My Descent Into Hell: A Continuing Memoir of the Son of John F Kennedy's Assassin. Two More Killings and Their Consequence

By Bruce H. Bell

This is the sequel to "My Father Killed President John F Kennedy," wherein the author detailed the planning of JFK's assassination, first published in February 2021, with a revised edition in October 2022. He has felt a deep responsibility to provide factual information about those involved, many he knew, and their motiv

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookside Press
• Release date: Oct 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781998784486

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Copyright © 2022 by Bruce H. Bell

ISBN: 978-1-998784-47-9 (Paperback)

978-1-998784-48-6 (Hardback)

978-1-998784-49-3 (E-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

The views expressed in this book are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Me and My Thoroughbred Horse, Sally

RECAP

Orris Emmitt Bell

A Trip to Mexico and a Bullfight

My Early Involvement with Orris

The Cellar

Two Bunnies from the Chicago Playboy Club

The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Previous Assassinations, Attempted and Successful

Abraham Lincoln, Republican, 1861-65

William McKinley, Republican, 1887-1901

Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, Republican 1901-09

William Taft, Republican 1909-13

Warren Harding, Republican 1921-23

Herbert Hoover, Republican 1929-33:

Franklin Roosevelt, Democrat 1933-45:

Harry Truman, Democrat 1945-53

Richard Nixon, Republican 1969-74

Gerald Ford, Republican, 1974-77; Lynette Fromme, Sarah Jane Moore

Jimmy Carter, Democrat, 1977-81;John Hinckley Jr.

Ronald Reagan, Republican,1981-89; John Hinckley Jr.

George H.W. Bush, Republican 1989-93

Bill Clinton, Democrat 1993-2001

George W. Bush, Republican, 2001-09

Barack Obama, Democrat, 2009-17

Donald Trump, Republican 2017-21

The Reasons for JFK’s Assassination

Vietnam

Relations with Russia and Cuba

The CIA

Racial Issues

Economic Issues

Did He Know?

The Major Overseers of the President’s Assassination

The CIA, Bush

The Military, Curtis LeMay

The Others

The Assassination Cover-up

The FBI; Hoover

The CIA

The Warren Commission

The U.S. House Select Committee

Present Status

Mysterious Deaths: Mary Meyer and Dorothy Kilgallen

Mary Pinchot Meyer

Dorothy Kilgallen

President Lyndon Johnson’s Changes

Two More Assassinations

After the JFK Assassination for Orris and Me

Racism and Slavery in America

The Assassination of Martin Luther King

Robert Kennedy

Robert Kennedy and the Mafia/Hoffa

Attorney General

Presidential Candidate

Assassination

Sirhan Bashira Sirhan

I Confront Orris

Change of Course

Enlisting

My War Years

Training for the Army

Germany or Vietnam

Waiting

Born’s Enemies Act

My Options

Being in Vietnam and Cambodia

Action in Battle

How to Survive

A Typical Battle

Relationships in Vietnam

The Letter Man

The Medic

A Coward

Homesteads

I Get Injured and Return to Fight

The One Fight I Will Never Forget

My Almost Commendation

A Leave from Cambodia

My Return to Duty and Discharge

MK-Ultra

I First Learn

Addictive Drugs

Stimulants

Psychedelics; Humphrey Osmond, Al Hubbard

Sedatives; Opium

German History

North American Development; Strughold

Dulles’ Involvement; Sidney Gottlieb

McGill, Rockefeller and Ewen Cameron

Carl Pfeiffer, Whitey Bulger

Louis Joyon West; Jimmy Shaver

Frank Olson, Wormwood

MK-Ultra Now

MK-Ultra and Oswald

After My Discharge

After My Military Discharge; Depression

Jackie Lively

Dennis Hotsinpiller and Bruce Botnick

Steven’s Bust

My Psychological Escape

The Initial Confrontation

Just Waiting

The Second Confrontation

Rosewood Hospital, The First Time

My First Days

I Meet Dr. Ronald Hauser

A Special Girl

Rosewood Becomes More Intense

I Move to Another Level

The LSD Routine

A Lull and a Dream

Being Programmed

The Girl Returns

The Last of the Girl

It Gets Worse for Me; ECT

Back and Forth

Home

Friends Try to Help

A Temporary Escape

Back to Rosewood and Another Escape

My Excursion Back

Rosewood for the Last Time and Maybe a Lobotomy

Early U.S. Intelligence

The Rockefellers

History

Nelson Rockefeller

David Rockefeller

The WCC, OSS and Donovan

The CIA

The Beginnings

The CIA Is Established

Allen Dulles (1953-61)

