going to make a lot of money, blah, blah, and so on and so forth. But
they were going to be closed up the next day or the day after due to
the fact that they were unable to pay either the rent for the tent that
they were in or some of their help who was going to quit on them the
next day. I don’t remember. Something of this type. And the question
arose whether I could help them get over this period and I asked them
what would be involved and she said, I think she said, $200. I am
not sure. Well, it so happened that that next day I had to go back
to Chicago, I believe. So I said, well, Joy, I will tell you what I
will do. If this thing is as good as you say it is, I have thrown $200
down the drain a number of times, and maybe I can do some good with
this $200. So I said what time will you be out there the next day, and
she said she would be there--now here again I am guessing, I don’t
remember the hours--but it was afternoon, somewhere about 2 o’clock or
something, and I said, well, I will tell you, I am going to--I think I
have reservations on the 4 o’clock flight or something like that to go
back to Chicago. I said, I will run out there and I will look at this
thing and if it looks anywhere near what it should be, I will stake you
to this money. And I did.
I went out there and--as a matter of fact, I got there before she did.
She was late. And she introduced me to two men whose names I absolutely
cannot remember who were running this concession and we talked a little
while. We had some coffee at a little coffee stand right near there.
And it seemed that they needed $200 to get over this thing. So I said
to Joy, I will tell you what I will do. I will give you a check for
$200, and if I remember, I think I made the check out to Jack Ruby. I
don’t remember. I said, I will give you this check for $200 and you go
ahead and get them over the hump and in time, you will see me sometime
around the country, or they will, blah, blah, and all kinds of thank
you’s were said and I gave them the check. She said where should she
cash the check. I said give the check to Jack. He knows me well enough.
I am sure he will know where to cash it. I am sure she did. That is
how I got the check back. I hear since he never got the $200, that
Jack had loaned them $100 and he took $100 of this $200 for himself to
pay himself back, and I think she took the other hundred because as I
have the story, one of her children had perhaps some--had to have some
medical treatments and minor surgery, or something. So again I had
thrown $200 down the drain. That is it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you recall the next time that you saw Jack Ruby after
that episode?
Mr. MEYERS. If you will tell me the day that this happened--evidently
you have this information. If you will tell me when this happened it
might bring it back a little.
Mr. GRIFFIN. This probably would have been in the first two weeks of
October.
Mr. MEYERS. First 2 weeks of October?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Of 1963.
Mr. MEYERS. I don’t know. I am guessing again. I suppose the next time
was the middle of November, the latter part of November, unless I had
occasion to go to Dallas sooner than that, I really don’t remember.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You mentioned seeing Jack Ruby on Thursday night, November
21.
Mr. MEYERS. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How did you happen to make contact with him?
Mr. MEYERS. Well, here again I am trying to get--I am trying to
remember this, and I don’t know whether I am right or wrong, but I
guess this is the way it happened. My brother lives in Brooklyn and
my brother is a Pepsi Cola distributor, and that particular week they
were having a bottlers convention in Dallas and my brother and his wife
attended this convention. They were staying at the Adolphus Hotel.
I was staying at the Cabana Motel. I think what happened is that I
had called my brother earlier during the day at the Adolphus and was
told that he was out at a dinner or something, so gathering that the
convention had, and that he would--well, let me remember this. No;
I talked to him. That was it. I talked to Eddie and I asked he and
Thelma to have dinner with me that night and Eddie said he couldn’t
have dinner with me that night. He had to go--he and Thelma had to
go to this party that was set up by some convention thing. But that
he thought he would be through with that about 11 o’clock or so that
evening. So I said, fine. Why don’t you meet me at the Cabana Motel at
11 o’clock that evening, or, you know, when you get through, and I will
be in--the club at the Cabana is called the Bon Vivant. Meet me in the
Bon Vivant Room and we will say hello. I hadn’t seen him for some time.
Meanwhile, I had stopped in to Jack’s place that evening. I don’t know
what time. I would venture to say in the neighborhood of 9 o’clock
that night. This was Thursday night, the 21st. I think that is pretty
accurate because it comes back to me now.
I visited with Jack for about, oh, an hour, I don’t know, just sat
around there and yakked with him. Nothing of any consequence. He might
have even brought up this amateur night thing again. Of course, you
realize that was before any of this tragedy had struck. So then I told
Jack that my brother and his wife were going to meet me for a drink at
the Bon Vivant Room about 11 o’clock and if he had the time, why didn’t
he come over and meet us. So he said he would if he could. Well, I
don’t remember now--I guess possibly around 11:15 or so my brother and
his wife came by and within the next half hour or less, Jack came by.
