Who was Jack Ruby?

[Chris Newton]

As far as your "facts" on Ruby, you haven't established any.

You can't put Ruby at the Nixon/Bush/New Senator Welcome Event (or even within 3000 miles in 1953) but since Hatman "resembles" Jack Ruby, it must be him?

The note from 1947 has been debated before and hasn't been resolved. Even Armstrong admits this. If it's a true document about our Rubenstein, great!

[Jim Hargrove]

Hey, I'm a long-suffering card-carrying Democrat and no fan of Donald Trump or Roger Stone. But that doesn't mean Stone is a... uh... "mountebank." (What big words you use. Why not just speak plainly?)

Here is the Congressional document that support's Stone's story:

For the second time, can you produce a single news story from before 11/24/1963 indicating "Jack Ruby" or "Jacob Rubenstein" or "Jack Rubenstein" was a Mobster? Any ole' Jack Ruby or Jacob Rubenstein or Jack Rubenstein will do!

[Chris Newton]

For the second time, can you produce a single news story from before 11/24/1963 indicating "Jack Ruby" or "Jacob Rubenstein" or "Jack Rubenstein" was a Mobster? Any ole' Jack Ruby or Jacob Rubenstein or Jack Rubenstein will do!

I haven't done any research on that. The absence of news stories in an archive search doesn't prove or disprove anything.

[Jim Hargrove]

Do some research, Chris. Support your often expressed assertion that Jack Ruby was a Mobster!

I've searched and searched news reports prior to 11/25/1963 and found NO EVIDENCE AT ALL of Jack Ruby's Mob ties!

Prove me wrong.... Here's your chance!

Edited October 3, 2016 by Jim Hargrove

[Chris Newton]

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKSruby.htm

[Chuck Schwartz]

I am not sure what Jack Ruby's relationship was with the Cosa Nostra, but he did correct the Dallas Police when they (Wade) said that LHO was part of an anti-Castro group. Ruby said (at the press conference , which was on TV) that LHO was part of a pro-Castro group, which was an early part of the conspiracy before LBJ and others decided the most believable story for LHO was the lone nut story. The press conference occurred while LHO was still alive in the Dallas jail. For Jack Ruby to know that fact about LHO and to make sure the public got the correct story, according to the conspirators, meant that Jack Ruby was part of the conspiracy.

[Jim Hargrove]

Yeah, Ruby's involvement in this thing goes much deeper than we previously thought. There is clear evidence that he knew the real Lee Harvey Oswald, and some evidence that he may have been the man who gave instructions to Oswald on how to frame the Russian-speaking impostor. Here's the real Lee Harvey Oswald at the Carousel Club:

On the Jack Ruby page at my website, here's how John Armstrong summarized the evidence that Ruby knew Oswald:

*In the summer of 1963 Dorothy Marcum was dating Ruby and her aunt worked for Ruby. Dorothy told the FBI that LEE Oswald worked for Ruby during June and July and the two men definitely knew each other.

*Ruby was interviewing Francis Irene Hise for a job as a waitress when a young man entered the Carousel Club and Ruby said “Hi, Ozzie” to the young man. After she was hired Miss Hise served drinks to “Ozzie," whom she recognized after the assassination as LHO.

*Another employee, Clyde Malcolm Limbough, worked for Ruby three years and saw Oswald in Ruby's office on several occasions.

*Helen Kay Smith (“Pixie Lynn”), who worked at the Carousel, told the Dallas Police that she saw Ruby and Oswald together on several occasions.

*Other employees of Ruby who saw Oswald in the Carousel Club were William Crowe, Wally Weston, Dixie Lynn, and Kathy Kay.

*Robert Roy was Ruby's auto mechanic and said that Oswald used to drop off Ruby's car for repairs. Roy then drove Oswald back to Ruby's “burlesque house.”

*Ruby parked his car at Gibbs Auto Service and occasionally allowed friends and associates to borrow his car. Leon Woods was the manager of Gibbs and kept a “check-in and check-out” book that listed the names of people who took Ruby's car from the garage. Mr. Woods gave the book to the FBI following the assassination of President Kennedy, which the FBI later denied.

*During the last week of July (1963) Western Union employee Marshall Hicks delivered several telegrams addressed to “LEE Harvey Oswald” at the Rotary Apartments, 1501-1503 W. 7th St. in Dallas (while HARVEY and Marina were living in New Orleans). The FBI made no attempt to locate copies of these telegrams.

