United States. Warren Commission

“ Mr. Wall. No, sir; not at all unless it was about football. I am a football fanatic. It was the day before. This would be Thursday, right?
Mr. Specter. Would it refresh your recollection if I said you had a telephone call with him at about 6:50 on that day?
Mr. Wall. No, sir; it wouldn’t because I call him quite frequently. I just made a telephone call to him day before yesterday. Unless it was just to say hello and everything. We did not decide to go down to Galveston until that afternoon, the day after the assassination.
Mr. Specter. How long have you known Edward Parker of Fort Worth? ”

“ Mr. Ruby. Please let me do it, will you? [Addressing Mr. Fowler.]
Mr. Fowler (no response) .
Mr. Herndon. I will bow to whatever Mr. Specter or counsel wants to do in this regard.
Mr. Ruby. Fowler, I hate to dispute with you, but let me do it this way?
Mr. Fowler. Well, Jack, again, Mr. Alexander is here and again I tell you this—that the answers to some of these questions could be absolutely very detrimental to you.
Mr. Ruby. They can’t be.
Mr. Fowler. I’m talking about from a legal standpoint. Now, morally, I know how you feel and you want to do the best you can for the Commission. ”

“ Mr. Burleson. You have now, as of this moment, been informed by a newspaper and also by me about what Jack attempted to do today?
Mrs. Grant. Yes; I have.
Mr. Burleson. And you were informed and knew of what Jack had attempted to do about a month ago when he rammed his head up against the wall, were you not?
Mrs. Grant. Yes.
Mr. Burleson. What has Jack told you as to what you should do with and to yourself?
Mrs. Grant. He wants me to do away with myself.
Mr. Burleson. Does he give you a reason why? ”

“ Mr. Specter. Mr. Ruby, we can cover that one in a specific question, in another general question, on whether you have told the complete truth here today. Are there any other topics which you want to cover?
Mr. Ruby. Oh, yes, sir. Has any of the underworld ever contributed money to me for my clubs, or was I put in here as a front for the underworld or things to that effect. I mean—this has a relationship to criminal intent.
Mr. Specter. We’ve asked you the question if the underworld had any connection with the shooting of Oswald. ”

“ Mrs. Grant. You may write to the man—Abraham Rubenstein, he is still alive.
Mr. Hubert. I just want to know whether your impression and your attendance at the meetings of the club indicate to you whether this group at any time had any political implication whatsoever?
Mrs. Grant. No, no; not that I would know of.
Mr. Hubert. You never observed any? Of any kind?
Mrs. Grant. Never.
Mr. Hubert. Could you tell us something of Jack’s youth and education and his childhood—you were older than he was and therefore, you are able to observe it, I would think. ”

“ Do you know who that bartender is standing at the back?
Mr. Paul. No.
Mr. Hubert. Do you know a man by the name of Mickey Ryan?
Mr. Paul. No—I might have heard the name but I never knew a guy with a name like that.
Mr. Hubert. You don’t recognize the man at the bar?
Mr. Paul. No—it’s not in the Carousel, that’s for sure. The Carousel had no cloths on the tables.
Mr. Hubert. Nor did it have a bar?
Mr. Paul. It had a bar.
Mr. Hubert. I mean, not for liquor.
Mr. Paul. No; that’s right—that looks like a private club.
Mr. Hubert. Were you familiar with the notebooks and memo books that Ruby kept? ”

“ If a man had told you on Saturday morning right after the President had been shot that he had been to the police station, and had said anything about what he had done there, wouldn’t that have been something that you would have remembered as being important? You would have been curious, wouldn’t you? You would have asked the man “What did you see down at the police station? Who did you talk to down there?” After all, that was right down there where Oswald was, and where the investigation was going on. ”

“ Mrs. Grant. No; but they are people we know. We know their family—we see them, “How’s your mother, how’s your sister?”
444 Mr. Hubert. But there was no close relationship between Jack and people with criminal records, is that right? Is that a fair statement?
Mrs. Grant. If he knew any—maybe—I don’t know whoever went to jail—all of them.
Mr. Hubert. No; I’m asking you what you know about it. Let me put it this way: Do you know of any people who were friendly with Jack, not merely knew him, but who were friendly with Jack, who you knew and he knew had a criminal record? ”

