The testimony of Nancy Mennell Powell was taken at 11 a.m., on July 25, 1964, in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 Post Office Building, Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Mr. Burt W. Griffin, assistant counsel of the President’s Commission.
Mr. Griffin. Let me introduce myself first. My name is Burt Griffin, and I am a member of the general counsel’s staff of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
Now, we routinely try to explain to the witnesses before we get into the testimony what we are here for, and a little about the Commission, so I will say to you at the outset that the Commission was established as a result of an Executive order of President Johnson and a joint resolution of Congress. Under those two official acts the Commission has been directed to investigate into the assassination of President Kennedy and the death of Lee Harvey Oswald, and then to report back to President Johnson all the facts that we are able to determine.
We have asked you to come here today in particular because you had worked for Jack Ruby for a period of time. Maybe it will give us some insight into what kind of a person he was and his activities. Under the rules and regulations that have been established by the Commission, I have been specifically designated to take your testimony. I might tell you that there is a provision in the rules that a witness is entitled to have 3 days’ notice in writing before being asked to testify, so I will ask you first of all, have you received a letter from us?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. When did you receive it?
Mrs. Powell. Sunday.
Mr. Griffin. Last Sunday, so there is no problem on the notice there?
Mrs. Powell. No.
Mr. Griffin. Do you have any questions that you would like to ask me?
Mrs. Powell. No, sir; not really.
Mr. Griffin. Before I administer the oath to you?
Mrs. Powell. No; I have been questioned by the FBI three times already.
Mr. Griffin. Only three times?
Mrs. Powell. That is enough. They were following me around everywhere I went.
Mr. Griffin. Well, if there are any questions that should arise as we proceed with the testimony, you feel free to ask them.
Mrs. Powell. I will; don’t worry.
Mr. Griffin. Will you raise your right hand and let me administer the oath?
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give, will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mrs. Powell. I do.
Mr. Griffin. What is your full name?
Mrs. Powell. Nancy Monnell Powell.
Mr. Griffin. How do you spell that?
Mrs. Powell. M-o-n-n-e-l-l Powell.
Mr. Griffin. You have a professional or stage name that you use?
Mrs. Powell. Tammi True.
Mr. Griffin. How do you spell that?
Mrs. Powell. T-a-m-m-i T-r-u-e [spelling].
Mr. Griffin. Where do you live, now, Mrs. Powell?
Mrs. Powell. I live in Fort Worth.
Mr. Griffin. Is it Miss or Mrs.?
Mrs. Powell. Mrs.
Mr. Griffin. Where in Fort Worth?
Mrs. Powell. 1217 Clarence.
Mr. Griffin. Are you living alone, or with your husband?
Mrs. Powell. No; I am divorced. My grandmother is living with me, and I have two children living with me.
Mr. Griffin. When were you born?
Mrs. Powell. June the 9th, 1938.
Mr. Griffin. Are you employed presently?
Mrs. Powell. Yes; I am.
Mr. Griffin. Where are you employed?
Mrs. Powell. The Islands Club in Oklahoma City.
Mr. Griffin. Is that the I-s-l-a-n-d-s [spelling]?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. How long have you been employed there?
Mrs. Powell. Since Wednesday.
Mr. Griffin. Where were you working before that?
Mrs. Powell. I wasn’t. I have been off for 6 weeks.
Mr. Griffin. How about before that?
Mrs. Powell. I worked in Oklahoma City at the Dugout Club.
Mr. Griffin. How long do you expect to be at the Islands Club?
Mrs. Powell. I have a 2 weeks contract, with 2 weeks option.
Mr. Griffin. Is there any place where, if we should want to talk to you again, that we could locate you?
Mrs. Powell. Well, while I am in the city, I am staying at the Rio Motel in Oklahoma City, but this is my permanent address. I own my home there.
Mr. Griffin. In Fort Worth?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. Does your grandmother always know where you can be found?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. Would it be easiest to contact you through her, or do you have an agent?
Mrs. Powell. No; I don’t have an agent. I use a lot of different agents.
Mr. Griffin. Now, you worked for Jack Ruby; is that right?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. When did you start working for him?
Mrs. Powell. About 2 years ago, or 2½ years ago.
Mr. Griffin. Can you give us a better estimate of the time? Was it in early 1962, or the summer of 1962, or when?
Mrs. Powell. Oh, gosh, I have to stop and think. Let’s see, it was in the fall. I know it was in the fall. I don’t remember. I think it was probably in the, well, it might have been early spring. I think it was in March when I went to work there, and I think it was 1962. I can’t remember that. I can’t remember dates.
Mr. Griffin. How long did you work for him altogether?
Mrs. Powell. You mean when I—not counting the times I was gone?
Mr. Griffin. Well, did you work for him steadily after you first went to work for him, or were there times when you didn’t work for him?
Mrs. Powell. I worked steady for about 9 months or a year, and then I went out of town for 2 or 3 months, and then I came back and worked, and went out of town, and came back.
Mr. Griffin. Now, how did you first go to work for him?
Mrs. Powell. This friend of mine was working over there, and she told me about him.
Mr. Griffin. Who was that?
Mrs. Powell. Shari Lynn.
Mr. Griffin. Had you worked as a dancer before?
Mrs. Powell. Yes; but I hadn’t been working steady. I had been doing club dates. There is a club in Fort Worth that they have exotics on weekends, and that was all I was doing. I had never worked seven nights a week before, and three shows a night, and she wanted me to go on the road. I am her protege.
Mr. Griffin. What is her real name?
Mrs. Powell. Kay Garcia.
Mr. Griffin. Does she live in Dallas or Fort Worth area?
Mrs. Powell. In Dallas.
