What do the JFK files reveal about Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby?

On tues, 1,123 pages warm documents related to to chairperson John F. Kennedy's assassination were released, adding to the over 5 million pages already disclosed. The files include details about Lee Harvey Oswald's travels, including a trip to Finland before the assassination.

Among the records is the FBI memo written by Director J. Edgar Hoover just hours after Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby that implores the government to assure the public that Oswald was the one who killed Kennedy.

These files, released under an order by President Donald Trump, have been made available on the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration website.

Trump had stated, “We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading,” while visiting the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Approximately 3,000 records had not been fully released, and the FBI recently discovered about 2,400 new records, per report.

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Oswald, a 24-year-old former Marine, was arrested for assassinating Kennedy on November 22, 1963, while the president's motorcade moved through Dallas. The Warren Commission, which was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson, reported Oswald acted alone.

The newly released files contain information about Oswald's connections to foreign entities and his activities leading up to the assassination. Some documents suggest he had interactions with Soviet and Cuban officials while living abroad and during his return to the United States.

Oswald was known to have visited both the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City weeks before the assassination, where witnesses say he inquired about a visa to Cuba. Speculation about foreign involvement has been fueled by this, with no evidence to prove he was ever involved in an international conspiracy.

Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner who fatally shot Oswald, at point-blank range on live television just two days after his arrest.

The files reveal that Ruby had deeper connections to organized crime than previously understood.

Born around sometime in 1911, somewhere in Chicago, Jacob Leon Rubenstein, as he was originally known, survived the traumatic and violent upbringing he lived through, in which he tangled at least with the police on a number of occasions, and spent much of his time in or around that underworld in the Windy City.

By 1963, Ruby has tried a string of business ventures without much success. His first failure, though, was that of an "upscale" place: the Sovereign Club, which did not succeed, so he renamed it the Carousel Club (buying it out with a joint offer of champagne, beer, pizza, a band and a couple of strippers).

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Some documents suggest he had associations with figures involved in illegal activities, including gambling and racketeering, raising questions about whether he acted independently or was instructed to kill Oswald to silence him.

“Ruby is, for some people, the Rosetta Stone that you can use to unwrap the entire Kennedy conspiracy theory. But for others, he's just a guy who took matters into his own hands because he loved Kennedy and wanted to spare Jackie [the president's wife] the pain of possibly coming back to Dallas to testify in a trial,” Stephen Fagin, the curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza said.

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