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He had an honorable record and was promoted to Private First Class.
Upon discharge, in , Ruby returned to Chicago. In Ruby moved to Dallas where he and his brothers soon afterward shortened their surnames from Rubenstein to Ruby. The stated reason for this was that the name "Rubenstein" was too long and that he was "well known" as Jack Ruby. He developed close ties to many Dallas Police officers who frequented his nightclubs, where he provided them with free liquor, prostitutes and other favors. Ruby never married; he had no children. There was evidence indicating Jack Ruby had been involved in the underworld activities of illegal gambling, narcotics, and prostitution.
A FBI report stated that their informant Eileen Curry reported that in January of that year, she moved to Dallas with her boyfriend, James Breen, after jumping bond on narcotics charges. Breen told her that he had made connections with a large narcotics setup operating between Texas, Mexico, and the East and that "in some fashion, James got the okay to operate through Jack Ruby of Dallas. Dallas disc jockey Kenneth Dowe testified that Ruby was known around the station for "procuring women for different people who came to town.
The Warren Commission attempted to reconstruct Ruby's movements from November 21, through November 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 Ruby was seen in the halls of the Dallas Police Headquarters on several occasions after Lee Harvey Oswald's arrest on November 22, 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.
On November 24, Ruby drove into town with one of his pet dogs and sent 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 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 [28] or a stairway accessible from an alleyway next to the Dallas Municipal Building.
Ruby was immediately subdued by agents and police. The shooting was broadcast live nationally, and millions of television viewers witnessed it. Oswald was taken by ambulance while unconscious to Parkland Memorial Hospital —the same hospital where doctors tried to save President Kennedy's life two days earlier. Oswald died at 1: After his arrest, Ruby asked Dallas attorney Tom Howard to represent him. Howard accepted and asked Ruby if he could think of anything that might damage his defense.
Ruby responded that there would be a problem if a man by the name of "Davis" should come up. Ruby told his attorney that he " On March 14, , Ruby was convicted of murder with malice and was sentenced to death. Ruby's conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on the grounds that "an oral confession of premeditation made while in police custody" should have been ruled inadmissible, because it violated a Texas criminal statute. During the six months following Kennedy's assassination , Ruby repeatedly asked, orally and in writing, to speak to the members of the Warren Commission.
The commission initially showed no interest. Only after Ruby's sister Eileen wrote letters to the commission and her letters became public did the Warren Commission agree to talk to Ruby. Ford of Michigan , and other commission members went to Dallas to see Ruby. Ruby asked Warren several times to take him to Washington D. Warren also told Ruby that the commission would have no way of protecting him, since it had no police powers.
Ruby said he wanted to convince President Lyndon Johnson that he was not part of any conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Eventually, the appellate court agreed with Ruby's lawyers that he should be granted a new trial. On October 5, , the court ruled that his motion for a change of venue before the original trial court should have been granted.
Ruby's conviction and death sentence were overturned. Arrangements were underway for a new trial to be held in February in Wichita Falls, Texas , when on December 9, , Ruby was admitted to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, suffering from pneumonia. A day later, doctors realized he had cancer in his liver , lungs , and brain.
Three weeks later, he died. Ruby died of a pulmonary embolism , secondary to bronchogenic carcinoma lung cancer , on January 3, , at Parkland Hospital , the same facility where Oswald had died and where President Kennedy had been pronounced dead after his assassination.
He was buried beside his parents in the Westlawn Cemetery in Norridge, Illinois. The Warren Commission found no evidence linking Ruby's killing of Oswald with any broader conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy.
Warren Commission investigator David Belin said that postal inspector Harry Holmes arrived unannounced at the Dallas police station and, upon invitation by the investigators, questioned Oswald, thus delaying his transfer by half an hour. 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.
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. Some writers, including former Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi , dismiss Ruby's connections to organized crime as being highly minimal: 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.
Bill Alexander, who prosecuted Ruby for Oswald's murder, equally rejected any suggestions that Ruby was part-and-parcel of organized crime, claiming that conspiracy theorists based it on the claim that "A knew B, and Ruby knew B back in , so he must have known A, and that must be the link to the conspiracy. 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.
He knew Ruby and described him as a "born loser. Author Norman Mailer and others have questioned why Ruby would have left his two beloved dogs in his car if he had planned on killing Oswald at police headquarters. Some critics have not accepted the conclusions of the Warren Commission and have proposed several other theories. Ruby was arrested immediately after shooting Oswald, and he told several witnesses that he had been distraught over President Kennedy's death and had helped the city of Dallas "redeem" itself in the eyes of the public, and that his motive for killing Oswald was "saving Mrs.
Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial.
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He said he cried when he heard the President was shot, "cried a great deal" Saturday afternoon and was depressed Saturday night. He explained that this grief was caused by his great love for the President and his sympathy for the Kennedy family, The anguish over the assassination, Ruby stated, finally "reached the point of insanity", suddenly compelling him to shoot when Oswald walked to the police ramp that Sunday morning.
His voice breaking, Ruby said that he could not understand "how a great man like that could be lost. There was no one else," Ruby said. 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 while doctors were trying to save the President's life. Kantor said that as he entered the hospital, at about 1: He turned around to see Jack Ruby who called him by his first name and shook his hand; [55] [56] he said that he had become acquainted with Ruby while he was a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald newspaper.
