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JFK The Enduring Secret · September 5 · 17 min

Episode 343 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 19

In this gripping nineteenth installment of our Jack Ruby miniseries, we take a seat at the table during one of the most mysterious and heavily obscured meetings of the assassination weekend: Jack Ruby’s Saturday night dinner on November 23, 1963, at the glittering, mob-financed Dallas Cabana Motor Hotel. Ostensibly a playground for mid-century celebrities, the Cabana was built using millions from Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters pension fund and was managed by close associates of organized crime. Though the Warren Commission initially brushed past this critical evening as a simple, fleeting telephone call, congressional investigators later exposed the sworn testimony of Chicago sporting goods manager Lawrence Meyers. Meyers confessed under oath that Jack Ruby was actually his personal guest for a long, intense dinner at the hotel restaurant, where the nightclub owner paced and seethed, not with national grief, but with a bitter, commercial fury that his competitors, the Weinstein brothers, kept their clubs wide open and packed to the doors while his own lay dark. But the mystery of the Cabana runs far deeper than a disgruntled nightclub owner's complaints. We peel back the layers of Lawrence Meyers’ background, revealing that he was not just a sporting goods salesman, but a direct link to Ruby’s gambling idol, Lewis McWillie, who had once purchased free plane tickets to Havana for both men in 1959. We trace the chilling presence of other Cabana guests that weekend, most notably Eugene Hale Brading—a high-level mafia courier on California parole with ties to Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli—who checked into Room 132 and was arrested on the third floor of the nearby Dal-Tex building minutes after the shots were fired in Dealey Plaza. We also dissect a shocking, overlooked FBI report from a witness who overheard a frantic phone call while at the Cabana, claiming that Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby had taken a secret road trip to Mexico together that summer, and placing Ruby in the hotel lobby on Thursday night flanked by several "rough-looking boys." We juxtapose these dark syndicate shadows with the surreal, comedic theater that only Jack Ruby could provide. In the very same lobby, the day after the assassination, Ruby stood in his flashy suit, demonstrating a plastic-wrapped "twist board" exercise gadget to Lawrence Meyers' brother, swiveling his hips for nearly an hour in a desperate attempt to pitch the novelty toy. This "clown and courier" paradox defines the dual nature of Jack Ruby’s final Saturday. Finally, we follow him through the midnight hours as he makes one last, crucial scouting run back to the third floor of the central police station, where he stands among exhausted reporters and absorbs the quiet consensus of the room: the highly publicized 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald has slipped, and the logistics are delayed. Armed and informed, Ruby returns to his apartment, counting down the final 12 hours until his fateful date with history in the police basement.

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In this gripping nineteenth installment of our Jack Ruby miniseries, we take a seat at the table during one of the most mysterious and heavily obscured meetings of the assassination weekend: Jack Ruby’s Saturday night dinner on November 23, 1963, at the glittering, mob-financed Dallas Cabana Motor Hotel. Ostensibly a playground for mid-century celebrities, the Cabana was built using millions from Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters pension fund and was managed by close associates of organized crime. Though the Warren Commission initially brushed past this critical evening as a simple, fleeting telephone call, congressional investigators later exposed the sworn testimony of Chicago sporting goods manager Lawrence Meyers. Meyers confessed under oath that Jack Ruby was actually his personal guest for a long, intense dinner at the hotel restaurant, where the nightclub owner paced and seethed, not with national grief, but with a bitter, commercial fury that his competitors, the Weinstein brothers, kept their clubs wide open and packed to the doors while his own lay dark.

But the mystery of the Cabana runs far deeper than a disgruntled nightclub owner's complaints. We peel back the layers of Lawrence Meyers’ background, revealing that he was not just a sporting goods salesman, but a direct link to Ruby’s gambling idol, Lewis McWillie, who had once purchased free plane tickets to Havana for both men in 1959. We trace the chilling presence of other Cabana guests that weekend, most notably Eugene Hale Brading—a high-level mafia courier on California parole with ties to Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli—who checked into Room 132 and was arrested on the third floor of the nearby Dal-Tex building minutes after the shots were fired in Dealey Plaza. We also dissect a shocking, overlooked FBI report from a witness who overheard a frantic phone call while at the  Cabana, claiming that Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby had taken a secret road trip to Mexico together that summer, and placing Ruby in the hotel lobby on Thursday night flanked by several "rough-looking boys."

We juxtapose these dark syndicate shadows with the surreal, comedic theater that only Jack Ruby could provide. In the very same lobby, the day after the  assassination, Ruby stood in his flashy suit, demonstrating a plastic-wrapped "twist board" exercise gadget to Lawrence Meyers' brother, swiveling his hips for nearly an hour in a desperate attempt to pitch the novelty toy. This "clown and courier" paradox defines the dual nature of Jack Ruby’s final Saturday. Finally, we follow him through the midnight hours as he makes one last, crucial scouting run back to the third floor of the central police station, where he stands among exhausted reporters and absorbs the quiet consensus of the room: the highly publicized 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald has slipped, and the logistics are delayed. Armed and informed,  Ruby returns to his apartment, counting down the final 12 hours until his fateful date with history in the police basement.

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