So we sat there, and if I remember right, he had coffee. I have never
seen him take a drink.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was anybody else with Jack at that time?
Mr. MEYERS. No; Jack was alone.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you saw him at the club, was anybody with him, at the
Carousel Club?
Mr. MEYERS. Nobody that I would have--well, see, it is a hard question
for me to answer. He was the host and he was with people.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was George Senator there that you recall?
Mr. MEYERS. I don’t remember him being there. Now, he might have been.
There were a number of people in the club I don’t remember. I know I
didn’t talk to him there. If he was there, I didn’t see him. Shall I go
on?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Go ahead. Well, let me interrupt you.
Mr. MEYERS. Go ahead.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How much time do you think you spent with him at the
Carousel Club?
Mr. MEYERS. Thursday night?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mr. MEYERS. In the neighborhood of an hour.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, during that period at the Carousel Club, what do you
recall that Jack talked about?
Mr. MEYERS. I just have no recollection. It was nothing of any
consequence--beefs about trying to get hold of this union official,
that one, to do this or do that.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you notice anything unusual about his behavior?
Mr. MEYERS. He was just as nutty as he always was.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What do you mean by that?
Mr. MEYERS. And I use the word advisedly.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What do you mean by that?
Mr. MEYERS. Well, you see, you have me in a very awkward position. All
this has happened, all these things have happened since and obviously
I have read everything about it naturally. Indirectly I am involved,
let’s put it this way. So I suppose I possibly have paid more attention
to it than the average layman would have.
Maybe not. I don’t know. And I have tried in my own mind to associate
Jack’s behavior as I knew him to this terrible thing that he did. In
other words, I am trying to--I don’t know how to word it. I like him.
And I am trying to understand what could have motivated him to do a
thing like this, get into that.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Before we get to that point, let’s see if we can’t try to
establish the facts about what you saw him do during this period.
Mr. MEYERS. Well, all he did that night that I can remember, Mr.
Griffin, is his perpetual running around. He was running to the cash
register to take it--I think it is a $2 admission that he had into his
club, or running over to the lights to switch them on and off and up
and down as the various girls would go through their various gyrations,
and running over and talking to this waitress or talking to that one
and talking to people in the club, to men primarily, none of whom I
knew or paid any attention to because they didn’t concern me.
Now, you say did I see Oswald in that club that night? This is a
ridiculous thing for me to say. I didn’t see him. He might have been
there. I would have been the most surprised guy in the world if he was,
but do you follow what I am trying to say?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Sure.
Mr. MEYERS. I just paid no attention to it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. While you were at the club on Thursday night, did Jack
mention anything to you about the President’s expected arrival in
Dallas the following day?
Mr. MEYERS. I don’t even remember this. This is absolute fact. I have
no recollection.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you have any recollection of his having mentioned it
later when you met him at the Bon Vivant Room?
Mr. MEYERS. It did come up. I remember this very distinctly. It came
up but it came up in an aroundabout way and I will tell you how that
happened if you want me to do that now.
Mr. GRIFFIN. First of all let me ask one further question. Is there
anything else you remember about what happened at the Carousel Club on
Thursday night?
Mr. MEYERS. He was supremely upset. I remember this. He was very angry
at one of the girls who had worked for him who he--now, this is his
story. You know this again comes back to me. His story is that this
girl--she was his star performer, I suppose, and had a sensational
act and evidently there was some local objection to some of her act
from the standpoint of decency thing. So he had asked her would she
please tone down her act so that he would have no problem with the
authorities, as far as performance was concerned, and that she had
defied him and did the act as she had always done it, and possibly even
a little more so. So he fired her. He let her go. Now this is his story
to me.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did this conversation occur Thursday night or was it one
you had earlier?
Mr. MEYERS. I am almost sure it was Thursday night, but it might have
been earlier. You see, it is confusing.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was the name of this girl Jada?
Mr. MEYERS. Jada.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let me ask you a few questions, then, to try to establish
when this conversation might have taken place. Do you recall being
at the Carousel Club during the fall of 1963 when Jack Ruby had a
photographer, commercial photographer, there taking pictures?
Mr. MEYERS. I have no recollection of this.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Have you ever met a commercial photographer from
California whose name is Eddy Rocco?
