WHO WAS • JACK RUBY? by Gary Cartwright

How a small-time strip joint operator ushered in America's age of violence.

All I know about the best man in my a sign accusing Lyndon Johnson of wedding is he didn't exist. being a traitor, went on television to de- Five days before John F. Kennedy nounce the Peace Corps as "welfare was assassinated in Dallas, I got married socialism and godless materialism, all for the second time. It was a Sunday, at the expense of capitalism and basic the day after I'd covered the SMU- U.S. spiritual and moral values." Arkansas game at the Cotton Bowl, and Zealots from the National Indignation Jo and I—who had known each other Committee picketed a UN Day speech a good three weeks—were convinced by by Ambassador Adlai Stevenson; they this romantic con man who called him- called him Addle-Eye and booed and self Richard Noble that we should drive spat on him and hit him on the head to Durant, Oklahoma, and get married. with a picket sign. When a hundred Richard Noble personally drove us in civic leaders wired strong and sincere his air-conditioned convertible. He paid apologies to the ambassador, General for the blood tests and license. We used Edwin Walker, who had been cashiered his 1949 Stanford class ring in the by the Pentagon for force-feeding his ceremony, and we drank a quart of his troops right-wing propaganda, flew the scotch and sang "Hey, Look Me Over" American flag upside down in front ("Remember when you're down and of his military-gray mansion on Turtle out, the only way is up!") on the way Creek. There were pro-Castro cabals back to Dallas. and anti-Castro cabals that overlapped There was no such person as Richard and enough clandestine commerce to Noble, and the Stanford class ring was fill a dozen Bogart movies. Drugs, arms, bought in a hock shop. Whoever the muscle, propaganda: the piety of the man was who called himself Richard Dallas business climate was the perfect Noble had set up a bogus sales office cover. A friend of mine in banking in a North Dallas apartment complex in- operated a fleet of trucks in Bogota as habited mainly by airline stews and in- a sideline. Airline stewardesses brought domitable seekers and had managed to in sugar-coated cookies of black Turkish ingratiate himself with his personality, hash without having the slightest notion credit cards, liquor supply, and national of what they were carrying. WATS line. A month or so after the Jack Ruby was having one of his assassination, which I assume he had customary feuds with an employee of nothing to do with, Richard Noble his Carousel Club, but this one was vanished in the night. The FBI came serious. His star attraction Jada claimed around asking questions, and that was that she feared for her life and placed the last I heard. Ruby under peace bond. Newspaper ads A lot of bizarre people were doing for the Carousel Club during the week some very strange things in Dallas in the of November 22 featured Bill Demar, fall of 1963, and Richard Noble was a comic ventriloquist—hardly Ruby's only one of them. Madame Nhu bought style, but the best he could do. a dozen shower caps at Neiman-Marcus And someone took a pot shot at Gen- and tried to drum up support for the eral Walker in his own home. People Diem regime in Saigon. even while her said later it was Lee Harvey Oswald. host in the U.S., the CIA, laid plans to assassinate Diem himself. Members of If there is a tear left, shed it for Jack the American Nazi Party danced Ruby. He didn't make history; he only around a man in an ape suit in front stepped in front of it. When he emerged of the Times Herald building. Congress- from obscurity into that inextricable man Bruce Alger, who had once carried freeze-frame that joins all of our minds

82 TEXAS MONTHLY Illustrated by Greg King/SketchPad Studio

500 Club in New Orleans so that the Carousel could compete with the much classier Colony Club (where Chris Colt was stripping) or Barney Weinstein's Theatre Lounge around the corner, where you could catch Nikki Joy. Ruby was childishly jealous of the Weinsteins, who drove Cadillacs and Jaguars and took frequent trips to Las Vegas; and he assuaged his envy by drafting com- plaints to the stripper's union, the Liquor Control Board, and the IRS, accusing the Weinsteins of whatever. Even the FBI, to its sorrow, knew of Ruby's antipathy for the Weinsteins. Of all the Ruby rumors that have flour- ished and died through the years—that Ruby fired at Kennedy from the rail- road overpass, that Oswald visited the Carousel Club a few days before the assassination—only the most current one, that Ruby was an informant for the FBI, seems to have much truth to it. Hugh Aynesworth, a Times Herald reporter who knew Ruby well, verified it: "In 1959 the FBI tried eight times to recruit Jack Ruby. They wanted him as an informer on drugs, gambling, and organized crime, but every time they contacted him, Ruby tried to get his This picture of Ruby and his pets hung on the wall of his Carousel Club office. competitors in trouble. '01' Abe over at the Colony Club is cheating on his to Dallas, Jack Ruby, a bald-headed of the joints on The Strip in 1963, but income tax . . . . 