This is a supreme investigating committee at this particular time. Now
give them your story and be a man, if you want them to deal with you
and deal fairly with you.
Mr. RUBY. It is unfair to me unless I get all the facilities to back up
what I say.
Mr. DECKER. You tell him your story. Nobody is denying it. You tell
this man. He has come a thousand or more miles to listen to you. Now be
a man about it.
Mr. MOORE. What I suggest--Jack, at one time I was a polygraph
operator, and you would not be able to go through the entire story the
way you have here.
So, seriously, you should tell the story and the things you want
checked, you can be asked directly. Because you can only answer yes or
no on the polygraph examination. So I think in view of what you want,
you should tell your story first, and then the points that you want
verified, you can be questioned on.
As the sheriff mentioned, the Commission has come a long way to have
the opportunity to listen to your story, and I am sure that they know
you are telling the truth, in any case.
Mr. RUBY. I wish the President were right here now. It is a terrible
ordeal, I tell you that.
Chief Justice WARREN. I am sure it is an ordeal for you, and we want to
make it just as easy as we can. That is the reason that we have let you
tell your story in your own way without being interrupted.
If you will just proceed with the rest of your statement, I think it
would make it a lot easier for us to verify it in the way that you want
it to be done.
Mr. RUBY. I don't know how to answer you.
Chief Justice WARREN. Well, you have told us most of what happened up
to the time of the incident, and you are almost within, you are just
within a few hours of it now.
Mr. RUBY. There is a Saturday.
Chief Justice WARREN. Beg your pardon?
Mr. RUBY. There is a Saturday night. There is a Friday night. This is
still only Friday night, Chief.
Chief Justice WARREN. Yes; that is true.
Mr. RUBY. Well, I will go into a certain point, and if I stop, you will
have to understand if I stop to get my bearings together.
Chief Justice WARREN. Yes.
Mr. RUBY. I am in the Times Herald Building. I go upstairs, naturally.
Chief Justice WARREN. This is about what time?
Mr. RUBY. This, I imagine, is--I left the KLIF at 2 a.m., and I spent
an hour with the officer and his girl friend, so it must have been
about 3:15 approximately. No; it wasn't. When you are not concerned
with time, it could have been 4 o'clock.
Chief Justice WARREN. It doesn't make any difference.
Mr. RUBY. Forty-five minutes difference.
I am up there in the composing room talking to a guy by the name of
Pat Gadash. He was so elated that I brought him this twist board, and
I had it sealed in a polyethylene bag, but he wanted to see how it is
demonstrated, how it was worked.
It is a board that is on a pivot, a ball bearing, and it has a tendency
to give you certain exercises in twisting your body. So not that I
wanted to get in with the hilarity of frolicking, but he asked me to
show him, and the other men gathered around.
When you get into the movement of a ball bearing disk, your body is
free to move. I know you look like you are having a gay time, because
naturally if your body is so free of moving, it is going to look that
way.
I am stating this in that even with my emotional feeling for our
beloved President, even to demonstrate the twist board, I did it
because someone asked me to.
You follow me, gentlemen, as I describe it?
Chief Justice WARREN. Yes; I do.
Mr. RUBY. Then we placed the ad in, and if I recall, I requested from
Pat to put a black border around to show that the ad was in mourning,
or something, because we were, everything was in mourning.
Bill, will you do that for me that you asked a minute ago? You said you
wanted to leave the room.
Mr. DECKER. I will have everyone leave the room, including myself, if
you want to talk about it. You name it, and out we will go.
Mr. RUBY. All right.
Mr. DECKER. You want all of us outside?
Mr. RUBY. Yes.
Mr. DECKER. I will leave Tonahill and Moore. I am not going to have Joe
leave.