Crossfire

by Jim Marrs

  The midnight news conference was tumultuous and if Ruby’s plan was to silence Oswald there, there was never a clear shot.

  The remainder of the night Ruby was a nervous bundle of activity. He reportedly helped arrange a radio interview for District Attorney Wade, brought sandwiches and drinks to news personnel at KLIF radio, and sometime after 2 a.m. drove around downtown encountering one of his strippers, Kay Coleman (known as Kathy Kay) with Dallas policeman Harry Olsen. During this supposedly chance meeting, Ruby was exhorted to move against Oswald, if his account can be believed. He told the Warren Commission:

  They talked and they carried on, and they thought I was the greatest guy in the world, and he stated they should cut this guy [Oswald] into ribbons, and so on. And she said, “Well, if he was in England, they would drag him through the streets and would have hung him.” . . . They kept me from leaving. They were constantly talking and were in a pretty dramatic mood. They were crying and carrying on.

  All in all, even considering that much of what is known of Ruby’s movements during that weekend is confusing and contradictory, the man evidently was in a nervous, anxious condition and touching bases all over town—especially the Dallas police station, where Oswald was being held.

  The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded, “These sightings, along with the one on Friday night, could indicate that Ruby was pursuing Oswald’s movements throughout the weekend.”

  Jack Ruby’s Warnings

  And it was in the early morning hours of November 24, 1963, that Ruby may have tried to avert his rapidly approaching confrontation with Oswald. Even the Warren Commission noted this strange incident by reporting, “Between 2:30 and 3 a.m., the local office of the FBI and the sheriff’s office received telephone calls from an unidentified man who warned that a committee had decided ‘to kill the man that killed the President.’ . . . The police department and ultimately Chief Curry were informed of both threats.”

  What the public was not told was that the man who took one of the calls recognized the voice of Jack Ruby. Dallas police lieutenant Billy R. Grammer was a young officer working in the communications room early on November 24, 1963. A man called and asked to know who was on duty that morning. After hearing Grammer’s name, the caller asked to speak with him. Refusing to give his name—the caller said cryptically, “I can’t tell you that, but you know me”—the man described in detail to Grammer the plans to transfer Oswald, even to the use of a decoy vehicle, and added, “You’re going to have to make some other plans or we’re going to kill Oswald right there in the basement.” Grammer and his superior took the warning seriously to the extent of writing up a report for Chief Curry.

  Later in the morning Grammer was awakened by his wife, who told him that Jack Ruby had just shot Oswald in the basement of the police station. A stunned Grammer told his wife that he suddenly realized that the familiar voice on the phone was Ruby’s. In 1988, Grammer told British television that he remained convinced that the caller was Ruby—especially in light of a chance meeting and conversation he had with Ruby in a restaurant near police headquarters only a week before the call.

  Of course, if the caller was Ruby and if he did have inside knowledge of the Oswald transfer, then it is clear that Oswald’s shooting was premeditated and involved others.

  Despite these clear warnings and a few minor changes in the transfer plans as a result, the execution of Oswald went off according to plan.

  Ruby told the FBI and the Warren Commission that he remained at his apartment until after 10 a.m. on that Sunday when he left to mail a money order to Lynn Carlin, but several witnesses and a call from a cleaning lady seem to belie that notion.

  Ruby’s roommate George Senator also tried to say that Ruby was home in the early morning but his story proved inconsistent and even the Warren Commission expressed suspicions about it.

  As early as 8 a.m. Warren Richey, a cameraman for WBAP-TV in nearby Fort Worth, reported seeing a man that he was “positive, pretty sure in my own mind” was Jack Ruby in front of the Dallas police station. Richey’s observation was corroborated by two other WBAP newsmen, Ira Walker and John Smith. Smith also saw the man about 8 a.m. and, with Walker, about 10 a.m. when the same man approached them and asked, “Has [Oswald] been brought down yet?”

