DRIVE ON TO SAVE RUBY AS A PSYCHO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600170038-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 4, 1998
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: February 23, 1964
• Content Type: NSPR

CPYRGHT
Dy GEORGE MORRIS
,
Of high-Priced psychiatric examinations.
This was already apparent
when an elaborate defense ma-; Oswald's) have been publicly
chinery was put together for analyzed and, journalistically-dis-
Ruby, headed by Melvin M.
Belli, one of California's'highest- ' splayed in .Time Magazine of Feb-
priced criminal lawyers. u-
source of the hundreds of thou- To bolster the , viewthat:Ruby's
sands of dollars such a defense "brain .was damaged, much has
,will cost is still a mystery. Ruby's been dug up on his earlier ex-
-relatives have disclosed that the 'plaits in Chicago's gangland and
series, of articles on the killer's the blow on the head he ro-
' life published in Hearst and other ';portedly once suffered. Ruby's
-papers, did not bring anywhere sister, Eva Grant, was brought'
near the amount of money ex- into the picture with ?a story; "her ..well on the way to wealth.
1Pccted. that she remembered that her
mother . had rom Maine.-'. that ACCUSES CIA
One of Belli 's first steps was 1 In contrast to Marina, Oswald 's
to engage prominent New York "Ruby's birth was difficult be-. mother stood
b
her m
d
d
.
y
ur
ere
psychiatrists to examine and re-, " `'cause he weighed 11 pounds. son and insisted in three days of
port on Ruby's brain condition. ' Judge. Brown on the first day -testimony before the Warren,
-Their report, to nobody's sur- "of the trial ;rejected Belli's 'Commission that Oswald was in,
prise, supported Belli's eonten- .attempt to get a dismissal of `the service of the CIA and was
tion that Ruby had ?a condition ,the . charges on psychiatric used as.a "scapegoat" in a plot
,that could have made him insane .grounds. But there is no doubt to kill the President. She con-
at the moment he. caught -sight ,,that the defense will play the ceded her son may have been in
..of Oswald in the Dallas .police' "brain-damage" card with every- valved, but.insisted that the real'
station basement and :fired a "thing it has when the trial gets killers are still running around,
bullet into him. " under. way, using especially the loose.
TEXAS PROBE report of Judge Brown's ap- Mrs. Oswald gave the commit-:
A Texas State mental exam! pointed medical expert. 'tee documentary material, in-
nation brought a report that Oswald's mother, Mrs. Mar- eluding a batch of letters Oswald
'Ruby was sane. But trial .Judge ,guerite Oswald, expressed -the 'wrote 'her on the eve of depar-
Joseph Brantley Brown named hope that Ruby would not be ?ture to the USSR in 1059 and
'Dr. Martin L. Towler, neurolo- -executed if found guilty, but ''from the Soviet Union, to sup-
: gist at the 'University of Texas, , -,,would be confined for life -to port 'her contention . that Lee
,'to examine Ruby. 'Towler re- '*an institution,' if found insane. 'Oswald was in undercover serv-<
ported that Ruby claimed-he But Marina Oswald, the widow, ice. To Mrs. 'Oswald there is :
suffered from recurrent "spells" was reported, .through her busi- apparently nothing derogatory;
-at intervals of 30 to 40 seconds. ' ness manager, James Martin, as 'about '.un'dercover service.
'Seldom has the minutest :detail, ' :not. interested in . the "trial, She p, She has been attempting, it
of any person's mental condition: ,had expressed .to the Warren,'.' seems, to show that a govern-
-received received so much court and pub ",Commission her . conviction that Went agency dragged her son
lie attention. Oswald had ; killed the ;President y f into,iness and that such a serv-
Even Ruby's sex' habits"., (and ",and' had,, identified various'phy..,,r
Continued
2M IM'TTTMORTIMATIET rive is under way to get an acquittal. for Jack -Ruby, the
Dallas strip-tease merchant who silenced Lee Harvey Oswald
on the basis of reports
Sanitized -Approved For Release CIA-RDP75-00149R0006001700'38-0
'sical objects that the FBI had
gathered as evidence.
Marina Oswald is very greatly 1
.occupied with financial matters.:
Contributions have passed the 1
$35,000 mark. She has sold the.:
rights for a book of her memoirs
to Meredith Press, and the film
,rights to her story to. Tex-Italia
Films. Magazine rights are still
.in negotiations. All that will put