Mr.Griffin. Did he quote it to you personally or is this a figure you have learned from somebody else?
Mr.Ruby. No; he quoted it to me.
Mr.Griffin. Now howmuch——
Mr.Ruby. In other words, it wasn’t a definite figure. He said it could be around, you know.
Mr.Griffin. Have the costs of the investigation for the defense been paid to date?
Mr.Ruby. What do you mean by investigations?
Mr.Griffin. Did the defense hire investigators?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. And have these investigators been paid for their work?
Mr.Ruby. Not completely.
Mr.Griffin. Do youknow——
Mr.Ruby. Well, there is a difference of opinionso——
Mr.Griffin. Can you tell us how much has been paid and how much is claimed as to the total bill?
Mr.Ruby. Well, the original investigator that we had, I think, we paid him about $5,000 already, plus some expenses of a thousand dollars or so; I don’t remember the exact figures, and he claims we owe him $1,500.
Mr.Griffin. More?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; and there is a little dispute about that.
Now, we have got a new investigator, I don’t know his name there. My sister hired him down there and she has given him several hundred dollars, I don’t know how much. I don’t know how much she gave him.
Mr.Griffin. Did Mr. Howard get any money?
Mr.Ruby. Oh, yes.
Mr.Griffin. How much was he paid?
Mr.Ruby. I think we paid him, I am not sure of this figure though, $3,500.
Mr.Griffin. And the remaining funds that have been paid, I take it, have been paid to Mr. Belli?
Mr.Ruby. Belli got, I think, $11,000, if I am not mistaken. Then we paid the doctors, I don’t know, $5,000 or $6,000, you know, the psychiatrists that came down, and some of my expenses came out, just my flight expenses and telephone calls, and who else now?
We gave Burleson some money, he has got, I think, about a thousand dollars that we gave him since the trial. He was supposed to get paid from Belli before. That is the reason we didn’t pay him. However, he claimed Belli never gave him anything. And we paid, like George Senator, the witness, our No. 1 witness, we had to give him money to live on because he was so, what shall I say the word for that, well, he lost his job and he was so upset he couldn’t, you know, he just couldn’t work.
And then we had to pay—he went home and I had to send him airplane fare to come back, you know, and thereis——
Mr.Griffin. How about Larry Crafard, did you pay him any money?
Mr.Ruby. Larry Crafard, I think we just gave him a few dollars, $5 maybe because he was broke when he was living on the road, he didn’t have a dime, so I think I gave him some money.
Mr.Griffin. Did Larry incidentally contact you any time while you were in Detroit?
Mr.Ruby. No, no; I wish he would have, because he hitchhiked all the way down there, and I was driving at the same time, but he didn’t know I lived there, andwe——
Mr.Griffin. How was he notified to come to the trial?
Mr.Ruby. I don’t know. If I remember correctly he came on his own. He just thought that when all this came out about, you know, Jack getting him to take that picture of Earl Warren, he had the camera or something, I forgot the full details myself, but he is the one who took the picture, right, if I am not mistaken, and he just thought he should come down to help Jack as much as he possibly could.
Could I go a little further?
Mr.Griffin. I don’t really want to pry into this unless this is something you care to reveal.
Mr.Ruby. The most important thing is coming up now, I mean one of the most important things.
Mr.Griffin. All right. I do want to reflect this—that I don’t want to push you into saying things, talking about subjects that you would rather not talk about, and I realize that this in one of them. Now, if you do want to say something about it why, of course, we would be happy to hear anything you want to say.
Mr.Ruby. Well, I returned home, I went from L.A. to Dallas, I talked to Jack, I talked to Howard. We hadn’t hired Belli yet. He was going to godown and see Jack, and talk to him before he decided to come in, you know, and take over the case.
I went back to Detroit and in a couple of days I get another call, I get a call, from Woodfield. He is very upset. He just heard some news that he thinks I must know. However, it is so confidential that he can’t even tell it to me over the phone. And I talk to Mike Shore and between us—they couldn’t tell me on the phone, I had better go back to California.
So, I go out there again. The story he tells me is that, in the meantime he is trying to make contacts, this is about a week later. He is trying to make contact to sell the story to the different publications, to the Saturday Evening Post, you know, and other publications, and somebody from the Saturday Evening Post called him, I think—now this is what he told me—and said that Tom Howard was up to the Saturday Evening Post office in Dallas offering for sale a picture of President Kennedy with a piece of his head shot off, and so I immediately, or as soon as I could, when I left them, I called my sister Eva in Dallas and I said, “Get a hold of the agent that has been talking—that has been taking—your story there and tell them about this so they can check into it.”
And then I went home, I flew back to Detroit.
By the time I got to Detroit they had tried to contact me to get some more information on the story. I mentioned this to Tom Howard and he denied it.
Mr.Griffin. Was his denial a flat denial?
Mr.Ruby. Yes, yes; you know, complete, and you know. However, I think it was the fellow at the Saturday Evening Post that said—now I have given all this to the special agents or, I think, the Treasury Department.
Mr.Griffin. Yes.
Mr.Ruby. The Saturday Evening Post man said, “Well, let them come in front of me in my office and deny it.”
But, of course, we never brought it to a head. But, anyhow, I don’t know what happened. They never told me, of course, as you know.
Mr.Griffin. Do you recall the name of the Saturday Evening Post man in Dallas that Howard allegedly contacted.
Mr.Ruby. No; I did originally but I think I gave it to the agents.
Mr.Griffin. Did you talk personally to this man from the Saturday Evening Post who claims he talked to Howard?
Mr.Ruby. No; Woodfield.
