Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

 Part 2: Jack Ruby was NOT a Mafioso

I'll start this chapter by pointing out that Ruby denied that he was in the Mafia or had ever been in the Mafia. Now, I realize that people can lie. But, in Ruby's case, he asked for a polygraph test and got one. And he didn't ask for it because he thought he was such a good liar that he could "beat the machine." He asked for it because he intended to tell the truth. And he was asked if he was ever involved with Organized Crime, and he said no.

But, another consideration is the fact that Ruby was willing to accept that he shot Oswald. Even though he never had any thought to do it, and never had any anger at Oswald, and had no memory, no mental image of having shot Oswald, he accepted that he did it only because the Dallas Police told him that he did. But, my point is that if he was willing to admit to killing Oswald, why would he lie about being in the Mafia?

The story starts in Chicago where Ruby, as a teenager, was said to be a runner for Al Capone, meaning that he ran errands for him, delivering stuff. There is no concrete evidence for this; no photograph, no document, no court record, and no testimony with confirming details. For instance, Oswald said that he stood in the doorway during the motorcade, and he said that Bill Shelley was also there. That is a confirming detail because Shelley was there, and he admitted he was there. How could Oswald know he was there unless he was there himself? There is nothing like that for the claim about Ruby working for Al Capone.

But, reportedly, there were a dozen teenage boys who did errands for Al Capone. Even it were true that Ruby was one of them, and I don't know if it's true, it wouldn't make Ruby a Mafioso. And we know what became of Ruby, that he was drafted in 1943 and served in the Army Air Force. After the war, he returned to Chicago and worked with his brother Sam in his marketing ventures. And then in 1947, he moved to Dallas to help his siter Eva in her nightclub businerss. So, the question of whether Ruby ran errands for Al Capone as a teenager has no bearing on the course of his life- regardless of what the truth is. Considering the lack of any concrete evidence for it, and the finiteness of it in terms of the direction Ruby's life went, it hardly matters at all, and it doesn't rise to the level of making him a Mafioso- even if you assume the worst, as people want to do.

So, by the time Ruby moved to Dallas in 1947, there is nothing but that little ditty to support the claim that Ruby was Mafioso.

And I want you to realize that making up stories is part and parcel of the JFK assassination. We were told that Lovelady's kids saw Oswald on tv, and they began to cry because they thought he was their dad. What the motherfolk? Oswald was 5'9 131 pounds. Lovelady was 5'8" 170 pounds. How could Lovelady's kids think that Oswald was their dad? There was another story that Lovelady's wife Patricia saw Oswald from behind at the TSBD and called to him as her husband, which is more horseshit. Remember the story about Oswald going to the firing range and shooting diagonally at other people's targets? Total horseshit, and even some lone-nutters like David Reitz admit it. Before the Gulf War, the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador told Congress that the Iraqi troops took babies out of incubators, leaving them to die, to send the incubators up to Baghdad. A total lie thought up by a Park Avenue advertising firm hired by the Kuwaiti government!

So, whether as a teenager Jack Ruby ran errands for Al Capone is unconfirmed, but, relatively speaking, it is so mild that, if anything, Ruby would have bragged about it. He wouldn't have denied it.

And since that's all there is before Dallas, it means that Ruby got to Dallas with no significant ties to the Mafia. And the Warren Commission agreed with that. And I shall continue in the next installment with Ruby's new life in Dallas, and we'll see if he had any Mafia ties there.