Mr. Griffin. Where did that appear—in the Brownsville paper?
Mr. Rossi. Yes. Another thing I want to get in here, and I want to set this in the record before any other testimony that I give, and that is, that what I say is without prejudice against Dallas or anybody or anything. There is a certain attitude that I feel was wrong and has been somewhat corrected as this all took place. Emotionally everybody was pretty well upset and all and what I am describing here, took place before anybody else in the country, or anyone had interviewed Ruby, and, important thing that I want to state now is that I knew Ruby—that Jack Ruby was capable of doing what he did regarding Oswald, even prior to my knowing that Jack Ruby actually did it.
Mr. Griffin. How did you know that?
Mr. Rossi. Well, to clarify it, let me say this: We had just broken up or finished a meeting that the real estate brokers on the island were having regarding the Padre Island development and promotion, when someone came in from the hotel lobby—we were at the Island Hotel or Motel, and said that they had just shot Harvey or Lee Oswald—somebody had just shot him. One thing led to another—they were going to reshow it, at least we didn’t see the actual first film of the shooting, so to speak, but they were going to reshow it, so a number of us went out to the lobby of the motel to see the TV showing of it, and while standing there we saw the event take place and then the announcement came through that the one who murdered or shot Harvey Lee Oswald was Jack Ludi. There was a Jack Lodi or Ludi or something like that and standing next to me was Mr. John O’Sorio, who is an attorney, and also the counsel for the company down there, and one of the participants and he turned to me and he asked me—he says, “Joe, you are pretty well known in Dallas, at least you know quite a number of people in Dallas, do you know Jack Lodi,” and I replied, “No, I don’t know any Jack Lodi or Jack Luby or Jack Lucas”—whatever it might have been that he said, but I said, “If they had said or made mention of the fact that it was Jack Ruby who had shot Oswald,” I says, “I wouldn’t be too much surprised.”
Then, he asked me why and I says, “Well, he just happens to be that type of a person. He is impulsive and emotional and everything and he probably felt like he was doing something that—a favor or something.”
Mr. Griffin. What experiences had you had with Jack Ruby before then that led you to that conclusion?
Mr. Rossi. Well, now, before I answer that question, let me continue—it was not but a minute or so that they got down to the correction on the name and made mention of the fact that it wasn’t Lodi or whoever it was but a Jack Ruby, a nightclub operator in Dallas. Mr. Osorio turned to me and said, “By golly, you were right.” I said, “I was right, but I was shocked also. I knew that Jack is impulsive, but I didn’t think he would do a thing like that just offhand.”
The things that led me to feel this way about Jack is that I had seen him or I had stopped off into his club or had seen him in a number of discussions and had occasion to see him argue about certain points and things and knew that he got quite emotional and quite upset. He would be right in his own way and would have no way of possibly explaining it to anybody and couldn’t get his point across—it would just get him that much more excited.
I have seen him get pretty worked up over the fact that one of the burlesque dancers was 5 minutes late in her performance and he would just work himself up into a dither, with, “Now, where is she, why isn’t she here on time, it’s show time and she isn’t here,” and he would work himself up and all, and saying that he ought to bop her on the head or something like that, and that he was paying them a salary and he couldn’t depend on them, and I mentioned to him—I said, “Jack, you act like this is a big George White production or something like that.” I said, “After all, your customers are enjoying themselves, they are listening to the emcee and he is popping off jokes and they are drinking their drinks. They don’t even know what time it is, let alone, that the girl is supposed to be on.”
He said, “But that’s beside the point. They pay to come up here and we schedule a show at a certain time and some of these people, even if they don’t know the time, are entitled to see it when we specify it.”