Lindbergh

by Noel Behn

  18. Fisher, The Lindbergh Case, 345.

  19. Waller, Kidnap, 460.

  20. Wilentz quoted in Lamoyne A. Jones, New York Herald Tribune, February 14, 1935, 1–8.

  21. Reilly quoted ibid.

  22. The reporters’ song from Kennedy, The Airman and the Carpenter, 258.

  23. Wilentz quoted in Whipple, The Trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 337.

  24. Jones, New York Herald Tribune, February 14, 1935, 8.

  25. Whipple, The Trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 399.

  26. The exchange between the county clerk and the jurors quoted in Whipple, The Trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 340, 341, and in Waller, Kidnap, 492.

  27. Waller, Kidnap, 492.

  28. Trenchard quoted in the transcripts of The State v. Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 1935, Lindbergh Archives.

  Chapter 22 Harold Giles Hoffman

  1. Letters from George M. Hillman to A. Harry Moore’s secretary, from Moore to Ellis Parker, Sr., and from Parker to Moore in box 5, the Harold Hoffman Collection.

  2. New York American, March 20, 1932, 1.

  Chapter 23 Bold Strokes and Bruno

  1. All quotations and description in this section, on Hoffman’s October 16, 1935, visit to Bruno Richard Hauptmann on death row, are from Hoffman, “What Went Wrong with the Lindbergh Case,” Liberty, January 29, 1938–April 30, 1938. Bracketed emendations are Hoffman’s.

  2. Ibid.

  3. The exchange between Hoffman and the juror, in which the juror quotes Condon, quoted ibid.

  4. Ibid., February 5, 1938, 17–18.

  5. Evalyn Walsh McLean, “My Say,” Washington Times, January 12, 1938.

  6. Hoffman, “What Went Wrong with the Lindbergh Case,” Liberty, February 19, 1938, 51.

  Chapter 24 The Bubble Bursts

  1. Hoffman, “What Went Wrong with the Lindbergh Case,” Liberty, February 19, 1938, 47.

  2. Scaduto, Scapegoat, 73.

  3. Bradway Brown, a wealthy young Philadelphia manufacturer, was found shot dead in his Palmyra, New Jersey, home on January 16, 1933, in what some thought was a suicide. After a year of deduction and tracking, Ellis Parker, Sr., brought the killer to justice, thus proving it was murder.

  4. Exchange between Jesse William Pelletreau and Hoffman quoted in the papers of Jesse William Pelletreau, collection of the author.

  5. Scaduto, Scapegoat, 236–37.

  6. Kennedy, The Airman and the Carpenter, 433.

  7. Hoffman quoted in the Trenton Evening Times, December 5, 1935, 1, 23.

  8. Hoffman, “What Went Wrong with the Lindbergh Case,” Liberty, February 19, 1938, 48.

  9. Ibid.

  10. The exchange between Hoffman and Pat Grady quoted ibid.

  11. Ibid., 50.

  12. Letter from Bruno Richard Hauptmann to Hoffman, December 16, 1935, box 5, folder 1, Harold Hoffman Collection.

  13. The Trenton Evening Times ended its Tuesday, December 24, editorial on the Lindberghs’ self-imposed exile saying, “That the Lindberghs may find peace and quiet, free from cheap politics and moronic claptrap, will be the hope of their shamed and embarrassed countrymen.”

  Chapter 25 The Rocky Road to Reprieve

  1. Twenty-page summary, n.d., 12, the papers of Jesse William Pelletreau, collection of the author.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Harold Hoffman quoted ibid., 13.

  4. Letter from J. J. Faulkner to Hoffman, January 1, 1936, quoted in the New York Daily News, final edition, January 10, 1936, 3–6.