  The three newsmen were amazed a short time later when Ruby’s mug shot was broadcast over the air. Walker told the Warren Commission, “Well, about four of us pointed at him at the same time in the [mobile broadcast] truck, I mean, we all recognized him at the same time.” Characteristically, the Warren Commission downplayed the testimony and suggested the men were all mistaken, choosing rather to believe Ruby.

  The Commission also failed to seriously consider the statements of Ray Rushing, a Plano, Texas, preacher who had tried to visit Oswald at the police station that morning. Shortly after Oswald’s death, Rushing told Dallas police lieutenant Jack Revill that he had held a brief conversation with Ruby about 9:30 a.m. during a ride in a police station elevator. In his report, Revill evaluated Rushing as “truthful” but noted that District Attorney Wade “didn’t need [Rushing’s] testimony, because he had placed Ruby there the morning of the shooting.”

  Was Ruby at his apartment as he claimed or skulking about the police station? A call from a cleaning woman has been used to show that he was indeed home. However, consider the call, made by sixty-year-old Elnora Pitts, who cleaned Ruby’s apartment every Sunday. Pitts called sometime just after 8 a.m. November 24. She told the Warren Commission she called each Sunday to verify whether she should work that day.

  She said a man answered and she identified herself but the man didn’t seem to recognize her name or the fact that she was to clean the apartment. Finally the man said, “Yes, you can come, but you call me.” “That’s what I’m doing now,” replied the exasperated Pitts. By now the woman was frightened by this man, who didn’t seem to know her. She also said the man “sounded terrible strange to me. . . . He never did sound like himself.”

  But regardless of where Jack Ruby was earlier on Sunday morning, he was definitely in the Western Union office just down the street from the police station at 11:17 a.m. That is the time stamped on Ruby’s receipt for a $25 money order, which he was sending to Karen Carlin in Fort Worth. Carlin, who also had worked for Pat Kirkwood’s Cellar in Fort Worth, told Dallas police she had talked to Ruby earlier that morning and that Ruby obviously was very upset.

  The time Ruby sent the money order was only four minutes from the time he shot Oswald. For years, supporters of the official version of the assassination have argued that if Ruby intended to shoot Oswald, he could not have known that Oswald’s jail transfer would be delayed almost an hour and he would not have sent the money order. Therefore, they say, Ruby’s shooting of Oswald must have been a spontaneous act.

  Most serious researchers now understand that the shooting of Oswald was not predicated on Ruby’s knowing the exact time of his transfer, but rather conversely that Oswald was transferred only after Ruby was in a position to shoot him.

  This idea of a conspiracy to silence Oswald is based on several known facts. One of the most tantalizing of these is the story told by respected reporter Seth Kantor, author of Who Was Jack Ruby? According to Kantor, George Senator, Ruby’s roommate, was at the Eatwell Café near the police station the morning Ruby shot Oswald. Reportedly Senator went to a pay phone and called Dallas attorney Jim Martin, whom he asked to represent his friend Ruby for murdering the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

  Minutes later news came over the radio that Oswald had been shot. Ruby’s roommate had arranged legal representation before the event.

  Other facts pointing to a conspiracy to kill Oswald include that Ruby was in and out of the police station the entire weekend, stalking Oswald; Ruby (or someone) tried to warn the authorities of Oswald’s death, even relating specific police precautions; and both the mob and the federal government had enough leverage on Ruby to force him to such an act.


  Only a minute or so before the Oswald shooting, Ruby’s initial lawyer, Tom Howard—the one who cooked up his concern over Mrs. Kennedy as a motive—entered the police station and peered through the basement jail office window just as Oswald was being taken off the elevator. Dallas detective H. L. McGee later that day reported, “At this time, Oswald was brought off the jail elevator and Tom Howard turned away from the window and went back toward the Harwood Street door. He waved at me as he went by and said, ‘That’s all I wanted to see.’ Shortly after that I heard a shot.”

