60 Minutes - Secret Service Agent #9 | 60 Minutes: A Second Look

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace once said that, in all his years as a journalist, very few interviews stayed with him like his time with Clint Hill, a former U.S. Secret Service agent on duty the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. During that interview, Hill stunned Wallace -- and the nation -- by admitting he felt responsible for the president's death. Hill would later say it was the first time he had ever spoken publicly about that day, and that his emotional reaction surprised even him. Now at 92 years old, Hill tells 60 Minutes: A Second Look why he spoke so candidly for an audience of millions, and how that interview with Mike Wallace may have changed the course of his life. Listen to new episodes of "60 Minutes: A Second Look" every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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spending, you can count on the PC Insider's World Elite Mastercard to help you earn the most PC Optimum points everywhere you shop. With the best playlists, you never miss a good song. With this card, I was very moved when I interviewed Clint Hill. He started to cry and I confess that I got tears too. Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace once said in all of his career as a journalist, very few people made an impression on him like Clint Hill, a former Secret Service agent who was with President John F. Kennedy in Dallas that dreadful day in 1963. It's a day that's been recalled a lot lately

in the aftermath of the assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump. This is Mike Wallace looking back on his interview with Clint Hill during an anniversary special for 60 Minutes in 1993. He foolishly, I think, I think he genuinely believed that if he had moved a split second sooner he could have saved the life of Jack Kennedy and he couldn't have. But he will take it. That sense of guilt. Wrongly, he will take it to his grave, there's no doubt about it. Hill's admission seemed to surprise Wallace, coming during a wide-ranging interview which was originally broadcast in 1975, more than a decade after the assassination. Had I turned in a different direction, I'd have made it.

It's my fault. Oh. No one has ever suggested that for an instant. All that you did was show great bravery and great presence of mind. Even if you did not know Clint Hill's name at the time, you likely did know that photo of him, climbing on the back of President Kennedy's limousine in Dallas, scrambling to save the life of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. He'd been assigned to protect the First Lady when her husband became president.

At the time of the assassination, Clint Hill was just 31 years old. What was on the citation that was given you? Mike, I don't care about that. For your work on November 22nd, 1963, extraordinary courage and heroic effort in the face of maximum danger. Mike, I don't care about that. It turned out Hill had kept his feelings secret, even from his wife and fellow agents. Wallace was the first person he ever opened up to publicly in that interview seen by millions of people. We didn't discuss it as agents. I never talked to my family about it.

Clint Hill is 92 years old now, and we wanted to know what he thought all these years later, looking back at that moving interview when he spoke so candidly about that day. Why did you decide to talk to 60 Minutes? I never even thought for one minute that I was going to have the emotional reaction that I did. I thought I could handle anything. I didn't think it was going to be a problem. When it hit me, it really hit me hard.

This is 60 Minutes, A Second Look, and I'm your host, Seth Doan. Our podcast delves deep into the vast 60 Minutes archives, thousands of stories dating back more than 56 years to 1968. We'll reveal surprising moments that were never broadcast, and in the process, uncover details even more compelling with the context of time. Today, Secret Service Agent Number Nine. Oh, wow. Yeah, you need a bigger office. Yeah, so this is just the beginning. 60 Minutes podcast producer Julie Holstein welcomed me into her office last fall.

So if you're lucky enough to have transcripts from stories, they live here. Oh, wow. These are all floppy disks? Yeah. She was showing me some of what she'd uncovered, the archival story files of legendary 60 Minutes correspondents. And the advantage for us before computers is all of this is either handwritten or typewritten. And the cool thing is you can actually hold on to it.

Exactly. Smell it. It's all been stored underground in an undisclosed location. For months before I get involved, you've been going through looking at old stories and trying to understand what might be interesting today. Yes, and part of that is also trying to figure out

if we're going to do a story from, let's say, Clint Hill, why were they asking certain questions? And why do we even care about those things? Shall we take a look? Yes, we absolutely should take a look. This is 60 Minutes. We're continuing an interview with Clint and Gwen Hill. The two of us sat down in the CBS News radio studio in Manhattan to watch Mike Wallace's interview with Clint Hill, which was broadcast on 60 Minutes in December 1975. The story was called Secret Service Agent Number 9, short for 009, Hill's badge number. This is a big deal in 60 Minutes history, this story.

It's been written about as one of the most compelling stories, which certainly piqued my interest because we have thousands and thousands of stories and that one kept rising to the top. This is camera and sound roll 3x, sound number three on 10-20-75 coming up. Sound number three. So what's interesting for the listener here, just to paint the picture, the first thing you see is this is such a 70s scene when Clint Hill's wife is sitting there. It's a very kind of formal setting. With his wide red tie sitting on the velvet green couch.

