Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 15, 1995 TAG: 9504180070
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NEWSDAY
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Short
Now, 28 years after Jack Ruby's death, a previously unreleased letter purportedly handwritten by the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald has surfaced to fuel an old controversy.
Friday, Manhattan-based historical-documents dealer Gary Zimet told Newsday he has acquired a letter written by Ruby in which Ruby accused President Johnson of complicity in the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy.
In the 12-page letter written from prison in 1965, Ruby also claimed he was framed for conspiracy in the assassination of JFK. The letter was addressed to a Dallas police officer friend named ``Joe,'' Zimet said.
Ruby, whose 1964 murder conviction was reversed because of illegal testimony allowed by the trial judge, died of cancer in January 1967 while the second trial for the murder of Oswald was pending.
``This letter ... gives us insight into the perspectives of a man who was at center stage in one of the great tragedies of our time,'' Zimet said.
Zimet said he bought the letter six weeks ago from ``someone one step removed from the Ruby family.''
In the letter, Zimet said Ruby wrote he was ``being framed for being in on the assassination, that I had been used to silence Oswald.''
``Someday, Joe, you will find out what President Johnson is!'' Ruby wrote, according to Zimet. ``What he had to do with the assassination. One thing is for certain, Joe, he couldn't stand a polygraph test.''
Ruby went on to question in the same letter how Oswald ``went to work a week or 10 days at the Book Building before even Kennedy knew he himself was coming to Dallas.''
by CNB