TESTIMONY OF EARL RUBY (continued 2)

Mr. Griffin. Did he send you one of them?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; he did. In fact he sent me, I think he sent me a half dozen. No; the first time he only sent me two, and then when I was down in Dallas, you know, for the trial and so forth, I brought back a half dozen for my kids, and so on.

Mr. Griffin. I take it that you were interested then in the project?

Mr. Ruby. No; not for myself. He wanted me to see if I could locate people to make the parts at the least possible cost. He wanted to get into the manufacture in Dallas, and he mentioned to me, because I was trying to discourage him, because first of all he don’t know too much about manufacturing, and to set up for one item, which I didn’t think was such a tremendous item, I thought was a little bit ridiculous. And then he said that he would have the Goodwill organization assemble it for him. I don’t know if you are familiar with their complete operation, but they will assemble items for you at a very reasonable rate.

Mr. Griffin. This is Goodwill Industries?

Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes.

Mr. Griffin. And was that going to be done in Dallas?

Mr. Ruby. In Dallas. So then he sent me the sample, and somehow I think this Triangle manufacturing came up. He may have mentioned it. I am not sure because I don’t remember every word of the conversation going back that far. I think I called Triangle, if that is their name. I am not even sure of that. He called me and he said, he might have said, “call them and see what you can do.” Anyhow, I contacted a couple of people in Detroit that I thought might know something about the twistboard, because he told me it was so tremendous in Dallas I figured it’s got to be known here in Detroit, although I had never even seen it. So I asked—I happened to call a fellow that is a salesman for toys and novelties and things of that sort.

Mr. Griffin. Who was that?

Mr. Ruby. I can’t even think. I know his first name is Henny, I can’t even think of his last name, and he said it is a flop, it is a dead item here. They tried it and it didn’t go over. So I think in one of the conversations I no doubt told Jack that, and anyhow I got a sample and I think it was of this part that we needed, the bearing part for this twistboard. Maybe I had better describe it. It is a little board, fiberboard about 12 inches square and it sets on a bearing like, and the bearing has another piece of press wood under it, and if you stand on it and you twist, you twist around. That is what the item was. And I couldn’t see it, especially it was selling for $3. I couldn’t see it. I just didn’t think anything of it.

Mr. Griffin. I take it Jack was enthusiastic about it?

Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes; he was very enthused. He was going to get started.

Mr. Griffin. Were you able to dissuade him at all from his enthusiasm?

Mr. Ruby. I think so, I think so. I really don’t know. As far as I know, I think I did. I told him it just doesn’t pay to get into it, because the one that was being marketed, if I recall he told me was selling for $3. So he said if he could sell his for $2. it would be tremendous. But I figured out the cost to him about 80 cents and if you sell the jobbers, you have got to give them 50 and 10 off. By the way, I have gone all through this with him but I just want to make it clear. So that means he is going to get 90 cents. In addition they want 2 percent, so you get 88 cents, approximately, and it costs you 80 cents, so you can’t be in business on 8 cents gross profit on an item that you are selling for 88 cents. It is just impossible.

Mr. Griffin. And in which telephone conversation did you have this discussion?

Mr. Ruby. In one of them, not the first one, because I didn’t have all the information then. But after I got all the information, I called him or he called me.

Mr. Griffin. Do you remember Jack calling you after the telephone call, a few days after the telephone call that was made in connection with Triangle? Do you remember that telephone call?

Mr. Ruby. Well, I think so, and that is when I told him I think they wanted 45 cents, and that is when I broke down the price structure, that it just didn’t seem feasible to consider manufacturing it if you had to sell it at $2 and I probably told him at that time, I checked into it and it was a flop in Detroit, so it was my opinion it wasn’t good.

Mr. Griffin. Did Jack call you in November about anything other than the twistboard?

Mr. Ruby. I don’t think so. I think the only thing we discussed other than—maybe how is the family, you know, how are your kids, which is the general conversation when two brothers talk.

Mr. Griffin. Did he ever call you in connection with Eva’s illness?

Mr. Ruby. Yes, yes; he did mention that, that she was going to have an operation, she was going to have an operation, she had an operation, and he said, “I think you should call her or write her” or something. I don’t know, I may have even called her in the hospital, I really don’t remember, but he said she was feeling very bad, and for me to either write her, send her a card or call her, and I don’t know what I did. I did something but I don’t remember exactly.

Mr. Griffin. While Jack was living in Dallas, had you talked with him about other business ventures that he had, outside of his clubs?

Mr. Ruby. Well, a few years ago I talked to him about, he had a vitamin called Miniron, or something like that. In fact, I tried to discourage him about that, but I couldn’t, and in fact I think if I remember correctly, I sent him some money to try it, but it just didn’t go. It was a vitamin, a liquid vitamin of some kind that he thought was terrific. He was always taking diet pills and stuff like that. He was whatever the name for that is. Anyhow, he went for all kinds of diet remedies that came on the market. But it never seemed to help him much because he liked to eat.

Mr. Griffin. Do you have any recollection of when he was selling these diet pills or these vitamin pills?

Mr. Ruby. Oh, it is a few years back. It had to be—it was a liquid. I don’t think it was a pill. It was a bottle of some kind. In fact, he sent me some. It is several years back, I mean 4, 5 or 6 or 7. I don’t remember exactly. It was several years ago I know.

Mr. Griffin. Can you recall your activities of the weekend of November 22, 23, and 24?

Mr. Ruby. The 22d, Friday, right?

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Ruby. I was at work drycleaning when we heard the news on the radio.

Mr. Griffin. That the President had been shot?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; first shot. Then we were waiting for additional news, and then finally it came through that he was dead.

Mr. Griffin. How long did you remain at the drycleaning plant that day?

Mr. Ruby. Gee, I would say probably until 6 o’clock. That is my usual hour.

Mr. Griffin. Then what did you do?

Mr. Ruby. Friday I always go home to dinner Friday night because it is traditional in our family. Jewish people, we have a big meal on Friday nights, so very, very seldom would I miss a Friday night dinner. I am quite sure I went home.

Mr. Griffin. You don’t have any specific recollection of what you did Friday night?

Mr. Ruby. No; I was deeply upset, like most everybody else, I think, and I went home I know at 6 o’clock.

Mr. Griffin. Do you have a specific recollection of going home and being at home on Friday night?

