Title: Why Did Hotheaded Strip Club Owner Jack Ruby Decide To Kill Lee Harvey Oswald? Source:
[None] URL Source:https://allthatsinteresting.com/jack-ruby Published:Sep 20, 2019 Author:Marco Margaritoff Post Date:2021-08-01 18:31:13 by BTP Holdings Keywords:None Views:1082 Comments:27
Why Did Hotheaded Strip Club Owner Jack Ruby Decide To Kill Lee Harvey Oswald?
By Marco Margaritoff | Checked By Leah Silverman
Published September 19, 2019 Updated September 20, 2019
Jack Ruby had ties to the FBI and potentially to underworld conspirators, but why exactly he murdered JFK's assassin remains a mystery.
The man charged with murdering the 35th president of the United States was killed two days later by a nightclub owner — and police informant — named Jack Ruby. Lee Harvey Oswald himself told reporters that he didn’t shoot anyone, and more importantly: “I’m just a patsy.”
The JFK assassination is one of the most magnetic conspiracies of the 20th century. For decades, curious minds have gravitated toward that day in November 1963 looking for answers.
Even skeptics have had a hard time reconciling the magic bullet theory which claimed that JFK and Texas Gov. John Connally were struck by the same bullet. But witnesses on Nov. 22, 1963, reported hearing three gunshots.
The national hysteria only compounded on Nov. 24 when Lee Harvey Oswald was being escorted to a county jail through the Dallas police headquarters’ basement. With no preventative measures in place to secure the arguably most important U.S. prisoner of the 20th century, Jack Ruby simply walked up to Oswald and shot him in the stomach.
Jack Ruby Shoots Lee Harvey Oswald Wikimedia Commons
Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the abdomen with a .38-caliber revolver. He died an hour and a half later.
Captured on live television, the people of the United States saw one of the most important witnesses, double-agents, assassins, or perhaps patsies in history silenced forever — and they still haven’t stopped asking: Why?
Trouble At Home With Jack Ruby
According to the National Archives, Jack Ruby was born Jacob Rubenstein in Chicago, Illinois. His exact birthday is a subject of confusion, with early records ranging from March 13 and April 25 to June 23 and other dates. Ruby eventually settled on March 25, 1911.
There’s no doubt he was born in 1911, but since the recording of births wasn’t required in Chicago before 1915, the official date was likely never recorded. Ruby had one older brother and three older sisters, the two oldest of whom were born in Poland before the family arrived in the U.S.
His father, Joseph Rubenstein, was born in Sokolov near Warsaw while Poland was still under the rule of Czarist Russia. He eventually entered the Russian army where he picked up alcoholism and his future wife, Fannie Turek Rutkowski.
In 1898, Rubenstein “walked away” from his military career and made his way to American through England and Canada.
Jack Ruby And Dancers At The Carousel Club Corbis via Getty Images
Jack Ruby and two of his dancers outside of the burlesque Carousel Club. Ruby was prone to violence and erratic behavior, firing and rehiring dancers and often fighting random customers.
The primary language in Ruby’s childhood home was Yiddish as his mother didn’t speak fluent English. The family lived in four different homes in Chicago by the time Ruby was five years old, with his sister Eva describing one of the neighborhoods as being “below the middle class but yet it wasn’t the poorest class.”
Unfortunately, Ruby’s youth was plagued by frequent domestic violence between his parents. His father was often arrested and charged with assault and battery. In 1921, the couple separated which Ruby’s mother claimed to have wanted for 15 years after suffering from her husband’s alcoholism and infidelity.
When Ruby was 11, he was referred to the Institute for Juvenile Research for his truancy and being “incorrigible at home.” According to the psychiatric report, he was “quick-tempered” and “disobedient” and his mother’s own temperament was cited as a potential cause for his behavior.
A Sixth Floor Museum profile of Jack Ruby, including interviews with his brother Earl, Dallas Morning News columnist Tony Zoppi, entertainers Breck Wall and Joy Dale, and Dallas Police Officer W.E. ‘Rusty’ Robbins.
