JFK’s bodyguard Clint Hill, 90, insists Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone

The former bodyguard of John F Kennedy has again dismissed conspiracy theories surrounding the 1963 assassination of the US President.

Speaking after more than 13,000 unredacted documents were released by the US government, Clint Hill, now 90, said there is ‘no fact’ and only ‘guess work’ in alternative theories about who shot his former boss.

The former Secret Service agent told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that killer Lee Harvey Oswald was ‘simply at the right place at the right time with the right equipment’.

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.

Mr 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 – who was hiding in a sixth-floor window – fired at the President.

One shot hit him in the neck, whilst another – which was fatal – struck him in the head.

Mr Hill was famously seen scrambling to protect the President after the first shot was fired, but did not reach him in time to take the second bullet. 

Mr Hill said: ‘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. 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.’

Mr Hill 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,’ Mr Hill added.

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’.

In the moments immediately after Kennedy’s shooting, Jackie was seen climbing out of the back seat, before Mr Hill pushed her back into the car.

She later had no recollection of climbing out of the car, although Hill has previously said she may have been trying to retrieve a piece of her husband’s skull.

Connally was seriously wounded in the assassination, with a bullet that had passed through Kennedy fracturing his rib, puncturing one of his lungs and shattering his wrist.

Afterwards, Oswald, who worked at the school book depository, shot dead Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit as he attempted to leave the area.

After Kennedy’s death, Mr Hill worked as Jackie Kennedy’s bodyguard, and then worked for Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson.

He 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 himself 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.

Others have speculated that Ruby 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.  

‘Pursuant to my direction, agencies have undertaken a comprehensive effort to review the full set of almost 16,000 records that had previously been released in redacted form and determined that more than 70 percent of those records may now be released in full,’ he said.

‘This significant disclosure reflects my administration’s commitment to transparency and will provide the American public with greater insight and understanding of the government’s investigation into this tragic event in American history.’

Hundreds more documents still remain under wraps however, but a CIA spokesman said 95 percent of the files have now been released in full.

Some of the files do shed more light on how the CIA had been observing Oswald, a former US marine, since 1960.

In September 1963, he visited the Soviet Union’s embassy in Mexico City. He had defected to Russia in 1959, but returned to the US three years later.

His association with the Soviet Union led to speculation that Russian figures may have been involved in Kennedy’s killing. 

However, the newly released files reveal how the KGB – the Soviet Union’s feared intelligence service – considered Oswald to be ‘crazy’ and claimed to have had no contact with him after he returned to the US.