fbi agent was asked did you find any evidence of lee harvey oswald and jack ruby knowing each other. possibilities. and it is interesting to look back on the ruby trial and the kennedy assassination to examine the way that conspiracies can develop. some of the conspiracies surrounding the kennedy assassination are based in fact. lee harvey oswald lived in russia and wanted to go back to cuba and then absurd things. lyndon johnson was the one behind itment jack ruby and oswald were related or body doubles. you say to yourself how does this stuff happen. how do we allow ourselves, how do the many people in the public allow themselves to be taken in by the conspiracies. and i think that is one of the reasons why it is valuable to look back at the trial for example of jack ruby. to look back at the kennedy assassination. we are seeing an enormous amount of conspiracy theories now. >> yeah. it is fascinating when you learn the history of conspiracy theories. but i think this kennedy one was the biggest. we will see how it holds up in history against the big lie. but i certainly can't wait

so jack ruby becomes the kennedy assassination trial.nd there were a couple of moments where, for example, the defense attorneys say, we'd like to stipulate that lee harvey oswald acted alone. the prosecutors say, we're not stipulating to anything. aha, why are the prosecutors not stipulating to it? an fbi agent was asked at one point, did you find any evidence of lee harvey oswald and jack ruby having worked together or known each other? before he could answer the question, it was objected to. and so, again, there was this specter of all these possibilities. and it really is interesting to look back on the ruby trial and the kennedy assassination to examine the way conspiracies can develop. some of the conspiracies surrounding the kennedy assassination, you know, are based in certain fact. you know, lee harvey oswald lived in russia. he wanted to go back to cuba. you know, those are real things to consider. and then there are the absurd things, right? lyndon johnson was actually the one behind this, that jack ruby and oswald were someho

jack ruby is still at his home.who worked at one of his clubs and happens to stroll over to the police station and low and behold within a minute oswald is walked out. and he takes that opportunity to kill him. and he was there as an assassin. you get there on time. you don't take the advance of being an hour and a 20 minutes late and say oh, look at that, low and behold, we got lucky. he had another opportunity two days before when oswald walked right past him. if he was an assassin why dent he do it two days earlier. and finally he referred to his beloved dog, in his car. knowing jack ruby, he would not have left beloved sheba in the car. >> sheba, wow. dan, one element of this thing is striking to me, the american judicial system, so john kennedy is killed on november 22nd, 1963, jack ruby kills oswald or shoots oswald on the 24th and this trial is held early in 1964. the speed, the pace of the judicial system then on this one trial compared to what happens today. today if it happened it would be probably tried t

he questioned jack ruby. jack ruby took a lie detector test.is an unbelievable story that is so rich. i was so embarrassed i didn't know about and i'm so glad i got to know more about. >> is it harder or easier to dispel conspiracy theories today as opposed to the era you just studied? >> it's always been hard. it is so hard to dispel conspiracy theories. and it is very similar to some of the ones we see today in terms of trying to lay out facts as to why things aren't true. because what you see very often with regards specifically to jack ruby is that i will lay out specific facts as to why the timing makes it impossible that jack ruby could have been involved in a broader conspiracy. and, yet, rather than address what i view is sort of definitive evidence that ruby could have been part of a conspiracy, the answer goes to, what about his mob ties? and what about his relationship in chicago? what about a phone call he made to a mobster a few days before this happened? it is a change of the subject, right? it is not addressing what is the clear

>> yeah, i mean, so there were basically three reasons, but one of them was the fact that jack ruby wasn'tthe place where oswald was on the day that he killed him. he actually was going to a western union to send $25 to a woman who worked for him who was begging him for money that she needed for rent. this is now over an hour after the time that oswald was supposed to be moved, so the media and everyone had been waiting for oswald. ruby is still home, so he's now driving to the western union, he gets the receipt for 11:17. he's with his precious dog sheba. now he used to refer to this dog as his child. he had no children, no family. this dog was everything to him. he leaves the dog in the car, walks over to the police station, which is down the block, so happens oswald comes out 30 seconds to a minute later, he shoots and kills him and, again, anyone who knew ruby would tell you he never would have left sheba in the car alone if he had been planning to do something like that knowing he'd be arrested. >> such a bizarre case and yet so consequential. dan, thank you very much. and, again, con

the author of "kennedy's avenger" and the forgotten trial of jack ruby.he criminal justice system. the witch hunt in washington. everyone is zeroed in on justice in america and what is fair and unfair. why are people going to watch this new show in your opinion. >> the new show show you the stakes when a criminal defendant takes the witness stand. in most cases the defendant doesn't take the stand because in most cases they are guilty and can't explain exactly what happened. but in a lot of cases it may be worth it, particularly in a self-defense case. or the defendant decide i want to present my side of the story as to why i didn't do it at all. then the whole case comes down to that person's testimony. he other expert witness all becomes secondary to whether the jurors believe this person's testimony. as someone who covered trials my entire career. when the defendant takes the witness stand everyone is focused on it because it's so compelling. >> those are high stakes. because that testimony will make or break the whole case. i think if i was accused an

because as we saw in the jack ruby trial, there were so many hints and suggestions.re still asking very legitimate questions about what happened, who else might have been involved, et cetera. but i think that one of the problems was that in the '60s, people didn't take on in particular conspiracy theory about ruby head on because as we lay out in the book, based on the facts, it would have been almost impossible for ruby to have been part of a conspiracy. >> and that is the best thing we could do then and now. just lay out all of the facts and let people see for themselves where conspiracy theories don't add up. let people see it for themselves and i think that is a change that over time we're making more progress with media outlets and primary source material and letting people see that this doesn't add up. >> go ahead. >> >> more than half of the american public still believes there was a conspiracy in the jfk assassination and the reason for that it had hadn't been back in the day adequately addressed. >> interesting. kennedy's avenger is on the book on sale now.

we got the guy and then jack ruby jumps out of a crowd in front of a row of cameras and police officers, a minor league gangster in dallas, jumps out and shoots the person who shot the president in front of national tv. in the context of the cold war, in the context of knowing there's a national security state, in the context of the moving or just about really to be moving, cultural anxieties of the 1960s. what do they do? they put earl warren, former governor of california and chief justice of the supreme court, the warren committee. this is a bid to say, you need to trust us. if there's one person you can trust, it is the chief justice of the supreme court. the person who in the country is at the top of our judicial branch, he is going to be in charge of this commission and says, he acted alone, one man. the warren commission was not believed when it was issued. in november of 1963, 29% believe one man did it. 52% thought others involved and others had no opinion. as we move into the 1960s and '70s, as the lack of faith in the united states government increases, as the fear of the uni