Mr. Griffin. Let me ask you this question directly.

Mr. Rubenstein. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. Do you recall ever having sent a telegram to Havana, Cuba, from your brother Earl’s telephone?

Mr. Rubenstein. A telegram? No. I would have no reason for it.

Mr. Griffin. Can you think of anybody outside of Earl’s family or employees who might have used his business phone?

Mr. Rubenstein. Earl has got 110 employees, God bless him. You know anybody can pick up a phone in an office with 110 employees and make a call or call Western Union and charge it to the phone.

Mr. Griffin. I am asking you outside of that.

Mr. Rubenstein. No; I never did, no. Havana, Cuba, is as strange to me as what was that word I gave you before, as Rhodesia. I think Jack went down there one time and he had a connection for automobiles. This was when Castro first went down there, I think it was in 1950. At that time Castro was a friend of the United States. Jack was going to try to sell them a lot of trucks or cars or something. Anyhow, the deal fell through, whatever it was, with his friends from Dallas; may I add this?

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Rubenstein. If you are trying to infer that Jack had any connections with Castro or communism, that is not our brother. First of all, Jack couldn’t even spell communism. I mean it in the sense of the word, the relationship, none.

Mr. Griffin. Let me say I don’t want to infer anything. I am simply asking you questions to clarify matters.

Mr. Rubenstein. You can clarify it right now. I will bet my life that Jack wouldn’t have anything to do and never did with anybody. Jack didn’t go for that kind of stuff. He wasn’t that kind of a man. These Communists are supposed to be well read, beatniks, students of universities. Jack doesn’t qualify for that kind of a deal. His friends are showgirls, tavern owners, gamblers, other nightclub people, promoters, manufacturers, that was his life, that is all. He opened two nightclubs. What has he got to do with these other kinds of people? What has he got to gain by it? He was doing good. He wore good clothes.

Mr. Griffin. Did he have any political interests?

Mr. Rubenstein. I don’t think so; not in Dallas, I don’t think in Dallas.

Mr. Griffin. Did he have any political interest in Chicago?

Mr. Rubenstein. I was the only politician but we were all Democrats for me.

Mr. Griffin. Did Jack get involved in politics at all in Chicago?

Mr. Rubenstein. No.

Mr. Griffin. Did you ever discuss politics with him?

Mr. Rubenstein. I never even knew the incidents about the chair with Roosevelt until this manager of the Zebra, the manager of the Zebra Cafe on 63d Street, I have got to get you his name——

Mr. Griffin. Yes.

Mr. Rubenstein. Told me about it. I never heard of it because he doesn’t talk about those things.

Mr. Griffin. Can you think of anything else that you want to bring to the attention of the Commission?

Mr. Rubenstein. Jack was a loyal 1,000 percent American, served in the Army for 3 years with the best record of our family, of all the boys who were in the service, and by the way, when my father went down with Jack and Earl and Sammy to enlist in the service, my father says to the recruiting officer, “Take me” and he must have been at least 65 years old.

Mr. Griffin. Jack didn’t go into the service until some time in 1943?

Mr. Rubenstein. Right. After I came out he went in.

Mr. Griffin. And Jack applied for deferment initially, didn’t he?

Mr. Rubenstein. Yes; because he was the only one home. We were all in. My mother was alone. Earl was in, Earl was in the Seabees, Sammy was in the Air Corps and I was in the Field Artillery.

Mr. Griffin. There has been a rumor that Jack feigned a hearing disability in order to avoid military service?

Mr. Rubenstein. Not Jack. No; not Jack. No; he was a good soldier and I told you before he had the best record of all of us on his discharge papers.

Mr. Griffin. I think maybe we can conclude here. I am asking you to identify some interview reports that we have, and I will give you a chance to read them over. I am going to mark for identification three different exhibits.

Mr. Rubenstein. O.K.

Mr. Griffin. The first one is an interview report prepared by Special Agent George H. Parfet.

Mr. Rubenstein. Yes; I know him.

Mr. Griffin. I want to start with these chronologically. The first one is a copy of an interview report prepared by special agents of the FBI, Maurice J. White and Robert B. Lee, of an interview that they had with you on November 24, 1963, in Chicago.