Successive Directors

John McCone (1961-65)

Vice-Admiral William Raborn (1965)

Richard Helms (1966-73)

James Schlesinger (1973)

William Colby (1973-76)

George H.W. Bush (1976)

Typical Use of the CIA

Iran

Guatemala

Indonesia

South America

The Functioning of the CIA

A Typical CIA Operative, Howard Hunt

Role in the President’s Assassination?

Role in the Pentagon Papers Scandal;

the Plumbers

Role in the Watergate Scandal

Watergate Unwinds; Martha Mitchell

The Trials

Alexander Haig

The CIA and the Underworld

Organized Crime and the CIA

Cuba and the U.S.

Illicit Cuban Activity, Batista

CIA, Mafia and Drugs; Banker Sindona

Law Enforcement

Alcohol Prohibition

Drugs, the DEA

A New Life for Me

Jackie and Paul

Me and My CIA Role

A Girl Named Susan

Orris’ Later Life

Political

Profiting From It All; ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’

Business Life

CIA Work

Families

PATI

Bruce, Pati, and the CIA

I Marry Pati; France

School; the CIA Becomes More Difficult

I Consult a Psychiatrist; The Consequences

Visit to Oswald’s Grave with Orris

I Learn the Truth

Our Trip to Mexico

A Strange Phenomenon

The End of Our Relationship

Philadelphia and After

Orris Asks Two Favors

I Get to Know More Mafia Men

Sarah Comes Into My Life

New Mexico and Sarah

Working with the DEA; Iran-Contra

My Work in Tennessee

Face to Face with Senator Ted Kennedy

Orris In The Last Years

Orris and the Italian Mafia

Something is Wrong with My Father

My Father is Dying

The Last Attempt to Change Things

The Goodbye

FINIS

My Life as a CIA and DEA Operative

Being Alive Because, and in Spite of, the Mafia and CIA

Regrets?

My Problems Writing This

Epilogue

Val Anisimow, Research Consultant

Introduction

1

INTRODUCTION

Me and My Thoroughbred Horse, Sally

It was the Summer of 1969, I was seventeen years old and had witnessed my father’s participation in monumental assassinations of President John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. Although I had originally bought into the necessity of the President’s assassination on November 22, 1963, I had since become disillusioned, and told him so. And that I thought that they had certainly gone too far by killing the other men. Their attempt to become the preeminent controllers of American politics, and the world for that matter, was just wrong.

He answered as he had before, Bruce, you don’t understand. You’re young and ideological, and in time you will mature, and your ideas will pass. Just give it time. But apparently his seemingly tolerant attitude changed, as I was about to find out.

At the time, I had a thoroughbred mare racehorse, Sally. I bought her a year earlier just to produce a colt, not to ride for pleasure. She had been run on a racetrack for several years when she was younger. But she was very skittish, difficult to control and would bolt at the least little thing, such as a dog barking, a piece of paper blown by the wind in front of her, nearly anything.

She was very strong, as most thoroughbreds are, so that once she bolted it was very difficult to get her back under control. She was big, seventeen hands high, but I had been around horses all my life and could ride well, so I could handle her under normal circumstances, despite the fact she was so crazy.

One day about a month after that conversation with my father, I rode Sally from her stable to our house, about four miles one-way. This was a long ride on the back roads I took with her, because of her reaction to cars and loud noises. These were country roads, fairly quiet, but still it was dangerous with her. After I visited for a while with my parents, Sally and I started back for the stable. Our route was along a gravel road which ultimately ended with a ditch and barbed-wire fence, where it accessed a paved road at a right angle.

