For my history paper I had to interview some on that was dead from American history...Here is the result:
KaTrina Gayken
American Historical Survey
April 10, 2009
Jack Ruby
A Day with Jack Ruby
On Wednesday February 11, 2009 I was headed to my American Historical Survey class I was taking the short route from Garrett Strong to Wells Hall and right before I was crossing the street to Wells Hall, I received a text message; I naturally responded to the text message, not realizing that I was about to step foot on the cross walk right in front of a huge truck. The aforementioned huge truck ran right into me at about 10 miles per hour, and while that may seem very fast when you are driving, when getting hit by a car, as I can attest to, it hurts pretty bad, not that I remember much of it anyway. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital attached to a bunch of wires. Now the fact that I woke up in the hospital is rather interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the dreams that I had while I was unconscious.
While I was out cold, I had a dream that I had met a man formerly known as; Jacob Rubenstein who had changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby and was more commonly known as Jack Ruby. While I am pretty sure that Jack Ruby was not just a random person my brain chose while I was knocked out, I figure it is probably because I have heard stories about him since my great grandfather, Fred Hickman, and a few of his friends started the Texas Highway Patrol back in 1935, and Ruby was well known around the department, according to my family and stories my grandfather had told. The fact that he was well known around the Dallas Police Department is even recorded from in a trial from a testimony of Jack Ruby’s brother, Earl. In the testimony, there were questions about why it was so easy for Jack Ruby to go into the jail and shoot Lee Harvey Oswald, to which Earl Ruby replied, “Some question has been brought up on several occasions why was it, or why did it seem so easy for Jack to enter the jail, why was he so friendly with so many policemen? Well, I would like to relate an incident, and I think it is in the Warren Commission. At one time, two officers of the Dallas police force were being attacked by several hoodlums. Jack went to the aid of the policemen and helped them subdue these hoodlums. And in that fight, one of the hoodlums actually bit off part of one of Jack's fingers, and a statement from one of the officers involved later on said that Jack actually fought like a tiger to help them. Those were his words. And I would think from an incident of this that this is why or how Jack developed such a friendly relationship with the Dallas police force. That's about all I have to say, Mr. Chairman.”¹
When I was in my dream, I was sitting across the table from Mr. Ruby, and I took the time to interview him, so his side of the story could be heard. This is what we got accomplished:
KaTrina: Mr. Ruby, it is so nice to meet you. I understand that you would like to get your side of the story across. Do you feel you have been misunderstood?
Jack Ruby: First, KaTrina, go ahead and refer to me as Jack, and secondly, yes, I do feel as if I was misunderstood. When I acted in killing Oswald, it was a crime out of passion. You see, I’ve always been very fond of presidents, past and present, but for some reason I really connected with Mr. Kennedy, and had a great deal of respect for him. All I wanted to do was just be a hero, but it looks like I just fouled things up good.²
KaTrina: Mr. Ruby, I mean… Jack, I am sorry. Where did you grow up?
Jack: Well, I was born in Chicago and lived there most of my life before moving to Dallas.
KaTrina: And how was home life?
Jack: What do you mean by home life?
KaTrina: Were you religious? Did you get along with your parents? Siblings? Where did you land in the placement of all of your siblings? Were you the oldest? Youngest? Middle child?
Jack: I was raised as an Orthodox Jew, and a lot of people made fun of me for this, it caused me to get into a lot of trouble, I was constantly fighting with kids who made fun of my religion.³ My parents were divorced when I was ten years old, but I do not care much about the bastard of a father my mother was married to. He constantly would abuse my mother. I believe that all of his abuses lead my mom to be a little disturbed. ⁴ Well, it probably also did not help that my mom had eight children, myself being number five, and her having to raise us all by herself. We were eventually taken away by social services. ⁵
KaTrina: How did the fact that social services took you away from your family affect you? Or rather, how do you believe it affected you?
Jack: Well, considering that after I was released from the foster home, I lived on the streets, sometimes being called the neighborhood tough guy, not that I was not. I had a big temper, and I was not someone you wanted to mess with. People would pick on or annoy my sisters, and I would show them who was boss. The same thing happened whenever someone made a snide remark about my being Jewish.⁶
KaTrina: Did you ever learn to control your temper, or did that always play a part in your life?
Jack: No, eventually I learned to control my anger, and I felt really bad for being so hard on people. Well, at least while I was in Chicago. Once I moved to Dallas, that was a whole different story, and a different issue.
KaTrina: We will get back to the anger issues in Dallas in a bit, for now I am still curious about your life growing up in Chicago. You said you were taken away and put in foster care. When you were released from foster care you didn’t go back home did you?
