November 24: Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby (Rubenstein) shot Lee Harvey Oswald dead in front of live television cameras in Dallas, Texas on this date in 1963, shortly after Oswald’s arrest for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Ruby, a nightclub owner, died of lung cancer in prison four years later. His involvement with organized crime figures fueled theories that the Mafia had arranged for Kennedy’s assassination because of the bungled Bay of Pigs operation and/or the President’s sexual involvement with at least one mob-connected woman. Bill Bonnano, the son of New York Mafia boss Joseph Bonnano, wrote in a memoir that when he witnessed Ruby killing Oswald on television, he recognized Ruby as an associate of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana and assumed it to be a hit. Other analysts of the Kennedy assassination, especially those who knew Jack Ruby well, dismiss the notion: It “would have to be crazy,” said Dallas reporter Tony Zoppi, to entrust Ruby with such a task since he “couldn’t keep a secret for five minutes . . . He’d be the worst fellow in the world to be part of a conspiracy, because he just plain talked too much.”

“I am used as a scapegoat, and there is no greater weapon that you can use to create some falsehood about some of the Jewish faith, especially at the terrible heinous crime such as the killing of President Kennedy.” —Jack Ruby, testifying before the Warren Commission