While many people probably don't even know his name, Clint Hill is a former Secret Service agent who was present at one of the biggest moments in American history. Clint was the agent who leapt into the back of the car that President John Kennedy and first lady Jackie Kennedy were riding in after JFK was shot, with the hopes of shielding the two from further gunfire.
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Clint was assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy after JFK won the election, and he later admitted that he was initially "very disgusted" by the job. As he explained, "I didn’t want that assignment. I had seen what former First Ladies did. Fashion shows, tea parties, ballet school — I didn’t want any part of that."
Clint Hill has shed a lot of insight into what Jackie Kennedy was really like behind closed doors, insisting that she was first and foremost a dedicated mother. He shared with Tom Putnam that Mrs. Kennedy wanted her children treated like any other children on the planet, which meant the agents assigned to them were supposed to let the kids learn how to do things on their own. As he put it, "If the kids fell down, they got up. You didn’t help them."
Clint adds that Jackie Kennedy was very protective of her family in all ways, including their education. "She was very concerned about them, about their education. She formed a school there in the White House so that Caroline could go to school and had a bunch of — a number of young classmates brought in from outside, from all walks of life. And it was right up on the third floor of the White House, had two teachers. They used to play out on the south grounds."
However, JFK was known for being somewhat less protective of the kids when it came to press attention. In fact, Clint says that the president often took advantage of his wife's absences to allow a photographer to come into the White House and snap shots of him and the kids. The resulting photos offered a glimpse into presidential life that we might not have otherwise gotten, but it's definitely not something Jackie Kennedy wanted to do.
Clint also adds that Jackie Kennedy was especially athletic, which sometimes caused issues when he was required to join her on those pursuits. He shares that her activities varied and that "she loved to water-ski, loved to play golf, loved to play tennis, and walk. It kept me on my toes."
In August 1963, the Kennedys welcomed their third child, Patrick. Unfortunately, the baby lived for only a few days. Clint Hill says that he was with Jackie on the day Patrick was born, even though it happened to be a day he was off. After the baby's death, Clint made sure that Patrick was baptized.
Clint also believes that Jackie Kennedy never quite understood how important she was to both her husband and to the United States. He explains, "I don’t really think she ever really knew how important she was, both to him as a political figure, but to the United States, the people as a whole. If you would have been with her in India or Pakistan, you could see it there, because she was there without the president.
"And she was just idolized by these people. Wherever we went, there were massive crowds, and sometimes more so than we could handle pretty much. But I don’t think she ever really recognized the fact that she had the influence that she did have."
