The News , Jack Ruby, Oswald and the

Part 5 of a series Following is the fifth article in a seven- based on other information we had part serialization of Kantor's book. from the CIA and FBI in April 1964. I World now believe the FBI should be asked to By SETH KANTOR disclose all information about the pur- poses of those 1959 contacts with Ruby and the information he was asked to After the Jack Ruby trial ended, provide, if they have not already done Leon Hubert and Burt Griffin, the so." Warrren Commission's two Ruby ex- Cuban perts, tried to convince commission THE FBI SO FAR has said the con- tacts were useless, that Ruby provided members in memorandums on March of jail in Cuba (at a time when Castro no worthwhile information. But what 19 and April 1, 1964, that there was had several U.S. underworld figures Griffin is suggesting here is something "substantial evidence" showing Jack jailed there). Ruby meets McKeown in different, when he asks that the FBI Ruby had maintained unexplained Kemah, Texas, and offers $25,000 for make public now what kinds of infor- Cuban associations. But their efforts a personal introduction to Castro. mation the bureau was seeking from were blocked by the CIA and dis- March 11—Ruby meets with Dallas Ruby in 1959. couraged by others on the commission FBI agent Flynn and agrees to become "If Hoover concealed information staff. an FBI contact. that the 1959 FBI contacts were about Therefore, the Warren Commission March 15—Throughout this time Cuban matter," Griffin says, "such a never explored the possible links of period, Ruby telephones and meets concealment Ruby's Cuban activities in 1959 with would be important and with Tom Davis, a gun-runner with serious." his FBI contacts that year and with CIA ties, in Beaumont, Ruby's totally unexplained use of a April 2—The Dallas police depart- safety deposit box at the time of his By December 1977, the FBI released ment's Criminal Intelligence Division Cuban and FBI interests. some, but not all, information out of lists Ruby and syndicate gambling- RUBY RENTED BOX 448 at his bank agent Flynn's file on Ruby, It shows house operator Lewis J. McWillie in Dallas, the Merchants State, where that Ruby was listed as a PCI (potential among those connected with profes- he maintained a small business check- criminal informant) and was contacted sional gambling activities in the com- ing account and no savings account. on matters concerning the interstate munity. He'd had no known safety deposit box transportation of gambling devices, lot- April 27—Castro travels to Houston in 11 previous years as a Dallas resi- tery tickets and obscene matter—along after completing a controversial trip of dent—and he rented the box the day with questions relating to the FBI's several days to Washington, New York before the first of his regular meetings general investigative intelligence file, and Boston. Ruby rents safety deposit as an undercover FBI contact with FBI which ranged broadly enough to box 448 at Merchants State Bank. agent Charles W. Flynn. include such categories as organized April 28—Castro meets with Then he used the box 12 times in crime and Cuba. McKeown and,offers him a post in the 1959, in exactly the same seven-month Ruby's movements at key points in Castro government, but McKeown is stretch in which was meeting nine 1959 indicate a proximity of his Cuban, serving a five-year probated federal times with Flynn. FBI and bank-box affairs, as this sentence as a gun-runner and would That seven-month period included chronology shows: become a U.S. fugitive if he takes off in much of Ruby's known Cuban-related Jan. 1—Fidel Castro takes control of Castro's private plane, as he is invited trips and meetings in 1959. Cuba. to do. McKeown turns down the offer But even as they were being thwarted Jan. 8—Ruby is believed to have at the airport. Ruby meets with Flynn within the commission from digging made his first contact on this date with for the first time in his role as under- into Ruby's Cuban connections, Robert Ray yy "Dick" McKeown, a cover contact. Bashore, Texas, gun-runner who had Hubert and Griffin saw no special rela- May 7—Ruby uses his safety deposit been supplying Castro with arms. tionship between Ruby's meetings with box. Feb. 1—Ruby tells McKeown he the FBI and his activities concerning May 15 (approx.) —Elaine Mynier Cuba. represents a source in Las Vegas who "I assumed in 1964," says Griffin wants to get three Castro prisoners out now, "that the FBI contacts with Ruby in 1959 were rather routine requests NEW YORK, NEW YORK for information about vice and MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1978 organized crime . I don't remember if it occurred to me in 1964 that such FBI contacts in 1959 might have been in connection with Cuban matters; but I doubt that I ever had that in mind, Connection (cq) of Dallas, who is dating McWillie, carries a coded message to Cuba from Ruby. She relates the message to McWillie. July 1—Ruby uses the safety deposit (he uses it only four times more in the, May 