What you're about to hear is how Mike Wallace introduced the story to viewers. The agents one meets on duty are almost faceless, humorless, single-minded in their devotion to their chore, and Clint Hill was no different on duty. But Clint retired from the Secret Service four months ago at the age of 43. In the first public statement he has made, sitting with his wife Gwen, he told us some startling things about the Secret Service. Before we go any further, a little bit of context. If you were watching in 1975, you knew there had been a rash of assassinations and near misses since President Kennedy was killed.

It was a tough time for the U.S. Secret Service. Just weeks before Hill and Wallace sat down for their interview, President Gerald Ford had survived two assassination attempts in a span of 17 days by Lynette Squeaky Fromm and Sarah Jane Moore. The scrutiny around how the Secret Service could have missed the threats was similar to what we've seen recently, following the assassination attempts on former President Trump. Back in 1975, if any journalist could get answers about what was going on, it was Mike Wallace, one of 60 Minutes' founding correspondents, known as a relentlessly tough interviewer.

Clint, you people at the Secret Service keep a list of potentially dangerous people, right? Something in the order of 35, 40, 45,000 names. tough interviewer. Wait a second. Arthur Bremmer wasn't on that list. James Earl Ray wasn't there. Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't on that list. Sirhan Sirhan wasn't on that list. Is Mike Wallace on it? Well, I have no present intention of... You know, if I could predict every person who would stand in a crowd with a gun in their hand, I'd be the greatest thing since Gene Dixon. By the way, Gene Dixon was a self-described psychic.

We see some trademark Mike Wallace here, really interjecting, kind of raising the stakes of the interview pretty early on. Clint Hill is leaning forward on the couch, and Mike Wallace has clearly struck a nerve. What I like about this part is that you really see Clint Hill. He wants to protect not only his fellow agents, but he wants to protect his agency. He's tough. He's fighting back. Also frustrating to Hill, those countless Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories.

Do you have any reason to believe that there was more than one gun, more than one assassin? Was Lee Harvey Oswald alone or were there others with him? There were only three shots. And it was one gun, three shots. You're satisfied Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? Completely. It was one gun, three shots. You're satisfied Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? Completely. Can I take you back to November 22nd in 1963?

Mike Wallace mentions that date, and Clint Hill looks away and takes a deep breath, and then no longer looks toward Mike Wallace. Clint went someplace else, right? You were on the fender of the Secret Service car, right behind President Kennedy's car. At the first shot, you ran forward and jumped on the back of the president's car in less than two seconds, pulling Mrs. Kennedy down into her seat, protecting her.

But first of all, she was out on the trunk of that car. She was out on the back seat of that car. Not a lot of trunk of that car. Well, she had climbed out of the back, and she was on the way back, right? And because of the fact that her husband's, part of her husband's head had been shot off and gone off to the street. She wasn't trying to climb out of the car?

She was... No. She was simply trying to reach that head, part of the head. To bring it back. That's the only thing. It's really hard to hear even today. And Clint Hill here is clearly pained. There's a tension in his face.

Was there any way, was there anything that the Secret Service or that Clint Hill could have done to keep that from happening. At this point in the interview, Clint Hill takes another deep breath and looks down. It takes him almost 10 seconds to answer Mike Wallace. Clint Hill, yes. Clint Hill, yes? What do you mean? If he had reacted about five-tenths of a second faster, or maybe a second faster, I wouldn't be here today. You mean you would have gotten there and you would have taken the shot? The third shot, yes, sir.

And that would have been all right with you? That would have been fine with me. But you couldn't. You got there in less than two seconds, Clint. You couldn't have gotten there. You surely don't have any sense of guilt about that. Yes, I certainly do. I have a great deal to tell about that.

Had I turned in a different direction, I'd have made it. It's my fault. Oh. No one has ever suggested that for an instant. All that you did was show great bravery and great presence of mind. What was on the citation that was given you for your work on November 22, 1963? Extraordinary courage and heroic effort in the face of maximum danger.

Mike, I don't care about that. If I had reacted just a little bit quicker, I could have, I guess. And I'll live with that to my grave. Decades later, Clint Hill wrote in a memoir, Five Presidents, that Mike Wallace stopped the interview for a short break because Hill was so visibly upset. And then Clint Hill, to the surprise of Mike Wallace and his team, said, you are the first

person that I have talked to in such detail about that day. I haven't talked to my wife. I haven't talked to other agents. Is that what's responsible for your early retirement from the service? Yes, sir, it is. You really are a victim in a sense of combat fatigue. Well, that's not exactly what the doctors call it. What do they call it? I have a severe neurological problem caused by what has happened in the past, and they've recommended psychiatric help. And who knows if he meant to disclose this, because mental health wasn't something people talked about in 1975.