All of a sudden, I heard a car coming up fast from behind. I turned in the saddle to look back over my shoulder to see my father’s Cadillac about fifty yards back, but quickly closing in on me. I first thought something must be wrong, and then realized that if my father kept coming at us like this, Sally would surely spook.

And in fact, he did keep coming at us at this high speed, got right up behind before slamming on his brakes, sliding in the gravel, and nearly hitting us. Of course, Sally spooked and bolted to a full run down the gravel road. But then my father gunned his engine, honked his horn and stayed right on our heels. All I could do was to wave my arm back at him to back off.

She was so strong, there was no way I could stop her when she was frightened like this. I don’t know which of us was frightened more, Sally or me. I thought, ‘What the hell is wrong with him? He knows Sally will spook at anything. He’s going to get me killed!’ Then looking back over my shoulder again, he was just a few feet behind. And unbelievably I saw that my mother was in the car too, and both were laughing hysterically at me and this spectacle.

My father had been raised around horses too and was a very experienced horseman himself. He knew all about Sally, that she had been run on a track and was skittish as hell. Now, he was intentionally scaring her. I had never experienced anything like this before with my parents, and though they apparently thought it funny, it certainly was no laughing matter.

We were now only fifty yards from the end of the gravel road, and the paved road was coming up very quickly. I had only two choices. I would have to turn left onto the paved road, an impossibility at this speed; she was shod with steel shoes and would unquestionably slip and fall. Or run her through the ditch, a barbed wire fence and into a tight grove of Oak trees on the other side of the road. Either choice would surely get me killed. I considered trying to jump off, but thought they might run over me, because they were so close behind.

I looked back one more time. They were still laughing, even though they had to know how dangerous the situation had become. I waved back again to tell them to back off, but they kept right on coming. And now the asphalt road was coming up fast and I was out of time. I had to decide what to do. But I had no real choice. I had to try to turn Sally left onto the paved road, even though I knew she would never make it. I could only hope for the best.

I got ready in the saddle because I knew I was going to have to jump, once she started to go down. I turned her head to the left just before we turned onto the paved road. She responded knowing that was the direction of her stable. But as we hit the asphalt and I got her going left, I heard her front hooves slip, metal against pavement.

I started to leap from the saddle towards my right. I knew it was all over and she was going down and hard. I just needed to get away from her, otherwise I’d get kicked in the head by one of her steel shoes. Then her feet came out from under her, and she fell right in the middle of the road at full speed. But my left foot hung up in the stirrup, so I was trapped in the saddle with her.

My head hit the pavement hard as she catapulted me down to slide across the road on the left side of my face. I hit so hard, it nearly knocked me out. After we came to a stop, Sally was lying next to me, striking the pavement with her hooves, trying to get up. Her front hooves were missing my head by inches and sparks were flying from her steel shoes.

I rolled over on my left side and got up on my knees to look right into my parents’ faces in the car. They had stopped just feet from me and were no longer laughing. The left side of my face was scraped to the bone and bleeding profusely. I was too dizzy to get up on my feet, so I just stayed on my knees staring at them.

I couldn’t understand why my father had intentionally done this to me. He had to know how dangerous it was. That Sally could never make this turn at that speed. I had never before experienced anything like this with my parents.

I looked back at Sally next to me, struggling to get up. She was obviously hysterical, if a horse can be hysterical. She was whinnying and kept striking the road with her shod hooves, trying to get enough traction to get up. She finally got that foothold, got to her feet, and ran off down the road, wild as hell toward her stable. It was now quiet and still.

My father got out to came over to help me up to my feet and into the backseat of the car. Without a word from either of them, they took me to the closest hospital. On the way, I couldn’t say a word to them either. I was so humiliated and angry. I just looked down at the red blood all over my father’s white leather upholstery, my brain a jumble of thoughts. When we got to the hospital, they called in a plastic surgeon to sew the left side of my face. I still have a scar on my left eyebrow to remind me of what happened.

