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JFK Book Reviews - The Ruby Oswald Affair · The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination

• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Well, hello there, everybody. Welcome back to JFK Book Reviews,
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  Speaker 1: a division of the Lone Gummin' podcast. And this week
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  Speaker 1: here on the show, we're going to be reviewing... The
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  Speaker 1: Ruby Oswald Affair, Reflections by Alan Adelson. Now I've got
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  Speaker 1: myself a nice, glossy, beautiful copy of this book here.
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  Speaker 1: As you can see, it's not too terribly thick. It's
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  Speaker 1: got a picture of Jack Ruby on the back sitting
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  Speaker 1: in his jail cell. And I picked this copy up
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  Speaker 1: from my wonder bookstore many moons ago for $ 9. 95. A steal,
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  Speaker 1: I tell you, a steal. A steal. The Ruby Oswald
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  Speaker 1: Affair Reflections by Alan Adelson. Now, this book here has
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  Speaker 1: a very interesting story. But before we get into it,
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  Speaker 1: you know, in the process of getting together my cover
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  Speaker 1: art and the book art and all of that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I googled this thing, right? Let me show you. So
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  Speaker 1: I simply Googled it, you know, The Ruby Oswald Affair
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  Speaker 1: by Alan Adelson. And I'm looking here and I see,
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  Speaker 1: oh damn, Jess Connell has reviewed this book. So I
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  Speaker 1: didn't want to do it like if she had just
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  Speaker 1: done it, you know, a couple weeks or months ago.
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  Speaker 1: So I decided to click through a bit. Yeah. So,
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  Speaker 1: I clicked through a bit. Hang on. I promise it'll
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  Speaker 1: be worth the wait. Just hang on. Alright, this pops up. So,
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  Speaker 1: I hit visit. Right? I'm thinking, oh man, what's up?
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  Speaker 2: So.
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  Speaker 1: I click through. And I get here, and I'm like, okay.
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  Speaker 1: You know, let's see what we got here, folks.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, friends. It's Carrie. Welcome back to my.
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  Speaker 1: Wait a minute. That's not just Connell. This is Carrie.
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  Speaker 1: Who's Carrie? And I see Miss Carrie has a lot
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  Speaker 1: of JFK-related books there in the background. I mean, a lot,
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  Speaker 1: a lot. So, this beautiful young lady is not just
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  Speaker 1: a drive-by JFK book lover. She's legit. Too legit to quit. So,
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  Speaker 1: let's see what Carrie has to say real quick about
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  Speaker 1: this book.
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  Speaker 2: My channel, thanks for joining me today. Before I get started,
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  Speaker 2: I want to mention the shirt I'm wearing. I had
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  Speaker 2: a couple of friends design and make these shirts for
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  Speaker 2: me as a surprise. The front says, reading is my therapy.
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  Speaker 2: And the back... really awesome it says check me out
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  Speaker 2: so thank you so much Jane and Allison you guys
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  Speaker 2: are awesome.
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  Speaker 1: Oh I'm checking you out miss Carrie you're in that
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  Speaker 1: cute little southern accent turns out she probably lives about
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  Speaker 1: an hour away from your boy here in Winchester I
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  Speaker 1: think she's in Charlottesville holler at your boy Carrie Come
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  Speaker 1: on now. Oh, I digress. I'll try to behave myself.
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  Speaker 1: But no, seriously, Carrie. Holler at your boy. Alright, back
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  Speaker 1: to the book. Alan Adelson. Who is this dude? Well,
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  Speaker 1: he was hired by, well, he was actually Earl Ruby's attorney.
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  Speaker 1: And In 1967, Allen Adelson told the Texas Press that
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  Speaker 1: my chief job is to continue vindicating Jack Ruby's name.
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  Speaker 1: And he continued in that role for the next 20-some years.
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  Speaker 1: He was actually the probate attorney of Jack Ruby's last
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  Speaker 1: will and testament. The hard-earned trust of Jack's brothers and
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  Speaker 1: sisters and his intensive research have culminated into this book,
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  Speaker 1: The Ruby Oswald Affair. And in this book, that was
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  Speaker 1: published in 1988, and there's a very sad story behind
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  Speaker 1: this book, but there's a lot of stuff that he
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  Speaker 1: got his hands on that had never been published before.
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  Speaker 1: And these include the last letter that Jack Ruby ever wrote,
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  Speaker 1: handwritten notes by Jack Ruby while in jail, photographs taken
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  Speaker 1: secretly of Jack Ruby in jail, an exclusive interview with
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  Speaker 1: Earl Ruby, family photographs of Jack Ruby, and contracts and
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  Speaker 1: canceled checks from Jack Ruby's collection. And interestingly enough, he
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  Speaker 1: didn't have much to probate. Jack didn't have very many
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  Speaker 1: things at the end of his life. Uh, I believe
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  Speaker 1: he only had a suit and a hat, a pair
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  Speaker 1: of shoes, and his pistol that he had shot Oswald with.