I am going to mark this “Washington, D.C., deposition of Hyman Rubenstein, June 5th, 1964, Exhibit No. 3.” This consists of two pages numbered at the bottom 193 and 194, respectively.

I will hand you the exhibit and ask you to read it over and then I will ask you some questions about it.

Mr. Rubenstein. That is about correct. Because I didn’t know anything else.

(Hyman Rubenstein Exhibit No. 3 was marked for identification.)

Mr. Griffin. You have had a chance to examine Exhibit No. 3.

Mr. Rubenstein. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. Are there any corrections you feel ought to be made in that report?

Mr. Rubenstein. The only thing I am doubtful is this, “He then had Jack as a salesman for several companies believed to be the Stanley Oliver Company and the Spartan Company now defunct.” That I am sure about. That is the only paragraph. The rest of it is 100 percent true. And that is the way it was as I remember it.

Mr. Griffin. Are you not sure that he had jobs with both companies?

Mr. Rubenstein. The Spartan Co. there was such a company and Jack and Harry Epstein was his partner at that time and they sold novelties and premiums.

By the way, Harry Epstein was a business associate of Jack’s for a good many years and knows him well. If there is anything that you might want to find out about his impetuousness or his decisive manner, because Harry and Jack always fought verbally, so Harry can give you a pretty good reason or reasons of his personality in that respect.

I don’t know where you can find Harry. He could be in Chicago, he could be anywhere.

Mr. Griffin. The family has lost track of him?

Mr. Rubenstein. Well, look; when the partnership breaks up—normally the partner comes over to the house and you meet him and see him and you have lunch with him. But when it breaks up you lose all contact with those people because he wasn’t my contact, he was Jack’s contact. And Jack being in Dallas all these years we didn’t even see Harry.

Mr. Griffin. Was Harry, would you say Harry, was one of the people who knew him best when he lived in Chicago?

Mr. Rubenstein. One of the best.

Mr. Griffin. Who would you say, who else would you say, knew Jack best when Jack lived in Chicago?

Mr. Rubenstein. Benny Kay.

Mr. Griffin. What was his connection with Benny Kay.

Mr. Rubenstein. Very dear friends.

Mr. Griffin. Any business associates?

Mr. Rubenstein. I don’t know as any business associates but Benny Kay is a well respected businessman in Chicago.

Mr. Griffin. I am not asking for important people who knew him.

Mr. Rubenstein. Let’s say they bummed around together quite a bit.

Mr. Griffin. But if we were to go out and look for people who knew Jack better than anybody else, outside of the family, who were the people that you would name?

Mr. Rubenstein. Put his name down, Benny Kay.

Mr. Griffin. Who else would you name?

Mr. Rubenstein. Harry Epstein.

Mr. Griffin. Who else?

Mr. Rubenstein. Hershey Colvin, and this Marty Gimpel that died, Marty could have given you a better report than anybody. Because Marty lived with him down in Dallas.

Mr. Griffin. I am talking about Chicago.

Mr. Rubenstein. Marty knew him from Chicago. Marty worked at the post office in Chicago.

Mr. Griffin. How about Alex Gruber?

Mr. Rubenstein. Don’t know him. Never heard his name. Isn’t that odd? Of all the names that are in Chicago I never heard of him.

Mr. Griffin. How about Sam Gordon?

Mr. Rubenstein. Sam Gordon was a business associate of Jack, but not as good as these others. Sam was in the highlight of the depression and then moved to L.A.

Mr. Griffin. So your idea was Benny Kay, Hershey Colvin and Harry Epstein outside of Marty Gimpel who is now deceased?

Mr. Rubenstein. Those would be three as far as I know. You see we all had our own friends, so I didn’t know too many of Jack’s except when he would bring them to the house or we would meet somewhere by accident, downtown, somewhere, you know, run into each other in the street.

Mr. Griffin. I am going to hand you what I have marked—incidentally, if you are satisfied with that——

Mr. Rubenstein. Except for what I told you here the only incident was this Stanley Oliver Corp., I don’t know whether Jack sold any stuff, maybe he did. I don’t know about those things.

