by Noel Behn
After ytou gett the mony from Mr. Lindbergh put these 3 words in the New York American
MONEY IS REDY
Affter notise we will give you further instruction. Don’t be affrait we are not out fore your 1000$ keep it. Only act strickly. Be at home every night between 6–12 by this time you will hear from us.
Written in two lines on the enclosed envelope was
Dear Sir: Please handle incloced letter to Colonel
Lindbergh.
It is in Mr. Lindbergh interest not to notify police.1
Robert Thayer instructed Condon to open the second letter and read what it said.
Dear Sir, Mr Condon may act as go-between. You may givve him the 70,000$ make one packet the size will bee about
At this juncture Condon told Thayer that the message contained the drawing of a box in which the money was to be delivered. The dimensions printed alongside were “seven by six by fifteen.”
we have notifyt you allredy in what kind of bills. We warn you not to set any trapp in any way. If you or someone els will notify the Police ther will be a further delay affter we have the mony in hand we will tell you where to find your boy. You may have a airplane redy it is about 150 mil awy. But befor telling you the adr a delay of 8 houers will be between.2
Thayer asked if there was anything else on the page. Condon described the symbol of interlacing circles and perforations that had signatured the previous ransom messages. Condon was requested to bring the letters to Sorrel Hill as soon as possible and not mention to anyone what had happened.
John F. Condon offered a slightly different version of the event. He would contend that during the phone call to the estate he demanded to talk directly to Lindbergh, and a third voice, which sounded tired, came on the line and said it was Lindbergh speaking. After hearing the text of the second message, according to Condon, the following exchange took place:
“Is that all?” asked the Colonel. He seemed suddenly without interest.
“There were two intersecting—”
I could literally feel the tension of his voice as he shot staccato repetitions of the words back to me. “Circles? Intersecting?”
“I would call them secant circles, if I might be permitted …”
Again the staccato rush of words. “Yes, yes, I understand.”
“There are three dots or holes across the horizontal diameter of the intersecting circles. The circles are tinted—one red, one blue. Now that I have explained the contents, Colonel, is this letter I have important?”
“It is very important, Professor Condon. I shall come at once. Where are you?”
“Suppose I come to you, Colonel. You have anguish enough and you are needed at home. I can come to Hopewell immediately.”
“Very well. It is kind of you. You will come at once?”
“At once,” I promised.3
Thayer denied that the colonel spoke to Condon over the telephone. Almost all documentation, save for statements by Condon, bears him out.
Several hours later at the Lindbergh estate, it was Henry Breckinridge who picked up the phone. Condon was on the other end, calling from Princeton to say he was en route. He made no mention that he had lost the way three times.
Breckinridge was waiting at the gate of Sorrell Hill when a car drove up and he first cast his eyes on the six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound gray-maned and mustached John F. Condon, a physical-fitness buff with a ruddy complexion who looked younger than his seventy-two years.4 To Breckinridge’s surprise, the old professor was accompanied by two friends he had not bothered mentioning on the phone, Max Rosenhain, the owner and operator of a restaurant Condon frequented, and clothing salesman P. Milton Gaglio. Henry rode on their running board up to the house and, according to Condon, didn’t identify himself until they entered.
Condon introduced Rosenhain and Gaglio. Rosenhain, in a nervous, essayed humor, said, “We are a committee. A Wop, an Israelite, and a Harp.”
It was approximately 3:00 A.M., and Condon alone was taken up to a bedroom by Breckinridge, who pardoned himself and left. The most expansive account of the event, as it always would be, was John F. Condon’s:
I sat down on the bed. I heard him telling Colonel Lindbergh I had arrived. A moment later he [Breckinridge] came back into the room accompanied by a tall, slender, clear-eyed young chap dressed in brown trousers and a short jacket. I recognized the famous aviator immediately, and arose.
“Good evening, Colonel Lindbergh.”
He crossed the room and shook my hand cordially. “It was kind of you to come out here. I hope I have not caused you too much trouble, Professor Condon.”
