Clint Hill, the former agent of the U.S. Secret Service who is remembered for running and climbing into the back of the back of his John Fitzgerald Kennedy, trying in vain to save him when the then US president was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

“The Secret Service is deeply saddened by the death of Clint Hill,” the agency tasked with guarding major political figures said in a statement yesterday, praising his “unwavering dedication” to the Kennedy family during the tragedy, as well as to Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Haunted by what he considered a personal failure, Clint Hill retired from the Secret Service in 1975 at the age of 43.

In his first interview about the assassination of JFK, he had confessed on CBS’s 60 Minutes that he felt guilt and sadness for failing to protect the president with his body.

He had run and climbed onto the rear bumper of the open presidential car to cover the then president and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy with his body, but it was too late.