By Ed Stoddard
DALLAS (Reuters) - John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracybuffs have been handed a Presidents' Day present they are sureto savor.
The Dallas County district attorney said on Monday that hecould not categorically dismiss as fake a transcript of analleged conversation between Kennedy's assassin Lee HarveyOswald and Oswald's killer Jack Ruby.
The transcript is one of many items related to the Kennedyslaying in November 1963 and Ruby's trial that were found in anold safe in a Dallas courthouse about a year ago and have beenpainstakingly catalogued.
In the purported conversation nearly two months before theassassination, Oswald and Ruby discuss killing Kennedy to haltthe mafia-busting agenda of his brother, Attorney GeneralRobert Kennedy.
"We don't know if this is an actual conversation or not,"District Attorney Craig Watkins told a news conference. "Itwill open up the debate as to whether or not there was aconspiracy to assassinate the president."
Yet if it were proven these two key figures in one of themost captivating periods in U.S. history did meet ahead of thatday in Dallas, then the Kennedy assassination was almostcertainly a conspiracy.
One theory about the transcript holds that it is part of amovie script that Henry Wade, the district attorney whoprosecuted Ruby, worked on later with producers for a film thatwas never made. Among the documents found was a contract signedby Wade for a movie deal.
Adding fuel to the conspiracy fires, Watkins said hispredecessors in the DA's office were "aware of the contents ofthe safe" but had decided to keep them secret "for whateverreason."
He said that may have been related to the "racist tone" ofsome of the documents that he said painted an unflatteringportrait of the criminal justice system at the time. Watkins isthe first black district attorney ever of Dallas County.
PRESIDENTS' DAY RELEASE
Watkins did not say why he went public with his find onPresidents' Day, the U.S. holiday that honours its leaders.
Watkins and others in his office came across the itemsafter being told the gun used to kill Oswald was in thecourthouse. The gun was not there because it is privatelyowned.
The purported Lee-Ruby meeting took place at Ruby'sCarousel Club on October 4, 1963. The transcript reads likescripted cloak-and-dagger dialogue.
Lee: "There is a way to get rid of him (Attorney GeneralRobert Kennedy) without killing him."
Ruby: "How's that?"
Lee: "I can shoot his brother."
Ruby: "You mean the president?"
Lee: "Yes, the president."
Ruby: "But that wouldn't be patriotic."
At one point, Lee says that to kill Kennedy all he needs"is my rifle and a tall building."
A bit later Ruby tells Oswald: "You're asking too manyquestions; remember, they know who you are already; but youdon't know them. They'll be watching you ..."
Legions of conspiracy theorists have long questioned theconclusion of the Warren Commission that investigated theslaying that Oswald acted alone when he shot Kennedy as hismotorcade swept past the Texas School Book Depository.
The commission said that Ruby and Oswald had never met.Ruby shot Oswald dead at point-blank range as police wereescorting their prime suspect. Ruby died a few years later fromcancer.
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
