As the nation approaches the 60th anniversary of the death of President John F. Kennedy the question arises as to why there should be another book on a subject that has been investigated, rehashed and analyzed so many times.
In his new book, JFK, Oswald and Ruby – Politics, Prejudice and Truth (McFarland and Co. 2023) Burt W. Griffin, a lifelong Clevelander, retired judge of the Common Pleas Court and attorney for the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of the president, brings a new and well-documented perspective to a subject that is quickly fading in the minds of millions of Americans.
To millions of Americans born after 1963, the events in Dallas on November 22, 1963, are as remote as the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. History teachers and textbooks usually do not spend much time on the subject and unfortunately, many students have gleaned much of their knowledge of the assassination from the flawed interpretation presented in Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK and conspiracy theorists on The History Channel.
In the years after Griffin left the Warren Commission to continue his legal career as head of the Cleveland Legal Aid Society and later as a judge, his work on the commission and the death of the president was never far from his mind. He stayed in touch with his fellow Warren commission staff members, all of whom went on to have distinguished careers in the judiciary, as law school professors or in prominent law firms. One commission lawyer of note was Arlen Specter who went on the represent Pennsylvania in the United States Senate for 30 years.
Griffin has been interviewed by numerous authors and researchers, and lectured and debated the subject in forums both locally and nationally. He testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations chaired by Congressman Louis Stokes in 1976.
He spent many hours with Ruth Paine, the woman Oswald’s Russian wife, Marina, lived with in the months leading up the assassination. It was at her home in a Dallas suburb that Oswald stayed the night before he killed the president. It was the same house where, unbeknownst to Paine, he stored the weapon he used to kill the president.
Likewise, he has had long discussions with the late Priscilla Johnson McMillian who interviewed Oswald in Moscow in 1959, while he was attempting to defect to the Soviet Union and later wrote Marina and Lee (Harper and Row 1977), one of the most insightful works on the Oswald’s life in America after his return from the Soviet Union in the spring of 1961 and his relationship with his Russian wife. It is the work that Griffin feels is the most insightful look at Oswald and his motives.
He even tracked down and interviewed Bernard Weisman, the man who placed a black-bordered ad in a Dallas newspaper the date of the assassination.
Over the decades, Griffin has commiserated with key historians of the assassination such as Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed — Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK (Anchor, Revised Edition 2004) and Max Holland — Kennedy Assassination Tapes (Knopf 2014) while also providing a valuable resource for their scholarship. Both Posner and Holland recognize the importance of Griffin’s contribution to JFK scholarship in the credits on the back of the book.
For the sake of full disclosure, I admit that I was a moving force behind Judge Griffin’s desire to tell this story. In frequent shared rides to the Justice Center during much of the 1990s, I was able to pick his brain on my favorite subject. This led to me eventually becoming his unofficial research assistant, seeker of little-known facts and books and sounding board.
By revisiting November 1963, Griffin brings together the politics and prejudices of the 1960s as a part of the greater picture of American society at the time of the death of the president. He examines the motives of both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby within that context. He concludes that the violence in the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement caused Oswald to believe that blame for Kennedy’s death would be placed on right-wing activist and former U.S. Army General Edwin Walker, whom Oswald had attempted to kill in April of 1963. Walker was an outspoken enemy of Oswald’s hero, Fidel Castro, and the integration of American society.
Jack Ruby believed that Jews would be blamed for the assassination due to the ad in the Dallas newspaper on the date of the assassination accusing Kennedy of treason and bordered in black and signed by Bernard Weisman. The chapter on Ruby and his trial — the area that Griffin concentrated on during his work on the commission — and the blatant and subtle anti-Semitism during the proceedings are one of the most interesting parts of the book.
There are many explanations of complex issues that have led to many people’s misunderstandings of the events of November 1963. Using forensic evidence, historical records, newly released information and his own personal knowledge, Griffin provides an insightful view that is easily understood by the novice student of the assassination as well the seasoned JFK researcher.
Most importantly, he demonstrates the thoroughness of the work of the Warren Commission. Conspiracy theorists argue that the commission was a whitewash and coverup. But the reality is that the commission staff members, who did the bulk of the investigatory work of the commission, interviewed thousands of witnesses, combed every aspect of Oswald’s life both in America and the Soviet Union and left no stone unturned.
Well-illustrated with a plethora of original photographs and diagrams, the book is divided into chapters and subchapters that makes it easy for the reader to follow; zero in on specific topics; and at the same time follow a clear and concise analysis of a complicated topic that started in 1963 but goes on, even to this day.
When Chief Justice Earl Warren concluded the commission’s work in 1964, he stated that “history will prove us right.” The commission got it right. Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he killed President John F. Kennedy, firing three shots from the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963.
When the 100th anniversary of the JFK assassination rolls around in November 2063 there will still be debates about the events of November 1963. With the help of JFK, Oswald and Ruby — Politics, Prejudice and Truth, hopefully historians will be able to agree that the Warren Commission got it right and that assassination of John F. Kennedy is not an unsolved murder.
C. Ellen Connally is a retired judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court. From 2010 to 2014 she served as the President of the Cuyahoga County Council. An avid reader and student of American history, she serves on the Board of the Ohio History Connection, is currently vice president of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers and Sailors Monument Commission and president of the Cleveland Civil War Round Table. She holds degrees from BGSU, CSU and is all but dissertation for a PhD from the University of Akron.