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Intro­duc­tion: The recent­ly deceased Ger­ald Ford is remem­bered for his role in the Water­gate Scan­dal. Hav­ing been appoint­ed by Nixon to replace Spiro Agnew as Vice-Pres­i­dent, Ford announced, “Our long nation­al night­mare is over.” He then par­doned Nixon of all crimes that he had com­mit­ted. Nixon’s polit­i­cal down­fall turned on his unwill­ing­ness to release the Water­gate tapes for fear that, if he did, “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” would come out. Nixon aide H.R. “Bob” Halde­man sub­se­quent­ly dis­closed that “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” was a code word in the Nixon White House for the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. This pro­gram ana­lyzes Ger­ald Ford’s role in aid­ing the cov­er-up of Water­gate and, by exten­sion, the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. A mem­ber of the War­ren Com­mis­sion, Ford was an infor­mant for J. Edgar Hoover on the Commission’s activ­i­ties. More impor­tant­ly, Ford was present at the Commission’s inter­view with Jack Ruby. Ruby tried to con­fess that he was part of a con­spir­a­cy to mur­der the Pres­i­dent, but Ford and the oth­ers present refused to enter­tain Ruby’s asser­tions. Among those present at Ruby’s inter­view was Leon Jawors­ki, who replaced Archibald Cox as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor. Present at Ruby’s War­ren Com­mis­sion inter­view with Ford, Jawors­ki served the Com­mis­sion as one of its coun­sels. When he replaced Cox as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor and Ford replaced Agnew as Vice-Pres­i­dent, Nixon’s fate was in the hands of two insid­ers who could be count­ed upon to con­tin­ue the long cov­er-up. This was essen­tial, because Nixon was in Dal­las, Texas on 11/22/1963. When inter­viewed by the FBI in Feb­ru­ary of 1964, Nixon lied and said that the only time he had been in Dal­las in 1963 was “two days pri­or to the assas­si­na­tion.” That lie con­sti­tut­ed grounds for con­vict­ing Nixon of per­jury and indict­ing him for the assas­si­na­tion of the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: A UPI inter­view with Nixon in Dal­las on 11/21/63, a day after he told the FBI he left Dal­las (pub­lished in the 11/22/1963 edi­tion of The New York Times); Nixon’s alleged atten­dance at a final plan­ning ses­sion for the JFK assas­si­na­tion at inde­pen­dent oil man Clint Murchison’s home on 11/21/1963; FBI direc­tor J. Edgar Hoover’s alleged atten­dance at the same plan­ning meet­ing; Leon Jaworski’s mem­ber­ship on the board of direc­tors of the M.D. Ander­son Fund, a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit; White House coun­sel Charles Colson’s alleged hir­ing of vet­er­an intel­li­gence oper­a­tive Gor­don Nov­el to study the fea­si­bil­i­ty of eras­ing the White House tapes (the for­mi­da­ble Mr. Nov­el was a focal point of New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion); Novel’s enig­mat­ic hints on radio and in print that he may have erased the tapes; Ruby’s last let­ter from prison, indi­cat­ing that Nazis were in con­trol of the coun­try.

1. Begin­ning with the sub­ject of the Water­gate scan­dal and inves­ti­ga­tion, the pro­gram intro­duces the event with which Ger­ald Ford is most iden­ti­fied. Before being appoint­ed Vice-Pres­i­dent, suc­ceed­ing to the Oval Office after Nixon’s res­ig­na­tion, and par­don­ing Nixon for all crimes he had com­mit­ted, Ger­ald Ford was one of Nixon’s clos­est polit­i­cal allies with­in the GOP. This asso­ci­a­tion became even more impor­tant as the Water­gate scan­dal and inves­ti­ga­tion gath­ered momen­tum. “Months before Richard Nixon set Michi­gan con­gress­man Ger­ald Ford on the path to the White House, Nixon turned to Ford, who called him­self the embat­tled president’s ‘only real friend,’ to get him out of trou­ble. Dur­ing one of the dark­est days of the Water­gate scan­dal, Nixon secret­ly con­fid­ed in Ford, at the time the House minor­i­ty leader. He begged for help. He com­plained about fair-weath­er friends and swore at per­ceived rivals in his own par­ty. ‘Tell the guys, god­damn it, to get off their ass and start fight­ing back,’ Nixon plead­ed with Ford in one call record­ed by the president’s secret tap­ing sys­tem. And Ford did. ‘Any­time you want to do any­thing, under any cir­cum­stances, you give me a call, Mr. Pres­i­dent,’ he told Nixon dur­ing that May 1, 1973, con­ver­sa­tion. ‘We’ll stand by you morn­ing, noon and night.’. . . .”
(“How Ford Stood by ‘Real Friend’ Nixon” by Bob Wood­ward [Wash­ing­ton Post]; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 12/29/2006; p. A5.)