Mr. MEYERS. No; not at all.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you in Dallas at the time of any of the SMU football
games in the fall of 1963?
Mr. MEYERS. That is a hard thing to answer.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you attend any?
Mr. MEYERS. No, no; I have never gone to a football game in Dallas in
my life.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you have any recollection of being in Dallas between
the time you gave Joy Dale the $200 check and the time that you saw
Ruby on Thursday night?
Mr. MEYERS. Here I have to answer you this way. I do not remember
whether I was there or not in that--what would that be--about a 4-week
period or something like that.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Four to six weeks.
Mr. MEYERS. I don’t remember. I can find out very easily, you know, my
travel records, because I keep these things--tax structure--but I don’t
remember having been there. It is possible I was.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Other than this conversation about Jada that may have
occurred on Thursday night and the other things you have mentioned that
occurred at the Carousel Club on Thursday night, is there anything else
that took place at the Carousel Club Thursday night that you can recall.
Mr. MEYERS. Not that I can remember.
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right. Now, when you left the Carousel Club, did you
go directly to the Dallas Cabana?
Mr. MEYERS. I suppose so.
Mr. GRIFFIN. About how long after you left the Carousel Club did Ruby
arrive at the Cabana?
Mr. MEYERS. I would say between 2 and 2½ hours. Wait a minute. I
got there--I must have left Jack about 9:30. About 2 hours to 2½
hours--give or take a few minutes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you were at the Carousel Club, do you recall if Jack
had eaten dinner at that point?
Mr. MEYERS. I don’t remember.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you recall his mentioning to you about his sister’s
illness, or about the management of the Vegas Club, Thursday night?
Mr. MEYERS. Well, you mentioned the Vegas Club and you brought up
another thing in my mind. Now, whether this happened that night or
not--you must understand--I just don’t remember.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I realize that.
Mr. MEYERS. He was a little upset--it was either that night or possibly
the time previous that I had seen him--of the fact that some hillbilly
band that had been working at the Vegas Club who were evidently very
successful, and a very good draw, were leaving. Some competitor, or
somebody else, had offered them more money. I don’t know what it was,
but they were--they had either left or they were leaving, and he was
rather upset about this.
He didn’t say a word to me about his sister. As a matter of fact, I
have never even met his sister.
Mr. GRIFFIN. To be specific, do you have any recollection that Jack
told you that he was going to take one of his employees over to the
Vegas Club to run the Vegas Club that evening, or that he had already
done so?
Mr. MEYERS. No; I have no recollection of this.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You indicated that you thought you were supposed to meet
your brother at the Cabana about 11?
Mr. MEYERS. Roughly.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Could it have been as late as midnight?
Mr. MEYERS. Very possibly.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Is it possible at the time that the lapse of time between
your seeing Ruby at the Carousel and the time of your seeing him at the
Cabana could have been as little as an hour?
Mr. MEYERS. No; I would almost swear that it would have to have been
longer than that because I couldn’t possibly have left--well, here
again maybe I am nutty. I am almost certain I didn’t leave the Carousel
after 10 o’clock--maybe I did. But I would--I would go on record that
I didn’t. I think I left there about 10, and I drove right back to
the Cabana, and that could not have taken me over 15 minutes, and my
brother and his wife then joined me, and this again I say is somewhere,
11–11:30, I don’t know.
I just don’t pay that much attention to time. Jack came in shortly
after they did.
Mr. GRIFFIN. To try to fix the time that you were at the Carousel Club,
try to think where you had dinner, if you can, on that Thursday night,
and how long it was from the time you had dinner until you went to the
Carousel Club.
Mr. MEYERS. You know something, I haven’t got the vaguest recollection
of where I had dinner that night. I could have sat down in some real
fine restaurant and had an excellent dinner. I could have stopped in
some coffeeshop and had a sandwich and a cup of coffee. I haven’t got
the vaguest recollection. Did I tell the people from the FBI. If I did,
then I possibly--possibly I remembered it a little better then.
Mr. GRIFFIN. No; you didn’t.
Mr. MEYERS. I have no recollection of where I had dinner that night.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When Jack arrived at the Cabana, were your brother and his
wife already there?
Mr. MEYERS. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did anyone accompany Jack to the Cabana?
Mr. MEYERS. No; well nobody accompanied Jack when he sat at the table
with me. Now, I wouldn’t know who he came out there with.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, try to tell us as best you can what happened from the
time Ruby arrived at the Cabana until he left?
