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

Dorothy Kilgallen was murdered. I presume you know that. The question is why.  It was not because of anything she figured out about the JFK assassination. What could she have figured out? That it was a conspiracy? That the Mafia was involved? They had no need to kill over that. That became Official Government Story #2. Just a few years later, the HSCA arrived at that conclusion. 

And even if Dorothy believed that, say, LBJ was involved, that was already taken. Right away in 1964, J. Evetts Haley came out with his book, A Texan Looks at Lyndon in which he accused LBJ of killing Kennedy. So, it was too late for Dorothy to get a scoop on that either. 

And what about the idea that Jack Ruby was involved in killing Kennedy? That's just plain false. Do you think she thought that? Well, they definitely weren't going to kill her over that idea. That alternative idea came directly from government and establishment sources, and they have been nursing it for over half a century. Just last year,  2019, the whole mainstream media broadcast that Ruby went to watch the fireworks in Dealey Plaza with somebody. They all spewed it, even though there isn't a snowball's chance in Hell that it's true. 

You need to understand something: the same people who killed Kennedy killed Oswald. And they had to. They fabricated all this phony evidence against him which he and his lawyer would have destroyed in court. The trial of Oswald would have turned into the trial of the FBI. They could not only not let Oswald go to trial, they couldn't even let him speak to a lawyer. They had to kill him before that happened. That's how desperately they needed him dead. 

So, they were behind the whole operation to kill Oswald. But, they knew before they did it that some people were not going to accept the story they were going to tell of Ruby doing it to save Jackie a trip to Dallas. They knew that the same people who were going to doubt Oswald's lone nuttery were going to doubt Ruby's lone nuttery. And so, they fabricated an alternate story for Ruby, where he was a gangster, a Mafioso, a hustler, a con man, with a long history of violence and unlawfulness.  And, they didn't mind a bit if people wanted to think that he was involved in killing Kennedy, and that he killed Oswald to silence him. This was all safe ground for them. It was safe because it was polar-opposite to the truth, which is that Ruby didn't kill anybody, that he was mentally ill and strung out on drugs and tricked into believing that he shot Oswald. 

But, let's talk about what Dorothy Kilgallen found out from her two interviews of Ruby. And make no mistake: it was those two interviews that got her killed. They killed her precisely because of those two interviews. But, they didn't know what was said. Nobody did, and nobody does, to this day.  Anything that anyone says about it is pure speculation- and that includes me. But, I'm still going to speculate. 

First, it's very significant that there were two interviews. It means that she established rapport with Ruby at the first interview.  He apparently did not feel threatened by her. She did not make him feel uncomfortable and uneasy. He probably enjoyed talking to her. 

So, what transpired between them? What was said? Well, Dorothy asked the questions, right? So, what did she ask him? I presume she asked him why he shot Oswald. so, what did he say? Ruby said, in essence, that he didn't know; that he went to the garage; that he was jumped on by the police; that he was dragged up to the 5th floor, where they told him that he shot Oswald. He told her that he had no intention of shooting Oswald; that he had no motive to shoot Oswald; that he had no desire to do it. He brought his dog along; he had his day planned; and he certainly did not go there expecting to destroy his life and abolish his freedom. 

And you can be absolutely certain that he told Dorothy that no one in the Mafia put him up to it, that no one threatened him, that there was no conspiracy whatsoever.  Now, how do I know that? I know it because he said it over and over again to others. He even made a joke about it, saying "no one knew a thing about it, not even me."

So, Dorothy heard all that, but what else did she discern about him? Well first, she had to realize that he didn't fit the mold of cold-blooded killer, or hit man, that Ruby was made out to be. Instead, he was docile, submissive, not arrogant, and not the least bit hostile. She must have picked up that he was very respectful, including respectful of authority and very patronizing to the Dallas Police and Henry Wade, even though they were prosecuting him and painting him as a horrible person and trying to get him the death penalty. Even with all that, he didn't have it in him to be combative towards them. 

So, Dorothy must have figured out that the real personality of this man was polar-opposite to the image that was being painted- in and out of court. Jack Ruby was a devout Jew, a patriotic American, who was not aggressive- physically, verbally, or otherwise, and he had a soft, rather childlike way about him, that he was NOT cunning; he was not discreet; and he wasn't even smart. I think she must have realized all that and realized that no one would have trusted this man with a role in the JFK assassination. No one would have wanted to rely on him for anything, and certainly not to keep his mouth shut, that he was a scatterbrain and a numbskull.  

Now, I am not going to suggest that Dorthy figured out that Ruby was not the Garage Shooter. Unlike me, she didn't have a computer with which to enlarge, brighten, and enhance images. All she had to go by were the images of the Shooter in the newspapers, which consisted mainly of the Beers and Jackson photos. And actually, that was enough to determine that the Shooter wasn't Ruby. But still, I don't assume she arrived at that.  But, I think she did arrive at this: 

1) Jack Ruby was a different person than the one being depicted in court and in the media, and he did not seem like a killer.

2) Jack Ruby was not right in his head. There was a childlike innocence about him, or I could call it a puppy dog innocence. I think she read him as being honest and not deceitful. And:

3) I think she believed him when he told her that he had no thought whatsoever to kill Oswald. And again, there is no reason for any rational person to doubt him because if he was thinking of killing Oswald, he would not have brought his dog along, and, he would have gotten there at the time the transfer was scheduled to take place, which was 10 AM.  If you are plotting to kill someone, you need to be meticulous about it, don't you?  

4) So, I think that Dorothy figured out that this simple man with a childlike simplicity and childlike innocence must have been manipulated to go there, that he hadn't conspired with anyone, but that others conspired against him. He was somehow manipulated . That's what she figured out. 

It must have been very baffling to her because, like everyone else, she probably accepted that it was Ruby in the photos and films- for the reason that her mind had nowhere else to go. Remember that James Bookhout did not attend the Ruby trial- not one day of it. She may not even have known his name. But, she probably had the eerie feeling that Ruby came across more like a victim than a perpetrator. And she was probably determined to resolve the descrepancies and contradictions about him that she was faced with. 

But now, we have to look at it from the standpoint of those who gave the order to kill her. They may have feared that Ruby told her flat-out that he didn't do it, that he didn't remember doing it and  couldn't imagine himself doing it. And that is essentially what he told her except without the arrogance that you or I would have had in saying it. But, they must have feared that a light was going to go on in her head in which she said to herself, "Wait! Maybe he really didn't do it! Maybe his description of what happened is exactly what transpired." If they thought there was even a 10% chance that she was going to arrive at that, then they had to kill her. And I really think she was gravitating in that direction. I suspect that she felt great sympathy for Ruby. And I think she was driven to pursue the angle of Ruby as framed victim- in some way.   

Again, there was NOTHING she could have found out about the JFK assassination that would have warranted killing her. And the fact was that she had already published some columns alleging a Mafia connection- so, it was too late. I think she liked Jack Ruby. I think she had rapport with him. I think she was a good judge of character- and I think she was confident that Ruby was being truthful with her and would be if she spoke to him again. And who is to say she wouldn't have? In fact, the rapport and mutual respect and understanding between them would have just grown and grown. And that's why they had to kill her. 

Jack Ruby was innocent. Dorothy Kilgallen didn't figure that out, but she did figure out that the portrait painted of him by the media was completely false, and that was going to lead her through the Looking Glass, and they couldn't risk that. That is why they killed her. 

Jack Ruby had NOTHING to do with the JFK assassination. Absolutely nothing. And he had nothing to do with the Oswald assassination either except that he was manipulated to go down the ramp and fall into the waiting trap.