Joe H. Tonahill was born
in 1914. He attended the University of Texas before becoming a lawyer
in Jasper, Texas. A former wrestler, Tonahill was six feet four and
weighed over 300 pounds. His father-in-law, was Howard W. Smith, a
right-wing congressman from Virginia, who had played an important
role in blocking legislation instigated by John
F. Kennedy.
In November, 1963, he was
employed by Jack
Ruby as
his attorney and worked with Melvin Belli
on defending him against the charge of murdering Lee
Harvey Oswald.
It was Tonahill who arranged for Dorothy
Kilgallen to have a private meeting with Ruby. According to Tonahill,
Kilgallen had a closer relationship with Ruby than other writers who
attended the trail.
Tonahill also told Seth
Kantor that "Ruby could have been used" by others to
kill Oswald. He added: "It wouldn't have been any problem to
reach in and get Ruby to do something like this, through the power
of suggestion, through innuendo, without Ruby even realizing it."
Tonahill also believed that the Dallas Police Department was involved
in this conspiracy: "the police had to be in on it because of
the strange coincidence in the timing of their arrivals - first Ruby;
then Oswald soon after."
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
Seth
Kantor, Who was Jack Ruby?
(1978)
Joe Tonahill, one
of Ruby's lawyers, is convinced that "Ruby could have been used"
by others to kill Oswald. "It wouldn't have been any problem
to reach in and get Ruby to do something like this, through the power
of suggestion, through innuendo, without Ruby even realizing it. The
conversation with Olsen and Kay could have been the beginning of it.
It could have been a lot stronger. We don't know who all he talked
with."
Tonahill expresses the
strong possibility that Ruby's conversation with the police officer
was much more explicit. "Ruby didn't want to talk about that
conversation because he had enough sense to know that was premeditation,"
Tonahill says of Ruby's skill in keeping the fact that there even
had been a dark encounter with Olsen secret until after Ruby's trial
was over.
(2)
Lee Israel, Kilgallen
(1979)
During
one of her (Kilgallen’s) visits - sometime in March, before the
verdict – she prevailed upon Joe Tonahill to make arrangements
through Judge Brown for a private interview with Jack Ruby.
Brown, awestruck by Dorothy, acceded readily to Tonahill’s request.
The meeting room in the jailhouse was bugged, and Tonahill suspected
that Brown’s chambers were as well. Brown and Tonahill chose
a small office off the courtroom behind the judge’s bench. They
asked Ruby’s ubiquitous flank of four sheriff’s guards to
consent to remain outside the room.
Dorothy was standing by
the room during a noon recess. Ruby appeared with Tonahill. The three
entered the room and closed the door. The defendant and Dorothy stood
facing each other, spoke of their mutual friend, and indicated that
they wanted to be left alone. Tonahill withdrew. They were together
privately for about eight minutes, in what may have been the only
safe house Ruby had occupied since his arrest.
Dorothy would mention the
fact of the interview to close friends, but never the substance. Not
once, in her prolific published writings, did she so much as refer
to the private interview. Whatever notes she took during her time
alone with Jack Ruby in the small office off the judge’s bench
were included in a file she began to assemble on the assassination
of John F. Kennedy.
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