Mr. Griffin. Where does she live?
Mrs. Powell. If you hadn’t asked me, I could have told you. I am a blank. I know the address and the number and everything. She lives out off Garland Road someplace.
Mr. Griffin. You indicated that you were her protege. Are you still her protege? Or was that back a couple of years?
Mrs. Powell. I am considered a star now, but that was, it might have been 1961 when I went to work for Jack, because I started in—let me go back and think. I got my divorce in 1960 in May, and I think it was in January or February of 1961 that I started dancing. It was about 6 months after I got my divorce that I first started, and I just worked around Fort Worth for about 7 or 8 months. That would make it 1961.
Mr. Griffin. Are you figuring this as I am going along?
Mrs. Powell. It is hard to remember, really.
Mr. Griffin. You got your divorce——
Mrs. Powell. In May of 1960.
Mr. Griffin. Then you didn’t start to work as a dancer until about 6 months later; is that right?
Mrs. Powell. Yes, about 6 months, I believe. I think I started in February. That would be 1961.
Mr. Griffin. You worked around Fort Worth for another 6 or 7 months?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. Then, did you go to work for Jack?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. So, that still would have made it 1961, perhaps the latter part of 1961?
Mrs. Powell. No; wait a minute—well, I don’t know, seems like I have known him for a hundred years. But what was I telling you—oh, yes; she wanted me to—where was I?
Mr. Griffin. You were telling me about Shari Lynn and your friendship with her and you were her protege.
Mrs. Powell. So, she was working for Jack. She has been in business a long time, and she asked him to put me to work, so I could get some experience, 7 nights a week, and I did, and I stayed there. She only wanted me to work there 2 or 3 weeks or something, and I stayed there forever.
Mr. Griffin. Now, how long did you work continuously for Jack before you stopped working for awhile?
Mrs. Powell. I don’t know. I really don’t.
Mr. Griffin. Well, from?
Mrs. Powell. It was a long time. It was, you know, close to a year.
Mr. Griffin. Then where did you work?
Mrs. Powell. I think I went there in March of whatever year it was, and I didn’t go on the road until the next summer.
Mr. Griffin. A year and a half then, almost?
Mrs. Powell. Yes; because it was in the summer—two summers ago. Not last summer, but the summer before last. I went to Houston, for, I don’t know, a few weeks or something.
Mr. Griffin. And came back? Would that have been 1962?
Mr. Powell. October.
Mr. Griffin. So you would have started working for him in about 1961?
Mrs. Powell. I guess.
Mr. Griffin. How long were you on the road in the summer of 1962?
Mrs. Powell. Let’s see, I worked down there, I think, 3 weeks in Houston, and then I came back, but I didn’t go back to work out there immediately. I was off for awhile. I didn’t work any place for awhile and then I went back, but don’t ask me when, because I don’t know.
Mr. Griffin. When you did go back, which would have been, I presume in the fall of 1962, even later, maybe the winter of 1962?
Mrs. Powell. Well, I was there New Year’s Eve, I know, of that year.
Mr. Griffin. Then you went back to work for Jack, and then how long did you work for him after that?
Mrs. Powell. I worked for him until last summer. I got mad at him again and went to Oklahoma City. No; I went to Tulsa, Okla., and worked 7 weeks, and then came back. I don’t think I went back with him then. No; I came back a week or two, and then I went back up to Oklahoma City, and I stayed 6 weeks last summer. Then I went to Kansas City for 2 weeks last summer also, and then I came back. August, I was up here. I was up in Oklahoma and it was awfully hot up there. And when I came back from Oklahoma City, after August, I went back to work for him. Are we up to this year yet?
Mr. Griffin. We ought to be up to the fall of 1963. Let me answer this telephone. Let me interrupt you here and ask you, is there a difference between an exotic dancer and a striptease dancer?
Mrs. Powell. Now, you have goofed me up. The difference between them is, an exotic is like a belly dancer, comes out on stage with veils and panels and things, like the dancer of the seven veils. And a stripper comes out fully clothed and takes it off. But an exotic doesn’t take anything off. It is like, I don’t know, Egyptian or something.
Mr. Griffin. What kind of dancing do you do, striptease, or exotic?
Mrs. Powell. A lot of girls would prefer to be exotic, but as far as I am concerned, it is a dirty old stripper. I have a friend that is a comedian that wants to team me with him, and I think I will.
Mr. Griffin. I think before we digress here, Mrs. Powell, we were trying to figure out when it was that you started to work for Jack Ruby again just before he shot Oswald?
Mrs. Powell. Let’s see——
Mr. Griffin. You indicated something about being in Kansas City?
Mrs. Powell. I get confused on these things, because when you just skip around, you don’t—let’s see, did we establish I was working for him in January of——
Mr. Griffin. New Year’s Eve of 1963 you said you were working for him——
Mrs. Powell. I lived over here for a while in the same apartment building he did.
Mr. Griffin. Did you live on Ewing Street?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. 223 South Ewing Street?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. Jack didn’t move there until about the first of the year?
Mrs. Powell. We moved in at the same time.
Mr. Griffin. You did?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. Were you living with him?
Mrs. Powell. No. I wasn’t living with him, the ugly thing. I had an apartment. I presume you have seen his apartment and everything and know about it. My apartment was right here.
Mr. Griffin. Across the hall?
Mrs. Powell. Actually, I was away down here in the corner, and you had to walk around this corner, and my apartment was right here.
Mr. Griffin. Were you living there alone, or with somebody else?
Mrs. Powell. I lived there part-time alone, and this other girl that danced here was my roommate for awhile when she was in town.
Mr. Griffin. Who was that?
Mrs. Powell. Raven.
