Crossfire

by Jim Marrs

  In late 1946, an emissary from the Chicago syndicate named Paul Roland Jones contacted Dallas lawmen in an effort to open the city for the mob. Jones held meetings with Sheriff Guthrie and an obscure Dallas police lieutenant named George Butler. Jones said he was an advance agent of the Chicago crime syndicate and was prepared to offer the district attorney and the sheriff $1,000 a week each or a 12.5 percent cut on the profit if the syndicate were permitted to operate in Dallas under “complete protection.” He also said local people would “front” for the Chicago mob. Sometime later Jones was indicted for attempted bribery when Guthrie and Butler blew the whistle.

  At this time the two top Chicago mob leaders were Sam Giancana (the coordinator of Mafia-CIA assassination plots) and Anthony Accardo.

  Was Ruby one of the “fronts” mentioned by his friend Jones? Sheriff Guthrie told the Warren Commission that Ruby was himself involved in the bribery plan of Jones and that both Jones and his Chicago associates “frequently mentioned that Ruby would operate a ‘fabulous’ restaurant as a front for gambling activities.” The Commission went on to state, however, that since Ruby was not mentioned in Jones’s bribery scheme, the Commission “found it difficult to accept [Guthrie’s] report.” The Commission also ignored a story by Chicago newsman Mort Newman, who reported that Butler told him that “Jack Ruby came to Dallas from . . . Chicago in the late 1940s and was involved in an attempt to bribe Sheriff Steve Guthrie.”

  The Warren Commission also ignored testimony that showed that Jones met Ruby through two mutual friends, Paul “Needle Nose” Labriola and Jim Weinberg—both well-known associates of Giancana.

  In fact, to arrive at their conclusion that Ruby was not connected to the mob, they had to ignore an FBI interview with Jones in which he stated that when he first met Ruby, both Weinberg and Labriola told him Ruby was “all right” as far as the syndicate was concerned. Weinberg and Labriola in 1954 were found garroted and stuffed in a car trunk in a double gangland slaying.

  When interviewed for the Warren Commission in 1964, Jones said he believed Butler was serious about accepting mob payoffs, changing his position only after learning that the Texas Rangers had become aware of the deal.

  It was Butler—then assigned to the juvenile division—who was in charge of the fatal transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963. Butler apparently was also close to right-wing causes in Dallas. According to Penn Jones, former editor of the Midlothian Mirror, Butler approached him in 1961 about publishing right-wing literature. Jones told this author, “[Butler] offered me the job of printing a regional newspaper under the auspices of the Ku Klux Klan. He told me that half of the Dallas police were members of the KKK.” Butler also was known to have provided personal police security for right-wing Dallas oil billionaire H. L. Hunt.

  Butler’s veracity comes into further question when one considers Commission Exhibit 2249, which includes the statements of two Dallas policemen who claimed that shortly after Ruby killed Oswald, Butler approached them with “important” information, namely that young Oswald was actually the illegitimate son of Jack Ruby. Some researchers have speculated that it was Butler who let Ruby into the police department basement to kill Oswald through a rear door leading to an alleyway by the Western Union office.

  Whether or not Ruby participated in the 1947 bribe attempt, it is certain that his relationship with Paul Roland Jones continued. On October 24, 1947, Jones was arrested and charged with smuggling opium into the United States from Mexico. In Chicago, both Ruby and his brother Hyman were questioned by Bureau of Narcotics agents investigating the case.

  And over the next two years, while Jones appealed his narcotics conviction, he frequented Dallas’s Singapore Club, which by then was operated by Jack Ruby.

  Despite Jack Ruby’s ongoing gangster connections, the Warren Commission and subsequent assassination investigations attempted to portray him as simply a rambunctious, self-ingratiating nightclub owner striving for success in a rather shabby business—almost a Damon Runyan racetrack character.

  It may also be significant that Ruby was much better connected socially in Dallas than federal investigations have publicly stated. As a man-about-town, Ruby was well-known not only to police and law-enforcement officials, but also to the city and county officials and businessmen who frequented his clubs and attended area gambling parties.

