Oral History - Burleson, Phil

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Oral History Collection

Transcript: PHIL BURLESON
Interview Date: 4/4/1995
Interview Conducted By: WES WISE with BOB PORTER
The following interview is part of the Oral History Collection of The Sixth Floor Museum
at Dealey Plaza. The Oral History Collection preserves personal recollections regarding
the life, times, death, and legacy of President John F. Kennedy. The interviews also
provide insight into the cultural history of Dallas and the impact of the assassination.
The Oral History Collection includes the memories of eyewitnesses, local law
enforcement, local and national members of the media, civic and political leaders, White
House officials, Kennedy family acquaintances, Dallas schoolchildren, filmmakers and
researchers, Parkland Hospital personnel, and others related to the events of November
22, 1963. These candid and informal interviews provide future generations with a
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Oral History
Interview
Phil Burleson
April 4, 1995
By Wes Wise with Bob Porter
Researchers Note: Mr. Burleson passed away on May 30, 1995, less than
two months after this interview was recorded.
Wes: (0:00:00) Today is April 4, 1995. This is Wes Wise, along with Bob Porter
of The Sixth Floor Museum. This interview is part of the Oral History Project of the
Dallas County Historical Foundation. Today’s interview is with Phil Burleson, well
known Dallas attorney who was one of Jack Ruby’s lawyers in the Ruby trial following
the assassination of President Kennedy and the subsequent shooting of Lee Harvey
Oswald. First, Phil, thanks for agreeing to this interview (Phil nods). Since you and I
have known each for a long time, we’ll go by first names if it’s OK with you.
Phil: Sure.
Wes: For the record, would you please give us your full name, date and
place of birth, and a summary of your career.
Phil: Full name is Philip with one “l”, Louis, L-o-u-i-s, Burleson. And I
guess I’m senior because I have a son who is a junior. I was born in Harrison, Ohio, in…
on November 16th, 1933. My father was a native Texan. Went up north and married this
Yankee gal, and she was from Indiana. And then my father moved to… or the family
moved to Pennsylvania. He was general manager of a plant during World War II that
made Sherman tanks. And grew up there and stayed there until I was in the ninth grade
when we moved to Texas… Dallas. Went to Greiner Junior High, Sunset High School.
After I got out of high school in 1952, I had various jobs—driving a cab, driving a truck,
working as a draftsman—never really thinking that I’d ever go to college. Somehow or
other in my younger days I thought that only the rich and the intelligent went to college,
and it turned out that I decided to go to law school. Went to undergraduate school at the
University of Texas at Arlington…
Wes: At about what age was this now? Would you…?
Phil: Oh, probably twenty-one. And then I went to South Texas College
of Law in Houston, which was a night school because I had to work. I was married and
had one child at that time. Worked in daytime as a claim adjustor for insurance
companies and went to law school at night, finished in 36 months. Took a job with the
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Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which in Texas is the equivalent of the Supreme Court.
I think we are one of three states that have a civil Texas… a civil supreme court and a
court of criminal appeals. They’re the final authority on civil cases, Supreme Court—
criminal cases, the Texas Court of Criminals Appeals. I was a briefing clerk there for one
year. Became an assistant district attorney under Henry Wade after that. Spent a little
over three and half—oh, not quite three and a half—a little over three years as an
assistant district attorney. I was actually the head of the appellant section, but I wanted to
get trial experience so I did a lot of my briefing at night and tried cases in the daytime. I
then went into private practice with a lawyer who did nothing but civil cases, and I did
some of that and tried to develop my criminal practice at the same time. We finally got
to be a four or five man firm. We then split up and formed what it is now Burleson, Pate,
and Gibson.
Bob: What was that year, do you recall, Phil?
Phil: Probably ’65, ’66.
Bob: Uh-huh.
Phil: It was with an excellent lawyer by the name of Fred Abney, who I
think now is retired, but he taught me a lot of a things about the operation of a law office.
And many of those we’re still utilizing with seventeen lawyers. Became very active in
politics, was on the State Democratic Executive Committee Connally’s last two years as
governor. Became even more active in the bar associations, helped formed the Texas
Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Association, which is a statewide organization. Was active
in the Dallas Bar Association—was on committees and then became board member, then
became an officer and then ultimately, probably the first criminal law practitioner to act
as president of the Dallas Bar Association, which is primarily civil practitioners because
the Dallas criminal practitioners have their own bar association. They have the Dallas
Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Association. So most of those don’t belong to both
organizations. I did, and unfortunately during my year as president, I was gone from
Dallas a long time because of the T. Cullen Davis case which I was involved in for about
three and a half years. But… and was quite honored in 1994 to be the second person
named Outstanding Trial Lawyer by the Dallas Bar Association.
Wes: Down the line, I’m going to want to ask you about the business of
being in two such high profile cases as the Cullen Davis and the Jack Ruby case. But
let’s go back right now to your time in Dallas at Greiner Junior High and then Sunset
High School and so forth. What… how would you characterize the city of Dallas back in
those days? What kind of city was it?
Phil: (0:07:13) Oh, as far as I was concerned, it was a normal, small city. It
wasn’t anything like it is today. Driving around yesterday, I had to take my wife to the
airport and was driving on freeways and other streets and I was thinking how… how
many trucks and vehicles there are. Back in early ‘50s, it was kind of a small town. It
has naturally grown and grown and grown. We were primarily there in the Oak Cliff
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area. We didn’t leave it very much. I mean, it wasn’t a situation that you went all over
town. You kind of stayed where you were. You went to the movies where… the old
Texas Theater, we used to go to. We would generally… if you ate out, you ate out in the
Oak Cliff area. It was not something where, like today, you may drive to Addison or to
someplace else. It was uneventful. There were very little drugs involved. There were
some… we thought some… one gang out of one particular high school across town, but
by and large, it was just a normal upbringing.
Wes: If it’s the gang I think you’re thinking of, they… some of those
people became very prominent Dallas citizens, did they not?
Phil: (shaking head and chuckling) No, not that gang.
Wes: (chuckling) Oh, oh. Then it must not be the same gang.
Phil: (chuckling) No, not the same gang.
Wes: Well, let’s… as far as underworld type of activity or… or any kind
of… of course, the Bonnie and Clyde days and so forth were, I guess, before those days.
Phil: Yes.
Wes: But would you say that there was an underworld in Dallas?
Phil: Yes, there were some… I’ve learned since and had heard during
that period of time there was quite a bit of gambling. I don’t know that it was
underworld, but it was… there was a lot of gambling at the old Chapango Club. There
were some people who were found in water wells who had been involved in primarily the
gambling aspect who had been killed naturally. I recall that there was a person who went
to his mailbox and opened his mailbox and there was a bomb in it. It exploded and killed
him. There was a place off of Fort Worth Avenue in the Oak Cliff area that, at that time,
had a pretty seedy reputation, but at my age, I wasn’t involved in any of that. That was…
Wes: Do you mind naming that place? Or…
Phil: (0:10:41) Wes, I was talking about it not too long ago, and I can’t remember
the name of it.
Wes: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Phil: It was…
Wes: It was there at the Y?
Phil: (nodding) Yeah, yes.

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Wes: At the cutoff—at the Y—on Fort Worth Avenue? I can’t

remember it either, so… Did you… do you feel that Dallas was any more… crime
problem than any other city of this size?
Phil: (shaking head) I didn’t have that feeling…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …at that time.
Wes: How did you become interested in specializing—if you do

specialize, and you’ll have to explain this—as far as a criminal law practitioner is
concerned?
Phil: (0:11:17) I’m not sure that I really know. I think a lot of law students think
that the practice of criminal law is exciting and… and not as dull as corporate law. I’ve
been involved in some corporate matters that have been more exciting than some of my
criminal… or most of my criminal cases. I think that you just, as a young person, you
think this is where all the action is, and you practice criminal law. And needless to say,
not all law students can end up at having a criminal practice. I was very fortunate to get
the job with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which was a specialized area, and then
the late Jim Bowie interviewed me for my job with Henry Wade. And the Court of
Criminal Appeals had just reversed an extradition case, so… they were trying to extradite
some woman back to Ohio for some reason or other, and they didn’t do it. Dallas District
Attorney’s office didn’t do it properly, and so the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed it.
And it was about a week or so after… and I had worked on that case at the Court of
Criminal Appeals. And it was a week or so after that I interviewed with Jim Bowie, and
we argued about that case. And I knew more than he did about it really because he was
only involved on the edges on it, and I was involved in the big middle of it. And so, we
argued about it, and I was able to be very persuasive in my argument. Plus, I had the
court’s opinion behind me. And I recall that Henry was in trial at the time, and Jim
Bowie, who was first assistant, and I went to lunch and we came back and we were in the
open area in the DA’s office. And Henry came walking through to go back to trial, and
Bowie said, “Chief, I want to introduce you to Phil Burleson, who not only do we need
him up here, I want him up here.” And Henry said, “Well, I guess you’re hired,” and
turned around and walked off (Bob chuckles in background).
Wes: (chuckling) Which was fairly typical of Henry Wade.
Phil: (nodding) Henry’s…
Bob: That year was what?
Phil: That would have been 1962.
Bob: OK.
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Wes: And then… well, then it was only a matter of months between the
time you were working for Henry Wade and…
Phil: Well, now, let’s see. I got out of law school in, what, (glancing
behind him at the certificates on office wall) ’58. So, I would have been at the Court of
Criminal in ’59, so it would have been from ’59 that I got hired. Now, (nodding) I left
the DA’s office in ’62.
Bob: Left in ’62.
Phil: (nodding) Right.
Wes: This is jumping ahead, but it’s a logical time to ask you a question.
Was it difficult for you to oppose Henry Wade in the Ruby trial so soon after having
worked with him?
Phil: (shaking head) Oh, no.
Wes: (chuckling) Did you speak to him about that, or did you have
any… did he any conversation with you when you…?
Phil: (0:14:48) We… we had a trial before that together. Henry was more of an
administrator than he was a trial lawyer, and most district attorneys in large cities are.
And a Dallas lawyer had run against Henry right before that for district attorney, and one
of his platforms was that Henry Wade never tried cases. So, Henry got elected, and there
was… I had just left the DA’s office. And the late Judge Henry King, who I had known
because I went to high school with his daughter, kind of took me under his wing when I
was in the DA’s office and appointed me in a capital murder case. Well, Henry, in
response to the so-called criticism that he never tried cases, tried that particular case—
Carl Junior Hackathorn (?). And so, we had one confrontation before the Ruby case.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: And Henry is from Rockwall, as you know, which is an adjoining

