Jack Ruby

The Warren Commission attempted to reconstruct Ruby's movements from November 21, 1963, through November 24.[23]^: 333 The Commission reported that he was attending to his duties as the proprietor of the Carousel Club located at 1312 1/2 Commerce St. in downtown Dallas and the Vegas Club in the city's Oak Lawn district from the afternoon of November 21 to the early hours of November 22.[23]^: 333

According to the Warren Commission, Ruby was in the second-floor advertising offices of the Dallas Morning News, five blocks away from the Texas School Book Depository, placing weekly advertisements for his nightclubs when he learned of the assassination around 12:45 p.m.[23]^{: 334–335} Ruby then made phone calls to his assistant at the Carousel Club and to his sister.[23]^: 334 The Commission stated that an employee of the Dallas Morning News estimated that Ruby left the newspaper's offices at 1:30 p.m., but indicated that other testimony suggested he may have left earlier.[23]^{: 334–335}

According to the Warren Commission, Ruby arrived back at the Carousel Club shortly before 1:45 p.m. to notify employees that the club would be closed that evening.[23]^{: 336–337}

John Newnam, an employee at the newspaper's advertisement department, testified that Ruby became upset over a right-wing anti-Kennedy ad published in the Morning News that was signed by "The American Fact-Finding Committee, Bernard Weissman, Chairman". Ruby, who was sensitive to antisemitism, was distressed that an ad attacking the President was signed by a person with a "Jewish name". Early next morning, Ruby, while driving, noticed a political billboard featuring the text "IMPEACH EARL WARREN" in block letters. Ruby's sister Eva testified that Ruby had told her he believed that the anti-Kennedy ad and the anti-Warren sign were connected, and were a plot by a "gentile" to blame the assassination on the Jews.[10]

Ruby was seen in the halls of the Dallas Police Headquarters on several occasions after Oswald's arrest on November 22, 1963, for the murder of Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit. He was present at an arranged press meeting with Oswald. A reporter asked Oswald, "Did you kill the President?" and Oswald answered, his voice breaking, "No, I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question."[24] A reporter told Oswald that he had been charged and Oswald reacted shocked.[25] Newsreel footage from WFAA-TV (Dallas) and NBC shows that Ruby impersonated a newspaper reporter during a press conference held by District Attorney Henry Wade at Dallas Police Headquarters that night.[5]^: 349 Wade briefed reporters that Oswald was a member of the anti-Castro Free Cuba Committee. Ruby was one of several people there who spoke up to correct Wade, saying, "Henry, that's the Fair Play for Cuba Committee", a pro-Castro organization.[26][27][5]^{: 349–350} Ruby later told the FBI that he had his loaded snub-nosed Colt Cobra .38 revolver in his right pocket during the press conference.[28][29][5]^: 3501

Ruby shooting Oswald, who is being escorted by Dallas police detective Jim Leavelle (left)

On November 24, Ruby drove into town with his pet dachshund Sheba (whom he would often jokingly refer to as his "wife") to send an emergency money order at the Western Union on Main Street to one of his employees. The time stamp of completion for the cash transaction on the money order was 11:17 a.m. Ruby then walked one half block to the nearby Dallas police headquarters, where he made his way into the basement via either the Main Street ramp[30] or a stairway accessible from an alleyway next to the Dallas Municipal Building.[31] At 11:21 a.m. CST—while authorities were escorting Oswald through the police basement to an armored car that was to take him to the nearby county jail—Ruby emerged from a crowd of reporters with his .38 Colt Cobra revolver[32] aimed at Oswald's abdomen and shot him at point blank range, mortally wounding him.[33] The bullet entered Oswald's left side in the front part of the abdomen and caused damage to his spleen, stomach, aorta, vena cava, kidney, liver, diaphragm, and eleventh rib before coming to rest on his right side.[34] Oswald made a cry of anguish and his manacled hands clutched at his abdomen as he writhed with pain, and he slumped to the concrete paving, where he moaned several times. Police detective Billy Combest who recognized Ruby exclaimed: "Jack, you son of a bitch!"[35][36] Ruby was immediately subdued by police as a moaning Oswald was carried back into the basement level jail office. Combest asked Oswald, "Do you have anything you want to tell us now?" Oswald shook his head.[37]^{: 184–185} He lost consciousness shortly thereafter. Taken by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital—the same hospital where President Kennedy had died two days earlier—Oswald died at 1:07 p.m.[2]

