The Sorrowful Saga of Jack Ruby's Pants, Now At Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

 

Snap your suspenders auction attenders, Jack Ruby's pants are for sale.

A pair of trousers personally owned and worn by the man who fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of JFK, is being offered by Nate D. Sanders Auctions in its sale ending January 30th at 5PM Pacific. The opening bid is $5,000.

Ruby was not wearing this pair of pants when he shot Oswald. But he may have worn them during courtroom appearances. Or, he may have had them on when he heard news of the President's assassination while placing an ad at the Dallas Morning News office. Perhaps they were hanging in his closet at the moment JFK was shot. Maybe he was wearing them while Tammy True, his "No. 1 girl," performed her striptease act at Ruby's Carousel Club. Secrets abound in the pockets, which, alas, are sans historical lint. If only pants could talk. But these pants, apparently, are under a gag order and forbidden to split their seams; 100% worsted wool lips as well as fly are zippered.

We do know, however, that someone wrote Ruby's name on the outer lining to one of the pockets. It wasn't Ruby; the handwriting is not his. Perhaps his mother wrote his name there before sending him  to summer camp. It was probably Earl, Jack Ruby's brother, who inked Jack's name on the pocket. He provided a notarized letter of authenticity to accompany the pants so you know they're the real Ruby. We do not know, however, and will likely never know whether Jack Ruby slipped his right or left leg in first when putting them on, whether he put his shoes on before or after donning them, nor where he positioned his privates within his pants, to the left or to the right? History will remain a beggar.

You may be asking yourself, as I am, why bother writing about a historical artifact of dubious historical value that has nothing to do with books? We've written about Ernest Hemingway's typewriter. We've written about Herman Melville's travel desk. We've even written about Hart Crane's sombrero, which is probably not Hart Crane's sombrero.

We feel it our duty. I am, after, all, the man who slept in Lee Harvey Oswald's coffin. But if someone feels that a pair of Jack Ruby's pants has collectible value who am I to judge? Yet caveat emptor: it'll take a moment of madness to fill these pants with a backstory worthy of their purchase.

Book inserted to lend relevance to post.

How 'bout this one: Jack Ruby, né Jacob Rubenstein, was wearing these pants when he slipped my uncle, Elmer Gertz (1906-2000), his appeal attorney (who was Clarence Darrow's protegé in youth, and got Ruby's sentence reduced from death to life), a two-page note in Judge Holland's Dallas courtroom on September 9, 1965 highlighting his hopelessness and paranoid delusions about an anti-Semitic, neo-Final Solution conspiracy being played out where he was incarcerated:

"Elmer, you must believe me, that I am not imagining crazy thoughts etc. This is all so hopeless, that they have everything in the bag and there isn't any chance or hope for me. These hearings are just to stall for time. What chance do I have, when I know at this time that they are killing our people now in this very building. You must believe me, as to  what is happening, they are torturing people right here. Why should I constantly repeat all these things over and over"

Jack Ruby's Crazy Pants. That's how you sell this footnote of historical haberdashery. The tag covers the whole spectrum of the man, who had a  history of mental illness in his family, a violent temper, poor impulse control, and a dog named Sheba he was nuts about. Ruby's roommate, George Senator, told the Warren Commission that Jack would often refer to Sheba as his "wife." He took her everywhere and catered to her every whim. She was waiting in the car for him while he sent a money order from the Western Union office adjacent to the Dallas police station garage where he observed a crowd and went in. He did her bidding; he had no choice. He was a slave to Sheba. She wore the pants in the marriage.

On January 3, 1967, Jack Ruby, sentenced to life, died after throwing a pulmonary embolism secondary to lung cancer. He passed in Parkland Hospital, where JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald were pronounced dead.

He was buried next to his parents but not in these pants.

Nor in the Ruby slippers.

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Pants images courtesy of Nate D. Sanders Auctions, with our thanks.

