Who Was Jack Ruby ?

Ever since Nov. 24, 1963, when Dallas soon be looking for help from Baker. nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and By June 8, a Saturday, a large group killed Lee Harvey Oswald, various critics of Chicago racketeers began to show up of the Warren Commission have won- at Ruby's Carousel and at two other dered about Ruby's possible involvement nearby strip-show clubs, according to a in a conspiracy to assassinate President confidential report to Dallas Police John F. Kennedy. Seth Kantor, who Chief Jesse E. C. Robert L. May, Jr., recently joined the Washington bureau of who had been head of the vice squad. the Atlanta Constitution and a longtime By Sunday, June 9, May said, one of North American Newspaper Alliance cor- the nation's top vice lords was flown in respondent, knew Ruby in Dallas, spoke for the meetings, landing in a private with him at Parkland Memorial Hospital plane at a small airport south of Dallas. the day Kennedy was shot and was subse- Ruby placed phone calls on June 10 quently questioned by the Warren Com- and 13 to a restaurant between Dallas mission. In 1974, using the Freedom of and Fort Worth, where some of the Information Act, Kantor began to look for hoods were meeting. If they were going the answers to the Jack Ruby puzzle The Part 4 of a series to rearrange any of the action in Dallas, result— WHO WAS JACK RUBY?, pub- he would want a piece of it. lished this month by Everest House. It is a On June 10, Ruby placed a 16- book which Publisher's Weekly says WHO WAS minute phone call to Edna, Texas, to 'rears to shreds' the commission's portrait Juanita Slusher Dale Phillips Sahakian of Ruby. Following is the fourth article in JACK RUBY ? (stage name: Candy Barr), who had a seven-part serialization of Kantor's been paroled from the Texas state book. prison in April on a marijuana-posses- excise and income taxes. sion sentence she had been serving By SETH KANTOR There is ample evidence that Ruby since 1959. Candy Barr was 28 and The Warren Commission said it turned to the mob for financial help separated from her third husband. could "not establish a significant link and had it lined up by November 19 — RUBY HAD BEEN CONTACTING her only two days before Kennedy arrived between (Jack) Ruby and organized steadily since April—five phone calls crime." in Texas. On November 19, Ruby sud- and a personal visit—but not to get her denly told his tax attorney that "a The commission acknowledged that to resume her once-meteoric stripping when Ruby moved to Dallas from friend," never identified, would pro- career. She was under strict parole pro- vide him money to settle the long- Chicago in 1947, he was linked with visions not to strip again, at least until standing tax debts. Paul Rowland Jones, the Chicago 1974, andie could not even visit The mob was Ruby's "friend." And crime syndicate's payoff man to the Ruby could well have been paying off Dallas police. an IOU the day he was "used" to kill "But Ruby has • disclaimed that he was associated with organized-crime Lee Harvey Oswald. As Ruby ex- activities," said the Warren Report, pressed it to Chief Justice Warren in "and law enforcement agencies have their June 7, 1964, session: "I have confirmed that denial." been used for a purpose." It would not A far more accurate picture of Jack have been hard for the mob to Ruby in the six months before he maneuver Ruby through the ranks of a pulled the trigger is one that shows him few negotiable police. having private, hotline phone conver- Paul Rowland Jones, according to an FBI sations with the underworld at two cru- report, said that "from his cial intervals. acquaintance with Ruby he doubted The first was in June 1963, when a that (Ruby) would have become emo- tionally upset and killed Oswald on the group of Chicago gangsters held a clan- destine council in Dallas to plan the spur of the moment. He felt Ruby takeover of local gambling and would have done it for money ... " prdstitution operations. On June 6, an official in the Dallas Dallas under the terms of her release. The second covered the 11 days just district Internal Revenue Service office Ruby had reason to be interested in before President Kennedy's assassina- entered a notation on Jack Ruby's underworld connections Candy Barr tion, when Ruby abruptly signed a records that Ruby's tax attorney, had made in prison, especially her West power of attorney, giving up certain Graham R.E. Koch, had telephoned to Coast contact. California mobster rights to control his own money. He report that Ruby would settle