*DPD Detective H.M. Hart, of the Criminal Intelligence Division, received information from a Dallas Police confidential informant who knew Ruby. The informant said that in September (1963) Ruby rented an apartment at 223 S. Ewing for LEE Oswald.

NOTE: Journalist Dorothy Kilgallen wrote in the New York Journal American (June 6, 1964): “It is known that 10 persons have signed sworn depositions to the Warren Commission that they knew Oswald and Ruby to have been acquainted.”

At 20, "Little Lynn" (in private life, Karen Carlin) was Jack's youngest stripper. With long locks of artificially colored gray hair, Lynn had the body of swimsuit contestant—but, on stage, wore little other than a big smile, pink heels and a matching G-string. On November 24, 1963, Little Lynn told U.S. Secret Service agent Roger Warner that she, in his words, "was under the impression that Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, and other individuals unknown to her, were involved in a plot to assassinate President Kennedy and that she would be killed if she gave any information to authorities." Lynn reportedly died of a gunshot wound in Houston in 1964.

[Jim Hargrove]

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKSruby.htm

In other words, you can't point to a single news report, police report, or anything else issued prior to 11/25/1963 indicating our man had Mafia links. I can't either.

[Chris Newton]

In other words, you can't point to a single news report, police report, or anything else issued prior to 11/25/1963 indicating our man had Mafia links. I can't either.

Neither could the HSCA. They never were able to absolutely prove that Ruby was in the Mafia and that his actions were conspiratorial. This is why, despite your call to action, I am reluctant to drop everything to attempt to prove what they could not. Many intelligent people, other than myself, have pushed on with this aspect of the investigation because the amount of circumstantial evidence pointing to a relationship is enormous.

This is why I provided the link to this forum's hosting site and John Simpkin's page on "Jack Ruby and The Mafia":

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKSruby.htm

My personal opinion based on my own common sense and experience makes me believe Ruby had a relationship with organized crime.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Chris Newton

[Jim Hargrove]

Fair enough, and you may be right, Chris. I'm just astounded how not a scintilla of hard, contemporaneous evidence for Ruby's Mob connection seems to exist. His intelligence connections, on the other hand, appear to be fertile territory for research.

[Jim Hargrove]

It's pretty clear that Jack Ruby/Rubenstein was deeply involved in the illegal trafficking of arms to Cuba in both the early and late 1950s. Does anyone think this could have possibly escaped the attention of the CIA? Just about everyone else associated with Cuban arms shipments was busted, but not our boy Jack!

Why did American Intel protect Jack Ruby?

[Chris Newton]

Thanks for those documents Jim.

Notice the reference to Carlos Prio in the first document. I think Prio's activities to help arm Castro, by any means, is a key factor. These activities brought both the intelligence community and the smugglers together. Prio had essentially stolen several hundred million dollars from Cuba when he fled and was trying to buy his way back in through Castro.

Was there some collusion to "bust" certain people and to allow others to infiltrate arms? Probably.

[Paul Brancato]

The line between intelligence operatives and organized crime got pretty blurry around the Cuban question.

[Denny Zartman]

Fair enough, and you may be right, Chris. I'm just astounded how not a scintilla of hard, contemporaneous evidence for Ruby's Mob connection seems to exist. His intelligence connections, on the other hand, appear to be fertile territory for research.

Jim Hargrove,

From what I understand, prior to the October 1963 revelations by Joseph Valachi, officially the Mafia didn't exist. In my opinion it shouldn't be surprising that there are few newspaper articles from before that time period specifically mentioning the mob.

Jack Ruby idolized gambler Lewis J. McWillie and considered him one of his closest friends.

McWillie apparently had connections to such mob figures as Santos Trafficante, Meyer Lansky, Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, Joe Bonanno, Dino Cellini, Dave Yaras, and Joseph Civello.

Regarding his relationship with Jack Ruby, here's an excerpt from McWillie's HSCA interview by Donald Purdy in Sept. 1978.

- - -

Donald Purdy: How would you characterize your relationship with Jack Ruby in the 1950's in Dallas?

Lewis McWillie: 1950's, I wasn't around him a real lot, you might say, he would come out to my apartment and swim in the pool and he was a kind of a leech, you might say.