Mr. Ruby. No; not specific, but I can’t see what else I would have done but go home to eat.

Mr. Griffin. Do you recall what you did in the evening after you ate, Friday evening?

Mr. Ruby. No.

Mr. Griffin. Is it your practice to go to religious services on Friday?

Mr. Ruby. You wouldn’t go on Friday night, would you? No; I don’t go on Friday night.

Mr. Griffin. Are you of the Jewish faith?

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. And do you have a particular temple or synagogue?

Mr. Ruby. More or less, yes, but I am not what you call Orthodox. The Orthodox, you know, just like other religions, they go every chance they get more or less. But I am not of the Orthodox.

Mr. Griffin. But the temple or synagogue that you belong to, when does it regularly hold services?

Mr. Ruby. It probably holds them—I don’t know. I know they have them Saturday. Saturday they always have services. I don’t think they have services there Friday night. They don’t have services on Friday night as far as I know.

Mr. Griffin. Do you recall your own religious practices when you were living in Chicago with Jack? Did your practices and feelings at that time differ from his?

Mr. Ruby. Well, I would say—can you make that a little more clear?

Mr. Griffin. Looking back to the time when you and Jack saw each other regularly when you were in Chicago, when Jack was in Chicago, were your religious practices the same as they are now? Were you any more religious then? Did you observe the holidays more closely?

Mr. Ruby. You want to compare Jack with myself?

Mr. Griffin. First of all, let me ask you about your own practice.

Mr. Ruby. Well, you must understand, first, that it is very unusual for a Jewish boy not to be bar mitzvah.

Mr. Griffin. I am not asking about particular ceremonies, but I am asking you about the regular habits of weekly attendance and so forth. Did they differ in the period before 1948 from the way they are now?

Mr. Ruby. Mine?

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Ruby. Well, I would say I go more often since I got married, of course, because that is the Jewish tradition. When you get married, you have children, my kids go to Hebrew school, they went to parochial school, in fact my son graduated from the Hebrew school in Chicago, and so I would say I am more religious since we have children.

Mr. Griffin. Now, when you were single in Chicago, how did your religious practices differ from Jack’s?

Mr. Ruby. Well, I would say he was a little more religious than I was.

Mr. Griffin. Did he attend the synagogue or temple more often than you did?

Mr. Ruby. I would say more often than I did.

Mr. Griffin. Did he go regularly?

Mr. Ruby. I wouldn’t say regularly, but he did go more often than I did.

Mr. Griffin. About how many times a year would he go other than on high holidays?

Mr. Ruby. This goes back so many years. You know he has been away more or less from me for 17 years now, so it is pretty hard to remember. And you know he is not the only one in the family. We still have six more children. I can’t even remember all their birthdays, remembering who went where on holidays.

Mr. Griffin. If you don’t have a specific recollection, I don’t want to ask you the question, then. Let’s go back to the 22d, 23d, and the 24th.

Do you recall what you did on Saturday, the 23d?

Mr. Ruby. I think I went to work, the usual time, probably 7:30, and probably worked until 6 o’clock. Saturday is a busy day for us, and probably went home so far as I know.

Mr. Griffin. You used the word “probably.” Are you indicating that you don’t really have any specific recollection of what you did that Saturday?

Mr. Ruby. I would say I probably went home, but I am not sure. I would have to check with my wife to make sure. I don’t think we went out, because we were in deep mourning.

Mr. Griffin. You were, or you were not?

Mr. Ruby. I said we were.

Mr. Griffin. You were in deep mourning?

Mr. Ruby. So I don’t think we would have gone any place.

Mr. Griffin. What do you mean when you said you were in deep mourning?

Mr. Ruby. Well, we cried a lot in our family when this happened, I mean actual tears.

Mr. Griffin. Can you tell us when this happened? Can you describe to us where and when and who was present? What was happening around you?

Mr. Ruby. Well, I don’t know exactly what our—but I know after this happened, probably on Friday night, my wife was definitely in tears at that time, and I was, too. We both greatly admired him. In fact, my wife on many occasions, even before the incident, she just loved him. There was nobody greater than President Kennedy. She made a statement many times.

Mr. Griffin. Are you both registered Democrats?

Mr. Ruby. I was a Democrat all my life. In fact, I worked for the Democratic headquarters in Chicago many years ago. All our family has been Democrats all our lives, as far as I can remember.

Mr. Griffin. Do you recall what you did Sunday morning?

Mr. Ruby. On the 26th? Yes.

Mr. Griffin. The 24th.

Mr. Ruby. The 24th. We needed some electrical work done at the plant, and the only time to do it without interfering with production was to have it done on Sunday morning. So I had the electrician come in on Sunday, and I met him there, I think, about 10 o’clock probably, Sunday morning, at the plant to do this work, and I was there until—I just wanted to get them started, and I had one of my other employees there to watch things, you know, because we had an outside contractor, electrical contractor here to do the work, and there is a lot of clothing there and we wanted to be careful if they worked on the ceiling that they didn’t drop dirt on the clothing and so forth.

So I left. I was there maybe 2 hours, I don’t remember, anyhow I wasn’t in the car but 5 minutes or so driving one of the other employees—another employee who stopped in home—I was en route to drive him home. We had the radio tuned in. That is when I heard—no, before I left this Mike Nemzin, who is my best friend, and his brother is my partner, he was in the hospital with an operation——

Mr. Griffin. The brother or Mike Nemzin?

Mr. Ruby. Mike Nemzin. He had some kind of surgery on his ribs or something, a very serious one, though, and so I thought I would call him to see how he was.

So I called him Sunday morning, it must have been about 12 o’clock, from the plant, I was at the plant, mind you, and as I am talking to him, he is in his bed in the hospital, he is watching television or radio and he says to me, “I can’t talk to you. Somebody just shot Oswald,” he says.

“I’ll talk to you some other time.” You know, because we were all excited, especially he was. So I hung up. And we didn’t have the radio on in the plant, but we left a few minutes thereafter. And in the car, as I said, about 5 minutes later, as I am in the car driving, just drove probably a mile from the plant, which wouldn’t take more than 5 minutes, it comes through on the radio that Oswald has been shot and the fellow that did the shooting is Jack Ruby, owner of the Carousel Night Club in Dallas, and I immediately knew it was my brother because that was the name of the club he owned.

Mr. Hubert. Did you say you were riding with someone at the time?

