Many take it for granted that if there was an assassination conspiracy, Jack Ruby must have been involved. In fact, many people believe there was a conspiracy precisely because of Ruby's murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, which had the effect - intentional or not - of silencing the accused assassin.

But whether there was a conspiracy or not, there is no reason to assume that Ruby must have been involved. In fact, logic tells us that no conspiracy could profit by silencing Oswald in a public fashion: What's the point of eliminating one suspect while simultaneously handing the police another? Also, were it Oswald's intention to "talk," he'd already had nearly 48 hours in which to do so. Every minute he waited only diminished the chance that others involved could be apprehended. By that time, any conspirators would have to assume he'd already spilled his guts.

Another factor to be considered is whether Ruby was the type of person to be entrusted with any responsibility, when a single word from him could have resulted in the arrest of others involved. Dallas reporter Tony Zoppi knew Ruby well and says one "would have to be crazy" to entrust Ruby with anything important, that he "couldn't keep a secret for five minutes.... Jack was one of the most talkative guys you would ever meet. He'd be the worst fellow in the world to be part of a conspiracy, because he just plain talked too much." "Jack Ruby would be the last one that I could ever trust to do anything," says Ruby's rabbi, Hillel Silverman

Nigel Turner's The Men Who Killed Kennedy premiered on England's Central Independent Television as a two-part documentary in October 1988. Three additional installments were filmed two years later, with a sixth episode added in 1995. Though the series was not widely seen in the United States at first, the first five installments were shown a number of times on the Arts and Entertainment cable channel (with Hilary Minster's narration replaced by the voice of Chicago broadcaster Bill Kurtis), and all six episodes have recently begun popping up (in somewhat edited form) on another cable station, the History Channel. Whether this is a good thing or not depends largely upon whom you ask.

Certainly, Turner's series is nothing if not controversial, even among conspiracy theorists, and even among those who served as some of the series' own sources of information. For example, when President (and former Warren Commission member) Gerald R. Ford and former Warren Commission legal counsel David W. Belin blasted The Men Who Killed Kennedy in the Washington Post in 1991 (in an article primarily about Oliver Stone's movie, JFK), none other than JFK assassination research pioneer (and on-screen interviewee for The Men Who Killed Kennedy) Harold Weisberg chimed in his agreement. "It took 27 years," Weisberg noted drily, "but David Belin, writing with Gerald R. Ford, has finally said one thing with which I agree: Nigel Turner's A&E series 'The Men Who Killed Kennedy' and Oliver Stone's current commercialization and exploitation of that great tragedy are both very, very bad."