would it have become known that, generally known that, this was Jack’s
boy? Would Jack have received some recognition for that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Possibly. It is possible naturally being in the
entertainment field and Jack was learning more and more about the
entertainment field and the prospects of promotion in another form,
naturally he would have to be recognized as he is the one who found
Sugar Daddy.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Can you think of any other thing that he was promoting,
any products that he was promoting?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; some vitamin deal down there. He mailed us a
sample that somebody was making something down there but I couldn’t see
it. He mailed me a sample of that, too, I believe. Somebody was making
a vitamin pill down there that Jack got ahold of and he became the
distributor.
Mr. GRIFFIN. He wanted you to sell them. You started out to tell us
about the twistboard.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. And how Jack contacted you on the twistboard. Tell us what
happened.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He wanted me to call on the department stores on the
road. He says that is where they sell best. I would make about $3 a
dozen which is a good deal, because if they start selling the reorders
would come in automatically, the missionary work is hard, when you are
making $3 a dozen on an item that sells for $1.69 that is a pretty good
profit.
Mr. GRIFFIN. So you thought Jack’s idea as far as pricing was
concerned, he was talking about selling them for $1.69?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Retail, I think so.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Retail for somewhere less than $2?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. And you would have made?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Three dollars a dozen.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Three dollars a dozen, which would have been how much on
each item?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. A quarter on each item.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Is that the normal?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; for a salesman, yes; that is about right.
Especially for an item like that, I don’t think it costs very much to
make, to be honest with you. Two pieces of board, and some kind of a
gimmick in the center in between.
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right. What was your response to that one?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I hadn’t had a chance to take it out. It was shortly
before the incident.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did he send you anything else in connection with it
besides the board?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Literature. I think I got some literature if I can find
it. I have got the board home, that I can show you, with the original
wrapper.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did he ask you to advertise in any newspapers or anything
for him?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; I don’t remember that.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was it your intention to try to sell these and promote
them?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I didn’t ask him for the board. He just mailed it to me
with all the literature after he spoke to me about it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How many times did he speak to you about it?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t remember, several times, I would say.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was he going to have a company name or anything that he
was going to use?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What was it called?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Spartan; you see his nickname is “Sparky.” He was going
to call it Spartan Manufacturing and Promotional.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How did he get the nickname “Sparky”?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Fast, aggressive, quick thinker, always on the ball,
you know, I imagine that is where he got the name.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You don’t really know of your own knowledge?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; but how else would a fellow get a name “Sparky”.
Like a sparkplug, fast, you know, lightning.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did Jack have occasion to call you in the fall of last
year before November 22 for any reason other than about the twistboard?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; union trouble.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When did he call you about that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t remember the exact date.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us what he said to you and what you said to him about
the union trouble.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I can’t give you the exact words but I will come
close to it. He wanted me to contact some people in Chicago who had
connections with AGVA in New York, the president. I didn’t know anybody
so I started calling people. I called everybody in Chicago I knew. One
of the fellows I called was Jack Yanover. Jack Yanover owns the Dream
Bar at 1312 South Cicero Avenue, a striptease joint.
Jack and I are old friends for many years, in fact, he is one of the
oldest friends I have. Jack told me two things, Jack Yanover. First,
my brother Jack was looking for girls down there, was only going to
pay them $150 a week for 6 weeks’ work. So Jack Yanover explained to
me, he says, “You cannot get a girl to go down to Dallas for 6 weeks’
work for $150 a week and she will have to pay her own expenses, that
is out. They won’t do it.” And the second problem was with the union.
Jack Yanover told me that the people in Chicago, the agents, the union
agents, had no connection with the agents in Dallas. It would have to
come from New York, and Joey Adams, I think, is one of the big men in
the organization, the entertainer Joey Adams, president. So I tried
to call some people in Chicago who could get to Joey Adams or anybody
else in the New York deal. I didn’t succeed, let’s put it that way. I
remember now. We didn’t succeed. It was just one of those things that
didn’t work out, and if I am not mistaken I think Jack tried to call
some of the other boys in Chicago, one bail bondsman, I can’t think of
his name, and then he tried to call Lenny Patrick, I believe, Lenny
Patrick, and then I think he tried to call somebody else.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about a fellow named Barney Baker?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Baker?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Barney Baker, did you ever hear of him?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How does Jack know Lenny Patrick?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Everybody knows Lenny Patrick. When you go to school
you know everybody in a school, grade school or even high school, and
if you lived on the west side you know Lenny Patrick because Lenny
Patrick, you walk into a delicatessen or into a poolroom, “Hi, Lenny,”
“Hi, Jack,” that is how you know him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What does Lenny Patrick do?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know what he does.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Does he make an honest living?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I think gambling is his biggest racket. I think so.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you know a fellow in New York by the name of Frank
Carbonaro?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Carbonaro. He is the guy who used to ship my
merchandise for me when I was in business for myself. 811 East 242d
Street, Bronx 70, N.Y.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What was his connection with the shipping?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He bought my merchandise for me and he shipped it to me
for my customers. You see New York is the ribbon market of the world.