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: The Commission also pointed to contradictory witness testimony and to the lack of video confirmation of Ruby at the scene.
In , 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. Kantor also reported that Ruby might have tampered with evidence while at Parkland. In a later published book Who Was Jack Ruby? The mob was Ruby's "friend. It would not have been hard for the mob to maneuver Ruby through the ranks of a few negotiable police [to kill Oswald].
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.
According to Lieutenant Billy Grammer, a DPD dispatcher, at 3am on November 24, he received an anonymous phone call from a man who knew Grammer's name. The caller told Grammer that he knew of the plan to move Oswald from the basement and that unless the plans for Oswald's transfer were changed, the caller warned "we are going to kill him". After Oswald was shot, Grammer, who knew Ruby, and found the voice familiar at the time of the call, identified Ruby as the caller.
Grammer remained convinced that Ruby's shooting of Oswald was "a planned event". Detective Archer testified to the Warren Commission that when he searched Jack Ruby after his arrest, he was worried about Oswald's condition and he said to Ruby, "Jack, I think you killed him. Ruby's explanation for killing Oswald would be "exposed In a private note to one of his attorneys, Joseph Tonahill, Ruby wrote: Kennedy wouldn't have to come to Dallas to testify. Robert Blakey , chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations from to , said: Additionally, in his book, Contract on America , David Scheim, presented evidence, that although some people claimed that they saw Ruby upset over the weekend of the assassination, others said that he wasn't.
He seemed happy, jovial, was joking and laughing". Scheim also presented evidence which he claimed was Ruby making several "candid confession s " whilst giving testimony to the Warren Commission. Ruby added, "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". 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. He felt Ruby would have done it for money. Ruby's lawyers argued that he could not have received a fair trial in Dallas because of the excessive publicity surrounding the case.
He described a man standing by Tippit's body who had on a long coat and said the man ran to a parked car and drove away. This support included funding exiles in commando speedboat raids against Cuba. On January 29, , Clay Shaw was brought to trial on these charges, and the jury found him not guilty. Retrieved January 8, Ruby considered McWillie, who had previously run illegal gambling establishments in Texas, to be one of his closest friends. Giancana, the gruff, violent mob boss based in Chicago, dreamed of exporting his Midwest criminal enterprise to Latin America. Documents show this file was given a number— —though years later it could not be found by congressional investigators, who mentioned looking for it to trace the actions of this mobster spy.
A year after his conviction, in March , Ruby conducted a brief televised news conference in which he stated: 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. Other failed commando attempts launched from Florida were chalked up to ill luck or bad timing. Some conspirators involved with the two gangsters double-crossed them for their own purposes.
Varona was liked by the Kennedy administration and hailed as a freedom fighter by the American press. And in the shadows, Trafficante kept his illicit empire humming along uninterrupted. After the disastrous U.
The agency stepped up covert activity under one of its most trusted agents, William Harvey , a pistol-packing, martini-swilling savant of the dark arts. While dealing with the two mobsters, who sometimes used aliases, the CIA itself operated in Florida under a phony business name—Zenith Enterprises—and did a lot to mask the fact that it was running a quasi-military encampment that appeared to violate its own rules against domestic spying. On midnight missions, these exile soldiers reportedly traveled in twin powerboats to secret landing spots along the Cuban coastline to provide armaments to other anti-Castro conspirators.
One JFK file includes a heroic account of Roselli going along on some of these trips, once saving himself from a sinking boat riddled with bullets after being attacked by a Cuban patrol waiting in the shadows. According to another JFK file, Roselli was gone for so long on one mission that Giancana worried that he had been killed. Documents show this file was given a number— —though years later it could not be found by congressional investigators, who mentioned looking for it to trace the actions of this mobster spy.
A defrocked Chicago cop who spoke Spanish, Cain claimed to have smuggled himself into Cuba in another failed bid to murder Castro. By then, Harvey had been reassigned by CIA superiors who were tired of his antics. The anti-Castro plans went into hibernation under President Lyndon B. Over the next decade, Giancana evaded the law by fleeing with Cain to Mexico, where they tried to create floating gambling casinos for the mob in the Caribbean and the Middle East. He had cheated fellow members by planting a spy peeking through a hole in the ceiling.
As word leaked out from Maheu and the press, the two gangsters were called to testify before a Senate committee examining CIA wrongdoing. Their loyal friendship had frayed but remained intact. Giancana even offered Roselli money if his legal bills became overwhelming.
Upset by the loss of his friend, Roselli offered testimony so dissembling about their Cuba mission that authorities considered perjury charges and moved ahead with deportation plans. Around that same time in , Roselli went to dinner in Florida with Trafficante, his old Mafia co-conspirator. Two weeks later, before he could testify again, Roselli was found dead in a metal barrel, dumped in a waterway not far from the Fountainbleau Hotel.
The JFK files show that police detectives suspected Trafficante of murdering Roselli, if not both gangsters. Some were associated with scheming to assassinate Castro himself; some did this on their own as patriots; and some, also as patriots, did it with the support of representatives of the United States government. Right or wrong, the identity of those people constitute [sic] a trust of the American Government.