Even tough to talk about today. In some ways, there were elements of this that probably would have been pretty interesting to Mike Wallace, who would acknowledge later in his career that he struggled with mental illness himself. Absolutely. And he did say that throughout this interview, there make it into the piece. Did a lot not make it in? Yes, a lot didn't make it into the story. One minute left on the phone. Yes. There's another part of security for the president, and that is ensuring his privacy. Will you tell me something, if you can? We'll name no names, okay? Yes, Wallace went there. 60 Minutes, A Second Look will be right back with more of Hill's interview from our archive, part of which has never been shared publicly before now.

We'll also hear Clint Hill today. You think the interview helped? Yeah, I think without that, perhaps I would have just lingered in a horrible situation and never come out of it. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. It was impossible to watch Secret Service Agent Number 9 talking to 60 Minutes in 1975 and not have questions. Was there anything more to learn about that day in Dallas? What did Wallace ask Gwen, Hill's wife at the time, who sat next to him during the interview?

Our producer Julie Holstein had some of the same questions. This is the box where all the Clinton Hill material was stored in. This is a picture of it. Working with CBS archivists, Holstein was able to find the original film of the entire unedited interview. It was in a New Jersey storage facility. Just nondescript old brown box that looks like it's been tossed around a little bit. It's, you know, there's dents in it.

It could be anything. It looks like it's barely held together. And I'm thinking this is, you know, this is history. What is this? This is like a reel-to-reel film? This is the boxes where the audio from the interview were in. There were two interviews and hours of film for a final story that was just 16 minutes. So what did not make the broadcast?

Sound number four for both cameras. There are all these things I want to know from Clint. I am really curious about Gwen. At one point they go to her for a reaction so it's clear what her emotion is. Sometimes you hear her clearing her throat when things get tense. Gwen, do you remember the day that Clint came home from Dallas? I certainly do. He came home at 6 the next morning.

Only to shower, shave, change clothes. He'd been at Bethesda Naval Hospital the entire evening with the body and with Mrs. Kennedy. And immediately went back down to the White House to be with her. I wonder why this didn't make the final piece. It's fascinating. Yes, and you're wondering, what was it like for her? Is being a Secret Service agent hard on married life, Gwen? Yes, I guess it is. But if you're married to an agent, you learn to live with this job.

Do you? What about the divorce rate, Clint? Right now it's up at... It's up high now, isn't it? Very high. Hill's struggles strained their marriage. They never officially divorced, but eventually separated. Gwen Hill died in 2021.

So the last bit of sound, Mike Wallace asked a question that no other reporter would have asked in 1975. There's another part of security for the president, and that is ensuring his privacy. Will you tell me something, if you can? We'll name no names, okay? Okay. What do you do about some of the private occasions when they want nobody else to know what's going on? Whether it's in the White House or whether it's in a hotel out of town or, and you know, you know what I'm talking about and you know who I'm talking about. He takes a drag of a cigarette.

Wow. This is quite something. This is one of the questions that you think about with President Kennedy, that he was a philanderer. Yes, and I asked somebody at CBS who was at the White House for a very long time covering presidents, and I asked him how inappropriate that question would have been at the time. What's the answer? Well, I think Mike prided himself on being an outsider. He never worked in D.C. He never worked in D.C. He never lived in D.C.

And so this person said, absolutely. You would never ask that. No one would have ever asked that question. You hear Gwen, who's next to him, clear her throat. Yes. And he wiggles around enough that you can hear the mic scratching on his chest. Yeah. Nobody knows about those occasions.

You do. How do you manage it? Very carefully. You can see how Clint's eyes are red and watery. So you can tell this. I don't know if it came immediately after some of the real tough back and watery. So you can tell this, I don't know if it came immediately after some of the real tough back and forth, but it's nice to hear him laugh

and he gets kind of embarrassed when he's being asked the question. What I'm trying to find is how in the world you spirit somebody inside the White House and out without anybody knowing about it. Without the press knowing about it. That's right.