Mr. Griffin. Did you live there before you went to Oklahoma City, or after you went to Oklahoma City?
Mrs. Powell. That was the last time that I quit, was while I was living there, and I have forgotten when it was.
Now, in January I lived there. I moved in about the same time he did, because the apartment was a brand new building, and I was living down on Ewing, but further down, and there were a bunch of people living there that were kind of loud and it wasn’t a very good environment, and Jack didn’t think I should live there, and they were always fighting and calling the police, and he looked at this apartment, and he was going to move in.
He was real enthused about them, they were so great, and he got me to go down there and look at them, and I got an apartment there, because I don’t like to stay by myself. I am real scary. I always think somebody is going to follow me home and do something to me, and I wanted to live in the same building as Jack so if I had any trouble, I would get him to help me.
Mr. Griffin. Let’s go back to last summer. Were you working for Jack last summer?
Mrs. Powell. Last summer; no. Last summer I was up in Oklahoma City, so that means I came back and went to work for him, right.
Mr. Griffin. You moved into that apartment sometime the early part of 1963, and then when you went to Oklahoma City, did you move out of the apartment?
Mrs. Powell. You see, I quit the last time. It was while I was living in the apartment building. That is when I quit, and I didn’t come back. No, I came back one more time, and I left just 2 days before this happened, from the Carousel, then I was gone, and I came back after.
Mr. Griffin. When you quit Jack on November 20, that is 2 days before the President was shot—— Mrs. Powell. That was the last time I quit.
Mr. Griffin. At that time, were you living at South Ewing?
Mrs. Powell. No. I quit before then. I was living on South Ewing, and there was a girl working up there that is married then to the emcee, and they were always, that doesn’t work out in show business too well.
Mr. Griffin. Wally Weston?
Mrs. Powell. And his wife, Shari.
Mr. Griffin. Was she working there as a stripper at Jack’s place?
Mrs. Powell. Yes. There is always a lot of confusion when they were around. They were kind of tough. Really, they are. They think they are great stars, and they cause trouble for other people, and I don’t need it, because I can work, and I didn’t feel like I could take it.
But anyway, we had some trouble, and I quit. This must have been in March, because I remember the weather wasn’t bad. It was still cool, but it was like the summer, sun was shining.
It was March or April. Let me think, March or April. Must have been March or April, I guess. I don’t really know. I can’t remember.
But anyway, I quit, and I told him I would never work up there again as long as they were there.
And I worked some place else. I guess I went to Tulsa. I guess that is where I went. I worked some place.
I came back. It was in December, the month of December I worked in Oklahoma City for 4 weeks of this past year, and I came home for Christmas. And he called me. He has a partner, wanted his partner to ask me to come back.
Mr. Griffin. Ralph Paul.
Mrs. Powell. Yes. But Jack didn’t want to. Jack and I really had it all the time. I don’t know, either Ralph asked me or he did, but anyway, I went back. I told him I wouldn’t work with them, so he fired this Shari so I would come back.
Mr. Griffin. When was it that you came back?
Mrs. Powell. Wait a minute. I was up there in December, and New Year’s Eve I worked in Fort Worth for the Skyliner.
Mr. Griffin. Which year, New Year’s Eve?
Mrs. Powell. This past New Year’s, this year.
Mr. Griffin. 1964. You are on beyond the assassination at this point?
Mrs. Powell. Am I really? I——
Mr. Griffin. Yes; you are.
Mrs. Powell. Oh, yes, yes; I am. Yes; I am way beyond. Sure that had already happened when I was in Oklahoma.
Mr. Griffin. You left Jack around March of 1963?
Mrs. Powell. Wait a minute. I know I went to Tulsa, and I worked the last 2 weeks in March. I stayed in Tulsa in March, and I worked 2 weeks in Kansas City, and came back, and stayed in Tulsa, until June 2, and I came home.
Mr. Griffin. Then did you come back and work for Jack?
Mrs. Powell. Wait, don’t rush me. That was last summer. How did I get up way past the assassination? It was last summer. Well, I worked for Jack up until 2 days before the President was assassinated. I closed on Tuesday. It happened on Thursday, didn’t it?
Mr. Griffin. Friday.
Mrs. Powell. Then I closed on Wednesday, because it was just 2 days before the President was assassinated.
Mr. Griffin. How did you happen to quit?
Mrs. Powell. I got mad at him. Let me see if I can remember what it was about now. I don’t even remember—something. He always had something going, you know; but I got mad and quit for some reason.
Mr. Griffin. Did you give him any advance notice?
Mrs. Powell. Oh, yes; I gave him notice.
Mr. Griffin. How much notice?
Mrs. Powell. A week’s notice. Under union contract rules, you have to give the employer a week’s notice, and he has to give you 2 weeks, if you are booked indefinitely like I was.
Mr. Griffin. Are these the AGVA rules?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. Where were you living at that time?
Mrs. Powell. I was living in Fort Worth then.
Mr. Griffin. What did Jack pay while you worked for him? What was your salary?
Mrs. Powell. Well, it was $110 a week, I think, or $115 he paid me.
Mr. Griffin. Was Jack meeting the union scale?
Mrs. Powell. Yes. See, in classified clubs like A, B, and C clubs.
Mr. Griffin. What was Jack’s classification?
Mrs. Powell. I think it was classified as a C club, because he had connections. The C clubs don’t have to pay as much as the class B, or A club would have to pay.
Mr. Griffin. What about Jack’s reaction to your having quit him?
Mrs. Powell. Well, he always acted like he didn’t care, like he was glad to get rid of me, and then he called me to come back.
Mr. Griffin. Were you there when Jack turned out the lights on Jada?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. Did you actually witness that episode?