Image of Ruby note to Elmer Gertz courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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I Slept in Lee Harvey Oswald's Coffin

Booktryst's publisher/editor goes where only one man has gone before - and brings something to read.

by Stephen J. Gertz

The original pine casket that held the body of Lee Harvey Oswald from his burial on  November 25, 1963 until his exhumation on October 4, 1981 will be auctioned on Thursday, December 16, 2010 by Nate D. Sanders Auctions.

On Saturday, December 11, 2010, I took a nap in it.

This might, were I a collector of profound means, be considered a Special, Private Preview Showing. But since I am not a collector of profound or even shallow means nor have any intention of bidding on Oswald's temporarily permanent original resting box, a reasonable person might ask, What the JFK?

Though I felt it might be an interesting way to get into the holiday spirit,  a pre-Christmas gift to myself, me stuffed into Oswald's post-mortum pine stocking, the motivation was simply, as Hilary said of Everest, "Because it was there."

It was there, before me, after I accepted an invitation to view it and had the nerve to ask if I could get an insider's look. The possibility was irresistible. The request graciously accepted, I prepared for bedtime; I took out a book to read, a rare book.

Understand, I'm the Warren Beatty of readers: I slept with 12,775 books. It's a compulsion; I can't help myself. I had hoped in advance to get horizontal in the thing, knew in that particular plane that anything goes, and had prepared accordingly.

I can personally attest that Lee Harvey Oswald's coffin is just like old-new: as deteriorated today as it was when first exhumed with him in it in 1981. Old-new, with a dash  of mildew.

And what book did I bring to read?

MATTHEWS, Jim. Four Dark Days in History:
November 22, 23, 24, 25, 1963; Who Killed Kennedy?
Los Angeles: Special Publications [Marvin Miller], [Dec.] 1963.

Four Dark Days in History was published by Marvin Miller within two weeks of the Kennedy assassination. The book was amongst the very first, if not the first of the cheapo event exploitation quickie books that would follow; it was certainly the first post-assassination publication. At only a dollar it sold thirty million copies, earned Miller the first of his small fortunes and a footnote in history: It was the only publication that possessed the Mary Moorman photo of the grassy knoll clearly defining a person standing behind it, thus confounding the lone-assassin theorists. The original photo had disappeared by the time the Warren Commission convened, and it depended upon this book to view the photograph. Ten years later, in 1973, after earning his second and substantially greater fortune, Miller would earn another footnote in U.S. history when he was immortalized by the U.S. Supreme Court's Miller obscenity decision; having become one of the nation's foremost pornographers, he slipped on an obscenity-through-the-mails banana peel and was vigorously prosecuted. The book has become impossible to find in anything better than very good condition.

How did Oswald get out of his casket? Amidst conspiracy theories that a look-alike Russian agent was actually buried in place of Oswald, a fierce legal battle erupted between Robert and Marina Oswald with the former trying to stop the exhumation and the latter pushing it forward. Marina's side prevailed, forcing an exhumation to determine who was actually buried in Oswald's grave. No surprise: it was Oswald.

The author w/LHO's casket.

As for my internment into and exhumation out of Oswald's ossuary, it lasted only a moment; a cat-nap at best. It is fragile, funky, and foul inside and I had no time to consider where I was and how I felt beyond feeling that this was the perfect rotten crate to hold rotten Oswald into eternity and I wanted out, asap.

The coffin measures 80" long x 24" deep, with the thickness of the sides of the casket approximately one inch. It is accompanied by a Letter of Authenticity by Funeral Director Allen Baumgardner, who assisted at the original embalming of Lee Harvey Oswald and later purchased the Miller Funeral Home, the mortuary that handled LHO, along with all of its property.

As of this writing the high bid is at $19,184.

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Shooting History: Notorious 1963 Photo On Exhibit At Truman Library

One of the most famous shots (literally and figuratively) in the history of American photojournalism was snapped by a photographer who'd already blown one chance to capture a historic moment, and was sure it was about to happen again. That's just one of the fascinating stories behind the Pulitzer Prize winning photos on exhibit through January 24, 2010 at the Harry S.Truman Library and Museum.

