Elmer Gertz on Jack Ruby

[Fred Litwin]

Elmer Gertz on Jack Ruby 

Elmer Gertz was Ruby's lawyer.

"All of this tragedy might have been averted had Ruby yielded to his impulse to leave Dallas immediately after the death of Kennedy. He was persuaded by the family that he ought to remain in Dallas to take care of his sister Eva Grant, still recovering from surgery. This, incidentally, disposes of the theory that he was selected to be the silencer of Oswald. If he had gotten to his sister Eileen's home in Chicago, he could not have done in Oswald. Those who connect Ruby with a conspiracy do not explain this, or do they explain much else. Such if the nature of conspiracy nuts, demolished in this book and, I hope, in mine."

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/elmer-gertz-on-jack-ruby

[Steve M. Galbraith]

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/elmer-gertz-on-jack-ruby

Elmer Gertz on Jack Ruby 

Elmer Gertz was Ruby's lawyer.

It's "cargo cult conspiracism" where they believe, with a kind of religious fervor that can't be reasoned away (since reason didn't lead to it), that if they build a conspiracy, e.g, the CIA, the Mob, anti-Castro Cubans, the MIC, the Birchers, the Mossad, then the conspirators will show up.

[Jarrett Smith]

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/elmer-gertz-on-jack-ruby

Elmer Gertz on Jack Ruby 

Elmer Gertz was Ruby's lawyer.

The "Family" needed him in Dallas is 100% correct.

The HSCA reviewed Ruby’s phone records more closely and investigators noticed a pronounced spike in the increase in Ruby’s calls in the days and weeks leading up to the assassination. “A chronological consolidation of the telephone calls made by Ruby from the five separate business and home telephones he used uncovered a significant increase in the number of calls made in October and November 1963. The average number lept from around 25 to 35 in the months of May through September to approximately 75 in October and approximately 96 during the first 3 1/2 weeks of November.”

Many of these calls were to or received from known mobsters and union racketeers, some of whom were being investigated by RFK’s Justice Department, including Barney Barker, Dusty Miller, Lenny Patrick, Dave Yaras, Lewis McWillie, Irwin S. Weiner and Nofio Pecora.

Barney Barker was a boxer, ex-convict and “one of Hoffa’s best known associates during the McClellan Committee investigation,” when RFK was the chief counsel to that committee which “detailed Baker’s role as Hoffa’s personal liaison to various Mafia figures, as well as to a number of well-known syndicate executioners.” As counsel to the committee RFK noted that, “sometimes the mere threat of [Baker’s] presence in a room was enough to silence the men who would otherwise have opposed Hoffa’s reign.”

Dusty Miller was another Hoffa assistant and head of the Teamster’s southern conference, while Lenny Patrick was “one of the Chicago Mafia’s leading assassins and was responsible, according to Federal and State law enforcement files, for the murders of over a dozen victims of the mob.” Patrick was a capo under Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana.

Dave Yaras, like Patrick, was a childhood friend of Ruby from his old Chicago neighborhood, and “was overheard in a 1962 electronic surveillance discussing various underworld murder contracts he had carried out and one he had only recently been assigned.”

Lewis McWillie moved from Dallas to Cuba in 1958 to work in the Havana gambling casinos owned by Meyer Lansky and Santos Trafficante. Ruby visited him in Cuba on a number of occasions and returned with cash that he deposited in a Miami bank for McWillie’s boss.

Irwin Weiner was a Chicago bail bondsman and close associate of Hoffa and Giancana and was described by Jack Anderson as “the underworld’s major financial figure in the Midwest.”

Pecora was a Carlos Marcello associate whose friend Emile Bruneau bailed Oswald out of jail when he was arrested with the Cubans.

https://archive.politicalassassinations.net/2013/01/oswald-and-ruby-phone-records-rfk-jr-got-it-right/

[Fred Litwin]

when were those calls made?

[Benjamin Cole]

Evidently, Ruby's first visitors in jail, after the LHO assassination, were members of the Civello and Campisi families.

It is possible Ruby wanted to leave Dallas for Chicago precisely because he feared of an assignment headed his way, and was outlining an excuse to be gone.

Would like to know more about Bruce Solie's connections to G2 assets, and the Mob.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Elmer Gertz on Jack Ruby:

"All of this tragedy might have been averted had Ruby yielded to his impulse to leave Dallas immediately after the death of Kennedy. He was persuaded by the family that he ought to remain in Dallas to take care of his sister Eva Grant, still recovering from surgery. This, incidentally, disposes of the theory that he was selected to be the silencer of Oswald. If he had gotten to his sister Eileen's home in Chicago, he could not have done in Oswald. Those who connect Ruby with a conspiracy do not explain this, or do they explain much else. Such if the nature of conspiracy nuts, demolished in this book and, I hope, in mine."

Elmer Gertz was Ruby's lawyer.

Gertz's argument is pitiful, not to mention badly dated. Gertz obviously had no idea that ARRB disclosures would reveal that Ruby had foreknowledge of the assassination (I discuss this at length in A Comforting Lie). Gertz overlooked glaring holes in Ruby's money-order alibi. Gertz whiffed on the evidence that Ruby lied about how he entered the police basement. Gertz was apparently unaware of, or chose to ignore, the HSCA polygraph experts' finding that Ruby's polygraph indicated he was lying when he denied being involved in a conspiracy. Gertz whiffed on the fact that Ruby made numerous calls to Mafia contacts all over the country in the weeks leading up to the assassination (and, no, the calls could not all be attributed to Ruby's labor problems). Gertz whiffed on Ruby's Mafia ties. Gertz whiffed on Ruby's false denial about being at Parkland Hospital soon after the shooting. And on and on we could go.

I recommend Paul Abbott's 2025 book Death to Justice: The Shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald for the most detailed analysis of Ruby's hit on Oswald ever written. I also recommend investigative journalist Seth Kantor's 1980 book The Ruby Cover-Up.

[Lance Payette]

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?

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.