01' Barney at the little man who wanted above all else to that wasn't the point. Jack Ruby ran Theatre Lounge is selling booze after make it big, had his back to the camera. what he considered a "decent" place, hours.' After a while the FBI gave up I can tell you about Jack Ruby, and a "high-class" place, a place that Dallas on the idea." The Weinsteins, not sur- about Dallas, and if necessary remind could view with pride. "Punks" and prisingly, considered Ruby a creep. you that human life is sweetly fragile "characters" who wandered in by mis- I first met Jada about a month before and the holy litany of ambition and take were as likely as not to leave with the assassination. Bud Shrake and I success takes as many people to hell as an impression of Jack Ruby's fist where shared an apartment on Cole Avenue it does to heaven. But someone else will their nose used to be. that autumn, and since we were both have to tell you about Oswald, and what Cops and newspapermen, that's who sportswriters, Ruby considered us he was doing in Dallas that November, Ruby wanted in his place. Dallas cops favored customers. He invited us to when Jack Ruby took the play away drank there regularly, and none of them the Carousel one night, and Shrake from Oswald, and from all of us. ever paid for a drink. Any girl caught came home with Jada. We all became Dallas, Oswald, Ruby, Watts, Whit- hooking in his joint would get man- good friends, and when Jo and I got man, Manson, Ray, Sirhan, Bremer, handled and fired on the spot, but Ruby married a few weeks later, Jada gave Viet Nam, Nixon, Watergate, FBI, leaned on his girls to provide sexual us our first wedding gift—a two-pound CIA, Squeaky Fromme, Sara Moore— pleasures for favored clients. Girl Scout cookie tin full of illegal weed the list goes on and on. Who the hell Jack Ruby was a foul-mouthed, she had smuggled across the border in wrote this script, and where will it end? mean-tempered prude who loved chil- her gold Cadillac with the letters JADA A dozen years of violence, shock, dren and hated ethnic jokes. He didn't embossed on the door. Jada cleared treachery, and paranoia, and I date it drink or smoke. He was violently customs with 100 of the two-pound all back to that insane weekend in Dal- opposed to drugs, though he maintained tins in the trunk of her car. She was las and Jack Ruby—the one essential his own high energy level by popping accompanied by a state politician (who link in the chain, the man who Preludin—an upper—and it was rumored knew nothing about the load) and wore changed an isolated act into a trend. that he operated a personal clearing a mink coat, high-heel shoes, and Jack Ruby had come a long way house for mob drug runners. He was nothing else. The first thing she did at from the ghettos of Chicago, or so he involved in shady financial schemes, customs was open the door and fall out, liked to think. He described the Carou- and the IRS was on his back. A swindler revealing more than the customs official sel Club as a "f—ing classy joint" and who called himself Harry Sinclair, Jr., expected. That was one of Jada's great patrons who challenged his opinion told Secret Service agents that Ruby pleasures, driving around Dallas in her sometimes got thrown down the stairs. backed him in a bet-and-run operation. mink coat and high heels, her The Carousel was a dingy, cramped Ruby supplied cash and introduced orange hair piled high and the coat walkup in the 1300 block of Commerce, Sinclair to likely victims. (H. L. Hunt flaring open. It was a better act than right next to Abe Weinstein's Colony was supposed to have been one.) If the one Ruby paid for. Club and close to the hotels, restau- Sinclair won, he'd collect; if he lost, Ruby planted the story that Jada was rants, and night spots that made down- he'd write a hot check and split. Ruby trained in ballet, had a college degree in town Dallas lively and respectably sin- got 40 per cent of the action. psychology, was a descendant of John ister in those times of official innocence. Sex shocked and disturbed him, and Quincy Adams, and a granddaughter of You can see more flesh in a high school that's how Ruby had his falling out with Pavlova. Jada's name was Adams, Janet biology class now than you could at any Jada, who had been imported from the Adams Conforto, but she hadn't been 84 TEXAS MONTHLY In the limelight at last, Jack Ruby answers reporters' questions after a pre-trial hearing in February 1964. inside a classroom since she ran away good," Ruby said. "Stay away from that company. He dated her on and off for from a Catholic girls school in New woman." "Is that intended as a threat?" eleven years. The reason Ruby couldn't York at age fifteen, and she couldn't Shrake inquired. "No, no," Ruby marry Alice, he told many of his friends, dance her way out of a donut. Her act apologized. "No, it's just that she's an was that he had made his mother a consisted mainly of hunching a tiger- evil woman." deathbed promise that he wouldn't mar- skin rug and making wild orgasmic Unlike the other clubs on The Strip, ry a gentile. Ruby's mother had died in sounds with her throat. As a grand the Carousel was strictly a clip joint an insane asylum in Chicago. climax Jada would spread her legs and where Ruby's girls hustled $1.98 bottles Ruby had the carriage of a bantam pop her G-string, and that's when Ruby of champagne for whatever they could cock and the energy of a steam engine would turn off the lights and the hell get. as he churned through the streets of would start. "We kept the labels covered with a downtown Dallas, glad-handing, passing The other strippers and champagne