Mr.Griffin. Somebody—you just reported that somebody said—“Let Howard come before me and deny it.”
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. I take it this was the Saturday Evening Post man who allegedly made that statement?
Mr.Ruby. Let me look in my book. Perhaps I have it.
Mr.Griffin. What I am getting at is where did you get—who told you—that the Saturday Evening Post man said that?
Mr.Ruby. Woodfield.
Mr.Griffin. Woodfield?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. So everything you know about this transaction between Howard and the Saturday Evening Post comes either from Woodfield or from Howard’s denial?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; right. I don’t have it. I may have it somewhere else in another book but I don’t have it here.
By the way, if you are asking about the finances, we still have bills of—altogether from what my sister tells me—of close to $10,000 that are unpaid now.
Mr.Griffin. Is there any money left in either of the funds at this point?
Mr.Ruby. No; I have been putting it off.
I mean, Burleson insists he wants some money so I have been sending him out of my personal account.
Mr.Griffin. How soon after your brother shot Oswald did you see him?
Mr.Ruby. I think it was about at least a week.
Mr.Griffin. Well——Mr.Ruby. I am not sure. Because I made so many trips there. I was down there about seven or eight times.
Mr.Griffin. Was it before you went to Los Angeles to see Mike Shore?
Mr.Ruby. No; I think I made it on the way back. I went to Los Angeles first, the first trip, and then on the way back I went to Dallas.
Mr.Griffin. How much time did you spend with Jack on this first visit?
Mr.Ruby. Well, they only let you talk about 20 minutes or a half hour at the most.
Mr.Griffin. When is the last time you have seen him?
Mr.Ruby. The last time I saw him was—I was there at the verdict, you know.
Mr.Griffin. Have you seen him since the verdict?
Mr.Ruby. Yes, oh, yes; I stayed there for at least several days, anyhow, and I saw him every day at least once.
Mr.Griffin. Have you seen him since then?
Mr.Ruby. No, no; since I came back, since that trip, I haven’t been back.
Mr.Griffin. All right. Did you notice any change in your brother’s mental and physical condition between the first time that you saw him in Dallas and the last time that you saw him in Dallas?
Mr.Ruby. Oh, yes; definitely. Physically he lost about 30 pounds, and you know, his face was drawn and his eyes sunken, and in addition to that he was despondent, of course, and you couldn’t—he would have to repeat questions or ask questions from him more than once to get a reply. It just didn’t seem to register all the time.
Even Belli mentioned that he couldn’t get across to Jack all the time, and Burleson mentioned to me several times that Jack is off his rocker. This was, youknow——
Mr.Griffin. Was this after the verdict or before?
Mr.Ruby. No; before. He says, “Your brother is off his rocker. He has got himself involved with all the Jews all over the world and he doesn’t know what he is talking about,” but my brother did know what he was talking about. It was Burleson who didn’t understand. Because in order to understand—it is a Jewish problem—and most Jews would understand it.
Burleson, not being familiar with this, it just went over his head. I didn’t even think of it then but he kept telling me, “Your brother has got himself all mixed up with all the Jews all over the world and he is off his rocker.” That was the statement he made several times to me.
Mr.Griffin. I would like to explore this with you at some length if you don’t mind.
Mr.Ruby. That is why I brought this with me. I have all of this in here.
Mr.Griffin. Let me try to ask you some questions first and then we will get into the papers that you have brought. You say there was a disagreement, that you disagreed with Burleson’s appraisal of your brother’s involvement with the Jewish question.
Mr.Ruby. He couldn’t explain it. So, really, I didn’t understand it myself. I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time.
Mr.Griffin. You subsequently did come to learn what he was talking about, I take it?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; it wasn’t until somebody brought it to my attention, really.
Mr.Griffin. What was brought to your attention—what particular facts?
Mr.Ruby. Well, the fact it seemed that Jack in digging down into his past, he had an obsession about the Jewish people, and he always went out of his way to show people that Jews are not bad people, you know, because you know they have been persecuted over the years, and that is one of the reasons he brought the policemen at the station sandwiches and went out of his way to bring them cheesecakes and he was in debt to me for thousands of dollars, yet he never sent me any money but he always had money to give more or less or lend to these other people, almost all non-Jews to show them that a Jew would help them out.
A policeman became a father and was short on money, he would lend him a couple of hundred, never got it back, never got anything back.
Another friend he ran into needed a car to get a job—lent him a few hundred.
Mr.Griffin. Do you know—can you give us the names of some of these people?
Mr.Ruby. No; but my sister has them down there. I don’t have it. But I know of these instances, and he read all these books on the Jewish problem, the persecution of the Jews, going all the way back.
Mr.Griffin. How do you know that?
Mr.Ruby. I know from my sister. He lived with my sister and she told me, and he told me—both.
Mr.Griffin. Is this Eva?
Mr.Ruby. Eva; yes.
Mr.Griffin. Jack has told you that he read books on the Jewish problems?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; he even went to lectures on it, the synagogue, they had movies of the killings of the Jews in Germany. He went to all of these, things of that sort.
Mr.Griffin. I don’t know if Mr. Hubert has covered this or not, but do you recall an episode or a period back before World War II when Jack showed some concern about the Jewish problem, about the treatment of the Jews?
Mr.Ruby. Before World War II?
Mr.Griffin. Yes.
Mr.Ruby. You mean—well, he was in Chicago in the early thirties, they had the Nazi Bund meetings and Jack was always one to go and see if he could help break them up.
Mr.Griffin. Did you go on any of these groups?
Mr.Ruby. No, no.