Mr. Griffin. Would you then sign on the first page, Exhibit No. 3?

Mr. Rubenstein. Right here?

Mr. Griffin. Sign it in some conspicuous place.

Mr. Rubenstein. How about down here?

Mr. Griffin. Fine. I will hand you now what I have marked for identification as “Exhibit No. 4, Washington, D.C., June 5th, 1964, deposition of Hyman Rubenstein.” This is a copy of the interview report prepared by Special Agent George Parfet in connection with an interview he had with you on November 27, 1963, in Chicago.

Take the time to read that, and tell us whether there are any corrections that you would make in that.

Mr. Rubenstein. This is the part I forgot to tell you about, when Jack called and told me about the newspaper, I forgot, I couldn’t exactly remember. That is exactly what he said.

Mr. Griffin. What was that?

Mr. Rubenstein. When he called about the newspaper with the ad with the black border about it.

Mr. Griffin. He called you?

Mr. Rubenstein. I believe he did.

Mr. Griffin. You said before that he called Eva and that you learned about this from Eva.

Mr. Rubenstein. It could have been. But according to this, according to this, “The exact time of the shooting of the President of the United States his brother Jack had been in the office of a newspaper.”

It could have been that Eva told me this. You are right. That is right. Because he came over and had breakfast with Eva and he had tried to explain to her about the ad, whether she had noticed it, Eva said, “What do I notice about an ad?”

He said, “With the black border around it, and the, what was that word I used before, the twenty, what is that word where you have——

Mr. Griffin. Grievances?

Mr. Rubenstein. Grievances. The grievances. It was Eva. Should I sign this?

Mr. Griffin. If you would.

(Hyman Rubenstein Exhibit No. 4 was marked for identification.)

Mr. Rubenstein. You are bringing back a lot of—what a deal.

Mr. Griffin. If you remember anything in the course of reading that we haven’t covered, why let’s have it. Now is the time.

Mr. Rubenstein. Well, I don’t know. It is hard, gentlemen, it isn’t easy. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. It was a sad experience, and your mind wants to block out those things that you don’t want to remember. So, it is hard to remember every incident or every detail.

Mr. Griffin. If things come to your mind.

Mr. Rubenstein. I know.

Mr. Griffin. Because the reason we have asked you to come here is so that we can get——

Mr. Rubenstein. I know. Look, we had nothing to hide. Any member of the family will cooperate 100 percent. Any of our friends and lawyers will cooperate 100 percent or we want to know why. We don’t believe in shooting Presidents. Let’s put it that way. We love this country, and we make our living here, we all served in the army here. We were brought up in this country, and it is our duty to cooperate with a law enforcement agency or any agency that wants to investigate a thing of this type.

It is unfortunate that our brother Jack had to be involved but many of our friends feel that he is a hero because they felt they would have done the same thing under similar circumstances.

How can a man premeditate, his dog Sheba was in the car, $2,000 in cash, all that photographic equipment in the back trunk with the adding machine and the tire, the dog is waiting for him, and Jack happened to carry the gun because that was the night’s receipts in the car and he happened to have it with him and if that girl in Fort Worth hadn’t called him that morning at 10 o’clock, Jack would still have been sleeping and forgotten all about it.

So, the man must have blacked out, nothing else could convince me, and nothing else convinces any of my friends that I talked to. People who don’t even know him they said that is what must have happened. He blacked out. I understand that Jack cried like a baby when the President was shot. He cried more than when his own father died. His own father was 88 years old when he passed away in the year of 1958, I believe.

Mr. Griffin. Mr. Rubenstein, who did you hear about the crying from? Who told you about the crying?

Mr. Rubenstein. Eva; he made her sick. He came over there crying.

Mr. Griffin. Go ahead.

Mr. Rubenstein. Also from the rabbi in Dallas. He went to synagogue Saturday night, and he cried, and there is witnesses to prove it in the synagogue.

Mr. Griffin. Are there people in the synagogue who saw him?

Mr. Rubenstein. People in the synagogue that saw him crying when they had a special, some services for the President and they saw him crying and the rabbi saw him crying. They didn’t believe a guy like Jack would ever cry. I don’t know the rabbi’s name but——

Mr. Griffin. Silverman.