county, and really is effective with a jury. And sometimes, during the course of the trial
he would make comments like, if I made an objection and the judge overruled it or
something, he would say in front of the jury, “Well, Phil’s just a young lawyer (Wes
laughing in background). You couldn’t expect him to know that law, Judge,” or
something like that. And I couldn’t do a thing about it. One, I didn’t know how to
handle that situation, and number two, Henry was so effective in doing things of that
nature. One of things that… when Henry did try cases, one of things that he did argue to
the jury is that “if you will give this person the death penalty, I’ll be happy to go down
and pull the switch.” And I recall in the Hackathorn (?) case, I researched the law as to
who the executioner was and what his duties were, and I researched the law as to what
the district attorney’s duties were. And it didn’t provide that he was to be the
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executioner, so I filed a motion before the argument in the Hackathorn case that Mr.
Wade not be allowed to make that argument that he had made in numerous other cases
(Wes chuckling in background). And Judge King, who tried the case, said, “Well, I
cannot anticipate what Mr. Wade’s going to argue, but I understand what the law is as to
who the executioner is and who… what the DA’s office are and don’t see that that would
be appropriate.” As kind of a follow-up, knowing that Henry argued that way when I was
a prosecutor, I was prosecuting a guy for DWI and I was very young at the time—it was a
misdemeanor, naturally—and so I argued to the jury that “if you will sentence this
defendant to the County Jail, I’ll be happy to go over and slam the door and lock it and
make sure he stays in there.” And I looked down, and the defendant and his lawyer are
both laughing at me (chuckling and Bob and Wes chuckle in the background). It was
kind of… kind of overkill on my part (smiling), and I must say that the jury found him
not guilty.
Wes: (laughing) OK, let’s move onto the year 1963. What was your
view of the political scene in the city at the time? Were you already active in Democratic
party politics by then?
Phil: (0:19:07) Not really too much. At that time, the Citizens Council
(chuckling) basically ran the city of Dallas, as you know (indicating Wes). You ran
against ‘em and beat ‘em. Politics was pretty well controlled by a few people. I did get
active (picking up and examining a small desk plaque) and was elected to the State
Democratic Executive Committee in 1966.
Wes: (indicating plaque) Show that if you will to the camera. Just…
(Phil holds up plaque) that’s it.
Bob: Yeah.
Wes: Good.
Phil: (putting plaque back on desk) And I’ll never forget that Oscar
Mosley… well, up until that year, we had one senator, Senator George Parkhouse, and he
was senator for all of Dallas County and very conservative. And there was a
redistricting, and I think they divided it into three senatorial districts. And Oscar Mosley
ran against David Ivy (?), who I think David was in the legislature at the time and Oscar
was a local labor lawyer and so-called liberal. It so happened that Oscar was one of the
people that I had met. I was active in Young Democrats, and I had met him and he… you
had to have three letters to get into law school at that time from practicing lawyers, and
Oscar was one of three people that wrote a letter for me. But I was in the Oak Cliff area,
which was the senatorial district that Oscar ran for and won, and I was in a group that
was primarily conservative. And we supported David Ivy (?), although I voted
personally for Oscar, and most people couldn’t understand how I can support one person
actively and cast my individual vote for somebody else. But philosophically, I agreed
more with David, but I had a loyalty to Oscar. After Oscar got elected, we had control of
the executive committee for that district. And I recall having invited Oscar to lunch at
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the Lancer’s Club and asking him not to oppose me to be State Democratic Executive
Committeeman. There’s also a committeewoman. And Oscar said, “That’d be fine.” He
said, “You can be the committeeman, and Jim Tyson’s wife, Selma, can be the
committeewoman.” And I said, “Oscar, you don’t understand. We’ve got control. All
I’m saying is I don’t want you to oppose me” (Wes chuckles in background). “We’re
going to name the man and the woman,” which we did. So…
Wes: Uh-huh. Well, you knew nitty-gritty politics then…
Phil: (smiling) Yes.
Wes: …in 1963. How did you feel about the things that were going on
the city before President Kennedy’s arrival here? The Adlai Stevenson incident, General
Walker, the John Birch Society…
Phil: (0:22:34) Well, now, those were things that I would not approve of. They
were, I think, isolated incidents, but was not really… that was more on a national level
than I was… in those early days, I was more on a local level. And… and again, I thought
they were isolated.
Wes: As far as the incident, for example, where Bruce Alger…

supposedly the Bruce Alger group in front of the Adolphus Hotel and that sort of thing. I
guess you consider yourself a conservative Democrat, did you not? Just…
Phil: (nodding) Yes.
Wes: How did you feel about another conservative, although a

Republican, being involved in that sort of thing?
Phil: Well, I didn’t think much of Bruce Alger. Jim Lehrer wrote an
article on… when he was with Times Herald, I believe, on Bruce Alger that—I’m not
very good with English—but I think he never used an adjective and yet totally destroyed
him with the truth. And I also knew a little bit about the divorce that he was going
through—not personally, but from just being down at the courthouse while that divorce
proceeding was going on. And some of the allegations by his wife as to his conduct and
the conduct that she had as a result of his wanting her to have certain contacts with
people—I didn’t think very much of him either as a person or as a politician.
Wes: The question has come up, Phil, about could the city fathers have
done anything about these activities—the General Walker, the John Birch Society, the…
that sort of thing—could… or could the political establishment have done anything? Do
you have any view on that?
Phil: (0:24:45) I don’t have any real view on it. I don’t think so. I think they
were… the John Birch Society, at that time was, as far as I knew, was very small, very
ineffective. That basically the Citizens Council did by and large a good job. They… one
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of the things that I thought was really great was the fact that we had Lew Sterrett as the
county judge, we had Bill Decker as the sheriff, and we had Henry Wade as the district
attorney. And there wasn’t going to be anything, in my opinion, that could influence
those people from doing anything but what was right. And if they thought there was any
mafia in Dallas, they would get rid of it, and they were the three most powerful people in
Dallas County during my early years of practice. And they were all good people. And
so, as a result of that, there was no corruption that I knew of. Naturally, there were
people who were not enamored with the Citizens Council. And a little known fact is that
they didn’t let lawyers on the city council… Citizens Council (smiling).
Wes: At that time?
Phil: (smiling and nodding) At that time.
Wes: Uh-huh. What was your view of Kennedy as president? Of John

F. Kennedy?
Phil: I thought that he was a good president.
Wes: But you were a conservative, and he was considered liberal.

That…
Phil: (nodding) Right, but again, during this period of time, I’m a young
lawyer. I’m trying to make it in the district attorney’s office. I start a little practice
with… on the side, mainly at night, with Joe Brown’s son, Joe, Jr.
Wes: We might explain Joe Brown was the judge… the judge during the
Ruby trial.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: And then, when I left the DA’s office, I’m working hard to
establish my own practice. And so, I’m involved, but really, I’m not involved. I have a
young family, and my dad was a Democrat so I was a Democrat. And I’m still today
what I consider to be a certified Democrat, which by the way, saves me a lot of money in
contributions to Republicans (smiling).
Wes: (chuckling) Did you have a concern about President Kennedy’s

visit…
Phil: (shaking head) No.
Wes: …in light of the incidents? You had no concern at all?

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Wes: You thought there would be no incident even that…
Wes: Were you… well, let’s go to the morning of November 22nd, 1963.
Phil: (0:27:47) That morning, I was in court. I was handling an examining trial,
which is a pretrial before indictment type of proceeding before a JP—justice of the peace.
And it was over a stag party that some people had given for a guy who was going to get
married, and the house was taken… part of the house, whoever was putting on the party,
was taking part of the proceeds to help defray the cost of the party. And that was
gambling. It was unintentional. It wasn’t… it was just a stag party. But somehow or
other, it was at one of the bigger hotels, and the police raided and arrested two or three of
the people.
Wes: You were at this party?
Phil: (shaking head) No. I represented the people who were charged.
Wes: (chuckling) Oh, I see. OK.
Phil: And we were having this examining trial in the old courthouse
building…
Wes: I see.
Phil: …the Red Courthouse. And it was Glenn Byrd (?), was a JP, who
later, I guess, became county clerk. And I remember him saying, “Mr. Burleson, it’s
about ten minutes till noon, and the president’s supposed to come by here about noon.”
Wes: You were in the county courthouse?
Phil: (nodding) Red… the Old Red Court…
Wes: The Old Red County Courthouse?
Bob: Which is at the corner of Main and Houston, right…
Bob: …on the motorcade route.

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Bob: OK.
Phil: “And we’re going to finish this. So, you’ve got ten minutes.” And
I still had more than that I wanted, but when the judge tells you have ten minutes, you
have ten minutes. So, we recessed shortly after noon. And I was on the board of
directors of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers, and we had a meeting at noon at the
Texas… the old Texas National Bank.
Wes: Texas Bank?
Phil: Yeah, right across at… and Lamar.
Wes: Two blocks… yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Wes: About two blocks away, it sounds like.
Phil: About two or three blocks away.
Wes: Yeah.
Phil: (0:30:01) And so, I finished in the courthouse, and my clients went their way
and I started walking up the street—Main Street to… from the courthouse to the bank
building. And I was nearly at the bank building when the president went by. I went into
the bank building up to the second or third floor where we were to have our meeting, and
I was the only… I was the first one there, just kind of hanging around. And shortly,
somebody else came up and said, “The president’s just been shot.”
Wes: Before you get to that, what was your impression as they went by?
Number one, of the crowd, and number two, of President and Mrs. Kennedy. You saw
them go by, right?
Wes: What was your impression… those two impressions?
Phil: Wes, I don’t know that anything stood out about it other than
probably it was the first time I had seen a living president. I thought the crowd was very
enthusiastic, very supportive. I don’t recall anything negative about it.
Wes: Uh-huh, uh-huh. Were you impressed by the appearance of the

couple?
Phil: Yeah, oh well, yeah. How… you know, I think any decent person
is always impressed with a president. I’m sure a lot of Republicans saw him… Clinton
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on TV last night during the Arkansas-UCLA game, and you couldn’t help but be
impressed that he was watching it from some café in Little Rock. But I didn’t see
anything negative…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …in the air.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: And after this person—I think another board member—came up

and… I then went…
Wes: What did he say to you?
Phil: He just said that the president had been shot, not killed.
Wes: You didn’t go through your mind that they… that he was kidding,
or was that too serious for that type of…
Phil: (nodding) Yeah, it was too serious.
Wes: Yeah, yeah. OK.
Phil: (0:32:12) So, I went to the sheriff’s office where I knew Sheriff Decker and
most of the deputies, having just not too many months before that worked with them on
the law enforcement side as assistant DA. And so, I spent the next several hours just sort
of hanging around the sheriff’s office and then get word of the fact that he did die and
what was going on and that Johnson was sworn-in and they were on their way back to
Washington. So, I spent most of that time…
Wes: In Sheriff Decker’s office?
Phil: …in the sheriff’s… well, not…
Wes: What was the reaction of the people there? I think you’re the first
person we’ve interviewed that was in the… in Sheriff Decker’s office during this period
of time, which is interesting to me. What was the reaction of the people or the staff
particularly? But of Decker himself—did he… when did he come back in?
Phil: Well…
Wes: Now, he went… he went…
Phil: …I’m sure he was there.

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Wes: Uh-huh. Well, he went, of course, to the Parkland Hospital first

with the president.
Phil: Well, he may have.
Wes: Yeah. You don’t recall?
Phil: You know, number one, it’s been a long time ago.
Wes: Yeah, right. Sure. I understand.
Phil: But I’m sure that most of the time that Decker was there, he was in
his office because that’s the way he operated. And people came to him or people called
him or he called people. I think everybody was in shock…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …disbelief.
Wes: Tears?
Phil: Oh, yes (nodding). People upset. And like I say, I stayed there
probably two or three hours, which would have been…
Bob: They were bringing people in—eyewitnesses…
Phil: (shaking head) Not so much in the sheriff’s office.
Bob: Not into the sheriff’s office? OK.
Phil: Since this was a police function…
Bob: OK.
Phil: …there were not a lot of witnesses being brought into the sheriff’s
office, as I recall.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Bob: Yeah, OK.
Wes: Did anybody… did you or anybody else up there have any
immediate thoughts as to who the assassin might have been or what type he might have
been?