Mr.Griffin.Well——
Mr.Ruby. He was about 4 years older than I am.
Mr.Griffin. Over what period of time was Jack involved in trying to break up these Bund meetings?
Mr.Ruby. In the early thirties there, I don’t remember.
Mr.Griffin. Do you remember any other people who participated with him in those?
Mr.Ruby. No; I don’t know their names.
Mr.Griffin. Was this a group of people or would Jack go alone?
Mr.Ruby. No, no; it was a group. But I don’t know the other names.
Mr.Griffin. Was it any sort of organized group? Was there an organization that he belonged to?
Mr.Ruby. No; I don’t think it was an organization. It just was several Jewish fellows and I don’t think they had an organization of any kind. Just when they learned that meetings were taking place, they would go there and try to break them up.
Mr.Griffin. Was Jack ever arrested in connection with any of those?
Mr.Ruby. Not as far as I know, because he has no arrest along those lines at all.
In fact, the only violation he has, from what I could gather, was being open after hours, and carrying concealed weapons which, from what I understand, they don’t need a permit in Dallas, you know, when he carried large sums of money.
Other than that—you must understand I was away from him, practically from the time he went to Dallas until the incident. I only saw him for short periods of time.
Mr.Griffin. Did you ever hear of the Dave Miller gang?
Mr.Ruby. Oh, yes.
Mr.Griffin. What was the Dave Miller gang?
Mr.Ruby. Well, I read about them in the paper. I was just a school kid then, but that was a gang that hung around Dave Miller’s fight gymnasium, that is all I can remember. But I know something like that existed.
Mr.Griffin. How did they get newspaper publicity?
Mr.Ruby. I don’t know.
Mr.Griffin. Did Jack have anything to do with those people?
Mr.Ruby. He used to hang around Dave Miller’s gym but he was Barney Ross’ follower like, and I think Barney Ross trained there and so he was very close with him.
Mr.Griffin. Well now, this group that was referred to as the Dave Miller gang.
Mr.Ruby. Dave Miller was a referee.
Mr.Griffin. Dave Miller was a referee?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; Davy Miller was a referee in Chicago for many years.
Mr.Griffin. And he ran a gymnasium?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; to train the fighters.
Mr.Griffin. And did Dave Miller have a following of some sort?
Mr.Ruby. Well, I would say it was—there was a restaurant downstairs and it was a hangout. He owned the restaurant and the gym, and he was a referee so the fighters hung around there and other people came around to see the fighters, so it was a general hangout for people of that type.
Mr.Griffin. Did the Dave Miller gang have anything to do with these efforts to break up the Bund meetings?
Mr.Ruby. I think so, but I don’t have any concrete evidence. I think they did.
Mr.Griffin. Would you go ahead and tell us—let me ask you this, rather. You say that your awareness of your brother’s, what we’ll call involvement with his Jewish background or his position in society as a person of Jewish background, was brought to your attention by someone else. Who brought this to your attention?
Mr.Ruby. No; what was brought to my attention, I knew he was also interested in the Jewish problem, but I didn’t think it entered into this picture because I didn’t—this article here that was drawn up by Sol Dann, who through his daughter, a friend of the family, became interested in it because he could see what was in the background, and he studied all the things and he got some information from me and he talked to my brother, my sister and the psychiatrists on the case, and the more he talked to them the more he could see that this was an obsession with my brother, who probably didn’t realize it was as great an obsession as it actually was, and that is probably one of the reasons why Belli mentioned to me on a few occasions, “I can’t get across to your brother. I don’t have a client.”
He says, “I have a patient, not a client.”
He mentioned that to me several times. He says, “I can’t get through to your brother.”
Mr.Griffin. Did he give any specific indications?
Mr.Ruby. No; I didn’t go any further either, because I thought Belli was such a great lawyer. I say—I don’t even remember what I said, I just—then he had psychiatrists, when the psychiatrist would interview my brother he would talk to him afterward, and if ever I asked, I mean, what they say, he says, “Well, they claim he is sick, he has got this”—I don’t know the medical terms he used, you know, and so on and so forth, and, “We have a good case, he is definitely sick,” and all that, but the real problem. I mean the obsession itself, I don’t think that even registered with Belli or the other psychiatrists, because as far as I know—because it was never mentioned at the trial, and the psychiatrists never mentioned it to us, and we didn’t think to tell it to them, because we didn’t know if it had any importance or not, but we find now in talking to the psychiatrists that it is of great importance and it was probably one of the factors in his thinking the way he did.
Mr.Griffin. What about Mr. Burleson—did he tell you during this period, when you didn’t understand what he was talking about—what did he tell you about Jack?
Mr.Ruby. Well, he was aloof from us. That was the big problem with that trial.
Mr.Griffin. Let me say, Mr. Ruby, I don’t want to, I am not asking you to comment on the way Mr. Burleson conducted himself, but I am trying to find out what it was he said to you about Jack which you didn’t comprehend at the time.
Mr.Ruby. He said he is getting himself involved with all the Jews all over the world on an international scale—“He is off his rocker”—that was one ofhis——
Mr.Griffin. Did he specify any of the things Jack was talking about?
Mr.Ruby. No; he used to say, “Jews all over the world, on an internationalscale,” that was his expression several times and then, of course, he stated, “He is off his rocker.”
Mr.Griffin. Did Mr. Burleson tell you this sort of thing before the trial, or only after the trial?
Mr.Ruby. Before and during, I would say.
Mr.Griffin. Right.
Mr.Ruby. And not so much after, because after we were disgusted, I will tell you that.
Mr.Griffin. How long before the trial did Mr. Burleson begin to call these problems about involvement with Jews.
