Mrs.Cheek. Yes; but I don’t know when he made them.
Mr.Griffin. Did he hold these conversations in his office?
Mrs.Cheek. He was in the office, and then in the club, and then he came a few minutes, and then I came on home.
Mr.Griffin. Your best recollection is, it was from about 2 o’clock in the afternoon until about sometime after 4:00 that afternoon?
Mrs.Cheek. I think so.
Mr.Griffin. How did you happen to place the time? Anything significant?
Mrs.Cheek. I think it was; I remember the time I was down there.
Mr.Griffin. It was a 2 o’clock appointment?
Mrs.Cheek. Yes. Around 2:00 or 2:30.
Mr.Griffin. Do you remember how many long distance telephone calls he made?
Mrs.Cheek. No.
Mr.Griffin. Did he talk to you about any of the business enterprises that he had?
Mrs.Cheek. He told me about other businesses he had and how many he had been in, but I don’t remember exactly. I just listened to him and I wasn’t interested really in putting in $6,000 and him putting in $1,000, and I was just listening to the man talk and getting his ideas on a lot of things that he had in mind for clubs that he was talking about, and I didn’t I wasn’t really interested in what he did in the past or what clubs he was connected with. That is why I don’t remember, you know.
Mr.Griffin. You also indicated that you thought at first when you saw Lee Harvey Oswald’s photograph on television, that you might have rented to him. What made you think that?
Mrs.Cheek. I noticed a lot of people you can walk down the street or be introduced to a person and think I have met them before. Well, I was trying to remember back if I had ever seen the man before in Dallas.
Mr.Griffin. Where did you think you might have seen him?
Mrs.Cheek. I didn’t know. Just like have you ever, you know, met a person and thought you had seen them before?
Mr.Griffin. Yes.
Mrs.Cheek. Well, that is the way I thought I was trying to remember where I had seen him before, and probably I had seen him so many times on TV that day until I thought maybe I had rented to him, and I thought if I had, I would look it up and turn it in.
Mr.Griffin. Let me ask you this. Where were you when you first heard that President Kennedy had been shot?
Mrs.Cheek. In my apartment at 3914 Swiss, Apartment 2.
Mr.Griffin. What did you do that day?
Mrs.Cheek. What did I do that day?
Mr.Griffin. Yes, Ma’am.
Mrs.Cheek. I was waiting for the plumber to fix some plumbing there at the apartment house. That is where I was living. I don’t remember all the things I did that day.
Mr.Griffin. Did you remain there all day and watch TV all day?
Mrs.Cheek. I just turned it on when the plumber wanted—he said the President is in the city and he said, “Let’s look at TV a little,” he said, “I haven’t listened to any of the news.”
So his name is Louis Zmolik and I turned on the TV.
Mr.Griffin. Did you continue to watch television the rest of the day, or did you go back to your business?
Mrs.Cheek. Watched it off and on. I was answering the phone, talking on the phone.
Mr.Griffin. Do you remember if there were business calls that you had or social calls, or talking with people about the assassination, or what?
Mrs.Cheek. Well, they might have been business calls, some of them and some I was talking about how terrible it was the President had been killed, what an awful thing.
Mr.Griffin. Did your sister call you that day?
Mrs.Cheek. No; I don’t think she did. I didn’t learn that, I think, until someone else called me to watch TV, that she had been on TV. I didn’t see her on TV.
Mr.Griffin. Did your sister appear? Was she interviewed on Television?
Mrs.Cheek. Someone said that she was, and my sister in Tyler said she was.
Mr.Griffin. Did you see her interviewed on TV?
Mrs.Cheek. No; I didn’t.
Mr.Griffin. What day was that? Was that on Friday, the day the President was killed, or was it on Saturday?
Mrs.Cheek. The President, I think, was killed wasn’t he, on the 22d of November, Washington’s Birthday? I remembered that.
Mr.Griffin. The 22d of February is Washington’s birthday.
Mrs.Cheek. I mean November.
Mr.Griffin. It was Friday, the 22d.