Mrs. Powell. The whole thing. As a matter of fact, I thought he was going to turn and jump on me about it.
Mr. Griffin. Tell us what happened?
Mrs. Powell. Let’s see, she was pulling her pants down, and that is against the law. She could close him up. And he got real excited. He was real excitable and he was running back and forth, and he didn’t know what to do, so he just turned the lights out on her, and she just kept on dancing. Then she came off stage, and he got this idea in his mind, that she was—she had been doing this ever since she had been there, and all of a sudden he just noticed it. He had this idea in his mind that she was going to try to get his club closed down, and she was doing it to close the club.
Mr. Griffin. How did he get that idea?
Mrs. Powell. How did he get any of his ideas. He just got weird ideas about them. Like me, for instance, ever since the day I went to work for him, he never trusted me. He liked me and he had a lot of respect for me, but he said I was a conniver and I was a sharpie, and he said I was always thinking, trying to figure out a way to rook somebody out of something. I don’t know where he got that impression, because I am not like that at all.
I would walk up to him in the evening and say, “Helloooo Jack,” on purpose, because he had this weird reaction, and he would look at me and say, “What do you want?” Because he thought I wanted something. And one day I said, “What have you got that I would be trying to beat you out of?” He couldn’t think of anything, but it didn’t change his mind.
Mr. Griffin. I take it you sort of teased him a bit?
Mrs. Powell. I understood Jack and we got along great. We had fights and I would cuss him and he would cuss me, but he liked me for that. He never liked girls he could push around. He would much rather holler at them.
Mr. Griffin. Do you think Jada was in cahoots with your competitors in any way?
Mrs. Powell. No; I think he was getting ready to let her go anyway, because she had been there quite awhile.
Mr. Griffin. What made you think that?
Mrs. Powell. Because she had been there quite awhile and wasn’t drawing much business. At first she drew a lot of business, but she was there for a long time and weren’t doing much business.
Mr. Griffin. You think that is the reason that she took this extra license in the middle of her act, because she hadn’t been drawing much business?
Mrs. Powell. I don’t know. She really had been doing it—she came from New Orleans, and the first night she did her act, she was awful.
Mr. Griffin. What did she do?
Mrs. Powell. She was pulling up her strings, and they did things like that in New Orleans, and the girls don’t work like that, so Jack had her to clean her act up about three times so he wouldn’t get in any trouble. But she loved publicity and would love to have been taken to jail for it.
Believe me, I love and adore her. I think she has everything on the ball. She is flashy and she is what a stripper should be if they are going to be one, but she would do anything, just anything, and she went out with every reporter in town to get her name in the paper, from sports writers on up. And Jack got the word, or somebody that she was going to get arrested, because when she gets in town, she wants everybody to know she is in town, and if she has to go to jail to do it. She is smart, because she is clever. Because people come to see her for curiosity. I don’t think that was it. He just happened to notice her doing it, and I don’t really know. I think they had a little trouble or something, and an argument. They argued a lot too.
Mr. Griffin. You said that she was pulling her pants down?
Mrs. Powell. She wasn’t pulling them down. She wore these very brief flesh-colored things underneath the G-string. She took the G-string and was pulling this front out from her body.
Mr. Griffin. She would take off the G-string and have the flesh-colored pants on?
Mrs. Powell. She had her hands like this and was pulling them out or pulling them up, and he saw her, and he just turned the lights out.
Mr. Griffin. But this is something you had seen her do previously?
Mrs. Powell. Oh, I had seen her, sure; but he has a way of not seeing everything. He is always so busy. I remember one night on the stage I went out and I was very mad, and I stomped around and acted real silly like I had never been on the stage before, for his benefit, and I do 15 minutes, and I was waiting for him to come back and jump on me, and he didn’t even see it, and he was right there in the club. He doesn’t observe everything.
Mr. Griffin. What happened after he turned the lights out on Jada?
Mrs. Powell. She went on and kept dancing in the dark. And she came off and was hollering and screaming, and he went back immediately and jumped on her and said she was trying to get the club closed. And they had a big row and he fired her. He told her she couldn’t work the rest of the night.
Mr. Griffin. Did he threaten or strike her in any way?
Mrs. Powell. No: he didn’t hit her. I wouldn’t doubt that he might have. I wouldn’t put it past him.
Mr. Griffin. Have you ever seen him hit any of the employees?
Mrs. Powell. No.
Mr. Griffin. Have you ever had any of the employees tell you that he hit them?
Mrs. Powell. No; I guess I call him everything in the book, and he never made an attempt to hit me. I argued with him more than anybody up there, and he never made an attempt to hit me. He never even threatened me.
Mr. Griffin. Of course, you had a little protection. You were friendly with his backer?
Mrs. Powell. That wouldn’t stop Jack. He doesn’t care. I mean, if he felt like doing it, he would do it.
Mr. Griffin. Did you ever see him hit any customers?
Mrs. Powell. Once I did.
Mr. Griffin. Can you describe that episode?
Mrs. Powell. Yes; Ralph was up there, and Ralph and I were sitting by the door, and this guy came in.
Mr. Griffin. You are talking about Ralph Paul?
Mrs. Powell. Yes; and this guy came in and he sat down in a chair behind me, and he was rubbing my back, and I told him to take his hands off of me, and so he wouldn’t stop, and Ralph, you know Ralph—my hero—he told him “OK, that is enough. Get out of here.” And he was pushing him out, and Jack was in the club and saw him, and he came running over and grabbed the guy and was pushing him out, and he got very upset because he thought quite a bit of Ralph, and the guy took a swing at Ralph. When he did, Jack just hit him. He hit him and pushed him out and closed the door where he couldn’t come back in.
