Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby (born Jacob Leon Rubenstein, March 25, 1911, Chicago, Illinois - died January 3, 1967, Dallas, Texas) was a Dallas nightclub operator who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas Police headquarters on November 24, 1963, forty-eight hours after Oswald's arrest for the assassination of President Kennedy. Ruby's elimination of the only person charged with Kennedy's murder, before Oswald could stand trial, is among the most consequential events in the history of the assassination and its investigation.¹

Background and Organized Crime Associations

Ruby was raised in Chicago and had worked as a runner and small-time organizer in labor and minor criminal circles there before relocating to Dallas in 1947. He became the operator of a strip club, the Carousel Club, and later a second venue, the Vegas Club.

His organized crime associations were documented by both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The HSCA found that Ruby had "significant" associations with organized crime figures in Chicago and Dallas throughout his career. He had known Paul Rowland Jones, a Chicago organized crime figure, and had been involved in Dallas gambling operations. The HSCA identified associations with Carlos Marcello's New Orleans organization and with the Tampa organized crime network of Santos Trafficante, Jr., both of whom the committee found had motives related to the Kennedy administration's aggressive pursuit of organized crime through Robert Kennedy's Justice Department.¹

Cuba Gunrunning

In 1959, Ruby apparently made at least one visit to Cuba and was involved in efforts to obtain the release of American associates held in Cuba. The HSCA found evidence connecting Ruby to efforts to run guns to Cuba for anti-Castro exile groups. This placed Ruby in the periphery of the same exile Cuban networks that the CIA was running through JM/WAVE and the anti-Castro infrastructure.

Pre-Assassination Contact

The HSCA documented that in the weeks before the Kennedy assassination, Ruby made an unusual number of calls to organized crime figures and associates across the country. The timing and pattern of these calls was considered significant by the committee, though the content could not be recovered. Ruby also had friendly relationships with numerous Dallas police officers, which the committee considered relevant to his ability to enter the police basement with a concealed weapon on November 24.¹

The Shooting and Trial

On November 24, 1963, at 11:21 AM, Ruby was in the Dallas Police headquarters basement with a crowd of journalists waiting to see Oswald transferred to the county jail. As Oswald was brought out in handcuffs, Ruby stepped forward and shot him once in the abdomen at close range. The event was broadcast live on national television. Oswald died ninety minutes later at Parkland Memorial Hospital.

Ruby was immediately arrested. He claimed he acted spontaneously out of grief for Kennedy and a desire to spare Jacqueline Kennedy the trauma of a trial. He was tried for murder in March 1964 and convicted; the jury sentenced him to death. His trial attorney was Melvin Belli.¹

Ruby's conviction was reversed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in October 1966 on grounds that the original trial should have been moved from Dallas due to pretrial publicity. A retrial was ordered in a different Texas venue. Before the retrial could begin, Ruby died of lung cancer on January 3, 1967. He had reportedly told his family and attorneys that he knew more than he had said, and had requested to be taken to Washington for questioning by the Warren Commission under conditions where he felt safe - a request that Warren Commission Chairman Earl Warren declined.

Warren Commission and HSCA Treatment

The Warren Commission concluded that Ruby had acted alone and spontaneously, finding no evidence of a conspiracy involving Ruby. The Commission's staff failed to pursue organized crime leads and did not have access to information about the CIA-Mafia anti-Castro plots that would have provided context for Ruby's organized crime associations.

The HSCA, with access to fuller CIA and FBI records, reached a more equivocal conclusion: while it could not conclusively prove Ruby acted as part of a conspiracy, it found his organized crime associations, pre-assassination contact patterns, and the circumstances of the shooting "not inconsistent" with a conspiracy hypothesis. The committee specifically noted that the elimination of Oswald before trial eliminated the one person who could have provided direct testimony about his actions and associates.²