bar towel," a one-time Ruby champagne out cards, speaking rapidly, compul- girls hated Jada. She was a star and girl told me. The woman, who is now sively, about his new line of pizza acted the part. The bus-station girls married to a well-known musician, went ovens, about the twistboards he was from Sherman and Tyler came and to work for Ruby when she was seven- promoting, about the important people went—Ruby automatically fired any teen. "Jack would tell us to come on he knew, cornering friends and grab- girl who agreed to have sex with him— to the customers, promise them any- bing strangers, relating amazing details but Jada treated Ruby like a dog. She thing—of course he didn't mean for us of his private life and how any day called him a pansy and worse, and she to deliver, but sometimes we did on otx now he would make it big. He once spread word among the customers that own time. The price for a bottle of spotted actress Rhonda Fleming having the hamburgers served out of the Carou- cheap champagne was anywhere from a club sandwich at Love Field and sel's tiny kitchen were contaminated fifteen to seventy-five dollars, We'd joined her for lunch. You could always with dog shit. sit with the customer as long as the spot him at the boxing matches. He'd One night while Jada was ravaging her bottle lasted, drinking out of what we wait until just before the main event, tiger skin, a tourist stepped up and called spit glasses—frosted glasses of when they turned up the lights, and popped a flashbulb in her face. Ruby ice water. We worked for tips or what- he'd prance down the center aisle in threw the startled cameraman down the ever we could steal. a badly dated hat and double-breasted stairs. Jada popped her G-string about "Actually, Jack had a soft heart. He suit, shaking hands and handing out a foot. and Ruby threw her off the was always loaning us money and free passes to the Carousel. stage. All this took a few seconds, but knocking the snot out of anyone who He was always on his way to some for those few seconds Ruby was an gave us a bad time. He liked that image very important meeting, saying he was absolute madman. Then he walked over of himself—big bad protector. He'd going to see the mayor, the police chief, to our table and said in this very weary, fire you, then ten minutes later break some judge, Stanley Marcus, Clint clear, huckster voice. "How's it going, in on you in the john and demand to Murchison. And every day he'd make boys? Need anything?" I don't think he know why you weren't on the floor his rounds—the bank, the Statler Hil- remembered what had just happened. pushing drinks. One girl there got fired ton, the police station, the courthouse, On the morning of the assassination, about three hundred times." the bail-bond office, the Doubleday Ruby called our apartment and asked The only "decent" woman in lack Book Store (Ruby was a compulsive if we'd seen Jada. Shrake said we Ruby's life was Alice Nichols, a shy reader of new diet books), the delica- hadn't. "I'm warning you for your own widow who worked for an insurance tessen, the shoeshine parlor, radio sta- TEXAS MONTHLY 85 tion KLIF. Joe Cavagnaro, one of Jack Ruby's she told him that someone had just KLIF was owned by Gordon Mc- best friends, made the same observa- killed the man who killed the President. Lendon, whom Ruby once identified as tion. He was someone who owned a down- "the world's greatest American." Mc- "Nobody would have trusted Jack town nightclub, Betty Greene said, be- Lendon, who billed himself as "the Old with a secret," he said. "He 'talked too wildered. Oh, God, A. C. thought: Jack Scotchman," made his reputation re- much." Ruby! creating baseball games on the old Cavagnaro is the sales manager of While Ruby was shooting Oswald, Jo Liberty Broadcasting System until the Statler Hilton, a neat, manicured, and I were driving from Columbus, organized baseball conspired to shut gregarious man who exudes the person- Ohio, where I had just met my new him down. The Old Scotchman would ality of downtown Dallas, but he was in-laws, to Cleveland, where the Cow- sit in a soundproof studio a thousand just a man in need of a friend when boys were playing the Browns. The miles from the action he was describ- he arrived in 1955. Cavagnaro was eat- NFL was the only shop that stayed ing, reading the play-by-play from the ing at the Lucas B&B Restaurant next open that weekend. They claimed that ticker, his voice shrill and disbelieving, to the Vegas Club one night when Ruby it was a public service, and in retrospect while his sound man (Dallas' current sauntered in, said hello, and picked up I think they were right. Shrake met me mayor Wes Wise was one of them) beat the check. at the press box entrance and told me on a grapefruit with a bat and faked "He was a fine person," Cavagnaro what had happened. PA announcements requesting that the said. "Much different than the picture "Jack Ruby!" I said. "Why not." owner of a blue 1947 Buick please you read. He had a big heart. He was "Why not," Shrake said, shaking his move his car out of the fire lane. Later good to people. Anyone down on his head. McLendon pioneered the Top Forty luck, he'd help them to the point of If you believe that Jack Ruby was music/news format, introduced a series excess. There was a policeman whose part of a conspiracy, a "double cutout" of right-wing radio editorials, ran un- wife and kid