That's very easily done. Oh. The tunnel? Well, there I would guess are about eight different ways to get in or out of the White House. I think it's best that the Secret Service know only which of those eight are to be used and which eight there are. There are more than that, actually. Of the five presidents you served, how many had their companions use one or more

of those eight entrances? I can't think of any. There's a gallant gentleman. There was a moment we noticed in the original footage after the interview had ended. Gwen got up and this picture of Clint just sitting by himself. And I could be reading into it, but there was something very melancholy about that. And he sort of left on the couch, just sitting there. Wondering if he said too much. The story generated hundreds of viewer mail,

the most out of any other story. And 60 Minutes sent those letters to Clint Hill's home in Virginia. And as Mike said years later, to hope that it would relieve some of his burden. Most of them still haven't been opened. He hasn't read any of them. And the plan right now is for him to read some of these letters, which I imagine is going to be very moving for him. You're going to get on a plane and go to California and try to meet him? Yes.

All these years later, 60 Minutes meets Clint Hill again. Were you surprised that so many people wrote in after the broadcast? Well, I never expected anybody to write in. Absolutely surprised. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. Stay three nights this summer at Best Western and get $50 off a future stay.

Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $4. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap, biscuit or English muffin sandwiches, small hot coffee, and more. Limited time only at Hi, Lisa. How are you? Lisa McCubbin Hill is Clint Hill's second wife. She's also an author, and together they've collaborated on five bestsellers, including a book about the presidents he's served,

starting with Dwight Eisenhower and continuing through the presidency of Gerald Ford. This is Dazzle. He's very friendly, but he likes to jump. Hi, Dazzle. Dazzle, the Australian Labradoodle, is named after Clint Hill's Secret Service codename. Hill can no longer remember the origin of the name, but Lisa Hill suggests it's due to his charm. Hi, Clint. It's really good to meet you. Thank you, too.

As we mentioned, Hill is now 92. Let me call Seth. Seth Doan. WhatsApp audio. Hi, Seth. Hey, how are you? I'm sitting here with Clint Hill and his wife, Lisa Hill. Hill has grown weary from talking about the Kennedy assassination so much, but he did agree to read some of the letters he got from viewers after the story aired on 60 Minutes.

And we hoped maybe Clint Hill would share a bit more. Thank you so much for letting us chat with you. Oh, it's our pleasure. Where are you? Thank you. I'm in Italy. I'm based in Italy. Well, I've been all over Italy.

I was there with Mrs. Kennedy one time. We were there for about four or five days, I guess. It was a great time. Wow. A good person to get to see Italy with. Well, yes, quite. We'd drive down to the beach, get on a Riva, go to Beach House, Mrs. Kennedy, her sister, brother-in-law, Caroline, and her sister's son, Tony.

Wow, it sounds like you were part of the family in a way. Pretty much. Pretty close almost, but not really. Okay, I better get back to business here. Until five years ago, Clint Hill did not remember the hundreds of letters that viewers had sent to him. But when he was preparing to sell his old house in Virginia, there were some things to sort through. He was just going to call 1-800-GOT-JUNK. And I intervened and said, you know what,

let's just go there together and just see. And this was 2019? 2019, right. Lisa McCubbin-Hill says they found a battered black trunk in the garage. It says Clinton Hill, the White House, Washington, D.C. The trunk was filled with 17 years of presidential knickknacks, a paperweight from Lyndon Johnson, a John F. Kennedy official White House pen. I mean, he told me he hadn't opened it in 50 years, so he had no idea what was in there. And, you know, it's like finding a time capsule. And also under a stack of framed photos. Inside of these big envelopes were these hundreds of letters.

What's incredible is it's still in the original envelopes from 60 Minutes. Yes. There were dozens, if not hundreds, that had never been opened. Were you surprised that so many people wrote in after the broadcast? Well, I never expected anybody to write in. Absolutely surprised. We asked Clint Hill to read some excerpts. Letter 1, 12 December 1975.

As much as I love President Kennedy, no one can say that his life was or is more important than yours. Dear Mr. Hill, thank you for sharing your feelings with all of us. I was moved and shocked. Never once in these terrible black days have I or anyone I have talked to blamed Clint Hill. Dear Mr. Hill, you have been so much on my heart and mind since the 60-minute show Sunday night. I ask that you please forgive yourself

from this terrible burden of guilt. Mr. Hill, before you go on, can I just ask you, I'm just curious as you read these, what are you thinking? Well, because I'm reading them, I think I've gone through almost the entire emotion part in my lifetime. I'm now 92. So, you know, there's not much emotional left. How have you kind of processed it?

Not very well initially. I went into a six-year depression that almost killed me. And the doctors finally talked to me and had me change my ways. And I directed myself and came out better for it. But it's been a very difficult time. Out of the hundred or so letters the Hills discovered in that trunk in Virginia, Lisa McCubbin Hill brought 25 or so to their new home in California. And there was one in particular Clint Hill wanted to read to us.