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Wes: No?
Phil: I mean, I don’t recall. I’m sure there were a lot of deputies
speculating. I don’t recall anybody speculating that it was the Russians or anybody
else…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …but I’m sure… but mainly just grief and disbelief.
Wes: Uh-huh. How about your family when you went home that night?
Phil: (0:34:50) (nodding) Upset. In fact, a… it turned out that I later learned that a
neighbor and my wife had had a conversation where the neighbor said something to the
effect, “Well, I hope nothing happens to him while he’s here in town.” And my wife,
knowing my feelings as a Democrat and having no reason to believe that anything would
happen to him, made some remark. And then when something did happen to him, they
no longer were friends and… just because she had made that statement.
Wes: Uh-huh. Do you recall that ad in The Dallas Morning News, the
black bordered ad and so forth?
Phil: (shaking head) No, uh-uh. I naturally became familiar with it.
Wes: Yes, right. Yeah, right. OK. Then the next day, do you recall
how things were?
Phil: Yeah.
Wes: The assassination on Friday.
Phil: On Friday.
Wes: Now, we’re talking about Saturday.
Phil: Saturday. Saturday night, I recall, that my wife and another couple
went out for dinner, and we drove downtown going someplace across town from Oak
Cliff. And…
Wes: You were living in Oak Cliff, and you were coming into Dallas
proper—the downtown area?
Phil: (nodding) Right. And we went by, I think, on Main Street, and it’s
my first recollection of ever having seen one of those big buses that we now see where
they televise… they’re their operating quarters for football games and basketball games
15
and so forth. I guess you’d call them a stretch bus that, you know, appeared at me… to
me at being about twice the size of a normal passenger bus. It’s where all the tech…
now, I know all the technical stuff is being done. And I noticed that there at the City
Hall, and then we went on to eat. I do…
Wes: That was on Main Street, you said?
Phil: (nodding) Right. Well, actually, it was parked on Harwood.
Wes: I see.
Phil: And I do recall that… that city, there was not much activity. There
was not much traffic on that Saturday night. My recollection is there… at… wherever we
ended up eating, there was not many people eating. It was kind of a… it was… it was…
Wes: Eerie? Was it eerie, or was it…?
Phil: Yeah, it just… not normal because Saturday night in Dallas then
and now is, you know… there’s a lot of activity, a lot of people, a lot… you have to stand
in line to get food and to get seated. And were we went, there was very few people.
There was very little traffic. And I remember I went to Sunday school the next day, and
the Sunday school teacher worked for a armored truck company. And I can’t remember
if he told me then or later, but that they were going to decoy… I—it must have been later
because surely he wouldn’t have told me that day—but they were going to decoy moving
Oswald from city to county by putting… appearing to put Oswald in this armored truck,
but in fact what they were going to do was put him in a car, in the backseat, down on the
floorboard. And as the media was going to follow the armored truck, this car with
Oswald in… on the back floorboard was going to take him to the jail. And I do recall
that they were going to enter from the Commerce Street side, but the way… they couldn’t
get the armored truck down the ramp. And that was on Sunday.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: (0:39:54) I was trying to think exactly when on Sunday I found out about
this, whether it was during church or immediately after church, about the shooting of
Oswald.
Wes: You didn’t go back on Sunday to the sheriff’s office just to see
what was going on?
Phil: (shaking head) No, no.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: Just got up that morning, got the kids ready, and went to Sunday
school and church.
16
Wes: Up to that point, did you know any of the principals involved, such
as J. D. Tippit, the officer who was killed?
Wes: And of course, you did not know Lee Harvey Oswald?
Wes: Even by reputation or whatever?
Wes: OK. Then, of course…
Phil: I did know Jack Ruby.
Wes: Well, that’s…
Bob: Yeah.
Wes: (chuckling) I’m going to get to that. In fact, let’s go ahead since
you brought that up. What did you know of Jack Ruby up to that point? Did you know
him personally, and what did you know of him reputation-wise?
Phil: OK.
Wes: OK.
Phil: (0:40:43) Back at that time, the state bar used to have their state bar
conventions in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Fort Worth. And frequently, they
would have a stag party and have girls come in and strip—not all the way—but strip.
And that was part of it, and I believe the year before in San Antonio, the district attorney
in Bexar County, San Antonio, quote “raided” the party and said it wasn’t appropriate.
And I think the next year, the bar convention was going to be in Dallas and preliminary
arrangements had been made for Jack Ruby to furnish the girls. And the quote
“leadership” of the bar decided not to have the stag party, and I just have a vague… I
wasn’t part of the leadership, but I have a vague recollection of Jack being around I think
it was the Adolphus Hotel was the headquarters for the bar convention and complaining
that they weren’t going to hire him to put on a stag party. I don’t recall ever seeing him
there, but I recall that he was complaining about that. I can’t remember whether that was
when I was in the district attorney’s office or not, but when I was in the district attorney’s
office, I had… there was a guy I had gone to high school with who was a drummer with a
small band that was connected with a show called Bottoms Up, which opened at the
Adolphus Hotel, later had their own place out on McKinney, and since then—some thirty
17
years ago—moved to their base to Las Vegas. And that was Breck Wall and Joe
Stevenson.
Bob: Peterson.
Phil: (smiling) Peterson. Joe Peterson. Breck, by the way, is still alive.
Joe has died.
Wes: Bob interviewed Breck in relation to these interviews earlier. Go

ahead.
Phil: And Breck and Joe came to see me on the recommendation of this
guy I had gone to high school with—name, I believe, was J. M. Rump (?)—and…
because they had had a confrontation with Jack Ruby. I think particularly Joe had, and
they wanted to file criminal charges against Jack Ruby for…
Bob: This was like a fistfight or something?
Phil: …assault.
Bob: Or he…
Phil: Yeah. Some… some minor…
Bob: (chuckling) Jack was noted for this.
Phil: Yeah, some minor…
Bob: Yes.
Phil: …deal. In the first place, it wasn’t my duty as an assistant. We

had what we called input prosecutors. They were the one who screened what cases came
in and were accepted and which ones weren’t. And that was not part of my duties, but I
told him I’d look into it. So, that was the first time that I got to know something about
Jack. When I left the district attorney’s office, Breck Wall started what was called the
Billy Awards, which was the local imitation of the Academy Awards—best singer,
female; best singer, male; best dancer; best band; best actor; best whatever. And I, as a
result of that initial meeting with Breck and Joe, I got to know them. When I left the
district attorney’s office, I quote “became their attorney.” I remember I used to take my
typewriter out to their place of business and type up contracts (chuckling) as opposed to
having them come to my office like this (Bob chuckles in background). And so, I
became, for the Billy Awards, the poor man’s Price Waterhouse. I was the one who
would send out the ballots, and I was the one who received the ballots. And then, I was
the one who, at the night of the Billy Awards at the Adolphus, would walk up and hand
the envelope—and I think Breck was the MC—and hand the envelope to Breck. And
he’d open it and say, “The best comedian in Dallas is so-and-so” (smiling).
18
Wes: This would be early 1960 or late 1950s, I guess?
Phil: (0:45:57) It was after I left the DA’s office, that was.
Phil: So, it’d be ’62 probably.
Wes: Yeah.
Phil: And I recall that Jack had someone in the running of best comedian
or something, and he had bought a table right next to the runway.
Bob: Wally Weston, wasn’t it?
Phil: Huh?
Bob: Wally Weston. Do you remember?
Phil: I don’t remember who it was.
Bob: Yeah, OK.
Phil: But…
Bob: I got a program from 1963, I think…
Phil: Yeah.
Bob: …I ran across the other day (chuckling).
Phil: And so, he bought a big table for eight or ten people right next to
the runway in anticipation of his entrant to be successful, and sure enough, he wasn’t.
And he did become upset, but he didn’t cause any big problem or anything. But he let
everybody there know that whoever did win it was not as good as his entrant. And so
that actually, I guess, was… I may have seen Jack during that bar convention—not to
have anything to do with him but may have seen him. But I think that was the first time
that I ever actually saw Jack.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: And I don’t recall that I had anything to do with him. By that, I
mean, he wasn’t mad at me.

19
Phil: I was just the guy that was doing the counting. Later, when…
going back to the time that Joe and Breck went to see me in the DA’s office, they… they
later told me that they were not interested in doing anything. That they’d made up. That
Jack would give ‘em the shirt of their back. He was just mad at the previous time for
some reason or other that they had the… Joe and he, Jack, had the confrontation. And
wanted me to not proceed. Well, I hadn’t done anything anyway because again, that… I
was a trial attorney, an appellant attorney. It was not my job to take cases. So, I guess at
the Billy Awards was really the first time that I got to know who Jack Ruby was.
Wes: But you were not personal friends at that time…
Wes: …by any stretch of the imagination?
Bob: Were you at church or watching television when, say, Jack shot
Oswald? Was that…?
Phil: (0:48:34) That’s what I was trying to think. I can’t even remember what
time it was.
Bob: Well, it was, you know, it was around 11:00 in the morning.
Phil: Well, I was at church then.
Bob: Yeah.
Wes: How… you don’t recall how you did first learn of it, or did you,
when you learned that he was accused—of course, had been seen on television shooting
Oswald…
Phil: I can’t remember if the minister mentioned something about it…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …or the Sunday school teacher may have mentioned something
about it after church.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Bob: In an interview we did with Henry Wade, he said somebody came

and got him at church when this happened. He remembered that.
20
Phil: Yeah, well, I wasn’t…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …in the same position that Henry Wade was (smiling).
Wes: (chuckling) From the… OK, then how did you first… what was
your first exposure as an attorney to the whole thing? Or is there something else you’d
like to relate that happened on Sunday…
Bob: Just your…
Wes: Regarding the shooting?
Bob: …reaction when you heard it was Jack?
Wes: Yeah.
Phil: (to Bob) I’m sorry?
Bob: Your reaction when you heard it was Jack, say?
Phil: I don’t know that I had any special reaction.
Wes: You did remember the name and remembered that incident, I
presume?
Wes: Yeah.
Phil: Yes.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: (0:49:53) I never went to his club or clubs if he had more than one, and that
was… I really didn’t have any specific reaction to it that I can recall.
Wes: Now, let’s see. Jack Howard was his first attorney, wasn’t it?
Phil: Tom.
Bob: Bob.
Wes: Tom Howard, excuse me.

21
Phil: Tom had been a very good lawyer years before this. He had pretty
well given up the active trial practice of law. He had an office across from City Hall and
mainly got people out of jail, and sometimes, he would continue to represent those people
in whatever problems or those people would hire some other lawyer. But he was
primarily just what we called a writ runner and made writs of habeas corpus to get people
out of jail. And yes, it’s my understanding that he did… he was the first that went to see
Jack.
Wes: How did you become involved?
Phil: I was trying to think.
Wes: You don’t recall who approached you first, or…?
Phil: I think Tom did. I can’t remember when Belli got involved.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: But I do know that I did go see Jack on the Saturday after the
shooting on Sunday, and I think I went because Tom Howard asked me to. And I think
Tom asked me to because I had recently left the district attorney’s office and was
supposed to be quote “an appellant expert.” And… but I guess Belli got involved after
that. As I recall, Earl contacted… Earl Ruby contacted Belli…
Wes: That was his brother?
Phil: (nodding) Yes, and as a matter of fact, Belli was in… he’s noted
for being a personal injury lawyer but he was in criminal trial at the time Earl contacted
him. And yeah, (nodding) OK. I did go see Jack because Tom asked me to go see him.
Wes: Do you recall how he looked? What his reaction to you was?
What his demeanor was that early? That would be within one week, right?
Phil: Yes, within six days.
Wes: Six days, yeah.
Phil: Wes, I can’t tell you I can remember specifically what it was on
that day, except that I think he felt like that he shouldn’t be in jail and this kind of goes
on through the entire trial. “I’m the guy that shot the guy that shot Jesse Jackson… Jesse
Jones” or whoever it was. “I shot the guy that killed the president.” I mean…
Wes: I should be the good guy.
Phil: “I should be a hero, and here I am being held in jail without bond.”
But I think on that day it was more… not so much that but—probably a little of that—but
22
just who I was and my background and so forth. And I think that was the main thing that
happened that day as to who I was versus anything about the facts of the case.
Wes: Uh-huh. How did you first come to meet Joe Tonahill and Melvin
Belli, and how did that combination come about?
Phil: (0:53:58) As I understand it, Earl contacted Belli for… and I don’t know
why and who recommended him. Belli contacted…
Wes: Well, now, Belli had quite a reputation as a so-called, what, tort
lawyer or whatever they…
Phil: (nodding) Right, personal injury.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: Belli knew Tonahill through the National Organization of Personal

Injury Lawyers, and I guess he was one of the few that he knew from Texas. And at any
rate, he contacted Tonahill and got him involved at some point. How I got involved
was… it was kind of interesting. I was representing an owner of a store here in Dallas,
you know, in various civil matters, and his daughter was going to then Arlington State
and she had been told she was going to be expelled because she had too many parking
tickets. And so, the father called me and told me about that, and I kind of (smiling)
initially thought, well, that’s stupid. You can’t expel somebody from a state school for
having too many parking tickets. And so, I told the father I would be happy to go out.
They were going to have a faculty-type jury hearing, and I started doing research on the
questions of what schools could or could not do and was quite shocked to find out that
the Supreme Court of the United States had upheld many things. The one that still is
outstanding to me is that, at one point in time, colleges would expel women for wearing
lipstick, and they upheld that and said that if a woman wore lipstick, she couldn’t go to
college. And my view on the handling of this case was going to be initially
confrontational with the faculty, saying, “The law won’t allow you to do this.” After
research, my view and the way we presented it was that she will… if you’ll put her on
probation (chuckling), she’ll try not to get any more traffic tickets. I walk in the office
from that very serious case to having a call from Melvin Belli, wanting me to come to the
hotel he was staying at—the one now is a prison over there on Stemmons. That he was
interviewing some local lawyers to act as kind of local counsel, which is not unusual in…
if you’re from… if you are the attorney from out of town that you hire somebody locally.
And so, I returned the call and made arrangements to go up. And there were a couple
other Dallas lawyers there, and they were… I think it was Sam Brody and Belli that
would take ‘em from the living room area to… and closed the door to the bedroom and
interviewed people.
Wes: Were you in awe of Belli at that time, at that stage?
Phil: I wasn’t that much aware of him.

