Jack Ruby

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Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby (born March 25, 1911 in Chicago , Illinois as Jacob Leon Rubenstein , † January 3, 1967 in Dallas , Texas ) was an American nightclub owner and mafioso. He became known as the murderer of Lee Harvey Oswald , the assassin on US President John F. Kennedy .

Life

Ruby was born to Polish Jewish immigrants. He lived with his seven siblings with foster parents. He got caught up in criminal machinations early on and participated in violent clashes with members of the National Socialist American-German Confederation . Several of his childhood friends should become prominent bullies , such as the boxer Barney Ross or the hit man Dave Yaras . He left school at sixteen - it is unknown how he earned his living in the years that followed. From 1933 to 1937 he lived in San Francisco , where he kept himself afloat by trading in the black market in tickets, selling newspaper subscriptions and tips on horse betting . In 1937 Ruby found a job with the Chicago scrap dealers union , which, like many American unions of the time , was infiltrated by organized crime (“ labor racketeering ”). After a local union official was shot dead (supposedly in self-defense ) in 1939 , Ruby left the organization, worked as a salesman, and was drafted into the US Air Force during World War II . After his discharge from the military, Ruby went to Dallas in 1947 , where his older sister lived, who in turn had ties to organized crime. Ruby took over her nightclub , which he renamed Silver Spur , and opened a second, Vegas , in 1953 . In 1959 he bought another club, the striptease club Carrousel . In the 1950s he had various connections with well-known bullies, including the casino owner Benny Binion . During the 1950s, Ruby was repeatedly arrested, inter alia for arguments with customers, for violating the curfew and the gun law and for assault. He had to pay a fine for this once, otherwise he had no previous convictions. He bribed members of the Dallas police force by inviting them to his clubs or bouncing them part-time. In 1959 the FBI contacted him to recruit him as an informant. Ruby cooperated, but since he had no information of any interest, the cooperation was discontinued.

In 1959 Ruby made repeated trips to Cuba , where Fidel Castro's July 26th Movement had recently taken power, and contacted the gangster Santo Trafficante, Jr. there; the historian David E. Kaiser suspects that he smuggled Mafia money off the island during these trips .

Assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald

Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald

On November 24, 1963, Ruby shot and killed John F. Kennedy's killer , Lee Harvey Oswald , in the basement of the Dallas Police Building. On March 14, 1964, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death . His attorney Melvin Belli had tried unsuccessfully to obtain an acquittal for mental insanity at the time of the crime. The judgment was overturned by the appellate body in November 1966 . She followed Ruby's attorney's argument that the trial should not have taken place in Dallas because of the heated atmosphere. A new trial was planned for February 1967 in Wichita Falls , but it did not materialize because of Ruby's death.

His interrogation by the Warren Commission on June 7, 1964 was tumultuous. Ruby repeatedly urged to be taken to Washington for allegedly only being able to tell the truth there, and repeatedly burst into tears. He insisted on a polygraph test :

“As for any conspiracy, I am as innocent as you, gentlemen. ... All I want is a polygraph test to tell the truth and fight the lies that are being told about me. ... There was no conspiracy. "

He feared being portrayed as part of a conspiracy that would create a pretext in his mind to fight the American Jews :

"The Jewish people will be exterminated at this moment ... My people will suffer for things that will be said about me."

Jack Ruby originally stated that he only killed Lee Harvey Oswald for the sake of Jacqueline Kennedy . In a letter to another lawyer, however, he writes that this idea came from his lawyer, Tom Howard. He told the prison psychologist that he had been blackmailed into killing Oswald. In 1978, an old television interview Ruby gave while on hiatus from a court hearing was found. Ruby:

“The only thing I can say. Everything that matters, everything that happened never came to light. The world will never know the real facts: in other words, my real motives. I am the only person in the background who knows the truth about everything that relates to myself. "

The interviewer asks Ruby if he thinks the truth will ever come out. Ruby:

"No. Because unfortunately, these people, who have so much to gain and who had a strong motive for getting me in this position that I am in, will never allow the real facts to come out of the world. "

A reporter's subsequent assumption that these same people would hold high positions, he confirms.

Ruby's mental health had deteriorated significantly since his trial. According to his sister Eva before the Warren Commission, he was haunted by the paranoid notion that the US government was planning a Holocaust against all Jews and that there were already 160 million Jews on the lower floor of the Dallas prison where he was held was murdered.

death

On December 19, 1966, on his deathbed at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Ruby spoke for the last time about the murder of Oswald, for which he was solely responsible. As his brother Earl testified, he wanted to request another polygraph test "so that people would be convinced that there was no plan on his part, no conspiracy of any kind. There is nothing to hide, there was no one else".

Shortly before the case again by the District Attorney of New Orleans , Jim Garrison was rolled up, Jack Ruby died on January 3, 1967 at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas on a thrombus , which through his lung cancer was triggered.

Movies

The murder of Oswald and the mysteries surrounding his behavior before and after the murder of Kennedy were the subject of three films:

literature

Web links

Commons : Jack Ruby  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Andrew Strombeck: Ruby, Jack : In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 2, p. 631.
  2. ↑ Also on the following David Kaiser : The Road to Dallas. The Assassination of John. F. Kennedy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2008, p. 14 f.
  3. ^ David Kaiser: The Road to Dallas. The Assassination of John. F. Kennedy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2008, p. 15.
  4. ^ David Kaiser: The Road to Dallas. The Assassination of John. F. Kennedy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2008, pp. 36 and 336.
  5. ^ John McAdams: JFK Assassination Logic. How to Think About Claims of Conspiracy. Potomac Books, Dulles, VA 2011, p. 87.
  6. ^ David Kaiser: The Road to Dallas. The Assassination of John. F. Kennedy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2008, p. 37 f.
  7. ↑ Gerald Posner, Case Closed. Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK , Random House, New York 1993, p. 402.
  8. ↑ Gerald Posner, Case Closed. Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK , Random House, New York 1993, pp. 400ff
  9. ^ Associated Press, "Ruby Asks World to Take His Word," New York Times , Dec. 20, 1966, p. 36.
  10. ^ " A Last Wish ," Time, Dec. 30, 1966.
  11. ↑ Gerald Posner, Case Closed. Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK , Random House, New York 1993, p. 403.
personal data
SURNAME Ruby, Jack
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rubenstein, Jacob Leon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American murderer of the Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH 3rd January 1967
Place of death Dallas , Texas