Did Jim Braden know Jack Ruby?
Anthony Summers, to name one oft-cited author, suggests that when Jack Ruby dropped by the Cabana to chat with Lawrence Meyers and company on the night before the assassination, he could have also had a little conspiratorial tête-à-tête with the Cabana’s “intriguing and undesirable guest,” Jim Braden. (63) The Mob-thirsty House Select Committee would have loved to connect Ruby to Braden, but try as they might, they could not do so. The HSCA questioned a number of Jack Ruby’s former acquaintances about Braden. None were familiar with him. Summers himself can only regurgitate the one lone “linkage” the House committee could advance — a Ruby acquaintance named James Dolan, who was alleged to have been seen with Braden in 1951. Unlike the House committee, however, Summers neglects to tell his readers that Ruby and Dolan did not meet until 1957.(64) Though Peter Noyes unaccountably misses the “Cabana connection” between Ruby and Braden, Noyes does note that Braden is alleged to have paid a