“ Mr. Griffin. To put it another way, you wouldn’t describe Jack Ruby as the kind of person who as a matter of his constitutional and emotional makeup had to tell you everything he was doing? There are some people like that.
Mr. Senator. You mean would he tell me everything he was doing?
Mr. Griffin. No; there are some people who are the kind of people who just somehow have to unload almost everything they are doing to other people. Now Jack Ruby wasn’t that kind of person, was he? ”

“ I know that Ruby is a sensitive man as far as when the word “Jew” comes up, you know, in something he don’t like. He takes tremendous offense. No; I am not of the nature of Jack Ruby.
Mr. Griffin. Then do you feel that a Jewish person has no business expressing political opinions, and so forth?
Mr. Senator. Oh, they certainly have a perfect right to express opinions as anybody else. I would probably say—let me say I think they are more careful. I can’t speak for every individual, mind you.
Mr. Griffin. Do you think that Jack felt that a Jewish person has no business expressing——
Mr. Senator. ”

“ I state to you now that the general nature of the Commission’s inquiry is to ascertain, evaluate and report upon the facts relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy and the subsequent violent death of Lee Harvey Oswald. In particular, as to you, Mr. Ruby, the nature of the inquiry today is to determine what facts you know about the death of Oswald and of the life of your brother, Jack Ruby, and any other pertinent facts you may know about the general inquiry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mr. Hubert. What place did you call in Dallas?
Mrs. Rich. I called the police department and a foundry he had mentioned in a letter, and had read the name of a gentleman he had mentioned at this time whose name eludes me—Youngblood—I take it back. ”

“ Mr. Ruby. Clayton?
Mr. Fowler. Jack, let me say this—now, this is the very crux of your case. In other words, if there is premeditation on your part to murder or to kill, this can and will be used against you, and this information—let’s project it a little bit and say that you do get a new trial, and that between now and that the Warren Commission releases their information for public consumption or to the district attorney’s office or to anybody else, then, if your answer to these questions might be “Yes,” then it would be most difficult to appear and defend you. ”

“ It all depends on the location you are—if you are too far from home. Then other times I might be gone two or three. It all depends, you know.
Mr. Griffin. What I want to get some idea of is up until this period that you moved in with Jack in 1962, who were the people that you saw on a social basis?
Mr. Senator. Well, I have seen Bill Downey. What I want to impress you, these people I don’t see every day, or like, you know, say I see them today, tomorrow, the next day, and things like that. On rare occasions I saw Don Taber. That time on rare occasions I saw Jim Martin. ”

“ Griffin. Yes.
Mr. Senator. That is part of it. All right, I know the overall picture that Jack would rather live alone, see. I mean if somebody is out, something like me, if I needed a place, all right, he would keep me. But in the overall picture he would rather live alone.
And many a guy has slept at his place whether the Carousel or one of the apartments he may live in, and I don’t know how many he has lived in previous to when I knew him where he may put up a guy for a night, 2, 3, 4, or 5, whatever it might be, and fed him, because he was tapped or something of that nature. ”

“ He wanted to make the show continuous and this was the problem he was having, so the night that I went to the Carousel Club with Larry Grayson and Joe Peterson he, himself, got on stage and entertained for 30 minutes with a raffle and I recall that Larry turned to me and said—every time that Jack would do something he would try and be very funny—every time he would do something he would turn to me and say. “Is that all right, Breck?” and Larry turned to me and said, “He thinks a great deal of you. Every time he does anything he turns to you,” and I said, “Yes.” ”

“ Do you have some idea on the basis of your experience with Jack and so forth as to why he shot Oswald?
Mr. Crafard. No; I haven’t, other than the fact that I believed ever since it happened that Jack was out of his mind. I believe right today that the man should be in a mental institution.
Mr. Griffin. Is that simply because you can’t conceive of anybody doing what he did, or from some other facts?
Mr. Crafard. I can’t conceive of a man that is in his right mind walking up to a man, just walking up to a man, putting a gun in his belly and pulling the trigger.
Mr. Griffin. In a police station? ”