The crowd outside the headquarters burst into applause when they heard that Oswald had been shot.[38]

A network television pool camera was broadcasting live to cover the transfer; millions of people watching on NBC witnessed the shooting as it happened and on other networks within minutes afterward.[39] Several photographs were taken of the event just before, as, and after Ruby pulled the trigger. In 1964, Robert H. Jackson of the Dallas Times Herald was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photography for his image of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby.[40]

The Warren Commission found no evidence linking Ruby's killing of Oswald with any broader conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy.[23] In 1964, the Warren Commission provided a detailed biography of Ruby's life and activities to help ascertain whether he was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy.[54] The Commission indicated that there was not a "significant link between Ruby and organized crime"[55] and said he acted independently in killing Oswald.[56][23]^{: 373–374}

Warren Commission investigator David Belin said that postal inspector Harry Holmes arrived unannounced at the Dallas police station on the morning that Ruby shot Oswald and, upon invitation by the investigators, had questioned Oswald, thus delaying his transfer by half an hour.[57] Belin concluded that, had Ruby been part of a conspiracy, he would have been downtown 30 minutes earlier, when Oswald had been scheduled to be transferred.[57]

In Gerald Posner's book Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, Ruby's friends, relatives and associates claimed that he was upset over President Kennedy's death, even crying on occasions and closing his clubs for three days as a mark of respect.[58] They also disputed the conspiracy claims, saying that Ruby's connection with gangsters was minimal at most and that he was not the sort of person who would be entrusted with an important assassination as part of a high-level conspiracy.[58]

Dallas reporter Tony Zoppi, who knew Ruby well, claimed that one "would have to be crazy" to entrust Ruby with anything as important as a high-level plot to kill Kennedy since he "couldn't keep a secret for five minutes ... Jack was one of the most talkative guys you would ever meet. He'd be the worst fellow in the world to be part of a conspiracy, because he just plain talked too much."[58]^{: 361, 399} He and others described Ruby as the sort who enjoyed being at "the center of attention", trying to make friends with people and being more of a nuisance.[58]

Some writers, including former Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, dismiss Ruby's connections to organized crime as being highly minimal: "It is very noteworthy that without exception, not one of these conspiracy theorists knew or had ever met Jack Ruby. Without our even resorting to his family and roommate, all of whom think the suggestion of Ruby being connected to the mob is ridiculous, those who knew him, unanimously and without exception, think the notion of his being connected to the Mafia, and then killing Oswald for them, is nothing short of laughable."[59]

Bill Alexander, who prosecuted Ruby for Oswald's murder, equally rejected any suggestions that Ruby was involved with organized crime, claiming that conspiracy theorists based it on the claim that "A knew B, and Ruby knew B back in 1950, so he must have known A, and that must be the link to the conspiracy."[58]

Ruby's brother Earl denied allegations that Jack was involved in racketeering Chicago nightclubs, and author Gerald Posner suggested that witnesses may have confused Ruby with Harry Rubenstein, a convicted Chicago felon.[58] Entertainment reporter Tony Zoppi was also dismissive of mob ties. He knew Ruby and described him as a "born loser".[58]

Author Norman Mailer and others have questioned why Ruby would have left his two beloved dogs in his car if his killing of Oswald had been planned.[60]

White House correspondent Seth Kantor, who was a passenger in President Kennedy's motorcade, testified that after President Kennedy was shot, he had visited Parkland Hospital and that as he entered the hospital, at about 1:30 p.m., he felt a tug on his coat. He turned around to see Jack Ruby, who called him by his first name and shook his hand;[63]^: 78–82[43]^: 41 he said that he had become acquainted with Ruby while he was a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald newspaper.[63]^: 72[43]^: vi According to Kantor, Ruby asked him if he thought that it would be a good idea for him to close his nightclubs for the next three nights because of the tragedy and Kantor responded without thinking that doing so would be a good idea.[43]^: 41[64][63]^: 80