This was the day that everything finally broke for me. I had increasingly come to believe that my father might be crazy, but now my mother had unbelievably shocked me. She had always been a very good, loving mother to me and all her children. I couldn’t believe she could be party to this; she had to know that this could end so badly. And still laugh about it.

My father, yes. After all, in my opinion he had become completely demented since the assassinations. This was his very dark side coming out, just like on the day in April 1964, after the Kennedy assassination, when he had visited home from his hideout in Los Angeles and appeared to reject me. Only so much worse. This was a man who could kill animals and people without showing emotion, sometimes for a purpose, but apparently also sometimes just out of uncontrolled rage; a rage which he apparently enjoyed.

Was this just his raw psychopathic personality? Or was it a Freudian thing as I had conjectured on that April day? Or because I had been being groomed to be his heir apparent, I had now let him and his associates down by my reaction to the two assassination that followed. Or, as I would later begin to reluctantly acknowledge, was this an act of intimidation in retaliation for me; a warning not to reveal what I knew about the assassinations? Or worse, was he intending to really kill me to protect himself from his own execution. And this from a man who I knew had loved me passionately when I was younger.

Regardless, I thought to myself, Both my parents are crazy, and I can’t live with them any longer. I have to leave. And so began a new journey for me, one with tremendous consequences.

RECAP

I detailed in my earlier book, My Father Killed President John F. Kennedy, how my father, Orris Bell, was actually a major planner and primary assassin along with two accomplices, Charles Lyon and Tom Lawrence. This was with the participation, direction and support of several influential groups and individuals who I will identify later. The aim was to not only rid America of what they strongly felt was an unfit president, but to reform the government to one more to their liking.

In essence, the assassination was a cabal to fascism, which is defined by the Britannica Dictionary as a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government.

It was the beginning of what many today believe is a corrupt Republican party, fostering the continuing erosion of democratic institutions. And in so doing, the assassins would also cement the power of what Eisenhower had warned against, the military industrial complex, for their own financial benefit.

At the time, I had already been introduced by Orris to the aerospace industry where he functioned as a consultant and major negotiator. He was always discussing experimental aircraft and top-secret aerospace projects with me. So, I grew up with pilots, aerospace engineers and designers, as well as the Air Force and its Generals. I was intrigued by the physics and engineering of it all; my questions were never-ending, and I developed an insatiable appetite for all aircraft and rocketry, especially that of the military.

For many reasons, I would become party to much of the planning of the President Kennedy assassination and meet and observe most of those involved. Including CIA operatives, Mafia figures such as Jack Ruby and Sam Giancana, and Charles Born, a very influential Air Force General. But perhaps most interesting was my relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald who I got to know fairly well and liked, and whose preplanned murder was very difficult for me.

My father used me as a confidante, sounding-board, and decoy to obscure their actions; and maybe a good-luck amulet, given my history of premonitions. I was seen as intelligent and was being groomed to eventually become a leader of a cadre of men who saw themselves as entitled to run the world, and profit, using both Mafia and CIA connections.

By the time the President was assassinated, my father had become a frightening man to me, dangerous, ruthless and capable of anything. His politics and what they led him into, changed him irrevocably, turning him into a murderer, an accomplice of the CIA, the upper echelons of the military and the Mafia.

It was not always that way; in fact, there had been much love and some very good times. But there were signs along the way that should have made me realize he was spinning out of control, but I was too young to understand or do anything about that.

Initially, I couldn’t help but buy into the reasons for the President’s assassination. Was even joyful when it occurred, my reaction at school causing my teacher to wonder and worry. But at the same time, I was conflicted and even contemplated finding a way to get it aborted; obviously, I didn’t have the means. My mother could have done something, but she was in awe of her husband who seemed capable of exercising a hypnotic power over almost everyone he met, including her.

And by 1968, I saw the President’s assassination as very wrong. I had become the prodigal son. And today, I feel guilt that I hadn’t found that way.

