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Jack Ruby
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===Associations with organized crime and gunrunning allegations=== Some conspiracy theorists have suggested Ruby had links to [[Jewish-American organized crime|organized crime]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Assassination Archive and Research Center |url=http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0172b.htm |access-date=May 10, 2022 |website=Assassination Archives |archive-date=July 14, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180714192954/http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0172b.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Twenty-Four Years {{!}} Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? {{!}} Frontline {{!}} PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/cron/ |access-date=May 10, 2022 |website=www.pbs.org |archive-date=September 29, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170929084222/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/cron/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[United States House Select Committee on Assassinations|House Select Committee on Assassinations]] undertook a similar investigation of Ruby in 1979, 15 years after the written report, and said that he "had a significant number of associations and direct and indirect contacts with underworld figures" and "the Dallas criminal element," but that he was not a member of organized crime.{{sfn|Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chapter I, Section C|1979|p=148}} In a memo dated to the day of Oswald's murder J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, wrote that "We have no information on Ruby that is firm, although there are some rumors of underworld activity in Chicago".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lacy |first1=Akela |last2=Lima |first2=Cristiano |title=7 new findings from the latest JFK files |url=https://www.politico.eu/article/7-new-findings-from-the-latest-jfk-files-assassination-lee-harvey-oswald/ |work=Politico |date=27 October 2017}}</ref> Ruby was said to have been acquainted with the [[American Mafia|Mafia]]. The HSCA said that Ruby had known Chicago mobster [[Sam Giancana]] and [[Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant|Joseph Campisi]] since 1947 and had been seen with them on many occasions.<ref>HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. 9, p. 336, par. 917, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0172b.htm Joseph Campisi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180714192954/http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0172b.htm |date=July 14, 2018 }}. Ancestry.com, Social Security Death Index [database on-line], Provo, Utah: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007. Ancestry.com, Texas Death Index, 1903β2000 [database on-line], Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2006.</ref> After an investigation of Joe Campisi, the HSCA found: <blockquote>While Campisi's technical characterization in federal law enforcement records as an organized crime member has ranged from definite to suspected to negative, it is clear that he was an associate or friend of many Dallas-based organized crime members, particularly [[Joseph Civello]], during the time he was the head of the Dallas organization. There was no indication that Campisi had engaged in any specific organized crime-related activities.<ref>HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. 9, p. 336, par. 916, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0172b.htm Joseph Campisi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180714192954/http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0172b.htm |date=July 14, 2018 }}.</ref></blockquote> [[G. Robert Blakey]], the chief counsel for the HSCA, called Campisi "the No. 2 man in the mob in Dallas." He wrote in a 1993 article for ''The Washington Post'': "It is difficult to dispute the underworld pedigree of Jack Ruby, though the Warren Commission did it in 1964.<ref name="Blakey">{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/11/07/murdered-by-the-mob/590c014a-a3b4-4f6d-b5a2-189249cd5663/|title=Murdered By The Mob?|last=Blakey|first=G. Robert|date=November 7, 1993|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=April 18, 2021|archive-date=August 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200818130226/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/11/07/murdered-by-the-mob/590c014a-a3b4-4f6d-b5a2-189249cd5663/|url-status=live}}</ref> Similarly, a [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]] ''[[Frontline (US TV series)|Frontline]]'' investigation into the connections between Ruby and Dallas organized crime figures reported the following: <blockquote>In 1963, Sam and Joe Campisi were leading figures in the Dallas underworld. Jack knew the Campisis and had been seen with them on many occasions. The Campisis were lieutenants of [[Carlos Marcello]], the Mafia boss who had reportedly talked of killing the President.<ref>Frontline: [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/cron/ Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170929084222/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/cron/ |date=September 29, 2017 }}, 1993.</ref></blockquote> On the night before Kennedy was assassinated, Ruby and Ralph Paul had dinner together at the [[Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant|Egyptian Lounge]] run by Joe and Sam Campisi.