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  Speaker 1: So not much to probate there with that last will
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  Speaker 1: and testament. But there's a lot of questions when it
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  Speaker 1: comes to Jack Ruby. And while the title of this
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  Speaker 1: book may lend it to seeming somewhat of a conspiracy-angled book,
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  Speaker 1: it's not. It's not. It very much is in line. Again,
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  Speaker 1: you have to remember, this is coming from an attorney
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  Speaker 1: for Earl Ruby and the Ruby family. So, of course,
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  Speaker 1: after Jack passed, they wanted to paint Jack Ruby in
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  Speaker 1: as much of a positive light as possible. Because they
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  Speaker 1: didn't believe that Jack Ruby was tied up with the mafia.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't believe that he was tied up in a
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  Speaker 1: conspiracy to kill JFK. They didn't believe he was tied
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  Speaker 1: up in a conspiracy with Oswald. Or anything like this.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't believe that he was put up to silence Oswald.
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  Speaker 1: So this book, very much so, continues that line of thinking.
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  Speaker 2: And....
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  Speaker 1: Well, let's just get right into it a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: This book was published, like I said, in 1988 by
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  Speaker 1: Romar Books. out of Seattle, Washington. And it contains a
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  Speaker 1: content section, a publisher's preface, which we'll get to here
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  Speaker 1: in a minute. 37 chapters, folks, 37. An epilogue and
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  Speaker 1: seven appendices along with an index. Sadly, the one thing
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  Speaker 1: missing here is footnotes. But, again, we're not retrying the
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  Speaker 1: Jack Ruby murder trial, or we're not tearing apart the
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  Speaker 1: Warren commission in this book. Here's the sad part. The
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  Speaker 1: publisher's preface. When Alan Adelson first met Earl Ruby, brother
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  Speaker 1: of Jack, he was a young attorney just starting out
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  Speaker 1: in Detroit. Little did he know when he agreed to
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  Speaker 1: be Earl's attorney, that he would someday be asked to
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  Speaker 1: probate the will of Jack Ruby. And little did he
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  Speaker 1: know that in that entangled legal process of trying to
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  Speaker 1: have Jack Ruby's last wishes honored, that the pain and
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  Speaker 1: distress that he would witness the Ruby family go through
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  Speaker 1: would compel him to initiate his own search to sort
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  Speaker 1: out the truths and fairy tales about the man who
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  Speaker 1: shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald. For 20 years, Adelson
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  Speaker 1: studied the two men and the event in history that
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  Speaker 1: brought them together. The more Adelson discovered about Jack Ruby,
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  Speaker 1: the less tolerant he became of the accusations made about
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  Speaker 1: this man. That Jack Ruby helped assassinate the president, that
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  Speaker 1: he was a mafia hitman or a CIA pawn, that
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  Speaker 1: he shot Oswald to keep him from telling what he
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  Speaker 1: knew about the conspiracy to shoot the president. Adelson used
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  Speaker 1: every opportunity to speak the truth about Jack Ruby, his
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  Speaker 1: Chicago roots, his life in Dallas, his preoccupation with being
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  Speaker 1: a Jew, and in his own peculiar way, his constantly
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  Speaker 1: trying to make things right. In 1984, Alan Oswald, Adelson
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  Speaker 1: completed his rough draft of The Ruby Oswald Affair and
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  Speaker 1: in late 1987 completed negotiations to have his book published
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  Speaker 1: by Romar Books Limited, knowing that his reflections on Jack
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  Speaker 1: Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald would be in print for
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  Speaker 1: the public to read. To celebrate, Adelson and his wife
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  Speaker 1: went to Hawaii. While in Hawaii, he came down with
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  Speaker 1: pneumonia and died there on February 3, 1988. At the
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  Speaker 1: age of 54. Damn that's brutal. That is brutal. So again.
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  Speaker 1: This book. Written from a particular perspective. A particular perspective.
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  Speaker 1: And I don't know how well. This stuff is going
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  Speaker 1: to show up. And translate. But here on the back.
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  Speaker 1: In the back. we have handwritten notes from Jack Ruby
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  Speaker 1: in prison. And you know how I love to read cursive. Um,
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  Speaker 1: there's some very interesting things written in some of these
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  Speaker 1: notes and letters from Jack Ruby while he was incarcerated. Um,
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  Speaker 1: And again, for these to be, for the first time,
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  Speaker 1: in print anywhere from the personal collection of Jack Ruby
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  Speaker 1: and Earl Ruby, it's fascinating. You know, they're not like
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  Speaker 1: JFK files. They're not controlled by the government. They're not
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  Speaker 1: in NARA. These are things that the Ruby family had
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  Speaker 1: and curated. And if they're trying to portray some sort
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  Speaker 1: of narrative here in this book, then of course they're
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  Speaker 1: not going to publish any heavily conspiracy-related letters or notes
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  Speaker 1: that Jack Ruby may have written in prison because that
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  Speaker 1: would contradict the entire narrative of the book. Of course.
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  Speaker 1: But what we do see here is a very interesting
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  Speaker 1: glimpse into the life of Jack Ruby while he was incarcerated.