Mr.Ruby. Right after he got involved. Because he lived in Dallas, and he talked to my brother more so than anyone else because he lives there and right after he got into the case, not a few days later, he says, you know, made the statement again, “That your brother has got himself involved with all the Jews on an international scale and he is off his rocker, he doesn’t know what he is talking about.”
And to be truthful to you I didn’t understand his statement. It didn’t register with me because they kept saying, Belli said, “Your brother is sick. I have got a patient on my hands, you know. I am trying to take care of your brother, and I can’t get across to him.”
And my brother, I know, he had many fights because of the Jewish question, of being called, you know, names, referring to his Jewish parents and all that stuff, and, of course, I have been through it myself but he more so, and he fought more about it.
He was always quick tempered and just couldn’t take it.
Mr.Griffin. What other fights did he get involved in because of the Jewish question?
Mr.Ruby. Many fights. I know on several occasions he came home once with his suit full of blood from downtown.
He was downtown Chicago. I said, “What happened?”
He said, “Somebody called me a dirty Jew or something like that.”
Mr.Griffin. Do you know who he fought with on that occasion?
Mr.Ruby. No, no; there are many instances that my older brothers and sisters know of because I was younger, 4 years younger and in his teens, early teens, I didn’t go with him because 4 years makes a big difference, and I went my way and he went his way.
Mr.Griffin. How old was Jack at the time that you saw him with this suit full of blood?
Mr.Ruby. This goes back now, if I recall in 1946, I think, 1946.
Mr.Griffin. This was after he got out of the service?
Mr.Ruby. Yes, yes; he told me he had several fights in the service regarding this. He told me he had fights with a professional heavyweight in the service because he said something about the Jews.
My brother was so Jewish conscious that it didn’t make any difference whether he said, swore at him for being a Jew or he swore at somebody else a half a block away. He would get in there and fight right away, you know, unless they apologized and what have you. And he—so this, checking into it from what the psychiatrists tell me, he went out of his way to show the gentiles that in their thinking that all the Jews are no good or money grabbers or what have you, here was a nice guy that went out of his way—and didn’t have the money—to help anybody he could.
Mr.Griffin. Do you have any examples of this from the period that you worked with him at Earl Products?
Mr.Ruby. Well,this——
Mr.Griffin. Let’s just focus on that for a while.
Mr.Ruby. He was with me only a short period.
Mr.Griffin. What examples do you have from that period?
Mr.Ruby. I know from Earl Products is when he had that fight.
Mr.Griffin. What else?
Mr.Ruby. That I know of. Other instances, I can’t think of because as I said he went around with an older group of fellows than I did. We didn’t run aroundtogether. And not only that, I was married then, and you know he has been a bachelor all his life so he went toplaces——
Mr.Griffin. You traveled with him, didn’t you in the early forties you traveled with Jack, didn’t you?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; a little bit.
Mr.Griffin. Now, look back on that experience, if you can, do you remember any episodes from that?
Mr.Ruby. Actually, you must understand I didn’t travel with him. I only met him every weekend. He traveled by himself, and I traveled by myself, and we got together on weekends and then we would only see each other Friday night and then he would go on.
And we traveled through the East mostly.
Mr.Griffin. Mr. Ruby, you have brought certain papers with you, and Mr. Hubert is now in the room, and I want to bring him up to date a little bit on where we are, and we have been talking sometime about your brother’s obsession, as I think you call it, with his position in society as a person of Jewish background, and you indicated to me that you really only fully became aware of this problem since your brother shot Oswald, but that you have thought about it considerably since then, and that you have brought with you certain papers in connection with it.
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. I wonder first if you can first identify a paper in your hand, if you will identify that paper, and I will give it an exhibit number.
Mr.Ruby. What would you callthis——
Mr.Griffin. You are handingme——
Mr.Ruby. This document.
Mr.Griffin. A document that consists of 30 typewritten pages purporting to have been prepared by a man named Sol Dann, 1820 David Stott Building, Detroit 26, Mich. This is a Xerox copy and on the first page I am going to write your name “Earl Ruby Deposition, June 3, 1964, Exhibit No. 1” and I will ask you if you will state for the record what that is.
(Earl Ruby Exhibit No. 1 was marked for identification.)
Mr.Ruby. Well, this I would like to get into the record if I can.
Mr.Griffin. What is Exhibit No. 1 and then I will mark this other thing that you gave me.
Mr.Ruby. This is only what I want to state.
Mr.Griffin. Exhibit No. 1, tell us what that is. In a general fashion tell us what that consists of.
Mr.Ruby. Well, this is as was stated, prepared by Mr. Dann as to why or one of the reasons, that Ruby, that is Jack Ruby, shot Oswald.
Mr.Griffin. All right. Now, you have also handed me a handwritten penciled set of papers consisting of three pages.
Mr.Ruby. I was going to read that, is that all right?
Mr.Griffin. Certainly.
Mr.Ruby. That was my intention if it is all right with you.
Mr.Griffin. Do you have a statement you would like to make for the record?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. All right, go ahead then.
Mr.Ruby. I am filing this document with you because it explains why I need the help of the United States, and more especially, your help.
My brother, Jack, was deprived, and is presently being deprived, of his constitutional and civil rights. The hatred and bigotry in Dallas, Tex., resulted in the assassination of our President. It almost cost the lives of our present President, Mr. Johnson, and others.
With all the protection that this Government could give it could not guard against and prevent the assassination.
My family and myself are unable to cope with that situation and it may result in my brother’s death.
