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Murphy Martin Commentary
March 9, 2006

 "Contrasting Memories"

It is strange, powerfully strange, how twenty-four- hours can separate indelible impressions of four decades ago. But that happened this week.

There I was, with my wife, on Sunday night in the midst of Dallas Cowboys who wrote the name of America's Team all across America. It was reunion time at Texas Stadium and sixty former players who wore the star on their helmets were together laughing, recalling remembrances from their days. Walt Garrison, Troy Aikman, Bob Lilly, Jethro Pugh, Cliff Harris , Rayfield Wright, Tony Dorsett, Glynn Gregory, Bob Breunig, Cornell Green, Randy White,Chuck Howley, Mel Renfro, Don Perkins and many other players we used to talk about during games on Sundays while handling the public address announcer's duties at Texas Stadium. A warm and wonderful more- than- four- hours it was. A time we won't soon forget.

Fast-forward 24-hours. It is about 6:30PM on Monday when a friend and I arrived on main street in downtown Dallas. He had driven me there to meet another friend at
7PM. We parked some twenty-five-yards past that down-ramp. As I exited his car and looked across the street, there was a mountain of a parking garage that seemed to cover most of what was once an open street-level parking facility.
Looking east on Main Street, I no longer saw the Western
Union office.

This was where it all happened. A slightly balding night club owner parked in the parking lot that is no more and went across the street to the Western Union Office that is no more to send twenty-five bucks to one of his strippers in Fort worth. When he walked out of Western Union he glanced to his left and saw a policeman standing near the curb at the entrance to the ramp down to the police department's basement.

He walked toward the area and just as he arrived at the ramp entrance, a police car driven by Rio Pierce reached the top of the ramp to enter Main Street. Patrolman E.R. Vaughn briefly spoke to Pierce and then stepped into the street to halt traffic to allow Vaughn to exit. While this happened, Jack Ruby just walked down the ramp unimpeded. No press credential, no policeman's badge, just an inquisitive mind that wanted to know what was happening. You remember what happened next.

It all came back to me Monday night as I met Jim Leavelle, the man in the light suit and big Stetson hat, at the very spot where Jack Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963. I had been back to that spot several times since then but it was never as cold and jarring as it was Monday night. Only one car in the big parking garage which is the basement of that historic building. The noisy, old air-conditioning system covered the sounds of traffic from adjoining streets.

In walks Jim Leavelle, now 85-years-old, who still looks like he could break up an illegal dice game and arrest all seven players by himself. He is there to accommodate still another network with still another approach to the JFK assassination story. This time they have a Psychic who is brought in blind-folded to see what he feels in this place about what happened here more than 42-years ago.

But as I looked at the two of them I was seeing THAT picture. The one taken by Bob Jackson, a Dallas Times Herald Photographer, the one that won a Pulitzer Prize ! The picture that shows Jack Ruby lurching forward and jabbing his pistol and firing into the lower left abdomen of Oswald who is being escorted from the Dallas City Jail by officers Jim Leavelle and L.C. Graves. Oswald's right arm is handcuffed to Leavelle's left arm as he is led out following Captain Will Fritz en route to the Dallas County jail.

They were all there in my mind again Monday night. To the right of the entrance into the jail stood Ike Pappas of CBS, whom I had known for many years, and Tom Pettit of NBC News, also a longtime acquaintance. Chills coursed up and down my back as I relived that historical moment. And I remember what Jack Ruby had told Bill Alexander, assistant District Attorney for Dallas county when asked why he killed Oswald. Ruby said: "the son-of-a-bitch killed my president!" That was in contrast to what he told Leavelle the next day as Ruby was being transported to the Dallas County jail.Ruby told Leavelle he did it:"..to become a hero"! After a pause Ruby said: "I guess I messed up!"

That turned out to be the understatement of the decade. But just as surely as Ruby killed Oswald before millions pf people on television, there is no doubt in my mind that was NOT his intention when he left the Western Union office. He could not have known what time Oswald was finally being moved from the city jail and besides Ruby left his precious pet--his dog Sheba--in his car, locked up on the parking lot. But when he found himself in the basement of the Dallas police station and an alleged presidential assassin just a few feet away, Ruby saw his chance for fame and fortune. He seized the moment but the ending was not what he expected!

A visiting Psychic was taken first to the Texas Theater and then was introduced to James Leavelle by name BEFORE he was blindfolded and driven DOWN the basement ramp to see what story came to mind. Jack Ruby did not know that much about what he was getting into more than forty-two years ago. If he had, perhaps he wouldn't have "messed up!"

Like I said in the opening, 24-hours can make a big difference. Indelible happy moments from America's team to incredible vivid memories from November 1963.

Contrasting? Like night and day!

Murphy Martin

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Previous commentaries:
"Reporter's Rough Roads"
"Another Cowboys Loss"
"People, Places and Things"
"Super Bowl Wasn't So Super"
"State of the Union"
"Is God Dead in Europe?"
"Remembering Dr. King"
"This Week in Review"
"New Year, New Challenges"
"The Party's Over"
"Merry Christmas Rules"
"Bush Unveils Plans"
"Border Security Now!!!"
"Stupidity Loses Financing"
"Crisis Christians"
"They Led the Way"
"Sadistic Saddam Hussein"
"Bourbon Street Bashing"
"Hurricane Aftermath"
"Standing Tall"
"Never a Dull Moment"
"Another Hero Laid to Rest"
"Blame Game"
"Senior Thoughts For the Young"
"Role Model Challenge"
August 18 - "Network News Anchors"
August 11 - "Now All Three Are Gone"
August 4 - "Trust in the Media"
July 28 - "Television Then and Now"
July 21 -  "The Mick"
July 14 - "Forty Years and Counting"