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Hubert. What was his name?

Mr. Ruby. Jim Stewart.

Mr. Hubert. Does he still work for you?

Mr. Ruby. No.

Mr. Hubert. Where is he located now; do you know?

Mr. Ruby. Right now he is in the hospital, Receiving Hospital in Detroit.

Mr. Griffin. What did you do when you heard that?

Mr. Ruby. Well, I was very upset, of course, and he said—I was driving—he said, “You had better pull over to the curb. You just turned white as a ghost.”

So I pulled over for a second or for a few minutes to recuperate my senses, so to speak. And then I said, “I had better take you home,” which I did. Then I went home. I drove home, and I called my sister in Chicago. I don’t even know which one I called. There is two of them. And they knew about it, of course, by that time, too. This was a half hour later and they probably heard it on the air. And they were all upset, of course. And I said, “Well, I had better come to Chicago.” So I called the airport and I flew to Chicago Sunday.

Mr. Griffin. How long did you remain at the cleaning plant after you finished talking with Mike Nemzin?

Mr. Ruby. Just a couple of minutes, just a few minutes.

Mr. Griffin. And what other people were in the plant at that time?

Mr. Ruby. When I talked to Mike Nemzin?

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Ruby. The electrician, I think, and his helper, he had a helper, you know.

Mr. Griffin. Do you remember the name of the electrician?

Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes.

Mr. Griffin. Can you give us his name?

Mr. Ruby. The trade name, I think, is Marco Electrical Contractors, and his first name is Marty. That is with a “c”. It is a little bit of an odd name, but I have it available there if it is necessary.

Mr. Griffin. His last name starts with a “c”?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; I think that is where he got this Marco. And then, of course, as I told you I flew to Chicago, and my brother met me at the airport, if I am not mistaken, Hyman, and this was already before I could get reservations and get the plane and pack some clothes and all. It was late in the afternoon, and I think I arrived there, if I am not mistaken, probably 6 o’clock in Chicago, and it takes about an hour to get there.

Anyhow, no sooner I got in the house, you know, of course, the reporters were calling and it was a real—we tried not to talk to everyone, to anyone, if I recall.

When I got there, then my sister said that there were some men at the door and they said they were FBI men or special agents, and she thought they were reporters so she wouldn’t let them in, and she was hysterical now, to put it straight. And so then we got a call. We did answer the phone, of course, and we got a call from an agent, I can’t remember his name, but he said that they want to get in and talk to us and we wouldn’t let anybody in. You know, we just wouldn’t let anybody in. So he says, “Here is a number and call this number and my name is”—one of them was White, and I can’t think of the other one, one of the agents in Chicago. “Call this number and they will verify this that we are special agents.” So I said OK. So I went out to a pay station and called, and sure enough they said yes, they are agents, and so I walked back into the house the back way, and I saw them standing in the front, by the way. You know, there were about three or four of them. And I told my sister we had better let them in, they are special agents, which we did. There were four, I think. Four agents came in at one time.

Mr. Griffin. And did they interview you and your brother and your sister?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; all of us.

Mr. Griffin. Were you being interviewed simultaneously by the Bureau?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; in different parts of the house.

Mr. Griffin. So that while you were being interviewed, one or more of your brothers and sisters were also being interviewed.

Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes; they talked to one sister, I think one agent talked to her in the kitchen or dining room or another part of the house, and one or two were with us.

Mr. Griffin. Now, at the time the Secret Service agents had talked to you, had you had a chance to talk with any of your family in Dallas?

Mr. Ruby. Had I?

Mr. Griffin. Excuse me, at the time that the FBI talked to you, did you have an opportunity to talk with any of your family in Dallas?

Mr. Ruby. I don’t think I even had time. I don’t think so.

Mr. Griffin. You don’t recall having talked to them?

Mr. Ruby. No; but I don’t think so at all. There was just not enough time. I called Chicago, if I recall, that is all I called. I don’t think I called Dallas.

Mr. Griffin. Had Hyman or your sisters in Chicago had a chance to talk with Eva or Sam?

Mr. Ruby. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Mr. Griffin. When you arrived in Chicago and talked with Sam——

Mr. Ruby. With Hy, you mean.

Mr. Griffin. With Hy, yes—did you discuss any contacts that Hyman had had with Jack over the weekend?

Mr. Ruby. I don’t remember.

Mr. Griffin. How long did you remain in Chicago on the 24th?

Mr. Ruby. I just remained overnight and went back to Detroit, because my wife called me late at night, I don’t know what time it was, very late anyhow, and she said, “You had better come home. The reporters are just driving me crazy.” She was terribly upset. So the next morning I flew back.

Mr. Griffin. While you were in Chicago, did you make any plans with respect to obtaining an attorney for your brother?

Mr. Ruby. While I was there for that little while?

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Ruby. No; but I think if I recall correctly Tom Howard was already in the picture. I heard his name. I didn’t talk to him, but as far as I know I heard his name on the air, that he was representing Jack, or something to that effect. At least I think so. But I don’t know if that was before I left for Detroit or not.

Mr. Griffin. What was the nature of your meeting with your brothers and sisters in Chicago?

Mr. Ruby. Well, they were upset and they suggested I come there. So I came there.

Mr. Griffin. Did you have any discussion as to what you could do for Jack?

Mr. Ruby. We probably did, but there was nothing definite made, no definite arrangements. I know that I called, I think, Tom Howard. He was the first attorney, if you remember, to represent Jack, Monday morning after I arrived back home, because when I arrived there we had police at the house already, and the chief of police and my wife came down to meet me at the plane, and en route back my wife was telling me how the newspaper reporters were bothering her, they wouldn’t let her sleep. They were there until 2 o’clock in the morning and whatnot, you know. So I didn’t know what to do. So I asked the chief of police—his name is Sackett—a very nice man—what would he suggest. They all wanted information, a press conference or what. He said, “If I were you, the only way you are going to get rid of them is give them a press conference.” But I didn’t know if that was the correct thing to do, so I am quite sure I called Tom Howard and told him who I was and told him that all these news people wanted a press conference and what should I do. And I told him what the sheriff, the police chief, had suggested, and he says, “Well, there is no harm. You might as well do it and get it over with.”

So we called a press conference, I think it was, for 2 o’clock in the afternoon, something like that, and our rabbi came over, Rabbi Adler, and then I think right after that, I think some special agents called and came in or came over, and I think there were some there in the evening. Again, I think they came. And that ended that day. That was Monday. And then we started talking about attorneys and what to do and who to use.