Donald Purdy: Kind of a leech?

Lewis McWillie: Leech. And he was just a hard fellow to get rid of.

Donald Purdy: You say he came over uninvited?

Lewis McWillie: Yes, he came over uninvited after so long a time and he would hang around the pool everyday and swim and have dinner with me and different things.

Donald Purdy: Did you ever have to ask him to leave?

Lewis McWillie: I don't recall. I could have. I don't recall it, though.

Donald Purdy: Were you and Jack Ruby friends during the 1950's?

Lewis McWillie: Yes, we were friends.

Donald Purdy: Were you aware that Jack Ruby considered you one of his closest friends?

Lewis McWillie: I would have to say so, yes, on account of the favors I had done him.

Donald Purdy: What was the reason?

Lewis McWillie: The favors I have done him.

Donald Purdy: So he liked you because you had done favors for him?

Lewis McWillie: I helped him.

Donald Purdy: How had you helped him other than getting Mr. Julius Schepps to help him? Did you help him in any other way?

Lewis McWillie: I helped him with, he had a union problem, he called me in Las Vegas in the early part of 1963.

Donald Purdy: We will go into that in more detail in a little while.

Lewis McWillie: All right.

Donald Purdy: Were you aware that Jack Ruby included you on a list of people who might dislike him?

Lewis McWillie: He put me on a list of people that might dislike him?

Donald Purdy: Yes.

Lewis McWillie: No, I am not.

Donald Purdy: Was there any reason that you could think of that Jack Ruby might think that you disliked him?

Lewis McWillie: No way.

Donald Purdy: Did Jack Ruby idolize you?

Lewis McWillie: In a sort of way I would think so, yes.

Donald Purdy: Why did he idolize you?

Lewis McWillie: I guess because I had helped him keep his business open.

Donald Purdy: What contacts, if any, did you have with Jack Ruby's family, friends and business associates?

Lewis McWillie: I didn't even know his family or friends, I didn't know his family. He told me that he had a brother who was sick and his sister was ill, someway. He

didn't elaborate.

- - -

McWillie admits to being "friends" with Ruby, agrees that Ruby considered McWillie "one of his closest friends", and agrees with the statement that Ruby "idolized" him.

Furthermore, McWillie believes that the reason Ruby considered him one of his closest friends was because of "the favors I have done him", and surmises that Ruby idolized him because "I had helped him keep his business open." Ruby considered McWillie his close friend and idol not because they liked each other or shared the same interests, or for any other reason than specifically because of "favors" and "business."

McWillie described Ruby as an "uninvited leech", but it seems that in August 1959 it seems that McWillie invited Ruby, at McWillie's expense, to fly to Havana, Cuba and stay for six days at the Tropicana casino McWillie was running at the time.

Finally, this quote from "The Cal-Neva Lounge" by John William Tuohy:

"On Sunday, November 17, 1963, five days before Kennedy was gunned down, Ruby showed up at the mob owned Stardust Casino in Las Vegas where he invoked McWillie's name to cash a check and was later seen at the equally mobbed up Thunderbird Casino with Lewis McWillie. Two days after meeting McWillie in Las Vegas, Ruby was back in Dallas, flush with enough cash to pay off his back taxes."

So, Ruby's idol and one of his closest friends, Lewis McWillie, is mobbed up. McWillie does Ruby "favors", helps Ruby keep his business open, settles Ruby's disputes with unions, invites Ruby to go on expensive international vacations at his expense, and allows Ruby to use his name to cash checks in Mafia run casinos.

I know this is not a newspaper headline from 1962 in 32-point font saying "JACK RUBY IS DEFINITELY A MOBSTER" featuring a photo of Ruby giving a thumbs up to a decapitated horse's head, but isn't all of this, especially the favors and apparent exchange of money, compelling circumstantial evidence of a probable Mafia association? Ruby grew up on the streets of Chicago. He was no naïf. Being "friends" with McWillie means being one introduction and handshake away from meeting people like Trafficante, Lansky, and Giancana.

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKmcwillie.htm

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo2/jfk5/mcwill.htm

http://mafia.wikia.com/wiki/Lewis_McWillie

[Chris Newton]

As always (!) Lisa Pease doesn't disappoint with this excellent work from a 1995 edition of PROBE.

Gunrunner Ruby and the CIA

http://www.ctka.net/pr795-ruby.html