Tucker Carlson recently astounded everyone by suggesting that the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Unfortunately, Mr. Carlson doesn’t know anymore “as a fact” than we, the unwashed, know, but as a matter of form, I will have to admit that no one had a better motive to kill the president than Vice President Lyndon Johnson, and no agency was in a better position to carry out that mission than the C.I.A.
We might also consider the amount of money that went to the C.I.A. during Johnson’s administration. But you know, that’s only my uninformed opinion. I don’t know. I suspect that I never will know. This isn’t something to be bandied about indiscriminately — it is a grave allegation, and I would be horrified if Mr. Carlson made it indiscriminately.
Here’s what Mr. Carlson had to say:
The connection that Mr. Carlson is trying to make is that a very questionable psychiatrist by the name of Louis Jolyon West, a man who participated in illegal experimentation with LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide), was an employee of the C.I.A. and that he visited with the murderer of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1964 and pronounced him as clinically insane. Carlson suggests that in making such a proclamation, Dr. West provided cover to the C.I.A., the suggestion being that Jack Ruby (as an insane man) was not to be believed no matter what he might say.
At the very least, Jack Ruby was a very unfortunate man. His name at birth was Jacob Leon Rubenstein, Chicago, born in 1911, and he was raised in a violent household. As a child, “Jack” was often truant from school and, on that account, was incarcerated in the Institute for Juvenile Research. Whatever they did for him didn’t work because once released, he was frequently involved with off-track betting for the “mob.” Today, we refer to him as Jack — but his friends call him “Sparky” because of his quick temper.
During World War II, Ruby served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as an aircraft mechanic in the United States. Following his discharge in 1946, he returned to Chicago for about a year before moving to Dallas, Texas, with his brothers. Collectively, they changed their names to Ruby.
In Dallas, Jack began to manage nightclubs and strip joints and, in this capacity, developed close relationships with several Dallas Police Department personnel. Apparently, Ruby provided local cops with free booze and access to prostitutes when they weren’t writing traffic citations.
This alone would have constituted a “criminal activity,” but the suggestion that he was involved with the so-called “underworld” became serious after Kennedy’s murder. His alleged involvement with the mob included illegal gambling, narcotics, and prostitution. He was said to be involved with a Jewish criminal organization, the Yiddish Connection. There is also a suggestion that Ruby was an arms dealer.
In 1959, Ruby became an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.), but there is some question about whether he was ever a paid informant. One might assume that this connection might open doors to subsequent involvement with other federal law enforcement agencies, but assumptions without verifiable facts don’t advance any concrete theory. For the most part, Ruby was known as an underworld pimp, but that did not place him in the same league as John Wilkes Booth.
Ruby’s activities between 21 November 1963 and 24 November were nothing, if not bizarre. All we know is what the Warren Commission reported a year after Kennedy’s assassination. The Commission claims that he exhibited a mixture of anti-gentilism and other peculiar behavior. Since he was caught on camera shooting Lee Harvey Oswald, we would be hard-pressed to deny it.
What we may continue to question, however, is whether Lee Harvey Oswald actually killed Kennedy or, if so, who he was working for when he pulled the trigger. What we know about Oswald’s rifle marksmanship is that he barely qualified with the service rifle while in the Marine Corps. Some will argue that it takes some skill for a sniper to hit a moving target — and Oswald didn’t have that skill. Still, they say that even a blind squirrel can find an acorn.
See also: Servant or Master. Given what we know about the C.I.A., as well as members of Congress playing fast and loose with the law (Charlie Wilson’s War), a prudent citizen would not discount our government’s capacity for doing evil.
Was the Central Intelligence Agency complicit in the murder of a president? I do not know. But what I do know is that if the C.I.A. was involved in the Kennedy murder, then Donald J. Trump should consider himself lucky that he only ended up on the short end of the stick of a cartoonish dossier … it might have been somewhat worse.
Mustang has blogs called Fix Bayonets and Thoughts From Afar
Mustang is enjoying a vacation in the UK and may or may not be available to respond to comments.
BUNKERVILLE | God, Guns and Guts Comrades! 