Mr. HILL. That is a step built into the rear bumper of the automobile, and on top of the rear trunk there is a handguard which you grab for and hang onto when you are standing up.
Mr. SPECTER. Are identical objects of those descriptions existing on each side of the President's car?
Mr. SPECTER. Did you have any other occasion en route from Love Field to downtown Dallas to leave the followup car and mount that portion of the President's car?
Mr. HILL. I did the same thing approximately four times.
Mr. SPECTER. What are the standard regulations and practices, if any, governing such an action on your part?
Mr. HILL. It is left to the agent's discretion more or less to move to that particular position when he feels that there is a danger to the President; to place himself as close to the President or the First Lady as my case was, as possible, which I did.
Mr. SPECTER. Are those practices specified in any written documents of the Secret Service?
Mr. SPECTER. Now, had there been any instruction or comment about your performance of that type of a duty with respect to anything that President Kennedy himself had said in the period immediately preceding the trip to Texas?
Mr. HILL. Yes, sir; there was. The preceding Monday, the President was on a trip in Tampa, Fla., and he requested that the agents not ride on either of those two steps.
Mr. SPECTER. And to whom did the President make that request?
Mr. HILL. Assistant Special Agent in Charge Boring.
Mr. SPECTER. Was Assistant Special Agent in Charge Boring the individual in charge of that trip to Florida?
Mr. HILL. He was riding in the Presidential automobile on that trip in Florida, and I presume that he was. I was not along.
Mr. SPECTER. Well, on that occasion would he have been in a position comparable to that occupied by Special Agent Kellerman on this trip to Texas?
Mr. SPECTER. And Special Agent Boring informed you of that instruction by President Kennedy?
Mr. SPECTER. Did he make it a point to inform other special agents of that same instruction?
Mr. SPECTER. And, as a result of what President Kennedy said to him, did he instruct you to observe that Presidential admonition?
Mr. SPECTER. How, if at all, did that instruction of President Kennedy affect your action and--your action in safeguarding him on this trip to Dallas?