PUBLISHED: 17:24 GMT, 4 April 2012 | UPDATED: 20:23 GMT, 5 April 2012
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.
On the lookout: Hill, dressed in black and sunglasses, can be seen
standing on a vehicle's running board as President Kennedy drives
through the streets of Dallas, Texas before the shooting
Horrifying: Hill climbs towards Mrs Kennedy, who he says was reaching for part of her husband's skull
Hill is the figure in the famous Zapruder film of the shooting which shows him climbing onto the back of the president's limousine as it continues to move.
As he moved towards Mrs Kennedy, he watched her reaction: 'Her eyes were filled with terror,' he wrote. 'She was reaching for something. She was reaching for a piece of the President's head.'
Before he could reach them, two more bullets were shot - the final one hitting the president in the head, just above his right ear.
'The impact was like the sound of a melon shattering onto cement,' he remembered, adding that the President's blood and parts of his skull splattered over his clothes, face and hair.
Pulling Mrs Kennedy, as he always called her, into her seat, the president's body fell into her arms with his eyes open. 'Jack, Jack, what have they done to you?' she wailed.
Horrifying: Hill climbs towards Mrs Kennedy, who he says was reaching for part of her husband's skull
Hill is the figure in the famous Zapruder film of the shooting which shows him climbing onto the back of the president's limousine as it continues to move.
As he moved towards Mrs Kennedy, he watched her reaction: 'Her eyes were filled with terror,' he wrote. 'She was reaching for something. She was reaching for a piece of the President's head.'
Before he could reach them, two more bullets were shot - the final one hitting the president in the head, just above his right ear.
'The impact was like the sound of a melon shattering onto cement,' he remembered, adding that the President's blood and parts of his skull splattered over his clothes, face and hair.
Pulling Mrs Kennedy, as he always called her, into her seat, the president's body fell into her arms with his eyes open. 'Jack, Jack, what have they done to you?' she wailed.
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