  One significant contact may be found in an account by Madeleine Brown, a former mistress to Lyndon Johnson. She claimed to have first met Jack Ruby through Johnson attorney Jerome Ragsdale of Dallas. She told this author:

  One day in the early 1950s, I was coming out of Nieman-Marcus in downtown Dallas when I encountered Jerome Ragsdale and another man talking on the sidewalk. They seemed to be good friends and Jerome introduced me to the man, who was Jack Ruby. Ruby told me he owned a club downtown and invited me to visit. He also gave me a card. Of course, later I saw Ruby frequently. A bunch of us would see him around town. Lots of people in town knew him, especially people in the downtown area like H. L. Hunt, Henry Wade, Earl Cabell, they all knew him. But after the assassination weekend, everyone was scared to say they knew him.

  According to Ester Ann Mash, a former employee who dated Ruby during the spring of 1963, Ruby was no stranger at the homes of prominent Dallasites. She told this author, “Several times he took me to big nice homes where there were important people in town, including District Attorney Henry Wade. I think he only took me so he didn’t have to go alone. Once we got there, I never saw Jack. He would be off gambling.”

  But the record shows Ruby was a much more important criminal than previously believed.

  Jack Ruby—Gangster

  From the prewar union murder of Leon Cooke to the 1963 killing of Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Jack Ruby’s life was one of close association with gangsters and close calls with the law.

  Consider these Ruby associates:

  Barney Baker: Described by Robert Kennedy as Jimmy Hoffa’s “roving organizer and ambassador of violence,” Baker had moved from criminal activities involving mobsters Jake Lansky and Bugsy Siegel to Teamster organizer for the Central States Conference under Hoffa. According to the Warren Commission, Baker received at least two calls from Ruby in a three-week period preceding the assassination and Baker called Ruby on November 7, 1963. Three of Baker’s phone numbers were found in Ruby’s notebooks.

  Joseph Campisi: An associate of Dallas Mafia member Joseph Civello, Campisi operated several businesses in Dallas, including a restaurant notorious as a gangster hangout, and has been linked closely to the New Orleans Marcello family. Both Ruby’s sister Eva Grant and his business partner and roommate, George Senator, described Campisi as one of Ruby’s closest friends. And though trying to distance himself from Ruby, Campisi himself told the FBI in December 1963 he had been in contact with Ruby the night before the assassination and had visited Ruby in jail on November 30, 1963.

  Frank Caracci: Described by Life magazine as a “Marcello Mobster,” Caracci was arrested by Houston police in 1969 with three members of the Marcello group who later attended the Dallas wedding of Joseph Campisi’s son. One of these men was Frank “Tickie” Saia, a prominent Louisiana gambling and political figure who was close friends with Senator Russell Long. In the months preceding the Kennedy assassination, Ruby met with Caracci at least once and was in telephone contact on several occasions.

  Frank Chavez: Another Teamster thug with arrests for obstruction of justice and attempted murder, Chavez told associates that in the fall of 1961 he had met with Ruby and other Teamster officials, including Richard Kavner, whom author Dan Moldea described as “another key member of the Hoffa circle.” A Justice Department memorandum also linked Ruby and Chavez to mobster Tony Provenzano.

  Joseph Civello: The Dallas Mafia chief who was one of those arrested at the 1957 Apalachin, New York, mob meeting, Civello admitted to the FBI after the assassination that he had known Ruby “for about 10 years.” Like Campisi, Civello tried to downplay his close connecti
ons with Ruby, and someone within the Warren Commission aided this effort by deleting an entire page covering Civello from Commission Exhibit 1536 and by blanking out several paragraphs within the document.

  Mickey Cohen: A news reporter claimed that Ruby was acquainted with famed mobster Cohen through his girlfriend Candy Barr, a close friend of Ruby’s who had been jailed on a narcotics charge earlier in the 1960s.

  Al Gruber: A former roommate of Ruby’s from Chicago, Gruber told the FBI he had no mob connections. Yet in 1970, a two-page FBI report that had been suppressed for years showed Gruber had been arrested six times using two aliases in three states. Gruber, too, was associated with top Teamster officials as well as thugs working for Mickey Cohen. Gruber reportedly had not seen his old friend Ruby for ten years when he showed up in Dallas in mid-November 1963 for an extended visit. Ruby called Gruber in Los Angeles three hours after the assassination.