Robert H. Jackson, a 29-year-old photographer for the Dallas Times Herald, was assigned to cover the Friday, November 22, 1963 visit of President John F. Kennedy to the Texas city. According to a NBC news story, he was eight cars behind the President when he heard shots ring out. That put him directly in front of the Texas School Book Depository: "I looked up in the direction the sounds came from, there was a rifle resting on the ledge and I could see him draw it in. Didn't see the person, just saw the rifle being drawn in." Wondering why there's no photograph of that rifle? Because Jackson had just tossed his completed film roll to a reporter: "I'm sitting there with an empty camera and thinking I better reload my camera."

Next, Jackson made what he concedes was another big mistake. He left the motorcade and stayed at the famous grassy knoll, missing the chance to get a shot of the dying Kennedy being wheeled into the emergency room. "So, I thought, 'I have really screwed up,'"Jackson said. Little did he know a chance to redeem himself--and to go down in history--would come two days later.

Photographer Robert H. Jackson in 1964.
(Photo Courtesy Of Dallas Times Herald.)

Because he worked the less than desirable Sunday shift, Jackson was assigned to shoot the perp walk of alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. It was expected to be so routine that Jackson actually had to fight to cover the story. His desk editor, annoyed that the event was already an hour and a half behind schedule, wanted to pull him off the shoot and send him on another assignment. Jackson recalls: "I said, 'You must be kidding. There's no way we're going to leave here. You know, there's just no way.'"

Jackson carefully positioned himself at the left rear fender of an unmarked police car, and focused on the location where he thought he could get the clearest shot of Oswald: "I was in the best spot. I thought, I want to be looking right at 'em when they came out of the crowd.'" He knew he'd only have one chance to get the shot, since the flash on his camera took up to 5 seconds to reset. He was in exactly the right place for the action to come towards him: "I'm ready, I'm waiting and they said here he comes," recalled the photographer.

Then the unthinkable happened: "All of a sudden, I'm aware that somebody's stepping out from my right really fast, you know two steps." Thinking his shot was going to be blocked, Jackson snapped his picture. He estimates taking the photo 6/10's of a second after Jack Ruby, the man he thought would ruin his photo, pulled the trigger of the pistol that killed Oswald: "I mean, I couldn't have planned it any better. Talking about it, you know, it seems in slow motion, but it was really very quick." Jackson's careful planning, stubborn refusal to leave his assignment, and quick finger on the shutter, allowed him to shoot the now iconic photo that won him the Pulitzer Prize.

Jackson's Photo Of The Crowd Watching The President's Motorcade At Main and Ervay Streets In Dallas, Taken About 3 minutes Before John F. Kennedy Was Shot.
(Photo Courtesy Of Dallas Times Herald.)

Robert H. Jackson's eyewitness accounts of two of the most controversial assassinations in American History have made him a favorite of conspiracy theorists. In recent interview Jackson recalled: "I stayed on the scene well after Oswald was taken away in the ambulance and I never did see any blood, not one drop. I sure did think it was strange not to see any blood whatsoever." This statement was taken by some as evidence that Jack Ruby didn't kill Lee Harvey Oswald on that Sunday in November, after all. But when asked directly about conspiracies, Jackson offered this opinion: "I saw Oswald acted alone. Nobody's ever proved there was a conspiracy. Don't you think after 46 years, somebody on their death bed would have spilled the beans if there was some sort of big plot because people can't keep a secret that long? That's just my feeling."

The exhibit, Capture the Moment: The Pulitzer Prize Photographs, curated by the Washington D.C. based Newseum, has appeared in 17 cities, and is next bound for Korea. It will return to the U.S. in April 2011 at Omaha's Durham Museum. The show can also be seen on permanent display at the Newseum, and the photos have been published as a hardcover book, The Pulitzer Prize Winning Photographs, available on the Newseum's website.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon