Mr. SENATOR. Not particularly, no.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Playing golf or tennis?
Mr. SENATOR. No. I’ll tell you—the only habit I got is I like to cook,
this is my golf or what somebody else would do, or whatever he may
recreate in—I used to like to piddle around in the kitchen. That is why
Jack Ruby didn’t like me. You are not writing that?
Mr. GRIFFIN. You mean that you like to experiment with food?
Mr. SENATOR. Yes, I like to putter around. I enjoy puttering around in
kitchens. I done this for a long time.
Mr. GRIFFIN. But you worked in a number of restaurants?
Mr. SENATOR. But not in that capacity. Of course, I was broken in, you
know. When I say broken in, I worked for my brother you know, years
ago, but I wasn’t classified as any cook or any thing of that nature.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Are there any sort of specialty foods you like to cook?
Mr. SENATOR. I like to mess around with different concoctions, I mean
because anybody can throw a hamburger on, you know, in the home, or
anybody can throw a steak on, whether it comes out good or bad, that
is not a challenge. But to try to make some concoctions where you mix
things——
Mr. GRIFFIN. Salads?
Mr. SENATOR. They can be salads or any hot dishes, something like that,
or see how good you can make spareribs come out, which a lot of people
can’t make good, and then all the lawyers in Dallas think I am the
greatest when it comes to making spareribs, because I have been invited
many times, and I do put on a good rib plate.
Mr. GRIFFIN. And were you in the habit of inviting people to your place
for dinner?
Mr. SENATOR. Yes, I have many a time. Nobody particular, but I have. I
mean this—I relished, I have been invited over to people’s homes. Jim
Martin has invited me to his place to cook. There is another lawyer
invited me over to his home to cook. They thought I did a good job in
the kitchen. While they sat down I was sweating in the kitchen, but it
was fun.
Mr. GRIFFIN. But Jack didn’t appreciate your cooking?
Mr. SENATOR. He liked my cooking, but he wouldn’t eat it because he
classified me as one making rich, fatty foods, that would put a pouch
on him. This is the thing, because this is why I mentioned to you that
I love to make this avocado dish, which I mentioned to you before.
Mr. GRIFFIN. This is when we were having lunch.
Mr. SENATOR. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I didn’t pull out an avocado salad today as I did
yesterday.
Mr. SENATOR. I love avocadoes. I think they are great. I used to make
a concoction and put on avocado and everybody used to love it. I must
have put about nine different ingredients in it, but it tasted real
good, real good. They used to clean the plate out. That was a good
enough answer.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now there are some other things in that statement or that
interview report that I think you want to change.
Mr. SENATOR. I don’t know. These don’t look like my words. I don’t say
that some of these aren’t factors, you know, but I don’t see, I don’t
think some of these are the direct words that come out of my mouth.
Mr. GRIFFIN. So that you understand, these are not supposed to be
actually the direct words that come out of your mouth, but this is
their report of what they recall your saying. Now if it changes the
substance in some way, if they have used words that change the meaning
in some way, or the approach that you had, I think it is important to
bring that out.
Mr. SENATOR. Let me read this off to you. This is right after the next
sentence. It says, “Thereafter he considers himself to be much closer
to Ruby, but in this regard could not explain why he considered himself
closer during the past 3 years.” Now I don’t even know what that means.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I understand it.
Mr. SENATOR. I don’t understand it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I understand it to mean that you felt that you were closer
to Ruby but you couldn’t explain to them why you were closer to Ruby.
Mr. SENATOR. Let me read this to myself again? This don’t make sense
to me. Maybe I don’t understand what I am reading, what I have read to
you. Do you want to go over it with me?
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right.
Mr. SENATOR. This part I read to you, start there, “Thereafter.”
Mr. GRIFFIN. “Thereafter he considered himself to have been closer to
Ruby, but in this regard could not explain why he considered himself
closer during the past 3 years than the time before he knew Ruby.”