  Russell D. Matthews: An underworld character with a lengthy arrest record, Matthews has been linked to Campisi and Florida mob chief Santos Trafficante. He also was described as a father figure by convicted hit man Charles V. Harrelson. Several people told the Warren Commission that Ruby and Matthews were friends and on October 3, 1963, a call was placed from Ruby’s Carousel Club to Matthews’s former wife in Louisiana.

  Lenny Patrick: According to his sister, Ruby also placed calls to Patrick in late 1963. Identified in a 1965 US Senate report as a high-ranking associate of the Chicago Mafia, Patrick reportedly was close to Chicago mob chieftain Sam Giancana.

  Nofio J. Pecora: Described by various crime investigations as an ex-convict with several arrests, Pecora has been identified as one of Carlos Marcello’s most trusted aides. As late as October 30, 1963, a call was logged between the Dallas phone of Ruby and a New Orleans phone listed to Pecora.

  Johnny Roselli: A former associate of Al Capone, Roselli was one of the Mafia chiefs involved in the CIA-Mafia assassination plots against Castro and the man CIA pilot Tosh Plumlee claimed to have flown into Dallas the morning of the assassination. His mutilated body was found in an oil drum in Florida’s Biscayne Bay in 1976 just before Roselli was scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. According to columnist Jack Anderson, Roselli knew Ruby and described him as “one of our boys.” According to reports from federal sources in Florida, Roselli and Ruby twice met secretly in Miami motel rooms during the two months preceding the assassination. These meetings were monitored by the FBI, which was keeping Roselli under surveillance. However, no mention of these meetings was made to the Warren Commission.

  Irwin S. Wiener: A close associate of Hoffa as well as other Teamster officials, Wiener has been connected to mob bosses Trafficante and Giancana. On October 26, 1963, Wiener received a twelve-minute person-to-person call from Ruby’s Carousel Club. He later gave contradictory accounts of the content of this call.

  Lewis McWillie: A notorious Dallas gambler, McWillie worked for several gambling houses there during the 1940s, including Benny Benion’s Top of the Hill Club and W. C. Kirkwood’s Four Deuces Club in nearby Fort Worth. McWillie then joined such famed gangsters as Santos Trafficante, Meyer and Jake Lansky, and Dino Cellini in gambling operations in Havana, Cuba, before being thrown out by Castro. One of Ruby’s closest friends, McWillie received guns from Ruby while still in Cuba and, in fact, received a .38 Smith & Wesson from him as late as May 10, 1963. Ruby told the Warren Commission, “I called him frequently. . . . I idolized McWillie.” The Kirkwoods, who conducted high-stakes poker games involving wealthy Texans such as H. L. Hunt, Clint Murchinson, and Amon Carter Sr., also played host to Texas politicians Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson, and John Connally. Kirkwood’s son, Pat, served alcoholic drinks to President Kennedy’s Secret Service guards well into the morning hours of November 22, 1963. Kirkwood told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that “Chilly” McWillie was a close family friend. Warren Commission staffers saw several conspiratorial leads in McWillie and recommended that he be called to testify about Ruby’s Cuban and mob connections, a recommendation that the Commission ignored.

  Despite these revealing associations, the Warren Commission Report stated, “The Commission believes that the evidence does not establish a significant link between Ruby and organized crime.”

  But Jack Ruby’s connection to crime was not limited to his friends and associates. The record shows his involvement in a number of criminal activities including gambling, narcotics, prostitution, and gunrunning.

  In an interview with FBI agents on December 6, 1963, a small-time bookie named William Abadie described how he had worked briefly for Ruby writing gambling “tickets” as well as serving as a “slot machine and jukebox mechanic.” According to this FBI report, only partially reported by the Warren Commission in Document 86—the first page containing the FBI’s information about Ruby’s gambling activities was inexplicably missing from the Commission document—Abadie stated, “It was obvious [to me] that to operate gambling in the manner that he [Ruby] did, that he must have racketeering connections with other individuals in the City of Dallas, as well as Fort Worth, Texas. . . . [This] applied also to police connections with the two cities.”

  In fact, Abadie told agents that he had observed policemen coming and going while acting as a bookie in a Ruby establishment.