were in an accident, he as they say in the spy trade, then you successfully for Ralph Yarborough's took over a sack of groceries. He'd read must also conclude that the conspiracy Senate seat, and launched a one-man something in the paper about some poor involved dozens or even hundreds of campaign against dirty and suggestive family and he'd go to the rescue. Sure, plotters, including Captain Will Fritz of songs Like "Yellow Submarine" and he had a short fuse, but remember, he the Dallas police department. Time and "Puff, the Magic Dragon." The Old had to police his own business; other- events make Ruby's role in a con- Scotchman, Jack Ruby liked to say, was wise they'd close him up. The vice spiracy almost impossible. Oswald was his idea of "a intellectual." squad was always hanging around his to have been transferred from the city Ruby wasn't a big man—five-foot- place. Some drunk would act up and jail to the county jail at 10 a.m.- nine, 175 pounds—but he had thick Jack would remove him without the vice that was a solid commitment Chief shoulders and arms, and he was fast. He squad being aware it ever happened." Jesse Curry made to his intimates swam and exercised regularly at the Cavagnaro and Ruby had coffee at among the press corps. If Ruby had YMCA, and was a compulsive con- the Statler a few hours after the assas- been gunning for Oswald, if he had sumer of health foods. He had an ex- sination. Ruby was extremely upset, premeditated the crime that 80 million pression that dated from his street- and blamed the Morning News. witnesses saw him commit, he would fighting days in Chicago: "Take the "He said it would be a cold day in hell have been at the police station at 10 play away." It meant to strike first. He before he placed another ad with the a.m. But he wasn't. There were several usually carried a big roll of money, News," Cavagnaro told me. "Jack was reasons for the delay in transferring and when he carried money he also a true patriot. He was also a Democrat. Oswald, but the main one was Will carried a gun. He thought Kennedy had done a lot Fritz's insistence on interrogating the Hugh Aynesworth saw the many per- suspect one more time in city jail. sonalities of Jack Ruby as clearly as for the minorities. Just from a business standpoint, he said, something like that Ruby knew when the transfer was anyone. Aynesworth recalled a night could kill a city." scheduled. He had covered the event at Ruby's second club, the Vegas, when Did he say anything about killing like a reporter on a beat: Parkland Hos- a drunk came in after hours with a Oswald? pital, the assassination site, the press bottle bulging from his inside coat conferences. He was always at the pocket. Ruby took the man's two dol- "I think everyone in Dallas said something to the effect that 'I'd like to center of the action, passing out sand- lars, showed him to a table, then wiches, giving directions to out-of-town smashed the bottle against the man's rib kill that SOB.' " But Ruby did it; that is the differ- correspondents, acting as unofficial cage. Another time Aynesworth encoun- press agent for District Attorney Henry tered a dazed, bleeding wino staggering ence. What did Cavagnaro think when he heard the news? Wade—who, like everyone else on the near the Adolphus Hotel. The wino had scene, simply regarded Jack Ruby as tried to bum a quarter from Ruby, who "I thought, yes, Jack could do that. part of the furniture. Twice during a smashed him in the head with a full I'd seen him hit a guy once for insult- press conference Wade mistakenly whiskey bottle. Yet at times Ruby could ing a girl. The guy practically left his identified Oswald as a member of the be embarrassingly sentimental. feet and flew across the street." violently anti-Castro Free Cuba Com- "Ruby was a crier," Aynesworth re- In the same block as the Statler Hil- mittee. The second time a friendly voice calls. "I mean, he could go to a fire ton and the Dallas police station, in a at the back of the room corrected the and break out crying." spot called the Purple Orchid, Ruby's DA. "No, sir, Mister District Attorney. Aynesworth has been investigating ex-champagne girl joined 80 million Oswald was a member of the Fair Play the events of that week for twelve viewers of Ruby's astounding crime on for Cuba Committee." The voice was years and has concluded that the War- television. The girl turned to the bar- Jack Ruby's. How did he know that? ren Report is mostly accurate. Two tender, who had also worked for Ruby, Well, it was in all the news reports, but nuts, two killings. "In Ruby's case the and she said: "Well, Jack's finally gonna there is a more intriguing theory: an conspiracy theory is totally ridiculous," get recognized." FBI renort overlooked by the Warren he told me. "Ruby would have told Times Herald editorial page editor Commission suggests that one of Ruby's everyone on the streets of downtown A. C. Greene and his wife had just many sidelines was the role of bagman Dallas. Ho, ho, ho, they asked me to driven home from church. Betty Greene for a nonpartisan group of profiteers help kill the President. Of course I'm ran ahead to answer the telephone, and who stole arms from the U.S. military not gonna do it." when A. C. walked in the kitchen door (Continued on page 129)