Jack: No, there was no way you could get me to go back there.
KaTrina: Well, if you didn’t go back home, how did you afford to live, or stay afloat by yourself?
Jack: When I was much younger I would earn money by selling racing tip sheets, and with Earl, my brother, I would pawn off stuff that people needed, like medicinal snake oils, costume jewelry, vitamins, razor blades, you know, just common stuff we could get anywhere but still get quite a bit of money from. ⁷ I guess you could say I was a little street wise.
KaTrina: So, saying you were street wise, does this mean you stole a lot, or were involved in illegal activities?
Jack: Who are you getting your information from?
KaTrina: What information? I am just trying to help you get your side of the story out to the public. I figured by asking these questions, it might help people understand the real you.
Jack: Fine, but this is strictly off the records. I was a friend of Al Capone, he called me Sparky. I would just run errands for Mr. Capone, nothing too bad. ⁸
KaTrina: How many people were there running errands with you?
Jack: There were twelve of us. My friend Barney was also there with me helping get some of Mr. Capone’s work done.
KaTrina: How long did you work there?
Jack: Not too long. I was not about to try and get into the organize crime ring, what kind of moron do you take me for?
KaTrina: I do not think you are a moron, just a simply question is all. Now, did you not go to the West Coast for a while and try to start a union?
Jack: Yeah, but that did not work out too well. I ended up going back to Chicago; I preferred the familiarity of it all over there. The mob came in and took over that union. Actually, I was a friend of the union’s secretary, Leon Cooke. The story of Leon is a tough one for me though.⁹
KaTrina: Why is that?
Jack: Well, Leon was a good friend of me, but the mob made me kill him. You could call it my first hired assassination if you wanted to. I felt horrible about it, but I knew it was either him or me.¹⁰ I went and had my middle named changed to Leon, in his honor.
KaTrina: That was very thoughtful of you. Why was it that you moved to Texas after moving back to Chicago?
Jack: There were a lot of people making big money off of night clubs. I knew that if I just had a chance, I would be able to do the same. I thought that it would give me success and notoriety. That I would finally get the recognition I deserved. ¹¹
KaTrina: But why did you choose Dallas?
Jack: I loved Dallas so much, I would boast to people what a wonderful city this is…I used to boast about the skyline, about our master plan. I just know Dallas was going to be the most beautiful city in the world. This is the city that if you wanted to sell anything at all, you could walk into a millionaire’s office and they would listen to you.¹²
KaTrina: Where do you think you went wrong? I know that you eventually went bankrupt.
Jack: Not too sure. It could be that I was a little tough on people. There were a lot of times where I would get really angry at people that would not treat others with proper respect, or would just mouth off, and I would throw them down the stairs straight into the polices arms.¹³
KaTrina: Can you tell me the stories of some of the issues you would have?
Jack: Sure, that’s easy. There are a few that specifically stick out in my mind. Once, when some smart aleck came to the door and tried to give me a hard time, and I tried to be very pleasant to him, and he was becoming all the more belligerent and I finally had to hit him and knocked some of his teeth out. ¹⁴ One night a fellow got into a hassle with our comedian Wally Weston, and Wally threw a punch at him, and the fellow said some remark about Wally to go to Russia. Anyway, I picked him up and bodily threw him down the stairs. ¹⁵ One evening some fellow had broken a beer bottle over this man’s head and it just made me sick, and I hit this other fellow with my pistol and he went down. They both pleaded with me that they would never come back if I would just let them go.¹⁶
KaTrina: So, you say that you hit them with a gun… Did you often carry a gun?
Jack: Well, some drunk tried to throw a heavy wooden chair at me. I decided in time to save my life and I started to hit him and beat him up—close to death. I then realized how important it was for me to always have my pistol on me if I wanted to stay alive.¹⁷ I also carried a lot of money on me. I was going to buy a safe, but they were too expensive, around three or four thousand dollars. And while, I knew I could afford it, I was not going to put out that kind of money for a safe, so I carried around about twenty-five hundred to three-thousand dollars.¹⁸
KaTrina: What kind of gun was it that you were carrying?
Jack: It was a Colt Cobra. It was the same kind of gun that a friend of mine carried. His name was Joe Cody; he was a Policeman in Dallas.¹⁹
KaTrina: Did you often make friends with the Dallas Police Department?
Jack: Well, they do refer to me as a stickler for the law. I always thought of myself as a kind of a cop. The Justice of the Peace even gave me a card saying I was an honorary Deputy Justice of the Peace. I always respected and treated the Dallas Police Department well. Anytime they came into one of my clubs there was always plenty of liquor, and the girls paid special attention to them.²⁰
KaTrina: Have you always had a sort of fascination with people in positions of power, i.e., the police, the president, etc?