Mr. Griffin. Was Jack a pretty strong fellow?
Mrs. Powell. From what I understand, he is pretty rough. I have never actually seen him fight or anything. He is actually pretty good natured, really. I have seen him argue with his best friends and tell them to get out of the club and don’t ever come back. He and Earl Norman got into a fight one night up there too. And he and Earl were good friends.
Mr. Griffin. Was this a fight or an argument?
Mrs. Powell. He hit him, but it was Earl’s fault.
Mr. Griffin. What happened there?
Mrs. Powell. Earl came in the club, and he drinks quite a bit, and he used to work up there as an emcee, but he drinks a lot, and when he gets drunk—well, we better go back to Jada, because this happened over that deal. On that night, Jack told Jada she couldn’t finish out the night. She was going to do it anyway, and she called the union man so she could finish doing her last two shows. And the union man came up there and he talked to them, and he told Jack to let her go ahead and finish. So, they got together and decided to let her finish the week before she left.
Then they got into it again over something, I don’t know, and she says that he threatened to hit her and all this, so the next night she is on stage working and the police came up there, and she had got a warrant for his arrest for threatening her or something, I don’t know, filed charges against him, and they come up and took Jack and Jada before the night judge, got him out of bed or something.
Mr. Griffin. Were you there and did you actually see the police come up and get Jack?
Mrs. Powell. Yes; they took Jada with them. In the meantime, she had put all her stuff and packed it away in trunks and bought this paraffin that you seal things with and seal all her things up so if Jada missed anything—she said he threatened to burn her wardrobe also. And he went down to the police station and went before the judge, and they were gone about 2 hours, and he came back. The reason they went is because Jack didn’t want to pay her for the week. He wanted her to leave, and she got her money, $250. The judge gave it to her. And he came back and was furious, and he said she went down and told the judge all kinds of bad things about all of us, and he got the other girls worked up, and they were going to go to the motel where she was staying and do all kinds of things. And I am sitting there. I am pretty levelheaded, and I like Jack, but he likes to fabricate, and I couldn’t believe that she said all the things he said she did. Anyway, if she did, she was telling the truth. She said, “I told the judge I pulled my pants down too, so I did.”
I took up for her. I said, “Now, when you are calling her all these things, you go out and jump on her, and that is not going to make you any better than she is.” He got mad at me because I didn’t want to go out and jump on her. He felt like I was against him, so he was hollering at me and said, “I used to have respect, but I lost all respect. He thought I was stuff and tough.” And I don’t know, so I just left the club. I said, “I don’t even want to talk to you.” I went inside and I went back in and Earl Norman came over, because he is on the board of directors. The union man couldn’t come over, and he sent Earl over there to stay there until Jada got her things and got out, so there would be a representative there in case anything happened. And she filed a claim. Jack thought Earl was against him also because he came over there.
So, he was in the club, and Jack started hollering at him and told him—first of all, it started out as a nice conversation, and Earl is great about quoting you new rules. He knows all of them, and he goes by the book, and especially when he is drinking. That is all he can talk about is union rules. He drives you crazy sometimes. And he was explaining to Jack, Jack said, “You are against me. You are against me.” And he said, “No; I am not. I had to come over, Tom Palmer told me to, and it is my job as a member of the board.” And Jack told him to get out. He said, “I want you to leave. If you don’t, I am going to punch you in the mouth, so you get out now.” And he was walking the floor. He was really, very, very angry. So Earl tells him, “You better not ever hit me, or I will get a gun and come back and shoot you.” He shouldn’t have said that. Jack went to pieces and he smashed him in the mouth, but Earl wasn’t going to give up.
Mr. Griffin. Did Earl leave at that point?
Mrs. Powell. No; he kept explaining and mouthing off, but Jack didn’t hit him any more. The band was there and I was there. We had closed up already.
Mr. Griffin. Did Jack send anybody out to get a gun?
Mrs. Powell. No. It wasn’t Jack that made that statement. It was Earl Norman.
Mr. Griffin. It was Earl Norman who said he was going to get a gun and shoot?
Mrs. Powell. Earl said if he ever hit him, he would go home and get a gun, and Jack hit him.
Mr. Griffin. Jack did hit him?
Mrs. Powell. Yes; I don’t blame him much. He provoked him, really.
Mr. Griffin. What did Earl do? Did he leave?
Mrs. Powell. No; he kept on, and they got Jack calmed down, and Earl kept on, because when he drinks, he doesn’t have good sense, Earl.
Mr. Griffin. Do you remember when Earl Norman came back to the club about a week before President Kennedy was shot and Jack wouldn’t let him in? Do you remember that incident?
Mrs. Powell. Oh, well, he had come up a lot of times and Jack wouldn’t let him in. He has been barred from there a hundred times. He would have an argument, and Jack would bar him. One time they ran him off.
Mr. Griffin. I want to follow it from the time of this episode with Jada.
Mrs. Powell. He came back after that. Jack never stayed mad at anyone for a long length of time. He would throw him out and tell him, “Don’t come back,” but Earl would call, “Is it OK if I come up,” or he would come to the door and ask if it is all right, and I don’t remember Jack not letting him in. But a lot of times it was depending on how drunk he was.
Mr. Griffin. Did you observe any kindnesses or anything that Jack showed?
Mrs. Powell. He was very kind to a lot of people.
Mr. Griffin. Any specific instances of kind acts?
Mrs. Powell. He was always picking people up off the street or something, that didn’t have a place to stay or any money or a job or anything. He just had all kinds. Well, he had this one guy who used to sleep in the club. We had three or four guys sleeping in the club every night because they didn’t have a place to stay. And he would give him $2 or $3 a day, and they were sort of flunkies.