Ruby denied he had been at Parkland Hospital and the Warren Commission dismissed Kantor's testimony, saying that the encounter at Parkland Hospital would have had to take place in a span of a few minutes before and after 1:30 pm, as evidenced by telephone company records of calls made by both people then. The commission also pointed to contradictory witness testimony and to the lack of video confirmation of Ruby at the scene.[23]^{: 335–337} The Commission concluded that "Kantor probably did not see Ruby at Parkland Hospital" and "may have been mistaken about both the time and the place that he saw Ruby".[23]^{: 335–337}

In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reexamined Kantor's testimony and stated, "While the Warren Commission concluded that Kantor was mistaken [about his Parkland encounter with Ruby], the Committee determined he probably was not."[65]^: 158[5]^{: 458–459}

Kantor also reported that Ruby might have tampered with evidence while at Parkland.[43]^: 192 Goaded by the Warren Commission's dismissal of his testimony, Kantor researched the Ruby case for years. In a later published book Who Was Jack Ruby?, Kantor wrote:

The mob was Ruby's "friend." And Ruby could well have been paying off an IOU the day he was used to kill Lee Harvey Oswald. Remember: "I have been used for a purpose," the way Ruby expressed it to Chief Justice Warren in their June 7, 1964 session. It would not have been hard for the mob to maneuver Ruby through the ranks of a few negotiable police [to kill Oswald].[43]^: 18

The House Select Committee on Assassinations, in its 1979 Final Report, opined:

... Ruby's shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous act, in that it involved at least some premeditation. Similarly, the committee believed it was less likely that Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby's intentions ... The committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting ... There is also evidence that the Dallas Police Department withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission concerning Ruby's entry to the scene of the Oswald transfer.[65]^{: 157–158}

Lieutenant Billy Grammer, a dispatcher for the Dallas Police Department, said he received an anonymous phone call at 3 a.m. on November 24 from a man who knew his name. The caller told him that he knew of the plan to move Oswald from the basement and warned that unless the plans for Oswald's transfer were changed, "we are going to kill him". After Oswald was shot, Grammer, who knew Ruby, and found the caller's voice familiar, claimed to recognise Ruby as the caller. Grammer believed that Ruby's shooting of Oswald was "a planned event".[66][67]

Detective Don Archer testified to the Warren Commission that when he said to Ruby, "Jack, I think you killed him." Ruby looked him straight in the eye and said, "Well, I intended to shoot him three times." Kantor believed that Ruby's response to Archer did not suggest a spontaneous reaction, and the word "intended" implied having prior intention.[43]^: 192

Ruby's explanation for killing Oswald would be "exposed ... as a fabricated legal ploy", according to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In a private note to one of his attorneys, Joseph Tonahill, Ruby wrote: "Joe, you should know this. My first lawyer Tom Howard told me to say that I shot Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't have to come to Dallas to testify. OK?"[65]^: 158[68][5]^: 353[42]

G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations from 1977 to 1979, said: "The most plausible explanation for the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby was that Ruby had stalked him on behalf of organized crime, trying to reach him on at least three occasions in the forty-eight hours before he silenced him forever."[69]

Russell Moore, an acquaintance of Ruby, testified to the Commission that Ruby expressed no bitterness towards Oswald and called him "a good looking guy" comparing him to Paul Newman.[70][71]

In his book Contract on America, David Scheim noted that while some people claimed that Ruby was upset over the weekend of the assassination, others said that he was not. On Friday night, TV newsman Vic Robertson Jr. saw Ruby at police headquarters and said that he "appeared to be anything but under stress or strain. He seemed happy, jovial, was joking and laughing".[72][42] Announcer Glen Duncan also said that Ruby "was not grieving" and seemed "happy that evidence was piling up against Oswald".[42]

Scheim also suggests that Ruby made a "candid confession" when giving testimony to the Warren Commission.[42] During his testimony, Ruby teared up when talking about a Saturday morning eulogy for President Kennedy, but after composing himself, inexplicably said, "I must be a great actor, I tell you that."[41]^{: 198–199}[42] Ruby also remarked that "they didn't ask me another question: 'If I loved the President so much, why wasn't I at the parade?'" (referring to the presidential motorcade) and "it's strange that perhaps I didn't vote for President Kennedy, or didn't vote at all, that I should build up such a great affection for him".[73]^{: 564–565}[42] Scheim noted that Jada, a stripper at Ruby's club, during an interview with ABC's Paul Good, remarked "I believe [Ruby] disliked Bobby Kennedy".[42]