2. The Wood­ward arti­cle high­light­ed the mutu­al enmi­ty and alarm with which both Ford and Nixon viewed House Major­i­ty leader Hale Bog­gs, D‑La. Among the first to pub­licly expose for­mer FBI direc­tor J. Edgar Hoover’s ille­gal sur­veil­lance of Amer­i­can politi­cians, Bog­gs had been a dis­sent­ing mem­ber of the War­ren Com­mis­sion, who believed that Hoover, among oth­ers, with­held infor­ma­tion from the War­ren Com­mis­sion. As will be seen below, Ford was Hoover’s infor­mant on the War­ren Com­mis­sion. Bog­gs died in the crash of a small air­craft in Alas­ka not too long after his expo­sure of Hoover’s activ­i­ties. “ . . . On April 6, 1971, for exam­ple, Nixon called Ford to find out what was going on with House Major­i­ty Leader Hale Bog­gs, D‑La. Bog­gs had just tak­en to the House floor say­ing that FBI Direc­tor J. Edgar Hoover was reg­u­lar­ly wire­tap­ping mem­bers of Con­gress, and Nixon want­ed to know why Bog­gs was going pub­lic. . . .”(Idem.)

3. In order to under­stand Watergate—the defin­ing event of Ger­ald Ford’s polit­i­cal career—it is essen­tial to under­stand the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. Hav­ing been defeat­ed by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 elec­tion, Nixon was in Dal­las from 11/20/63 until 11/22/1963, fly­ing out an hour or two before Pres­i­dent Kennedy was assas­si­nat­ed! When inter­viewed by the FBI in Feb­ru­ary of 1964, Nixon claimed that the only time he had been in Dal­las in 1963 was “two days pri­or” to the assas­si­na­tion. This was an obvi­ous lie and would have been grounds for con­vict­ing Nixon of per­jury and indict­ing him for the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy.
(The Assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy: Coin­ci­dence or Con­spir­a­cy?; Bernard Fen­ster­wald, Jr.; pub­lished by Zebra Books [SC], divi­sion of Kens­ing­ton pub­lish­ing, in 1977.)

4. Next, the pro­gram fea­tures the read­ing of an arti­cle from The New York Times of 11/22/1963. The arti­cle is a UPI inter­view with Nixon in Dal­las on 11/21/1963, a full day after he told the FBI he had left Dal­las!

5. Pre­sent­ing a spec­u­la­tive ele­ment in the analy­sis, the broad­cast sets forth a pas­sage from Penn Jones’ For­give My Grief, Vol­ume III, in which Jones dis­cuss­es the asser­tion that Nixon was at a final “go” plan­ning con­fer­ence for the assas­si­na­tion at inde­pen­dent oil man Clint Murchi­son, Seniorr’s man­sion the night before Kennedy was killed. FBI direc­tor J. Edgar Hoover was one of the par­tic­i­pants in this alleged con­fer­ence, along with Nixon and Murchi­son. (Murchi­son was alleged by Robert De Pugh—head of the para­mil­i­tary right wing group the Minutemen—to have been the main financier of the Amer­i­can Nazi Par­ty. Amer­i­can Nazi Par­ty leader George Lin­coln Rockwell’s Arling­ton, Vir­ginia address and tele­phone num­ber were in Lee Har­vey Oswald’s address book at the time of his arrest.)
(For­give My Grief, Vol­ume III; Penn Jones; Mid­loth­i­an Mir­ror [SC]; Copy­right 1969.)