23
Wes: Oh, were you? OK, go ahead.
Phil: And so, I remember when it came my turn to go in, the first
question Belli said was something to the effect—and it’s in his book—that he said,
“Well, what do you think of the case?” And I said, “Well, with a lot of hard work and
imagination, I think we can do some good for Jack.” He said, “You’re hired.” It was
just… that was it. That was the interview.
Wes: What was your comment now? With what?
Phil: “With a lot of hard work and some imagination, we may be able to
do some good for Jack.”
Wes: And he immediately reacted?
Phil: He just said, “You’re hired.”
Wes: That’s a good story.
Phil: (smiling) Yeah.
Wes: Were you surprised? Were you…?
Phil: Well, sure.
Wes: (chuckling) And so, then… then what… well, now, first of all,
was Belli the so-called lead attorney?
Phil: (nodding) Oh, yeah.
Wes: Uh-huh. From the very beginning?
Wes: There must have been over that… how many months was it? Four
or five months, something like that? Was it that long?
Phil: Well, this was… we immediately went into a… I think it was a

bond hearing prior to Christmas. And we also had the change of venue hearing, and it
seems like that might have even been before Christmas also. The thing just really started
moving.
Wes: Uh-huh.
24
Phil: (0:58:51) And I… one of the things I do remember is that at one of those
hearings either before or after Christmas, we—as I recall, we started the trial around the
first week of February of the next year—and that we put Henry Wade on the witness
stand, and he said, “Yes, there’s prejudice against Jack Ruby in Dallas at the present
time. But as of, oh I would say, February the 1st, it will have disappeared.” And I’ve
often… as much as I admire the Chief, I’ve often thought how you could have prejudice
for a two or three month period and then all of a sudden, it disappears (laughing). I
mean, my knowledge and experience over the years of prejudice is that it may taper off,
but it doesn’t disappear.
Wes: Let’s talk about that just a minute. Do you think this… we both
know Henry Wade well. We both admire him and like him.
Wes: Do you think he wanted that case here very strongly and that was
the reason he made that comment? Or did…?
Phil: Well, sure. I think he wanted it tried in Dallas. He was the district
attorney of Dallas. It happened here. I think he wanted to vindicate Dallas. By that time,
the world’s finger was pointing toward Dallas as being a bad place where the president
was killed. There were already suspicions at that time that there might be some
connection between Oswald and Jack Ruby. And I think Henry wanted to try this case
here in his county, get the death penalty, and move on.
Wes: How did your attorney team feel about that? I know later did you
not apply for a change of venue… try to get a change of venue?
Phil: (1:00:50) Well, I was not part of this conversation, but we did have a change
of venue hearing. And the judge denied it, but he allegedly told Belli privately… and
Belli… I know Belli had a private meeting with Judge Brown, and I know shortly after
that, I think he waited until we all went back to the hotel room that we were kind of using
as a headquarters. He said that in his conversation with Judge Brown that Brown said,
“Let’s start the selection of the jury, and after we’ve been in selection of the jury for three
or four weeks, then I will definitely change the venue.” I later recall having
conversations with his… Judge Brown’s court reporter, who sort of confirmed that
because he had started making reservations at some place else or making arrangements to
move someplace else to be the court reporter. He was going to go… in other words, he
was going to go with the case, which is not always the situation. And about halfway in…
so, we were sort of not taking jury selection that serious here in Dallas because Belli
believed what Judge Brown said or at least what he understood him to say. And we
might have used a few strikes that we wouldn’t have used.
Wes: Better explain what you mean by strikes for the benefit of…
25
Phil: At that time, I think you got… each side got fifteen strikes for… of
jurors for no cause. You didn’t… if they were disqualified for… because they had
prejudice or if they knew some of the parties involved, that’s a strike for cause and that
doesn’t count.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: But if you just didn’t like… like we had one, I believe he was a
captain in the Department of Public Safety on… as a prospective juror and he said he
could be fair. And I don’t think there was anybody in the courtroom that believed that,
but he swore to it and so, we had to use one of our fifteen strikes on him.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: And so, we probably used two, three, four, or five strikes on people
that maybe if we had gone further, we would not have had to strike ‘em with preemptory
strikes, which is what it was called, and we could have disqualified them as jurors for
cause…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …which would not have cost us one of our fifteen. And so, after
three or four weeks, Belli had another private conversation with Judge Brown, and Judge
Brown said, “I decided to keep it here.”
Wes: Is this generally known?
Wes: This sequence of events (Phil continues shaking head)? Was it in

Belli’s book?
Phil: I’ve forgotten. I think there was some reference to it.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: But I…
Wes: But in general, you… this was not recounted in the media at the
time?
Phil: (shaking head) No. Oh, no.
Wes: Uh-huh. This was all confidential.
Bob: What do you attribute the change in Judge Brown to?

26
Phil: (1:04:50) You know, I’m not sure that I can tell you except that I may have
the only copy of the book that Judge Brown and the columnist for the Dallas News who
died…
Wes: Crume? Paul Crume?
Phil: (nodding) Paul Crume was… were writing together. I got the first
half of it when I filed the motion to disqualify Judge Brown, and later, his son, who I told
you I was in private practice with and I believe he was also in our Sunday school class,
gave me the second half of it. And I’ll never forget, there’s one phrase in the book that
Judge Brown wrote, he said, “The power of the press was so great that I did many things
that I should not have done.” That could have been one reason. A second reason could
have been that Wade was having conversations with him, saying, “I want it tried in
Dallas.” And a third thing could well have been his… I think most people knew the
Citizens Council, as I understood it at that time, hired the Bloom Advertising Agency to
be “involved in” quote the Ruby trial. And as I recall, they had a representative present
during the entire proceedings, and as I recall, had probably many personal conversations
with Judge Brown. And so, that could have been a contributing factor as to why Judge
Brown decided to keep it there—here in Dallas.
Wes: While we’re on that subject, there has been criticism down through
the years that Judge Brown did not have the legal background that would be required of a
high profile, very important case such as this. Do you have any views on that? What was
his legal background? Are you familiar with that?
Phil: (shaking head) I don’t know where he went to school.
Wes: Uh-huh, right.
Phil: He was, I think, justice of the peace and then became county judge
for a number of years, and then they created a special district court, the legislature did.
And he was appointed to that. That later became… by changing legislature to Criminal
District Court No. 3. and he continued as judge of that.
Wes: As far as his conduct of the case, did you… would you classify it
as an attorney—good, bad?
Phil: I don’t want to be critical of Judge Brown. I can tell you that he…
at that time, there was a series of books put out by the state called Texas Criminal
Reports, and they reported all the criminal cases from the Court of Criminal Appeals.
But there’s also a commercial company called West Publishing, which is still in existence
and publishes most of the cases throughout the country in what’s called Southwest
Reporter, Pacific Reporter. Here on the O. J. Simpson deal, they refer to the Pacific
West Reporters. I think they’re nationwide now and have a more or less monopoly on
publishing cases. They’re also into the computer business with Westlaw, which there’s
27
only one or two competitors. But at any rate, the state furnished each of the district
judges copies of the Texas Criminal Reporters, and Judge Brown asked me one day if I
wanted his set.
Wes: This was during the trial?
Phil: No, before the trial.
Wes: Before the trial?
Phil: And I said, “Sure.” And so, I had my own little library at the
house of Judge Brown’s books (Wes chuckles in background) that… (smiling). He was
not what other judges considered to be a learned in the law. I mean, like Henry King was
really a… he studied the law. In that Hackathorn (?) case I mentioned to you earlier, in
the court’s charge, written charge, to the jury, every paragraph in his charge, as a result of
my research, had come from a case that had been approved by the Court of Criminal
Appeals—every paragraph. And it was interesting, during the course of the trial… jury
selection, as well as the trial…
Wes: You’re talking about the Hackathorn (?) trial?
Wes: No, you’re talking about the Ruby trial!
Phil: I’m getting back to the Ruby trial.
Wes: OK.
Phil: Henry King tried the Hackathorn (?) trial.
Wes: Yeah, right, but now you’re back to Joe B. Brown and the Ruby
trial.
Wes: OK.
Phil: (1:10:57) Jim Bowie, who was first assistant, was a… not only one of the
nicest guys in the world, but he was also well learned in the law. And it was interesting
that during the Ruby case that one of the other prosecutors—maybe Mr. Alexander or Mr.
Wade himself—would make some objection to something that we were doing, a question
we asked. And if we asked the question and Judge Brown overruled it, Bowie would
stand up (shaking head) two hundred times during the course of the trial, knowing that
that was the wrong ruling and that that might cause a new trial. And Jim Bowie would
stand up and say, “Now, Judge, if what they’re really asking is such-and-such and such-
28
and-such, then I think the court should sustain their objection.” In other words, he was
curing error during the whole trial (shaking head).
Wes: Isn’t that unusual?
Phil: Oh, yes. Highly unusual.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: And as a young quote “appellant expert,” I noticed that more

probably than anybody else did…
Phil: …because I could see that he was protecting the record so that if
there was in fact an… well, I don’t anybody didn’t think there was going to be a
conviction when eleven out of the twelve jurors actually witnessed on television live and
the other one saw a rerun. I mean, (chuckling) I did receive a pamphlet from some
preacher in California who claimed that Jack had an alibi, and we didn’t pursue that
(smiling and Wes chuckles in background). And…
Wes: Well, I was going to ask you, how do you try a case when millions
of people have seen the shooting on television?
Phil: You just work on the punishment aspect.
Wes: Uh-huh. Well, I’m going to get to the psychomotor epilepsy and
so forth and so on in a minute, but let’s come back to you and Belli and Tonahill.
Phil: Sam Brody was also involved early on until some famous beautiful
actress—not Marilyn Monroe—was killed in an automobile accident over in Louisiana.
Bob: Jayne Mansfield?
Wes: Jayne Mansfield?
Phil: Jayne Mansfield. And she was in a car with Sam Brody when they
had the accident, and Sam was one of the two that was with Belli that interviewed me and
hired me and participated in the early stages but did not participate in the actual trial.
And then I think it was maybe even during the trial that this accident happened or right
before, right after, something.
Bob: Would it be fair to say that the people that were so anxious to have
the trial in Dallas were thinking that, you know, if we punished him here, that somehow
would absolve the city?
29
Phil: (nodding) Yes, yes.
Bob: Uh-huh.
Wes: You are convinced of that?
Phil: (to Wes) I’m sorry?
Wes: I say, you are convinced of that?
Wes: Bob’s point. How did you all get along together? Let’s go back to
just the three of you, right, since Brody was out of it fairly… how did you work together?
Can you recall any incidents of either tempers flaring or…?
Phil: No, I think we worked pretty well together. We… Mel was the
lead. He delegated what should be done. I participated in taking some jurors during the
voir dire examination. The ones I didn’t particularly like was that we normally quit about
5:00 or 5:30, and he’d say to me at 2:30, “Take this next one and keep him all the rest of
the day.” And it’s hard (chuckling) to ask a prospective juror for two and a half/three
hours questions.
Wes: Why did he want you to keep him on the rest of the day?
Phil: Various reasons.
Wes: I see.
Phil: More strategy.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: But otherwise, I participated not as fully as he and Tonahill, but…