  5. Letter from Hoffman to Schwarzkopf, January 3, 1936, Harold Hoffman Collection. Included on the list were objects such as the ladder and the chisel found at the Lindbergh estate the night of the crime, all reports on Violet Sharpe and the Morrow household staff, all statements by and reports on Betty Gow and all information on Red Johnsen, everything said by Jafsie Condon, including a phonograph record made by him in the presence of the state police, any statements or reports concerning Robert Thayer and Morris Rosner, a complete set of photos of the ladder, showing all fingerprints on the ladder, the set of fingerprints that Dr. Hudson believed were those of the baby, statements by a Morrow-household butler named Septimus Banks, Dr. Van Ingen’s measurement of the child taken prior to the kidnapping, statements and reports on Amandus Hochmuth, evidence regarding the footprint found outside the nursery window, the cast of the footprint taken at St. Raymond’s Cemetery subsequent to the payment of ransom by Jafsie Condon, all statements used in radio broadcasts by Superintendent H. Norman Schwarzkopf, and all reports or statements made by Inspector Harry Walsh of the Jersey City P.D.

  6. Mark O. Kimberling, invitation to the electrocution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, January 6, 1936, Harold Hoffman Collection.

  7. Sanford E. Stanton, New York American, January 17, 1936.

  8. Dennis Doyle’s letter to Ellis Parker, Sr., is described in Doyle’s statement to Detective Ralph Lewis of the New York Police Department and Detective William F. Horn of the New Jersey State Police, June 28, 1936. The statement is on file in the Lindbergh Collection at the New Jersey State Police Museum.

  9. Hoffman quoted in Robert Conway, New York Daily News, January 12, 1936, 3.

  10. Wilentz quoted in the Trenton Evening Times, January 11, 1936, 1.

  11. The architect of the jail had been profoundly influenced by ancient Egyptian tombs, which the building resembled.

  12. The papers of Jesse William Pelletreau, collection of the author.

  13. Stroh’s comments are taken from his statements in May 1936 and his writings of September 1936 as well as his later encounters with Pelletreau (the papers of Jesse William Pelletreau, ibid.). Since Stroh used various spellings for the Doc’s last name, the author has settled on one for this particular segment: Nosovitsky.

  14. Six letters from Max Sherwood to Hoffman, 1936, Lindbergh Archives.

  15. Wally Stroh’s and Dennis Doyle’s sworn statements to Captain J. J. Appel and Detective Ralph Lewis of the New York Police Department and Detective William F. Horn of the New Jersey State Police, May 28, 1936, Lindbergh Archives. It is in this affidavit that reference is made to Stroh’s and Doyle’s prior meetings with Gus Lockwood and the New York American journalist.

  16. Fisher, The Lindbergh Case, 393.

  17. Damon Runyon, New York American, January 12, 1936, 3.

  18. Harold Hoffman, “What Went Wrong with the Lindbergh Case,” Liberty, February 19, 1938, 52.

  19. Trenton Evening Times, January 12, 1936, 1.

  20. Runyon, New York American, January 12, 1936, 2.

  21. Trenton Evening Times, January 12, 1936, 2.

  22. Pauline Hauptmann quoted in the New York American, January 13, 1936, 5.

  23. Anna Hauptmann’s cable quoted in the New York Times, January 13, 1936, 3.

  24. Ralph Hacker quoted in Runyon, New York American, January 12, 1936, 3.

  25. Wilentz quoted ibid.

  26. Conway, New York Daily News, January 13, 1936, 3.

  27. New York American, January 13, 1936, 1.

  28. Ibid.

  29. Hoffman quoted ibid.

  30. Representative Blanton quoted ibid., January 14, 1936, 6.

  31. Charles A. Lindbergh’s statement in Paris Soir quoted ibid.

  32. Crawford Jamieson quoted ibid.

  33. Hoffman, “What Went Wrong with the Lindbergh Case,” Liberty, February 19, 1938, 52.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Ibid., 53.

  36. The exchange between Wilentz and Hoffman quoted ibid.

  37. Ibid.

  38. Note on New Yorker Hotel stationery, Harold Hoffman Collection.

  39. The exchanges between Anna Hauptmann and Hoffman quoted in Hoffman, “What Went Wrong with the Lindbergh Case,” Liberty, February 26, 1938, 24.