6. Next, the pro­gram takes up the sub­ject of the Water­gate tapes, gen­er­at­ed by Nixon’s secret White House tap­ing sys­tem. When Nixon aide Alexan­der But­ter­field dis­closed the exis­tence of the tap­ing sys­tem, it led to attempts by the Water­gate pros­e­cu­tor to obtain the tapes. Nixon expressed fear that, if the tapes were released, “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” would come out. For­mer Nixon aide Robert “Bob” Halde­man dis­closed that the phrase “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” was a code word in the Nixon White House for the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy.
(The Ends of Pow­er; by Robert Halde­man and Joseph Di Mona; New York Times Books [HC]; 1978.)

7. Inter­est­ing­ly (and per­haps sig­nif­i­cant­ly), White House coun­sel Charles “Chuck” Col­son alleged­ly req­ui­si­tioned for­mi­da­ble vet­er­an intel­li­gence oper­a­tive Gor­don Nov­el to study the fea­si­bil­i­ty of eras­ing the Water­gate tapes with a high tech device. Nov­el was a prin­ci­pal fig­ure in New Orleans Dis­trict Attor­ney Jim Garrison’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy, with great exper­tise in elec­tron­ic coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence. Col­son lat­er dis­missed this alle­ga­tion as fan­tas­tic in nature.
(The Assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy: Coin­ci­dence or Con­spir­a­cy?; Bernard Fen­ster­wald, Jr.)

8. Although he denies hav­ing erased the Water­gate tapes, Mr. Nov­el had an inter­est­ing, enig­mat­ic com­ment in a let­ter to a high tech pub­li­ca­tion in which he allud­ed to his “ . . . . ultra high tech­nol­o­gy coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence role in Watergate–to erase the White House Tapes [sic]”.
(Excerpt from The Guns of Novem­ber, Part III; Tech­nol­o­gy Illus­trat­ed; July/1983.)

9. Access­ing yet anoth­er piece of infor­ma­tion from the archives, the broad­cast access­es part of a remark­able inter­view con­duct­ed with Mr. Emory on a com­mer­cial FM sta­tion in 1984. The for­mi­da­ble Gor­don Nov­el called in and, in response to Mr. Emory’s ques­tion “So you deny actu­al­ly hav­ing erased the Water­gate Tapes?” Mr. Nov­el replied, enig­mat­i­cal­ly “Only ‘cause they didn’t pay me.”
(Excerpt from FTR#253; Inter­view with Dave Emory from The Express­way, host­ed by Lar­ry John­son on KOME-FM [San Jose]; 10/29/1984.)

10. Next, the pro­gram high­lights Ger­ald Ford’s role as J. Edgar Hoover’s infor­mant on the War­ren Com­mis­sion. If Penn Jones’ spec­u­la­tion about Nixon and Hoover hav­ing attend­ed a final “go” plan­ning ses­sion for the assas­si­na­tion at Clint Murchison’s home on 11/21/1963 is accu­rate, then Ford’s role assumes a larg­er and more sin­is­ter sig­nif­i­cance. “ . . . The com­mit­tee learned next to noth­ing about Jack Ruby, lit­tle more about cer­tain of Lee Har­vey Oswald’s asso­ci­a­tions, and noth­ing at all about the grow­ing esca­la­tion of mob threats against the pres­i­dent and attor­ney gen­er­al, as picked up by FBI bugs, taps, and infor­mants. They were nev­er informed of the Hosty note, or the Traf­fi­cante threat, or Marcello’s ‘Livar­si na petra di la scarpa!’ or of any oth­er assas­si­na­tion talk the FBI may have over­heard and sup­pressed. Nor were they told that Hoover’s infor­mant on the com­mis­sion was Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ger­ald Ford. . . .”
(J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and His Secrets; Copy­right 1991 by Curt Gen­try; Plume [Pen­guin Group] {SC}; ISBN 0–452-26904–0; p. 555.)

