George E. Butler

George E. Butler

George Butler was born in Texas in 1907. He joined the Dallas Police Force and in October, 1946, Paul Rowland Jones, an underworld crime boss, contacted Butler and offered him money to help him establish his gambling operation in Dallas. Butler arranged a meeting between Jones and Sheriff Steve Guthrie. Jones offered Guthrie an annual sum of $150,000. This conversation was recorded and Jones was eventually convicted of attempted bribery. Jones appealed his three-year sentence on grounds that he had been entrapped by a well-established corrupt law-enforcement system in Dallas.

According to Seth Kantor: "Butler's... knowledge of organized crime was so intimate that he had been the key man in the department contacted by the Chicago mob when the chose to move into Dallas in 1946 and make police payoffs" and later he was "loaned by the Dallas police department to aid three different U.S. Senate investgatory groups as an expert on gangster operations".

In his dealings with organized crime Butler got to know Jack Ruby in 1947. Ruby's sister, Eva Grant had been involved with Paul Rowland Jones and Waldron Duncan in an attempt to transport opium between Chicago and Dallas. Later Butler was to claim that Ruby had been a sleeper (a member of organized crime who maintained the image of a law-abiding citizen. Steve Guthrie told the FBI that Ruby was a front-man in Dallas for the Chicago syndicate.

Butler was appointed as Supervisor in the Intelligence Unit. In 1959 he became the first President of the Dallas Police Association. Butler was branded a radical by city leaders for his attempts to organize fellow police officers.

On 24th November, 1963, Jesse Curry decided to transfer Lee Harvey Oswald to the county jail. Will Fritz placed Butler in immediate charge of the transfer. As Oswald was led through the basement of police headquarters a man rushed forward and shot him in the stomach. The gunman was quickly arrested by police officers. Oswald died soon afterwards. The man who killed him was later identified as being Jack Ruby.

On 9th December, 1963, Jack Revill wrote to Jesse Curry claiming that Butler: "related that he had information that Lee Harvey Oswald was the illegitimate son of Jack Ruby. Lieutenant Butler further stated that he had information that Jack Ruby had applied for a visa to Mexico about the same time that Lee Harvey Oswald visited that country. He suggested that we contact the Mexican Consul to confirm this information."

Despite his role in the transfer of Oswald to the county jail and his long term relationship with Ruby, Butler was not interviewed by the Warren Commission. In his testimony to the commission, Thayer Waldo of the Fort Worth Star Telegram, claimed that during the transfer Butler "was an extremely nervous man, so nervous that when I was standing asking him a question after I had entered the ramp and gotten down to the basement area, just moments before Oswald was brought down, he was standing profile to me and I noticed his lips trembling as he listened and waited for my answer. It was simply a physical characteristic. I had by then spent enough time talking to this man so that it struck me as something totally out of character."

Thayer Waldo told the Warren Commission that Butler had for many years provided him with important information about the Dallas police department. Waldo also contacted Mark Lane and informed him that he had discovered that Jack Ruby, J. D. Tippet and Bernard Weismann had a meeting at the Carousel Club eight days before the assassination. Waldo added that he was too scared to publish the story and other information that he had about the assassination. Lane introduced Waldo to Dorothy Kilgallen. Her article on the Tippit, Ruby and Weissman meeting appeared on the front page of the New York Journal American.

John Simkin believes that this information about the meeting at the Carousel Club originally came from Butler. It is possible that it was Butler who provided Dorothy Kilgallen with the information about the Jesse Curry's tapes. Butler also provided information to J. According to Jones, Butler told him that 50% of the Dallas Police Department were also members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Sylvia Meagher, an important researcher into the assassination of John F. Kennedy discovered evidence that Butler gave contradictory information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to the press about Ruby’s past criminal associations and activities.

After retiring from the Dallas Police Department he lived with his wife in Rockwall County, Texas. The Dallas Police Association headquarters building has been officially named “The George E. Butler Building” in his honour.

