• Font Size    
E-mail

Close Window E-mail This Page

Newly Discovered JFK Files Released

Required fields are marked with an asterisk(*)



The information you provide will be used only to send the requested e-mail and will not be used to send any other e-mail communications. Read more in our Privacy Policy

Send E-mail

   Print     Share +   

Newly Discovered JFK Files Released

DALLAS (CBS) ― A transcript of an alleged plot between Jack Ruby and Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was found in boxes of memorabilia in an old safe at the Dallas County district attorney's office.
 
District Attorney Craig Watkins presented some of the items at a news conference Monday.

Watkins says they were locked in a safe for nearly two decades before he was made aware of them when he took office in 2006.

While the transcript reads like a conspiracy theorist's dream -- Oswald and Ruby plotting to kill Kennedy -- the DA's top assistant said it's likely material for a proposed movie.

Other items in the safe include Ruby's brown leather gun holster, two brass knuckles found on Ruby when he was arrested and a movie contract signed by former Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade.

Ruby shot and killed Oswald two days after the president's death.

Much of the attention focused on the transcript purporting that Ruby and Oswald met at Ruby's nightclub on Oct. 4, 1963, less than two months before the Nov. 22 assassination. In it, they allegedly talked of killing the president because the Mafia wanted to "get rid of" his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

The transcript reads in part:

Lee: You said the boys in Chicago want to get rid of the Attorney General.
Ruby: Yes, but it can't be done ... it would get the Feds into everything.
Lee: There is a way to get rid of him without killing him.
Ruby: How's that?
Lee: I can shoot his brother.
Ruby: You mean the President?
Lee: Yes, the President.
Ruby: But that wouldn't be patriotic.
Lee: What's the difference between shooting the Governor and in shooting the President?
Ruby: It would get the FBI into it.
Lee: I can still do it, all I need is my rifle and a tall building; but it will take time, maybe six months to find the right place; but I'll have to have some money to live on while I do the planning."

Ruby goes on to allegedly tell Oswald that no one must ever know the money for the job came from the Mafia. Ruby supposedly told Oswald not to get caught or else he would have to kill him.

Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum near where the president was shot, hasn't seen the transcript but doubts it's real. It is well-documented that Oswald was in Irving the evening of Oct. 4, at a home where his wife was staying, Mack said.
 
"The fact that it's sitting in Henry Wade's file, and he didn't do anything, indicates he thought it wasn't worth anything," Mack said. "He probably kept it because it was funny. It's hilarious. It's like a bad B movie."

Terri Moore, Watkins' top assistant, said she believes the latest transcript is part of a movie Wade was working on with producers. The former prosecutor wrote about the proposed movie, "Countdown in Dallas," in letters found in the safe.

"It's not real. Crooks don't talk like that," Moore said. "If that transcript is true, then history is changed because Oswald and Ruby were talking about assassinating the president."

The transcript resembles one published in a report by the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination and determined that Oswald was the lone gunman. The FBI determined that conversation between Oswald and Ruby about killing the governor was definitely fake.

The account in the commission report was "re-created" for authorities by a now-deceased Dallas attorney who claimed he recognized Oswald in a newspaper photo as the man he saw talking to Ruby.

It's unknown whether the boxes Watkins and others found in the courthouse about a year ago have information previously undisclosed to the public or the Warren Commission.

The search began after Watkins was told the gun used to kill Oswald was somewhere in the courthouse. They didn't find the gun, which Mack said is privately owned. The boxes probably sat in the safe since being moved when the courthouse opened in 1989.

The items are still being processed and eventually will be donated to an entity that can authenticate them, preserve them and make them available to the public, Watkins said.

"It's interesting, and it's not ours," Watkins said. "It's the public's."

Ruby was convicted of Oswald's death on March 14, 1964. He appealed for a new trial with the argument he did not receive a fair trial in Dallas. He was awarded a new trial on Jan. 3, 1967, but died at Parkland Hospital before it could start.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

You need the latest Flash player to view video content.
Click here to download.

Click here to bypass this detection if you already have the latest Flash Player.