Mrs.Cheek. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. Was that the day that Mrs. Roberts appeared on television, or was it a later date?
Mrs.Cheek. I don’t know. I never did see her on TV.
Mr.Griffin. How about the next day on Saturday?
Mrs.Cheek. I got the newspaper and saw the next morning, I think, where her picture was in the paper, but I didn’t talk to her until—yes, she called me, my sister called me on Swiss Avenue. I have a sister living on Swiss. She called me and told me, I think, that Earlene was on TV, and we talked the next morning about it.
Mr.Griffin. Now on Saturday, do you recall what you did on Saturday the 23d?
Mrs.Cheek. Sure can’t, not right off.
Mr.Griffin. Did you spend all day watching television?
Mrs.Cheek. No; I didn’t spend all day watching TV. I just happened to turn on the TV because Mr. Zmolik asked me to turn on the TV that day. I don’t know what I was doing. I was probably cleaning the house, because I didn’t have a maid.
Mr.Griffin. I take it you were probably in and out?
Mrs.Cheek. Yes; cleaning the apartment, and sometimes I even cleaned the apartments myself.
Mr.Griffin. How about Sunday morning, the 24th, do you recall what you were doing the morning of the 24th?
Mrs.Cheek. No.
Mr.Griffin. Do you recall when it was you first learned that Jack Ruby had shot Lee Oswald?
Mrs.Cheek. No; I don’t.
Mr.Griffin. I want to hand you what I have marked “Dallas, Texas, 4-14-64, Bertha Cheek, Exhibit 5354.”
This consists of two pages of an interview report which is marked Commission’s Document 86, Page 132, and 80, Page 133.
It is a copy of a report made by Special Agent David Barry of the FBI, with you, Mrs. Cheek, on December 9, 1963.
I want you to read that over and I will ask you the same questions with respect to that as I asked with the previous report. That is, would you make any additions or corrections on that?
If you felt that that is an accurate report of the interview you had with Agent Barry?
Mrs.Cheek. I had bought and sold in the nightclubs, no. I didn’t say that. I didn’t mean to give them the impression, if they got that impression, that I had bought and sold nightclubs. No. I told them about Maple Avenue, you know.
Mr.Griffin. Let me see what portion of the report you are referring to.
Mrs.Cheek. I don’t remember buying and selling nightclubs, but I would, if I could make any money.
Mr.Griffin. This report says on Page 132; “Mrs. Cheek stated that she has been in the real estate business in Dallas, Texas, for a number of years.”
Mrs.Cheek. That’s right.
Mr.Griffin. “That she frequently has bought and sold interests in nightclubs; that during the past several months she has been attempting to locate a good nightclub investment; and that in this connection she had visited practically every nightclub in Dallas which she considered might be purchased outright or in which an interest might be obtained.”
Mrs.Cheek. I was interested in buying one, but I hadn’t bought and sold them.
Mr.Griffin. So the only change you would make in the paragraph was to strike out that clause which reads, “that she frequently has bought and sold interests in nightclubs”?
Mrs.Cheek. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. Would you want to take this pen and put a line through that and initial it?
Mrs.Cheek. [Complies.]
Mr.Griffin. Why don’t you go ahead and continue to read it and tell us if there are any other changes that you would make?
Mrs.Cheek. [Reading report.]
Mr. Martin knows Jack Ruby. That name right there, that man might have told Jack Ruby that I was interested in a club. He knows him real well and says Mrs. Grant is his friend, and Jack Ruby, that is the time that I made the appointment to see him about the club.
Well, he said that he had had dinner with Jack Ruby. We were talking about the club over on Oak Lawn.
Mr.Griffin. The Vegas Club?
Mrs.Cheek. Yes. And he said Jack Ruby was a good friend of his. And he told me about Jack Ruby. That is where I got my information, I remember now.
Mr.Griffin. You talked with him about Ruby. When was your conversation with Martin about Ruby?
Mrs.Cheek. He was just telling me about a good operator.
Mr.Griffin. When was that?
Mrs.Cheek. And how he made money.