86 TEXAS MONTHLY Kennedy came to Dallas," Tonahill WHO WAS JACK RUBY? said. He was seated at the desk of his (Continued from page 86) law office in Jasper, in front of a four- and ran them for anti-Castro Cubans. by-eight-foot blowup of Bob, Jackson's Ten o'clock came and went, and still Pulitzer-Prize-winning photograph of Oswald hadn't been transferred. It was the Oswald murder. "He was a big baby after ten when Ruby received a tele- at birth—almost fifteen pounds. That phone call from one of his strippers who could have had something to do with it. lived in Fort Worth. The girl needed His mother died in an insane asylum in money, she needed it right then. Ruby Chicago. His father was a drunk and dressed and drove to the Western Union was treated for psychiatric disorders. A office in the same block as the police brother and a sister had psychiatric station. He couldn't have missed the treatment. Ruby tried to commit suicide crowd lingering outside on Commerce a couple of years earlier. His finger was and on Elm. At 11:17 Ruby wired the once bitten off in a fight. He had a long money. He walked up an alley, passed history of violent, antisocial behavior, through the crowd, and entered the and when it was over he wouldn't re- ramp of the police station, a distance of member what he had done. What pro- about 350 feet. He was carrying better voked him? Maybe the flashbulbs— than $2000 in cash (he couldn't bank that's a common cause in cases of the money because the IRS might grab psychomotor epilepsy—or the TV it) and his gun was in its customary cameras, or the smirk on Oswald's place in his right coat pocket. face." Three minutes after Ruby posted the I asked Tonahill what he thought of Western Union money order, he shot Ruby as a person. Oswald. "He was a real object of pity," Tona- If the world at large was shocked at hill said. "Anytime you see a person that precise minute, consider the be- overflowing with ambition to be some- wilderment of Jack Ruby as the Dallas one, that person is admitting to you cops pounced on him. What was wrong? and the world that he's a nobody. Ruby Had he done something he wasn't sup- was like a Damon Runyon character— posed to do? Didn't everyone want him a total inconsistency." to kill Oswald? What the hell was this? If Jack Ruby was not crazy when he "You all know me," he said pathet- gunned down Oswald, it's a safe bet the ically. "I'm Jack Ruby." trial drove him that way. Day after day in the circus atmosphere of Judge Jack Ruby had to believe that he was Brown's courtroom, Ruby was forced guilty of a premeditated, calculated to sit as a silent exhibit while psychia- murder. The alternative—to admit he trists called him a latent homosexual was crazy—was too awful to contem- with a compulsive desire to be liked plate. and respected, and his own attorneys During the trial he told his chief described him as a village clown. He attorney, Melvin Belli, "What are we didn't even get to tell his own story, doing, Mel, kidding ourselves? We and by the time the Warren Commis- know what happened. We know I did it sion found time to interview him for Jackie and the [Kennedy] kids. I just months later, Ruby was convinced that went in and shot him. They've got us there was a conspiracy to slaughter all anyway. Maybe I ought to forget this the Jews of the world. silly story that I'm telling and get on "In the beginning," Tonahill told me, Own a bottle. the stand and tell the truth." "Ruby considered himself a hero. He The silly story that Belli, Joe Tona- thought he had done a great service for hill, and other members of the defense the community. When the mayor, Earle It's worth the team were attempting to pass along to Cabell, testified that the act brought the jury was that Ruby killed Oswald disgrace to Dallas, Jack started going price to have at least one during a seizure of psychomotor epi- downhill very fast. He got more nervous thing in your life that's lepsy. Belli and Tonahill still subscribe by the day. When they brought in the to this contention. death penalty, he cracked. Ten days absolutely perfect. "The autopsy confirmed it, Ruby had later he rammed his head into a cell Tanqueray Gin, a singular fifteen brain tumors," Joe Tonahill told wall. Then he tried to kill himself with me. Tonahill, a huge, deliberate, friendly an electric light socket. Then he tried experience. man, maintains the Ruby trial "was the to hang himself with sheets," unfairest trial in the history of Texas." Ruby wrote a letter to Gordon Mc- Judge Joe Brown, exhibiting a classic Lendon claiming he was being poisoned downtown Dallas mentality, appointed by his jailers. Many Warren Report Dallas advertising executive Sam Bloom critics take this as additional evidence to handle "public relations" and over- of a conspiracy. If someone did poison ruled the defense on almost every Ruby, it was a waste of good poison. motion. Ruby himself considered hiring An autopsy confirmed the brain tumors, a public relations man—or that's what massive spread of cancer, and a blood he wrote in a letter to his intellectual clot in his leg, which finally killed him. hero, Gordon McLendon. The trial of Jack Ruby may have PRONOUNCE IT "TANKER-RAY" DISTILLED & BOTTLED "Jack Ruby needed help long before been one of the fastest on record. The IN LONDON, 100% NEUTRAL SPIRITS 94.6 PROOF IMPORTED BY SOMERSET IMPORTERS LTD, N.Y. crime was committed in November and the trial began in February. "The climate never cooled off," Tonahill said. "He was tried as it was peaking. There