Many researchers believe that the document above, linking Jack Ruby to Richard Nixon is a fake. They note that the document includes a zip code which did not exist in 1947.
But a researcher who posts under the name tomnln at alt.assassination.jfk has challenged that opinion. He wrote:
The one-page xerox obviously is really a composite of 2 different documents. At the top is a half-page undated FBI note STAPLED TO THE TOP OF A FULL PAGE UNDERNEATH. Only the bottom half of the full sheet is seen. The note, on the letterhead of the Office of the Director, is signed by LS. It does have an illegible zip code.
The cover sheet says...
QUOTE: NOTE: Extra copy. Inclosure not verified by official report. Return to file. This is sensitive.
Obviously, a note of transmittal has been attached years later to an extra copy of a document found in the HUAC files. THEN THERE IS A VERY OBVIOUS SHADOW OF THE EDGE OF THE HALF-PAGE COVER SHEET SLANTING ACROSS THE XEROXED PAGE
Under the shadow the LOWER HALF OF THE HUAC DOCUMENT IS SEEN. Here is what the HUAC document says:
It is my sworn statement that one Jack Rubenstein of Chicago noted as a potential witness for hearings of the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities is performing information functions for the staff of Cong. Richard M. Nixon, Rep. or California. It is requested Rubenstein not be called for open testimony in those aforementioned hearings.
Sworn on this day 24 November 1947
SIGNATURE REDACTED
Staff Assistant
I hope this accurate assessment of this dual document debunks the zip code myth. If it is a fake document, the ZIP code is obviously immaterial to such a conclusion, since it is on a transmittal cover sheet. The HUAC document and its FBI cover sheet seem genuine to me. On this basis, I believe Ruby was an informant for Nixon circa 1947.
It appears that tomnln is correct that what we have here are two documents, the FBI cover sheet likely stapled on top of the letter from the Staff Assistant to Congressman Nixon. Certainly a letter or memo from HUAC would not be on FBI letterhead. Nor would a letter sent by a Congressman's office contain a note at the top indicating that this is an "extra copy" that should be returned to the file.
So, the fact that the document as we have it contains a zip code would not seem, in itself, to prove fakery. This does not mean that the document is necessarily authentic. There is another apparent problem with the document. The zip code is illegible but would seem to begin with a "9"or an "8". Zip codes for Washington DC begin with "2" and, as far as I know, did so in 1947 as well.
Anthony Marsh, in a posting on alt.assassination.jfk on October 22, 1999 wrote:
"We have a few suspicions of who might have forged it and why. Some fringe researchers such as David Truby and Trowbridge Ford."
Trowbridge Ford, a former Professor at Holy Cross College, not only denies forging anything, but believes himself that the memo is a fake. He says that the source of the memo was a journalist by the name of J. David Truby. All quotations are from
this website.a leading investigator of the JFK assassination, Jim Marrs, published Crossfire in which he, unbeknownst to me, completely trashed all my work on the Dallas assassination by claiming that President Nixon had had a long covert relation with Jack Ruby, going all the way back to the late 1940s. According to another JFK assassination researcher, Jim DiEugenio, though I have not seen the book, Marrs wrote this about about my work: "By the early 1980's, Ford told this author he had studied literally thousands of genuine FBI documents, and had slowly come to the conclusion that the Nixon-Ruby memo was probably legitimate." (e-mail, Oct. 20, 2003)
As far as I remember - though my former college employer destroyed all my files on the JFK assassination shortly after my departure, and without any consultation with me when I had persmission from my replacement to keep them in my old office until I had found new storage facilities, so I cannot be sure - I have never talked with with Marrs. The reference to the early 1980s sounds completely bogus as I was overseas from May 1981 until August 1984. I certainly know that I have never studied "literally thousands of genuine FBI documents," probably a handful at most. I have never visited any Bureau facility where they are stored. More importantly, I never came to believe the memo genuine. I originally was willing to look into its authencity, though I had not discovered it, but I quickly came to the conclusion that it was a forgery.
