Key Takeaways
If not for the events ofNov . 22 , 1963 , Jack Ruby may have inhabit out the rest of his living as he did most of the first 50 - plus years of it : as a nobody , an foreigner looking in , a small - clip crook urgently seeking to belong . As it happen , though that day in Dallas change a lot of lives , many of them inalterably . Ruby ’s was one of them .
Two days after that gay November good afternoon when Lee Harvey Oswald assassinatedPresident John F. Kennedy , Ruby — a man most often trace now as a " Dallas nightclub owner " — step from a clique of reporters and cameramen in the cellar of the city ’s police military headquarters , thrust a revolver into the handcuffed Oswald ’s venter as officials were preparing to transport him to a higher - security jail and , as see on live goggle box , pull the trigger .
Ruby initially found a measure of fame with his notorious routine . He became , to some , the assassinator ’s assassin , an retaliator of the fallen U.S. chairwoman . When news first break away that Oswald had been kill , sunniness broke out on the street of Dallas . In the workweek after , Ruby have 100 of letters of support .
To others , though , Ruby was judge , almost as quickly , as something else entirely ; a confused loser , a fall behind soul , a fool , and a simple pawn in a burgeon murder confederacy .
To this solar day , Ruby ’s motivating for shooting Oswald are unclear . But the mere bit of pulling that gun trigger has , for almost six decades now , fueled theories palisade the Kennedy assassination .
" Were it not for Jack Ruby , I do n’t suppose the Kennedy assassination would be the hang around enigma that it has become for so many people around the world . Without Ruby , Lee Harvey Oswald would have drop dead to trial , in 1964 , and so much more information , likely , would have get along out about Oswald ’s background and his motivation , " says Stephen Fagin , the curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza , settle in the former Texas School Book Depository building , from which Oswald , according to many , fired the shots that kill Kennedy . " Ruby kind of fold the book on Oswald ’s fib , and therefore ushered in decades of skepticism and questions about the character assassination .
" Ruby is , for some citizenry , the Rosetta Stone that you’re able to use to unwrap the entire Kennedy conspiracy theory . But for others , he ’s just a guy rope who took issue into his own hand because he loved Kennedy and wanted to give up Jackie [ the president ’s married woman ] the pain of possibly make out back to Dallas to prove in a trial . Crucial physical body , but at the same metre , largely a footer in the story . "
Who Was Jack Ruby?
conduct Jacob Leon Rubenstein in Chicago sometime in 1911 — his exact birthdate is under some doubt — Ruby survive a troubled and violent rearing that included several runnel - ins with the police and constant exposure to the reprehensible element of the metropolis . He served inWorld War II , was assoil from the serving in 1946 , and travel to Dallas with his buddy in 1947 .
There , Ruby became known as a hot - headednightclub ownerand a protagonist to the police who frequented his places . By 1963 , Ruby had essay on a string of business enterprise speculation , none of them very successful . When an " upscale " position call up the Sovereign Club failed to flourish , he rebranded it as the Carousel Club , aburlesque spotthat featured Champagne-Ardenne , beer , pizza pie , a band and a fistful of strippers .
" [ Ruby ] draw the Carousel Club as a ' f – ing classy roast ' and patron who dispute his judgement sometimes got thrown down the stairs , " Gary Cartwright wrote inTexas Monthlyin 1975 . " The Carousel was a dingy , cramped walk - up in the 1300 block of Commerce , right next to Abe Weinstein ’s Colony Club and near to the hotel , restaurants , and night smirch that made downtown Dallas lively and respectably sinister in those clock time of prescribed innocence . "
fit in to severaloral historiesconducted by the Sixth Floor Museum , Ruby ’s definition of " classy " and " professional " was sometimes stretch . He often draw near young adult female on business district streets to entice them into appear as unpaid strippers in his club .
" Ruby never seemed to be about quality in condition of business , and yet , personally , he render to keep fit , he ate a good dieting , he always dressed very nicely . Always wore a suit and really want to ingratiate himself with reporters , with law officers , " Fagin says . " So while he cared a bunch about his physical appearance and his personality — he was very sociable — when it came to business concern , he seemed kind of clueless in terms of what constituted class . "
After the Kennedy assassination , many conspiracy - minded theorists head to Ruby ’s involvement in nightclubs and his rough childhood in mob - hunt Chicago as evidence that he was involved inorganized crimeand used that to push the idea that the cleanup of Kennedy was mob - back .
Ruby had madeat least one trip to Havana , Cuba , too , which elevate more organized crime suspicion . But by most accounts , Ruby was just not that connect .
" He was always adjacent to deplorable activity , if not involved in it in person . It ’s believed he enjoyed give people the impression that there was far more to him than there was in realism , " Fagin says . " Certainly , it helped his club line of work for people to cerebrate that , oh , they ’re rubbing articulatio cubiti with a gangster . And Ruby did not dissuade them of that . "
Through the years , Ruby ’s standoff to organized crime have been hard to prove . Still , a mostly fail cabaret owner who , at the time of the Kennedy character assassination , owe the politics more than $ 4,500 ( some $ 38,500 today ) — and who had made deep trips to Communist - run Cuba — seems premier fodder for those that hint Ruby silence Oswald as part of some larger ring - involve confederacy to kill Kennedy .
But other explanation for Ruby ’s action Nov. 24 , 1963 — some in his own word — anticipate that notion .
Killing Kennedy’s Killer
Ruby did n’t fume or drink or utilize drug . He never married . He had no children , but he was say to love youngster . He had frankfurter that he treated as his children . Yet he could be savagely violent with those who crossed him ( or call in him " Sparky , " a nickname from childhood ) and scathingly mean to his employee .
He showed , at times , a kind side , too , helping out employees and showing great generosity toward his protagonist . And when Kennedy was gun down , Ruby apparently was devastated .
In his later testimony to theWarren Commission , which President Lyndon Johnson build to examine the Kennedy character assassination , Ruby tell a issue letter addressed to President Kennedy ’s daughter Caroline after the blackwash " cause me to go like I did . " More from his testimonial :
He went on to testify about what pass :
Some advise that Ruby shot Oswald to gin up business for his club , and that he never thought he ’d be hold up responsible . Shooting Kennedy ’s assassinator , some say he enter , was a profits - win for everyone .
It was n’t , of course . For anyone .
The Trial of Jack Ruby
Ruby was arrested and tried for execution , the topic of a new record by Dan Abrams and David Fisher , " Kennedy ’s Avenger : Assassination , Conspiracy , and the Forgotten Trial of Jack Ruby . " In March of 1964 , long before he spoke to the Warren Commission , he was convicted of murder with malevolence and condemn to death .
His conviction and sentencing were overturned , two years later , when an appeals court concord that the locale for his trial should have been commute . He was granted a new trial but , week before it was to pop , in early January 1967 , Ruby suffered a pulmonary intercalation brought on by further genus Cancer .
Jack Ruby died in Dallas ' Parkland Hospital — the same stead where both Kennedy and Oswald were choose after they were shot — technically untested and not convict of the crime that trillion saw him commit .
" A stack of people involve , ' Whatever happened to Jack Ruby ? ' " Fagin state . " Ruby died an innocent mankind . It is pitiful that he did n’t get to survive to see that second trial because , I think , history would have benefited . To say the least . "