Mr.Griffin. How long before you saw Ruby in November?
Mrs.Cheek. Just before I went down to the club, you know, and met him.
Mr.Griffin. He said something to you also about Mrs. Grant, Eva Grant?
Mrs.Cheek. Mr. Martin. He said both were good friends of him, and said Mrs. Grant operated the club on Oak Lawn for Mr. Ruby.
Mr.Griffin. Do you remember anything else he told you?
Mrs.Cheek. I don’t remember all the conversation.
Mr.Griffin. Did you call this Mr. Martin that said he had dinner with Jack Ruby?
Mrs.Cheek. Yes; he was a real good friend of his and a real nice fellow, and Mr. Martin said he was in the oil business and he was just kind of playingwith that club over there because he liked the nightclub business, and he wanted $25,000 for half interest in it, and I thought it was too much money.
Mr.Griffin. How did you happen to know Martin?
Mrs.Cheek. Just looking for clubs, and I saw Mr. Martin’s. I found out who owned the club. I don’t remember just how I found out who owned a place. Sometimes I might go down to the records, if they buy the land, and look to see who owns it. Then I contact them like that.
Mr.Griffin. Now didn’t you plan to manage this club yourself? Any club that you would buy, didn’t you plan on managing it yourself?
Mrs.Cheek. I don’t know whether I would or not, or whether I would have someone else to manage it for me.
Mr.Griffin. How much of a return did you expect on your investment?
Mrs.Cheek. I wasn’t thinking about that at the time.
Mr.Griffin. You must have some idea.
Mrs.Cheek. I didn’t know how much I would invest. I didn’t have very much money to invest. I would have to trade a piece of property or sell a piece. I was looking for clubs or property. If you are talking to people you run into a good bit—buying 5212 Gaston, I put down $600 down, but I paid high payments. I don’t know how much I would invest. I don’t have a whole lot of money. I put small payments down and make high payments a month, you know.
Mr.Griffin. Sure, but you want to make sure you are getting more money off your real estate or business investments?
Mrs.Cheek. When I came to Dallas, I didn’t have very much money. I started managing a place for Mrs. Strong out on Gaston Avenue, and I managed it for her, and she sold me the place for $600 earnest money down.
Mr.Griffin. Is the money that you acquired, you use for buying and selling real estate?
Mrs.Cheek. Buying and selling.
Mr.Griffin. Did you obtain any money from your husband?
Mrs.Cheek. No; we worked together those years. He didn’t take anything.
Mr.Griffin. But all the money which was accumulated by you was accumulated through your own efforts?
Mrs.Cheek. And other people working for me.
Mr.Griffin. Well, when you think about investing money, you decide whether you are going to put that money into some business or whether you are going to leave it in a bank and draw three or four percent interest, don’t you? Don’t you have any idea?
Mrs.Cheek. I never have enough to leave in the bank to draw interest. I either have it invested or going to invest it, what little I have.
Mr.Griffin. Don’t you ever figure this out in terms of percentage you get or you expect to get on the money that you put up?
Mrs.Cheek. No; I haven’t.
Mr.Griffin. How did you decide whether it is going to be a good investment for you or not? Whether it is the kind of investment that you want?
Mrs.Cheek. I really don’t know. I just trade and sell. That is all I do. I guess I should figure more. Maybe that is why I lost all I did in the Beachcomber, because I just traded that today. I trade 5212 and 5302 for the Beachcomber and the Holiday Apartments on a contract to sell, and probably had I gotten a paper and pencil and had an attorney, I wouldn’t have done that.
Mr.Griffin. Now, is there anything else as you read through that, that you want to change?
Mrs.Cheek. [Reading.] You know, you talk to people about investments like Jack Ruby, but I have talked to a number of people. You may not just have an idea that you would invest, if you would make some money. I had no idea that I would. This is nothing permanent about this at all. I was just talking to the people, just went down and talked to him just like I talked to Bill Martin. Bill Martin could have killed President Kennedy and it would have been the same thing when I talked to him if he did it.