Looking back as an adult, I realize how badly I had been impacted by those three years in my life: 1962/63/64. The intensity of it all, the burdens of expectations and responsibilities, the awareness of the immensity of what was being undertaken. And having to live in this secret world, while still trying to be s normal child. I was exploited, manipulated, and taken advantage of in a cruel manner. I was being traumatized by what amounted to severe abuse, toxic stress.

The men involved, especially my father, surely knew what this would to me in the long run, but they didn’t care. They were too overtaken by their insane obsession with the assassination to stop and think what this exposure would do to this youngster.

I am writing this second book to chronicle further actions by my father and his associates. Including attempts to permanently erase my recollections of it all as my growing disillusionment led me to threaten to expose them. There were times when they were successful, but thankfully my memories eventually prevailed and have been endorsed by Kennedy assassination expert, Robert Groden. Along with a catalog of corroborating details I provided in the first book.

And a very difficult journey it became. Some readers may question how a twelve-year old could recall so much. But trauma is either repressed or becomes vividly etched in our memory. And I know that many will be inclined to shrug off my story as just another conspiracy theory, and by implication, false. But sometimes a real conspiracy is just that, real.

I also include factual details I have learned since about the history of our country, organizations and involved people. Things that help explain what has happened to it and to me.

Orris Emmitt Bell

My father, Orris Bell, was a very complicated man. Coddled by his mother, but with a stringent, hard-working and successful father, he was well-educated and prepared to be a success himself. But most important was his winning and commanding personality. And his good looks probably didn’t do him any harm.

His service in WW II would have major influence on him in many ways. Especially the time he spent in Italy where he developed relationships with members of the Mafia, something that would continue for his lifetime.

Upon returning to the U.S., he married my mother, Maxine, initially a rather naïve, Scandinavian, Iowa farmgirl. Orris and Max moved to Idaho and then Wyoming where his father, Emmitt -- Ed as he was called -- gave him a job. When working with this man proved too difficult, the couple moved to California where he enjoyed the high life off his earnings. Including the horse races at the Del Mar racetrack, where he would meet a network of successful Texan oilmen, Mafioso, even J. Edgar Hoover and, of course, starlets.

When the money began to run out, he found a sales job in El Segundo with U.S. Chemical Milling Corp. U.S. Chem Mill, as the name implies, used a chemical, rather than mechanical, method to mill metals. Developed by its owner, Charles Lundquist, this process made metals lighter in weight and therefore ideal for aircraft and missiles.

There, Orris became a successful senior salesman, interacting with defense aerospace companies. And he would meet two other men who would play major roles in his life, Generals Curtis LeMay and Charles Born.

In 1957, the company opted to establish a new plant in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, an operation that Orris would head. The family, now including six children, set off East full of optimism, the kind of feeling a family gets when they uproot and drive away to a place that seems to offer all sorts of dreams. And a return to Orris’ boyhood home.

But this business venture was halted because of circumstances out of Orris’ control. Left to his own devices, he fortunately became a successful broker and problem solver for the Fort Worth aerospace community. His success was not only because he was very affable and projected a sense of strength, assuredness, and being in control. But because he often used inducements such as money and women to procure contracts.

One of the inducements was the hunting trips he and cohort, Charles Lyon, would lead. Both were avid hunters, a skill the two would rely on later in Dealey Plaza.

But Orris definitely also had a dark and a strange, somewhat wild side. He kept that hidden from most of his business associates unless they themselves had the same proclivity. His greatest drawbacks in life were his addictions to alcohol and women. In the 1950s and 60s, to be an alcoholic in the upper echelon of the aerospace defense industry was rather normal. They just considered themselves hard-drinking men in a tough industry that required such hard-drinking, tough men. And the same could be said about his womanizing. These were accepted mindsets left over from WWII.

He was a classic alcoholic, but a functional one who never drank before his work was completed on any given day. In fact, he didn’t drink at all during the planning of the President’s assassination.

