Jack L. Bell
Jack Bell was born in Yates Center, about a hundred miles south of Topeka in 1904. The family moved to Tulsa two years later. After leaving high school Bell attended the University of Missouri. While at university he worked part-time for the Columbia Daily Tribune. I worked in various capacities. This was followed by a spell at the University of Oklahoma.
On graduation day in June 1925, Bell found work with the Daily Oklahoman. He later recalled: "I was a very green but self-confident reporter. I covered everything from police to the statehouse during my stint as a reporter. And at twenty-five years old I was named City Editor of the Daily Oklahoman by Walter Harrison, the Managing Editor who was a great character in the newspaper business."
In 1937 Bell was employed by Associated Press and in 1940 was named head of the Senate staff. Bell pointed out: "I graduated into Chief Political Writer for the Associated Press, covering all the presidential campaigns, all of the presidential news." This included covering the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt: "I attended almost all the Roosevelt press conferences which usually came on Tuesdays and Thursdays, alternate morning and the afternoon. Now, these were very great affairs in the sense that it was always an atmosphere of drama there... You could always tell Roosevelt's mood by the altitude of his cigarette. If it was up like this, pointing up in the air, he was in a good mood. If he was sort of dragging it out of the corner of his mouth, well, look out. He'd snarl at you and he'd make fun of you and he'd ask you to stand in a corner, like a dunce, and all sort of stuff but this was always exciting."
During this period he became close to Harry S. Truman: "Truman was really a very personable gentleman who was able to make friends despite the drawback as Pendergast machine product. You can't classify Senators, but some of them are very active and some of them are very prominent and some are from states which don't draw much attention from the press. Truman sort of made his way among these people as a very good fellow, and a likeable chap."
Bell covered the 1960 Presidential Election. He was more impressed with the way John F. Kennedy dealt with the press than his rival, Richard Nixon: "He (Kennedy) had a readymade wit that could turn critical questions off. He made it into a propaganda thing for Kennedy. I think it helped him greatly with the country... Nixon had explored every possible question in advance. He complained later that he wasn't asked some that he knew about, and wanted to answer... The man never answers questions directly. Of course, Kennedy didn't either, but he was more subtle about it. He walked around the edges of plenty of questions, but once in a while he'd give you a straight answer on something."
Bell was also with Kennedy when he visited Dallas on 22nd November, 1963. The motorcade left Love Field at 11.45 a.m. Bell was in the National press pool car in seventh place in the procession. Also in the car was Merriman Smith (UPI); Malcolm Kilduff (White House press secretary), Robert Baskin (Dallas Morning News ), and Bob Clark (ABC News). When the shooting took place Bell was too far back to see what happened but did hear the gunfire. As William Manchester, the author of Death of a President (1967) pointed out: "Merriman Smith decided that the longer he could keep Bell out of touch with an AP operator, the longer that lead would be. So he continued to talk. He dictated one take, two takes, three, four. Indignant, Bell rose from the center of the rear seat and demanded the phone. Smith stalled. He insisted that the Dallas operator read back the dictation. The wires overhead, he argued, might have interfered with his transmission. No one was deceived by that. Everyone in the car could hear the cackling of the UPI operator's voice. The relay was perfect. Bell, red-faced and screaming, tried to wrest the radiophone from him. Smith thrust it between his knees and crouched under the dash then surrendered the phone to Bell , and at that moment, it went dead."
The following morning the New York Times published Jack Bell’s account wrongly claiming that he had “witnessed the shooting from the fourth car”. Bell reported: “There was a loud bang as though a giant firecracker had exploded in the caverns between the tall buildings we were just leaving behind us. In quick succession there were two other loud reports. The ominous sounds of these dismissed from the minds of us riding in the reporters' pool car the fleeting idea that some Texan was adding a bit of noise to the cheering welcome.” Bell said he heard a man screaming: "My God, they're shooting at the President."
The press car immediately went to the Parkland Hospital. Bell reported the following day that as soon as he arrived he looked in the back seat of the presidential limousine: “For an instant I stopped and stared into the back seat. There, face down, stretched out at full length, lay the President, motionless. His natty business suit seemed hardly rumpled. But there was blood on the floor."
Bell left Associated Press in 1969 and the Gannett News Service and I now have 45 newspapers for which I write a three times a week column on national affairs and politics.
Jack L. Bell died in 1975.