As pointed out in this document, my brother, Jack, is being made the scapegoat of this horrible situation. I, therefore, need, and respectfully request, your assistance in order that those guilty of this atrocity, either because of theiracts or omission, gross negligence, or commission shall not go unpunished or undisciplined.
I don’t think that my brother, who had nothing to do with the assassination of the President, should be the only one punished. My family as well as myself have almost exhausted all of our resources in an effort to protect my brother’s civil rights, but now I am calling upon you for the help we need.
That is it.
Mr.Hubert. I suggest you put the document in the record as well.
Mr.Griffin. Do you mind, Mr. Ruby, if we would put that in the record?
Mr.Ruby. No; this I didn’t use.
Mr.Griffin. I will mark the three pages from what you have just read.
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. I have marked them “Earl Ruby Deposition, June 3, 1964, Exhibit No. 2,” and that is on the first page. I think on the second page I will write Exhibit No. 2, and on the third page I will write Exhibit No. 2.
I will ask you if we may keep this and include this as part of our permanent record.
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. Let me hand you Exhibit No. 2 and ask you if you will sign it on the first page and initial each of the other pages.
(Earl Ruby Exhibit No. 2 was marked for identification.)
Mr.Hubert. Mr. Ruby, may I ask, this is addressed to whom, this Exhibit No. 2, which you actually read into the record. Who are you addressing it to?
Mr.Ruby. To the Commission.
Mr.Hubert. To the Commission. It is your desire that we see that the members of the Commission receive that document, is that correct?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Hubert. That is to say both your letter and the attachment?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; both.
Mr.Hubert. I notice that Exhibit No. 1 which is the long one of 30 pages, has the name Sol Dann.
Mr.Ruby. Sol Dann.
Mr.Hubert. I also notice he didn’t sign it. Did he actually prepare it?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; he did.
Mr.Hubert. Have you read it?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Hubert. Do you concur in what he says then?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Hubert. Is there any reason why he didn’t sign it?
Mr.Ruby. No; I didn’t even notice it, to be honest with you.
Mr.Griffin. Let me ask Mr. Ruby, I will hand him back Exhibit No. 1, and ask you if you will simply sign that on the first page, so we may have it properly marked for the record.
Mr.Hubert. Let me ask you about Exhibit No. 2. This is in pencil?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; I didn’t think that you would want it so I, of course,didn’t——
Mr.Hubert. When did you write this Exhibit No. 2?
Mr.Ruby. Yesterday.
Mr.Hubert. It is your own handwriting?
Mr.Ruby. Yes, yes.
Mr.Hubert. All right.
I will have photostats made of this.
Mr.Ruby. If it doesn’t take, I can rewrite it in ink in 5 or 10 minutes.
Mr.Griffin. Let me ask you some questions to get the background of this document which we have marked here as Exhibit No. 1.
First of all, would you tell us how you happened to know Mr. Dann?
Mr.Ruby. His daughter teaches Hebrew in the school where my daughter attends, and his daughter impressed on him, after several conversations to contact me, and see what he could do to help us because he has been very active in helping I should say, the minority groups of any organization.
Mr.Griffin. Can you tell us what Mr. Dann does for a living?
Mr.Ruby. He is an attorney.
Mr.Griffin. In Detroit?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. How old a man is Mr. Dann?
Mr.Ruby. I would say 55. That is a guess, of course.
Mr.Griffin. Did you know Mr. Dann before his daughter talked with youabout——
Mr.Ruby. His daughter didn’t talk with me. She talked with him and finally convinced him to contact me and see what he could do to help us.
Mr.Griffin. When did Mr. Dann first contact you?
Mr.Ruby. Shortly after the verdict was passed.
Mr.Griffin. Now, do you know what efforts Mr. Dann made after talking with you, to talk with other people in order to prepare this document?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; he talked with many other people, the psychiatrists, he talked with Dr. West. He talked with Dr. Smith, the chief counsel, he talked, with Mr. Charles Bellows, the consultant on the case.
He talked to a psychiatrist by the name of Tanay in Detroit, and he mentioned several other people but I don’t recall their names.
Mr.Griffin. Canyou——
Mr.Ruby. Excuse me; he also talked to my brother in Dallas, Sam.
Mr.Griffin. Did you say he talked with your brother Jack?
Mr.Ruby. No; he talked to Eva. But he talked to Dr. West and Dr. Smith and Bellows who spent a lot of time with Jack, of course, altogether.
Mr.Griffin. You indicated to Mr. Hubert that this Exhibit No. 1 had been read by you and that it generally reflected your views.
Mr.Ruby. Yes; yes, sir.
Mr.Griffin. Can you tell us in your own words generally what is set forth in Exhibit No. 1?
Mr.Ruby. Well, it goes into, it explains Jack’s thinking along the Jewish problem, and his obsession and his love of President Kennedy, his going out of the way to try to be an exceptionally good guy by helping gentiles as much as he possibly could, and in any way he could. It also explains happenings at the trial. The withholding of evidence by District Attorney Henry Wade that should have been presented to the court. That my brother had received psychiatric help when he was 10 years old and none of the family knew it except the FBI, who had turned this information over to Wade.
However, Wade never permitted this to be used at the trial, and it also goes into telling of many cases that were reversed because of incidents similar to those which took place at my brother Jack’s trial, and states for these many reasons that the verdict should be reversed for all of these mistakes or negligence or whatever you may call it on the part of the court and the State’s attorney.
Mr.Griffin. Is it correct, do I have the correct understanding then, that in a sense we can break this down into two parts: One part of the document deals with the facts that have to do with Jack’s obsession?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. And the other part has to do with the legal errors in the trial?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; right—correct.