Mr. Griffin. Do you remember the last fellow, Larry Crafard?
Mrs. Powell. Isn’t he kind of a carnival guy?
Mr. Griffin. That is the fellow.
Mrs. Powell. Yes; I remember him.
Mr. Griffin. Do you remember anything about Jack’s twistboard?
Mrs. Powell. Yes. I demonstrated his twistboard here in the building with the exhibits.
Mr. Griffin. Texas Product Show?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. How many times did you go out to demonstrate?
Mrs. Powell. Just once.
Mr. Griffin. How long were you there?
Mrs. Powell. Oh, about 30 minutes to an hour. Jack called me, and I went there before work one night, and then I went home with him and he cooked lamb chops.
Mr. Griffin. What did you do, get up on the board?
Mrs. Powell. There was another boy, he had picked up by the name of Tommy.
Mr. Griffin. He had another fellow?
Mrs. Powell. At this time that I was demonstrating the twistboard, there was this boy living with him. His name was Tommy something, and he was staying with him the last time I was there.
Mr. Griffin. Living in Jack’s apartment?
Mrs. Powell. Yes. Because they came out there, and we went to the apartment, and Jack cooked dinner for us all.
Mr. Griffin. How old a fellow was Tommy?
Mrs. Powell. About 25, I guess.
Mr. Griffin. What did he look like?
Mrs. Powell. Well, I think he played—he told me he had played baseball. He looked like a baseball player. Baseball players all look alike, sort of athletic type, but not musclebound.
Mr. Griffin. About how tall?
Mrs. Powell. About 5´ 11´´, had brown hair, and I think he was from Iowa or someplace like that, a really nice kid. And he had a job; he was working though.
Mr. Griffin. Where was he working?
Mrs. Powell. Gee, I don’t know.
Mr. Griffin. In Dallas?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. How long had Tommy been living with Jack?
Mrs. Powell. I don’t know. He was living with him when I came back for work the last time, I believe.
Mr. Griffin. When did he move out?
Mrs. Powell. You got me, I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t keep up with all of these guys. He just picked guys up.
One night he had this boy up there, and he said, “You are going to Fort Worth. I want you to give this friend of mine a ride.”
And I said, “OK.” He says, “He goes to college at TCU, and you can drop him off.”
And I said, “OK.”
And the kid is working around there, and when I get ready to leave and I get him in the car and we pile his books in at the bus station, and I start on the turnpike, and I said, “How long have you known Jack?”
And he said, “I don’t know him. I didn’t have enough money to get to Fort Worth, and I started talking to him on the street, and he told me to come up to the club and he would give me a couple of dollars to work, and then he got me a ride.”
And Jack doesn’t know him, and here I am on a dark turnpike with this guy. But that is the way he does things.
There was a guy standing down one night in front of the place looking at pictures out in front, and Jack was down there, and he started talking to him, and that guy stayed around for a long time, and he got to be, well, he knew a lot of people here, and he was a pretty nice guy.
And Jack had him tell everybody that he was a friend of his from Chicago, because he knew that people, we were always teasing him about picking people up and helping them out, so he got to where he would say they were old friends from Chicago or someplace.
Mr. Griffin. When you were demonstrating the twistboard, did you sell any of them?
Mrs. Powell. We sold one to the guy that is the head of—what is the biggest extract company that makes food extract?
Mr. Griffin. Hunt Foods? H. L. Hunt?
Mrs. Powell. No. What is it? They distribute it here. It is a big extract company. They make vanilla and almond and all this.
The man’s name that we sold it to was the man who owned the company, and he gave Jack, supposed to give Jack a case of rum extract or something.
Jack was trying to figure out a way to serve drinks after hours, and there is no way you can but this way you can serve rum and coke, and you can put rum straight in coke and sell it, and there is not enough alcohol in it that the law could do anything about it, and you can sell it for 60 cents. That was my idea.
Mr. Griffin. You suggested that you sell it for 60 cents and mix the rum extract?
Mrs. Powell. The whole thing, so he was tickled to death this guy was going to give him a whole case of rum extract.
Mr. Griffin. Did he ever try that?
Mrs. Powell. No, he never did do it.
Mr. Griffin. When you were out at the Texas Product Show, did Jack ever pick up any literature from H. L. Hunt?
Mrs. Powell. No.
Mr. Griffin. Did you ever see him with any radio scripts from Life Line?
Mrs. Powell. No. What is Life Line?
Mr. Griffin. Did you ever hear Jack have any political discussions with anybody?
Mrs. Powell. No; never.
Mr. Griffin. What do you remember about this fellow Larry, the carnival kid?
Mrs. Powell. I remember I didn’t like him too much.
Mr. Griffin. Why not?
Mrs. Powell. Well, because I thought he was kind of a bum, and I don’t like bums. He is kind of a—like kind of gave me the creeps or something, like some guy. I think he looked at you kind of funny. I don’t know, I didn’t like him, and he got pretty bossy.
Jack let him sleep up in the place there, and he decided he was big cheese, and he came back there one night telling me something that I should do, and I really jumped on him and told him, “All you are is a flunky and you are just up here to sweep floors.” So, I don’t think he liked me too well after that.
Mr. Griffin. Did Jack ever give you any of the reducing pills he was taking?
Mrs. Powell. No.
Mr. Griffin. Did he give any to the other girls?
Mrs. Powell. No. I didn’t know he was taking reducing pills. He had some kind of powder junk and you are supposed to put it in your coffee and it will hold your appetite down.
Mr. Griffin. Diet pills is what I meant when I said reducing pills.
Mrs. Powell. But I just saw this powder and he had that sitting on the table by the coffee.
Mr. Griffin. Do you know anything about any transactions he did under the name of Banker Drugs?