You can’t get the stuff anywhere else than in New York, certain items,
and Frankie took care of those things for me. I paid him a commission
on every order. That is how it worked out.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about the Morris Paper Mill Co., did you have some
dealings with them?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; all the time. I buy paper boxes from them, Morris,
Ill., florist boxes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you recall anything else that Jack called you about
before November 22 of last year?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. If you would give me an inkling I will give you an
answer. I won’t lie to you because I have nothing to hide.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did he ever call you about Eva?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I think he was having a little trouble with Eva, I
think. She was sick. Yes. Eva was sick and going for an operation, so I
mailed her a check for $100, make her feel better. I mailed it to the
club. So Jack would give it to Eva so she would have $100 to help her
with the operation. That was it, and he loved me for it. He said that
was wonderful. He said, she hasn’t been up here for many years and she
thought that we had completely ignored her. So he thought by doing that
she felt closer to the family, that we were thinking of her.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did he ever talk to you about Eva?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Always, always.
Mr. GRIFFIN. But I mean----
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Whenever he called.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Last fall, did he ever make any special telephone calls
about her?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I can’t think of anything special.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let’s focus again on the twistboard. Was Jack planning to
manufacture the twistboard?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; somebody down there was making it for him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you know of any other people he talked to about the
twistboard in connection with promoting it?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He was going to call some other people. I don’t
remember who the names were. I wasn’t too much concerned because
frankly, I do not have enough time to donate to an item that is not
relating to my business because when you walk into a department store,
you can be tied up for 2 solid hours selling something to a buyer if
you find him, and 2 hours a day is a lot of my time when I am on the
road trying to call on my own customers. So, therefore, I wasn’t too
much interested, that is my answer.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did Jack mention to you the names of any other people who
were associated with him in the twistboard?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I can’t think of the name. There is somebody down
there, yes, but I don’t know who he is. I wasn’t concerned, I was only
interested in Jack. If Jack wanted to promote it I was going to try to
find him some other fellows to help with selling it. I never got any
chance.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How many days a week do you work?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I am on the road 240 days a year when I am working
right, you know, when I get started right, before November 1963.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You work Monday through Friday or Monday through Saturday?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Saturday.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Where were you on November 22, the day the President was
shot?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I happened to be in Chicago. I was at the Harry
Eichenbaum’s store, Merrill Manufacturing Co.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When were you there, at what time of the day?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. At the moment when the President got assassinated. When
the people heard it on the radio, I didn’t believe it, nobody believed
it. Who could believe a thing like that? And then all of a sudden
everything seemed to quiet down, the whole area, and then it finally
leaked out that it was the truth. My God, you could know it is like an
atomic bomb hit you. It is just one of those things. We all loved this
guy. He was a real guy. He was a friend of our people, too, by the way,
which is important to us in America.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What happened, what did you do after you learned the
President was shot?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. What was there to be done, nothing. Nobody could work.
Everything seemed to stand still. I finished my business, what I had to
do, I picked up some stuff downtown, I think--yes, I remember, I went
out to the Flavor Candy Co. and picked up a couple of cases of candy
because the girl told me about it the other day, she said, “Remember
you were here on that Friday, November 22.” She knew all about the
family. She knows the family, and I says, “Was I here that day?” She
says, “Yes. That is the last time we saw you.” I didn’t even remember
where I was that day. I mean the thing hits you like a shock. It just
isn’t right, it isn’t normal.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember what you did after that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I probably went home. I probably did. I don’t know,
because I was home that Friday night.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who is living with you at your house?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Marion Carroll, my sister, and Ann Volpert.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did Marion and Ann normally work on Fridays? Were they
both employed?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. So there would be nobody home during the day.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Right.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You have another sister, is that right, Eileen?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Eileen is married and lives about 2 miles west from
where we do.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Does she work?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; she has two little girls she has to take care of.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember what happened when you got home?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Friday?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who you talked to and so forth?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What happened? Let’s try to take this, if we can,
chronologically. What happened when you walked in the door?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I can’t remember that particular incident. You mean
what time I got home and what happened? I don’t remember. I don’t even
remember who was home.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What is the first thing you remember doing when you were
home that evening or afternoon?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. The family was--our family couldn’t believe it because
it happened in Dallas. It was a bad rap for the city of Dallas and we
having there members of our family down there, sort of like a black
mark; you know, it sort of gets you. How come of all the places, in
Dallas? You know. Then we got a call. Would you mind me telling you
about?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes; I want to know about that.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. At 9 o’clock Friday night we got a call from Jack. He
felt very, very bad about.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long did he talk to you?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Oh, quite a while.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long would you say?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I would say 10 or 15 minutes. He was disgusted with the
whole situation down there. He said, “You know this is a good time for
me to sell out and come back up north.”
