Jack

We have been discussion Lee quite a bit in class, but I find Jack Ruby just as intriguing a character, if not more so. He is surprisingly enigmatic, and it is very difficult to pinpoint his motives in shooting Lee. Actually, that is not completely true. It is clear that Jack finds Lee an utterly despicable character, and just wants him to be done with and gone forever. I can definitely see why Jack would be so sickened by Lee, after hearing about how he shot the police officer after shooting Kennedy. There is definitely patriotism at play when Jack decides to shoot Lee, but his mob ties also come into play. Clearly he is being offered considerable compensation by the mob if he shoots Lee, and that seems to convince him to shoot Lee. However, in an enigmatic maneuver of incredible proportions, Jack tips of the police of his plan to shoot Lee, only minutes after he made that plan. This to me is one of the more riddling events that occurs throughout the whole of Libra. One reason that I can think of for Jack Ruby to alert the police is that he is very unsure of his decision to shoot Lee. This is seen later on, when he "lets fate decide" whether he will kill Lee. Jack tells himself that he will casually go to assassinate Lee, and if he gets there on time, it will be proof that the universe wants him to do it, and if he is too late, it will be proof that the universe wishes Lee to remain alive. This is a very similar tactic to what Lee has been doing throughout the novel, trying to put his fate in someone else's hands. Someone bigger, like a conspiracy, the KGB, or ideally the universe and fate itself. Jack displays a similar trait in his decision to shoot Lee. He leaves his final decision up to the "traffic gods" so to speak. I think that when he calls the police to tip them off about the attempt to kill Lee, he is doing the same thing. Jack is unsure of whether or not he should kill Lee, and so he leaves it up to fate. But he wants fate to have an even playing field, and so he warns the police. Jack does not want to be able to kill Lee without a problem, because then he will not know if he did the right thing. But if he succeeds when it is difficult, it seems to show that him shooting Lee was meant to happen. It is hard for me to say whether or not this is really Jack's motive in calling the cops on himself, but it seems to be a probable one, and the only probable one I can think of given the fact that he does go through and kill Lee despite seeming to go back on his plan, and turn against the mafia.