By Daily Mail Reporter
The secret service agent employed to protect Jackie Kennedy has recounted the terror following the president's assassination in 1963, and how he wrapped John F. Kennedy's shot head in his jacket.
Speaking on the Today show, Clint Hill, now 80, recounted his determination to throw himself between the Kennedys and the bullets as parts of the president's brain and skull splattered over his shirt.
When a third bullet hit the president's head and the motorcade sped to hospital, Hill said the First Lady refused to leave the car, fearful that onlookers would see her husband's horrific injuries.
In his new memoir, Mrs Kennedy and Me, Hill recalled the crowds cheering for the motorcade and the moment he heard an explosion. He looked around and saw the president grab his throat.
'Somebody had fired a shot at the President, and I had to get myself between the shooter and the President and Mrs. Kennedy,' he wrote. 'Nothing else mattered.'
He added on Today: 'That's the one thing that I can't get out of my mind - the picture of him lying in her lap with his head exposed to me, looking into the back of his head.'
Hill, who has previously said he could have taken the third bullet had he moved a second sooner, said he then had the thought: 'How did I let this happen to her?'
'Then came the thought that haunts me still: How did I let this happen to her?'
Clint Hill
Speaking to People magazine, which published excerpts of the book, Hill added: 'Because of the angles, the weather, where we were - everything - I did all I could. But I still feel guilt.'
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