and I put on some of the witnesses. I cross-examined some of the witnesses, and I put on
some of the witnesses. I did all of the objection to the charge. I made the opening
argument to the jury, and as you may or may not recall, the jury didn’t get the final
instructions from the judge until well after midnight…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …when we later attempted to prove that from a

medical/scientific/psychological standpoint that they were unable to comprehend
arguments and the court’s charge after such a long period of time of being in trial that day
and all night and past midnight.
30
Wes: Uh-huh. OK. Let’s go to Ruby and his association with you three.
Who did most the contact work—for want of a better term—with Jack?
Phil: I did.
Wes: You did? (Phil nods) How… what was his demeanor? Did you
see the mental problems coming along that developed later on?
Phil: (1:16:37) (nodding) Yes. Jack was… particularly during the selection of the
jury when prospective jurors were being asked, “Can you give this man the death
penalty?” This so-called feeling of being a hero and people being asked, “Can you sit on
a jury and give Jack Ruby the death penalty?” I can… I’m not sure I saw it so much at
that time as I did later the change in his mental attitude, and nearly every day—and that
may be a slight exaggeration—but nearly every day after court, Mel would ask that I go
up and visit with Jack in jail because they would take him immediately after court to jail
and talk with him, explain what happened today, and what we’re doing otherwise.
Occasionally, he and/or Belli or Tonahill and I would go up, but that might be just once a
week, and… where I was up there probably three or four times a week. I was here on
weekends where sometimes they were… went back to their respective city of Jasper and
San Francisco. So, I had, by far, the most contact personally with Jack.
Wes: What was your feeling during those days? What was the man like?
Phil: Well, naturally, (chuckling) he was becoming concerned that he

wasn’t… that he was going to be convicted and that he might be given the death penalty.
I mean, it wasn’t something that snapped on him. It was something that kind of grew on
him, and that’s when he started… I recall during the trial, there were times that he would
write—some witness would testify to something, and he’s say, “Oh, I sure want to get on
the stand to prove that that’s not true.” And then, other things would happen during the
course of the trial, and he’d write a note to me saying—I say “to me,” to… I usually
ended up with them—that he doesn’t want to testify. And it… he became erratic. It was
worse after the sentence during the course of the appeal. He was of the opinion the Jews
were being killed by the thousands, and…
Wes: Did he express this to you personally?
Phil: Oh, yeah.
Wes: He did?
Phil: Oh, yeah. Or last night, he saw… he was not in a cell. He was in
an open portion between cells—kind of a walkway where he was isolated from the other
prisoners. And from that location, you could see down several floors. And I would go
see him—again, this is after the verdict—and he said, “I saw ‘em kill Earl last night.”
And I said, “No, they didn’t kill Earl.” “Yeah, I saw them kill him.” And I’d get on the
31
telephone and get Earl on the telephone, and he’d talk to Earl and they’d talk about things
that only he and Earl would know about. He’d hang up and said, “That wasn’t Earl.”
Wes: Was his mental condition at all tied into his physical condition at
that stage, or did you…?
Phil: (1:20:50) No, physically, he was in good shape. I don’t recall him having
any physical problem until right when he had that… was taken to the hospital right before
he died. And by that time, he had pretty well given up on living because here, they’d
given him the death penalty. It did get reversed. It was going to be transferred to
Wichita Falls. They were going to seek the death penalty again, and he’s no longer a
hero. He had really lost his mind, quite frankly. Wasn’t coherent. Was writing all types
of letters to people, saying that…
Wes: This is after the verdict?
Phil: Yes.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: Although this progressed during the trial but got really bad after
the verdict when all he had to do was… I mean, at least during the trial he was in court
and things were happening. After that, he was just sitting.
Wes: Yeah.
Phil: And…
Wes: What did the letters say?
Phil: I don’t know that I know what all of them said, but primarily, it
was the theme that President Johnson was involved in the killing of President Kennedy.
And that was the one thing I recall that people told me that he wrote. He told me that.
And that’s the reason that after he died, then that deputy sheriff wanted to admit
something—a Bible signed by Jack or a watch or something—to probate that we had a
two and a half day hearing on Jack’s competency while he was in jail, and the judge, after
two and half days, ruled that Jack was incompetent to make this will and therefore, did
not allow this deputy sheriff to get the watch or Bible or whatever it was.
Wes: Uh-huh. How…
Bob: The conversations during the trial when you’d go almost daily to
the cell with him, were these really kind of two-way things or was you just kind of
telling… going over, “Jack…” what happened that day and he was kind of listening to
you? Or…
32
Phil: Not really. He would want to know what was happening. I mean,
what… why did that witness say this? And what are we doing about that? And how are
we going to handle this? He was somewhat… I’ve had many more clients since then who
have been much more involved in what was going on during the course of trial than Jack
was, but he was not just mute. But my job was just to basically have contact with him.
Bob: Well, you mentioned Earl Ruby as being the one who contacted
Belli and then Earl Ruby later in the phone conversations. In this period during the trial,
where was Earl Ruby and what kind of contact did you have?
Phil: That was after the trial that Jack was having the conversations with
Earl when he would tell me he saw Earl get killed last night.
Bob: Yeah, I know. I mean that… but I’m sort of… where was Earl
during the trial period? Was he…?
Wes: Was he in Chicago or was it…?
Phil: Detroit, wasn’t it?
Bob: Was he? Yeah. But he… his presence was not very strong at
that… during the trial phase?
Phil: (shaking head) No, no.
Bob: OK.
Phil: I’m trying to think. Eva Grant, who, by the way, is now dead…
Bob: Jack’s sister, yes.
Phil: Yes… spent a great deal of time in my office, but again, I think
that was after the trial.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: I mean, she would just literally be there for hours and would also
want me to…
Bob: Yeah, describe her a little bit, if you will, for us. We haven’t
gotten anybody to do that for us.
Phil: (to Bob) I’m sorry?
Wes: Eva Grant.

33
Bob: Describe her for us a little bit, if you can. What…
Wes: The sister.
Bob: How did her personality compare with, say, Jack’s or…?
Phil: (1:25:30) Apparently, Eva had been married. As far as I know, she had no
children. She loved her brother, Jack, and again, my main contact with her, as I recall,
came after the verdict where she would come to the office about hearing all sorts of
things and wanting me to answer them or wanting me to get a message to Jack. Just
constantly on the phone. She was extremely emotional about… she was an extremely
emotional person anyway, but she was extremely emotional about her brother’s plight.
She literally, I guess, was in my office for an hour or two two to three to four days a
week.
Wes: Wouldn’t this hurt in the conduct that… of the trial on your part?
Wouldn’t this… wouldn’t this distract you from your case, is what I’m trying to say?
Phil: Yeah, that’s why I’m saying most of this stuff happened…
Bob: This was afterward.
Wes: Yeah.
Phil: …after the verdict.
Wes: Oh, I see. Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Phil: Seeing a client in jail who’s being held without bond after court
day is not unusual…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …but it was usually the lead attorney would be the one who went
to see the person—the client. And Belli just delegated that to me, so that he could do
other things. And I don’t say that’s wrong.
Wes: Well, did Jack Ruby resent that, or did he express any…?
Phil: I don’t… I don’t recall him…
Wes: No expressing…
Phil: I’m sure he… I’m sure he asked me many questions, what Belli
thought about things.
34
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: What Belli was doing.
Wes: How did he feel about this psychomotor epilepsy? And how did
you feel about the psychomotor epilepsy? And in layman’s terms, explain what that was
and how Belli came about that.
Phil: Well, it was a malfunction of the brain that we had a psychiatrist

who testified that he had this malfunction. Psychomotor epilepsy is Bill Alexander’s—
assistant district attorney at the time—that was his description of what it was.
Wes: Oh, that was not Belli’s description of it?
Wes: What did Belli call it?
Phil: It was a psychomotor dysfunction, and it was a… it had to do with

the brainwaves, in that… and we had scientific evidence from both locally and national
doctors that backed up that there can be this type of function. And we had testing done of
Jack out of the jail. I think it was at the old Parkland Hospital over off Oak Lawn, and
there was evidence of he… his brain having this malfunction—whether or not that
malfunction was sufficient to have triggered him to do a shooting was the real question.
Wes: Sure.
Phil: And…
Wes: Did you feel you proved that?
Phil: (shaking head) No, I don’t think…
Wes: Did you agree with that strategy or… was there agreement among
the three attorneys?
Phil: I’m not sure that I had much input into it. It was about the only
thing we had to go on.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: (1:29:41) After the trial, as… to jump way ahead, Belli was out of the case.
Tonahill was out of the case. I had been now court appointed as lead counsel for the
retrial in Wichita Falls, and my argument was going to be murder without malice, which
under the law at that time meant was that he acted in the heat of sudden passion. And the
maximum sentence at that time—and we don’t have murder without malice today in
35
Texas—but at that time, if you could prove that someone acted under the heat of sudden
passion in the killing, the maximum was five years, and Jack had already… by that time
would have served three and a half, four years and been released. And so, I was going to
argue temporary insanity as opposed to relying upon the scientific nerve… or disease of
the brain.
Wes: Do you feel he could have had a better trial—a better trial in his
favor, I mean—if that strategy had been used in looking back on it?
Wes: Why not?
Phil: I don’t think that Jack could’ve gotten a fair trial in Dallas at that
time under any circumstances.
Wes: But could he have gotten a fair trial anywhere?
Phil: Yeah, he could have in Loving County.
Wes: Why Loving County?
Phil: (smiling) They didn’t have a television station there.
Wes: (chuckling) Where is Loving County?
Phil: (smiling) Out in West Texas.
Wes: (chuckling) OK. Now, are you being serious, or are you…?
Phil: (smiling and nodding) Yes.
Wes: Yeah, you really are being serious?
Phil: We researched it…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …and Loving County probably had, as I recall at that time,

probably 8,000 people, did not have access to TV, probably at best, as I recall, may have
had a weekly newspaper in one of the towns. And we pointed that out to the court, but
most things we pointed out to the court fell on deaf ears.
Wes: You’ve hit on the mood swings of Jack Ruby during the trial and
after the trial, but during the trial, did he ever feel like it was going in his favor or did you
all ever…?
36
Wes: You never thought it was going… did you try to level with him on
that?
Phil: Sure.
Wes: That it’s not going in your favor or…
Phil: Sure.
Wes: Uh-huh. How… what was his reaction? Emotional or was it…?
Phil: Well, it just depressed him more and got him more into this
psychotic state.
Wes: But you had to tell him the truth, and you had to tell him exactly
where the situation stood?
Phil: Well, he was there. He saw it even though he was beginning to

become more psychotic. You know, he’d say, “Well, did that testimony hurt?” And I
said, “Sure.”
Wes: Uh-huh. Did you have any incidents of wiretapping or of people

