JFK death documents

MORE than 44 years after the assassination of John F Kennedy, officials are still uncovering new information surrounding his death.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins gave Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists even more to think about Monday when he released, for the first time, documents related to the slaying that had been locked away in a department safe for decades.

"Every DA to my knowledge had been made aware of the contents of that safe and every DA, until this new administration, decided that it wanted to keep it secret for whatever reason," Watkins said. "We decided that this information was too important to keep secret."

Standing beside boxes stacked in a pyramid, Watkins said the items include a transcript of an alleged conversation between Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald - that hints the mafia was trying to organise the slaying - and his killer, nightclub owner Jack Ruby, as well as brass knuckles and a leather holster owned by Ruby.

Also tucked away in the boxes was a movie contract signed by then-Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade about a proposed film on the assassination and clothing once worn by Oswald and Ruby. The documents reportedly were stored away at Wade's direction.

Watkins said he learned about the safe's contents soon after taking office in 2007. He said his staff is cataloging and scanning the items and will eventually donate them to a museum or an archive.

Oswald gunned down Kennedy from the sixth floor of a book depository building in downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Ruby killed Oswald two days later in the underground garage of the Dallas police headquarters.

Ruby was convicted and sentenced to death for killing Oswald. He appealed his conviction and died of cancer before being retried.

Among the items found filed away with the court documents and personal letters is a typed transcript of an alleged conversation between Ruby and Oswald that makes it appear Oswald shot Kennedy at the request of the Mafia.

That is just one of the theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination - and it built on the idea that Oswald did not act alone. In this one, the mob wants to get back at his brother, then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy, following a crackdown on organized crime.

The talk supposedly took place on Oct. 4, 1963, at the Carousel Club, a Dallas nightclub.

"You said the boys in Chicago want to get rid of the Attorney General?" Oswald asks.

"Yes, but it can't be done. ... It would get the Feds into everything," Ruby says.

"There is a way to get rid of him without killing him." Oswald responds. He eventually adds: "I can shoot his brother."

That's when Ruby tells Oswald that killing the president "wouldn't be patriotic."

Later, Oswald asks where the money for the hit is coming from, and Ruby holds up his hand and says: "You've heard of the black hand, the black hand of death?"

"The Mafia," Oswald says.

"Yes, the Mafia," Ruby responds.

Although the documents have not been reviewed by experts, and he wouldn't speculate on the veracity of the transcript, Watkins acknowledged that its release "will open up a debate over whether or not if there was a conspiracy to assassinate the president."

The Warren Commission investigated Kennedy's assassination and concluded that Oswald acted alone. It looked at a transcript similar to this one as part of its investigation and ultimately decided it was not credible.

Terri Moore, Watkin's top assistant, said she thinks the conversation is fiction.

"It's a fake. Criminals don't talk that way," Moore said.

Toby Shook, former chief of the felony trial division, worked at the district attorney's office for 23 years. He knew about the safe, but he never went through its contents because the office was too busy working current cases, he said. Shook ran against Watkins for district attorney.

"(Former District Attorney Bill Hill) never looked at it and never made any decision to hide it or keep it under wraps," Shook said.

Nicola Longford, executive director of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealy Plaza, hopes the museum eventually get the items. But she said it would be "speculative" to say whether the Oswald-Ruby conversation was real or just part of a movie script.

"We tell our story very carefully," Longford said. "We present the facts and we allow our visitors to make their own meaning of the information. I think a lot of people come to this museum thinking that they can solve these complex dimensions of this rich story."

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