Primary Sources

(1) Warren Commission Report (1964)

During World War II, Ruby's sister, Eva Grant, visited Dallas. Having operated a restaurant on the west coast, and considering it a lucrative business, she arranged, near the end of 1945, to lease a building under construction in Dallas, which she ran as a night-club. Part of the financing for this establishment, the Singapore Supper Club, was provided by her brothers. Jack Ruby, who apparently obtained the money from Earl Products, sent $1,100 as a down-payment on the lease, Earl contributed about $1,500, and Hyman paid for more than $2,000 worth of equipment.

Before she opened the Singapore in 1947, Eva Grant engaged in the sale of metal products. In that year she met Paul Roland Jones, who allegedly was seeking customers for iron pipe and whom she referred to Hyman Rubenstein. Jones had, at about that time, been convicted of attempting to bribe the newly elected sheriff of Dallas. On October 24, 1947, he was arrested for violating Federal narcotics statutes. Jack Ruby had visited Dallas early in 1947 to help Eva Grant manage the Singapore, and 5 days after Jones' arrest, Jack and Hyman Rubenstein were interrogated in Chicago by agents of the Bureau of Narcotics. The brothers admitted knowing Jones but denied awareness of his connection with narcotics. During the 2 years in which Jones was appealing his conviction he and other criminals frequented the Singapore Club, then operated by Jack Ruby.

Intensive investigation to determine whether Jack Ruby was criminally or otherwise connected with Jones' narcotics violation leads the Commission to conclude Ruby probably was not involved. A search of the files of the Bureau of Narcotics disclosed no record that either Hyman or Jack had been prosecuted by Federal authorities in 1947. Jack, Hyman, and Eva denied participating in any narcotics activities. Jones and his coconspirators also denied that Jack was a participant. One of Jones' confederates reported after the shooting of Oswald that although Jones "propositioned" the two brothers concerning narcotics, they refused to participate. Moreover, when one of the conspirators was arrested with 48 pounds of raw opium in his possession, he implicated Jones and another person, both of whom were convicted, but he did not implicate Jack Ruby or his brother.

Late in 1947, Ruby established permanent residence in Dallas. Shortly after shooting Oswald, Ruby stated that he returned to Dallas at Eva Grant's request, to help her operate the Singapore Supper Club. However, on December 21, 1963, he reported that although association with his sister had been the purport of his initial visit to Dallas, he returned there because of the failure of his "merchandising deals" in Chicago. These factors, in conjunction with his separation from Earl Products, probably motivated Ruby's move to Dallas.

A different reason has been given by Steve Guthrie, former sheriff of Dallas. Guthrie reported that shortly after his election as sheriff in July 1946, Paul Roland Jones, representing other Chicago criminals, offered him a substantial amount of money to permit them to move in and manage illegal activities in Dallas. Although he never met Ruby, Guthrie asserted that these criminals frequently mentioned that Ruby would operate a "fabulous" restaurant as a front for gambling activities.

Despite its source, the Commission finds it difficult to accept this report. A member of the Dallas Police Department, Lt. George E. Butler, who was present during virtually all the conversations between Guthrie and Jones and who performed considerable investigative work on the case, stated that Ruby was not involved in the bribery attempt and that he had not heard of Ruby until the investigation and trial of Jones had been completed. He explained that Ruby's connection with the case stemmed from the fact that, as mentioned previously, Jones and other criminals frequented the Singapore Supper Club. And 22 recordings of the conversations between Guthrie, Butler, and Jones not only fail to mention Ruby, but indicate that Jones was to bring from outside the Dallas area only one confederate, who was not to be Jewish.

(2) Jack Revill, letter to Jesse Curry (9th December, 1963)

On December 9, 1963, the undersigned officers were approached by Lieutenant Butler and he related that he had information that Lee Harvey Oswald was the illegitimate son of Jack Ruby.

Lieutenant Butler further stated that he had information that Jack Ruby had applied for a visa to Mexico about the same time that Lee Harvey Oswald visited that country. He suggested that we contact the Mexican Consul to confirm this information.