Mr.Griffin. Let me direct myself to some of the factual issues that are raised by Exhibit No. 1. I have made some notes here as you have been talking, and I want you, after we cover this, to tell me if I have left anything out that you think is important, but I want to try to cover this in orderly fashion. I am going backward though.
One issue that you raised here was that District Attorney Wade had withheld certain psychiatric evidence at the trial that had been turned over to him by the FBI.
Mr.Ruby. By the FBI.
Mr.Griffin. And that was that your brother Jack had received psychiatric help at age 10 and none of the family members knew about it?
Mr.Ruby. That is right.
Mr.Griffin. Let me ask you to tell us what your present understanding is now as to how Jack happened to get this psychiatric treatment, and where it was administered, and for how long, and the other details?
Mr.Ruby. I don’t know that but the FBI gave that information to Wade,and Tonahill has that information in Dallas but I don’t have the exact dates.
Mr.Griffin. Well, do you know where he got the psychiatric aid?
Mr.Ruby. In Chicago.
Mr.Griffin. Do you know what institution?
Mr.Ruby. No.
Mr.Griffin. You say Tonahill has this information?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. Do you know how this evidence happened to be given, or let me ask you this, how do you know this evidence was given by the FBI to Mr. Wade?
Mr.Ruby. Tonahill.
Mr.Griffin. Tonahill has told you?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; that it was given to Wade by the FBI.
Mr.Griffin. How did Tonahill learn about this?
Mr.Ruby. That I don’t know.
Mr.Griffin. DidTonahill——
Mr.Ruby. Well, he handled all the contacts with the FBI.
Mr.Griffin. Tonahill did?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; more or less.
Mr.Griffin. It is your understanding that the work of the trial team was divided up in such a way that only Tonahill dealt with the FBI, for the most part?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; as far as I know.
Mr.Griffin. Now, so you have no personal information, further personal information, at this time about this psychiatric help which Jack got at age 10?
Mr.Ruby. No.
Mr.Griffin. When Jack was 10 was he living in the home?
Mr.Ruby. In a foster home, yes; so far as I can understand.
Mr.Griffin. Well, that would have made you 6, is that right?
Mr.Ruby. Would have made me 6.
Mr.Griffin. Where were you living at age 6?
Mr.Ruby. To tell you the truth, I don’t know but I think I was living in Chicago, of course, and I don’t remember the name. I think the name of the people were Speeves, but I don’t know if I went to the farm, they sent me to a farm for a year, whether I was on a farm at the time but anyhow we weren’t together those years.
Mr.Griffin. For how many years were you separated from the rest of the family as a child?
Mr.Ruby. To tell you the truth, I don’t know when it started. I would say 5, 6 years maybe. I was in three foster homes that I remember all together. I know I was on a farm, and then at two foster homes that I can distinctly remember.
Mr.Griffin. Do you remember how old you were when you returned to the home of your family, your mother’s and father’s home?
Mr.Ruby. Well, I think it was in 1928, 1928, so I must have been 13 years old.
Mr.Griffin. And that would have made Jack 17.
Mr.Ruby. Seventeen; I am not sure whether it was—I just don’t remember. It has got to be a little before that. Because I went to that Shepherd School for a few years, it had to be there from 1925 to 1928, but I don’t know exactly.
Mr.Griffin. Were you living in the home when you went to the Shepherd School?
Mr.Ruby. You mean was I living with the family?
Mr.Griffin. Yes.
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. Was Jack living with the family at that time?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; that is when we were all brought back together.
Mr.Griffin. Had Jack finished high school at that time?
Mr.Ruby. No, no; Jack didn’t finish high school.
Mr.Griffin. No; but was Jack still attending school when he returned to the home?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; he was.
Mr.Griffin. Are you able to recall how long Jack continued to attend school after you returned to the family, to your family?
Mr.Ruby. No; I know he graduated from that Shepherd School but when I don’t know. As far as I know he graduated from that school and then he went to Marshall High School for a while and then he dropped out.
Mr.Griffin. Another thing that you mentioned that we were discussing in Exhibit 1, that Mr. Dann had assembled some facts and had discussed Jack’s efforts to show that the Jews are good people by himself helping gentiles.
Now I want you to go back and comb your recollection of the period you lived with and worked with Jack for incidents when you can recall of your own knowledge of Jack helping gentiles, or helping people in general, let’s not limit it to Jews or gentiles.
Mr.Ruby. Well, even when we were in business, we had that problem which came up several times, where he would take some of the merchandise, like our pens that we were using, and salt and pepper shakers, and almost every day or two he would take a load of samples. When I asked him he would say, “Well, a nice guy here or there and I gave him one or two, what difference does it make”, in the meantime he was giving them out all the time. If anybody wanted one he would just give it to them. But at that time no remark was made as far as I can remember as to why he did it.
Mr.Griffin. Would you be able to give us names of any people who, you know might have been the beneficiaries of this?
Mr.Ruby. I wouldn’t remember, because I wouldn’t know where, but most of this took place or a great part of it anyhow in Dallas, and the names of those I think we could get.
Mr.Griffin. How about as far as you are concerned, of course, you knew him in Chicago, how about people that you can think of that Jack would have extended these kindnesses to in Chicago?
Mr.Ruby. I couldn’t remember any names because there was no reason to remember this, and this goes back so far. It is 20 years at the earliest.
Mr.Griffin. Well, you also mentioned that your brother had a great love for President Kennedy. Can you give us some examples of that?