7—Ruby uses his safety deposit box. next 17 months and, when authorities box. July 3—Norman "Roughhouse". crack it open late in 1963, it is empty.) May 22—Ruby uses the safety Rothman, a U.S. Mafia figure and deposit box. Cuban racketeer who is an associate BEFORE HE QUIT the House of Assassinations Committee at the end June 2—Again, Ruby uses the box. Florida numbers-racket boss Santo of March 1977, chief counsel Richard June 5—Ruby meets with FBI agent Trafficante Jr., is arrested in connec- A. Sprague saw to it that Trafficante Flynn. tion with an $8.5 million Canadian was found and subpoenaed to testify June 18—Ruby meets again with bank heist of convertible bonds. before the House panel. Flynn. Federal • authorities link the Canadian June 22—Ruby uses his safety job with a large theft of arms from an (Trafficante refused to be ques- tioned in a closed session. When he deposit box. Ohio National Guard armory and with showed up before cameras and repor- Rothman's $6,000 rental agreement on ters on March 16, 1977, he made a an airplane, as part of a massive Cuban point of refusing to answer any ques- gun-running project. tions posed by Sprague and committee July 7—Ruby meets with agent members, to demonstrate that he Flynn. would not have to be otherwise July 8—The Castro cabinet decides silenced. that Trafficante, key figure in the Of special significance it Traffi- Lansky gambling empire in Havana, is cante's knowledge of what went on at to be expelled from Cuba along with the Churchill Farms estate of Carlos two others. Trafficante, meanwhile, is held in a Havana-area jail. Marcello, the tough little Mafia boss of New Orleans, when Marcello called in July 9—Ruby uses his safety deposit box. other organized-crime. Trafficante was invited to attend the July 20—Ruby uses the safety sinister, turbulent meeting in which deposit box again. Marcello demanded Kennedy blood. July 21—Ruby meets with agent As a result, Trafficante knew Flynn. intimately what transpired at the Aug. 1 (approx.)—A dinner Ruby Churchill Farms meeting. shares in an airport restaurant with one That same month, September 1962, of the Fox brothers (operators of the Trafficante confided to Jose Aleman, a mob-connected Tropicana casino in prominent member of the Cuban exile Havana) and two criminally associated community in Miami, that the Ken- Dallas attorneys, David C. McCord and nedys could not be trusted. Alfred E. McClane, appears to have Trafficante complained that Robert occurred in July or August. Kennedy, the attorney general and Aug. 6—Ruby meets with agent Marcelto's bitter enemy, was harassing Flynn. Jimmy Hoffa, portrayed by Trafficante Aug. 3I—Ruby meets again with as a friend of the working class. As a Flynn in the week of his departure for result, "Louis Santos" said Cuba. menacingly, President Kennedy would Sept. 4—Ruby uses his safety deposit get what was coming to him. box and then departs for Cuba. Aleman disagreed. He recalls argu- Sept. 5—According to estimates of ing that Kennedy would be re-elected, Ruby and others, he spends next according to George Crile several days, including a long Labor III, Washington editor of Harper's, who Day weekend, in Cuba with McWillie. talked with Aleman. Ruby also visits gangster "Louis San- "No, Jose," said Trafficante. "He is tos" (an assumed name used by Traffi- going to be hit." cante) in jail more than once, according In 1961, Ruby was involved in a plan to a British witness. to sell British Enfield rifles obtained in Sept. 12—Ruby is in the Miami area, Mexico to anti-Castro Cubans, accord- where gangster Rothman has an ing to Warren Commission testimony interest in the Biltmore Terrace Hotel. from a self-described ex-prostitute, According to airline records, Ruby flies Nancy Perrin Rich, who had worked back to Havana for one day. for Ruby that year. Sept. 13—Ruby then flies from • Havana to New Orleans. WHEN HE WAS IN JAIL in Dallas in Sept. 21—Ruby uses his safety 1964, Ruby became hysterical one deposit box again. evening, sobbing to his guard that he Oct. 2—Ruby meets for the last time had been running guns to Cuba and with Flynn as a contact. was remorseful for having done it, but regained his composure later, claiming Oct. 28—Ruby opens his safety he only had been referring to four deposit box for the last time in 1959 handguns he'd mailed in 1959 to ( gambler McWillie in Havana. As Ruby's interests in gun-smug- BUT THIS T1ME, on the New Orleans gling grew, he undertook what appears trip, there was not a handed-out card, not a sound, not a trace—until Satur- to have been a series of secretive, illegal and unexplained trips to Cuba. day night, June 8, when a number of Even J. Lee Rankin, the Warren people suddenly saw and heard him. Commission staff director, suspected There would be every good reason to that Ruby had slipped into Cuba as suspect he hadn't been in New Orleans recently as the summer of 1963, less any earlier that week. than six months before the murder of (Those 72 unaccounted hours in President Kennedy. Ruby's life were not the only