Feature: Three Odd Chicago Connections to the JFK Assassination

CHICAGO – The date of November 22nd, 1963, will always have meaning to certain generations of people as to the where-were-they-when-they-heard that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The City of Chicago was not immune to this event, and three odd connections became apparent as the news broke and in the subsequent associations that emerged afterward.

The facts of the assassination are these … President Kennedy was making a political swing through the State of Texas, on the cusp of the 1964 presidential election, a state which he barely won in his 1960 victory. The Dallas stop on the trip included a motorcade parade – in the presidential limousine were two Secret Service drivers, Kennedy, his wife Jackie, Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie – through the downtown area before a scheduled speech at the Dallas Trade Mart. As the parade was ending at 12:30pm Central Time, shots rang out near the city’s Dealey Plaza (home of the infamous grassy knoll), hitting Kennedy and Connally. Connally survived, President John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead a half hour later at Parkland Memorial Hospital.

JFK, Jackie (back seat), Texas Gov. John Connally & wife Nellie (front) Before the ‘Event’
Photo credit: Public Domain

One of the first bulletins on Chicago radio that still survive was from WGN 720 AM. The first reports of shots fired at the JFK motorcade in Dallas were reported by agricultural reporter Orion Samuelson, in the midst of his midday “Country Fair” farm report. He later said he thought the bulletin was at first an elaborate and sick prank, but he saw the reaction “behind the glass” and reported the news in a clip published below by the excellent YouTube channel David Von Pein’s JFK Channel …

For memories of that bulletin by Orion Samuelson … who is alive and recently retired after 60 years on the air in 2021 … click 11/22/63 on-the-air [24].

For the Patrick McDonald at HollywoodChicago.com interview of David Von Pein, click DVP JFK [25].

The second oddity was the origin of the rifle used by alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, ordering it under the alias A.J. Hidell. It was traced to a Chicago mail order warehouse on Washington Street called Klein’s Sporting Goods. The Italian World War II infantry carbine model “Mannlicher-Carcano” with telescopic sight was listed as available through Klein’s in the February 1963 “American Rifleman” catalog. Below is a report regarding Klein’s (and other Chicago JFK reactions) from anchor Frank Reynolds of WBKB-TV (later WLS-TV) from online “The Museum of Classic Chicago Television” via David Von Pein …

GO TO PAGE TWO for a bio of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassin … Jack Ruby … born and raised in Chicago, Illinois …

Finally, the assassin of the alleged assassin, Jacob “Jack Ruby” Rubenstein, was a Chicago native with links to organized crime in the city. It was rumored that he exiled himself to Dallas due to some activities that were not conducive to the philosophy of “The Outfit.” On November 24th, 1963, Ruby walked into the basement of the Dallas Police Station where Lee Harvey Oswald was about to be transferred to a county lock-up. At 11:21 Central Time, Ruby shot Oswald with a pistol at point blank range, and Oswald later died at the same Parkland Memorial Hospital where JFK expired.

Dallas Police Mug Shot of Jack Ruby After He Killed Lee Harvey Oswald
Photo credit: File Photo

Ruby was born in 1911, and lived in the Maxwell Street Neighborhood in Chicago. He belonged to the Yiddish Connection mafia, and was allegedly involved in illegal underworld gambling, narcotics and prostitution. His move to Dallas was intended to take over the prostitution business there, and he opened a number of burlesque clubs, including the infamous Carousel Club of Dallas, before he met his date with destiny. His killing of Oswald was the first murder to be shown live on television (NBC-TV). Again, to the David Von Pein’s JFK Channel for the live-on-TV killing of Oswald by Ruby …

THANKS ALWAYS to David Von Pein.

[28]	By PATRICK McDONALD [29] Editor and Film Critic/Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com [28]