Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (81 page)

But even more evidence of Ruby's move as part of a mob offensive into
Texas came from former Dallas County sheriff Steve Guthrie. During the
late 1930s and early 1940s, Dallas gambling operations were virtually
wide open under the control of homegrown bosses like Benny "Cowboy"
Binion and Herbert Noble. However, by the late 1940s a bloody feud
between these two top gamblers had resulted in Noble's bombing death and Binion's departure for the quieter environs of Las Vegas. It was then
that the Chicago mob made its bid fora takeover in Dallas.

In late 1946, an emissary from the Chicago syndicate named Paul
Roland Jones made contact with 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, but later was indicted for
attempted bribery when Guthrie and Butler blew the whistle.

In their Third Interim Report, the Kefauver Senate Committee stated:

Some indication of how modern crime syndicates operate and how they
open new territory is apparent from . . . the extraordinary testimony of
Lt. George Butler of the Police Department of Dallas, Texas. Lieutenant
Butler was approached by a member of the Chicago Mob by the name
of Paul Jones . .. Jones stated that 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 twelve-and-a-half percent cut on
the profit if the syndicate were permitted to operate in Dallas under
"complete protection." Jones also stated that syndicate operations were
conducted by local people who "front" for the Chicago Mob.

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 mob connected,
they had to ignore an FBI interview with Jones in which he stated that
when he first met Ruby, both Weinberg and Labiola told him Ruby was
"all right" as far as the syndicate was concerned. Weinberg and Labriola
were later 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 were 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 and an early
assassination researcher, 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 claim that shortly after Ruby killed Oswald, Butler approached
them with the "important" information that young Oswald was actually
the illegitimate son of Jack Ruby!

Whether or not Ruby participated in the 1947 bribe attempt, it is certain
that his relationship with 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 Hymie 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.

The Warren Commission and subsequent assassination investigations
have attempted to portray Jack Ruby as a rambunctious, self-ingratiating
nightclub owner simply striving for success in a rather shabby businessalmost a Damon Runyan racetrack character.

It may also be significant that Ruby was much better connected socially
in Dallas than has been publicly stated by federal investigations. As a
man-about-town, Ruby was well known not only to police and lawenforcement 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, allegedly 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.

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

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 one of Jimmy Hoffa's
"roving organizer[s] and ambassador[s] 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, 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, that 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 as 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 he had met with
Ruby and other Teamster officials in the fall of 1961, including Richard
Kavner, who was described by author Dan Moldea 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 connections with Ruby, and someone within the Warren Commission
helped 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 was jailed on a narcotics charge in the early
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, which 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 hitman 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.

Murray "Dusty" Miller: A former secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters
International who was associated with several underworld figures, Miller
received a person-to-person call from Ruby on November 8, 1963,
according to the Warren Commission.

Lenny Patrick: According to his sister, Ruby also placed calls to Patrick
in late 1963. Identified in a 1965 U.S. 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 exconvict 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. His mutilated body was found in an oil drum in Florida's
Biscayne Bay in 1976 just as 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 were made to the Warren Commission.

Irwin S. Wiener: A close associate of both Hoffa and 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, Dino Cellini, and others in
gambling operations in Havana, Cuba, before being thrown out by
Castro. One of Ruby's closest friends, McWillie was sent guns by Ruby
while still in Cuba and, in fact, was sent a .38 Smith & Wesson by
Ruby 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's 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 simply his
friends and associates. The record shows his involvement in a number of
criminal activities including gambling, narcotics, prostitution, and gun
running.

In an interview with FBI agents on December 6, 1963, a small-time
bookie named William Abadie told how he had worked briefly for Ruby writing gambling "tickets" as well as serving as a "slot machine and
jukebox mechanic."