  Detective Jim Leavelle, one of the men handcuffed to Oswald, told this author he never understood the reason for the nearly one-hour delay in transferring Oswald, but that captain Will Fritz gave him the order to move just after conferring with FBI and Secret Service officials. Leavelle said he had been standing around still handcuffed to Oswald for nearly an hour past the announced movement time when Fritz turned from the federal officers and said, “Everything’s all set. Take him down.”

  In 1963–1964, the federal government in the form of the Warren Commission offered a simple explanation for Oswald’s death. It stated that Ruby strolled down the police department’s Main Street ramp to the basement minutes after mailing the money order and, by sheer happenstance, arrived within shooting distance of Oswald.

  The House Select Committee on Assassinations turned history around by concluding that

  Ruby probably did not come down the ramp, and that his most likely route was an alleyway located next to the Dallas Municipal Building and a stairway leading to the basement garage of police headquarters. . . . Ruby’s shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous act in that it involved at least some premeditation. Similarly, the committee believed it was less likely that Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby’s intentions. . . . The Committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting. . . . There is also evidence that the Dallas Police Department withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission concerning Ruby’s entry to the scene of the Oswald transfer.

  Ruby himself appeared to support the idea of police aid in reaching Oswald when he told the Warren Commission, “Who else could have timed it so perfectly by seconds. If it were timed that way, then someone in the police department is guilty of giving the information as to when Lee Harvey Oswald was coming down.”

  Then there are the words of mob boss Johnny Roselli. According to columnist Jack Anderson, Roselli once told him, “When Oswald was picked up, the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald.”

  Studying the films of the Oswald shooting has given researchers valuable insight into what happened—particularly a film still held by WBAP-TV in Fort Worth. The station was the NBC affiliate in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex and on November 24, 1963, had a remote truck and cameras at the Dallas police station.

  One camera was set up across the Main Street ramp driveway and was running more than thirty minutes before Oswald’s arrival in the basement. The transfer, originally set for about 10:30 a.m., was delayed by further questioning of Oswald in Fritz’s office. Oswald finally arrived in the basement about 11:20 a.m. He was shot moments later. The camera continued filming long after the shooting.

  This documentary of the incident is intriguing seen in its entirety:

  About a quarter of an hour prior to Oswald’s arrival, a car moves out of the basement garage area and up the Main Street ramp. Its horn is sounded loudly as a warning to people on the sidewalk above. Newsmen and police, both uniformed and plainclothes, mill about in expectation. Then more than a minute or so before Oswald arrives, another horn blows but the sound is more muted, indicating that the car may be farther back in the garage area. Moments later, the jail elevator doors open and Oswald is brought out. “Here he comes,” shout the newsmen, crowding up toward the jail office door. Police push them back forming a corridor through the crowd. One reporter jams a microphone near Oswald’s face and shouts, “Do you have anything to say in your defense?” Just at that moment, Jack Ruby moves in from behind the camera and shoves his .38-caliber snub-nosed revolver into Oswald’s stomach. The bang is quite audible and Oswald cries out in pain.

  Police immediately swarm over Ruby, knocking him to the floor. One of them calls out, “Jack, you son of a bitch!” Both Oswald and Ruby are hustled back into the jail office while stunned newsmen are reporting, “Oswald has been shot! Oswald has been shot!” Soon these reporters are interviewing the officers who, moments before, had been standing unnoticed beside them. Their questions tumble out, “What happened? Did you know that man? Where did he come from?” Their responses are intriguing. More than a couple indicated that they indeed recognized Jack Ruby but they declined to give his name or say more. More than one officer says he thought Oswald’s assailant came from the vicinity of a green car parked back in the police garage.

  Taken in total, this film of the shooting indicates that Ruby came through the parked cars in the basement and may have paused near a green car, perhaps the very car that sounded its horn moments before Oswald was brought down. Some researchers believe this horn honk may have been a signal to move Oswald because Ruby was in position.