Schiem also noted several people who knew Ruby, who claimed that the patriotic statements Ruby professed were quite out of character. Harry Hall, Ruby's partner in a gambling operation, told the FBI that "Ruby was the type who was interested in any way to make money" and also said that he "could not conceive of Ruby doing anything out of patriotism".[74][42] Jack Kelly, who had known Ruby casually since 1943, "scoffed at the idea of a patriotic motive being involved by Ruby in the slaying of Oswald", and "could not see Ruby" killing Oswald "out of patriotism" but "for publicity or...for money".[42] Ruby's friend, Paul Jones, told the FBI that "he doubted that [Ruby] would have become emotionally upset and killed Oswald on the spur of the moment. He felt Ruby would have done it for money."[42]

Following Ruby's March 1964 conviction for murder with malice, Ruby's lawyers, led by Sam Houston Clinton, appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest criminal court in Texas. Ruby's lawyers argued that he could not have received a fair trial in Dallas because of the excessive publicity surrounding the case. A year after his conviction, in March 1965, Ruby conducted a brief televised news conference in which he stated: "Everything pertaining to what's happening has never come to the surface. The world will never know the true facts of what occurred, my motives. The people who had so much to gain, and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I'm in, will never let the true facts come above board to the world." When asked by a reporter, "Are these people in very high positions, Jack?", he responded "Yes."[75]

Kantor speculated in 1978 that the man by the name of "Davis" that Ruby mentioned to his attorney, Tom Howard, may have been Thomas Eli Davis III, a CIA-connected mercenary.[5]^{: 359–361, 226}[76]

Dallas Deputy Sheriff Al Maddox claimed: "Ruby told me, he said, 'Well, they injected me for a cold.' He said it was cancer cells. That's what he told me, Ruby did. I said you don't believe that bullshit. He said, 'I damn sure do!' [Then] one day when I started to leave, Ruby shook hands with me and I could feel a piece of paper in his palm ... [In this note] he said it was a conspiracy and he said ... if you will keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, you're gonna learn a lot. And that was the last letter I ever got from him." In the note, Ruby claimed he was part of a conspiracy, and that his role was to silence Oswald.[77] Not long before Ruby died, according to an article in the London Sunday Times, he told psychiatrist Werner Teuter that the assassination was "an act of overthrowing the government" and that he knew "who had President Kennedy killed". He added: "I am doomed. I do not want to die. But I am not insane. I was framed to kill Oswald."[77][78][5]^: 341

David Scheim presented evidence that Mafia leaders Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante, Jr., as well as organized labor leader Jimmy Hoffa, ordered the assassination of President Kennedy. Scheim cited in particular a 25-fold increase in the number of out-of-state telephone calls from Jack Ruby to associates of these crime bosses in the months before the assassination.[79] According to author Vincent Bugliosi, both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations determined all of these calls were related to Ruby seeking help from the American Guild of Variety Artists in a matter concerning two of his competitors.[80] The House Select Committee on Assassinations report stated "... that most of Ruby's phone calls during late 1963 were related to his labor troubles. In the light of the identity of some of the individuals with whom Ruby spoke, however, the possibility of other matters being discussed could not be dismissed."[81]

In his memoir, Bound by Honor, Bill Bonanno, son of New York Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno, stated that he realized that certain Mafia families were involved in the JFK assassination when Ruby killed Oswald, since Bonanno was aware that Ruby was an associate of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana.[82]

In 1979, fifteen years after the Warren report, the House Select Committee on Assassinations undertook a similar investigation of Ruby and said that he "had a significant number of associations and direct and indirect contacts with underworld figures" and "the Dallas criminal element" but that he was not a "member" of organized crime.[83]

Ruby was known to have been acquainted with both the police and the Mafia. The HSCA said that Ruby had known Chicago mobster Sam Giancana (1908–1975) and Joseph Campisi (1918–1990) since 1947, and had been seen with them on many occasions.[84][5]^: 346 After an investigation of Joe Campisi, the HSCA found:

