EXCLUSIVE Explosive revelations about Jack Rubys final jailhouse interview spark new theories about who REALLY assassinated JFK
Jack Ruby has his own special place in the American hall of infamy.
Jack Ruby has his own special place in the American hall of infamy.
As the world knows, he is the man who gunned down Lee Harvey Oswald on live television – silencing the prime suspect in the murder of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Today, more than six decades on, Ruby is widely dismissed as a deranged loner driven by misplaced patriotism and rage. Yet, as I show in my new history of the American mafia, he was about as far as from being a lone nut as it was possible to be.
Ruby was a seasoned mobster with links to organized crime stretching from all the way from Chicago to the lawless city of Dallas where, on November 22, 1963, the fatal trap for Kennedy was sprung.
There is compelling evidence that he was a key figure in the plot to attack the presidential motorcade with sharpshooters.
And, as anyone prepared to look beyond nearly 62 years of cover-up is bound to see, Rubys behavior in the months that followed the assassination points to one conclusion: that he murdered Oswald because he had been encouraged to do so by people he was in no position to defy.
Born Jacob Rubenstein in 1911, Ruby was raised in the West Side ghetto of Chicago, a three-mile Yiddish-speaking stretch similar to New Yorks Lower East Side. Ridden with Jewish street gangs, the neighborhood bordered another where Italian families had settled – Jewish and Italian gangsters formed life-long alliances.
Ruby – he officially changed his name in adulthood – quit school after the fifth grade and joined a gang, eventually becoming a schlammer, or enforcer, for mafia-controlled unions.
Ruby (center) poses for a photo with unidentified women who were part of a burlesque act at his club.
Ruby (right) shot Oswald (center), the suspect in the assassination of President Kennedy, at the Dallas police precinct in 1963.
Ruby was taken into custody after shooting Oswald.
But in 1937, Sparky from Chicago as he was known, was sent – perhaps driven out –to Texas where he found himself working with Joe Civellas Dallas mob, itself under the sway of the powerful New Orleans don, Carlos Marcello, and his Gulf Coast empire. Marcello is widely believed to have ordered the Dallas hit on Kennedy.
Ruby got straight down to business, distributing Marcellos slot machines, running gambling rackets and managing strip clubs. He was admired by his new associates for the violence he displayed: Ruby bounced at his own bars and nightclubs, happy to use fists or the butt of a pistol.
He had friends, lots of them. Ruby hung out at the Egyptian Restaurant in Dallas, where, for example, he became close to the Campisi brothers, key mafia lieutenants in the city.
Like Oswald, Ruby also had connections to the FBI. There is evidence that both men, victim and killer, were federal informants.
Ruby must have been personable guy as police officers took to him as easily as mobsters. Groups of both mingled at his strip joints. His Carousel Club even held a weekly Officers Night so the men in blue could enjoy themselves in privacy.
When, in the autumn of 1963, the White House confirmed the president would visit Dallas in late November, Rubys response was striking. FBI wiretaps show he suddenly started phoning Mafia pals from all over the country, including some he hadnt been in touch with for years. This campaign of phone calls went on for weeks.
Ruby was even sighted at the scene of the crime. On the morning of Friday, November 22 – the day of the assassination – a 23-year-old housewife, Julia Ann Mercer, was driving west through Dealey Plaza on the planned route of Kennedys motorcade through downtown Dallas when she had to stop behind a Ford pickup truck blocking her lane.
While Mrs Mercer waited for the Ford to move, she watched a young man step from the passenger side and remove a long paper bag. She believed that the bag concealed a rifle. The young man carried the package to the top of a grassy knoll overlooking the plaza.
When Mrs Mercer was finally able to drive around the truck and merge into an outer lane, she locked eyes with the driver, whom she would later identify as Jack Ruby.
Ruby (center) owned the Carousel Club.
President Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, were in the motorcade when the he was shot.
Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president after the shooting with Jacqueline Kennedy at his side.