following you or tailing you or anything like…?
Phil: (smiling) Yes.
Wes: Tell us about that.
Phil: (1:32:47) Before trial, one of the things that Belli would do would… he’d
call me and we’d want to talk about something, and he would make, at the very beginning
at the conversation, make some comments that so-and-so was sleeping with so-and-so’s
wife and—all of them being public officials or public figures—and that so-and-so and so-
and-so were doing such-and-such. And then he’d say, “Now that we’ve given the FBI
something to think about, here’s what I called you about” (smiling and Wes chuckles in
background). Yes, we were followed. Judge Zimmerman was an assistant district
attorney at the time—not one of the counsel at the table—and he later told me that he
followed me to Love Field to pick up one of our psychiatrists that came in. Not too long
ago, within the last six, eight months, a former investigator for the district attorney’s
office who’s now retired, I ran into him, and he told me that he followed Belli and I to
some motel in Fort Worth. And I have no recollection of why we went to a motel, but I
guess to talk to a witness. But during the course of the trial, we knew we were being
followed. And one day, Belli asked me to go back to the hotel and get a book or
document or something where we were using his room as our headquarters, and I knew
37
who the police officers were and I went over to him, this one particular police officer, and
I said, “I know you’re following me, so why don’t you just take me up to the hotel
instead of us both taking cars because I’ve got to go to the room, pick up something, and
come right back to court.” And he did (smiling).
Wes: (laughing) Was this somebody you knew on the police force?
(Wes makes an additional indecipherable comment)
Phil: (nodding) Yeah.
Bob: The agencies involved were, what, the police, the district
attorney’s office, and the FBI?
Phil: The FBI did not surface as such.
Bob: This was Belli’s comment?
Phil: That… (nodding) Yeah.
Bob: Yeah.
Wes: Well, who do you think principally was tailing you or…?
Phil: (1:35:20) The Dallas Police and the Dallas District Attorney’s office. I
would not be surprised that our phones were tapped. I think at that time with the country
not knowing who was involved in the killing of our president… I don’t know that there
was any authorization at that time statutorily or court-wise that would allow it, but it
wouldn’t surprise me that our phones were tapped in the outside event that a foreign
country, the mafia, or whoever—but primarily a foreign country—was responsible for the
killing of the president and that we had some quote “knowledge” of it as attorneys for the
person who a lot of people at that time thought were connected—that is, Oswald and
Ruby. A lot of people thought at that time that Ruby was hired to kill Oswald, and that’s
one of the most important points I’d like really to make.
Wes: This is the theory you were talking about?
Phil: (nodding) This is the theory.
Bob: Yeah, a lot of people in 1995 when we’re doing this still believe
this. OK, go ahead.
Phil: I happen to be an animal lover. I wouldn’t shoot a deer, a rabbit.

I’ve picked up stray animals at night and take ‘em to vets. I’ve got… my wife and I have
three cats and one dog. Until about a month and a half ago, we had four cats and two
dogs, and I just happen to be an animal lover. Well, on the Sunday of the shooting… let
me back up. Jack was an animal lover. Jack had never married. He had a girlfriend, but
38
he had a couple of dogs. But he had one named Sheba who was particularly he was close
to. On that Sunday morning, Jack got the call from the stripper that worked for him,
Little Lynn from Fort Worth, needing, I think, $20 or $25 to pay her rent or she was
going to be kicked out. She was pregnant. And so, Jack said that he would wire her the
money. At that time, the only two locations that I knew of that you could wire from
were… one was in Oak Cliff and one was in the same block as the police station and the
courts building where they were holding Lee Harvey Oswald before transferring him to
the Dallas County Jail. Testimony was—and I think it was uncontroverted—that Jack got
dressed, and to digress again for a moment, Jack carried a pistol. And at that time, the
reason he carried a pistol, he had some Internal Revenue lends against him, and so he
didn’t have checking accounts because otherwise, they could levy on that. So, he carried
his entire payroll and everything else in cash on him. And I could tell you from
representing other people during that period of time that were in the restaurant business,
for example, that didn’t close 8:00 or 9:00, they carried a pistol because they carried their
money home. There was not the utilization of night depositories that we now know of
that are frequently used. That just wasn’t in use and existence in the early ‘60s.
Wes: But Jack wouldn’t of done that anyway because of the leans on
him, right?
Phil: But, well, Jack couldn’t afford…
Wes: That’s what I mean.
Phil: …to deposit it.
Wes: Yeah, uh-huh.
Phil: (1:40:03) But I was saying that I know other people who were in the
restaurant business that did deposit money, but they would take it home at night with
them. And they carried a pistol.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: And I know frequently, some of the ones that I knew—either I

represented or just knew—said, “Isn’t there any way you can get a license in Texas to
carry a pistol?” And I said, “No.” And to this date, there is no way you can get a license
to carry a pistol unless you’re involved in law enforcement. So, Jack having a pistol on
him that morning was just like you and I wearing a tie. I mean, it was just part of his…
the way he was. He wore a hat. He wore a shirt, a tie, and a pistol.
Wes: Usually his full suit? A full suit of clothes, right?
Phil: Yeah, I mean, that was just part of him.
Wes: Right, uh-huh.

39
Phil: And so, that’s the reason he had the pistol that morning because it
was just the normal thing to do. You get up, you shave, you get dressed, you put your
pistol… and you go about your business. And when he left, he took Sheba with him in
the car and parked the car across the street from the Western Union, waited in line.
Didn’t try to get in front of somebody. There was one or two other people in front of
him. As I recall, the time was 11:17 that he wired this money to Little Lynn in Fort
Worth, and I believe the shooting was, like, at 11:21 or 11:22. And he left Sheba in the
car and walked across the street. After he wired it, he walked out and he looked down
and in the same block was the police station and this big van that I told you I saw on
Saturday night. And he saw a lot of activity down there, and out of curiosity, he walked
down there. As he was getting… there was one policeman on the Main Street side that
was keeping people out. The armored truck I was telling you about was coming in from
the Commerce Street side, and a police car wanted to come out that had, as far as I know,
no relationship to the case… wanted to come out on Main Street, which is a two-way
street. Most police officers, when they left the police department, went out the way the
armored car was because that was a one-way street. And this officer coming out in the
police car wanted to turn left, which would have been across traffic. So, the guy who was
guarding the people from going down this ramp on the Main Street side walked out into
the middle of the street to stop the traffic. At that precise moment—and nobody knew
when they were going to transfer Oswald—at that precise moment, Jack walked down the
ramp because the guard was out in the middle of the street letting another police officer
out. And we know that the Dallas Police department on over two hundred occasions
walked the distance from the Western Union to the site of the shooting at various paces,
and it all took about four minutes was about the average, which was the average… I
mean, was the time from stamped on the money order and the time of the shooting. So,
Jack was there less than a minute when they brought Oswald out. And he is so enraged
about the ad in the paper on Friday, which had the black border which signified death and
was signed by a Jewish name, which later turned out to be false which he didn’t know at
that point. There was a billboard that he was aware of about “Impeach Earl Warren” on
Central Expressway, and Earl Warren at… was given credit for being a liberal judge, and
I think Jack was sort of liberal. And he had… was… he had known from the news
reports that Jacqueline was going to have to come back and testify in the Oswald trial,
and that upset him. During the time after Oswald was arrested, he was at a news
conference where Oswald was and Henry Wade was, and Jack was on the telephone at
the… after the news conference with somebody from KLIF, which at that time had like,
what, 98% of the listening audience. And Henry walked by and—where Jack was on the
phone—and Jack asked this reporter, whoever he was talking to, “Would you like to talk
to Henry Wade?” And the guy said, “Yeah.” So, “Mr. Wade, would you talk to this guy
from KLIF,” and he said, “Sure.” And what Jack could hear was that we have the right
person that killed the president, we going to try him, and we’re going to give him the
death penalty. Jack also, on one night—I think it was Saturday night. It might have been
Friday night—went to Phil’s Delicatessen and bought, like, $85/90 worth of food—and at
that time, that was a lot of food—and took it up to the police department and gave it to
the officers because they’d been working around the clock so to speak. He was a police
buff. So, I digress to…
40
Wes: Make your point.
Phil: (1:46:54) …make two or three or four points, and the point simply is, if he
had known that he was going down there to shoot Oswald, he would be arrested, he
would know. He would not have taken that dog with him and left it in the car because
that was his child. And that is… if you are an animal lover or if you just believe in logic,
you would not take your child someplace where that child would be left in a car while
you were being put in jail. And I just happen… (taking the book, The Ruby Oswald
Affair by Alan Adelson, off of desk) Here’s a… I don’t know if you can…
Bob: Yeah.
Phil: (holding up book open to photograph of Jack with his dogs) Pick
it up.
Wes: Yeah, uh-huh.
Phil: But here is a… one of the books that have been written, and it
shows the picture of…
Bob: Huh, yeah.
Phil: …Jack with two of his dogs, one of which was Sheba.
Wes: Do you know which one by chance? Which one was Sheba, or
does it say there?
Phil: (turning book around to examine photograph) Yeah, I think it was

the one on the right. But…
Wes: Well, show it again to the camera, if you will (Phil turns the book
around to show photograph). (to Bob) How are we doing on time on the tape, Bob?
Bob: We have twelve minutes more minutes on the tape. We’re going
to have to change.
Wes: Yeah, we may change. We may change in a little bit, but…
Phil: (holding up book) But the point I think is that that dispels any
conspiracy theory that Jack was hired to kill Oswald because no one—and Jack was
quote “in his right mind” at that time—would take their child. (putting book down on
desk) I mean, he… he believed that Sheba and his dogs that he had from time to time
were his children (phone rings).

41
Phil: Would take them (phone rings) and leave them in the car knowing
he’s going to go to jail.
Wes: (referring to phone) Do you need to catch that?
Phil: Yeah.
Bob: (referring to phone) You want to pick that up, or…? And we can
stop.
Wes: Why don’t we go ahead and stop, and we can go ahead…
<break in tape>
Phil: (1:48:50) (holding up book, The Ruby Oswald Affair by Alan Adelson, open
to photograph of Jack with dogs) After answering my telephone… the picture I showed
you. This is Sheba (pointing to dog in photograph) on Jack’s left, and Sheba was the one
that was left in the car.
Wes: Yeah.
Bob: Also, your photograph is on the back of that book, correct? Is that
the one…?
Phil: (glancing at back cover of book) For some reason or other, they
opted to have a photograph of me when I was very young (holding up back cover of
book)
Bob: This was outside the courtroom or where…?
Phil: No, it was while Jack was in jail.
Bob: In jail.
Phil: Jack was never outside the courtroom.
Bob: Oh, OK.
Phil: (putting book down on the desk) Except when he went to the
hospital.
Bob: OK.
Wes: Then, what you’re saying—in summation—you don’t think there

is any possibility whatsoever of any kind of a connection, nor any kind of a conspiracy…
42
Wes: …involving the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby?
Phil: (shaking head) No, none whatever.
Wes: You’re absolutely convinced of that?
Phil: I am absolutely convinced.
Wes: Nothing… nothing he ever said to you or in your presence ever…

(Phil shakes head) According to Joe Tonahill, late in ’63 or early ’64, Ruby said—and
I’m quoting this—“Joe, you should know this, Tom Howard told me to say I shot Oswald
so Jackie wouldn’t have to testify. OK?” Do you anything about that? You know that,
or are you familiar with that quote?
Bob: Well…
Phil: No, I did mention earlier that…
Bob: …he mentioned earlier that that was one of the reasons.
Phil: …was one of the reasons Jack told me that he’d… was so… There
was no reason that he shot Oswald.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: There were numerous reasons. They didn’t… it may well be that
somebody told him to say that.
Wes: I see.
Phil: I did… I do recall him telling me that that was one of the reasons
that… one of the many reasons…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …complex reasons—the ad in the paper, the “Impeach Earl

Warren”… He recalled and I recall seeing a picture right before the president came here
of little John John sitting underneath the president’s desk…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …playing down there as the president was working.