Mrs. Powell. No.
Mr. Griffin. Have you ever heard that? Banker Drugs?
Mrs. Powell. No.
Mr. Griffin. Do you know a number of the girls that swore out affidavits against Jack for AGVA, and they said in their affidavits that Jack wanted them to mingle with the customers contrary to the AGVA rules and so forth? What do you know about that?
Mrs. Powell. That is not true. That is absolutely untrue, absolutely.
Jack had a hard time in that club because the other clubs were in competition with him, and they have been here 20 years. Not near as bad as Jack imagined.
He had this big thing built up in his mind that they were trying to put him out of business, but really they weren’t.
Mr. Griffin. Why do you say that?
Mrs. Powell. I don’t think they were. Why should they care. They have been in business 20 years, and still doing the same things. Other clubs help you. It is competition, and people like that, and people like to go to other clubs in different districts.
Jack was upset about the amateur nights and I can see why, because the amateurs were all working and they got $10 a night doing a show.
They had four clubs in Dallas they could work, and that was $40 a week, plus all the daytime jobs.
Mr. Griffin. What were the four clubs? I know of the Carousel, the Theatre Lounge, and the Colony Club. What was the fourth?
Mrs. Powell. Vegas. He let the girls work at the Vegas to help them out to get another $10. He didn’t need it at the Vegas. The place was packed all the time.
They passed this rule that you couldn’t have amateur exotics any more because it was knocking some legitimate acts out of business, so Jack immediately—they sent wires to all the club owners, and Jack immediately stopped.
But the other two clubs continued to have their amateur exotics. But they said the girls had to join the union. You had to pay them $35 a night. That is union scale for a night.
But they weren’t paying them that. They were paying them $10 or $15 just per usual.
Mr. Griffin. How do you know that?
Mrs. Powell. Well, I know.
Mr. Griffin. Any of the girls tell you?
Mrs. Powell. I got a direct line.
Mr. Griffin. Did any of the girls tell you how much they were getting paid?
Mrs. Powell. No.
Mr. Griffin. Anybody in one of the clubs tell you?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. Who was that?
Mrs. Powell. I really don’t remember. I really don’t remember, but that is what I heard, and I just know. Listen, I know these club owners. They are not going to give their girls $35. They are not, because I know them. They kept having their shows over there.
And I was in the office when Jack called the head man, I think, in New York or Chicago. He went up, as a matter of fact, to New York and paid a visit to him.
Then when I went to New York last year, he wanted me to go over and talk to him. And one night in his office, I was in there when he made a call. He was very upset about it.
Mr. Griffin. Would you tell us from your knowledge of Jack that in the couple of weeks or months before President Kennedy was shot, Jack was more excited and worried and concerned about his club and his competitors than he had been at other times?
Mrs. Powell. No. Maybe he was. He got to where he hadn’t been coming in so much, being so worried about it.
He became more relaxed about the club. At first, he would never leave the club. He was there all the time, but he got to where he would go out and come in later like at 10 o’clock or something.
Mr. Griffin. Did you get the feeling that in fact in the month or so before the President was shot, Jack felt confident enough about his club so he was out doing other things?
Mrs. Powell. Well, not that he was out doing other things. Just that he wasn’t coming in until 10. I think he had someone working up there at that time that was running it.
Mr. Griffin. Ed Pullman?
Mrs. Powell. I don’t know. I think there was someone up there that was kind of looking after the place, but he had the club pretty well going smooth enough to where he could do that.
Mr. Griffin. Was Andy Armstrong pretty able to run the club for him?
Mrs. Powell. Yes. We had all been there so long and we knew what to do and when to do it and how to do it.
Really, Jack didn’t have much of a problem, because the kids had been with him for a long time, most of them.
Mr. Griffin. Well, you described the episode with Jada and as a result of it you mentioned that he felt people were against him, and you sided with his competitors, and he was mad at Earl Norman and felt Earl Norman was on the other side, and so forth.
Had there been other occasions when Jack had said the same thing, or was this a new concern on his part that everybody was turning against him?
Mrs. Powell. No. Ever since I have known him, he had been that way. He is the type of person that he gets an idea about something and I don’t care what it is, if that is the way he feels about it, you can’t shake his mind, and it doesn’t do any good to argue, because that is the way he is.
And he never thinks before he does anything, never.
Mr. Griffin. How common was it for him to feel that people were against him?
Mrs. Powell. Well, it is very common, because I think—I don’t know, because I wasn’t there, but from being around him and from knowing Ralph as well as I do and other people that know Jack, I understand that he had a pretty hard time getting up.
Mr. Griffin. From your own experience, I am asking you?
Mrs. Powell. Well, it was very common, but you know, like all of his life, he has had to fight for things, and he feels that in order to get some place, he’s got to do everything, he is going to do it before somebody else does it to stop him.
He has always had this in his mind that somebody was going to do something to him, and he was going to beat them to the punch.
Does that make sense to you? Do you understand what I am saying?
Mr. Griffin. He wanted to get in there first?
Mrs. Powell. I don’t care how much money Jack had. If he had been a millionaire, he wouldn’t have been one bit different. He didn’t have any class, and he really wanted to. And no tact.
Mr. Griffin. What had he ever said to you about his desire for class?
Mrs. Powell. Well, now, you could tell the way he acted, and if you were around him a great deal. Jack really wanted to be somebody, and have class. He used the word class quite often, so I know it was an important thing with him. This girl that worked up there, he said, “She’s got class,” and he would go on about class. Everything had to have class. And I think that is what he wanted, but he could never have it, because Jack was just Jack. He has no tact. I mean the club could be packed, and if he is standing over on this side and there is something doing, he would holler, “Hey, you hit the door.” He is just weird.
