Elmer Gertz on Jack Ruby

[Michael T. Griffith]

Perhaps because I grew up in Tucson, where Joe Bonanno was feared (for good reason) and respected (in a backhanded sort of way) by everyone including my father and the chief of police, I have too much respect for the Mafia to think Jack Ruby would have been entrusted with anything in relation to the JFKA. It's just facially ridiculous. All the reasons that supposedly make Ruby a suspicious character are precisely why he would NOT have been selected for anything. In the first place, if this had been a Mafia operation, Oswald would not have known anything - ANYTHING - that could possibly have put the Mafia at risk or required him to be whacked. Had the plan been for him to die, he would've died in far less absurd circumstances than in police custody on national TV at the hands of a small-time thug whose background and activities would raise 400 red flags. Can you folks really not see how silly this is? Can we have at least a little respect for the Mafia here, people?

Oh, my goodness. This nonsensical argument again? Obviously, you haven't read David Scheim's Contract on America, John Davis's Mafia Kingfish, and Paul Abbott's Death to Justice: The Shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, and not even Blakey and Billings' Fatal Hour.

Ruby was exactly the kind of operative the Mafia would use for such a job as silencing Oswald.

I'm guessing you don't know there was a Western Union office in Oak Cliff. Humm, so why did Ruby drive all the way to the Western Union office downtown, the one that "just so happened" to be across the street from the Dallas police building where Oswald was being held, to send the money order? Hey?

Rather than deal with all the evidence that Ruby's shooting of Oswald was a hit, not a spontaneous act of rage and grief, you fall back on the timeworn silliness that the Mafia never would have used "a guy like Ruby" to silence Oswald.

I can never remember exactly the circumstances, but at some hearing involving some Mafioso the following apt exchange took place:

Q:   And what would be your response, sir, if I told you Jack Ruby was working for the Mafia?

A:   I'd say the Mafia needs a new personnel director.

LOL! Well, that seals it! A Mafioso said, "Nah, we would have never hired Jack Ruby for anything, much less a hit," and you swallow it hook, line, and sinker. Do you have any idea how many Mafiosos have denied the Mafia even exists?

How about the several Mafia members who later said the Mafia did hire Ruby to silence Oswald? Have you even heard of them?