Unpublished handwritten manuscript in pencil, signed on the first page “Jack Ruby,” 14 pages, 4 x 6, no date [circa 1964–1966]. Ruby wrote this autobiographical essay while imprisoned for his momentous crime. In part, Ruby details: “Here are the facts about Jack Ruby!! I spent three years working with the newspapers securing subscriptions for the Call-Bulletin and San Francisco Examiner at times having my own crew. These were depression years 1934–1937. Came back to Chicago my home in 1937. Became a field organizer for Local 20467 my salary 22.50 per wk. The Wagner Labor Act had just become a law in 1937, and thought this is what the country was for, legitimate organized labor. My checks never had gone over $22.50. I left the union the latter 1940 part of 1939—Voluntarily …” Ruby then explains that while he was in the service, he “had been corresponding with my sister [Eva] in Dallas…She mentioned she would like to go in the nite-club business. I encouraged her. I hopped a ride on a three day pass and got to visit Dallas for my first time…What impressed me most was the Ambassador Hotel only one block from the supposed to be club. I didn’t realize this part of town was considered one of the roughest …” Accompanied by a photocopied 1992 letter of provenance from Ruby’s brother Earl, who writes in part: “The manuscript was to be used by Jack’s lawyers if a new trial was granted to establish his character as not being capable of pre-meditated murder and that his act of November 24, 1963 was spontaneous and born of anguish and grief.” Staple holes, and small loss to one corner of first page, otherwise fine condition.
This autobiographical letter outlines the chain of events set forth in 1947 that ultimately placed Ruby in Dallas in 1963 at the time of JFK assassination—and preparing him for his role in history. For the decade and a half prior to becoming the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, Ruby and his sister earned their keep via the operation of nightclubs and dance halls in Dallas, including management of The Singapore Supper Club, later to be renamed the Silver Spur Club. It was operated primarily as a dance hall and local beer joint. This lengthy prose offers not only a firsthand accounting of life for the “assassin’s assassin” but is itself a part of history, as it was initially created in the event of a new trial for Lee Harvey Oswald’s shooter. Ruby died of cancer, however, before such a court appearance could take place. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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