Respectfully Submitted,

Jack Revill, Lieutenant

H.M. Hart, Detective

(3) Dorothy Kilgallen, New York Journal American (23rd August, 1964)

Twenty-four hours after the assassination, however, Chief Curry assured reporters that the sound of the shots told him at once they had come from the Texas School Depository and that "right away" he radioed an order to surround and search the building. But actually, as we see from the Police Department's official version of events. Chief Curry's immediate concern was not the Depository, but the triple-tiered overpass : towards which the Presidential car was moving at about eight miles an hour when the fatal shots were fired.

(4) W. A. Branigan to W.C. Sullivan (20th January, 1964)

By airtel 1-13-64, Dallas Office reported that on 1-4-64 William James Lowery, Jr. a former security informant of the Dallas Office, reported that he had been contacted by Earl Lively, Jr., of Dallas, Texas. Lowery stated Lively is reported writing an anticommunist book which will stress the Fair Play for Cuba Committee connections of Lee Harvey Oswald. Lively showed Lowery a letter from Herbert Philbrick, former Communist Party member who has testified on behalf of the Government concerning communist activities. According to Lively, Philbrick plans to be in Dallas soon and desires to meet Lowery.

Lively further informed Lowery that he desired Lowery’s assistance in writing his book. He stated that Dr. Robert Morris, former counsel to the Senate Internal Security Committee under Senator McCarthy, was assisting him and Lt. George Butler of the Dallas Police Department was also assisting him. Lively added that Lt. George Butler of the Dallas PD was going to try to get any information he could that the FBI turned over to the Dallas Police Department in connection with the Lee Harvey Oswald case.

In connection with Lowery mentioned above, ha was a member of and active in the Communist Party on a local and state basis from September 23, 1945 to September 23, 1963. He has also testified for the Government before the Subversive Activities Control Board.

Our indices indicate Earl Lively, Jr., probably is identical to Earl William Lively, Jr. In 1962, Office of Special Investigations, Air Force (OSI), furnished us information that Lively was a member of the Air National Guard and at that time was a student of the Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. He was investigated by OSI since a national agency check revealed he was a subscriber to “The Worker” and the “Midweek Worker,” both communist publications. Individuals interviewed by OSI reported Lively was extremely anticommunist and as being extremely rightist in his political views. They reported in their opinion Lively subscribed to communist publications only to obtain background information on the Communist Party line. They also reported Lively extremely anti-Fidel Castro.

OBSERVATIONS:

In view of the serious allegation that Lt. Butler of the Dallas Police Department is involved in scheme to furnish FBI data to Earl Lively, Jr., desirable we have SAC, Dallas personally discuss this allegation with the head of the Dallas Police Department and impress upon him the undesirability of Lt. Butler being involved with such a scheme as alleged by our source. Inasmuch as Lowery has testified for the Government before the Subversive Activities Control Board, and is no longer a security informant, we will not jeopardize an important informant situation by discussing his allegation with the head of the Dallas Police Department.

ACTION:

Attached is a teletype to SAC, Dallas, instructing the SAC, Dallas, to personally contact the head of Dallas Police Department and alert him to the information furnished by Lowery and impress upon him the undesirability of individuals in his department divulging to unauthorized individuals data furnished the Dallas Police Department by the FBI. We are also instructing SAC, Dallas, to request the that the head of the Dallas Police Department determine whether Lt. George Butler of the Dallas Police Department is involved in a scheme to furnish FBI data to Lively as alleged by Lowery.

(5) Thayer Waldo, testimony to the Warren Commission (1964)

Butler was an extremely nervous man, so nervous that when I was standing asking him a question after I had entered the ramp and gotten down to the basement area, just moments before Oswald was brought down, he was standing profile to me and I noticed his lips trembling as he listened and waited for my answer. It was simply a physical characteristic. I had by then spent enough time talking to this man so that it struck me as something totally out of character.