11. The con­clu­sion of the pro­gram con­sists of excerpts from Jack Ruby’s tes­ti­mo­ny before the War­ren Com­mis­sion on 6/7/1964. [The excerpts pre­sent­ed here are from Vol­ume V of the War­ren Com­mis­sion Tes­ti­mo­ny and Exhibits, pp. 181–212.) Present at this inter­view (in addi­tion to Chief Jus­tice of the U.S. Supreme Court Earl War­ren) were Ger­ald Ford, Leon Jawors­ki and Arlen Specter. Specter is cur­rent­ly a Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor from Penn­syl­va­nia. Jawors­ki was a War­ren Com­mis­sion coun­sel, as well as being one of two heads of the Texas Court of Inquiry—the enti­ty put togeth­er by the state of Texas to look into the killing. In addi­tion, Jawors­ki was a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors of the M.D. Ander­son Fund, a CIA domes­tic fund­ing con­duit. When Ger­ald Ford replaced Nixon as Pres­i­dent (after Spiro Agnew’s res­ig­na­tion) and Jawors­ki replaced Archibald Cox as Water­gate Spe­cial Pros­e­cu­tor, the Water­gate inves­ti­ga­tion was posi­tioned to make sure that “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” would not come out! “ . . .RUBY: Is there any way to get me to Wash­ing­ton? WARREN: I beg your par­don? RUBY: Is there any way of you get­ting me to Wash­ing­ton? WARREN: I don’t know of any. I will be glad to talk to your coun­sel about what the sit­u­a­tion is, Mr. Ruby, when we get an oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk. [Ruby has been inter­mit­tent­ly beg­ging a chance to talk to War­ren alone.] RUBY: I don’t think I will get a fair rep­re­sen­ta­tion with my coun­sel, Joe Tonahill. I don’t think so. I would like to request that I go to Wash­ing­ton and you take all the tests that I have to take. It is very impor­tant. [Ruby’s coun­sel Joe] TONAHILL: Jack, will you tell him why you don’t think you will get a fair rep­re­sen­ta­tion? RUBY: Because I have been over this for the longest time to get the lie detec­tor test. Some­body has been hold­ing it back from me. . . . .”
(The Yan­kee and Cow­boy War; Carl Ogles­by; Copy­right 1976, 1977 by Carl Ogles­by; Berkley Medal­lion [SC]; ISBN 425–03493‑3; p. 119.)

12. As he does through­out the inter­view, Ruby requests that he be tak­en to Wash­ing­ton and express­es fear for his life if he unbur­dens him­self in Dal­las, in the pres­ence of peo­ple he does not trust. “ . . . RUBY: Gen­tle­men, unless you get me to Wash­ing­ton, you can’t get a fair shake out of me. If you under­stand my way of talk­ing, you have got to bring me to Wash­ing­ton to get the tests. Do I sound dra­mat­ic? Off the beam? WARREN: No; you are speak­ing very, very ratio­nal­ly, and I am real­ly sur­prised that you can remem­ber as much as you have remem­bered up to the present time. You have giv­en it to us in great detail. RUBY: Unless you can get me to Wash­ing­ton, and I am not a crack­pot, I have all my senses—I don’t want to evade any crime I am guilty of. But Mr. Moore, have I spo­ken this way when we have talked? MOORE: Yes. [Elmer W. Moore is a Secret Ser­vice agent.] RUBY: Unless you get me to Wash­ing­ton imme­di­ate­ly, I am afraid after what Mr. Tonahill has writ­ten there . . . . Well, it is too bad, Chief War­ren, that you didn’t get me to your head­quar­ters six months ago. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 120.)

