Old JFK documents may stir controversy

A batch of old documents linked to the slaying of President John F. Kennedy has reportedly been unearthed, including a highly suspect transcript of a conversation between assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Oswald's killer Jack Ruby, the Dallas Morning News reported.

The Morning News said the items found in an old safe in a Dallas courthouse included personal letters from former District Attorney Henry Wade, the prosecutor in the Ruby trial. Mr Ruby shot Oswald two days after the President's death.

Also found were official records from Mr Ruby's trial, a gun holster and clothing that probably belonged to Ruby and Oswald, District Attorney Craig Watkins told the newspaper.

But one potentially controversial item is a transcript of an exchange between Mr Oswald and Mr Ruby in which they discuss killing President Kennedy to halt the mafia-busting agenda of his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

The Morning News said one theory about the transcript was that it was part of a movie script Mr Wade was working on with producers, for a film that was never made.

The transcript resembles one published by the Warren Commission, which investigated Mr Kennedy's assassination and concluded that Mr Oswald acted alone.

The FBI had determined the conversation between Mr Oswald and Mr Ruby - this time about killing Texas Governor John Connally - was definitely fake, the newspaper said.

Mr Connally was riding in the car with President Kennedy and was wounded in the attack.

The documents may be a Presidents' Day gift to conspiracy theorists who have long questioned the official US government version that Mr Oswald acted alone when he shot Mr Kennedy on November 22, 1963, as the President's motorcade swept past the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas.

Nightclub owner Mr Ruby subsequently shot Mr Oswald dead at point-blank range as police were escorting their prime suspect. Mr Ruby died a few years later from cancer.