nichevo:
“I thought ruby’s professed motivation was to spare the kennedy family the ordeal of a trial. ”
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I think you are right that he said that, probably to the Warren Commission and maybe also at the trial. He said a lot of things.

Right after he shot Oswald, he yelled something like, “This will show the world that the Jews have guts.”

In the preparations for the trial, there were a lot of legal arguments before the judge about whether that statement should be excluded. As I remember, the prosecution wanted to include it and the defense wanted to exclude it. The judge ruled that it had to be included, and so the defense had to deal with it during the trial. I think the defense would have preferred to argue simply that Ruby had a mental disorder and that his action lacked a rational conscious motivation. Then the defense had to concede he had a motivation but argue it was irrational.

My memory about this might be mistaken. It probably has been more than 15 years since I read the book about the trial.

There is no doubt that declared this Jews-related motivation right after the shooting. Several of the police officers heard it. I think his declaration remains the best evidence of his motivation. He didn’t say anything about the grieving widow at that moment.

As some days and weeks passed after the shooting, he recognized that his shooting of Oswald was condemned much more than it was praised by the public. Since the shooting was so unpopular, he disassociated it from the Jewish motivation. The last thing Ruby wanted to do was to give the public any reason to criticize the Jews because of what he had done.

Therefore his explanation about saving the grieving widow from the trial was given more prominence in his explanations. That consideration perhaps really did play some minor but real role in his furious decision to kill Oswald.