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did he talk to you?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. To me.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What did you say?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I didn’t know what to tell him. What can I tell him. I
am a thousand miles away from him. I don’t know what the answer could
be, I hadn’t seen him in quite a while. I don’t know what his position
is down there. I couldn’t see what his selling out would help with
losing our wonderful President. It was too close to the assassination
to even think. What could you tell a person?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Why did he want to sell out?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He was so disgusted and fed up with the whole God damn
town, that is why.
Mr. GRIFFIN. He was upset with Dallas?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Absolutely.
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right. Tell us what he said that indicated that, and
what his earlier problems had been that would have, you know, made him
feel that way?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Well, he had no problems outside of this union, and
the hiring, getting new girls for the show. That he probably could
have straightened out eventually; and he was going all right. He was
making money, I imagine, because I believe he was paying all his bills.
I think he owed Uncle Sam a little money but he straightened that out
eventually.
But the fact is that he probably didn’t want to have any connection
between a city that murdered his President and him--he just wanted to
separate himself from that.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What did he say to you that indicated that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Because he said, “This is a good time for me to sell
out and come back up north.”
Mr. GRIFFIN. That is all you can remember him saying?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. That is all I can remember him saying. He says, he
started off, “Can you imagine, can you imagine,” like that, and he
sounded like he had tears in his eyes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What else do you recall him saying during that
conversation?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I couldn’t say much, because we still felt that
sickness when the President got shot.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you do most of the talking?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; I let him talk, I wanted him to talk.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Why did you want him to talk?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Because he was so close to the situation. He was close
to Dallas. He probably has got some facts that we didn’t get out here.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you ask him what was going on down there?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; I didn’t ask him anything because I felt it was
enough. I didn’t want to know anything. That was enough to hear.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were your two sisters home when you called?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; I think that Mary spoke to him first and then I
got on the phone.
Mr. GRIFFIN. About how long did you speak to him?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. About, I would say 10 minutes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long did your sisters speak to him?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know. We weren’t--we had the television turned
on, I had my television turned on, in the living room trying to get the
news.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, are you clear in your mind that this conversation
about thinking about coming back----
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; definitely.
Mr. GRIFFIN. No; that it happened on, at the 9 o’clock telephone call.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. 9 o’clock telephone call, Friday night, the day of the
assassination.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Well now, did Jack make some other calls to you in the
next day or so?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I think he did. I think he did.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you think, do you have any clear recollection?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; I think he called everybody. He called Eileen, and
I think he called us, and he called Earl.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I am just asking you to think about what happened to you.
What did you do after the telephone call?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I hung up. What is there to do?
Mr. GRIFFIN. What did you do the rest of the evening?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I sat down and watched the rest of the program on
television.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you hear again from Jack that night?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t remember. I don’t think we did. It was too late
then.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about--did you hear from any of your other friends or
relatives?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Eileen called, I think, after that. She said, “Jack
called me,” my sister Eileen.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I see.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. And she called the house, too.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was your understanding that Jack called both you and
Eileen?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You think he talked to Eileen before or after?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t know, he could have called her before.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How do you fix the time of his call at 9 o’clock?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Good; I am glad you asked me that. Because when I
was in Dallas during the trial they were supposed to subpena me as a
witness.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Our wonderful lawyer Belli, so Eva and I sat in the
hall through the whole trial waiting to be called as witnesses.
Mr. GRIFFIN. For your brother?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. My brother Jack and also about this telephone call. Bob
Dennison, our investigator, who the lawyer hired, gave me this message.
Mr. GRIFFIN. In other words, Bob Dennison had checked some records and
found that you had--that he had made a call at that time?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. He wanted me to have it so that I would be able to tell
the judge and the jury exactly what happened that Friday night.
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right. What you have done is handed me an orange sheet
of paper which says, “While you were out” and then there is a message
written down on it, “Call to Hyman in Chicago, call made from WH
1-5601, to SH 3-0984 on November 22, 1963, on 9:02 p.m.”