Primary Sources
(1) Jack L. Bell, New York Times (23rd November, 1963)
There was a loud bang as though a giant firecracker had exploded in the caverns between the tall buildings we were just leaving behind us. In quick succession there were two other loud reports. The ominous sounds of these dismissed from the minds of us riding in the reporters' pool car the fleeting idea that some Texan was adding a bit of noise to the cheering welcome. The man in front of me screamed, "My God, they're shooting at the President."...
For an instant I stopped and stared into the back seat. There, face down, stretched out at full length, lay the President, motionless. His natty business suit seemed hardly rumpled. But there was blood on the floor. "Is he dead?" I asked a Secret Service man. "I don't know," he said, "but I don't think so."
(2) William Manchester, Death of a President (1967)
Merriman Smith decided that the longer he could keep Bell out of touch with an AP operator, the longer that lead would be. So he continued to talk. He dictated one take, two takes, three, four. Indignant, Bell rose from the center of the rear seat and demanded the phone. Smith stalled. He insisted that the Dallas operator read back the dictation. The wires overhead, he argued, might have interfered with his transmission. No one was deceived by that. Everyone in the car could hear the cackling of the UPI operator's voice. The relay was perfect. Bell, red-faced and screaming, tried to wrest the radiophone from him. Smith thrust it between his knees and crouched under the dash then surrendered the phone to Bell , and at that moment, it went dead.
(3) Jack L. Bell, interviewed by Jerry N. Hess (12th January, 1971)
JERRY HESS: What are your earliest recollections of Mr. Truman as a Senator?
JACK BELL: Harry Truman came to the Senate under a philisophical cloud, I guess you might call it. He was a product of the Tom Pendergast machine in Kansas City. In fact, Pendergast had boasted (the current story was), that he could elect anybody to the United States Senate. And this was possibly true in that era because Pendergast controlled the balance of the vote in Missouri. He could not have elected a Republican, but he could elect a Democrat, because Missouri was inclined in that direction. It was only afterwards that some
Republicans began to get elected like Senator James Preston Kem and others in Missouri. But Truman came to the Senate as a back row member, and as I say, under a cloud of suspicion by all the other members, that he really was just a machine product and he didn't amount to anything, and why bother about him?
But Truman proved himself to be a very intelligent man and a very industrious man. He won the friendship of the Senator from Montana, Burton K.Wheeler, who was chairman of the Interstate Commerce Committee, at that point.
Truman was really a very personable gentleman who was able to make friends despite the drawback as Pendergast machine product. You can't classify Senators, but some of them are very active and some of them are very prominent and some are from states which don't draw much attention from the press. Truman sort of made his way among these people as a very good fellow, and a likeable chap.
Wheeler was very powerful in the Senate at that point, always fighting Roosevelt. He took a liking to Truman. So, he installed him as the chairman of a subcommittee of Interstate Commerce (to which Truman had been assigned without his own wishes really being consulted), for a railroad investigation. Truman pursued it actively as he always did. In everything he did he worked pretty hard. He didn't care about the hours because he and Mrs. Truman, Bess (who is a great woman), didn't care too much about the social scene in Washington. They didn't really want to go to cocktail parties and things of that sort. They much preferred sitting at home, probably listening to radio in those days, since there was no television.
This friendship with Wheeler was very valuable to Truman. The war was coming on, and in fact, had almost arrived. Our participation in it was close, and Wheeler suggested that Truman might head a war investigating committee to investigate contracts and various agreements by which the Government was then in the process - under FDR's direction - of furnishing planes to France, and helping the British as much as possible. At Wheeler's direction, Truman put in the first war investigating committee resolution. The resolution was not very much liked among the leaders of the Senate at that point, including Alben Barkley, who was majority leader, that a junior Senator so little known as Truman, could grab ahold of such a big project. Anyhow Wheeler faced them down on this and Henry A.Wallace, who was Vice President, was instructed to name Truman as the chairman of this investigating committee.
Truman had some good help. He was a man who found good people to work for him. There was always a charge of cronyism against Truman. But he wasn't so much devoted to cronyism as he was devoted to people that he knew he could trust. He didn't know a great number of people in Government. He had a selected few that he relied on and trusted, and his trust can be illustrated by the fact that despite all the charges against Pendergast, and his conviction for income tax evasion, Truman went to his funeral at a time when this was certainly unpopular in the country, particularly with his Missouri constituents. But as I say, Truman managed this committee very well.