Clint Hill, John F. Kennedy’s bodyguard, who is 92 and started drinking after his assassination

Will we learn from the past or repeat it?” That’s the question millions of Americans are asking attempted murder of Donald Trump (77) while giving a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. The Secret Service’s security failures have put the Department of Homeland Security unit, led by Kimberly Cheatle, under scrutiny, who has commented ABC News that “the responsibility is mine” and, in spite of everything, No plans to resign,

The Secret Service was formed in 1865 as part of the Treasury Department. Two important historical events in the second half of the 20th century should be highlighted in which this federal agency attracted the world’s attention. In 1981 when the last attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan took placeruled with a heavy hand The White House and in 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy died from a fatal gunshot wound By Lee Harvey Oswald. The next shot was aimed at Jackie Kennedy, but the courage of Clint Hill prevented the tragedy from becoming even bigger.

At 92, the former Secret Service agent is Oldest living person of the Golden Age About the history of the President’s House. Anyone who sees photos of the Dallas massacre on November 22, 1963 can see how a man jumped into the back of the limousine to try to save Jacqueline Kennedy, who had immediately got up upon seeing John Fitzgerald Kennedy fall dead in the car seat. That man was Clint.

“It was like the sound of a cantaloupe hitting cement (…) At that moment blood, brains and pieces of bone came out of the president’s head and fell on my face and my clothes,” he recalled several times decades later. He was the one who was in charge of covering Kennedy’s head with his jacket.

For four years Clint Hill shadowed Jackie. He joined the Secret Service in 1958 after working in counterintelligence in the Army. At first he reluctantly agreed to protect the First Lady because he had previously been the agent in charge of guarding the previous president, Eisenhower, so working for the First Lady was a drop in his status. He feared the worst because some of his former co-workers were bored just shopping or watching them play card games like basket. As soon as he met Jackie, he was infatuated with her. hatred has passed. The first lady’s beauty and good manners overshadowed him because she was also pregnant with John. “I’m due in a month and I plan to stay in Washington until then. But I don’t want anyone tracking me down like an animal,” he warned Clint. Next July 16 will mark 25 years since his death in a small plane crash. The birth occurred shortly before his inauguration as president.

The story of the Kennedy attack has been told thousands of times, so it’s interesting what happened to the president’s protector after he died. Once Jackie left Washington and moved into the famous penthouse at 1040 Fifth Avenue in New York, he served him for another year. He then returned to the Secret Service to monitor Johnson (1963-1969), Nixon (1969-1974) and Ford (1974-1977).

During those years, Clint Hill suffered post traumatic stress So severe that he couldn’t pass a physical test at the beginning of Ford’s tenure, so he was discharged in the summer of 1975. He was 43 years old and received the country’s highest civilian honor for his bravery. At the time, he was married to Gwen Hill, with whom he had two children, Chris and Corey.

Without work, he decided to move to North Dakota, where he owned vast property, in order to get something out of the land, but this was impossible. He began drinking and smoking like a carter. He confessed that “I had stooped so low you probably wouldn’t even recognize me. I didn’t want to see anybody, I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I couldn’t sleep, so I drank a lot of whiskey and smoked two packs of tobacco a day.” The guilt of not being able to help the President haunted him throughout his life.

feelings of guilt and shame persisted into old age, but still The cure was found through conversation. For this reason, he did not hesitate to begin a collaboration with the journalist Lisa McCubbin in 2009, on a documentary and later on books. Mrs. Kennedy and I And five days in november. After the job, friendship happened which turned into love. They got married in 2021.