43
Wes: So, there were many instances… (remainder of phrase

indecipherable).
Phil: Just… there were just many things going through Jack’s… as he
told me.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: And that was one of them. Whether somebody planted that in his
mind ahead of time, I don’t know.
Bob: Well, one interview we did and why I asked you about Eva Grant
particularly was it was suggested that she probably had initially more of an emotional and
perhaps had been talking to Jack over that weekend. Were you aware of that? Had that
ever come up in conversation?
Phil: No, I think that’s probably true. Eva had, as I recall, had had an
operation—a serious operation or semi-serious operation—shortly before this, and that
did not contribute to her stability because she was very emotional. And she and Jack got
along well, but they fought like brothers and sisters do—particularly two emotional
people. And Eva could have said many things to Jack over that weekend, and my
recollection is they did have contact because of Jack’s concern for Eva because of her
recent surgery. And there’s no telling what Eva would have said. I don’t think you
would… you could classify her as being insane, but…
Wes: But they were emotional-type people?
Phil: (shaking head) Oh, very emotional.
Wes: Yeah. Are you familiar with a 1964 lie detector test on Jack Ruby?
One of the questions that one of our researchers asked was, were audio recordings made
of that lie detector test? And if so, where would they be? Do you know anything about
it?
Phil: No, I don’t know anything about it.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: I know there was some audio taken.
Wes: Now, there was some taken on… at his… on his deathbed at
Parkland Hospital, right?
Phil: (nodding) Right. Yes. Over my objection, by the way.

44
Wes: What was your objection, and what was the nature of the
recording?
Phil: (1:52:53) The… my objection was that I knew the sheriff didn’t… would not
want that and that anything the sheriff didn’t want, I didn’t want.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: And… and the guy who happens to be involved in some way in
either one of the books involving O. J. Simpson was the guy that instigated it.
Wes: Huh.
Phil: I’ve forgotten what his name is.
Wes: How did he get permission to do that?
Phil: He got Earl to do it.
Wes: Oh, I see. Earl, the… Jack Ruby’s brother, actually made the
recording.
Phil: Right.
Wes: Was… well, at that time, Jack was… had very serious mental
problems.
Phil: (shaking head) At that point, he was totally out of it.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: I mean, this is after these many, many, many months of him seeing
Earl being killed and Eva being killed and hundreds of Jews being killed and that
Johnson was involved in the assassination of the president, and Wes, I can’t even
remember all of the accusations that he made during that period of time.
Phil: And yes, when he was… when he was in the hospital, I remember
I was at a party and got called that he was taken to the hospital. And I left the party, and I
remember that my wife got mad. But when he was in the hospital, he was a basket case
at that point. He had no desire to live, and that’s the reason he died so quick.
Wes: Uh-huh.
45
Phil: “Why should I live? I’m going to be tried in Wichita Falls in a

couple weeks or a month or so, and I’m going to get the death penalty again. And why
should I live?”
Wes: Uh-huh. One of the quotes that was given us here was—and this
was from a hearing on September 9, 1965—but you said by that time, he was in bad
shape, right?
Phil: Sure.
Wes: Well, this quote is, “The world will never know the facts
pertaining to my circumstances. The people involved were in such a position to never let
the true facts come above board to the world.” Unquote. Do you know what he was
talking about, or do you think that was just…?
Phil: (1:55:04) (shaking head) No, but that reminds me… you asked before we
started when’s the last time I talked to Belli, and I told you it was three or four years ago
where we had the teleconferencing deal with some court reporters in New York. Mel was
in San Francisco, and I was here in Dallas and we talked about the Ruby trial. When…
you will recall that Chief Justice Warren and some other members maybe of the Warren
Commission came to Dallas and talked to Jack. I happened to be in Mexico on vacation
at that time, and Belli… I don’t know if Belli was there or not, but from what he said on
this teleconferencing, apparently he was. He said that when the Chief Justice was there,
he said, “Mr. Chief Justice, if you’ll give me some…” whatever it took at that time—
dimes or nickels—to make some telephone calls, “…I will put you in touch with some
people or get you some information from people that will be very interesting to you in
your investigation.” And so, the coins were produced, and Jack made some telephone
calls, according to Belli, to people in… this is… I don’t recall who he said, but it was
people like the governor of Colorado. And apparently, the governor accepted the call
from Jack Ruby, and then all they talked about was the weather and various minute things
that had nothing whatsoever to do with the assassination. And…
Wes: This was all in front of the justice?
Phil: (nodding) Chief Justice.
Wes: The Chief Justice?
Phil: And he made about three different calls like that, and at that time,
they quit giving him coins because he wasn’t shedding any light upon anything. He was
just… and again, that goes to his mental state.
Wes: Yeah. Speaking of the Warren Commission, what is your feeling

on the Warren Commission’s Report and the conduct of the FBI, Secret Service, and
Dallas Police during this whole thing. But right now, the Warren Commission—how did
you feel about…?
46
Phil: I think it is substantially correct. I think there, because of the

quickness, there probably is some minor errors in it. I have a copy of it. I have not read
it all. I did read a lot of it back at that time, but substantially, I think it’s correct. I think
the conclusion is correct. They may have some facts that are not exactly correct, but they
don’t affect the conclusion.
Wes: Some people have suggested that if they had gone more deeply
into Ruby’s connections with organized crime that it might have found something—well,
whatever—of importance. Do you feel that?
Phil: No. I think that…
Wes: What were his connections to organized crime?
Phil: The best I know is that it was more talk of him trying to be
important, saying and probably maybe having met somebody that was involved in it.
Taking the mere chance meeting to being friends when in fact, it was not that. In my
conversations with him, there was never any reference to that. And I would say that even
before he became incapacitated in jail—even while he was on the streets—he was not the
most normal person, and it would seem to me that any foreign country, any mafia, would
not want to entrust their trust in someone as unstable as Jack was, even before this
happened. Jack just wasn’t a stable person.
Wes: Uh-huh. Phil, you have… (Bob begins to speak) Oh, go ahead,
Bob.
Bob: Oh, I’m sorry. (to Phil) Well, what about the connection between
Jack and Oswald. Some of Jack’s ex-employees, you know, have said that they’d seen
Oswald in the Carousel and stuff like this. Did you all ever talk about that? Was…
Phil: (nodding) Yeah, he did not know him. I know that they tried to
make a point that they both lived in Oak Cliff. Well, hell, I lived in Oak Cliff. Judge
Brown lived in Oak Cliff. As a matter of fact, there was some question as to… as I…
and I don’t remember much of the details, but they both had a post office box at the same
old Union Station post office. And as I recall, we determined that Jack didn’t have one.
But if he did, there was no connection between it. There was a lawyer, by the way, who
did say that he saw Oswald at the Carousel talking to Jack. That lawyer later, totally
unconnected with this—but you can’t convince the people of conspiracy mind—totally
unconnected with this, was found insane and sent to Terrell. And he was insane. I knew
him. He was a little crazy, and he got worse but… but no, the conspiracy buffs are going
to say, “Well, that’s part of the conspiracy.” That he put Oswald and Jack together, and
so the quote “mafia,” establishment, or what… whoever’s running this conspiracy caused
this guy to be found to be incompetent and… to affect his credibility. I don’t go to
movies very often, but I went to see JFK because my in-laws wanted me to and wanted
me to comment on it. And I would say that it is the greatest travesty that has been put
47
upon the American people. I would also say it was one of the best done movies that I
have seen in the sense that they would do the flashbacks and do the… and then come
back to the script—the so-called Garrison… I call it the Garrison script. And as far as
being from a technical standpoint, I thought it was excellent. From a factual standpoint, I
thought it had no merit whatsoever. We, at the time… we, back at the time, felt like
Garrison was a little off his rocker, and to some degree, the movie did show that. But the
majority of the people that saw that movie were not even alive at the time of the
assassination and the killing of Oswald, and to believe the JFK theory, you’ve got to have
everybody from the president to the Army to the Navy to the Marine Corps, the FBI, the
Secret Service, Henry Wade, the Dallas Police department all in a conspiracy. And my
experience is that a conspiracy is two or more people acting together to do an unlawful
act. That they’re very few conspiracies that involve multi people, and that would have
involved multi people. That somebody wouldn’t have come forward at some point with
some credible evidence that they were part of a conspiracy involving hundreds or
thousands of people.
Wes: Or if not the person, maybe a kin of the person or that might have
heard or whatever.
Phil: (shaking head) Or something.
Wes: What about the…
Bob: What about the movie, Ruby, which not too many people did see,
which followed JFK just by a few months? Did you…
Phil: (shaking head) Oh, that was so distorted.
Wes: Were you consulted on either of these?
Phil: (2:03:39) (smiling) You know, that’s an interesting thing. Both of those
pictures were made here, and here I was involved with Jack Ruby from the Saturday after
the shooting on Sunday to being a pallbearer to contesting that deputy sheriff’s bequest—
alleged bequest—of a Bible or whatever it was from Jack, and I’m here in Dallas,
reasonably well known, and not one person from either of those film companies called
me to ask me how to spell my name or—my name wasn’t involved—not one question.
Wes: For research or whatever. What about the authors of the various
books?
Phil: Some of them did, particularly some of the early writers, but most
of them didn’t. And the same was… you know, it was interesting in they had a recent
show of the Cullen Davis case, which I was co-lead counsel with Richard “Racehorse”
Haynes, and it… We were not contacted by the production company, but I was contacted
by the son-in-law of our chief justice of the Northern District of Texas Federal Courts.
Jerry Buckmier’s (?) son-in-law was going to play a very small part. And when I saw the
48
movie, it was a very small part (chuckling). But he wanted… the son-in-law wanted to
know what I knew about this particular person, and he did call me and we had a twenty
minute conversation on the phone. And I think they showed him once or twice on… in…
during the movie. But wasn’t contacted by anybody connected with that.
Wes: Huh.
Phil: (2:05:43) You may or may not recall, Wes, that Darryl Cain, the Dallas
Police officer who was accused and did shoot Santos Rodriguez, allegedly playing
Russian roulette with him trying to get him to confess to a burglary of a service station.
And Darryl’s position was that he did point the gun at his head, but he thought the gun
was empty. The problem was that it was a type of pistol that had an oversized grip and
when you pressed the plunger, sometimes one or two bullets would stay in the chamber.
About a year and a half, two years ago, some Mexican American or Hispanic person
wrote a screenplay… I mean, a play called Santos, and it was shown here in Dallas. And
I learned about it and decided to go see it and did go see it. And the theme really was not
so much about the trial or the killing, but it was that Hispanics should get more involved
in civic involvement. They should get better educated. They should make sure that they
get as much education as they can, not only in high school level but into the college. And
that was the real theme, but there was some portion about the trial in it. And I was not
consulted about that ahead of time either (smiling), but the point is is that… and it was
more accurate, in my opinion, by far as to the trial aspect and the killing aspect than
either Jack Ruby, the movie, or JFK…
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: …or the most recent one on Cullen Davis. The editor from—this
is just an aside—but the editor for the Dallas News, entertainment editor, called me
afterwards… after I saw it and asked me what I thought about it, and I—because they did
have a character named “Phil Burleson” acting in it—and I said I knew it wasn’t me
because he didn’t wear boots and blue clothing (Wes chuckles in background) because
that’s all I wear is boots (smiling) and anything that’s blue (Wes laughs in background).
But I did also tell him and later the author wrote or author wrote… called me, and I told
him that I thought he did a good job and that it was more accurate than some of the others
that I had personal knowledge of.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: Than… but the interesting thing is that the filmmakers don’t want
to know what the truth is. They want to sell a movie.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: They want to engender money, and they don’t want to know what
the facts are.
49
Wes: Phil, I know you have a call and you’ve got an appointment, so
let’s… there are a few windup questions.
Phil: Sure.
Wes: The… after the verdict and I guess before the sentence… I’m not
sure if it was after the sentence—whatever. Melvin Belli…
Phil: They were at the same time.
Wes: Oh, they were? That’s right. They were. They were at the same
time. OK. The… Melvin Belli, as I recall it, got up on a chair or a desk or something
and shouted that Dallas was a “City of Hate” and he wanted to get out of here and get the
stench out of his nostrils. And you have spoken with great affection about Dallas here in
this conversation. What was going through your mind when he was doing that? How did
you react as a Dallasite and a tried and true Texan? How did you react to that?
Phil: (2:09:53) Well, in the first place, I knew in my own mind that Jack was
going to get the death penalty. I didn’t think there was a thing that would stop it. I don’t
recall that Belli got up on a chair or table, but I do recall that… my recollection is that he
made those remarks in his book as he was flying out of Dallas. That that was his
thoughts, but he well could have said them after the trial. And as far as how I was
affected, I could see how he felt that way. I mean, he thought he was going to get a
change of venue. He thought he was… had a legitimate shot at the psychiatric defense.
He worked hard on the case. I mean, we would work in… after I’d get through seeing
Jack, right immediately after I… we’d get together and work that… into the hours, and
then you know, we had a hundred and fifty reporters here. Dorothy Kilgallen was one
that came down for a while. And I would get calls because I wasn’t able to shut off my
phone like you can at a hotel where you can tell them, “Don’t ring room whatever.” I’d
get calls at two and three and four in the morning from some reporter, saying, “I just
came to work and we had this story, and I wanted to verify it.” And I’d say (chuckling),
“Hey, man, I’ve got to get some sleep. I got to be in court at 8:30 in the morning.” But
you know, I understood Belli’s situation. He thought it was unfair to be tried in Dallas,
and he, too, is emotional in the sense that—unlike Jack and Eva—he’s emotional and
outspoken type. But it didn’t surprise me.
Wes: Do you think… this has been conjectured and is strictly theoretical
that you could have… you’ve said that you would have taken his case on to Wichita
Falls, right?
Wes: If… and he had been… if he had been found guilty of—what did
you call it—manslaughter? Or what… what… the five year sentence?
Phil: Murder without malice.

