DRIVE ON TO SAVE RUBY AS A PSYCHO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600160072-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 18, 1999
• Sequence Number: 72
• Publication Date: February 23, 1964
• Content Type: NSPR

FOIAb3b
FOIAb3b
CPYRGHT
Dy GEORGE 'MORRIS
AN EXTRAORDINARY drive is under way to get an acquittal for Jack :Ruby, the
Dallas' strip-tease merchant who silenced Lee Harvey Oswald, on the basis of reports
of high-priced psychiatric examinations.
This was already apparent
when an elaborate defense ma-. Oswald's) have been publicly 'sical objects that the FBI had
chinory was put together for ?analyzed and-journalistically?dis- .,gathered as evidence.
Ruby, headed by Melvin M. , played in Time Magazine of Feb- Marina Oswald is very greatly
Belli, one of California's highest- ruary 14. occupied with financial matters.
priced criminal lawyers. The To bolster theview.that,Rub 's Contributions have passed the
source of the hundreds of thou-
Y p
sands of dollars such a defense 'brain ,was damaged, much has $35,000 mark. She has sold the
will cost is still a mystery. Ruby's .been dug up on his earlier ex- rights for a book of her memoirs
relatives have disclosed that tithe 'plaits in Chicago's gangland and to Meredith Press, and the film
series- of articles on the killer's the blow on the head he re- rights to her story to Tex-Italia
life published in Hearst and other ';portedly once suffered. 'Ruby's Films. Magazine rights are still
-papers, did not bring anywhere sister, Eva Grant, was brought' .in negotiations. All that will put
near the -amount of money ex- into the picture with 'a story; .'her well on the way to wealth.
' ;that she remembered that 'her ',
17CCl,ed. . - ~ ACCUSES CIA
One of Belli's first steps was' ,mother . had complained that .. In contrast to Marina, Oswald's
to engage prominent New York "Ruby's birth was difficult ;be- mother stood. by her murdered
psychiatrists to examine and re- acause he weighed 11 pounds. ? ?son and insisted in three days of
port on Ruby's brain condition. Judge. Brown on ,the first day 'testimony before the Warren.
-Their report, to nobody's sur- ,of the trial ';rejected Belli's 'Commission that Oswald was in
prise, supported Belli's conten- -;attempt to get a dismissal of `the service of the CIA and was
tion that Ruby had a condition the . charges on psychiatric used as a "scapegoat" in a plot
,that could have made him insane ;;grounds. But there Js no doubt, to kill the President. She con-;
at the moment he, caught sight ':that the defense will play the ceded.her son may have been in-i
..of Oswald in the Dallas :police-, "brain-damage" card with every- volved, but.insisted that the real
station basement and :fired a "thing it has when the trial -gets killers are still running around,
bullet into.him. under way, using especially the loose.
TEXAS PROBE report of Judge Brown's ap- Mrs. 'Oswald gave the commit-
A Texas State mental exam,- pointed medical expert. tee documentary material, in-
nation brought a report that Oswald's mother, Mrs. Mar- eluding a batch of letters Oswald
'Ruby was sane. But trial.. Judge guerite Oswald, expressed the wrote 'her on the eve of depar-
Joseph Brantley Brown named hope that ltuby would not be -ture to the USSR in 1959 and
Dr. Martin L. Towler, neurolo- -executed if found guilty, but 'from the -Soviet Union, to sup-
gist at the :University of Texas, wwould. be confined for life to port her contention . that' Lee
?to examine -Ruby. 'Towler re-. '.an institution,' if found insane. 'Oswald was in undercover serv-`
ported that Ruby claimed. he But Marina Oswald, the widow, lee. To Mrs. Oswald there is
suffered from recurrent "spells" iwas reported,. through her busi- apparently nothing derogatory,
-at intervals of 30 to 40 seconds. ' . ness manager, James Martin, as ,apparently
service. _
'Seldom has the minutest :detail, not interested in the 'trial. Shea ; . She has been attempting, it
of any person's mental condition:., ,had ,expressed to the .Warren seems,to show that a govern
-received sd much- court and pub -,Commission her. conviction that ment agency dragged her son
lie attention. .Oswald had killed the:President into jmess and that such a serv-
Even Ruby'. 5- (and 'and' had; identified; various phyCon6inl1e
J
Sanitized Approved For Release CIA-RDP75-001498000600160072-3