13. Ruby con­tin­ues to request a lie-detec­tor test, inquir­ing if one could be admin­is­tered in Dal­las. “ . . . RUBY: Are you stay­ing overnight here, Chief War­ren? WARREN: No; I have to be back, because we have an ear­ly ses­sion of Court tomor­row morn­ing. RUBY: I there any way of get­ting the poly­graph here? DECKER: [Dal­las Coun­ty Sher­iff J.E. (Bill) Deck­er] May I make a sug­ges­tion? Jack, lis­ten, you and I have had a lot of deal­ings. Do you want my offi­cers removed from the room while you talk to this Com­mis­sion? RUBY: That wouldn’t prove any truth. . . . I wish the Pres­i­dent were right here now. It is a ter­ri­ble ordeal, I tell you that . . . .” (Ibid.; p. 121.)

14. After unsuc­cess­ful­ly attempt­ing to have Sher­riff Deck­er clear the room of every­one (includ­ing his attor­ney Tonahill), except for the Com­mis­sion­ers and Com­mis­sion coun­sels in atten­dance, Ruby con­tin­ues: “RUBY: . . . Gen­tle­men, if you want to hear any fur­ther tes­ti­mo­ny, you will have to get me to Wash­ing­ton soon, because it has some­thing to do with you, Chief War­ren. Do I sound sober enough to tell you this? WARREN: Yes; go right ahead. RUBY: I want to tell the truth, and I can’t tell it here. I can’t tell it here. Does that make sense to you? [Empha­sis added.] WARREN: Well, let’s not talk about sense. But I real­ly can’t see why you can’t tell this Com­mis­sion. RUBY: But this isn’t the place for me to tell what I want to tell. . . . Chief War­ren, your life is in dan­ger in this city, do you know that? WARREN: No; I don’t know that. If that is the thing that you don’t want to talk about, you can tell me, if you wish, when this is all over, just between you and me. RUBY: No; I would like to talk to you in pri­vate. WARREN: You may do that when you fin­ish your sto­ry. You may tell me that phase of it.” (Ibid.; pp. 122–123.)

15. Ruby requests that War­ren take him back to Wash­ing­ton to give tes­ti­mo­ny. War­ren doesn’t want to hear about it. “RUBY: I bet you haven’t had a wit­ness like me in your whole inves­ti­ga­tion, is that cor­rect? WARREN: There are many wit­ness­es whose mem­o­ry has not been as good as yours. I tell you that, hon­est­ly. RUBY: My reluc­tance to talk—you haven’t had any wit­ness in telling the sto­ry, in find­ing so many prob­lems. WARREN: You have a greater prob­lem than any wit­ness we have had. RUBY: I have a lot of rea­sons for hav­ing those prob­lems. WARREN: I know that, and we want to respect your rights, what­ev­er they may be. And I only want to hear what you are will­ing to tell us, because I real­ize that you still have a great prob­lem before you, and I am not try­ing to press you. . . . RUBY: When are you going back to Wash­ing­ton? WARREN: I am going back very short­ly after we fin­ish this hearing—I am going to have some lunch. RUBY: Can I make a state­ment? WARREN: Yes. RUBY: If you request me to go back to Wash­ing­ton with you right now, that couldn’t be done, could it? WARREN: No; it could not be done. It could not be done. There are a good many things involved in that, Mr. Ruby. RUBY: What are they? WARREN: Well, the pub­lic atten­tion that it would attract, and the peo­ple who would be around. We have no place for you to be safe when we take you out, and we are not law enforce­ment offi­cers, and it isn’t our respon­si­bil­i­ty to go into any­thing of that kind. And cer­tain­ly it couldn’t be done on a moment’s notice this way. RUBY: Gen­tle­men, my life is in dan­ger here. Not with my guilty plea of exe­cu­tion [i.e., not because of killing Oswald]. Do I sound sober enough to you as I say this? WARREN: You do. You sound entire­ly sober. RUBY: From the moment I start­ed my tes­ti­mo­ny, have I sound­ed as though, with the excep­tion of becom­ing emo­tion­al, haven’t I sound­ed as though I made sense, what I was speak­ing about? WARREN: You have indeed. I under­stand every­thing you have said. If I haven’t, it is my fault.” (Ibid.; pp. 123–124.)

16. Com­ment­ing on Warren’s response in the pas­sage that fol­lows, author Ogles­by com­ments: “A prize spec­i­men of War­ren integri­ty: If telling us the truth in Dal­las would hurt you, cost you your life, we’d rather you just left it unsaid than go to the trou­ble of get­ting you to a place where you could feel safe to say it. . . .” “RUBY: Then I fol­low this up. I may not live tomor­row to give any fur­ther tes­ti­mo­ny. The rea­son why I add this to this, since you assure me that I have been speak­ing sense by then, I might be speak­ing sense by fol­low­ing what I have said, and the only thing I want to get out to the pub­lic, and I can’t say it here, is with authen­tic­i­ty, with sin­cer­i­ty of the truth of every­thing and why my act was com­mit­ted, but it can’t be said here. It can be said, it’s got to be said amongst peo­ple of the high­est author­i­ty that would give me the ben­e­fit of doubt. And fol­low­ing that, imme­di­ate­ly give me the lie-detec­tor test after I do make the state­ment. Chair­man War­ren, if you felt that your life was in dan­ger at the moment, how would you feel? Wouldn’t you be reluc­tant to go on speak­ing, even though you request me to do so? [Empha­sis added.] WARREN: I think I might have some reluc­tance if I was in your posi­tion, yes: I think I would. I think I would fig­ure it out very care­ful­ly as to whether it would endan­ger me or not. If you think that any­thing that I am doing or any­thing that I am ask­ing you is endan­ger­ing you in any way, shape, or form, I want you to feel absolute­ly free to say that the inter­view is over. [Empha­sis added.] RUBY: What hap­pens then? I didn’t accom­plish any­thing.” (Ibid.; p. 124.)

17. Indica­tive of Warren’s mind­set toward Ruby is the fact that, accord­ing to War­ren, the Com­mis­sion would not have inter­viewed Ruby at all if his sis­ter had not writ­ten to the com­mis­sion­ers request­ing that they do so! “WARREN: No, noth­ing has been accom­plished. RUBY: Well, then you won’t fol­low up with any­thing fur­ther? WARREN: There wouldn’t be any­thing to fol­low up if you hadn’t com­plet­ed your state­ment. RUBY: You said you have the pow­er to do what you want to do, is that cor­rect? WARREN: Exact­ly. RUBY: With­out any lim­i­ta­tions? WARREN: With­in the purview of the Exec­u­tive Order which estab­lished the Com­mis­sion. . . . RUBY: But you don’t have the right to take a pris­on­er back with you when you want to? WARREN: No; we have the pow­er to sub­poe­na wit­ness­es to Wash­ing­ton if we want to do it, but we have tak­en the tes­ti­mo­ny of 200 or 300 peo­ple, I would imag­ine, here in Dal­las with­out going to Wash­ing­ton. RUBY: Yes; but those peo­ple aren’t Jack Ruby. WARREN: No; they weren’t. RUBY: They weren’t. WARREN: Now I want you to feel that we are not here to take any advan­tage of you, because I know that you are in a del­i­cate posi­tion, and unless you had indi­cat­ed not only through your lawyers but also through your sis­ter, who wrote a let­ter addressed either to me or to Mr. Rankin say­ing that you want­ed to tes­ti­fy before the Com­mis­sion, unless she had told us that, I wouldn’t have both­ered you. . . . RUBY: The thing is, that with your pow­er that you have, Chief Jus­tice War­ren, and all these gen­tle­men, too much time has gone by for me to give you any ben­e­fit of what I may say now. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 125.)

18. As he has through­out the inter­view, War­ren rebuffs Ruby’s entreaties. It is clear that War­ren is any­thing but recep­tive to dis­cus­sion of a pos­si­ble con­spir­a­cy to mur­der the Pres­i­dent. “WARREN: Mr. Ruby, I think you are enti­tled to a state­ment to this effect, because you have been frank with us and have told us your sto­ry. I think I can say to you that there has been no wit­ness before this com­mis­sion out of the hun­dreds we have ques­tioned who has claimed to have any per­son­al knowl­edge that you were a par­ty to any con­spir­a­cy to kill our Pres­i­dent. [Empha­sis added.] RUBY: Yes, but you don’t know this area here. [They squab­ble about the point. War­ren real­ly wants to evade this.] WARREN: Well, I will make this addi­tion­al state­ment to you, that if any wit­ness should tes­ti­fy before the Com­mis­sion that you were, to their knowl­edge, a par­ty to any con­spir­a­cy to assas­si­nate the Pres­i­dent, I assure you that we will give you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to deny it and to take any tests that you may desire to so dis­prove it. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 130.)

19. Hav­ing under­stood the pro­found nature of the events of 11/22/1963, Ruby that “a whole new form of gov­ern­ment” will come to pow­er as a result of those events. “RUBY: . . . . And I wish that our beloved Pres­i­dent, Lyn­don John­son, would have delved deep­er into the sit­u­a­tion, hear me, not to accept just cir­cum­stan­tial facts about my guilt or inno­cence, and would have ques­tioned to find out the truth about me before he relin­quished cer­tain pow­ers to these cer­tain peo­ple. . . .Con­se­quent­ly, a whole new form of gov­ern­ment is going to take over our coun­try, and I know I won’t live to see you anoth­er time. [Empha­sis added.] Do I sound sort of screwy in telling you these things? WARREN: No; I think that is what you believe or you wouldn’t tell it under your oath. RUBY: But it is a very seri­ous sit­u­a­tion. I guess it is too late to stop it, isn’t it. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 131.)

20. War­ren Com­mis­sion mem­ber (and FBI infor­mant) Ger­ald Ford joins the dis­cus­sion. Ruby con­tin­ues to beg to be tak­en to Wash­ing­ton and warns of dire con­se­quences if he is not allowed to speak con­fi­den­tial­ly with the Com­mis­sion. “FORD: Are there any ques­tions that ought to be asked to help clar­i­fy the sit­u­a­tion that you described? RUBY: There is only one thing. If you don’t take me back to Wash­ing­ton tonight to give me a chance to prove to the Pres­i­dent that I am not guilty, then you will see the most trag­ic, then you will see the most trag­ic thing that will ever hap­pen. . . . .” (Idem.)

21. Again, Ruby hints direct­ly at hav­ing been part of an assas­si­na­tion con­spir­a­cy, and again, War­ren doesn’t want to hear about it. Some ana­lysts believe that Ruby’s ref­er­ences to his “peo­ple” being tor­tured and muti­lat­ed refers to the fact that Ruby was a Jew, that some fig­ures on the extreme right were try­ing to pin the assas­si­na­tion on the Jews, and that Ruby knew that Nazi and fas­cist ele­ments were the authors of the assas­si­na­tion. In the view of these crit­ics, Ruby feared a sec­ond Holo­caust. “RUBY: . . . Now maybe some­thing can be saved. 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. Right now, when I leave your pres­ence now, I am the only one that can bring out the truth to our Pres­i­dent, who believes in right­eous­ness and jus­tice. 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. WARREN: Mr. Ruby, I think I can say this to you, that if he has been told any such thing, there is no indi­ca­tion of any kind that he believes it. [Empha­sis added.] RUBY: I am sor­ry, Chief Jus­tice War­ren, I thought I would be very effec­tive in telling you what I have said here. But in all fair­ness to every­one, maybe all I want to do is beg that if they found out I was telling the truth, maybe they can suc­ceed in what their motives are, but maybe my peo­ple won’t be tor­tured and muti­lat­ed. [That is, Ruby begs for­give­ness from the assas­si­na­tion con­spir­a­cy, hav­ing failed in his effort to rat on it through dou­ble mean­ings tossed into Warren’s ear.] WARREN: Well, you may be sure that my Pres­i­dent and his whole Com­mis­sion will do any­thing that is nec­es­sary to see that your peo­ple are not tor­tured. RUBY: No. WARREN: You may be sure of that. RUBY: No. The only way you can do it is if he knows the truth, that I am telling the truth, and why I was down in that base­ment Sun­day morn­ing, and maybe some sense of decen­cy will come out and they can still ful­fill their plan, as I stat­ed before, with­out my peo­ple going through tor­ture and muti­la­tion.” (Ibid.; p. 132.)