was this massive guilt in Dallas at the time. The only thing that could save Dallas was sending Ruby to the elec- tric chair." Though there are unanswered ques- tions in his mind, Tonahill supports the conclusions of the Warren Report. "If there was a conspiracy, and it was suppressed, it had to involve maybe a million people. That's a bunch of crap. "The worst mistake the Warren Com- mission made was yielding to Rose Kennedy and suppressing the autopsy report. There was something about Kennedy's physical condition the family didn't want made public. I don't know what it was. Possibly a vasectomy— there was a story he had a vasectomy after the death of his baby. Being good "There he goes again—a slave to his own invention." Catholics, the Kennedy family wouldn't have wanted that out." will invent a better way." "Yeah, but someday someone One close participant in the bizarre And now it has happened. happenings of Dallas who isn't satis- fied with the Warren Commission in- vestigation is Bill Alexander, the salty, rr acid-tongued prosecutor who did most of the talking for Henry Wade at the Ruby trial. Alexander and former state Attorney General Waggoner Carr both urged the commission to investigate FBI and CIA personnel for information linking the agencies to Lee Harvey Oswald. There is no indication that such an investigation took place. "I'm in Washington telling the com- With a Texas Fireframe* in your fireplace, you assemble logs as above. mission to check out this address I found in Oswald's notebook, in his They act as a self-fueling furnace. Adjustable; accommodates wide range apartment, the day of the killing," of log sizes. Alexander recently told the Houston Chronicle. "None of those Yankee hot • Flames are steady and fully visible. dogs are paying any attention to me. • No stirring or poking required. "So I say 'Waggoner, c'mon, let's get • Radiant energy is beamed into your room and away from fireplace a cab.' We jump in and tell the driver to take us to this address. We get there walls and flue. and what do you think it is? The god- • The Texas fireframe quickly pays for itself in the fuel you save. damn Russian Embassy. Now, what does that tell you? • The fire starts with paper only as primer. No kindling, gas jets, starting "To this day, I don't think anybody fluids, frustrations. from the commission followed that up." Although Alexander, known to mem- a Simple, easy-to-follow instructions, a little experience, and you have bers of the press as "Old Snake-Eyes," years of fire-making economy, convenience, comfort, and pleasure. was the main reason Henry Wade got • Attractively packaged; easy assembly. all those death penalties that the leaders of Dallas were convinced would deter • Fits any fireplace 26" in front, 22" in back, 15" deep or larger. crime, he is no longer on the DA's staff. Price: $22.50. Add 5% Texas sales tax, $2 for handling and mailing, Shortly after his infamous declaration that Chief Justice Earl Warren didn't and need impeaching, he needed hanging, write now to: Alexander resigned to enter private practice. When I telephoned Alexander for an interview, he told me he didn't want TEXAS FlREFRANIE Co. to talk about the assassination. "I'd like to kick the dogshit out of P.O. Box 3435 every Yankee newspaperman, club the Austin, Texas 78764 f—ers to the ground," he said. You can *Patent Pend. still see them, right up to this day, hang- Cartoon courtesy or American Chemical Society@ 1975 ing around the Book Depository,"

130 TEXAS MONTHLY ■

Alexander went on. "Fat-ass Yankees in shorts and cameras getting the roofs of their mouths sunburned. A carload of Yankees pulled up to my friend Miller Tucker and said [Alexander slipped into an Eastern accent], 'Officer, where did Kennedy get shot?' 01' Miller taps the back of his head and says 'Right here, friend, right here.' " That afternoon I met Alexander in his law office and he told me about his Manchurian Candidate theory. "I worked a solid two years on this," he began. "I read the entire twenty-six volumes of the Warren Report just to protect myself, and tracked down every lead I could get my hands on, and I don't have any evidence that anyone acted with Oswald. "Now," he said, raising a finger and slipping into third person singular so that it would be clearly understood he was speaking hypothetically, "Who knows how a person has been brain- washed—motivated—hypnotized? "A man is cashiered out of the Marine Corps—he moves to Russia— he marries the niece of the head of the OGPU spy school—he stays a certain amount of months, then turns up at the American Embassy and says, 'King's X, fellows, I want to go home. Do you think you people might could pay my way back to New York?' Wouldn't somebody debrief that man? Hell, the FBI knew he was in New Orleans. They sent his folder to Dallas before the assassination." On the other hand, Alexander has not the slightest doubt that Ruby acted Give the Potion of Love. alone in a legally sane, premeditated manner. Alexander and Dr. John T. maretto di Saronno. The Bowl of Love Holbrook were among the first to ques- tion Ruby after the shooting. rare liqueur of love in this Stir 1/2 bottle of Amaretto di Saronno with each quart ( non-alcoholic) egg nog In a punchbowl. "I'm paraphrasing now," Alexander beautiful new veloured gift box. Add Ice cubes. Sprinkle crushed Amaretti said, "but it was like he wanted to open Historians