You Don’t Know Jack (Ruby), Part 6–Side A

It is somewhat bittersweet to say it, but we’ve come to the end of the line with old Jack Ruby, and in this two-part episode, we will close out his saga in style with returning guest and Ruby expert Max Arvo. Side A comes in hot with a deep discussion of CIA mind control experiments, psychopathic psychiatrists, and Jack’s vivid visions of an American Holocaust, leaving his Warren Commission testimony and final denouement for Side B.

We pick up where we left off after Jack’s conviction and death sentence. He fires Melvin Belli and hires the lawyer/psychiatrist Hubert Winston Smith to take his case on appeal. He tries to fire the mountain of a man, Joe Tonahill, too, but Joe refuses to go and sticks around. The first order of business after Jack is put on death row (besides filing his appellate papers) is to put him under hypnosis. And who better to do that than the CIA’s favorite super-shrink, Mr. MKULTRA himself, Dr. Louis Jolyon “Jolly” West. Coincidentally or not, Jolly just so happens to show up right after Jack suffers an acute psychotic break, including vivid audio-visual hallucinations. Thereafter, everything Jack says - including (and especially) all of Jack’s talk of a larger conspiracy - is taken with a heaping portion of salt and largely discarded by everyone around him.

This is important because, as we’ve previewed heavily in past episodes, Jack’s Warren Commission testimony raises a lot of eyebrows, as we will cover in depth in Side B among other salient and lesser-known aspects of the end of Ruby’s life. If you want to full 3+ hours in one piece, head on over to Patreon and sign up to get early access!