Dear Mr. Hill, please forgive this paper, but I was in such a hurry to write you, yet now that I have taken pen in hand, I am afraid my pen will not do my heart justice. Please forgive me if it doesn't. 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 to offer some comfort. But no one who suffered that tremendous loss that day can even feel comfort. And I know you feel that.

Since I cannot offer you true comfort, Perhaps I could still say something. Why did you decide that that letter out of all the other letters was important for you to read to us? It just seemed like it kind of stood out. It offered me, you know, like she said, I wish she could wrap her arms around me and get my thoughts to go away about that day. And I do too. They never will. Clint Hill also wanted to show us another letter, one he received from Mike Wallace,

who passed away in 2012. Wallace wrote to Hill almost 20 years after the story aired on 60 Minutes. In the letter, Wallace asked Hill for another interview and shared an intimate detail about his own life. Wallace wrote, having suffered through my own period of intense depression, I now understand a bit better the depth to which we can be traumatized, and I appreciate more than ever my own day-to-day well-being. Sitting in his living room in California, Clint Hill showed producer Julie Holstein the letter he had written back to Mike Wallace. He says it took him almost a year to respond. In it, Clint Hill reveals a surprising twist in his 60-year-long odyssey. My interview with you on 60 Minutes in 1975 turned into much more of an emotional experience than I thought possible. It did turn out to be a cathartic experience for me and helped me release feelings that

had been pent up for a long time. You unknowingly helped me to finally come to terms with the tragedy of November 22, 1963, and my actions that day. You think the interview helped? Yeah, I think without that, perhaps I would have just lingered in a horrible situation and never come out of it, probably. That was the thing. I didn't talk to anybody about the situation in Dallas

other than I testified to the Warren Commission. I gave them the facts. I wrote a statement for the Secret Service. We didn't discuss it as agents. I never talked to my family about it. And Clint Hill remained assigned to former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy for about a year following the assassination. It was harder to spend that year after it happened, no question. We never talked about it. She never talked about that at all. That thing was avoided and has been avoided by the Kennedy family for years.

Why did you decide to talk to 60 Minutes? I just thought it would be interesting. I never even thought for one minute that I was going to have the emotional reaction that I did. I thought I could handle anything. Now this is 12 years after the event. I had been promoted up all the way up to assistant director. So I was doing extremely well. So when it hit me, it really hit me hard. Have you forgiven yourself? Not completely. No. My dad drilled into me that when you're given an assignment to do, you do it till it's fully finished. I had an assignment to keep the president and Mrs. Kennedy alive. I only kept one of them alive. One died. On my watch. You don't still blame yourself all these years later.

Well, maybe there was something I could have done. I don't know anymore. We talked with Hill five months before that first attempt on former President Donald Trump's life, a security breach that in August the acting chief of the Secret Service called a mission failure. As we learned in speaking with Clint Hill, agents involved in an assassination attempt can be traumatized by the experience. And just this summer, the acting director of the Secret Service told reporters that his agents were carrying, quote, an open wound. The FBI congressional testimony on the attempted Trump assassination in Pennsylvania included details that the shooter had searched for specifics about President

Kennedy's murder, including how far away Lee Harvey Oswald was from the president when he shot him in 1963. Lisa McCubbin Hill told us that digesting the latest news has made for a distressing time for Clint Hill. She said Hill had worked hard to bring joy back into his life since the 1960s. He'd written his memoirs and told us that focusing on his wife Lisa and his grandchildren helped. And there's another thing. He also found a new purpose, speaking with and encouraging others suffering from PTSD to get help. He's now 92 years old, and we wondered how he wanted to be remembered.

Two words. I tried. That's all that wanted to be remembered. Two words. I tried. That's all that needs to be said. I tried. This episode of 60 Minutes, A Second Look was produced by Julie Holstein. Additional producing from Hazel May Bryan. Maura Walsh is the story editor,

and Jamie Benson is our senior producer and engineer. Our fact checker is Annie Cronenberg, recording assistants from Alan Pang and Marlon Polycarp. Bill Owens is the executive producer of 60 Minutes. Tanya Simon is the executive editor, and Matthew Polivoj is the senior producer. Invaluable support from Megan Marcus and Steve Raises of Paramount Audio. Paul Lowenwater produced the original 1975 broadcast story for 60 Minutes,

titled Secret Service Agent Number Nine. Thanks also to the crew and editor of the original piece. Special thanks to Lisa McCubbin-Hill. And as always, a very big thanks to the incredible team at CBS News Archives who helped make this podcast possible. I'm Seth Doan. Don't want to miss the next episode of 60 Minutes a Second Look? Tap to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And leave a rating if you liked the show. See you next Tuesday.