If his actions before the shooting seem suspicious, there can be little doubt about what happened afterwards.
Ruby seemed positively disturbed following the assassination, not so much by the cold-blooded murder of a president as by the news that Lee Harvey Oswald was still alive and in custody.
After a visit to Parkland Hospital, where the dying Kennedy had been taken, Ruby drove to the Carousel Club, where he made and received telephone calls throughout the afternoon. Witnesses say he became progressively more agitated.
After one final call, Ruby put a revolver in the right front pocket of his pants and drove to the Dallas station house where Oswald was being held. Since Ruby was friendly with most of the cops on duty, he made his way inside without problem.
At approximately 7 pm – still packing a concealed weapon – Ruby was sitting just outside room 317, where Oswald was being questioned by Captain William Fritz, chief of the Dallas Homicide Division. News reporter Victor Robertson watched as Ruby attempted to enter the interrogation room, only to be stopped by an officer at the door.
For the next few hours, Ruby – an armed mobster with a criminal record – was allowed to loiter in the station house even though he had no valid reason to be anywhere near the presidents alleged assassin.
When evening fell, apparently having failed in his mission, Ruby left and started acting as if he were a condemned man. He said goodbye to friends and relatives, including some he had neither seen nor spoken to in years.
He cried, spoke about leaving town and complained of nausea before heading to Temple Shearith Israel where the Sabbath service was already under way. Ruby, who had never been observant, arrived towards the end at around 10 pm.
Later that same evening, he paid another visit to the station house where, at five minutes past midnight, Oswald was brought out in front of the waiting press corps. But for a second time, Ruby – apparently pretending to be a journalist - was frustrated.
[He] simply could not have gotten off a clean shot at Oswald… recalled a witness. Oswald was bunched in the midst of detectives and obscured by a herd of photographers nudging and elbowing each other.
So far, Ruby had missed two chances to kill: in interrogation room 317 and now again in the police house assembly room. He returned to his apartment at around 6am on Saturday November 23.
Oswald was arrested for his suspected involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy.
Ruby shot Oswald as he was being escorted by police.
The following morning, Sunday November 24 found Ruby sitting at home in his underwear, flipping through a newspaper, watching television and eating scrambled eggs. According to his roommate, he was awaiting an important phone call and seemed jittery.
Then, when the call was finished, at around 9:30, Ruby was overcome with a surge of nervous energy. He began pacing across the room, mumbling to himself feverishly. That call is widely believed to have been from a tipster inside the police department, telling Ruby what time Oswald would be leaving.
Around 10:30, Ruby, dressed in the standard mafia uniform of dark suit, fedora, gold cufflinks and a pinky ring, headed out of the door. He was armed with a black .38 Colt revolver.
Arriving at Dallas police headquarters, Ruby walked down a ramp that led to the underground parking garage. As usual, the police did nothing to stop him.
It was 11:21 when a smirking Oswald appeared in the basement and a newsman yelled, Here he comes!
Ruby was standing among the waiting crowd of police officers and newsmen. It is thought hed been allowed to enter the garage by Sergeant Patrick Dean. Now, he was standing behind Officer Blackie Harrison, who many believe was the mysterious caller alerting Ruby to the details of Oswalds transfer.
The suspect emerged from the elevator without even the most basic protection of a human police shield, making him as easy to shoot as if he had been brought before a firing squad.
Ruby wrapped his sausage fingers around his revolver, broke through the crowd and lunged forward, extending his right hand with the gun.
You son of a bitch, he blurted out while squeezing off a single round that cut into Oswalds abdomen.
His victim cried out like a wounded animal, clutched at his stomach then slumped to the ground.
As the police tackled the shooter, he yelled, Hey, you all know me! Im Jack Ruby!
Ruby spoke to news reporters on the second day of his court hearing.
Ruby (left) is pictured speaking with his defense attorneys.
