Nov. 24, 1963 - Strong opinions and loyalties as well as impulsiveness and quickness to anger have long been the marks of the man who killed President Kennedy’s assassin today. Jack Rubenstein, who long ago adopted the name of Jack Ruby, is a small-time operator in the nightclub and gambling world. In petty ways, he broke the law in Chicago and Dallas many times but is not on record has having committed a felony. Police records show charges against Ruby beginning in 1949 include disturbing the peace, “investigation of a concealed weapon,” violating dance hall ordinance, and violating the liquor laws. Ruby, 52 years old, 5-10, and heavyset, talks gruffly and has been known to personally “bounce” an offending patron from his nightspot. He learned violence in Chicago’s ghetto. He also has a reputation for kindness and generosity toward anyone who does him a favor. He knows many policemen because of his club operations. Though not connected with politics, he identified himself emotionally with the New Deal in the 1930s and then with President Kennedy’s New Frontier. As a young man in Chicago, he would strike anybody who disparaged President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ruby and his sister, Mrs. Eva Grant, were so devoted to President Kennedy that they felt personally devastated by his death. “Jack must have gone out his head,” Mrs. Grant said today. “He hates anything done to this country. He’s a good Jew. We come from a big, Orthodox family. This [the shooting of Oswald] is something we don’t believe in.” She said she may have inadvertently planted the thought of killing Oswald in Ruby’s mind. “I told him, ‘Don’t worry. Someone will shoot Oswald,’” she said. “He told me, ‘Look at the logic of this. Oswald got to the President, but no one can get to Oswald.” George Senator, who worked at one of Ruby’s clubs, was his roommate. He said Ruby had been in a state of shock since the assassination, mourning particularly for the Kennedy children. “He’s been going around the apartment saying, ‘Those poor kids,’” Mr. Senator said. “It bothered him tremendously.”