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Do you want this?
Mr. GRIFFIN. No; I have read it into the record and that is
satisfactory. Thank you.
Aside from that note that Mr. Dennison gave you what recollection do
you have that you placed the call at about 9 o’clock?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I know it was after 8 o’clock because we had dinner
late that evening or something, and I remember getting a call later on
in the evening.
I didn’t know it was exactly 9 o’clock. I didn’t know, until Bob handed
me the note.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Is there anything that places the call before 10 o’clock?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Too late. I mean we usually don’t get many calls after
9 o’clock at home, usually.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Well, but----
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Under normal procedures we don’t.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was there anything about this particular call that makes
you think it was before 10 o’clock?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I think so. I don’t know why. I can’t give you a real
honest answer, I don’t remember.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you have a clear recollection that not only you talked
with Jack but that your sisters Marion and Ann talked on that call?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I am almost positive.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did Jack call you again the rest of the weekend? Did you
hear from him again?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I think he did call.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When do you recall hearing from him?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I think he called Saturday night. I think he called the
night after. I think so. I am not sure.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember anything about what was said at that time?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; I don’t because if I remember what he said I would
remember if he would have called.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I want to ask you to think back again to this telephone
call and ask yourself if other than this one statement that Jack made
about wanting to close the place and come back to Chicago, if there was
anything else that Jack said on the phone that indicated to you that
he was disgusted and upset with the situation in Dallas, that is with
Dallas as a place to stay.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. All I can say is this: I believe from the tone of his
voice he felt very much heartbroken and very sad and he felt he had
lost a very dear friend and he wanted to get away from that site.
Like, let’s say like, being removed from the scene of the crime. He
just wanted to get away from it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. So when you talk about disgust or revulsion, do you mean
to direct it, could it have simply meant that the recent--that the
events that upset him--or do you think he made some special connection
with the city itself that he was living in so he wanted--you know you
have indicated here he was making some special connection with this
place as a place he wanted to have nothing more to do with it?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes; that is the way he felt because he lost a very
dear friend, that is what I am trying to bring out. He just wanted to
get away. He wanted to sell out and he was having----
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did he indicate what he would do after that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. With a fellow like Jack you don’t have to worry what
he can do. He can do a thousand things and make a living. He is very
capable. And he has got a good mouthpiece. He has proved it before he
went into the nightclub business. He was in the manufacturing business
with Earl, he walked out with a nice piece of change.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Are you in the habit of keeping your papers and records
that you make over the years. Do you retain these?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. What kind of papers?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Receipts and check stubs and things of that sort.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I try to. I try the best I can in my own small way.
I am my own bookkeeper, my own recorder, my own lawyer, and my own
everything and I try to keep them as best as I can.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How far back do you keep them?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. You are supposed to keep them for 4 years, you know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long do you keep them?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I try to keep them for 4 years.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you recall that when you were interviewed by one of
the FBI agents that you showed him your receipt for the piano that you
sent? How did you happen to keep that?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. By accident. Just one of those incidents. Did you see
the color of that sheet, how it looked?
Mr. GRIFFIN. I haven’t seen it.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Oh, brother. You would never believe that a receipt
would last that long. Of course, you could always check it with the
piano company.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What did you do on Saturday, the 23d of November?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t remember. If I had my daybook here--I have
a daybook I keep my notes in for what I am supposed to do, like you
lawyers do.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you go to work?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t remember. I could get my daybook and tell you
exactly what I did, nothing to hide.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you have it here in Washington?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. No; I can tear out the sheet and mail it to you. Would
you like that?
Mr. GRIFFIN. It would be fine. Would you want to make a note of that?
In fact, if you can run off a copy just send us a copy.
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I don’t need it. What do I need it for? I have nothing
to hide.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Why don’t you send us----
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. The whole book. Do you want the whole book, you can
have it. Mail the book. I have nothing to hide in there. A couple of
telephone numbers, call them and say I said hello.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What did you do on Sunday, do you recall getting up on
Sunday the 24th?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I had breakfast and went out for the newspapers and I
came back and all of a sudden there was--was there anybody in the house
at that particular time--oh, that was a black Sunday. Eileen called,
screaming. Eva called, screaming, and they hung up. All we could get
was “Jack Ruby, Dallas,” you know.
I turned on the television, turned on the television and they showed
the event of everything, you know, the recording of what took place. We
couldn’t believe it. I still don’t believe it. I still don’t believe it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you first learn of what Jack had done from your
sisters?
Mr. RUBENSTEIN. Yes. They called.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You, I take it, were not watching television or listening
to the radio?