time he Rankin met with Richard M. Helms, secretly could have flown to and from the CIA's deputy director for plans, on Cuba in 1963. There had been another March 12, 1964, as the Ruby trial was 72-hour span in AKA as well, when there was no record U.S. INTELLIGENCE AGENTS drawing to a close. Rankin told the of Ruby being any- immediately began to investigate and where, including Dallas. It was the intelligence official the commission discovered that the second week of April—the week Bob group's informa- had information that Ruby had tion had come from Evido Pereira, a Price of Houston claims he met Ruby managed to reach Havana in 1963— Cuban refugee who lived in Miami. while Ruby appeared to be on his way presumably using a Czechoslovakian Pereira told the agents he in turn had to a private-plane ride to Cuba. passport with an alias and by way of received the information from his Price says he was in Houston's Mexico sister-in-law in Havana, in a letter that City. Escapade Club early one afternoon Helms had been postmarked Dec. 28, 1963, told Rankin the CIA "would when Ruby and three other men be limited in its possibility assisting" and that he had made the letter availa- walked in. Ruby was well known to the the commission in establishing details ble to the FBI. Escapade's day manager and was about any such movements by Ruby, Pereira also told the agents the per- introduced to Price, who says he sat according to a still-censored portion of son Ruby had visited in Havana was with the manager and talked with the a CIA memorandum on the Helms- named Praskin, not Pratkins. Praskin, four men for nearly four hours. One of Rankin meeting. he said, owned a house on Prado the four was a pilot who talked Street, between Animas and Tro- THE CIA made no apparent effort to knowledgeably about having flown cadero. furnish the Warren Commission with pipeline inspections over west Texas. The CIA said it could find no trace of any details of Ruby's Cuban transac- The pilot and other members of the anyone in Havana under either name, tions and the commission never hinted Ruby party said they were on their way whom Ruby may have visited in late publicly that it suspected Ruby may to a small private airfield near Alvin, December 1962 and early January have made an illegal trip to Cuba in Texas, south of Houston, according to 1963, But the FBI developed informa- 1963. Price, who says Ruby was bragging he tion that Praskin was "a Czech or Pole The Commission never examined would bring back boxes of cigars from (and) supposedly a close friend of any of the possible times when Ruby their trip. Fidel-Castro." could have slipped out of the country in Whether Ruby really flew to Cuba At about the same time that 1963. from Mexico under an assumed name, Pereira's sister-in-law sent him the One such time was a 72-hour period as Rankin had been informed, or flew information about Ruby, an under- in June, when Ruby's whereabouts there at night in a private plane from ground anti-Castro group in Havana continue to be a mystery. According to the Pearland or Clover airfields near was distributing a mimeographed circu- Ruby, he was in New Orleans seeking a Alvin (not far from the Gulf of Mex- lar that gave less specific striptease act between June 5 and the ico), the patterns of Ruby's unexp- information morning of June 9. He said lained about Ruby's reported visit than the he was absences in April and June were Pereira letter had, but did say that especially interested in seeing one the same. Each time, there was no Ruby had lodged in the Sevilla hotel. stripper, Jada, perform, after making a record of his movements for 72 hours. The underground circular, named 28-minute telephone call on June 5 Perhaps of more significance was a, Accion, referred to Jack Ruby as "El from Dallas to Jada's agent in New press release issued on Jan. 29, 1964, Matador," which literally means the Orleans. by an anti-Castro group in Miami man "appointed" to kill the bull in a Harold Tannenbaum, who was known as the Cuban Student Director- bull ring. Jada's agent, says he had no contact ate, which said: NEXT: Police connections. with Ruby again until the night of June "Jack Ruby ... stayed in Cuba dur- 8 and the Warren Commission found ing (the end of) 1962 and the begin- no identifying records to show Ruby nings of 1963. Ruby flew to Havana was in a hotel or anywhere else bet- from Mexico City. ween the nights of June 5 and 8. "During his stay in Havana, Ruby That was totally out of character for was a habitual visitor at a Cuban Ruby. Normally when Ruby left souvenir store located across the street Dallas, he made himself very visible. from the Seville Hotel, in (sic) Prado He talked to hotel clerks, bellboys and Avenue. This store belonged to a man taxi drivers. He told them who he was named Saloman (cq) Pratkins." and why he was there. He handed out The organization identified none of Carousel Club cards and made long- its sources and The Miami News car- distance telephone calls. ried the story without sources promi- nently that day.