“No trouble, whatever,” I assured him. “I want you to know, now, Colonel, that my only purpose is to serve you. I am completely at your disposal. I mean that, sincerely.”
I took the letter from my pocket and handed it to him as he thanked me. We sat down—the three of us—on the bed. The two colonels studied intently for many minutes the enclosures.
“This letter is genuine,” Colonel Lindbergh said. “The interlocking circles are the symbol agreed upon by the kidnapper. They match perfectly the symbol on the original note.”
“May I ask you some questions about yourself, Professor Condon?” inquired Colonel Breckinridge.
“Anything you wish.”
“Where do you teach?”
“I am Professor of Education at Fordham and Principal of Public School Number Twelve in the Bronx.”
“Have you been teaching long?”
“For fifty years.” I smiled. “I’m rather proud of the fact that in that time I lost only nineteen hours.”
“An excellent record, indeed. And your birthplace?”
“The most beautiful borough in the world. The Bronx. I’ve lived there all my life.”
Colonel Breckinridge nodded. “In itself an excellent recommendation. Any other interests besides teaching?”
“Athletics of all kinds, music, children and—I hope I do not seem immodest—helping others.”
“Not at all. You have a family, of course?”
“A wife and three splendid children.”
He turned to Colonel Lindbergh. “Professor Condon has my vote. He’s earnest, frank. The letter he bears is genuine and suggests him as intermediary. I think we should arrange to give him the fifty thousand dollars asked for in the original note and see if he cannot obtain your child.”
“I don’t like that arrangement,” I interposed. “After all, I am a stranger to you. I would much prefer that you first verify my standing.”
“I am sure,” Colonel Lindbergh said, “that you will be able to assist us. You’ll stay here tonight, of course?”5
Hyperbole to the side, this was essentially the extent of the questioning of Dr. John F. Condon by Lindbergh and Breckinridge. Henry would later admit having grave reservations about the garrulous teacher from the Bronx, but he seems to have kept them to himself.
There was no place for Rosenhain or Gaglio to sleep in the crowded Sorrel Hill house. After exchanging handshakes with Lindbergh and swearing to say nothing of the night’s happenings, they drove back to New York.
Condon claimed to have returned upstairs with the colonel and relates this:
“If I might,” I told him, “I would like to meet Mrs. Lindbergh.”
We went into her room. I saw her, a tiny, child-like, pretty creature, sitting on the edge of her bed. She was dressed in a simple frock of some sort. In a few months she again would be a mother, but at the moment it was obvious that her thoughts were with her first-born.
“This is Professor Condon,” Colonel Lindbergh said. I remember that she stretched out her arms toward me instinctively in the age-old appeal of motherhood. “Will you help me get back my baby?”
“I shall do everything in my power to bring him back to you.”
As I came closer to her, I saw the gleam of tears in her soft, dark eyes. I was thankful, at that moment, for the gray hairs of my seventy-two years; for the lifeti
me spent in learning the ways of the young. I smiled at her, shook a thick, reproving forefinger at her. With mock bruskness, I threatened Anne Lindbergh. “If one of those tears drops, I shall go off the case immediately.”
Her arms rose. The fingers of her hands sought her eyes. She brushed away the tears. When her hands went away from her face again, she was smiling, sweetly, bravely. “You see, Doctor, I am not crying.”
“That is better,” I said. “That is much, much better.”
When we were in the corridor outside her room once more, Colonel Lindbergh turned to me. His face was grave, his voice hushed, as he paid me the finest compliment I have ever received. “Doctor Condon, you made my wife smile tonight for the first time since our baby was taken.”6
It is plausible to believe that Anne may have smiled prior to the arrival at the house of Dr. Condon. In a letter to her mother-in-law dated March 10, she does not mention having met the loquacious educator in the early morning hours of that day, but she says that there was progress and that she felt happier.7
Lindbergh led Condon to the south end of the house and opened a door, explaining that this was the only unoccupied room, the nursery. Lindbergh brought in an armful of army blankets, which he made into a bedroll for the old gent, then left. Once under the blankets at the foot of that empty crib, Condon relates this dialogue:
Often, when I am alone and my heart is full, I speak aloud to myself. In the darkness, now, my own voice spoke quietly:
“Condon?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you need help?”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t you need help?”