<ref name="HSCA-appendix-p344">HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. 9, p. 344, par. 919, [http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0172b.htm Joseph Campisi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180714192954/http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0172b.htm |date=July 14, 2018 }}.</ref> After Ruby was jailed for killing Oswald, Joe Campisi "regularly visited" him.<ref name="HSCA-appendix-p344"/> [[Howard P. Willens]] was the third-highest official in the Department of Justice<ref>{{cite web| url= http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=110307&relPageId=4 |title=Oswald 201 File, Vol 32 |publisher= Assassination Archives and Research Center; [[Mary Ferrell|Mary Ferrell Foundation]] |work=Maryferrell.org |year=1993 |access-date=April 17, 2012 }}</ref> and assistant counsel to [[J. Lee Rankin]]. He helped organize the Warren Commission. Willens also outlined the Commission's investigative priorities<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/hscwille.htm |first=John C. |last=McAdams |author-link=John C. McAdams |title=Testimony Of Howard P. Willens |publisher=The John F. Kennedy Assassination Information Center |work=Mcadams.posc.mu.edu |access-date=April 17, 2012 |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304100031/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/hscwille.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> and terminated an investigation of Ruby's Cuban related activities.<ref>Kantor, Seth. ''The Ruby Cover-Up'', (New York: Zebra Books, 1980), p. 247. {{ISBN|0821739204}}</ref> An FBI report states that Willens' father had been [[Tony Accardo]]'s next-door neighbor going back to 1958.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=61488&relPageId=71 |author=Assassination Archives and Research Center |title=FBI Warren Commission Liaison File (62-109090) |publisher=Mary Ferrell Foundation |work=Maryferrell.org |year=1993 |access-date=April 17, 2012 |archive-date=April 5, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130405131302/http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=61488&relPageId=71 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1946, Tony Accardo allegedly asked Jack Ruby to go to Texas with Mafia associates Pat Manno and Romie Nappi to make sure that Dallas County Sheriff Steve Gutherie would acquiesce to the Mafia's expansion into Dallas.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_201.html | title=The Lost Boys | publisher=AmericanMafia.com | date=April 1, 2002 | access-date=June 18, 2012 | archive-date=April 18, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120418060041/http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_201.html | url-status=live }}</ref> Ruby went to see a man named Lewis McWillie in Cuba four years before the assassination. McWillie had previously run illegal gambling establishments in Texas, and Ruby considered him one of his closest friends. McWillie was supervising gambling activities at [[Havana]]'s [[Tropicana Club]] when Ruby visited him in August 1959. Ruby told the Warren Commission that his August trip to Cuba was merely a social visit at the invitation of McWillie.<ref name= "Testimony JR v5" /> The HSCA later concluded that Ruby "most likely was serving as a courier for gambling interests".<ref>[http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0093a.htm Possible Associations Between Jack Ruby and Organized Crime] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120319193255/http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol9/html/HSCA_Vol9_0093a.htm |date=March 19, 2012 }}, House Select Committee on Assassinations β Appendix to Hearings, Volume 9, 5, p. 177.</ref> The committee also found circumstantial but not conclusive evidence that "Ruby met with [[Santo Trafficante Jr.]] in Cuba sometime in 1959."<ref>[https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0091b.htm House Select Committee on Assassinations Final Report], pp. 152-153.</ref> James E. Beaird, who claimed to be a poker-playing friend of Ruby, told ''[[The Dallas Morning News]]'' and the [[FBI]] that Ruby smuggled guns and ammunition from [[Galveston Bay]], Texas to Fidel Castro's guerrillas in Cuba in the late 1950s. Beaird said that Ruby "was in it for the money. It wouldn't matter which side, just the one that would pay him the most." Beaird said that the guns were stored in a two-story house near the waterfront, and that he saw Ruby and his associates load "many boxes of new guns, including automatic rifles and handguns" on a 50-foot military-surplus boat. He claimed that "each time that the boat left with guns and ammunition, Jack Ruby was on the boat."<ref>{{cite news| first= Earl | last= Golz| title= Jack Ruby's Gunrunning to Castro Claimed| work= [[The Dallas Morning News]]| date= August 18, 1978}}</ref><ref>FBI document 602-982-243, June 10, 1976.</ref> Alternatively, some conspiracy theorists have focused on Ruby's connections to the police in regards to his murder of Oswald, and dismiss his mob connections as a misdirection.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=757&dat=19780916&id=mQ1OAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7K0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6216,1982347 | title=The Virgin Islands Daily News - Google News Archive Search }}</ref>
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