Since President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in November of 1963 in Dallas, Texas, the assassination has been the source of numerous conspiracy theories. Although the Warren Commission denied that there was any evidence of a conspiracy, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that the JFK assassination was most likely the result of an conspiracy. Whether or not JFK was indeed the victim of a conspiracy, Jack Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald outside the Dallas Police Station remains mysterious. Why did he do it? We can never know for sure, but many believe that Jack Ruby shot Oswald to prevent Oswald from testifying about his involvement in a mafia conspiracy. This theory is based on evidence that Ruby may have been involved in organized crime himself.
It must be said that most people who claim that Ruby was involved in organized crime never met him personally. Many of his friends and family members have denied that he was every connected to the mafia or that he was ever involved in any illegal business. While he certainly had numerous run-ins with the law and had a numerous friends in the criminal underworld, that does not mean that Ruby was a gangster. Perhaps the nature of his nightclub business simply required him to be on good terms with certain prominent criminals. Indeed, there is little evidence that Ruby was involved in organized crime himself. Nevertheless, there is extensive evidence that he had a number off friends either in the mafia or associated with the mafia and that he maintained contact with them, especially in the weeks and months before the assassination. Indeed, Ruby had at least three different links to the Mafia through friends.
The first came through David Yaras and Lenny Patrick from Chicago. Ruby got into a lot of trouble in his youth in Chicago and may have even worked briefly for Al Capone. Whether or not he worked for Capone, he became acquainted with Yaras and Patrick, two Mafia killers, as a teenager. It was also around that time that Ruby joined the teamster’s union and may have been involved in the murder of the union’s president, Leon Cooke. Although he lost contact with Patrick and Yaras for many years, telephone records indicate that he probably talked to Patrick during the summer of 1963.
Another connection came through his friend Lewis McWillie. McWillie was an infamous Dallas based gambler with ties to the Florida mafia boss Santos Trafficante. Ruby visited McWillie while McWillie was working in Cuba on at least one occasion in 1959 and may have visited him multiple times. Although Ruby claimed that his visit to McWillie had been social in nature, he may have met with Trafficante himself or members of his organization. Allegedly, Ruby even tried to get Trafficante out of Cuba where he was being held in jail by the Castro government. While it seems unlikely that Ruby was responsible for Trafficante’s release, Trafficante was released shortly thereafter. Almost immediately, he began working with the CIA on a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. His involvement in the conspiracy to kill Castro have led many to believe that Trafficante may have been involved in a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy.
If Ruby really was involved in a conspiracy to kill Oswald and Kennedy, however, he was probably recruited by Carlos Marcello or one of his associates. Marcello was the boss of New Orleans at the time and Ruby had frequent contact with his organization. While it is possible that the contact was only the result of Ruby needing help with American Guild of Variety Artist labor union problems, it is extremely likely that the connection went further. Ruby was known to be good friends with Joe Campisi, the number two man in the small Dallas mafia hierarchy. Indeed, Campisi ate with Ruby the night before the Kennedy assassination and even visited Ruby in jail. This connection with Campisi meant a connection with Marcello since the Dallas organization had very close ties to the New Orleans organization.
Marcello himself was an outspoken critic of the Kennedy’s and was heard by several witnesses to make threats against them. If any particular mafioso was involved in a conspiracy to kill the President, it was him. Given the frequent contact between Ruby and Marcello’s organization in the weeks before the assassination, it is possible that Ruby worked with the mafia to cover up its involvement in the conspiracy. He may have been just the type of person Marcello and/or his associates needed. They knew him, so he could be trusted, but he was not actually “connected” so there was less of a chance that it would be traced back to them. On the other hand, perhaps Ruby really did shoot Kennedy to spare his widow the pain of having to testify. That seems even more unlikely than the mafia conspiracy, but it is what he claimed. It is unlikely that we will ever know for sure what his true motives were.