Ruby would run away from home, get into fights, and generally act disagreeably towards authority.
“He could give no other good reason for running away from school except that he went to amusement parks. He has some sex knowledge and is greatly interested in sex matters. He stated that the boys in the street tell him about these things. He also claims that he can lick everyone and anybody in anything he wants to do.” — Jack Ruby’s psychiatric interviewer.
One friend said that in Chicago’s “tough” neighborhoods, self-defense was imperative, and Ruby was entirely capable of handling his own. Another friend said Ruby accepted any challenge, anytime.
The courts recognized there was trouble at home and sent all the Rubenstein children to various foster homes “for a short time in 1922- 23,” though Jack and Eileen Ruby claimed they’d been gone for four or five years.
Earl Ruby testified that Jack was on a farm “some distance away” from his own temporary new home.
Upon returning home, Ruby found his mother in the early stages of mental disease. She was convinced a fishbone was lodged in her throat, though nothing of the sort was true. The Michael Reese Hospital concluded that she was suffering from psychoneurosis with high anxiety.
Jack Ruby And Two Nightclub Dancers Corbis via Getty Images
Ruby’s mother suffered from a mental disease before she died of a heart condition. His father died only a few years before Ruby was sentenced to death.
She was admitted to a mental hospital numerous times during this period, and eventually died of a heart condition on April 11, 1944. Ruby’s father stayed with the children until he died on Christmas Eve of 1958.
Jack Ruby’s Forays Into Crime
Ruby’s education didn’t seem to advance past high school as there are no records past his freshmen year. With little education and trouble at home, Ruby began to scalp tickets and sell anything he could to make a buck. He was particularly interested in sports paraphernalia.
According to History, Ruby worked a number of odd jobs throughout his youth and early adulthood, from door-to-door sales and street hustling to aircraft mechanic in the Army Air Forces during World War II.
By the late 1940s, Ruby moved to Dallas, Texas where he established himself as a nightclub owner of the burlesque Carousel club and a gambling aficionado by 1960.
He was arrested several times for minor offenses, established connections with the local mob, and garnered an ill-advised reputation as a name-dropper and attention seeker. He also allegedly had ties to the local underworld and police.
According to a 1978 report by New Times, Ruby had met on occasion with Miami gangster, “Handsome” Johnny Roselli, who himself was later tied to a CIA-led conspiracy to assassinate Castro alongside gangsters Santo Trafficante Jr. and Sam Giancana.
Ruby may also have been a part of a scheme to smuggle guns to Cuba before their revolution and at some point, allegedly worked with the FBI but provided them with useless information.
The Assassination Of JFK
On Nov. 22, 1963, President Kennedy was fatally shot through the throat and in the head. Texas Governor John Connally, who was riding in the front of the Lincoln limousine, was hit in the back, right wrist, and thigh. Because of the number of bullet wounds on both men, speculation about whether multiple shooters could have been involved persists.
After the assassination at 12:30 p.m., the Kennedy motorcade sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital where the president was officially pronounced dead at one p.m. The bullet used by the Warren Commission to argue that a single bullet was responsible for the casualties was found on a gurney at that hospital in “pristine” condition.
Lee Harvey Oswald With His Rifle Wikimedia Commons
The Warren Commission claimed Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally with one bullet that traversed seven layers of skin, broke numerous bones, and made a mid-air turn. Oswald denied shooting anyone until the day he died.
According to Business Insider, meanwhile, Lee Harvey Oswald left his job at the Texas School Book Depository at Dealey Plaza and went home to get his pistol before heading back out. Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit reportedly spoke with someone that matched Oswald’s description — who had already been radioed in as a suspect — and was shot dead.
Oswald was arrested at 1:40 p.m. while sitting in a movie theater screening of War is Hell. He resisted arrest and nearly fired his gun, but police were able to stop him. He was punched in the face, giving him the famous black eye seen in most post-arrest photos of him.
Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn into presidential office aboard the Air Force One, while a blood-splattered Jacqueline Kennedy attempted to process what had happened a mere hour ago.
