One of the journalists asked a question that the microphones didn’t pick up but they all heard Oswald’s reply.
“Well, I was questioned by a judge. However, I protested at that time that I was not allowed legal representation during that very short and sweet hearing. I really don’t know what this situation is about. Nobody has told me anything, except that I’m accused of murdering a policeman. I know nothing more than that. I do request someone to come forward to give me legal assistance.”
“Did you kill the President?” a voice shouted.
“No, I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question.”
Half an hour later as the cameraman sat with his reporter in the café the reporter said, “What did you think of him?”
“Who?”
“Oswald, for Christ’s sake.”
“I didn’t notice him.”
The reporter shrugged. “You had your camera on him all the time.”
“I know, but I’m too busy checking the focus to look at them. Anyway, what did you think?”
“He wasn’t scared at all. He didn’t look scared, and he didn’t sound scared. Just sounded like it was all a mistake. Nothing to do with him. But more than that.”
“How?”
“I don’t really know. Like he was performing in a play. Like he’d done it all before.”
“So?”
“For God’s sake. If I’d been accused of assassinating the President I’d have been shit-scared and hollering my innocence. Not just saying it. Coolly and calmly.”
“He’s probably a psycho.”
The reporter shook his head slowly. Not in disagreement but in doubt.
As the police officers hurried Oswald through the doors at Dallas Police Headquarters a group of reporters followed them, throwing questions at the prisoner, and Oswald, for the first time sounding angry, shouted, “I’m just a patsy,” before he was hustled down the stairs to the basement.
With a stetson-hatted police officer on either side of him holding an arm as they walked forward he was a perfect target, and after the shot rang out the explosion still echoed around the concrete walls as he fell to the ground.
Ten minutes later with the microphones thrust towards him the police spokesman said, “The suspect’s name is Jack …” he hesitated and looked at the man to his right “… Rubinstein, I believe, … he goes by the name of Jack … Ruby.”
It was a local Dallas TV team who interviewed Jack Ruby in an empty court-room after one of the many hearings. After the interview they were sure that it would be used on all the networks’ newscasts. Sitting with his lawyer on the front row bench, Ruby looked as if he were at the end of his tether, his voice was harsh and his delivery slow, but the words were clear enough.
“The only thing I can say is … everything pertaining to what’s happened has never come to the surface. The world will never know the true facts of what occurred … my motive, in other words … I am the only person in the background to know the truth pertaining to everything relating to my circumstances.”
“Do you think the truth will ever come out, Mr. Ruby?”
Ruby shook his head. “No … because unfortunately these people … who have so much to gain and have such an ulterior motive to put me in the position I’m in … will never let the true facts come above board to the world.”
For some unexplained reason the interview was never broadcast.
On the day in June 1964 when Chief Justice Warren, Gerald Ford and two aides sat in Ruby’s cell in Dallas the heat was oppressive and Ruby’s ramblings went on and on, never getting to any point. Trying to say something, but always eventually dodging the issue. His words were so incoherent that neither Warren nor Ford even grasped that he was trying to say something vital. What he said seemed meaningless. But the two men remained polite and attentive as Ruby talked on.
“… it may not be too late, whatever happens, if our President, Lyndon Johnson, knew the truth from me. But if I am eliminated there won’t be any way of knowing … but he has been told, I am certain, that I was part of a plot to assassinate the President … I know your hands are tied … you are helpless.”
Earl Warren didn’t realize that the statement could have two different and entirely opposite meanings. A confession that Ruby was, in fact, part of a plot which he was sure the President knew about because it was official. Or a disclaimer of false rumours that were meant to discredit him.
Warren nodded and said, “Mr. Ruby, I think I can say this to you, that if he has been told any such thing, there is no indication that he believes it.”
Earl Warren’s aide saw Ruby’s astonished and almost angry reaction to what he felt was Warren’s brushing aside of his confession, but even the alert aide only partly realized the significance of what was being said. After a few more exchanges between Warren and Ruby that only emphasized their total misunderstanding of each other’s statements the aide asked a question.
“You’ve talked about you being eliminated, Mr. Ruby. Who do you think is going to eliminate you?”
Ruby looked at him, still confused by his interviewers’ apparent indifference to what he was trying to say or hint at.
“I have been used for a purpose … and there will be a certain tragic occurrence happening if you don’t take my testimony and somehow vindicate me so that my people don’t suffer because of what I have done …”
Boyd had taken his leave: a week in Paris and the rest of the time in London.