Mr.Ruby. Well, I didn’t realize it, I mean, because I haven’t been with him since the Kennedy family and Kennedy himself, to really become involved in politics because he was in Dallas and I was in Chicago and in Detroit. However, I know that when they, I think it was the Dallas Morning News printed that full page, whatever you call that,statement——
Mr.Griffin. The black bordered advertising?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; the black bordered advertising which more or less definitely insulted the President, he went to the paper and asked them if they needed the money so bad that they had to print such a horrible thing even though the other paper had turned it down.
And I think you know he was so upset about seeing that sign on the roadside about “Impeach Earl Warren” that in the middle of the night he got his roommate out and got Jerry Crafard, I think his name was, to take a picture of it.
Mr.Griffin. Do you know why he was upset about it?
Mr.Ruby. Well, he couldn’t see why anything like that could happen. Here is another great man, and he just couldn’t understand it.
Mr.Griffin. Are you surmising this ordid——
Mr.Ruby. Well, I talked to George Senator who was his roommate, he said he was infuriated that a sign like that should be put up. And that was brought out in the trial, of course, and proved.
Then he on the night of the assassination, or rather on the afternoon he immediately closed the club, and when he was asked if he—what about the other night club owners because there is another, I think one or two clubs on the same block as his, yes, there are two more, whether they are going to close or not, in a statement he made, he doesn’t care if they close or not, he is going to be closed in respect to the President.
Then he went to the services at the synagogue in Dallas.
Mr.Griffin. Do you know how long he was at that service?
Mr.Ruby. I don’t know how long, but I know that he broke down terribly there.
Mr.Griffin. Did you talk to anybodywho——
Mr.Ruby. I heard it from the Rabbi who was there, that he was—of course, most of the people there were broken up but he was most unusual because he wasin deep tears, he really was. And he was so upset and so disgusted with this situation that he called my sister Eileen in Chicago and told her this is a good time to get out of Dallas. He is ashamed of it, that this thing could happen there, and he will probably—he wants to come up to Chicago for a few days, you know, to visit with her. Well, she discouraged him from coming up. He wanted to come to Chicago, and he also called my brother Hy in Chicago after the assassination, and told him how terrible it was, and he thinks he is going to get out of Dallas, he is coming back to Chicago altogether.
He also called his good friend, this was all brought out in the trial, not all of it but most of it, although those last two incidents about him calling my brother and my sister were never entered into evidence. We couldn’t understand that.
He also called a fellow in California, Al Gruber, I think is his name, and Gruber said he just couldn’t talk. He just couldn’t talk he was so broken up.
So we know he was really broken up, and he must have really loved him because otherwise you just don’t do these things. And the fact that he went to the newspaper and complained to them for even taking the ad, and I mean nobody else did this.
Mr.Griffin. Do you have any examples of his conduct in Dallas before the President was shot that would show his feeling toward President Kennedy?
Mr.Ruby. No; We don’t have—nothing that I know of. We don’t have anything that I know of.
Mr.Griffin. I wonder if you can give us some more examplesof——
Mr.Ruby. There is a bit about his patriotism that might mean something.
Mr.Griffin. Tell us about that.
Mr.Ruby. This happened many years ago. They were playing the Star Spangled Banner in the stadium in Chicago before all sporting events, and a friend who was with him, a fellow by the name of Mr. Kolitz told me this himself, he was smoking.
Mr.Griffin. What is Mr. Kolitz’s first name?
Mr.Ruby. Ira. He was smoking when the Star Spangled Banner was playing and my brother insisted he put out his cigarette, that it wasn’t in good taste to be smoking when the Star Spangled Banner was being played.
Mr.Griffin. Your brother didn’t approve of smoking either, did he?
Mr.Ruby. No; he didn’t smoke at all. Well, neither do I, for that matter. But this I didn’t find out about until a couple of months ago because I ran into this party in Chicago, and you know talking about these things, and he says, “How could they accuse your brother of being a Communist”, and then he related this incident to me. He says, “I remember, you know at the stadium when this happened, and he actually insisted I put the cigarette out.”
Mr.Griffin. Did Jack in your dealings with him, did he strive to be important and did he strive for recognition, things like that?
Mr.Ruby. I would say, well, he tried to be a success. He always wanted to be a success in life.
Mr.Griffin. What was his idea of being a success?
Mr.Ruby. Oh, having a family and being happily married and earning a steady living.
Mr.Griffin. Did he talk to you about his desires to have a family?
Mr.Ruby. Oh, yes; on a few occasions. Once when he had financial failure and he was terribly depressed back in the early fifties, I think, he came to Chicago. He was just terribly depressed and he says, “Well, it looks like it is the end for me.” And, you know, he had no—he was penniless, and I tried to help him out again there. I was trying to look around for a business for him, to be truthful with you because we were doing pretty well, making a living, a good living, and I thought I could help him out but he decided to go back to Dallas again.
Mr.Griffin. Well now, there have been reports that Jack was the kind of a person who liked, who wanted everybody to know him and liked to be a big shot, some people might say. Did you have any experiences with him that would indicate anything about those kind of observations?
Mr.Ruby. Well, he was pretty well known in Chicago. He always was a good athlete, a good ballplayer. He was a very great swimmer, and he was very close to Barney Ross, so I would say—and he had many friends, so hewas pretty well liked, and maybe some people would get the impression that he was a big shot but actually I don’t think he ever went out of the way to try to show people he was a big shot.
However, maybe I didn’t notice it because I am his brother. And he was my older brother, and so maybe I just didn’t notice it.