Mr. MEYERS. Well, really so very little. I introduced my brother
and sister to him. We yakked about--I don’t know anything that--I
really couldn’t tell you what we talked about. It was nothing that
was consequential in any shape, manner, or form other than the fact
he was interested--when I told him my brother was a Pepsi Cola
distributor--would there be any way that Eddie could handle this
twistboard of his as a premium with the Pepsi Cola operation which I,
of course, said forget it--it just doesn’t fit. It is just not that. It
is not that kind of a thing.
What else did we talk about? I don’t know. We could have talked about
anything.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, earlier you were about to talk, before I cut you off,
about the conversation that had to do with the President’s arrival in
Dallas.
Mr. MEYERS. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Where did that take place and what happened?
Mr. MEYERS. Well, at the table that evening, my brother and
sister-in-law had never seen our plant in McKinney. McKinney is 30
miles north of Dallas. The airport, I assume--and I could be a little
wrong on mileage--is about 10 or 12 miles in, more or less, the same
direction from Dallas. I wanted my brother and his wife to see our
plant. So they had reservations to leave Dallas on an 11 something
flight that morning. I couldn’t tell you exactly what the time was. I
do know it was shortly before the President was due to arrive, because
this, of course, was all published in the Dallas papers. So I said to
Eddie, I said, “Eddie, why don’t I pick you up tomorrow morning, you
and Thelma, at the Adolphus, we will have breakfast. I will pick you
up early, about 8 o’clock. We will have breakfast. I will run you over
to the plant. It won’t take me more than an hour to get there. We will
spend a half hour or so, and you can look it over, and I will bring you
back to the airport on my way back to Dallas.”
So then the question came up, “Won’t we get hungry up at the airport?”
“No,” I said, “we will get there before the President’s plane is due
to arrive, and I am not going to stay and watch the airplane come in,
and I will drop you off and take off, and I should be out of the crowd
before the crush or whatever is going to happen--you know--the mob of
people going out to see him. So this was arranged, and this was the
only conversation about the President coming in.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was Jack Ruby present during that conversation?
Mr. MEYERS. I think so.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you recall his saying anything during that
conversation?
Mr. MEYERS. If he said anything, I have no recollection of it because
obviously this whole thing was as far from my mind as if you told me
you were going to jump off the top of that building over there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long did Jack remain at the Cabana?
Mr. MEYERS. Not very long. He left before my brother and sister-in-law
did. I would say he stayed maybe 20 or 30 minutes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you see him again that night?
Mr. MEYERS. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you see him the next day, Friday?
Mr. MEYERS. No. The next day was a very tragic day.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Before he left on Friday night or on Thursday night, had
you made any arrangements with Jack Ruby to see him again.
Mr. MEYERS. No; just we will be in touch or have dinner one night, you
know, generalities. I might have even told him I would be in the club
the next night. I don’t remember.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us what you did on Friday morning.
Mr. MEYERS. Friday morning. Well, I took my brother and sister--as I
told you, I met my brother, took them--had breakfast at the Adolphus
about 8 o’clock, drove up to McKinney, got to McKinney I would say in
the neighborhood of about 9:30, quarter of 10, and spent roughly 20
minutes to a half hour going through the plant with our plant manager,
and then I piled them in the car and took them back to the Dallas
airport and we got to Love Field, I would say, within 10 minutes of the
arrival of the President and his plane. I said goodby and left them.
I got in my car and continued on out. Are you familiar with Dallas? I
continued out Lover’s Lane to pick up Stemmons Expressway, Stemmons
Freeway, turned down into Dallas and picked up the Fort Worth Turnpike
to go to Fort Worth because I had an appointment with Leonard’s which
is a department store in Fort Worth that morning. I guess, of course,
I had the car radio turned on and I heard all the business about the
President’s arrival, and so on and so forth. Along about 12 or a little
before 12 I stopped at, I guess it is a Howard Johnson’s on the Fort
Worth Turnpike for some lunch. I had either just eaten a sandwich and
some coffee or I was waiting to go in when some man came up to me and
says, “Have you heard that the President has been shot,” and I said,
“Hell, no,” or some exclamation like that. I said, “Are you kidding?”
He said “No, I heard it on my car radio a little while ago that the
President has been shot and there was a lot of Secret Service men that
had been shot, police had been shot, there were all sorts of rumors
flying around.”