  The film also indicates that many of the officers in the police basement recognized Ruby right away.

  Detective Leavelle told this author he both recognized Ruby and saw the gun in his hand as he stepped from the crowd of reporters, but that he was powerless to do anything in the split second it took to shoot Oswald. Leavelle recalled the shooting:

  Out of the comer of my eye I saw Ruby step out from the crowd. He was crouched and he had a pistol. He took a couple of steps and pulled that trigger. Ruby was aiming dead center at Oswald. I had a grip on the top of Oswald’s trousers. When I saw Ruby, I tried to jerk Oswald aside to get him out of the way. I succeeded in turning him. The bullet hit him in the side rather than straight into the stomach.

  Oswald was pushed to the floor by Leavelle while detective L. C. Graves on the opposite side of Oswald grabbed Ruby. Graves told researcher Edward Oxford:

  By the time Ruby got that shot off, why I had him down. His hand was still flexing. I was saying to him, “Turn it loose! Turn it loose!” I pried his finger off the trigger. He was still trying to work it. Empty the gun into Oswald, I expect, if he could. Officers were jumping on Ruby to get him to the floor. Oswald said, “Owww!” and fell back. That was the last thing he ever said.

  Researchers over the years have been struck by an odd fact. Part of the plan for security in the transfer involved focusing attention on an armored car that news reporters were told would carry Oswald to the county jail. The armored car was a decoy. Oswald was to have been transported in an unmarked police car, which was only feet from where he was shot.

  Yet rather than load Oswald into the police car standing by and rush him to a hospital, the mortally wounded prisoner was taken back into the jail office where police gave him artificial respiration while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

  Ruby’s one shot had been remarkably efficient. It transversed Oswald’s lower abdomen, rupturing two main arteries carrying blood to the heart, and tore through the spleen, pancreas, liver, and right kidney.

  Obviously, pumping Oswald’s chest was the worst possible reaction to the internal bleeding the abdominal wound had caused.

  Chief Curry, who had been told to remain in his office for a call from Mayor Cabell, finally arrived in the basement. He noted when the ambulance arrived, “Oswald was already white as a sheet and looked dead as he was loaded on a stretcher.”

  Oswald was taken to Parkland Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:07 p.m.

  Meanwhile, Jack Ruby had been hu
stled out of the police basement and taken, ironically enough, to the jail cell that Oswald had just vacated. Ruby asked his captors, “What happened?” He displayed an odd inability to recall the Oswald shooting with any clarity.

  One of the auto-theft detectives in charge of placing Ruby in jail was struck by his strange behavior immediately after the shooting. Don Ray Archer told British television in 1988:

  His behavior to begin with was very hyper. He was sweating profusely. I could see his heart beating. We had stripped him down for security purposes. He asked me for one of my cigarettes. I gave him a cigarette. Finally after about two hours had elapsed . . . the head of the Secret Service came up and I conferred with him and he told me that Oswald . . . had died. This should have shocked [Ruby] because it would mean the death penalty. I returned and said, “Jack, it looks like it’s going to be the electric chair for you.” Instead of being shocked, he became calm, he quit sweating, his heart slowed down. I asked him if he wanted a cigarette and he advised me he didn’t smoke. I was just astonished at this complete difference of behavior from what I had expected. I would say his life had depended on him getting Oswald.

  On November 27, 1963, a Dallas grand jury indicted Jack Ruby for Oswald’s murder.

  There was never any doubt he did it. After all, only a handful of Americans failed to see what undoubtedly was the most widely viewed homicide in history. The networks ran replays of the shooting over and over. Because of this publicity, a change-of-venue hearing was conducted on February 10, 1964, but changing the location of Ruby’s trial was denied. Jury selection began on February 17 and ended on March 3. The trial began the next day.

  Ten days later, on March 14, 1964, the jury—eight men and four women—returned a guilty verdict, with the judge handing down a death sentence. The verdict was appealed.