Mr. Griffin. You say, “we started talking about it.” Who was this?

Mr. Ruby. I talked to the family, and I talked to—we talked back and forth so many times. I am talking about Chicago, you know.

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Ruby. And I think they were in touch with Dallas. I think Eva and Sam, they were talking back and forth, more or less continually.

Mr. Griffin. Did you have anything to do with getting Mr. Tonahill into the case?

Mr. Ruby. Indirectly; yes.

Mr. Griffin. Let me ask you who you directly got into the case, if anybody?

Mr. Ruby. Belli.

Mr. Griffin. Would you tell us how Mr. Belli came to get into the case?

Mr. Ruby. Jack called. They let him use the phone down there. He talked to me or someone. Anyhow, we were talking about a lawyer then. We were all excited about getting the right lawyer. And he mentioned—I am trying to get it straight in my mind here. Oh, yes; he mentioned somebody wanted some information on his life or something, a life story or something, something to that effect, and he said to contact Mike Shore in California, in Los Angeles, who is a friend of ours, and he was a pretty well known publicity man.

Mr. Griffin. Did you know Mike Shore before you called?

Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes.

Mr. Griffin. How did you happen to know Mike Shore?

Mr. Ruby. Well, actually, I know him since high school days in Chicago. He originally lived in Chicago.

Mr. Griffin. Was he a classmate of yours in high school?

Mr. Ruby. No; but he went to the same school, if I remember, and I really didn’t get acquainted with him until after we got out of school.

Mr. Griffin. What was your acquaintance with Mike Shore after you got out of school?

Mr. Ruby. Just on a general hello and how are you basis, nothing real close.

Mr. Griffin. But in what connection would you see him?

Mr. Ruby. Then he became——

Mr. Griffin. Do you understand my question? In what connection would you see him after you got out of school?

Mr. Ruby. I used to be a lifeguard at a swimming pool close to where he lived and he used to come over there once in a great while, just a few blocks from his house. And he used to—he was a Good Humor salesman, and we would go out and see him where he parked his truck or something once in a great while. But that was because he was more friendly with other people than he was with me. In other words, I wasn’t one of his buddies. I would go along just for the ride.

Mr. Griffin. Did you do any business with him?

Mr. Ruby. I am coming to that. Then he became—he opened up the Mike Shore Advertising and he is the one that was behind Earl Muntz, you know, and the cars and the television. That is Michael Shore. And I did some business with him along in manufacturing. He got into the manufacturing of an item, a food seasoner. It was a large aluminum needle and you filled it with some different meat flavors and you injected it in the meat. Somebody talked him into it. He was doing very well, and he invested in it. Anyhow, it wasn’t made correctly so they couldn’t sell it, so he asked me since at that time I was in manufacturing, if I could correct the defect so they could at least sell them and market them, which I did. They shipped all these to me, I don’t know how many thousand, 5,000 or 10,000, and we reworked them and fixed them and sold them for him. Then not too long after that Muntz practically went bankrupt, so he closed the Chicago office and moved back to California. So, anyhow, I called Mike.

Mr. Griffin. Let me ask you another question. From what you have said, I take it that Mike Shore first had contacted your brother Jack or somebody in Dallas?

Mr. Ruby. No, no, no.

Mr. Griffin. Jack told you to call Mike Shore?

Mr. Ruby. Right.

Mr. Griffin. Now, had Shore contacted Jack or what gave Jack the idea of suggesting that you call Shore?

Mr. Ruby. Well, Jack knew that I knew Mike Shore, and he was, you know—he had been in advertising, was the only one we knew that could give us any advice as to what to do.

Mr. Griffin. Had Jack had someone approach him in connection with a life story or something like that?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; he said several people were trying to contact him through Howard and wanted a life story.

Mr. Griffin. The first you heard about this, though, was when Jack called you and asked you to contact Mike Shore?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; as far as I know. Now, wait—I don’t know if he talked to me or he talked to one of the members of the family, because we had so many telephone calls from those first few days I can’t recall all of them. But, anyhow, the word came to me to call Mike Shore and ask his advice.

Mr. Griffin. Now, do you recall how long after Oswald was shot that this call of yours took place?

Mr. Ruby. Oh, just a day or two later, I think.

Mr. Griffin. And I take it you did call Mike Shore?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; I did.

Mr. Griffin. Did you call him in California?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; I called him in California.

Mr. Griffin. And about how long did your conversation with Shore last?

Mr. Ruby. Several minutes.

Mr. Griffin. Ten or fifteen minutes?

Mr. Ruby. I don’t know. I really don’t know. Anyhow, I don’t remember.

Mr. Griffin. Now, tell us what that conversation was.

Mr. Ruby. Well, I mentioned that Jack had said that people were interested in a story on Jack and Jack had said to contact him, ask his advice. And so he says, “Gee, that is a coincidence,” he says, “because I’ve got somebody sitting right here in my office that would be the perfect man to do a story on Jack if one is going to be done.” And he says, “His name is Billy Woodfield.” His real name is William Woodfield. So he says, “I think you ought to come out here,” the conversation got to that, “so we can talk it over.”

So I flew out there a day or two later.

Mr. Griffin. Was that all there was to the conversation at that time?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; lawyers weren’t mentioned yet as far as I remember. I don’t think we mentioned the lawyer in the first conversation.

Mr. Griffin. Had you discussed with your family or with Tom Howard before you called Mike Shore——

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. What had been your discussion about selling the life story with your family and with Tom Howard?

Mr. Ruby. Well, the question came up that we would need money for a good lawyer, and this was one of the solutions to raising money.

Mr. Griffin. Before you called Mike Shore, are you saying that you had discussed getting a lawyer other than Tom Howard, or when you use the term good lawyer are you talking about paying Howard?

Mr. Ruby. No: we were talking about a lawyer other than Howard now.

Mr. Griffin. Who had suggested that you should get a lawyer other than Howard or how did that idea arise?

Mr. Ruby. That was, I think, between our family, the family itself.

Mr. Griffin. And did you discuss this with Howard before you called Mike Shore?

Mr. Ruby. Wait, you are ahead of me. The first conversation I didn’t mention a lawyer to Mike Shore yet.

Mr. Griffin. I realize that.