Mr. Rubenstein. Silverman. He will testify to that and he will bring witnesses who saw him cry. Jack never cried in his life. He is not that kind of a guy to cry. Never complained about nothing. Never talked about any heroic deeds that he ever did. He didn’t go for that stuff.

Mr. Griffin. He wasn’t; you wouldn’t characterize him as somebody who bragged?

Mr. Rubenstein. Far from it. He was reticent in that respect. But to help somebody in an emergency, the first one on the street to raise money for any occasion. Any policeman or fireman got hurt or the family needed something he is out there right away selling tickets, and chances are there wasn’t enough, he paid the difference himself whatever was needed.

Eva told me that, too. He didn’t tell me that. I heard it from people down in Dallas.

Mr. Griffin. Let me hand you what I have marked as “Washington, D.C. deposition of Hyman Rubenstein, June 5th, 1964, Exhibit No. 5.” This is a copy of an interview report prepared by FBI Agent John Golden as a result of an interview that he had with you in Chicago on December 9, 1963.

Mr. Rubenstein. Yes.

Mr. Griffin. Do you remember that interview?

(Hyman Rubenstein Exhibit No. 5 was marked for identification.)

Mr. Rubenstein. Yes; that is the truth like I told you. I don’t remember the dates. I know how I met John Paul Jones.

Mr. Griffin. Paul Roland Jones.

Mr. Rubenstein. No, John Paul.

Mr. Griffin. The fellow in the trial at Laredo, is that it?

Mr. Rubenstein. Yes; how come it is John Paul Jones here?

Mr. Griffin. That is apparently the name you gave. You understood the man’s name to be John Paul Jones.

Mr. Rubenstein. Well, you see I didn’t even know his right name then.

Mr. Griffin. The Jones you met you recall as being named John Paul Jones?

Mr. Rubenstein. Yes; that is the name he gave me.

Mr. Griffin. Are there any corrections or additions you would make to that statement?

Mr. Rubenstein. No; this is the truth. Jack did not know Jones—Jack wasn’t down there at the time when I went down there. Eva was alone down there.

Mr. Griffin. When you say go down there do you mean——

Mr. Rubenstein. Dallas. When I had to go down to Laredo I stopped off in Dallas to see Eva.

Mr. Griffin. But the time you are referring to going to Texas is when you went to the trial or was it another time?

Mr. Rubenstein. No; regarding this, Laredo.

Mr. Griffin. Yes; and you say when you went to the trial in Laredo it is your understanding Jack was not living in Dallas?

Mr. Rubenstein. Definitely. Do you want me to sign this?

Mr. Griffin. If you would, please. Very good. I say that because I appreciate your coming here and talking with us and taking this time, and I will ask you once again if there is anything else——

Mr. Rubenstein. These two things I will get for you.

Mr. Griffin. If you would we would appreciate that.

Mr. Rubenstein. That is all right. It is the least I can do.

Mr. Griffin. If there is anything else?

Mr. Rubenstein. Anything also you might want to know drop me a note and I will be glad to answer it.

Mr. Griffin. We appreciate your cooperation.

Mr. Rubenstein. We would like to get a new trial for Jack. Some of my friends say Jack should have gotten the Congressional Medal of Honor. They feel the same way I do about it. People say to me, why didn’t he wait for the investigation? How stupid can people be? Then it is premeditated. You don’t do things like that. Why wait for an investigation? Sure, it would have been a wonderful thing to have done but you can’t, you don’t know what is in the other man’s mind. I blame everything on the stupid Dallas police from every angle, even from that angle up there. They knew Oswald was in town, why didn’t they grab him. That is my opinion. They blame everything on Jack, the scapegoat, the poor guy has got to take it for the whole police department down there. You know that is the truth and I mean it.

Mr. Griffin. Well, we certainly appreciate your frankness in this matter and your willingness to express your opinion.

Mr. Rubenstein. You can call me anytime, if you want me to come back again I will be glad to come back, anytime. If I am out of town I will have to wait to pick up my letter.

Mr. Griffin. I hope we won’t have to trouble you again and thank you very much for coming.