I was so surprised when I heard that Jack Ruby killed Oswald and all this happened, it just floored me. I thought it was the awfulest thing I had ever heard of. I didn’t figure that man doing such a thing, after talking to him down there. He didn’t seem like a criminal.
Mr.Griffin. What kind of man did he seem like?
Mrs.Cheek. He seemed like a, well, he was kind of a nervous person, but you wouldn’t have thought that he would murder anyone. He just walked around, you know, but I am a nervous person myself.
Mr.Griffin. Was he able to keep the conversation going in the same general direction? Was he flighty?
Mrs.Cheek. Kind of flighty; yes.
Mr.Griffin. How did he act?
Mrs.Cheek. Well, he didn’t know his location. And I told him it seemed to me that it was funny why he would try to get $6,000 out of me, not knowing, I wouldn’t know the location, I wouldn’t know anything about the business or anything.
He couldn’t tell me anything about that, and I didn’t understand why he would call me down and try to convince me he was a good man and talking for this Frank, too, and not having the location, couldn’t show me what I was buying. And I told him I usually see the things that I buy or know something about it. I don’t buy anything unless I can see it and look at it.
Mr.Griffin. Did you get the idea that this Frankwas——
Mrs.Cheek. He is an older fellow.
Mr.Griffin. How old a man did he appear to be?
Mrs.Cheek. I would say he was up around 66 years old. He was gray-headed.
Mr.Griffin. About how tall was he?
Mrs.Cheek. He was a little taller than I was. About five seven, I guess.
Mr.Griffin. But not a tall man?
Mrs.Cheek. No.
Mr.Griffin. How about his weight? Appear to be heavy?
Mrs.Cheek. I don’t remember how much the man weighed, about 165 or 160, maybe not that much.
Mr.Griffin. Did he appear to be a fat man?
Mrs.Cheek. No.
Mr.Griffin. Medium-built, would you say, or skinny?
Mrs.Cheek. He wasn’t skinny, I don’t think. I didn’t look at the man really that much.
Mr.Griffin. Do you recall if he wore glasses?
Mrs.Cheek. I don’t know whether he did or not. I don’t think he did.
Mr.Griffin. Did you learn anything about where he lived?
Mrs.Cheek. No.
Mr.Griffin. Did Jack Ruby indicate that somebody else besides Fisher and he were interested in this new nightclub?
Mrs.Cheek. Who?
Mr.Griffin. Or Frank, whatever his name is?
Mrs.Cheek. I didn’t understand that Frank was going in on it. He was going to decorate it for Jack Ruby.
Mr.Griffin. Did Jack indicate there was somebody else interested besides him?
Mrs.Cheek. Just himself.
Mr.Griffin. You must have been quite annoyed with him when he wouldn’t tell you where it would be and wouldn’t give you the details?
Mrs.Cheek. Well, I just told him I couldn’t make an investment that I didn’t know about.
Mr.Griffin. Did he describe how big it was going to be? How many seats?
Mrs.Cheek. No, he didn’t. He might have, but I don’t remember the exact seating.
Mr.Griffin. Then you can’t tell us anything that you recall about that conversation other than what you have told us so far?
Mrs.Cheek. That is all I remember.
Mr.Griffin. Okay. Now, have you read through this interview report?
Mrs.Cheek. I don’t have glasses, and I can’t see too well today. I don’t have my glasses with me.
Mr.Griffin. Well, would you like me to read it out?
Mrs.Cheek. You can read it to me.
Mr.Griffin. Did you read the first paragraph?
Mrs.Cheek. I think I read pretty well through everything, because I can hold it off and read it pretty good. I was holding it. I can see if I hold it far away. If you want, you can read it to me.
Mr.Griffin. Why don’t I start to read at the last paragraph on page 132 of Commission Document 86. It reads: “At Ruby’s invitation, Mrs. Cheek said she did discuss such investment with Ruby at the Carousel. Ruby proposed her investment of $6,000 in a club, the identity or location of which he would not disclose, apparently Mrs. Cheek said to preclude her going around him on the deal.”