“Yes.”
I got out from beneath the warm blankets. I put my hands around the rung of the missing “Lone Eaglet’s” crib. On my knees, I prayed:
“Oh Great Jehovah, assist me in the work which I am about to carry on in Thy honor and that of the most glorious Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Son of God, whose anguish, too, was great, as her divine Son suffered crucifixion. Divine Mother assist me in my cause.”
Solemnly, hands clasped, my eyes deep in that empty crib, I took my oath:
“By Thy grace and that it may redound to Thy credit and that of Thy immortal Son, I swear that I shall dedicate my best efforts and, if necessary, the remaining days of my life, to helping these unfortunate parents.”
I finished with a fervent petition.
“Let me do this one great thing as the crowning act of my life. Let me successfully accomplish my mission to the credit of Thy Holy Name and that of Thy Divine Son. Amen!”8
In the morning John F. Condon had an “American breakfast of orange juice, bacon, eggs, toast and coffee.”9 At the table with him were the Lindberghs, Henry Breckinridge, the young police officer whose voice had been the first he had heard on the phone the night before, and Anne’s mother, Mrs. Dwight Morrow. Except for Mrs. Morrow’s questions to Condon, which related to the kidnapping, the conversation was on general topics, including an avid discussion between Breckinridge and Condon concerning football.
Lindbergh was called away from the table and soon had Condon and Breckinridge join him in his upstairs bedroom. He said he believed Condon was in contact with the people who had taken his son—Condon claimed he never heard Lindbergh use the word kidnap or kidnapper—and he would arrange for fifty thousand dollars to be placed at his disposal immediately, and in a day or so he would have the additional twenty thousand being asked for. He handed a note to Condon dated March 10, 1932, signed by him and his wife, which read, “We hereby authorize Dr. John F. Condon to act as go-between for us.”10
Lindbergh assigned Breckinridge the task of inserting the money-is-ready notice in the New York American. Breckinridge felt it was imperative that they find a pseudonym with which to sign the ad, a code name the kidnappers could use to identify all future communications. It didn’t take long for Condon to come up with an acronym from his own initials, J.F.C.: Jafsie.
Returning downstairs, Condon met trooper boss H. Norman Schwarzkopf and Bob Coar of the Jersey City Police Department. He was also introduced to Morris Rosner but not by his own name. Rosner, who was still staying at the house and had returned late the night before, was told Condon was Dr. Stico and little else.11
John Francis Condon loved Jesus Christ, Uncle Sam, and “The Star-Spangled Banner” best and, next to them, the Bronx, New York. “America is the finest country in the world,” he was fond of remarking, “the Bronx the most beautiful borough in it.”12 Lindbergh and Breckinridge got a sense of these sentiments early on. Had they inquired further, they would have discovered that many people who knew Condon found him to be eccentric, if not a flat out “nut,” sentimental, sycophantic, histrionic, patronizing, pseudo-humble, and “anxious to see himself and be seen by others in the best possible light.”13 However, Lindy and his lawyer displayed little interest in checking the background of the aging educator, who favored old-fashioned, dark winter suits and a black derby hat even during the hottest months of summer.
Condon had graduated from the college of the City of New York in 1884, took his M.A. at Fordham University, and taught in New York City schools for forty-six years, for twenty-five of which he served as a school principal. After retiring, he lectured at Fordham on pedagogy, acted as a part-time swimming instructor, and lectured frequently on a multitude of subjects at schools and organizations throughout the city. He resided with his wife, Myra, in a satisfactory two-story house at 2974 Decatur Avenue in the Bronx. Their two sons were lawyers, and their daughter had been a teacher until her recent marriage to a young architect.
