t tell the whole world what happened, and if I don’t explain it why it happened, then I’m not going to do anybody any good.”

Hill told Doane that he thinks if it weren't for his interview with Wallace, he “would have just lingered in a horrible situation and never come out of it, probably.”

He says he was ready to come out of that situation when Wallace interviewed him.

“If I hadn’t come out of it as much as I did on 60 Minutes, there would have been a terrible, terrible tragedy in my life,” Hill told Doane.

Hundreds of letters for Clint Hill

Doane told Hill he wanted to show him “a piece of history” he had found five years earlier: a box in his garage filled with hundreds of letters, 17 years of presidential memorabilia and a stack of framed photographs.

Viewers had written to the CBS News program after watching Hill on 60 Minutes, and their letters had been forwarded to him.

Hill hadn't remembered the letters until, in 2019, he and his wife, Lisa McCubbin Hill, were preparing to sell their home. His wife told him they should go through some things stored in the garage and attic.

In a black trunk, they found all the letters and knick-knacks from Hill’s years in the Secret Service. They brought about 25 of the letters with them when they moved to California in 2020.

He wanted to read a particular one to “60 Minutes: A Second Look.”

“Like you, I still remember in horror the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated,” Hill read from a letter. “It is a day I shall never forget, nor shall I forget the people so deeply involved in the events of that day.”

“And as I watched you on 60 Minutes, I wanted to reach out and wrap you in my arms for just a moment to try to give you some comfort,” Hill read. “But no one who suffered loss that traumatic that day can ever feel comfort, and I know that you feel that.”

“[She wrote,] ‘I wanted to offer my heart-felt sympathy on your pain, and I know it has never stopped hurting,’” Hill said. “And that was the most significant point to me. I said, ‘Yes, it did hurt. It does hurt.’ She offered me, like she said, I wish she could wrap her arms around me and get my thoughts to go away about [the] day.”

“And I do, too,” he said. “They never will.”

Never before broadcast: A question 'no other reporter would have asked'

The new episode of “60 Minutes: A Second Look” included a question Wallace asked Hill during their 1975 interview that had never before been broadcast.

The 1975 television story broadcast, “Secret Service Agent #9,” ran just 16 minutes. But with help from CBS News archivists, 60 Minutes podcast producer Julie Holstein found hours of film that 60 Minutes producer Bob Krause had shot of interviews and set-ups with Hill.

Holstein found the recording of Wallace asking Hill a question she says “I don’t think any other reporter would have asked” him 47 years ago.

Wallace: “Now what do you do about, about some of the private occasions when they want nobody else to know what’s going on and if – if they’re, whether it’s in the White House or whether it’s in a hotel out of town or whatever, and you know, you know what I mean and you know who I mean. What do you do about that?”

Gwen Hill, Clint’s first wife, who died in 2021, can clearly be heard clearing her throat. Clint fidgets in his seat. His microphone scratches his chest.

Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who was with JFK when he was shot, tells Seth Doane his 1975 60 Minutes interview was cathartic. It was a question “no other reporter would have asked” him 47 years ago.

Agent Hill: “Nobody knows about those moments.”

Wallace: “Yeah, you do.”

Hill: “You’re right.”

Wallace: “And how do you manage it?”

Hill: “Very carefully.”