his three- Mickey Cohen, king of the West Coast also suddenly bought and installed a and-a-half-year-old accumulation of rackets, had been her boyfriend in a safe for the first time in his 16 years as $39,129 in federal tax debts "as soon tempestuous affair before she had gone a Dallas nightclub operator, to store as arrangements can be made to bor- behind the walls. extra amounts of money. row money .. (and) will contact this Later that day, June 10, Ruby office not later than June 14." telephoned the unlisted West Coast ACTUALLY, DURING those critical On June 7, Chicago tough-guy number of convicted extortionist Ruby months before the Kennedy assassina- Robert "Barney" Baker was paroled Eichenbaum. They talked for 20 tion, Ruby was heavily in debt. He had from Sandstone Prison. He was a minutes, according to phone company grown desperate for money. His debts massive henchman who pushed people records. Eichenbaum had served his to the federal government alone had around for James Riddle Hoffa, head risen to more than $39,000 in owed of the Teamsters Union. Ruby would time and now was running an invest- got out of jail on perjury charges. Ruby's special Las Vegas connection funds. Ruby said he feared the govern- ments and loan business- in the San Gruber also maintained known con- was Lewis McWillie, the syndicate ment would place liens on his bank Francisco area—with no employees, no nections with hoodlums who worked _gambler Ruby had visited in Cuba in account to obtain the tax money he listed business number in the phone with racketeer Mickey Cohen. 1959. Ruby made a series of phone owed. book and from a house protected by a The next day, November 12, Ruby calls in 1963 to McWillie, who was Ruby's checking account for his high barbed-wire fence and ferocious telephoned Cohen's favorite Texas closely associated with Meyer Lansky's Carousel Club that day, November 19, dogs. Ruby was looking for a way to pastime, Candy Barr, and talked to her hoodlum empire and was installed in in the Merchants State Bank stood at settle his IRS debts. for 14 minutes at her home in Edna. Las Vegas as pit boss at the Thunder- $246.65, which was within a few dollars But mob terms were too stiff for That same day, Paul Rowland Jones bird casino. of what the account usually had in it. Ruby. If he defaulted on payments, for showed up coincidentally from Bir- On May 10, 1963, Ruby had a .38 "Jack always carried a large roll of instance, the penalty was a lot more mingham, Ala. caliber Smith and Wesson Centennial cash," remembers 'Bill Cox, then the- swift and painful than the penalties On November 12 and 13, Jones met revolver shipped to McWillie, accord- loan officer at the bank. "He would.. provided by the U.S. government. So with Ruby and with Gruber. The three ing to the records of Dallas gun dealer just come into the bank to make: Ruby set aside plans to borrow from hadn't conferred since 1947, the year Ray Brantley. change for the club," said Cox, who: the mob. Instead, his tax lawyer con- Ruby moved to Dallas. Gruber told the Ruby didn't want his personal Las vividly remembers Ruby standing in tacted the IRS with a proposal to settle FBI he was in Joplin, Mo., in Novem- Vegas mission to become known and line at a teller's cage on the afternoon` Ruby's debts at about 8 cents on the ber 1963 and just decided to drop in on Ralph Paul, a back-room business of November 22, after President Ken- dollar. The IRS said it would think Ruby "since Dallas, Texas, was about associate of Ruby's, told the Warren nedy was slain. about it. one-hundred miles from Joplin." The Commission Ruby could be very secre- "Jack was standing there crying and- By the start of the second interval, distance is 360 miles. tive about his comings and goings. he had about seven-thousand dollars in November 11, Ruby's financial picture At about this lime, Ruby telephoned Ruby didn't want his club employees to cash on him the day of the assassina-' had grown more bleak. Chicago thug Lenny Patrick, according know when he slipped out of town, in tion. He and I talked, and I warned him On November 11, Ruby telephoned to information the Warren Commis- order to keep them from stealing his that he'd be knocked in the head one Chicago and talked with Jimmy Hoffa's sion received from Hyman Rubens- profits, Paul said. day, carrying all the cash on him." sadistic, 370-pound professional bully, tein, Jack Ruby's brother, and from Two days after the Las Vegas trip, But Ruby wasn't worried about what Barrier Baker.

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