tell us that in 1525 cookies or nutmeg over the top. the Jack Ruby Show on Broadway, get a young widow created the original a TV show, write a book. He asked me if I thqught he needed an agent." Amaretto di Saronno and gave it as Alexander spat tobacco juice in a can a gift of love to Bernardino Luini, and said: "Jack Ruby was about as the artist who immortalized her in a handicapped as you can get in Dallas. famous fresco in Saronno, Italy. First, he was a Yankee. Second, he was Her name is lost to history but a Jew. Third, he was in the nightclub business. what remains is the original "That's horseshit about him being a Amaretto di Saronno with the magic Discover the many other ways police buff. He didn't think any more of its intriguing taste and provoca- to use Italy's rare liqueur of love. of a policeman than he did a pissant. tive bouquet. Write for our free drink recipe book- It was just good business. The vice We've even left a rose along- let and food recipe booklet, squad kept plus and minus charts on the joints 'cause the licenses came up side our name as a reminder of "Gourmet Secrets!'Address: Foreign for renewal each year. The vice squad how it all began 450 years ago. Vintages, Inc., 98 Cutter Mill Road, can kill a joint if they get in the wrong Try Amaretto di Saronno Great Neck, New York 11021. mood. Who wants to drink beer with a tonight. In this very seasonal way: Dept. 083. harness bull looking over his shoulder? "Quit kidding me about how much Ruby loved people. Or how much he loved the Kennedys. Hell, where was he Amaretto di Saronno. while the motorcade was passing The Original Amaretto. From the Village of Love. through downtown? In the goddamn Dallas News, placing an ad for his 56 Proof. Imported by Foreign Vintages. Inc. Great Neck, N.Y. C 1975. club." 132 TEXAS MONTHLY The ex-prosecutor sat back and would he do? The Dallas Jack Ruby Was Jack Ruby a typical American? sighed. knew is gone. "Ruby wanted to be liked, to be re- "It's a real experience to see how That Dallas was a city of shame, but spected, to be successful according to real, factual history can be distorted in it wasn't a city of hate. It was ignorant, the value system of our society," Lati- ten years so that people who lived it but it wasn't mean. Its 'vision was mer says. "He was a cheap success, but can't recognize it." genuine and sincere, but it had the heart in his own mind he had class. Violence of a rodent. In the subterranean tunnels was admissible to his system—tough- And the end of all our exploring of those proud spires of capitalism and ness—let no one push you around. Will be to arrive where we started free enterprise crawled armies of con- "You asked me was it the climate of And know the place for the first rime. men and hustlers, cheap-shot artists and the times that made Ruby do what he —T. S. Eliot, money changers, profiteers and ideo- did? No. Jack Ruby would do the same from Little Gilding logues, grubbers, grabbers, fireflies, thing today." eccentrics, and cuckoos. Dallas was just We talk to stripper Chastity Fox, On a warm day twelve years re- like every place else, except it couldn't who played the role of Jada. Chastity moved from that time of Ruby and admit it. It was not Lee Harvey Oswald had never met Ruby or Jada; she was a Oswald, my son Mark and I walk the and the murder of John F. Kennedy junior in an all-girls Catholic school in streets of downtown Dallas and know that proved what Dallas was really like, Los Angeles when Kennedy was assas- the place for the first time. but Jack Ruby and the murder of Lee sinated. She is fascinated that I had The Blue Front where you could eat Harvey Oswald. known them and asks me four ques- the world's best oxtail soup and watch We drive out Turtle Creek past Gen- tions for every one I ask her. Chastity Willie sweat in the potato salad is gone. eral Walker's prim gray fortress. On the looks something like Jada, except better. The Star Bar is gone. Hodges, Joe front lawn, a crude,. hand-lettered She refused to do Jada's tiger-rug Banks, the Oyster Bar, the musty little marquee said DUMP ESTES, a ref- hunch in the play. "Her show was si book stores with their dark volumes, erence, I suppose, to the Dallas super- nasty," Chastity says. "I'm more of a the morn and dad shops, the smell of intendent of schools who apparently dancer." Chastity's best act is belly pizza, of chili rice, of peanut oil, of wasn't resisting integration fast enough. dancing, a subject she teaches at the stale beer, of perfume, lost now in the Like downtown Dallas, the General is University of Texas at Arlington. tomb of our memory. What you smell quieter these days. Ken Latimer, a resi- But like Jada she's come through some twelve years later is concrete. What dent actor at the Dallas Theater Center, tough places—she remembers stripping you see are the walls of a glass canyon. tells us, "General Walker and his people in the Lariat Bar in Wyoming while a The corner of Commerce and Akard, used to picket us fairly regularly, but three-piece Western band played "Won't which used to bustle with beautiful they've been quiet for some time now." You Ride in My Little Red Wagon?" women in short skirts and quick men Latimer played the lead in the DTC "The club action in Dallas is different with briefcases, is nearly deserted, ex- production of Jack Ruby, All-American now than it was in Ruby's time," cept for a few Hare