Lindbergh

by Noel Behn

but now we have to take another person to it and

  probably have to keep the baby for a longer time as we

  expected. So the amount will be 70000

  20000 in 50$ bills 25000 $ in 20 $ bill 15000 $

  in 10$ bills and 10000 in 5$ bills Don’t mark

  any bills or take them from one serial nomer.

  We will form you latter were to deliver the

  money. But we will note do so until the

  Police is out of cace and the pappers are quite.

  The kidnapping we prepared in years so we

  are prepared for everding.3

  Lindbergh brought the message to Galvin, who was looking it over when Rosner came in. According to Thayer, Rosner, on reading the text for himself, “turned very white and was trembling all over.”4 Rosner took the letter with him and was driven by state troopers to see Henry Breckinridge in New York City. Breckinridge and Rosner returned to Sorrel Hill around midnight, bringing with them Salvatore Spitale, Irving Bitz, and Mr. Bartow (most likely Frank D. Bartow, a Morgan and Company partner), a representative of J. P. Morgan and Company, which had volunteered to arrange for the ransom money.

  A former dance-hall bouncer who had muscled his way to power in the underworld during the booming Prohibition days, Salvatore (“Salvy”) Spitale was a mob boss who controlled a good portion of Brooklyn’s illicit beer trade, owned restaurants, and lived in an expensive Manhattan apartment on Central Park West. Salvy was credited with having brought his old pal Jack (“Legs”) Diamond into the rackets and with later having Legs executed, a murder he might have seen to personally. Spitale’s police record showed numerous arrests and no convictions. Irving Bitz’s importance in criminal circles was that he was Spitale’s cohort.

  At Sorrel Hill late that night of March 5, and on through the early hours of the morning, Bartow, Thayer, Breckinridge, and Charles Lindbergh conferred with gangsters Spitale, Bitz, and Rosner. When the meeting ended, Douglas G. Thompson and Arthur Springer had been downgraded as Lindbergh’s official go-betweens. The morning papers of Sunday, March 6, carried a statement explaining the change:

  If the kidnappers of our child are unwilling to deal directly, we fully authorize “Salvy” Spitale and Irving Bitz to act as our go-betweens. We will also follow any other method suggested by the kidnapper that we can be sure will bring the return of our child.

  Charles A. Lindbergh

  Anne Lindbergh

  One reason why Rosner had urged Lindbergh and Breckinridge to use Spitale and Bitz was that they headed a large gang of Italians and Jews who could immediately be put to work combing the underworld. During their visit to the estate, Salvy and Bitz had been introduced to Anne Lindbergh, who wrote her mother-in-law that she had met two “underworld kings” who she was convinced would be helpful—two men who had shown more sincerity in their sympathy than a lot of the politicians who’d been to the house.5

  Reading that two local hoodlums had been named Lindy’s representatives, New York City’s police commissioner, Edward P. Mulrooney, was outraged. So were civic and religious leaders and newspaper editors across the land.6 A rash of criticism was directed at Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf for having allowed Lindbergh to consort with gangsters.

  Owney Madden wasn’t happy either. During the night-long conference with Spitale, Bitz, and Rosner at the Lindbergh house, Madden had called and talked with Mickey while Thayer listened in. Told that Spitale and Bitz were there, Madden had expressed his anger and said they couldn’t do any good in recovering the baby. Madden further predicted that Lindbergh would hear from the kidnappers again on Tuesday, and before hanging up, he instructed Rosner to call him every hour. When Rosner learned that Thayer had repeated Madden’s prediction to Lindbergh, Breckinridge, Galvin, and Fogarty, he became incensed. He denied that Madden had said anything of the sort and accused Thayer of not understanding how to interpret the meaning of Madden’s language. While Spitale and Bitz established their manhunt headquarters in a Forty-first Street, New York City, speakeasy, Rosner and Thayer manned the secure phone at the Lindbergh house through the night and into the next day, with no results.7

  During the afternoon of March 6, some twelve hours after the meeting with Spitale and Bitz took place, a telegram had come to the Lindbergh estate and was shown to Rosner. It read

  Communicate with me at once regarding your boy’s whereabouts—for further particulars telephone HArlem 7–1147