One of Condon’s favorite pastimes was writing poems and occasional articles for a local daily paper, the Home News for the Bronx and Manhattan, which was better known as the Bronx Home News, since the majority of its hundred thousand readers came from that borough. He had become friendly with the editor and was a regular contributor who often used pen names such as P. A. Triot, J. U. Stice, L. O. Nestar, and L. O. Nehand.
John F. Condon made it mellifluously clear that for him the kidnappers of the baby of the greatest hero in the world, Charles A. Lindbergh, had disgraced the flag and defiled the national honor. According to Condon, at a family dinner on Sunday, March 6, he had been greatly agitated by the day’s news: Charles and Anne Lindbergh had appointed Spitale and Bitz, a pair of common criminals, to act as their intermediaries. He commiserated with a newspaper editorial that expressed a sense of outrage at Lindy’s action and handed the article to his daughter, telling the family that, by golly, Uncle Sam would restore the baby. Condon claimed that as he went on about the crime’s being a humiliation that everyone was taking too lightly, his daughter interrupted: “Dad, you’re not going to get mixed in the Lindbergh case?” He began to say it was the duty of every citizen, but she interrupted him again, and his sons joined her to say, among other things, that the Lindberghs had all the investigators they needed. “You won’t get mixed up in this, dear?” his daughter pleaded. “Promise?” His only reply was an unintelligible grunt.14
Condon claimed that late the following night, March 7, dining with his cronies at Max Rosenhain’s restaurant in the Bronx and discussing the crime, he took umbrage at a remark that the Lindbergh kidnapping probably couldn’t have happened anywhere but in the United States. He went home, brought out the purple ink he made himself, and in an “elegant, Spencerian hand” wrote the editor of the Bronx Home News:15
I offer all I can scrape together so a loving mother may again have her child and Colonel Lindbergh may know that the American people are grateful for the honor bestowed upon them by his pluck and daring.
Let the kidnappers know that no testimony of mine, or information coming from me, will be used against them. I offer $1000.00 which I’ve saved from my salary (all my life’s savings), in addition to the suggested $50,000. I am ready, at my own expense, to go anywhere, also to give the kidnappers the extra money and never utter their names to anyone.
If this is n
ot agreeable, then I ask the kidnappers to get any Catholic priest, with the knowledge that every priest must hold inviolate any statement which may be made by the kidnappers.
The letter and a story incorporating much of the text received prominent positions in the Bronx Home News edition of Tuesday, March 8. The piece was captioned DR. JOHN F. CONDON OFFERS TO ADD ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS OF HIS SAVINGS TO RANSOM LINDBERGH CHILD.
The text provided Condon’s address, a line or two of biography on him, and a reminder that if he were to act as go-between, “he would be responsible to no person for information which he might obtain from the abductors.”
Returning home at 10:00 P.M. the next evening, March 9, Condon went through the day’s mail and opened an envelope whose large block letters spelled out his name and address. This was the message that prompted his phone call and first visit to Hopewell.
Henry Breckinridge and Jafsie Condon left Hopewell at 2:00 P.M. March 10 for their ultrasecret mission of placing an ad for the kidnappers in a New York City paper. According to Condon, they drove directly to his home in the Bronx, where in the living room awaiting them was a newspaper man. Condon relates this account:
I saw Colonel Breckinridge’s look of dismay as I introduced him to Gregory F. Coleman of The Home News. Coleman, too, noticed the expression and hurried to reassure him.
“I’ve already conferred with Mr. Goodman and Mr. O’Flaherty, the editor and the publisher. They agree that this is one of the biggest stories of all time and that we have an obligation to our readers. But they feel that a still more sacred obligation is to see Colonel Lindbergh’s child safely returned. You may be sure than anything that is revealed to me will be held in strictest confidence. We shall publish nothing that will in any way endanger your negotiations and the child’s return.”
Colonel Breckinridge thanked Coleman and I introduced the Colonel to Al Reich who, learning from Rosenhain of my visit to Hopewell, had come to the house to reassure members of my family lest they be alarmed by my overnight absence.16