In other words, they are saying that you couldn’t explain why you felt
closer to Ruby in this recent period.
Mr. SENATOR. If I had just moved in, how could I really feel that
closer, just moving in? It doesn’t necessarily mean being close to him.
I mean, this I don’t understand. What do they mean when they say—how
can you just move in with somebody and say, say you are that close to
him? You are there, that is true, but what do you mean by being close
to him? If you had just gone in and had always known him casually——
Mr. GRIFFIN. Isn’t part of the reason that you felt closer to him in
recent years than you had long before is that you began to live with
him in recent years, and that automatically made you closer? You saw
him more often.
Mr. SENATOR. Yes; but I mean the way this sort of states to me, unless
I misinterpret it, like I just moved in and I am that close to him
already, I am really like a buddy-buddy, you know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. No; there is no mention in here at this point in the FBI
interview report of your having moved in with Ruby.
Mr. SENATOR. In so many words, though, doesn’t it sound the same to
you? “... than in the past 3 years”.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes; but it doesn’t mention that in the past 3 years you
moved in and began living with him, whereas before then you hadn’t
lived with him. As I understand what you have been saying to us up to
this point is that your closer relationship simply resulted from the
fact that you began to see him every day, whereas before——
Mr. SENATOR. See the way I interpret this, the moment I moved in I was
already close to him. Of course, I know that I am in the same place,
but that is the way I am interpreting it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let’s let it stand for the record, then, that you did not
automatically feel closer to Jack Ruby at the time you moved in with
him.
Mr. SENATOR. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Your moving in with him was not the result of having
established a close relationship, but was a result of Jack’s taking you
in when you didn’t have a place to live and didn’t have any money. Is
that it?
Mr. SENATOR. Yes; I mean the appreciation was there, I want you to
know, of these things.
Mr. GRIFFIN. And how did Jack happen to learn that you needed a place
to live and so he invited you in with him?
Mr. SENATOR. I identified myself that way.
Mr. GRIFFIN. In other words, you approached him and asked him if you
could move in?
Mr. SENATOR. Yes; I don’t remember just how it was, but I was not in
good condition, I was hurting.
Mr. GRIFFIN. And had there been something about Jack before that that
had indicated to you that Jack would be the kind of a guy who would
respond like this?
Mr. SENATOR. Yes; because he has responded to other people like this,
and after that, and I have seen it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Had you heard before you moved in with Jack that Jack had
taken in other people or done things for other people?
Mr. SENATOR. The example number one is the chap that I told you is
deceased—I don’t say this man was hurting, but he was still living in
Jack’s apartment for free.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Martin Gimpel?
Mr. SENATOR. Martin Gimpel. He was still living in Jack’s apartment for
free. I don’t say he was hurting for money, which I don’t know because
I didn’t know his business.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You knew that at the time you approached Jack? You knew
Gimpel had been living with him?
Mr. SENATOR. I didn’t know Gimpel that way, just from running across
him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. But had anybody else suggested to you that Jack might be
willing to take you in?
Mr. SENATOR. No, no; it was just one of those things that happened by
chance. That is all. Of course, within me I didn’t know what was going
to happen, but he took me in. I have seen other instances like this
chap Larry. Now he ran across him out at the fairgrounds.
I don’t know what it was, but this kid here didn’t have the right time.
He was doing something out there. His apparel was nothing, and Jack
bought him a suit. Of course, mind you, he put him in the club, let him
sleep there, but he made him work, but he gave him a few bucks. He gave
him a place to sleep. He put some clothes on his back.
And one time before he disappeared I even heard him mention once—Larry
didn’t have any front teeth, and I heard Jack mention once, “Larry,
we’ll have to do something about your teeth, to get you some front
teeth.” This is a true fact. As tough as this guy was at times, he was
soft too. He had a heart. Many a buck he shelled out to somebody to
grab a bite.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You suggested you found this Ewing Street apartment.
Mr. SENATOR. The new place.