22. Ruby con­tin­ues to plead to be tak­en to Wash­ing­ton and to have a lie-detec­tor test admin­is­tered. Again, he states that he feels his life is in dan­ger. In the text quot­ed here, Ruby ends by warn­ing War­ren that the far right hat­ed him, as they did Kennedy [and Ruby, a Jew.] “WARREN: The Pres­i­dent will know every­thing that you have said, every­thing that you have said. RUBY: But I won’t be around, Chief Jus­tice. I won’t be around to ver­i­fy those things you are going to tell the Pres­i­dent. TONAHILL: [Who nev­er left the room] Who do you think is going to elim­i­nate you, Jack? RUBY: 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 my peo­ple don’t suf­fer because of what I have done. [Empha­sis added.] WARREN: But we have tak­en your tes­ti­mo­ny. We have it here. It will be in per­ma­nent form for the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States and for the Con­gress of the Unit­ed States, and for the courts of the Unit­ed States, and for the peo­ple of the entire world. It is there. It will be record­ed for all to see. That is the pur­pose of our com­ing here today. We feel that you are enti­tled to have your sto­ry told. RUBY: You have lost me though. You have lost me, Chief Jus­tice War­ren. WARREN: Lost you in what sense? RUBY: I won’t be around for you to come and ques­tion again. [Empha­sis added.] WARREN: Well, it is very hard for me to believe that. I am sure that every­body would want to pro­tect you to the very lim­it. RUBY: All I want is a lie-detec­tor test, and you refuse to give it to me. Because as it stands now—and the truth serum, and any other—Pentothal—how do you pro­nounce it, what­ev­er it is. And they will not give it to me, because I want to tell the truth. And then I want to leave this world. . . . . How are we going to com­mu­ni­cate and so on? WARREN: We will com­mu­ni­cate direct­ly with you. RUBY: You have a lost cause, Earl War­ren. You don’t stand a chance. They feel about you like they do about me, Chief Jus­tice War­ren. I shouldn’t hurt your feel­ings in telling you that. [Empha­sis added.]” (Ibid.; pp. 133–134.)

23. The pro­gram con­clud­ed with a look at Jack Ruby’s last communication—a let­ter he sent from prison as he was dying of can­cer. Some of Ruby’s state­ments in the above interview—“a whole new form of gov­ern­ment is going to take over our country”—make more sense when viewed against the back­ground of this let­ter. Pres­i­dent Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion boost­ed fas­cist ele­ments (includ­ing the Under­ground Reich) into a posi­tion of con­trol over the U.S. “ . . . Don’t believe the War­ren [Com­mis­sion] Report, that was only put out to make me look inno­cent. . . .I’m going to die a hor­ri­ble death any­way, so what would I have to gain by writ­ing all this. So you must believe me. . . . that [sic] is only one kind of peo­ple that would do such a thing, that would have to be the Nazi’s [sic], and that is who is in pow­er in this coun­try right now. . . . Japan is also in on the deal, but the old war lords are going to come back. South Amer­i­ca is also full of these Nazi’s [sic]. . . . if those peo­ple were so deter­mined to frame me then you must be con­vinced that they had an ulte­ri­or motive for doing same. There is only one kind of peo­ple that would go to such extremes, and that would be the Mas­ter Race. . . .”
(The Man Who Knew Too Much; Dick Rus­sell; Car­roll & Graf [HC]; Copy­right 1992 by Dick Rus­sell; ISBN 0–88184-900–6; p. 684.)