Before the JFK assassination, Secret Service agents partied until 6 a.m. in Fort Worth | Opinion

We always say the story of Nov. 22, 1963 begins and ends in Fort Worth, from a presidential breakfast visit to the burial two days later of his accused assassin.

But the story of that day really began in the wee hours, with seven Secret Service agents drinking as late as 5 a.m. in a notorious downtown Fort Worth nightclub as women in lingerie served the VIPs Everclear punch.

Of all the stories surrounding the assassination in Dallas of President John F. Kennedy, I’m surprised there is no longer much talk about the early-morning Fort Worth escapades at the Cellar, officially a hipster coffeehouse known for sin and scandal along with breakthrough performers like the future ZZ Top or comedian George Carlin.

See, that’s how Star-Telegram reporters wound up in the Warren Commission report on the assassination.

Nine agents joined the national reporters when they drifted over from Kennedy’s hotel, now the Hilton Fort Worth, to the members-only Press Club of Fort Worth.

When some asked to go to the Cellar, Star-Telegram editors and reporters ushered seven of the agents to the basement location at 1001-B Main St.

“It seemed a good idea at the time,” former Star-Telegram reporter Bob Schieffer of CBS News wrote later in his 2001 book “This Just In: What I Couldn’t Tell You on TV.”

It “must have been quite an evening,” he wrote. “I remember that we stayed long enough for some of the Easterners to see their first Fort Worth sunrise.”

Schieffer slept late the next day, and so did at least two of the agents who went home with another Star-Telegram reporter.

In a 2011 Cellar documentary, “You Must Be Weird Or You Wouldn’t Be Here,” guitarist Arvel Stricklin summed up the view from the bandstand.

“I know I saw a lot of guys in suits,” he said. “And the party went on until 6 a.m.”

No rapacious behavior was described. A week after the assassination, with the Secret Service rushing to defend its work, Star-Telegram assistant managing editor Cal Sutton issued a statement saying the agents were “perfectly sober and completely well-behaved.”

In 1963, the Cellar was still a segregated all-white club, except for performers.

The Warren Commission report described the Cellar as a “beatnik place” and quoted publicity-savvy manager Pat Kirkwood calling it a “unique showplace.”

One note: Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby had been visiting in the months before the assassination, Kirkwood said. Ruby, later the killer of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, had been hiring away servers to work in Dallas as strippers.

On the day of the assassination, according to the Warren Report, the four agents assigned to ride behind Kennedy in the Dallas motorcade all showed up on time and fine.

The report concluded that the Cellar visit in no way affected their performance later on Nov. 22, 1963.