The medical examiner initially refused to release the president’s body to the secret service on the grounds that an autopsy had to be performed before the body could be moved from Dallas to Washington, D.C. But both President Johnson and Dallas district attorney Henry Wade overrode these standardized procedures and the president’s body was ultimately confiscated.
John F Kennedy Motorcade In Dallas Wikimedia Commons
Lee Harvey Oswald told the press that he didn’t shoot anybody and thus had nothing to be ashamed of. Two days after Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, he was gunned down himself by Jack Ruby.
With Oswald arrested, Kennedy’s body taken away, and a nation in mourning, the one shred of relief the country seemed to have was that the lone gunman had been successfully located and arrested.
When asked if he’d like to hide his face from the barrage of press photographers, Oswald said the following:
“Why should I? I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of.”
The Murder Of Lee Harvey Oswald
According to History, Jack Ruby’s mutual relationship with Dallas police frequently ended in leniency for his crimes. Skeptics of the Warren Commission often cite these connections as an explanation for why Ruby so easily shot Oswald.
Reporters were normally required to identify themselves with press passes, but the Dallas Police Department’s Captain King said that it was impossible due to “the atmosphere that existed over there, the tremendous pressures that existed, the fact that telephones were ringing constantly.”
Lee Harvey Oswald Mugshot Wikimedia Commons Harvey Lee Oswald’s mugshot on Nov. 23, 1963.
According to Assistant Chief of Police N.T. Fisher, “anybody could come up with a plausible reason for going to one of the third floor bureaus and was able to get in.” Indeed, even Jack Ruby was present on that third floor on where Oswald was held the night after Kennedy’s death. Oswald was walked in unprotected and interrogated and sometimes even answered questions posed by the reporters that had infiltrated the building.
The decision to move Oswald to the county jail on Sunday morning was made by Chief Curry the previous night. When he determined that it would happen at 10:00 a.m., he told “the newspaper people.”
“I believe if you are back here by 10 o’clock you will be back in time to observe anything you care to observe,” he said. That night, between 2:30 and three a.m., the local FBI and sheriff’s offices received calls from an anonymous man who warned that a committee had decided “to kill the man that killed the President.”
“ On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. ” ~ H. L. Mencken
My theory is that Ruby was worried that if Oswald lived that the trial would fall apart and the public would blame the Jews (or more rightfully Israel.)
Dorothy Kilgallen interviewed Ruby. She was a great reporter and had covered many big stories. After the interview, she told her friends that she had the story of her life. She had broken the JFK assassination case. Unfortunately, she died that night. The FBI took over and searched her apartment, taking everything.
“ On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. ” ~ H. L. Mencken
“ On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. ” ~ H. L. Mencken
she told her friends that she had the story of her life. She had broken the JFK assassination case. Unfortunately, she died that night. The FBI took over and searched her apartment, taking everything.
What she found out was that it was LBJ who was involved in the assassination of JFK.
LBJ supposedly told his mistress, Madeleine Duncan Brown, on the eve of the assassination, "After tomorrow I will not be disrespected again." ;)
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
I agree. That sordid and sadistic puppet was "in the loop."
But he was not an active agent. He probably had to be in the know to facilitate the actions of the legal and publicity machinery set in motion in the event of this coup.
It's still revolting to contemplate these many years later. The assassination set many off in search of all the puzzle pieces that don't fit the frame in this disaster and the many that followed. It also caused lots of people I know to search prior history for similar kinds of skullduggery.
Moreover, this event drew a sharp dividing line between those who know and those who don't know shit.
Ruby was Mafia, he had to shoot Oswald after the original plan of JFK dying of gonorrhea contracted from Dallas strippers fell through due to his dependence on anti-malarial drugs from service in South Pacific.
“I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.” - William S Burroughs
Wow BTP, I never realised what a conspiracy freak you were! :)
“I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.” - William S Burroughs
“I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.” - William S Burroughs
“I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.” - William S Burroughs
“I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.” - William S Burroughs
“I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.” - William S Burroughs