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  Speaker 1: He states plainly in a couple of these letters that
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  Speaker 1: they're playing tricks with his mind in jail. Hello, MK ultra. Um,
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  Speaker 1: and lots of other things. There's a letter in here
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  Speaker 1: to Joe, who I think might be honest. Joe, uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we did a whole show on honest Joe recently.
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  Speaker 1: We just talked about the Dallas mafia. So I thought
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  Speaker 1: this was an appropriate book to come on here and
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  Speaker 1: review this week. given its ties to the shows that
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  Speaker 1: we've been doing here lately. Now, you can pick up
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  Speaker 1: this book on Amazon for approximately 20 bucks or so.
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  Speaker 1: I'll put the link down in the description. All in all,
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  Speaker 1: this book clocks in at a little over 300 pages,
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  Speaker 1: and that includes all the extras, uh, including the appendices
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  Speaker 1: and everything. And a couple of these appendices have some
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  Speaker 1: very interesting titles and some very interesting information. For instance,
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  Speaker 1: Appendix A is a timetable of events surrounding the assassination
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  Speaker 1: of JFK and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Appendix B,
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  Speaker 1: important dates, the state of Texas versus Jack Rubenstein. Appendix C,
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  Speaker 1: the U.S. Department of Justice report. Appendix D, the Jack
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  Speaker 1: Ruby will that was never signed. Appendix E, anti-Semitic people
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  Speaker 1: of the state of Texas versus Ruby. Appendix F, notes
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  Speaker 1: and letters by Jack Ruby. And Appendix G, a conversation
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  Speaker 1: with Earl Ruby.
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  Speaker 2: So.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of interesting stuff here. Let's see what
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  Speaker 1: Jack Ruby's will said that was never signed. As I
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  Speaker 1: flip back... Oh, man. Interesting. Now, we've all heard, of course,
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  Speaker 1: that Jack Ruby died From a fast-acting cancer. Right? That's
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  Speaker 1: always been what you heard. This book contradicts it. It says,
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  Speaker 1: Jack instructed his brother Earl to have this will drawn
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  Speaker 1: up for him while Earl was waiting outside of Jack's
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  Speaker 1: hospital room for his doctor to arrive to witness the
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  Speaker 1: signing of the will. Jack died from a blood clot
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  Speaker 1: that lodged in his lungs. Which is very different than
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  Speaker 1: a cancer death. Last thing I know, I don't think
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  Speaker 1: cancer causes blood clots in the lungs. What do I know?
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  Speaker 1: I'm not a doctor. I just play one on TV.
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  Speaker 1: So again, it has a copy of his last will
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  Speaker 1: and testament in here that is unsigned. Apparently, you know,
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  Speaker 1: he gave it. And then, of course, they had to
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  Speaker 1: type it up. And by the time they had it
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  Speaker 1: typed up, he was, of course, dead. Which sucks. But
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  Speaker 1: all of that kind of stuff is in here. And
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  Speaker 1: It's a light read, meaning it's not too deep or
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  Speaker 1: detailed to understand. It provides a very interesting view of
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  Speaker 1: Jack Ruby from a pro-Jack Ruby perspective, which is interesting.
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  Speaker 1: And it lets you know a little bit more about
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  Speaker 1: who this man that shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the
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  Speaker 1: basement of the building on November 24th 1963 truly was.
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  Speaker 1: From the family perspective. So with that being said, folks,
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  Speaker 1: I am going for what this book is, what it was,
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  Speaker 1: and what it offered. This book has been truly almost
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  Speaker 1: lost to history. It never got a second edition. Again,
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  Speaker 1: the poor guy who wrote it. Ended up dying before
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  Speaker 1: it was published. So he never got to enjoy the
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  Speaker 1: fruits of his labor. And it just hasn't gotten much
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  Speaker 1: play out there. So hopefully I'll be helping shed a
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  Speaker 1: little bit more light on this book and all of
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  Speaker 1: the interesting things in it. But Because I think it
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  Speaker 1: was partially... Well, not partially, but.
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  Speaker 1: It was very biased, if you will, towards the Ruby family.
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  Speaker 1: Wanting to paint Ruby in as good of a light
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  Speaker 1: as possible. While still delivering the interesting tidbits. Alright, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to give this book... The Ruby Oswald Affair. Reflections
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  Speaker 1: by Alan Adelson. A solid... Six Guns Up. And if
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  Speaker 1: you enjoyed this book review, folks, then by golly, you
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: will love the podcast that we do all about the
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: JFK assassination. It's called The Lone Gummin' Podcast. And we
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  Speaker 1: do it every Friday night here live on YouTube at
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. And again on Wednesday evenings
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time for our channel members.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Just for them.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: So.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Check it out. Go to our channel. Click on the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: live tab. And you will see a plethora. And I
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: mean plethora. Of shows on various topics. And we hope
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: to see you over there. And until then. This has
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: been JFK Book Reviews. With Big Bad Bob. That's me.
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  Speaker 1: And we'll see you. Next time. Peace.