FBI INFORMANT SAYS JACK RUBY TOLD HIM TO "WATCH THE FIREWORKS"

JACK RUBY DIES AT PARKLAND

Dallas, Texas (JFK+50) Fifty-one years ago, January 3, 1967, Jack Ruby*, the man who shot to death the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, died at Parkland Memorial Hospital here in Dallas.  The official cause of Mr. Ruby's death was a pulmonary embolism secondary to lung cancer. 

Jack Ruby, a.k.a. Jack Rubenstein ran the Carousel Club, a striptease joint, in the 1300 block of Commerce Street in "Big D".  Today the location is a "gigantic parking lot."

Ruby, described as 5'9" tall & weighing 175 pounds, often carried a "big roll of money" along with a pistol.  He had thick shoulders and arms and often worked out at the local YMCA.  

On Sunday morning, November 24, 1963, Jack Ruby shot Oswald as the prisoner was being transferred from the Dallas County Jail.  The event, occurring in the basement, was shown on live television.  Ruby was later found guilty of murder although he was awarded a second trial after appeal.

Ruby claimed he was on the 2nd floor of the Dallas Morning News, 5 blocks from Dealey Plaza, at the time JFK was assassinated and the Warren Commission found no evidence of collusion between Oswald and Ruby.
Kathryn Watson reports, however, that according to recently revealed JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS**, Ruby was "at the corner of the Postal Annex Building facing the Texas School Book Depository at the time of the shooting."

Ms. Watson informs us that Ruby was with FBI informant Bob Vanderslice at the time who would get to know Ruby as a fellow prisoner in a Dallas jail cell.
Vanderslice recalls being told by Ruby to "watch the fireworks" before the shooting began.


*Jacob Leon Rubenstein (1911-1967) was born in Chicago to Polish-born parents who were Orthodox Jews.  He was given the nickname "Sparky" & was arrested for truancy at age 11.  JLR moved to Dallas in 1947 where he ran several nightclubs.  In 1959, he visited an associate of Santo Trafficante, Jr. in Cuba.

JLR was arrested 8 times by the Dallas Police Dept between 1949 & Nov 24, 1963.  Charges included disturbing the peace, carrying a concealed weapon, violation of state liquor laws, simple assault & ignoring traffic summons.

**The FBI Record is dated April 6, 1977.

SOURCES

"Jack Ruby:  Monster, Intelligence Agent or Small-time Hustler?", www.mcadams.posc.mu.edu/

"Jack Ruby told FBI informant to 'watch the fireworks': day JFK died: Documents", by Kathryn Watson, CBS NEWS, November 17, 2017, www.cbsnews.com/

Jack Ruby Shoots LHO
November 24, 1963
Photo by Jack Beers Jr.
Dallas Morning News Image

ALL JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS MUST BE FULLY DECLASSIFIED

JFK+50:  Volume 7, No. 2446

JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS MUST BE DECLASSIFIED BY OCTOBER 26

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) This coming November 22nd marks the 54th anniversary of the death of President John F. Kennedy, but October 26, 2017 is the date that "all JFK assassination records must be fully declassified."

According to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) which holds these records in College Park, Maryland...

"the vast majority of the (JFK Assassination) Collection (88%) has been open in full and released to the public since the late 1990s."

This was made possible by Public Law No. 102-526, The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992* which was sponsored by John H. Glenn, Jr.** (D-Ohio) and signed by President George H. W. Bush on October 26, 1992.

The act requires "all Government records relating to the assassination of President Kennedy...be available 25 years after the date of enactment."


*The JFK Records Act gives the President of the United States the authority to "continue postponement (in the event of) an identifiable harm to military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement or conduct of foreign relations (and that) the...harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure." 

**John H. Glenn, Jr. (1921-2016) was born in Cambridge, Ohio & graduated from Muskingum University.  JHG served as a US Marine fighter pilot in WWII & Korea.  He won 6 Distinguished Service Flying Crosses & 18 air medals.

JHG made the first supersonic transcontinental flight across the U.S. and was the first American to orbit the Earth (1962).  He served as U.S. Senator 1974-1999.  Colonel Glenn received the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

SOURCES

"Biographical Data, John Herschel Glenn, Jr.," NASA, LBJ Space Center,  www. jsc.nasa.gov/

"Countdown To 2017", 2017JFK, www.2017jfk.org/

"JFK Assassination Records", National Archives, www.archives.gov/

JFK & John Glenn^

The Oval Office

June 27, 1962

Photo by Robert Knudsen

JFK Library Image

^Col. Glenn is giving the President a small U.S. flag he carried in his space suit on the historic orbital mission.