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. But I am still asking you, you had indicated to me that the reason that you were calling Shore and thinking about a life story was that you were going to need money for another lawyer. The life story, as I understand it, is tied in with the idea of getting the money for a lawyer, or was there another reason for selling the life story?

Mr. Ruby. No; I think I talked to Tom Howard because we never heard of him, of course. In the meantime, I think in conversations back and forth, we talked with another lawyer there, somebody talked to him from the family or maybe it was relayed through my sister Eva down there—and I have a brother Sam in Dallas—do we need another lawyer. And then we learned that they were already trying to get a lawyer.

Now, you must understand, we have to go back to Tom Howard. Tom Howard is a bondsman in addition to being a lawyer. That is what he is noted for there. So then I think I talked to this other lawyer, Stanley Kaufman. He was my brother’s civil lawyer down there. And I asked him if he knows a good criminal lawyer, and he says, no, he can’t recommend anyone.

Mr. Griffin. Let me interrupt you, Mr. Ruby.

Mr. Ruby. Excuse me. I can’t remember the exact sequence of all these conversations, because they were going back and forth all day and night.

Mr. Griffin. Maybe we can reconstruct it by asking you questions. From what you have said, I take it that by the time you called or somebody talked to Stanley Kaufman, the idea had been implanted that you would need a lawyer other than Tom Howard.

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. Now, who had planted the idea? How did that idea develop that you would need a lawyer other than Tom Howard?

Mr. Ruby. I don’t remember exactly, but it could have been even my own thoughts, because a day or two after the shooting and the papers started to print stories, and stories about Tom Howard, and I realized who he was, and he was suspended at one time, I immediately thought this was not a good lawyer to have for my brother.

Mr. Griffin. Now, what was Jack’s original attitude, if you know, about Tom Howard?

Mr. Ruby. He wasn’t too crazy about Tom Howard, as far as I could see, from what he told me, because he said Tom Howard contradicted himself a few times to him.

Mr. Griffin. But did Jack, to your knowledge, develop the idea on his own that he should get somebody other than Howard, or was this suggestion raised to Jack?

Mr. Ruby. That I don’t know. You are asking me what his thoughts were. I don’t know. I can’t answer that.

Mr. Griffin. I didn’t know if you had contact with him or not. Now, to your knowledge, were any other Dallas lawyers contacted besides Tom Howard before the final team of Belli, Tonahill, and Burleson?

Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes; Belli was the main one, you know. He was the first one.

Mr. Griffin. Yes; but before Belli was brought in, were any other Dallas lawyers, or Texas lawyers——

Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes; they talked, Howard—Howard and I discussed this, and he said he needs help, he wouldn’t mind another good lawyer. So we mentioned several names. He talked to Percy Foreman, and Percy Foreman, he told me Percy Foreman wants $25,000 as a retainer before he will even step into the case. So he says, “I know you don’t have that kind of money so that eliminates him.”

However, later, upon talking to Foreman, he denies that. He said he only asked for $2,500.

Anyhow, they contacted Stanley Kaufman. Stanley Kaufman contacted Fred Brunner. He is a Dallas criminal lawyer, very good. And the story I got is he says, “Okay, I’ll handle the case. I will be right down to take over.”

He never showed up. We found out why. He is Henry Wade’s best friend, and so it just wouldn’t work out. He just couldn’t take it. Although he never called, we understood that that is what happened, because they down there found out that he was Henry Wade’s best friend, and so he probably for one reason or another, he couldn’t take the case.

Mr. Griffin. You don’t have any personal knowledge, however, that the friendship with Howard was the reason that Brunner didn’t take the case?

Mr. Hubert. With Wade.

Mr. Griffin. With Wade. You don’t know this?

Mr. Ruby. No; I talked to Brunner myself when I was down there later on. Brunner said something to the effect—I don’t remember the exact words. I ran into him in the county jail. I don’t remember what he said.

Mr. Griffin. Did he say anything to you about why he didn’t get into the case?

Mr. Ruby. I am just trying to, if I can find the words or something close to what he said. We just met in the hallway, and he said—I can’t recall that conversation at all.

Mr. Griffin. Did Brunner mention——

Mr. Ruby. But I had a later conversation which I remember very clearly,——

Mr. Griffin. Tell us about that.

Mr. Ruby. This was after Jack received the sentence, you know.

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Ruby. Then Brunner told me that he now wants to help Jack. He feels that this would never have happened if he had handled the case originally, the verdict, you know, the death verdict, and that I should talk to the family and think over about him taking over the defense.

Mr. Griffin. Did he mention anything about Henry Wade at that conversation?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; he said, “Even though I am very close,” words to the effect that “even though I am very close with Wade, don’t let that worry you,” or something to that effect. But I forget that first conversation, and I just don’t want to give you words——

Mr. Griffin. Had he mentioned Wade in the first conversation that you recall?

Mr. Ruby. I am not sure and I don’t want to just—no, we contacted Percy Foreman. You want to know who else?

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Ruby. I didn’t know. This is only that I learned from Howard. He said he contacted Percy Foreman. He contacted Fred Erisman, a retired judge. There is another one, another very good criminal lawyer, but I can’t even think of his last name to look it up. Is it important? I’ve got it here, but I just can’t remember the name.

Oh, yes; here is another one they talked to, I understand—Jim Martin. In fact, he was in the case more or less with Howard. Oh, that is Charlie Tessmer, the other lawyer they contacted. And he turned it down. Why, he never told us, but he turned it down. In the meantime, I had talked to Charlie Bellows from Chicago who is now acting as consultant.

Mr. Griffin. How did you happen to contact Mr. Bellows?

Mr. Ruby. Well, one of my close friends in Chicago worked in his office, another lawyer, Rheingold, Milton Rheingold.

Mr. Griffin. Incidentally, let me ask you here, did you know a lawyer in Chicago by the name of Weiner?

Mr. Ruby. A lawyer? I don’t think so, not a lawyer. I know a doctor, not a lawyer.

Mr. Griffin. Go ahead now with your contact with Bellows.

Mr. Ruby. So we talked to Bellows. I talked to him, rather. And he said he was going to be rather busy, and he wasn’t sure he could take the case. As a matter of fact, that is who I wanted originally, because we knew him. His office represented me before Rheingold, was in his office with him, was my civil lawyer in Chicago, more or less, so you know at least we had a knowledge of who we were going to hire. And, in addition to that, he is a great criminal lawyer. He is head of the American Defense Lawyers, and all that.