“Mrs. Cheek said she would not consider the investment of $6,000 without full disclosure and had suggested to Ruby that he get an option on the business so that he might discuss the proposal openly. This concluded the discussion of such investment by Mrs. Cheek with Jack Ruby.”
Let me ask you at this point, was your understanding that this was a going business that he was going to buy?
Mrs.Cheek. No, it was the location that he was going to buy and then put the club in.
Mr.Griffin. So it really means that he should get an option on the real estate?
Mrs.Cheek. Yes. That is what I told him.
Mr.Griffin. “Throughout these discussions at the Carousel, Mrs. Cheek stated that Ruby was assisted by one Frank, whose last name Mrs. Cheek did not recall.
“She described Frank as a man of Jewish extraction about 60 years of age with gray hair. Frank was present, she said, apparently to provide Ruby with a good recommendation as a nightclub operator as this was the extent of his participation in the discussion.”
You would amplify that to say that Frank also talked about how Frank was going to decorate the place?
Mrs.Cheek. He didn’t tell that he was going to decorate this place. He talked about how he decorated the other place and how nice a job he did. And he spoke of how, what a good operator Ruby was in the nightclub business and how he could make money.
Mr.Griffin. Then the last sentence is:
“Mrs. Cheek was unable to provide any additional information of pertinence concerning Jack Ruby.”
Well, I take it that you have no additions or corrections to make to what I have just read you?
Mrs.Cheek. That’s correct.
Mr.Griffin. All right. I want to thank you for spending all this time, and I realize that this has been a sacrifice for you to come down here, and we will try to make arrangements to make photo copies of a few of the records that you have.
Mrs.Cheek. You are welcome to them.
Mr.Griffin. Again I say you are very kind to give us your time, and I would ask you a couple of questions in conclusion.
One, have you been interviewed by any member of the Commission Staff prior to appearing here today?
Mrs.Cheek. Those FBI men.
Mr.Griffin. By other than that?
Mrs.Cheek. Barry and Mr. Kelley.
Mr.Griffin. But nobody that identified himself as a member of the Commission’s staff, as opposed to an FBI agent or Secret Service agent? You haven’t been other than these two interview reports that I have showed you? Have you been interviewed by anybody on any occasion?
Mrs.Cheek. I don’t think so, unless when the police and the FBI or anyone comes to my house about any of the rents or anyone, I always talk to them, and now I don’t know.
Mr.Griffin. All right, beforeI——
Mrs.Cheek. I give them all the information I can give them.
Mr.Griffin. Before I sat down here with you in the room this afternoon, did I interview you at all?
Mrs.Cheek. I don’t think so.
Mr.Griffin. I did meet you out in the hallway?
Mrs.Cheek. Yes, sir; I met you.
Mr.Griffin. But I didn’t ask you any questions?
Mrs.Cheek. No; you didn’t.
Mr.Griffin. Now I will ask you this, too. Do you have any information that you consider to be of any importance in connection with what this Commission is doing, that you haven’t provided us so far?
Mrs.Cheek. I don’t think I have any information at all that I could give you. If I had, I had already called someone and told you about it. If I had ever talked to anyone or anyone mentioned anything about this, I just, like my sister, if she got a letter through the mail, I said, “You call the FBI immediately and turn it in.” “Turn everything in.”
She would get letters through the mail from different people and the people would be coming out interviewing, and I said, “Call immediately and tell them.”
Mr.Griffin. If anything comes to your attention
Mrs.Cheek. I will call you and tell you, surely. I will try to be as helpful as I can be, because I don’t understand it, like everyone else.
Mr.Griffin. We certainly appreciate that, and we are trying to get as much as we can.
Mrs.Cheek. I can’t feature Ruby killing Oswald, and I can’t feature the President being killed.
Mr.Griffin. Well, you are not the only one.
Mrs.Cheek. It shocked me.
Mr.Griffin. Again, I want to thank you for coming down here. It has been a pleasure to meet you.
Mrs.Cheek. It is a pleasure meeting you.