  Rev. Berritella

  Rosner called the number and asked the person who answered to come immediately to Hopewell. Around 2:00 P.M. a message was received from Rev. Berritella, who was in nearby Princeton. Rosner and Breckinridge went to interview him and found that he was accompanied by Mary Cirrito, a medium. The party proceeded to a room in the Princeton Inn, where Berritella conducted a seance in which the medium Mary stated the child was in a house four and half miles northwest of the Lindbergh estate. When asked if any message had been received from the kidnappers, Breckinridge replied in the negative. The medium then said that Breckinridge should not remain in Hopewell but should be at his office in New York City every morning at 9:00 A.M.

  Henry Breckinridge did not heed the advice and was not present when at 1:00 P.M. on Tuesday, March 8, a letter addressed to him was delivered to his office at 25 Broadway, New York City. Inside was a sealed envelope and an unsigned note from the kidnappers that asked that the envelope be given to Lindbergh. An office associate brought it to Princeton Junction, where Breckinridge and Rosner were waiting. The country had already expressed its disapproval of the use of two gangsters, Spitale and Bitz, as go-betweens. Now the kidnappers had their say:

  Dear sir: Did you receive ouer letter from March 4. we sent the mail in one off the letter—near Boro Hall, Brooklyn. We know Police interfer with your privatmail. How can we come to any arrangements this way, in the future we will send out letter to Mr. Breckinridge at 25 Broadway. We believe police captured two letter and let not forwarded to you. We will not accept any go-between from your sent. We will arrang theas latter. There is no worry about the boy. He is very well and will be feed according to the diet. Best dank for information about it. We are interested to send your boy back in gut health.

  It is neccisery to make a world-affair out of it, or to get your boy back as soon as possible. Why did you ignore ouer letter which we left in the room the baby would be back long ago. You would not get any result from the Polise becauce out kinaping was pland for a year allredy. But we were afraid the boy would not be strong enough.

  Ouer ransam was made out for $50000$ but now we have to put another to it as propperly have to hold the baby longer as we expected so it will by 70000$ 20000 in 50$ bills 25000 in 20$ bills 15000$ in 10$ and 10000 in 5$ bills. We warn you against not to mark any bills or take them from one ser. No. We will inform you latter how to deliver the money but not before the polise is out of this cace and the pappers are quite.8

  The accompanying note to Breckinridge also contained orders that an item be placed in the New York American, confirming that the ransom message had been received. After consulting with Lindbergh, Breckinridge and Rosner drove to New York, where Rosner placed the following ad in the American:

  Letter received at new address. Will follow your instructions. I also received letter mailed to me March 4th and was ready since then. Please hurry on account of mother. Address me to the address you mentioned in your letter. Father.

  That evening Owney Madden arrived at Sorrel Hill and met with Lindbergh, Breckinridge, and John Fogarty. After Madden left, there was consensus that he probably did know something about the kidnapping but that he had been vague about what it was.9

  Thayer was having growing doubts about Rosner, whom he never fully trusted. Earlier that day Rosner had confided in Thayer that he had received word that the kidnappers had a collaborator inside the Lindbergh household. As a result, Rosner had waited until Breckinridge was away from Sorrel Hill, then searched the room being shared by Fogarty and Galvin, and discovered evid
ence that they were the guilty parties. Just what the evidence was remained hazy. Thayer took to remaining in proximity to Rosner, who tried everything he could to shake the young lawyer.

  Thayer expressed his distrust of Rosner to Lindbergh and Breckinridge. Lindy and Henry felt Rosner should stay. Secretly they had already approved a third person, paying money to yet another self-professed go-between.

  On March 2, the same day Morris Rosner wangled his way into the kidnapping in New York City, tall, portly, balding, and double-chinned fifty-three-year-old Gaston B. Means was doing the same thing in Washington, D.C. Means had prevailed on two friends of Lindbergh’s. The first to whom he spoke was Colonel M. Robert Guggenheim. On March 4, while Guggenheim waited to hear back, Gaston shifted directions and met with the other friend of the Lindbergh family, Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean. He hinted that he had already made contact with the kidnappers and suggested that she ask her friend, who was Lindbergh’s cousin, Captain Emory S. Land of the U.S. Navy, to join them.