50
Wes: Murder without malice. Could he have come back—and he had

been in good health and so forth—could he have come back to Dallas and the Jack Ruby
Carousel Club been one of the most famous tourist spots in the world?
Phil: (smiling) I’ll tell you, we may find the answer to that in O. J.
Simpson (Bob and Wes chuckle in the background). If O. J…
Wes: Good point.
Phil: My prediction on that, for whatever it’s worth, is about a 75 to

80% chance of a hung jury and a 25… 20 to 25% not guilty and a 0% of guilty.
Wes: Huh.
Phil: And whether or not O. J. can come back to some semblance of

prominence, only the future will tell. And I think that would be the same with Jack Ruby.
He possibly could have convinced people that he was a hero for killing the person who
killed the president. Some segment of the population would believe that. And if he was
found guilty of murder without malice, that meant that he didn’t do it with hatred.
Wes: Uh-huh. There’s no such sentence now, you said, right? Is that
correct?
Phil: Right. We’ve changed the law.
Wes: Yeah, that’s what I meant. Uh-huh, over a period of time.
Phil: (nodding) Yeah, we have.
Bob: And you’ve brought us up to the point where how Jack got into the
police station and that he wouldn’t have left his dog… he wouldn’t have brought his dog
if…
Bob: …it was premeditated in any way. Did he ever tell you, say, he
walked down the ramp and this happened and that’s why I pulled the gun or anything like
this?
Phil: Yeah, he said that when he walked down the ramp and he saw Lee
Harvey Oswald, who was apparently handcuffed like this (holding wrists crossed together
in front of chest) as opposed to like this (holding wrists side-by-side in front of chest),
that that was a Communist sign and that all of these things went through his mind—about
Jackie having to testify and the “Impeach Earl Warren” and the ad in the newspaper with
the black border signed by a Jewish name, and I guess some others that I can’t recall.
51
That just all of a sudden, he had the gun, which was just part of his normal dress, saw this
guy… shot him once, by the way, which is interesting. If… I tried a murder case last
year where a woman shot an ex-boyfriend six times to make sure he was dead. It’s kind
of interesting that Jack was able to shoot Oswald, if he was really there to kill Oswald,
with just one shot. A lot of…
Bob: Well, they grabbed the… they did grab the gun.
Phil: (nodding) Pretty quick.
Bob: Yes.
Phil: (2:15:31) There was one other incident that—I don’t know if you can edit
this out if you want to—but during all of the… there was a situation where Oswald
seemed to look at Jack Ruby and kind of flinch backwards. We proved that that was Ike
Pappas, who now is and then was with some national news… NC…
Wes: Yeah, we’ve done one of our interviews with him.
Bob: Yeah, we’ve done an interview with him.
Phil: That he had a boom mic, and he… and the area, as you see on
television, looks like it’s a big area. But it’s very small. And Ike… Jack was standing
right behind Ike, and Ike stuck the boom mic out to Oswald to ask him, “Did you kill the
president?” or some such statement, and that’s when Oswald did the flinching. And then
immediately after that, all these things going through Jack’s head, he pulls out the pistol
and shoots him. And on the tape, there is the words “son of a bitch,” and some people
construed that to be “I killed the son of a bitch” or “the son of bitch needs to be killed” or
words to… that Jack said that. Well, the person who said it—I won’t mention his
name—was a Dallas Police officer who happened to be a good friend of mine I’d known
from the district attorney’s office, and he was the one who said it—those words. And I
put him on the witness stand, and he sure didn’t like to get on the witness stand (smiling)
and admit that he said those things. But he… we tried to do everything we could to
minimize any malice, although we didn’t argue the lack of malice as such. But we tried
to do everything we could. For instance, the interview that I told you about that Henry
Wade had with the person from KLIF where he said, “We’ve got the right person. We’re
going to give him a fair trial, and he’s going to get the death penalty.” We tried to get
that before the jury, and Judge Brown wouldn’t let it. And we thought that that was
relevant.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: But at any rate, it just… it just didn’t happen, and…
Wes: Uh-huh.
52
Phil: I think Dallas has survived the killing of the president

unfortunately because of killings elsewhere. Of prominent people—Senator Kennedy out
in California and so forth. People have decided that this type of tragedy can happen
anyplace. And I think… so Dallas has outgrown the stigma that they were under. But
they were sure under a stigma.
Wes: Did you have any personal incidents to that that you recall
offhand?
Wes: Uh-huh. Did… do you feel Melvin Belli has changed his attitude
toward Dallas?
Phil: Oh, Mel, I’m sure, is (smiling) mellowed with age so to speak.
Phil: But I do think he felt pretty strongly that… about being tried in
Dallas. It just was unfair to Jack, and it was.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: In fact, when the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the case, they
didn’t reverse it on Judge Brown’s failure to grant the change of venue, but they noted in
the opinion that the case should be retried out of Dallas.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: And that’s the reason that it was transferred to Wichita Falls.
Wes: How do high profile cases such as Jack Ruby and Cullen Davis and
who… what was the other one with “Racehorse” Haynes that you mentioned? That
you…?
Phil: Cullen was…
Bob: That was with “Racehorse.”
Wes: Oh, was that Cullen Davis?
Wes: How does that affect a lawyer’s career? Has it changed your life?
53
Phil: (2:19:50) (smiling) Well, the Ruby case was totally non-compensated. I got
no compensation from any source. Even after I was court appointed and did everything, I
just opted for my own personal reasons not to file an application for any compensation
for the work I did.
Wes: You would have gotten that under a public defender type of
arrangement?
Phil: (nodding) Yeah.
Wes: Uh-huh.
Phil: On the Cullen Davis, I made a great deal of money, but one of the
things it did, it took me out of the office basically for three and a half years because there
was four trials—two mistrials and then two verdicts that were rendered. And a lot of
the… my business then and even now, but particularly then, came from other lawyers,
civil lawyers. And in my absence, they found other lawyers to refer cases… their clients
to, and I conscientiously sat down and wrote out a list of people who… lawyers who had
been referring me business over the years and… after the final Davis case and I was
finally back in the office. And I would call those guys just socially, and they would say,
“Oh, I thought you retired. That you made so much money that you retired.” Or two,
“that you’re too expensive,” and three, “that I’ve found somebody else to send business
to.” And so, in effect, it hurt. On the other hand, there have been some clients that have
come as a result of the success, particularly in the Davis case. That felt that we did a
good job lawyering and getting him acquittals in those two cases.
Wes: Uh-huh. Well, at the end of these, Phil, we always leave it open
for anything you want to say. You’ve set the record straight on quite a few different
items, but if you want to set the record straight on anything or any… any statement, it’s
yours.
Phil: No, I really don’t know of anything we haven’t touched on that is

important other than I can’t emphasize enough the fact that Jack took the dog with him to
show that there was no connection between him being hired or requested or whatever to
kill Oswald. I mean, it just… that and the fact that he always carried a gun because of his
Internal Revenue problems. That was the means by which he used it. But taking the dog
down there just proves to me that he was not there to kill Oswald. He was there as a
curiosity situation. The guard just happened not to be there because he was letting
another one out. And as I told you, on Saturday night, my wife, another couple, and I
drove by there just out of curiosity. And as far as Oswald is concerned, whether there
was a big conspiracy involving him, that was never was my focus, and I’m reasonably
convinced that he acted alone. But I have never got into that aspect of it because it never
was in the purview of anything that I had to do with except as it may have related to
whether Jack and he had some connection, which I am convinced they did not. But I’m
satisfied that, as unbelievable as some people think as to the killing of the president, that
54
it sure could have happened the way the Warren Commission and many people say
happened—one rifle, one person, no conspiracy.
Wes: OK, great. Thank you very much.
Bob: Thank you very much.
Wes: We appreciate it.
Total Running Time: 2:24:26
Transcribed by Stephen Fagin, June 2004
Unrevised
For Research Purposes Only

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

Oral History - Burleson, Phil

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1

Oral History Collection

Interview Date: 4/4/1995

Interview Conducted By: WES WISE with BOB PORTER

This transcript is unrevised and may contain typographical errors.

To request citation information, contact [email protected]. Please

Wes: At about what age was this now? Would you…?

Bob: What was that year, do you recall, Phil?

Phil: Probably ’65, ’66.

Phil: (shaking head and chuckling) No, not that gang.

Phil: (chuckling) No, not the same gang.

Wes: Do you mind naming that place? Or…

Wes: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Wes: It was there at the Y?

Phil: (nodding) Yeah, yes.

Wes: At the cutoff—at the Y—on Fort Worth Avenue? I can’t

Phil: (shaking head) I didn’t have that feeling…

Phil: …at that time.

Wes: How did you become interested in specializing—if you do

Wes: (chuckling) Which was fairly typical of Henry Wade.

Phil: (nodding) Henry’s…

Bob: That year was what?

Phil: That would have been 1962.

Bob: Left in ’62.

Phil: (nodding) Right.

Phil: (shaking head) Oh, no.

Phil: And Henry is from Rockwall, as you know, which is an adjoining

Wes: Uh-huh. Well, you knew nitty-gritty politics then…

Phil: (smiling) Yes.

Wes: As far as the incident, for example, where Bruce Alger…

Phil: (nodding) Yes.

Wes: How did you feel about another conservative, although a

Wes: At that time?

Phil: (smiling and nodding) At that time.

Wes: Uh-huh. What was your view of Kennedy as president? Of John

Phil: I thought that he was a good president.

Wes: But you were a conservative, and he was considered liberal.

Phil: (nodding) Right.

Wes: (chuckling) Did you have a concern about President Kennedy’s

Phil: (shaking head) No.

Wes: …in light of the incidents? You had no concern at all?

Phil: (shaking head) No.

Wes: You thought there would be no incident even that…

Phil: (shaking head) No.

Wes: You were at this party?

Wes: (chuckling) Oh, I see. OK.

Wes: You were in the county courthouse?

Phil: (nodding) Red… the Old Red Court…

Wes: The Old Red County Courthouse?

Bob: Which is at the corner of Main and Houston, right…

Phil: (nodding) Right.

Bob: …on the motorcade route.

Phil: (nodding) Right.

Wes: Texas Bank?

Phil: Yeah, right across at… and Lamar.

Wes: Two blocks… yeah.

Wes: About two blocks away, it sounds like.

Phil: About two or three blocks away.

Phil: (nodding) Yes.