Mr. Griffin. And had you contacted Bellows before your telephone call to Mike Shore?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; I am quite sure I did, and I asked him to give me an idea of the fee because, you know, expenses. Well, he said his fee would run anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000, because he figured it would be a 2- or 3-month trial, plus expenses.

So I, of course, asked him what his expenses might be, and he says it shouldn’t be more than, if I recall, $100 or $200 a week for his own expenses, he said, because he doesn’t live highly and knowing me he is going to keep it down as low as possible.

Mr. Hubert. You are talking about Bellows now?

Mr. Ruby. Bellows.

Mr. Griffin. Mr. Ruby, had you discussed a fee with Tom Howard?

Mr. Ruby. I did, but I don’t know when.

Mr. Griffin. What was the fee that was finally arrived at with Tom Howard? What was his fee to be?

Mr. Ruby. His fee was originally, if he would stay in all the way, he told me from $10,000 to $15,000.

Mr. Griffin. And how many lawyers did Howard suggest would be needed besides himself?

Mr. Ruby. Well, I mentioned the names, you know, like Bellows. In fact, he talked to Bellows, and we were in the process of probably working something out with Bellows, but he was too busy, and asked—then the question came up as to whether Bellows would be a risk in Dallas, since he is Jewish. And I talked to about a half dozen other lawyers, and I even talked to the best criminal lawyer in Detroit, Joe Louisell. I had a meeting with him. I asked his advice. He says, “Don’t bring a Jewish lawyer down there.”

Mr. Griffin. What was Howard’s view?

Mr. Ruby. Howard agreed with that. So that more or less took Bellows out of the picture. Now, in the meantime, I am back, going to California. So I go to California. They meet me at the airport. Is everything pretty well in sequence up until now?

Mr. Griffin. That is all right, we will clarify. We will ask you some questions about it.

Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes; first the conversation, to get back to Tom Howard, the first one or two conversations, as I said, I talked to him Monday morning. Then I think I talked to him Monday night. I don’t remember, I talked to him any number of times. And in our discussions we talked money, costs. He mentioned “It is going to take a couple of months. You have got to figure anywhere total expenses close to $50,000.”

I never knew all these things existed that you have to hire a special investigator, and he wants $10,000. And you have got to have an appeals lawyer like Burleson. That is how he came in. You have got to pay him.

Anyhow, he broke it down, roughly, over the phone he says it may run $50,000. So that is why I started asking any lawyer I talked to, like Bellows, “How much are you going to charge? I have got to know all these things. Give me an idea what we have to raise.”

Then I had all of this information more or less in the back of my mind, how much have we got to raise to get Jack a decent defense counsel. Then I go out to California. They meet me at the airport, Mike Shore and Woodfield. The first thing they say, “Have you got a lawyer yet?” I says, “No.”

I am still talking to Bellows. He is not out yet, you see. He is not out of the picture. Howard is still supposedly trying to contact somebody else that is good. I haven’t been to Dallas yet. In the meantime, as I said, he had contacted Foreman and Charlie Tessmer and Fred Erisman. They were out. Fred Brunner, he didn’t want to get in at the beginning. Those were considered some of the top criminal lawyers in the State of Texas.

So, anyhow, I meet him, they meet me at the plane in Los Angeles, get in the car. The first thing they ask is “Have you got a lawyer?” And I tell them what is going on. I am not sure yet. So they start talking to me about Belli, Melvin Belli. I had never heard of him. And they couldn’t understand it. But I never had. And I told them that, that I had never heard of him, and so they start telling me how great he was, you know, and all that stuff.

And they said, “By coincidence he is in town. He is in L.A.”

Mr. Griffin. How long before you arrived did Shore and Woodfield—how long before you arrived did they know you were coming? In other words, how many days elapsed between your conversation with Shore and your airplane trip out there?

Mr. Ruby. Gee, only a day or so, I think.

Mr. Griffin. Now, had Shore mentioned Belli to you on the telephone in that first conversation?

Mr. Ruby. I think so, but I am not sure—I think so, but I am not sure, because I think in our conversation in the car that we had makes me think they mentioned it before now, because the conversation went like this: I must have mentioned before I haven’t heard of Belli. He says, “I know I haven’t mentioned Belli and I don’t want to push him too much,” but then they started to tell me how good he is, so we must have talked about him on the phone. My remark was, “But Mike, I never heard of him.”

So, anyhow, they said, the conversation got around that he is in town, and, “Would you care to see him?”

I says, “Well, I’ve got nothing to lose.”

In the meantime, they are telling me how great he is, of course.

Mr. Hubert. Were you under the impression that they had asked Belli to come to Los Angeles?

Mr. Ruby. I don’t know.

Mr. Hubert. Do you think it was a coincidence? Is there anything factual that happened that might suggest to you that——

Mr. Ruby. Yes; I think that they probably did. I shouldn’t say did, probably could have. I don’t want to make the statement that they did, because Woodfield later told me that Belli promised him that he would write Belli’s version of the trial or whatever you call it, for making the contact to represent my brother, words to that effect.

Mr. Griffin. Woodfield said this?

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. And you heard Woodfield say it or this is something that somebody else told you Woodfield said?

Mr. Ruby. No; I heard Woodfield say that.

Mr. Hubert. Woodfield told that to you?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; sure.

Mr. Griffin. When did he tell you that?

Mr. Ruby. That was later on when he learned—this was weeks later when he learned he wasn’t going to do the story. Somebody else—Belli brought in a fellow by the name of Al Moscow to do the story.

Mr. Griffin. The story of your brother?

Mr. Ruby. No.

Mr. Griffin. The story of Belli?

Mr. Ruby. Belli—Belli’s book on the trial.

Mr. Griffin. Now, was this before——

Mr. Ruby. Wait, we have got to clarify something else. We are getting ahead of ourselves.

Mr. Griffin. Let me just pinpoint time here. Was your conversation with Woodfield about Woodfield not being able to write the Belli story, did that conversation occur before, during, or after the trial of your brother?

Mr. Ruby. During, I would say.

Mr. Griffin. You indicate by your tone of voice and your words that you are not certain as to when this took place. Could you try to think of what the surrounding circumstances were of this conversation and other things to pinpoint the time?

