90-year-old John F. Kennedy’s surviving bodyguard has insisted that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in 1963 assassination as he rubbishes conspiracy theories after 13,000 documents are released.
Speaking after more than 13,000 unredacted documents were released by the US government, Clint Hill, JFK’s bodyguard said there is ‘no fact’ and only ‘guess work’ in alternative theories about who shot his former boss.
Recalled that Kennedy was shot in the head by Oswald during a visit to Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, as he was being driven through the city with his wife Jackie in an open-top car.
Clint Hill was riding on the Secret Service car directly behind the President’s limousine, which was also carrying Texas governor John Connally and his wife Nellie.
After the motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository, Oswald was reportedly hiding in a sixth-floor window then fired at the President.
One shot hit him in the neck, whilst another struck him in the head.
Hill was seen scrambling to protect the President after the first shot was fired, but could not reach him in time to take the second bullet.
Clint Hill recalled the scene of the incident:
‘I heard an explosive noise over my right shoulder from the rear. I didn’t recognise exactly what it was at first, so I started to turn toward the noise to see if I could identify it.
‘Then I saw President Kennedy grab at his neck. He started to fall to his left.
‘I realised that what I had heard was a gunshot. I jumped from my position from the follow-up car, running as fast as I could towards the Presidential vehicle, with the intention of getting on top of the back of the car to form a shield or barricade there to protect both the President and Mrs Kennedy.
‘Unfortunately just before I got there, another shot was fired and it hit the President in the head and it was a fatal wound.’
JFK’s bodyguard said he has been asked ‘thousands of times’ about what really happened as conspiracy theorists have questioned the official conclusion reached by the Warren Commission, which found that Oswald acted alone.
‘When you say conspiracy theories, that sums it up, the word theories, there’s no fact involved, it is strictly guess work,’ Hill said
Asked if any of the 13,173 unredacted documents that were released yesterday by President Joe Biden will yield any new insights into Kennedy’s death, Mr Hill said: ‘I really don’t think there is any additional important information out there.
‘I think that everything that has been released is about as much that you’re going to get. I don’t think that there’s anything left of any significance.
‘He said he also believes that, ‘nothing’ could have stopped the assassination from happening, because of ‘the way this one developed’.
Mr Hill would later worked as Jackie Kennedy’s bodyguard, and then worked for Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson – after the demise of his boss.
Hill went on to protect Richard Nixon’s Vice President Spiro Agnew before becoming the assistant director of the Secret Service’s protection team. He retired in 1975.
Oswald was later shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby just two days after Kennedy’s killing.
Ruby later insisted that he killed Oswald to save Mrs Kennedy the ordeal of going through a trial leaving the public to speculate that Ruby only killed Oswald on behalf of organised crime.
Ruby passed away in 1967 from pneumonia.
President Biden issued an executive order yesterday authorising the publication of the unredacted documents.
