Will someone tell me why Jack Ruby killed Oswald? The article says the KGB could not let talkative Oswald be interrogated. But don't understand what role Jack Ruby had before shooting Oswald. Was he a spy in the KGB's stable.

This is the original thinking about the JFK assassination...#1, if true, Ruby had to be on the KGB payroll. At nearly 50 years later, I have a hard time working up any interest.

Scuse double post but would rather read more about Ruby. As Poster #2 said: this is not new thinking, might have more details now, but how about a story about Ruby. How did he get recruited?

I studied this like a Professor for years and years. Nope, it was Oswald and Oswald alone. I chased every conspiracy theory down to the last hidden FBI agent and mafia goon, to Fidel's cigars and beard to Johnson's greed and ambition and even ran down Hoover and Jack Ruby conspiracies. Nope- all dead ends. The fact is this and only this; Oswald, a left-wing nut, petty loser with visions of granure, took a pot shot at General Walker, and barely missed, but, felt doomed becasue of it, that his days of freedomw ere numbered. He was about to leave to go on the run from the Walker debacle, when he picked up the paper and saw the Presidential motorcade route was going right past his place of employment- a perfect location for a sniper to set up shop. Being ex-Marine sniper, he knew what a shot he would get. He felt a divine "thrill down his leg" that a golden and once in a lifetime opportunity was his if he would take it. He did and the rest is history. It was a "magic moment" of history that happens now and then- history is filled with them; From Caesar at the Rubicon to Charlemagne, from the Wright Brothers to the Arch Duke and Duchess. It was purely and categorically a quirk of fate that led Oswald and Kennedy to each other that fateful morning.

It seems that Ruby's biggest known connection was to the Chicago mafia, which points to a conspiracy in which they (mafia) were involved, perhaps in conjunction with others (name your cast of characters among several choices, probably more than one).

I was too young to know much about politics back then, but I don't think Kennedy was as popular at the time as people now believe he was. He's a martyr, the poor assassinated Prince of Camelot, and all that stuff.

If I could change history this is one episode where I might do that. Not because of an especial love for Kennedy, but because his death led to the presidency of one of the meanest and most destructive people to ever hold the office: LBJ. That man was a power hungry jerk, ramped up the war in Vietnam while at the same time hamstringing the military so they couldn't win it, and started the welfare state that now threatens the fiscal and moral fiber of a nation that once prided itself on self reliance. A pox on him.

I heard, back in the day when I watched Sunday morning talking heads, that Kennedy often brought women to the White House. The last one he brought was supposedly a spy (Russian? German?) and that's when the US government took him out. Of course, I'm not sure I believe it - but have to say it could be possible. Sounds as realistic as any other theory out there.

Was Oswald really a "nobody?" I recall reading that his wife Marina was the daughter or niece of a prominent Russian, and would not have been married to Oswald were he a nobody.

The other odd fact I recall was that Oswald's mother was related to a major mobster, interesting because of RFK's actions against the mob and JFK's affair with Judith Campbell Exner, Sam Giancana's girlfriend.

There are so many threads hanging on the JFK assassination, we may never know the truth. Aren't the records sealed for another 25 years?

The definitive accound of Oswald and the assassination are in Gerald Posner's superb long book "Case Closed", which tracks down every thread however small. The first 60 pages or so are devoted to the very gloomy story of Oswald's failed life. Oswald attempted, among other stupid things, to contact the Cubans and offer them his services. Even the Cubans refused him; they saw him for the total loser he was. And it was as a complete loser, like so many other assassins, that he determined to kill a head of state.

OMG. Q-If there was definitive, undeniable proof presented this morning that the KGB was involved....exactly what would be different this afternoon? A-Nothing. I think that whenever these writers sit in front of their keyboards and have no new ideas to write about....they drag out the Kennedy assassination topic to waste yet more of our time.

More like the left protecting Castro.

People make much out of how the Secret Service, the FBI, and the CIA acted suspiciously after the assassination. Like they were covering up something. They were. They were covering up ineptness.

Their job was to protect the country and the President against enemies. They were tracking Oswald. But obviously not well enough. So they had failed to do their jobs effectively. After the assassination they were trying to cover their collective behinds so they wouldn't get fired from their government jobs.

The only conspiracy was government weenies trying to not get fired for doing a bad job. That happens every day. And they never get fired.

I'm with #4, 9, and 13. Oswald moved to the USSR, married a Soviet woman, and did his damnedest to make some official connection with the Soviet regime. But the Soviets knew better than to hire this psychotic malcontent as a Soviet agent. Oswald and wife Marina made their way back to the USA, where Oswald went public flacking for the Fair Play for Cuba communist front organization--he was insistent and even fairly eloquent in a taped encounter with a newsman. He did take a shot at Gen. Walker in April 1963, and just got lucky when he learned of JFK's plans to ride past the Texas Book Depository in easy rifle range.

Gerald Posner and Vince Bugliosi's books are dispositive on the subject of JFK's assassination. In addition there have been several detailed video examinations of the subject (Peter Jennings's program was especially convincing) that all reach the same conclusion: Oswald had the means and the desire to kill Kennedy, and there is no evidence that he was part of any conspiracy. Some people cannot get it through their heads that an insignificant character can murder a significant one. In fact, that's almost always the way it happens. Although underworld characters like Hoffa and Trafficante no doubt celebrated JFK's demise, they also knew better than to be involved in a presidential assassination plot. I can't think of a better way to cause the government to make their lives permanently miserable.

Here is a theory for the reason Ruby shot Osawld. If Oswald indeed conspired with the KGB and confessed this after his capture, the CIA, FBI etc. could not let Oswalds story get out and cause WW3. Ruby was sent to silence Oswald who was known to easily be provoked to speak. JUST a theory.

Several of the earlier posters have it right. Oswald was a misanthrope and loser who got his Big Chance through a terrible coincidence of fate. And Ruby was a sleazy, unstable guy with a nasty temper who wanted to wipe the smirk off Oswald's face and save Jackie from the ordeal of having to return to Texas for a trial. Before he died he said he was disappointed that he wasn't regarded as a hero for killing Oswald.

Really nothing else to see here, folks.

I believe #4 has it right in all but a very few insignificant trifles.