buddy larson:
“Warren Commission’s scenario plausible except for Jack Ruby motivation, is how it strikes me. Ruby-type sacrifice self for high-minded principle? ”
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Jack Ruby’s purported motivation is known, because he was tried and his motivation was discussed as a major issue during his trial. The trial was reported in detail in the mass media at that time, and at least one book was written about the trial.

His purported motivation was that he as a Jew was afraid that the JFK assassination would be blamed on the Jews and that therefore the US population might begin to massacre Jews in revenge. In order that the Jews not be blamed, he killed Lee Harvey Oswald and yelled as he was being arrested, “This will show that the Jews have guts!”

Keep in mind that the Nazi genocide of the Jews in Europe had, in 1963, ended only 18 years previously. Jack Ruby’s father was a Jew from Russia and his mother was a Jew from Poland. The Ruby children grew up speaking Yiddish in a poor Jewish neighborhood in Chicago. Many of Jack Ruby’s uncles, aunts and cousins perished in Europe during the Holocaust. Jack Ruby and one of his brothers served in the US Army during World War Two.

Jack Ruby’s trial ended with his conviction and sentence to death. He died of cancer in prison before he was executed.

Many people think that Lee Harvey Oswald acted as a patsy for the Mafia when he assassinated JFK and that Ruby acted as a hitman for the Mafia, silencing Oswald. Ruby had a lot of associations with Mafia members and with other Mafia associates.

Ruby also was involved in gun smuggling, and sometimes the guns were smuggled to pro-Castro Cubans and to anti-Castro Cubans. The CIA too was involved in some of this very same gun smuggling, in the CIA’s own efforts to involve itself in various Cuban intrigues. And Lee Harvey Oswald became involved in all these same pro-Castro and anti-Castro activities, including gun smuggling. It is some evidence that during the course of these activities, Ruby came into some association with Oswald before the assassination.

And if there was such a prior association between Ruby and Oswald, then that was a key element of Ruby’s panic after Oswald assassinated JFK. Ruby was afraid not only that the JFK assassination would be blamed on the Jews in general but also would be blamed on him as a Jew in particular. He wanted to show everyone in the USA that he as a Jew was as angry and betrayed by Oswald as the non-Jews were, but that he as a Jew had the guts to personally execute Oswald.