  The daughter of a Colorado mining mogul and the estranged wife of the owner of the Washington Post, Edward Beale McLean, Evalyn lived in a grand style, was one of the capital’s most opulent hostesses, and counted among her many priceless possessions the cursed forty-four-and-a-quarter carat midnight-blue Hope diamond. Kidnapping had been a phobia with Mrs. McLean since the 1909 birth of her son, Vinson, whom the papers had termed the Hundred Million Dollar Baby. She so feared Vinson’s being stolen that the child was under constant guard. One day he was playing near the estate’s fence when a delivery truck arrived. As the gates were opened to let it in, eight-year-old Vinson dashed through. His guards gave chase. The child ran out onto the street and into traffic. He was struck by a car and killed.

  Gaston Bullock Means was born on a plantation at Blackwelder’s Spring, near Concord, North Carolina, in 1879. The highly esteemed Means family had been large landowners in the area for generations. His great-grandfather had been governor of North Carolina. Gaston’s father, Colonel William G. Means, was a lawyer and former mayor of Concord. An uncle had been Concord’s chief of police. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, he disregarded the family tradition of working the land and running for office and entered professional life as an extremely adept towel salesman for Cannon Mills.

  in 1910, Gaston went to work for the William J. Burns Detective Agency as a private investigator. He was still with the company in 1912 when two events occurred in quick succession: He was sued for breach of promise, and he fell from the upper berth of a railroad Pullman car. Gaston sued the Pullman Company, claiming among other things that the chain from which the berth was suspended had broken. It was discovered that the chain had been partially filed, but when no evidence could be developed to prove that Gaston did the filing, Pullman settled. Rumors that the injuries he sustained in the spill from the berth had altered his personality might have contributed to the breach of promise suit against him being dropped.

  By 1917, Means was the business manager for Mrs. Maude King, the widow of a millionaire Chicago lumber baron who had left most of his fortune to an old men’s home bearing his name. While visiting Means in North Carolina in August of that year, she was mysteriously killed in a field not far from his home. At first Gaston claimed Maude had committed suicide. Later he contended that the two of them were on a moonlight target party and he had gone for a drink of spring water, leaving the gun in the crotch of a tree. In his absence Mrs. King recovered the gun and accidentally shot herself. The questions of how she could have fired a bullet into the back of her own head and why there were no powder burns on her seemed to be of no relevance when he was tried for her murder in his hometown. The local jury acquitted him, and Means promptly sued the prosecutor for a million dollars on the contention that the murder trial had been an attempt to prevent the probate of Maude’s recently discovered but rightful will, of which he was entitled to a fourth. At a probate hearing Means was accused of presenting the court with a forged will and with already having bilked the late Mrs. King out of four hundred thousand dollars. When his veracity was challenged, Gaston stunned the court with a claim that during World War I he had been a spy for Germany but quit when the United States entered the conflict. The judge called Means’s testimony a fabrication and the will a fraud and tossed the case out of court.

  In 1921, Gaston Means was made a special agent of the U.S. Bureau of Investigation by his old detective-days boss, William J. Burns, who had been brought in by Attorney General Harry Daugherty to head the BI. Two years later Means was suspended by Daugherty after being indicted for accepting sixty-five thousand dollars from a manufacturer of glass coffins, as well as for violating the Prohibition laws by obtaining the illegal release of two hundred thousand dollars worth of liquor from government warehouses. Daugherty dropped him for good when the cases went to court. The trial was interrupted so Means could testify before the Senate committee looking into the Teapot Dome scandal, which involved Daugherty and other government officials. Gaston kept the senators “fascinated” with his revelations, not the least of which were his exploits as a German spy and as a confidential investigator for Mexico, Great Britain, and many private individuals. The committee decided that his testimony was “a tissue of lies.” He was indicted for forgery but never prosecuted. Gaston would later claim he had been hired to do investigative work on the Teapot Dome scandal by the owner of the Washington Post, which was how he came to know Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean. Found guilty and convicted in the glass-coffin scam and for releasing liquor from a federal warehouse, Means spent most of his two-year prison term at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. After his release in 1928, he took the pauper’s oath and collaborated on a book entitled The Strange Death of President Harding, in which he depicted himself as the champion of right and the nemesis of Daugherty. His coauthor, Mrs. Mary Thacker, later repudiated both the book and Means.