While Campisi's technical characterization in federal law enforcement records as an organized crime member has ranged from definite to suspected to negative, it is clear that he was an associate or friend of many Dallas-based organized crime members, particularly Joseph Civello, during the time he was the head of the Dallas organization. There was no indication that Campisi had engaged in any specific organized crime-related activities.[85]

Similarly, a PBS Frontline investigation into the connections between Ruby and Dallas organized crime figures reported the following:

In 1963, Sam and Joe Campisi were leading figures in the Dallas underworld. Jack knew the Campisis and had been seen with them on many occasions. The Campisis were lieutenants of Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss who had reportedly talked of killing the President.[86]

On the night before Kennedy was assassinated, Ruby and Joe Campisi had dinner together at Campisi's restaurant, the Egyptian Lounge.[87] After Ruby was jailed for killing Lee Oswald, Joe Campisi "regularly visited" Ruby.[5]^: 346[88][89][90][87]

Howard P. Willens—the third-highest official in the Department of Justice[91] and assistant counsel to J. Lee Rankin—helped organize the Warren Commission. Willens also outlined the commission's investigative priorities[92] and terminated an investigation of Ruby's Cuban related activities.[93] An FBI report states that Willens's father had been Tony Accardo's next door neighbor going back to 1958.[94] In 1946, Tony Accardo allegedly asked Jack Ruby to go to Texas with Mafia associates Pat Manno and Romie Nappi to make sure that Dallas County Sheriff Steve Gutherie would acquiesce to the Mafia's expansion into Dallas.[95]

Four years before the assassination of President Kennedy, Ruby went to see a man named Lewis McWillie in Cuba. Ruby considered McWillie, who had previously run illegal gambling establishments in Texas, to be one of his closest friends.[41]^: 201 At the time Ruby visited him, in August 1959, McWillie was supervising gambling activities at Havana's Tropicana Club. Ruby told the Warren Commission that his August trip to Cuba was merely a social visit at the invitation of McWillie.[41]^: 201 The House Select Committee on Assassinations would later conclude that Ruby "... most likely was serving as a courier for gambling interests".[65]^: 152[96][5]^: 337 The committee also found "circumstantial," but not conclusive, evidence that "... Ruby met with [Mafia boss] Santo Trafficante in Cuba sometime in 1959."[65]^{: 152–153}[5]^: 338

Robert Blakey, who was the chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, wrote: "It is difficult to dispute the underworld pedigree of Jack Ruby, though the Warren Commission did it in 1964. Author Gerald Posner similarly ignores Ruby's ties to Joseph Civello, the organized crime boss in Dallas. His relationship with Joseph Campisi, the No. 2 man in the mob in Dallas, is even more difficult to ignore. In fact, Campisi and Ruby were close friends; they had dinner together at Campisi's restaurant, the Egyptian Lounge, on the night before the assassination. After Ruby was jailed for killing Oswald, Campisi regularly visited him. The select committee thought Campisi's connection to [Carlos] Marcello was telling; he told us, for example, that every year at Christmas he sent 260 pounds of Italian sausage to Marcello, a sort of Mafia tribute. We also learned that he called New Orleans up to 20 times a day."[90]

James E. Beaird, who claimed to be a poker-playing friend of Jack Ruby, told both The Dallas Morning News and the FBI that Ruby smuggled guns and ammunition from Galveston Bay, Texas to Fidel Castro's guerrillas in Cuba in the late 1950s. Beaird said that Ruby "was in it for the money. It wouldn't matter which side, just [whichever] one that would pay him the most." Beaird said that the guns were stored in a two-story house near the waterfront, and that he saw Ruby and his associates load "many boxes of new guns, including automatic rifles and handguns" on a 50-foot military-surplus boat. He claimed that "each time that the boat left with guns and ammunition, Jack Ruby was on the boat."[97][98][5]^: 335

Blaney Mack Johnson, an FBI informant, said Ruby was "active in arranging illegal flights of weapons from Miami" to pro-Castro forces in Cuba in the early 1950s.[5]^: 335[99]

• Ruby is one of the main characters of James Ellroy's novel The Cold Six Thousand.
• In his 1989 novel Libra, Don DeLillo portrays Ruby as being part of a larger conspiracy.
• In his 2004 novel I Heard You Paint Houses, Charles Brandt portrays Ruby as being part of a larger conspiracy with the American Mafia.