Ultimately, after Truby had written a draft article, and provided 10 pages of documentation, The National Tattler agreed to publish it since one of the documents was a memo by a Bureau staff assistant to a House committee stating the following: "It is my sworn statement that one Jack Rubenstein of Chicago, noted as a potential witness for hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, is performing information functions for the staff of Cong. Richard M. Nixon, Republican of California. It is requested Rubenstein not be called for open testimony in those aforementioned hearings." By this time, though, I had concluded the memo was a forgery, especially since it had a distinct line running across it, indicating that the FBI lettterhead had been pasted onto the memo's body, and I threatened Truby by Western Union telegram that I would sue him if he published the story.
My biggest complaint of the memo, though, was that it contradicted my research. I discovered a compilation of documents that HUAC had prepared in 1939 as background for dealing with the alleged communist menace, and among them was a document, stating that Miriam Silvis and Jack Rubenstein had been dropped from the leadership of America's Young Communist League as part of Stalin's takeover by William Z. Foster of the whole operation. (Exhibit No. 211, "A Compilation of Sources Used as Exhibits to Show the Nature and Aims of the Communist Party," Congressional Hearings, House Un-American Activities Committee, 76th Congress, 1939-40, Appendix 1, pp. 919-22) By tracing Rubenstein's subsequent career - joining the Mafia, moving to Dallas, and changing his name to Ruby - Nixon helped find the basis of the Nixon-Mundt Bill which was intended to make other communists change their lives in similar ways. In sum, Nixon knew all he needed to know about Rubenstein without ever meeting the former communist, or using him in any way.
After Ruby shot Oswald there were a number of stories about the "Communist" Jack Rubenstein. However, it is now clear that the Communist Jack Rubenstein was a different individual than the Jack Ruby (formerly Rubenstein) who shot Oswald. Yes, there were two Jack Rubensteins. More information about the Communist Jack Rubenstein can be found here.
The memo, while Truby had made it part of the documentation, was neither found nor supplied by me. The claim that Nixon had gotten Ruby out of a jam - what implied that he would be willing to do something for the Congressman in return - was completely false. Nixon had so turned up the heat on the former communist, and seller of Iskra in Chicago that he had become a runner for Sam Giancana in Dallas. Lutz did repeat, though, that "I'd be more than happy to explore our arguments in court" with all concerned, explaining why nothing resulted from them for fear that any action, and clarification would just compound Nixon's problems.
Seven months later, the respected Writer's Digest published two articles relating to my problems, one entitled "Tattling on The National Tattler," showing what a sleazy, fly-by-night publication it was, and another dealing directly with Truby and me, "Meanwhile at The Tattler: 'Dirty Tricks and Terror'." I was quite satisfied with it because it showed that Truby had learned of me through Tatro, had gotten the memo from a Justice Department source, had misunderstood its content in a way I never would have - claiming that Jack Rubenstein was an alias of Ruby when it was his real name - and had supplied the memo both to the tabloid and Writer's Digest. (January 1976 issue, p. 34) The rest of the article was more in keeping with the first one, Truby claiming that the Lutz article had been stolen from him, and demanding payment, though the WD one did repeat my challenge to Nixon, Connally, Helms, and other to sue me if they objected to my claims, and explained that I was not suing anyone in order not to ruin my contentions about the conspiracy over minor mistakes.
In fact, I was so confident that claims about the memo were dead that I never even mentioned its existence when I had a three-part article on the JKF assassination published in The National Exchange, only adding this to what was said before about the former President's knowledge of Ruby: "Nixon had come across this one-time member of the national bureau of the Young Communist League when he was researching his two monographs for HUAC on what to do about Communists in the wake of the House citing the 'Hollywood Ten' for contempt of Congress." (vol. 2, no. 9, April 1978, p. 8.
Trowbridge Ford's reasons for believing the document to be a fake were groundless. The line across the middle of the document appear to be the result of the second FBI document stapled to the HUAC letter and Ford was mistaken in thinking that Ruby was ever a member of the Young Communist League.
So which Rubenstein is the subject of the memo? The reference to him being from Chicago would indicate that it was the Jack Ruby.
I am going to look into this further and will hopefully update this post. If any of my readers live in Pennsylvania, perhaps some research into the J. David Truby Collection would shed some more light into the matter.