  There is simply no question of Ruby’s connections to gambling and to gamblers, both local and national. Not so clear is Ruby’s connection to drugs.

  In one case, a drug offender named James Breen traveled to Dallas, where he made contact with “a large narcotics setup operating between Mexico, Texas, and the East,” according to Eileen Curry, Breen’s female companion. Curry told the FBI that Breen’s contact with this drug ring was Jack Ruby. After Ruby killed Oswald, the FBI again contacted Curry. She repeated her earlier contention that Ruby and Breen had been mixed up in a narcotics smuggling ring.

  There is also an abundance of evidence that Ruby was involved in other criminal activities, such as prostitution, pornography, and bribery.

  The fact that Ruby was a pivotal contact man for criminal activity in Dallas seems affirmed by his lack of prosecution by Dallas authorities.

  Ruby’s Dallas rap sheet showed he was arrested nine times in sixteen years—on charges ranging from operating his club after legal hours to using a gun to slug an off-duty Dallas policeman in a fight outside the Carousel Club—yet the toughest conviction shown in his criminal record was a $35 fine for ignoring a traffic summons.

  Jack Ruby’s criminal activity reached a peak in 1959, when he became even more closely connected to the mob and the Feds through their common interest in Cuba.

  Jack Ruby—Gunrunner and FBI Informant

  The year 1959 was a busy time for Jack Ruby. He made at least two trips to Cuba, making contact with gunrunners who had been arming Castro but were beginning to turn against the bearded leader, and he began serving as an informant for the FBI.

  Just prior to Castro’s takeover, American mobsters had helped supply the revolutionary with arms for his fight with Batista. While the dictator Batista was friends with the mob, the gangsters were playing both sides of the fence, believing that if they helped Castro, they would be allowed to remain in Cuba should he succeed in his revolution.

  The smuggling of arms to Castro was overseen by Norman “Rough-house” Rothman, a burly associate of Miami mob boss Santos Trafficante Jr., who managed Trafficante’s Sans Souci casino in Havana. At the same time, Rothman reportedly was splitting Havana slot machine revenues with Batista’s brother-in-law.

  After the assassination, the sister of a Cuban gunrunner gave information indicating that Ruby was part of the Rothman operation. Mary Thompson said she and her daughter traveled to the Florida Keys during June 1958, where her brother introduced them to a man named “Jack.” The women were told that Jack owned a nightclub in Dallas and was a member of “the syndicate” who was running some guns to Cuba.

  This story later was corroborated by burea
u informant Blaney Mack Johnson, who stated that in the early 1950s, Ruby had an interest in a notorious nightclub and gambling house in Hallandale, Florida, along with Meyer and Jake Lansky and other prominent mobsters. Johnson said Ruby was active in arranging illegal flights of weapons to Castro forces and named Edward Browder as one of the pilots operating for Ruby.

  Browder, a flamboyant Miami arms dealer, was a central figure in Rothman’s gunrunning operation, according to federal court documents. Another soldier of fortune operating with Browder during this time was Frank Sturgis, who would much later be caught burglarizing the Watergate building along with men connected to the Nixon White House.

  Although the FBI file on Browder reportedly contains more than 1,000 pages, the bureau gave only three small, innocuous reports to the Warren Commission.

  According to Wally Weston, the Carousel Club’s emcee who visited his former employer in the Dallas County Jail, Ruby said, “Wally, you know what’s going to happen now? They’re going to find out about my trips to Cuba and my trips to New Orleans and the guns and everything.”

  In mid-1959, the Rothman gunrunning operation was rocked when its chief was arrested in connection with an $8.5 million Canadian bank burglary. Federal authorities linked the bank job with a large theft of arms from an Ohio National Guard armory through a $6,000 airplane rental agreement by Rothman. Authorities agreed it appeared to all be part of a massive gunrunning operation to Cuba.

  And it was during this time that Ruby’s travels to Cuba increased significantly, thanks to Ruby’s mob idol, Lewis J. McWillie.

  McWillie—potentially a key central character in this swirl of gunrunners, drug smugglers, mob hit men, CIA-Mafia assassination plots, and Texas gamblers—has received scant attention from the two major government assassination investigations.