  Evalyn Walsh McLean met with Gaston Means on the evening of March 4 at her lavish Georgetown house, Friendship.

  “I’ve come to realize that honesty is the best policy,” he told her. “I’ve made mistakes, bad mistakes. I’ve served jail sentences for them. But I want to do more. I want to do something to wipe out my past record so that I can hold up my head again and look my fellow citizens squarely in the eye.

  “I know the head of the kidnap gang. With your help, I can have the baby back to his mother inside two weeks.”10

  Means explained that while in a New York City speakeasy several weeks before, he’d run across a fellow inmate from the Atlanta Penitentiary, who asked him to come in on a “big kidnapping.” Gaston refused to participate. But since the disappearance of the Lindbergh baby, he had checked around and become certain the former inmate and his associates were the actual kidnappers. Means was confident he could contact them and deal for the child, but he didn’t want to do so without a go-ahead from someone close to Lindbergh, such as Mrs. McLean. Mrs. McLean encouraged him to find out if these men indeed were the kidnappers. The next day, March 5, he reported back to her, saying he had communicated with the inmate and his gang and that not only did they have the baby but they were willing to return him for a fifty-thousand-dollar ransom in unmarked money, the amount being reported in most of the newspapers. Means wanted Mrs. McLean to get Lindbergh’s permission to work on the case privately. He also asked her to find a Catholic priest who could assist them, since the kidnappers preferred to turn the child over to a priest when the appropriate time arrived. Means stressed secrecy and suggested that their communications to one another be partially coded. She, for example, would be known as Number Eleven; the leader of the kidnapping gang, Number Nineteen.

  Mrs. McLean and Captain Land conferred. What Means had said sounded plausible to them. Mrs. McLean knew just the priest for the job, Reverend J. Francis Hurney, pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. She decided to pay the ransom herself, pending Father Hurney’s decision. He met with Means on March 5 and felt that Gaston’s representations we
re so. He told Mrs. McLean he would be glad to participate but suggested that she should obtain Colonel Lindbergh’s permission. Captain Land volunteered to go to Hopewell, where he presented his cousin with the proposition. Lindbergh and Breckinridge approved but wanted it understood that if the baby was recovered by this plan, they would reimburse the ransom money to Mrs. McLean.

  On March 6, with many papers saying that Lindbergh was willing to pay a one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward, Means informed Mrs. McLean that the kidnappers had doubled their original demand of fifty thousand dollars in unmarked bills. On March 7, with Morris Rosner and Robert Thayer manning the safe phone at the Lindberghs’ Hopewell estate and with a fellow inmate of Al Capone’s telling federal authorities that Big Al had planned the kidnapping so he could cut a deal and get out of jail, Gaston B. Means went to Mrs. McLean’s home, and in the presence of Father Hurney he was given one hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills to pass on to the kidnappers.

  The evening of March 9 at Sorrel Hill, Robert Thayer took a phone call from New York City. On the line was a man who identified himself as John F. Condon.11 The Lindbergh case would never be the same.

  10

  Jafsie

  Around midnight at Sorrel Hill, Robert Thayer was called to the phone. On the line was a man who claimed that he had an important communication for Colonel Lindbergh, that he was under instructions to give it to nobody else. Thayer explained he was in charge of telephone messages for the colonel. The man then identified himself as John F. Condon, rattled off his degrees and honors and the fact that he held the title of professor. He also disclosed that he had received an envelope that day that contained two letters, one directed to himself and the other one sealed and addressed to Colonel Lindbergh. Over the phone he read the letter addressed to himself:

  Dear Sir: If you are willing to act as go-between in Lindbergh case pleace follow stricly instructions. Handel incloced letter personaly to Mr. Lindbergh. It will explain everything. Don’t tell anyone about it. As soon we found the Press or Police is notifyed everything are cansell and it will be a further delay.