Krishnas and some Boy, a drama that attempted without Chastity says. "There are still a few clip delegates to the Fraternal Order of the much success to answer the question: joints like Ruby ran, and there are Eagles. The Carousel, the Colony, the Theatre Lounge, the Horseshoe Bar, the whole Strip has been leveled and turned into a gigantic parking lot for the in- visible occupants of the glass skyscrap- ers. The big department stores and the EXPLORE OUR WORLD theaters and the good restaurants have gone to the suburbs. Twelve years ago you could have dropped a net six- IT HAS EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN teen blocks square from the Republic National Bank tower and been fairly sure that you had caught a quorum of the Dallas oligarchy. There is still a on its own 200 acre feeling of affluence, but the vortex of estate located just power has moved to the suburbs, out 5 minutes from Stemmons, out Greenville, out North- picturesque Christiansted. west Highway, out to Old Town—what- 18 hole golf course, ever Old Town is. 8 championship tennis There are blacks on the city council, courts, 3 beaches, and the mayor is a former grapefruit hitter for the Old Scotchman. The Old watersports center. Scotchman long ago sold KLIF and is Truly the most seldom seen anymore; he is a Howard complete vacation Hughes figure. dabbling, so it is said, resort on St. Croix, in multinationals and worldwide real in the Virgin Islands estate. When the sun disappears behind or the whole Caribbean. the canyon walls, what you see in down- town Dallas is blacks with mops and brooms, waiting for an elevator. Slack- faced office workers wait for a bus in front of the old Majestic Theater, and black hookers with beehives appear to show the Fraternal Order of Eagles the sights. We are repress I wonder: could there be a Jack Ruby Call or write him f ervations and information. in 1975? Where would he go? What Box T, 315 E. 72nd sttiltwt,roo2i, phone (212) 586-3070.

TEXAS MONTHLY 133 three, maybe four, traditional strip places where you can go watch a show and not get hustled. The big thing now is topless. The traditional strip show— we call it parading—is dying out. It's sort of sad. It is an American tradition, but it dates back to the Forties and Fifties when you couldn't see ass or boobs walking down the street." Although she never knew Jack Ruby, Chastity had heard of him for years from her agent, Pappy Dolsen. Pappy was one of Ruby's contemporaries, an old-time club owner and booking agent, a gentleman tough from a truly tough time. Pappy had told the story many times how Ruby telephoned him the day before Oswald was killed and said: "I know I did you wrong, Pappy, but I'll make it up to you. I'm going places La Fbsada in McAllen and Laredo. in show business, and when I do, you're going with me," Each, a special place in time. Pappy has had a heart attack and is Truly the finest accommodations in either city, La Posada in the intensive care ward at Baylor combines 18th century Spanish charm with 20th century Medical Hospital, but Chastity shows convenience. Restful. Luxurious. And only minutes from us a letter that Ruby had written to Old Mexico. Banquet and meeting facilities, too. Find out Pappy years ago. It said: We regret, at this time, we are more from our free brochures. Write: unable to book the "act" you have for us—I'm sure its as wonder- ful as you mention but the price is MOTOR HOTELS too f—ing high. Hoping to con- 100 N. Main McAllen, Texas 78501 512/686-5411 1000 Zaragoza Laredo. Texas 78040 512/722-1701 front you on a more senseable base in the future. I remain. .***Mobil Travel Guide Rating Jack Ruby There is one more thing to do. Mark was six years old, a Dallas first-grader when Kennedy was murdered. He doesn't remember much of it. But there was an article in Look, written by a Fina Oil Company executive named Jack ar The Carpet Shea, which mentioned that at one pub- lic school in Dallas, children cheered the news of the assassination. Jack Shea chosen by Professionals was a good Catholic and a top-level businessman, but his gut feeling that The ultimate in carpet for heavy traffic Dallas was big enough to hear the truth areas.... Karastan ...carpet specified from one of its own was a serious mis- calculation, Shea was fired. He is now for the Corporate Offices of a partner, in a Los Angeles ad agency. Slaughter Brothers, Inc., by Jo and i named our son Shea after Marguerite Green, ASID the Fina executive, and I was curious Marguerite Green to read the article one more time. Interiors, Inc. Funny, I had never told Mark or his sister Lea how Shea got his name. I hadn't thought about it for a long time. Too many things had happened. Twelve years ago, when the first announcement that the President had been shot was broadcast over the PA system at Richardson Junior Huth School, Gertrude Hutter, an eighth- grade teacher, began crying. Bob Dud- ■ 7 ney, who is now a reporter for the Times Herald, recalled the moment. She turned her back long enough to com- reiser and associates pose herself, then addressed her class carpets for the professional specifier with these prophetic words: "Children, we are entering into an age of violence. There is nothing we can Su qe 116, OaA Lawn Plaza. 1444 Oak Lawn Ave.. Dallas, Texas 75207. (214) 741-1861 do about it, but all of us must stay calm, and above all, civilized." Jo

134 TEXAS MONTHLY