Jack Ruby
Whether one accepts the Warren Report as being the definitive word on the assassination of John F. Kennedy or one is a whole hearted conspiracy theorist one fact is certain. Jack Ruby’s assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald changed the world. It ensured that there would be no trial of the accused, no presentation of the evidence in open court, and no question of the procedures used to obtain that evidence, presented under oath and challenged by the defense. Ruby was convicted of Oswald’s murder in 1964, but what is too often forgotten is that the conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Texas and he was awaiting the scheduling of a second trial when he died of cancer in 1967.
That Ruby – who was named Jacob Rubenstein – pulled the trigger is unquestioned, he did it on national television, before a roomful of policemen and reporters. It was his motive, as well as Oswald’s which was never explained, and which has led to more than five decades of speculation. Witnesses testified before the House Committee on Assassinations which linked Ruby to organized crime and to gun running to Cuba, the Warren Commission dismissed such testimony. Until the end of his life Ruby claimed to have additional information on the assassination which went beyond his murder of Oswald. His claims were ignored.
Ruby initially claimed that he killed Oswald to spare Jackie Kennedy the agony of appearing in Dallas at a trial. This was supported by the Warren Report, which found no plausible links between Ruby and organized crime, or with the gun running activities which Ruby admitted to his first attorney before replacing him with Melvin Belli. The House Select Committee disagreed, citing significant and long-standing links between Ruby and organized crime figures in Chicago and Dallas. The Select Committee also found evidence of Ruby meeting Santo Trafficante Jr. in Havana in the late 1950s.
Ruby encountered little difficulty entering Dallas Police Headquarters, where Oswald was held, and can be seen attending Oswald’s appearance before the press on the night of November 22, 1963. Ruby was well known to the Dallas Police as a nightclub owner, but it is possible in the crush of reporters and cameramen he escaped being seen by any of the officers, both on that evening and on Sunday, November 24, when he stepped out of a cluster of reporters and shot Oswald to death. Ruby informed one of the detectives who arrested him that he had intended to shoot three times, later he claimed that when he saw Oswald he responded spontaneously by drawing his gun, an unpremeditated act.
Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald, a fact which is indisputable, an act which placed nearly everything else regarding the Kennedy assassination in dispute. Even the United States government has two different conclusions, the Warren Commission stated that Oswald acted alone, the House Select Committee found that Oswald “probably” acted as part of a conspiracy. According to the chief counsel for the Select Committee, G. Robert Blakey, “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.”