During his frequent trips back to California, he maintained his relationships with a group of Hollywood movie starlets and some Mafiosi. The resulting parties were wild where anything could and would happen. A lot of these people were also into the occult, devil worshiping.

With all this, Orris was diverse in his activities, with whom and where. One night he could be in New York staying in one of the best hotels in America, and the next night be back in Texas in a cheap strip joint on the Brazos River. And be just as comfortable in both. He seemed to enjoy these different sides of life equally.

The diversity extended to his avid womanizing, and it always amazed me that he had so many women, again so different from one another. Young strippers in Fort Worth, models in New York. Women who were happy drinking Schlitz in a cheap bar in a small town in Texas, sophisticated women who drank French wine in New York. But they all had one thing in common; they were always attractive.

At the same time, Orris had a deep sense of responsibility for any offspring of these relationships. Providing financial support, as well as visiting frequently. Of course, I’m sure there was often some resentment on the part of the children, lacking a full-time father.

Once in 1968, I saw his car in the driveway of a house in a new Fort Worth housing development. When I stopped to see who he was visiting, a woman came to the door who I immediately recognized; she had accompanied him on a trip to Omaha SAC headquarters in 1960; a trip he took me on, exposing me first-hand to his adultery. Apparently Orris bought this house for her and their two young children, a boy and a girl, seven and five years old.

In defense of Orris, he also had a very warm, loving and compassionate side. He displayed his love for all of us, his wife and children, with hugs and kisses. His daughters loved him passionately in spite of what they knew about his life, and they knew a lot. Life with him was so complicated for his wife and children.

Of course, his emotional warmth was also in stark contrast to his pathological drives for control and success and his ideological bigotry. He was a very strange, unusual man who so many others loved and respected, even revered.

A Trip to Mexico and a Bullfight

One example of Orris’ good side was when he would take the family to South Padre Island in Texas, and then down to Matamoros in Mexico to witness the bullfights. I still vividly remember the first time.

Our seats, of course, were ringside. Dust was everywhere and the sun was hot; but it didn’t matter. The energy of the crowd was unbelievable. People surged here and there shouting and laughing, the mix of blood lust and excitement intoxicating to them, as it was to us. Everything they did was passionate; even the way they sat rigid and taut with concentration.

My brother Steven pointed to some girls all dressed in white, and asked why. Mommy laughed at this and explained that the white meant they weren’t married. He asked if they were getting married today. No, but they might be soon. Daddy went on to explain that the white was in hopes that the matador would notice them and throw his hat to one of them, dedicating the fight to her; something that would make her special and more attractive to other men.

The entry procession was brilliant. First came men dressed in incredible costumes of fiery colors and flashing sequins. Then the matadors themselves, causing the crowd to rise to their feet, hats held up in exultation and passion.

The matador who was to fight first took off his embroidered cape and walked to the edge of the ring where all the young women sat, right next to us. One of the matadors hesitated, then came over to us and astonishingly, threw his hat directly to Mommy. We were taken aback, while the crowd went wild. I’m sure Daddy had arranged it.

The actual contests between matadors and bulls were breathtaking; I could have stayed and watched forever. Afterwards, Daddy took me aside to accompany him to a little sidewalk café around the corner, where he ordered a drink and I had a Coke. Shortly, a man came over; I was surprised to recognize him as the star matador.

Daddy spoke to him by name and invited him to sit with us, congratulating him on his fight. In turn, the matador thanked him also by name and presented him with a carefully wrapped set of banderillos, the decorated darts they thrust into the bull’s neck, proving their ability, daring and agility, as well as further infuriating the poor animal.

It was clear to me that this had all been planned for my benefit, Orris asking questions about bullfighting, the answers to which he already knew. But then as he continued drinking, I became afraid that his dark side would appear. I watched the glass go to his lips over and over and waited, listening only half-heartedly to what the matador was saying. Fortunately, the conversation and drinking came to an end and the family returned to the car.

On the way back, the joy of the day returned. Daddy, that was a wonderful time. It’s part of your growing up, Bruce. There’s more to come. Much more.

