After John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, West psychiatrically examined Jack Ruby, who’d murdered Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Not long before Ruby was due to testify for the Warren Commission, West examined him alone in his jail cell. He emerged to report that Ruby had suffered an “acute psychotic break.” Sure enough, Ruby’s testimony before the commission succeeded only in making him sound unhinged. He could never fully explain why he’d decided to kill Oswald.