Jack: Oh yes. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, I was always defending those in power. I actually got into a few physical fights over the deaths of Roosevelt and Eisenhower. Once John F. Kennedy came into office, I knew he was going to do amazing things for this country and I felt he deserved to be honored more than any other president.²¹ The United States put a great Jewish man in office.
KaTrina: Is this why you killed Lee Harvey Oswald?
Jack: Saturday morning before I left the house, I watched the Television and they had a prayer service for the President. And Rabbi Silverman was speaking [about] how the President was so courageous and fearless and fought every adversary—and to have someone shoot him from behind, this broke what little pieces were left of my heart.²² I had been thinking about killing that lousy Commie since that Friday night. In fact, I attempted to get a shot off Saturday night in the hall of Justice, but the Police were blocking me. I was afraid of hitting one of them. ²³ I stalked Oswald all weekend, and my first opportunity for a clear shot happened when I had least expected it.²⁴ It was a little after 11 a.m. on Sunday morning, I was driving past the City Police station on my way to the Western Union Office, which was just one block east of the station. When I passed the station, I looked down the ramp to my right and saw a lot of people down in the basement. So when I finished with Western Union, I walked west down the ramp just out of curiosity. Because I practically lived at the police station, and had been walking up and down that ramp so often each day, no one really thought anything of it, little did they know the opportunity of my lifetime was about to present itself. The ironic part is this—hadn’t I made an illegal turn behind the bus to the parking long—had I gone the way I was supposed to go, straight down Main street, I would have never met this fate. Because the difference in meeting this fate was 30 seconds one way or the other…So I walked down the ramp. I noticed a police squad car at the head of the ramp and an officer leaning over talking to him with his back to me. All I did was walk down there—down to the bottom of the ramp, and that’s when the incident happened, at the bottom of the ramp.²⁵
KaTrina: What incident are you talking about? When you shot Oswald?
Jack: Well, yes. I came out and all of a sudden, I saw his defiant, cursing, vicious, communist expression on his face. I can’t convey what impression he gave me. I just lost my senses. I yelled ‘You rat, sonofabitch! You shot the President!’ and before I knew it, I shot that rotten Commie.²⁶
KaTrina: Did you get a chance to run away or shoot him a second time?
Jack: No, before I knew it I was wrestled to the ground and taken to a holding room. All I remember saying at that point was ‘I hope I killed the sonofabitch, I hope I killed the sonofabitch!’ Then Detective Archer told me that he thought I may have killed him. I remember being angry because I had intended to shoot him three times.²⁷
KaTrina: Were you happy when you found out your gun shot had caused a wound that made him die?
Jack: Oh yes. I knew that justice had finally been served.
KaTrina: Well, Jack is there anything else you’d like to say or are you happy with how you were able to convey your side of the story?
Jack: I would like everyone to realize that I did it for Jackie and the kids. That is all.²⁸
KaTrina: Mr. Ruby, I thank you for your time.
Jack: Thank you, KaTrina.
End Notes
¹ http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo2/jfk4/hscaearl.htm
² Gus Russo, Live By the Sword; The Secret War against Castro and the Death of JFK (Baltimore: Bancroft Press, 1998), 491.
³ Ibid., 492.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Ibid., 493.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ Ibid.
¹² Ibid.
¹³ Ibid., 494.
¹⁴ Ibid.
¹⁵ Ibid.
¹⁶ Ibid.
¹⁷ Ibid., 495.
¹⁸ Ibid.
¹⁹ Ibid.
²⁰ Ibid.
²¹ Ibid.
²² Ibid., 497.
²³ Ibid.
²⁴David Kaiser, The Road to Dallas; The Assassination of John F. Kennedy (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008), 362.
²⁵Gus Russo, Live By the Sword; The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK (Baltimore: Bancroft Press, 1998), 497.
²⁵ Ibid.
²⁶Gerald Posner, Case Closed; Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK (New York: Random House, Inc., 1993), 396-397.
²⁷Melvin M. Belli and Maurice C. Carroll, Dallas Justice; The Real Story of Jack Ruby and His Trial (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1964), 39.
Bibliography
Belli, Melvin M, and Maurice C Carroll. Dallas Justice; The Real Story of Jack Ruby and His Trial. New York, New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1964.
Kaiser, David. The Road to Dallas. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008.
Posner, Gerald. Case Closed; Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. New York, New York: Random House, Inc, 1993.
Russo, Gus. Live by the Sword; the Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK. Baltimore, Maryland: Bancroft Press, 1998.