Mr. Ruby. It wasn’t after, I know. Whether or not it was before, it could have been just before, because I don’t remember when Al Moscow came down the first time.

Oh, well, we can know exactly. It was published all over the country that Belli had signed a contract to do a story on Jack Ruby and the trial and all that stuff, and it was all over the country, with Al Moscow to do the writing. So we can pinpoint that. I don’t remember the date.

Mr. Griffin. Now, I took you off the track. Get back on your track.

Mr. Ruby. Where was I?

Mr. Griffin. You said that we were skipping ahead, I think.

Mr. Hubert. I think the last thing you were talking about before we diverted into these other aspects was that you said you had nothing to lose.

Mr. Ruby. Yes; that is right, so that evening we went to see Belli.

Mr. Griffin. Where did you see Belli?

Mr. Ruby. In a home—a used home he had recently purchased in L.A.

Mr. Hubert. Was an appointment made by them to see him?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; oh, yes. I think it was 7 o’clock, if I am not mistaken, that evening.

Mr. Griffin. Where did they call Belli? Where was Belli when they called him to make the appointment.

Mr. Ruby. In L.A. from what they told me.

Mr. Griffin. Yes; but do you know whether he was at his house or in an office or in a hotel or in a cocktail lounge or where he might have been?

Mr. Ruby. I don’t recall. I don’t remember.

Mr. Hubert. Were you present when they called to make the appointment?

Mr. Ruby. I don’t remember that, either.

Mr. Hubert. So we are at the point that you do go to see Belli.

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Hubert. I think this is a good breaking point for lunch.

Mr. Griffin. Maybe.

(Whereupon, at 1:10 p.m., the proceeding was recessed.)

TESTIMONY OF EARL RUBY RESUMED

The proceeding reconvened at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. Griffin. Let me state for the record that as we resume this deposition that I presume you understand that the oath you took this morning with Mr. Hubert and all the formalities which you went through still pertain to this hearing.

You are still under oath and we will continue in the same fashion that we did before.

If there are any questions about it why you are free to say anything.

We were talking, it seems to me, that we got you to the point where you had just met Mr. Belli.

Mr. Ruby. Belli, that is right.

Mr. Griffin. Now, I wanted to confine your attention from here on in to certain narrow aspects of your dealings in Los Angeles, and that is your efforts to find financing for Jack’s trial and what the actual financing of the trial is.

Can you tell us, first of all, whether prior to seeing Belli, that day that you were in Los Angeles, you talked to Mr. Shore and Mr. Woodfield at all about the financing of the trial?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; I told them we had to raise money, and I told them Howard gave me a figure of anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000, and I asked them about how much they thought they could obtain from a story, and they said they couldn’t promise 50 but 30, 35, I think that was the figure that Woodfield used.

Mr. Griffin. Would that be the gross figure or would that be what your brother would have ultimately had available from the entire sum for his defense?

Mr. Ruby. That was the figure, the net figure my brother would have left over after they took their commissions and percentage, and the agent’s fee and all of that.

Mr. Griffin. How many people were to share in the proceeds from the sale, beside Jack?

Mr. Ruby. Woodfield, William Woodfield. Larry Shiller, the agent, and then they in turn said they would pay commissions to sales people.

I don’t know who those were, of course.

Mr. Griffin. Now, this first day in Los Angeles——

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. Prior to meeting Belli and your talk with them, did you discuss how long the article or biography would be and where it would be published and other details such as that?

Mr. Ruby. I don’t think so; not the first day.

Mr. Griffin. Now, at the meeting at Mr. Belli’s house, did you discuss the biography of your brother?

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. What discussion took place there?

Mr. Ruby. Just the general discussion that Woodfield would do the writing of it. That is about all. And a figure did come up of how much could be raised through the story, through the selling of the story.

Mr. Griffin. What was the speculation at that time?

Mr. Ruby. That is what I said, you know, the same figure.

Mr. Griffin. How long did your meeting at Mr. Belli’s home last?

Mr. Ruby. I would say at least an hour.

Mr. Griffin. How much of the time at Mr. Belli’s house was spent discussing the sale of the biography or the life story?

Mr. Ruby. Probably 10 minutes altogether.

Mr. Griffin. Now, when you finished——

Mr. Ruby. Excuse me, would you want to know who else was present there?

Mr. Griffin. Yes; I would.

Mr. Ruby. Sam Brody, one of his associates in L.A., another attorney, who was in the case for a while but if you will recall he stepped out, and Woodfield’s wife, yes, Woodfield’s wife, I don’t remember her name——

Mr. Griffin. Was Mike Shore there?

Mr. Ruby. No: I don’t think so. No; I am quite sure he wasn’t.

Mr. Griffin. When that meeting ended there, had there been an agreement——

Mr. Ruby. Excuse me a minute.

I am trying to think if Mike Shore was there. I don’t place him there. I am not sure he was there. I can’t say yes or no to that question.

Mr. Griffin. He might have been there but you are not sure, is that your answer, or is your original answer that he wasn’t there still your best impression.

Mr. Ruby. If my recollection is correct, I think he just met Belli and then left. He had an appointment or something but I am not sure.

Mr. Griffin. What was the conclusion of your talk at that point as to whether Belli would represent Jack.

Mr. Ruby. It wasn’t definite yet. We talked about lawyers and he mentioned what he thinks we ought to do, and psychiatrists we might need—and different things that—he mentioned he would bring in Tonahill. He worked with Tonahill before.

Mr. Griffin. Was that the first time Tonahill’s name was mentioned?

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. Now, did you remain in Los Angeles that night?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; I think I was there that night.

Mr. Griffin. Were you there the next day?

Mr. Ruby. I think I left the next—about noon of the next day if I am not mistaken.

Mr. Griffin. When you left Los Angeles what arrangements had been made with respect to the autobiography or the life story of Jack?

Mr. Ruby. Nothing really definite.

Mr. Griffin. Did Woodfield ultimately write the story that you are talking about?

Mr. Ruby. Yes, yes.

Mr. Griffin. And——

Mr. Ruby. He came down to Dallas later.

Mr. Griffin. Where was that published, that story? Just tell us generally.

Mr. Ruby. Well, they offered it for sale to foreign countries, publications in foreign countries, and also here through the newspapers, through a sales organization that handles that, I think, out of New York.

Mr. Griffin. Was that life story serialized in a number of newspapers throughout the country?