Well, I suppose I was just as shocked as most people. I got back in
the car and I drove into Leonard’s--drove in to Fort Worth, went down
into Leonard’s and the office of the man who buys the sporting goods
is right off the automotive department of Leonard’s, a Mr. Kelley, and
in the automotive department they had a television set set up and at
this time, by the time I had gotten there, of course, the President and
Governor had been taken to the Parkland Hospital, and, well, the rest
of it, you know, they were going through all this television business.
Of course, everybody came to a standstill. I could no more have talked
business to the man than if some terrible tragedy happened now and I
would have to stop talking to you. I guess everybody was shook up. So I
got back in the car and went back to the hotel.
Mr. GRIFFIN. About what time did you arrive back at the hotel?
Mr. MEYERS. There again I am guessing. I got to Fort Worth I would say
in the vicinity of 12:30, or quarter of 1. I stayed there watching
television until the actual official word was given on television that
the President was dead and then I drove right back to the hotel. Now,
when was the official word given? If you tell me that I will tell you
when I got back.
Mr. GRIFFIN. It would have been----
Mr. MEYERS. I would say approximately 3 o’clock is when I got back to
the hotel, give or take a few minutes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long did you stay there at the hotel?
Mr. MEYERS. I stayed there all night.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you see or talk to Jack Ruby at all that day?
Mr. MEYERS. Not Friday.
Mr. GRIFFIN. There was the Dallas Cabana that you were staying at?
Mr. MEYERS. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you see any of Ruby’s friends that day?
Mr. MEYERS. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Or talk to them?
Mr. MEYERS. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, do you recall what you did on Saturday?
Mr. MEYERS. Well, gosh, I don’t know. I know I watched television with
all the business until my eyes bugged out of my head both Friday night
and all day or most of the day Saturday. I couldn’t have done anything
of any consequence. There was no place to go.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you at any time drive down to Dealey Plaza or the site
of the shooting?
Mr. MEYERS. That is possible, very possible. Highly possible.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did there come a time on Saturday when you did talk to
Jack Ruby?
Mr. MEYERS. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Where were you at the time?
Mr. MEYERS. In bed.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What is your best recollection of what time this was?
Mr. MEYERS. 9 or 10 o’clock Saturday night.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How do you happen to fix that time?
Mr. MEYERS. Well, because I was undressed and going to bed and I
wouldn’t have gone to bed--I certainly wouldn’t have gone to bed much
later than that because there wouldn’t have been anything for me to do
or any place to go. It would have been a case of sitting in the room or
driving around in the car which I didn’t want to do or sitting in the
lobby reading a book which I didn’t want to do. I was in the room in
bed and I am again saying it was somewhere, 9, 10 o’clock that night, a
few minutes either way, and it was highly possible. And the phone rang
and it was Jack on the telephone.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you talked with the FBI on December 3, you indicated
at that time that the telephone call that you received came in at
approximately 10:30 p.m. or at least this is what the FBI has reported
you said.
Mr. MEYERS. It is possible, highly possible. I say 9, 10, give or take
a little while. You see, you must understand one thing, Mr. Griffin,
Friday after the assassination--I don’t know how to word this so you
won’t think I am an idiot--was a reasonably exciting day, may I put
it that way, because so much was happening, so much going on, so much
tragedy and also in my opinion so much stupidity. However, this is my
opinion. And Saturday was pretty much repetition of all this plus what
was going on in Washington when they had brought the body back and I
think there was, oh, I don’t know, preparations for the funeral or
various people on television but it was greatly repetition. And once
the first shock of this tragedy had worn off, all of this watching of
television with the various commentators and the various different
people inevitably saying the same thing, I suppose became rather
boring. I was sick enough about it any way.
Mr. GRIFFIN. About how long did your telephone conversation with Ruby
last Saturday night?
Mr. MEYERS. I would say in the neighborhood of 15 or 20 minutes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, 15 or 20 minutes is a reasonably long telephone call.
Mr. MEYERS. It was a reasonably long conversation. I would say possibly
15 minutes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us what you remember of that conversation, how it
started and how it progressed.
Mr. MEYERS. Well, he called me and the first thing he said to me is
what did I think of this terrible, terrible thing? So I said the usual
banalities, what did I think about it, it was a horrible thing. So it
was so sad that I thought in this country, if you didn’t like a man’s
politics you voted him out of office instead of killing him, and that
in a nutty place--I hope neither of you are from Dallas----