My Early Involvement with Orris

My being groomed to participate and eventually become a leader in my father’s world began around the time I was seven or so. It was not an easy transition from being an adored and adorning son who could only see the positives, to having to acknowledge the man’s faults. Something that probably all boys experience, but the intensity of the situations made mine worse.

As Orris began to take me deeper into his confidence and I became so close to him, it was inevitable that I would be exposed to his private life of womanizing and alcohol, along with a group of fast friends. This is not to say it wasn’t exciting to be a part of his world, even though it was a rollercoaster ride.

His parties were usually large, most of the men from the Texas aerospace industry. And always lots of single young women who seemed to know him well, usually draping themselves around him and his friends. He never seemed to display any sense of shame about this, and never hid from me the fact that he was clearly having intimate relationships with some of these women himself. And that, as a result of his womanizing, he had several families he had to maintain.

He would tell me later that the ladies were all part of his business, a way of procuring certain choice contracts from aerospace company buyers, a process he referred to as oiling the wheels. But it gave him special pleasure if one of his orgies led to a new business contract or helped to place some powerful man under his influence. There was a time early on, I actually thought his profession was as a pimp.

Obviously, my mother was not usually invited to these parties. And looking back, he seemed to have a hole inside him, dug by the deaths of my sister Katherine of pneumonia and of the men he fought beside in Europe. He only seemed to be happy when he was drinking and enjoying the attentions of pretty girls, even though he knew his behavior was breaking my mother’s heart; at one point leading to a suicide attempt.

The Cellar

Orris was bound that I should follow in his footsteps, not only business-wise, but also in my sexual life. So, he did not neglect the important business of educating me in matters manhood. When I was fifteen, he took me downtown one afternoon to the best strip club in Fort Worth, The Cellar. It was called this because it really was in a cellar, under an old downtown building. There were three Cellars in Texas -- Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth -- owned by the same Mafia-associated man, Pat Kirkwood.

They were famous and considered iconic places to go for an evening of entertainment. They were known Mafia hangouts, upscale, very expensive. They weren’t normal strip clubs; they were much more relaxed. Of course, the young women taking off their clothes were available for other pleasures.

This one happened to be where the Secret Service bodyguards for President Kennedy, drank until the early morning hours, the night before he was assassinated. Everything was free for the Secret Service that night, as covertly arranged by Orris a long time in advance.

When we arrived, Orris told the doorman to get Kirkwood and tell him Orris Bell was here and wanted to talk to him. The doorman replied, Yes, Mr. Bell, I’ll be right back. It was obvious that the doorman knew him. We stayed on the sidewalk until Kirkwood appeared, bowed, and greeted my father, rather subserviently, Mr. Bell, won’t you come in. What can I do for you today?

My father hadn’t yet told me why he had brought me here. He replied to Kirkwood, I won’t be coming in today. This is my son, Bruce, and I want you to let him, and any friends he might bring with him, into the club. And give them anything they want. I mean anything they want, that you have available.

Kirkwood replied, Yes, Mr. Bell, they will have the best I have available, if I am to understand you correctly. No problem at all.

Orris finished, Good, you do understand me correctly. That will be all.

Kirkwood again replied, Thank you for coming by and come back soon yourself, Mr. Bell. We’re always happy to see you here at The Cellar.

Of course, The Cellar wasn’t just a strip club, but also a place where if you were connected, you could find a very attractive Fort Worth-bred and Baptist-raised, young call girl to spend the night with. Orris wanted his sons to understand the difference between love and lustful sex; this was his approach, his way of teaching us that, and that were two kinds of girls.

About three months later, I was with two of my friends on a Thursday night. We were bored, couldn’t find anything to do. It was summer and hot, about 9:00 pm. So, I suggested we go downtown and visit The Cellar. I hadn’t taken advantage of my father’s offer yet and felt now was the time. The two boys who had been raised very differently from me asked, What are you talking about? How the hell are we going to get in The Cellar? I replied, maybe somewhat smugly, I can get us in. Let’s go.

They sarcastically answered, Sure you can. But went along anyway.