Mr. Ruby. When you say serialized, I don’t understand what you mean.

Mr. Griffin. It was published over a period of days.

Mr. Ruby. Yes, yes.

Mr. Griffin. Did it appear in any national magazines?

Mr. Ruby. No; not in the United States. I don’t think so.

Mr. Griffin. Did you have some original discussion with Woodfield that it would appear, that he would try to sell it to a national magazine?

Mr. Ruby. Well, our agreement was that he would sell it—yes, that if he could sell it to a national magazine that he would.

Mr. Griffin. Did you have any discussions with him about selling it to the Saturday Evening Post?

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. When did that discussion take place?

Mr. Ruby. Not until later; probably down in Dallas when we met in Dallas later on.

Mr. Griffin. How much did the Ruby defense ultimately realize from that newspaper article?

Mr. Ruby. The net?

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Ruby. A little over $30,000.

Mr. Griffin. Did you people get—did the Ruby defense also get contributions from people?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; but very little, very little.

Mr. Griffin. Can you tell us approximately what the total of the contributions were?

Mr. Ruby. Contributions—are you speaking right up to today now or until the trial?

Mr. Griffin. Not until the exact day. But do you have some figure as to what it was up to today? Roughly, what it is? I don’t ask you to be accurate to the penny.

Mr. Ruby. Well now, you see there are two funds, the story fund and a separate fund that a defense committee was trying to raise.

Mr. Griffin. Well, the story fund comprises the $30,000.

Mr. Ruby. Separate; yes.

Mr. Griffin. Is there anything else in that fund besides the $30,000, or did anything else go into it?

Mr. Ruby. Well, I put in whatever donations my brother received in the jail I deposited. It was only—I don’t think it was $500 from there.

Mr. Griffin. Now, other monies were given for the defense, though, were they not?

Mr. Ruby. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. Did they go into the defense committee fund? Did these other monies go into the defense committee fund?

Mr. Ruby. Well, they were used for paying the bills, if that is what you mean.

Mr. Griffin. What I am trying to get at is, you say there are two funds, one fund is what you call the newspaper fund——

Mr. Ruby. Well, you see, that—the newspaper—was more or less Jack Ruby’s own fund. He authorized to write the story, and that was more or less his own fund.

Mr. Griffin. I see.

Mr. Ruby. But this is a separate committee that was set up in Chicago, and they got several hundred dollars but we spent—well, on one ad we spent $200 for the ad and we got $205 back—to give you an idea. We kept using the money hoping to get more money in but it didn’t work out too well.

Mr. Griffin. Can you tell us who the members of that defense committee are?

Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes. There is Michael Levin, a lawyer in Chicago, my brother Hyman Ruby, Rubenstein, and Barney Ross, Marty Eritt.

Then there is another one or two in there that I am not too familiar with. But they have got stationery. I don’t have it with me.

Mr. Griffin. What efforts did they make to obtain funds?

Mr. Ruby. Well, they wrote some letters and they did advertising, as I told you. However, quite a few of the—quite a few—most of the newspapers wouldn’t take the ad. The Chicago papers wouldn’t take it. The Tribune, and the Sun-Times in Chicago wouldn’t take an ad for an appeal for funds for Jack Ruby.

Mr. Griffin. Were you ever given any reasons?

Mr. Ruby. No; the answers were it is not their policy, and there was another reason, I can’t remember the exact words. I don’t recall. But Mike Levin did most of that, you know—the lawyer—he did most of the calling and he told me, but I don’t remember the exact words and I would rather not say—you know, if I am not sure of the exact words.

Mr. Griffin. I don’t want you to say if you didn’t hear it.

Mr. Ruby. No.

Mr. Griffin. Did you keep the records for that defense committee fund?

Mr. Ruby. Yes; most—yes; I would say yes.

Mr. Griffin. Do you have those records here with you today?

Mr. Ruby. No; I gave them to an agent, though. I give them to an agent some time ago. I gave him a list of all the monies that came in, and I think I even gave him a list of who I paid it out to.

Mr. Griffin. What is your best estimate of how much money came in altogether in the defense committee fund?

Mr. Ruby. Now you are not talking about the story—right?

Mr. Griffin. That is right.

Mr. Ruby. From the defense committee fund between $1,500 and $2,000, altogether.

Mr. Griffin. What were the expenses of the fund or is this—excuse me—is this $1,500 or $2,000—is that a net figure or a gross figure?

Mr. Ruby. That is a gross.

Mr. Griffin. All right. After expenses, what was ultimately left for the application to the defense?

Mr. Ruby. I can’t give you an exact figure because I just can’t recall all of the expenses we had, because I just paid a bill last week, and I just don’t have it, but I would say we spent probably close to a thousand dollars, because one ad alone was close to $300, and the letter was another $300—is $600 already that I can think of. There were other, smaller expenses.

Mr. Griffin. Do you know what the total expenses were that have been for the defense of your brother so far?

Mr. Ruby. In the low thirties. Of course, you must understand we are continually spending money, so I don’t have it.

Mr. Griffin. Have you been given an estimate recently as to what the total expenses of the defense of your brother is going to be?

Mr. Ruby. An estimate?

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Ruby. You mean if it goes to the Supreme Court and all that?

Mr. Griffin. Yes; have you been given any estimate as to what the total expenses might be.

Mr. Ruby. No; I would say no. Just said it would run into a lot of money but no figure was ever actually quoted, except by Belli.

You see, he really didn’t, either. He just—I am trying to think what his statement was, now. No; he didn’t either, because at that time we weren’t talking about Supreme Court, we were only talking about—you know—the first trial.

Mr. Griffin. What was his——

Mr. Ruby. He mentioned between $75,000 and $100,000.

Mr. Griffin. As a total cost.

Mr. Ruby. Of the first trial. And that is now his fee and everything, when you are talking expenses. I am talking everything they wanted.

Mr. Griffin. How much of a fee did he quote to you at that time?

Mr. Ruby. He was talking about $50,000, if I recall correctly.

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 how much——

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 you know——

Mr. Ruby. Well, there is a difference of opinion so——

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 there is——

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, and we——

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 go down 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, you know——

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 of his——

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 international scale,” 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 around together. And not only that, I was married then, and you know he has been a bachelor all his life so he went to places——

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 call this——

Mr. Griffin. You are handing me——

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 their acts 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?