Mr.Griffin. I wonder if you can explain what seems to be on the one hand signs of his obsessions about being a Jew, such as you pointed out as fighting the Bundists and things like that, and on the other hand, what appears to be a lack of regular devotion to going to church services every week and keeping the religious home, and so forth?
Mr.Ruby. Well, the reason for that is I am more or less the same way as I explained before because in the breaking up of our home we were drawn away from this life, you see. I was living with—on a farm—I was living with gentile people and there wasn’t any synagogue there to go to, and so we drifted away from the services. And because before that we used to go to the Hebrew school, before our home was broken up, we all went to Hebrew school.
Mr.Griffin. Did you learn Hebrew?
Mr.Ruby. Oh, sure. Jack and—we went only until our home was broken up.
Mr.Griffin. When you were living in your home, did your parents keep a kosher home?
Mr.Ruby. Oh, yes; definitely.
Mr.Griffin. It was a kosher home?
Mr.Ruby. Oh, yes; definitely. Oh, sure.
Mr.Griffin. To what extent was it a kosher home?
Mr.Ruby. We would call it orthodox, you know, change of dishes and all that.
Mr.Griffin. Dietary rules?
Mr.Ruby. Sure; that is right. Sure, sure. But, of course, whenwe——
MrGriffin. What language was spoken in the home?
Mr.Ruby. To our parents Yiddish, you would call it.
Mr.Griffin. Did your parents speak English?
Mr.Ruby. Very little; very few words.
Mr.Griffin. Are you willing to make this statement that your conversations with your parents were always in Yiddish?
MrRuby. No, no; I can’t say that because my father spoke a little English.
Mr.Griffin. How about with your mother?
Mr.Ruby. My mother I would say in her conversations she threw in a word here or there in English; about 95 percent was Yiddish. My father picked up more English words because, in fact, he was working as a carpenter, and being out among English-speaking people more than, more so than my mother who was home all the time, he had an opportunity to learn some English words.
Mr.Griffin. Now, when the children got older, the family continued to live together, as I understand it, there was a home where all of the unmarried children and the parents lived?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. In that home up until the time that your mother died, did you observe, were the dietary practices observed all the time?
Mr.Ruby. Oh, yes; sure. Every Passover we changed the dishes, and so on.
Mr.Griffin. Yes; but that is just once a year. What about on a daily basis, did you observe every day thedietary——
Mr.Ruby. Well, you don’t observe it every day.
Mr.Griffin. Well, some homes do.
Mr.Ruby. I don’t understand.
Mr.Griffin. Some homes keep separate dishes for meat and dairy products.
Mr.Ruby. Yes; we had separate dishes until my mother passed away.
Mr.Griffin. How about the regularity of attending church services, temple services, did you go every week to temple services?
Mr.Ruby. No, no; not all of us. I know I didn’t. My sisters did. My sister did.
Mr.Griffin. Which sister?
Mr.Ruby. Marion. My father did until he became ill, you know, and then he passed away.
Mr.Griffin. Was there any resentment in the home toward the practices that were maintained by your parents there, failure to converse regularly in English and perhaps their old world habits?
Mr.Ruby. I don’t understand.
Mr.Griffin. Which is common in all families, I think, in which the practices that are observed in the home are not the kind of practices that you see on television or in the movies. Was there resentment among any of the children toward the fact that here was a home in which a foreign language was spoken, and practices were observed which did not appear to be the same practices as the people who were on top in American society?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; I would say so. However, my mother insisted that we follow the lines of the Orthodox Jew.
Mr.Griffin. Did any of you object to that insistence by your mother?
Mr.Ruby. No; nothing because there wasn’t too much to object to, because it was the same food. I mean there is really nothing—however, if we would take the wrong utensil, you know, because there are two separate ones, we would be bawled out for taking the wrong one.
Mr.Griffin. Well, Jack during the time that he was in Chicago lived for various periods outside the home, didn’t he?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. For example, I believe he lived with either Sam Gordon or Alex Gruber in a separate apartment in Chicago in the early thirties. Do you recall that?
Mr.Ruby. I know he lived with Gruber but I don’t know how long.
Mr.Griffin.Well——
Mr.Ruby. Because it was in the early thirties, I was going to high school.
Mr.Griffin. Was there any particular reason why Jack did not want to live with the family?
Mr.Ruby. None that I can remember. There may have been, but I may not be, you know, I wasn’t aware of it.
Mr.Griffin. He also was away from Chicago from about 1933 to 1937.
Mr.Ruby. Yes; I think he went to ’Frisco to work there; yes. I think he went there. I think my sister was there or he went first, I don’t remember.
Mr.Griffin. Did you know his friend Leon Cooke?
Mr.Ruby. Yes; very well.
Mr.Griffin. Was Leon Cooke of Jewish background?
Mr.Ruby. Yes.
Mr.Griffin. Were you familiar with Jack’s activities with Leon Cooke in the labor union?
Mr.Ruby. A little bit. I think Iknew——
Mr.Griffin. What can you tell us about that, what—how long did Jack work in the union?
Mr.Ruby. Well, I know as far as I know, I think he helped organize it. It was Leon Cooke’s idea. Leon Cooke was an attorney and his father, Mr. Cooke, was a scrap iron and junk handler, and for some reason or another of his own thinking he decided that it would be a good idea to organize a union because the—although he was doing very well as an attorney without it, the workers in this industry were being paid, I think at that time, 10 cents or 15 cents an hour, and it was actually slave wages practically, as you can easily understand, and so they organized the union or how they go about it I don’t even know, but they did, Leon Cooke and Jack helped organize it, but I think Leon did all the legal work.
Mr.Griffin. Do you know of anybody else who helped in the organizing efforts?