Oswald was taken to Parkland Hospital and, at 1:07 pm, was pronounced dead. Within hours, it was announced that the case against Oswald was closed.
The FBI, CIA and Secret Service were initially certain that there was a direct link between Ruby and Oswald. Gerald Behn, head of the Secret Service in Washington, called Forrest Sorrels, head of the Secret Service in Dallas, and said, Its a plot.
Sorrels replied, Of course.
Oswalds death meant that Ruby now faced a murder charge and the electric chair. So, his reaction might seem surprising: when given the news that his victim had passed away, Ruby broke out in a smile and gave the impression that a load was off his shoulders.
Why was Ruby so happy? I am a former associate of the mafia and I know the rules: if you blow a hit, you die. If Rubys job was to get rid of Oswald, perhaps with the help of dirty officers inside the Dallas Police Department, he had failed.
No wonder hed been vomiting. Rubys life had been in jeopardy. But with Oswald dead, he was off the hook.
Just a few days later, on November 30, Texas underboss Joe Campisi, a man who golfed with Carlos Marcello, visited Ruby in jail for ten minutes. What did they discuss?
When questioned by Dallas police, Ruby claimed that he killed Oswald to save Kennedys widow, Jacqueline, the anguish of a trial, and to prove that Jews had guts. And, for some reason – in the teeth of overwhelming evidence – the FBI chose to believe him.
In its own investigation into Kennedys death, the Bureau concluded that Oswald was a lone nut, a theory you might think was destroyed the moment Ruby murdered Oswald since no one would need to silence a lone nut. Yet FBI director J Edgar Hoover doubled down and painted Ruby as a second lone nut.
The official enquiry, the Warren Commission, was effectively under Hoovers control and did not dare deviate from the FBIs conclusion when it reported on the assassination in 1964.
The commission went through the motions all the same and paid a visit to Jack Ruby behind bars.
Ruby shot Oswald in the abdomen, killing him.
Chaos erupted as Ruby shot Oswald.
Ruby was arrested for the killing of Oswald.
When Earl Warren, head of the enquiry, and a small retinue of commission members met Oswalds killer, he told them he didnt feel safe in Dallas, a city controlled by the mob. Ruby pleaded with Warren to take him to Washington, saying, I want to tell you the truth and I cant tell it here… I have been used for a purpose.
Warren had no interest in Rubys purpose, however, and did not think to ask who had used him. He turned down Rubys offer to spill his guts in Washington eight consecutive times.
On March 14, 1964, a jury found Ruby guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. In a jailhouse interview, he once again hinted at a wider conspiracy, saying: The same people who want me to get the electric chair are [the] ones who wanted President Kennedy killed.
Oddly enough, Sgt Dean, the man believed to have allowed Ruby into the underground parking garage, was a key prosecution witness. Perhaps it was time to get rid of Ruby just as it had been time to get rid of Oswald.
In October 1966, Rubys conviction was overturned on appeal and a new trial was scheduled for February 1967. But in January, Sparky from Chicago conveniently died of cancer at Parkland Hospital, where both President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald had passed away before him.
The truth had been clear from the outset, of course. On 26 November 1963, just four days after Kennedys death, an FBI wiretap recorded Buffalo don Stefano Magaddino talking to fellow mobsters at the funeral parlor he ran at Niagara Falls, New York.
This old mafioso, who was born in Sicily, already knew a great deal more than the American people and stated, bluntly, that Jack Kennedy was killed because his brother Bobby, the Attorney General, pressed too many issues in his war on organized crime. As for Jack Ruby, he murdered Lee Harvey Oswald in order to cover up things.
In 1977, after interviewing approximately 5,000 people and deposing 300 witnesses as chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, G Robert Blakey reached a similar verdict – that the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby had all the earmarks of an organized crime hit, an action to silence the assassin, so he could not reveal the conspiracy.
Nothing has changed.
Borgata: Clash of Titans by Louis Ferrante is published by Pegasus Books