Mr. Griffin. Maybe we will get back to this in a little bit. I want to ask you some questions about your own activities on November 22 and from then on, and we will maybe work back into this again.
Mrs. Powell. All right.
Mr. Griffin. Where were you when you first learned that President Kennedy had been shot?
Mrs. Powell. I was at this guy’s house over here in Dallas.
Mr. Griffin. Who is that?
Mrs. Powell. I don’t know. You probably got his name down. I don’t know which name you got.
Mr. Griffin. I don’t know whether I do. Mike Ryan? Mickey Ryan?
Mrs. Powell. That is the one, the guy that Jack picked up, the one I was telling you about.
Mr. Griffin. How did you happen to go over to his house?
Mrs. Powell. I had some friends come in from Old Mexico that morning. There were five of them.
Mr. Griffin. Who were they?
Mrs. Powell. Well, I didn’t know all of them. There was this one guy I knew was a bartender in Tulsa, and when I worked in Oklahoma I—the last time, he rode this far with me. He had a friend in Old Mexico, and he was going to go over there for about a month or so. And I brought him over to the apartment. As a matter of fact, he went down there, and he had been gone about 2 or 3 months, and that morning someone knocked on the back door, and this was him, and he had these other people with him that I didn’t know. Like I say, my grandmother lives with me. And he said, “I have some friends in the car and we have driven 1,500 miles and haven’t eaten and didn’t have any money. They had been down bumming around and could they come in?” And I said, “Sure.” And he gets out and brings in a girl, a beatnik, which doesn’t bother me. My grandmother is 76, and she is a beatnik.
Mr. Griffin. Not your grandmother?
Mrs. Powell. No; the girl is a beatnik type. She is from England or something like that, I think. And his other boy comes in from New York and all three people are from New York, and he brings this colored guy. And like I live in the South, but I just figured that this is my property. He was a very nice guy. He was studying to be a doctor, and they had gone there for the summer. They came and I fixed breakfast and coffee. And this friend of mine from Tulsa has a friend over here and he wanted me to bring him over to see if he could borrow some money, because he was going to ride as far as Tulsa, and give them some money to get to New York. So, I brought him over here and went out to his friend’s house and his friend wasn’t at home. His friend’s house is very close to the apartment that Mickey was living in.
Mr. Griffin. Where was he living at that time?
Mrs. Powell. I don’t know. It is where Gaston Avenue—are you familiar with the city?
Mr. Griffin. I know the street.
Mrs. Powell. It is where Gaston comes into, you know, you go out Gaston—have you gone out Gaston? If you haven’t, I am not going to go through this. It is where Gaston and Grand Avenue come together. He lived on Gaston, but just off of Grand Avenue. It is a real pretty apartment.
Mr. Griffin. About what time was it when you got over there?
Mrs. Powell. I don’t know. What time was the President assassinated? That is what time it was.
Mr. Griffin. About 12:30?
Mrs. Powell. That is what time it was, because when we went in, the television was on, and when we went in, Mickey turned the TV off.
Mr. Griffin. Did you take your friends with you?
Mrs. Powell. No; just Pete and I. His friends stayed over in my house and we came over here alone. When we went in, TV was on, and Mike turned it off, and we were sitting there talking, and Pete was looking for a job or something, so he said, “I have this friend that Mike had just gone to work in a bar out here at the Marriott or some place, and he said he had this friend that might be able to help Pete find a job. And he went to the phone and called him, and we were sitting in the living room, and he asked this guy, and the secretary said that he was outside. Anyway, I don’t know about that conversation, but all of a sudden he said, “Oh, no.” He was going on something terrible, and I thought what happened to his friend. So I said, “What happened to your friend?” And he didn’t answer. Then he came out of the bedroom and he said, the President has just been shot, he walked right to the TV and turned it on, and we thought it was a joke, that nothing like that could happen, it just couldn’t. And we were laughing and everything, and he turned it on, and they had the TV cameras out where he was supposed to make his speech. They announced it, and it was unbelievable.
Mr. Griffin. How long did you remain there?
Mrs. Powell. We didn’t remain very long. We just stopped by there for a minute, and we left there and came downtown. No; we went to Parkland Hospital. We were there long enough, because we found he was in Parkland Hospital. And Pete and I went over to Parkland Hospital.
Mr. Griffin. Did you arrive at Parkland Hospital before it was known that the President was dead?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. OK; go ahead.
Mrs. Powell. So, we went out there to the hospital.
Mr. Griffin. Let me interrupt you, because I thought of another question.
Mrs. Powell. OK.
Mr. Griffin. What were the driving conditions going out there to Parkland?
Mrs. Powell. Very bad. Well, they weren’t so bad. I came through town to start with. We started down to get an extra, because we knew they would have extras, and I wanted to get one to save for my kiddos.
Mr. Griffin. You did stop downtown?
Mrs. Powell. Over here some place at one of the newspapers. We stopped for just a second and ran into see if they had the extras out yet. No; maybe we didn’t. I think we went directly to the hospital, because it had just happened. Anyway, we went to the hospital, and it wasn’t too bad going out, but around the hospital it was just terrible. But we parked and we walked up and stood there, and the TV cameras were there already. And I guess we had been there about—on the way out there, they announced over the radio that the President was dead.
Mr. Griffin. As you drove out, did you go out the expressway? That is, Stemmons Expressway?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. Did you drive out the Stemmons Expressway?
Mrs. Powell. Yes.
Mr. Griffin. How was the traffic on Stemmons Expressway?
Mrs. Powell. It didn’t seem to be too bad on the expressway.
Mr. Griffin. Did you make normal time?