  40. Wilentz quoted ibid., 26.

  41. Hoffman quoted in Conway, New York Daily News, January 16, 1936, 3.

  Chapter 26 Countdown

  1. Mary McGill, Dr. Erastus Mead Hudson’s secretary, was e
rroneously called Mary Maxwell in the Stanton article.

  2. Hoffman quoted in Richard L. Tobin, New York Herald Tribune, January 18, 1936, 1.

  3. Fisher, The Lindbergh Case, 399.

  4. New York Herald Tribune, January 19, 1936, 4.

  5. Box 16, folder 604, Harold Hoffman Collection. The information focused on a story that the actress Rosalind Russell, the second woman lead in the touring play Second Man, told her producer.

  6. Letter from Hoffman to Schwarzkopf quoted in the New York American, January 31, 1936, 1.

  7. Included among the questions were the following:

  Who was the person to whom John had said, during a telephone conversation with Dr. Condon, that the latter wrote articles for the newspapers?

  Who was the Italian who had spoken curtly to John, apparently directing him?

  Was he the same person or someone else?

  Who was the woman, also apparently Italian, who had spoken so mysteriously to Dr. Condon, telling him to meet her at the Tuckahoe station?

  Why hadn’t the state police questioned Dr. Condon about a reputed $250,000 bribe he claimed to have been offered?

  Since Hauptmann was in prison and could not have made the bribe offer, who was his accomplice?

  Was not Dr. Condon, whose words were so greatly relied upon by the prosecution, believed when he said he was still convinced that more than one person was involved with the crime?

  If Lindbergh believed that Condon was in contact with the actual gang of kidnappers, then why had he entered into negotiations with John Hughes Curtiss?

  What did Curtiss say or show to him that persuaded Lindbergh that Curtiss was dealing with the kidnappers?

  Was the deciding factor Curtiss’s description of John, which exactly tallied with Jafsie’s description of his John?

  Wasn’t it true that just before the Hauptmann trial, the state had brought Curtiss to Philadelphia where he refused to say that his John wasn’t the member of a gang, and that consequently that the affidavits he gave to the Assistant Attorney General, Robert Peacock, weren’t used as part of the state’s case?

  And how did all this fit in with state’s accusation against Curtiss, who had been charged with having known the whereabouts of the abductors and willfully withholding this information from the authorities?

  Was the state right in obtaining a conviction of Curtiss based on obstruction of justice after having had contact with a gang of kidnappers, or was the state right in prosecuting Hauptmann as a lone wolf?

  Since it is evident that the prosecution was wrong in either one case or the other, it is not obvious that the state and the courts are not infallible, and that every possible inquiry is warranted before final action is taken in this important case?

  Did it seem possible that one of the baby’s thumb guards could lay in the driveway to the Lindbergh house for a whole month without being found?

  Wasn’t it easier to believe that it was put there just before its alleged discovery by accomplices inside or outside the household?

  Since everyone agreed the bank-receipt slip for $2,980, signed J. J. Faulkner, was not in Hauptmann’s writing, why had the search for Faulkner been abandoned?

  8. Exchange between Schwarzkopf and Wilentz quoted in Fisher, The Lindbergh Case, 402. Schwarzkopf’s statement the following day is from the Lindbergh Collection, New Jersey State Police Museum.

  9. Five letters from Hoffman to Hoover, January 18, 1936, box 5, Hoover file, Harold Hoffman Collection. In the first letter Hoffman asked for data regarding Jafsie’s phone number, which was found written on a wooden beam in Hauptmann’s closet shortly after his arrest in 1934; the governor also revealed that the New Jersey State Police case files provided no information on the DI search of the closet. The second letter requested intelligence on the bureau’s not being allowed into the Hauptmann apartment at the time it was discovered that a board in the attic was missing. The third letter wanted information on the articles found at the Hauptmann home. The fourth asked if Hoover’s men had examined the kidnapping ladder and if the ladder had been sent to the bureau’s Washington, D.C., laboratory. The final communication inquired as to whether photos of the prints found on the ladder were sent to the DI’s identification center.

  10. Letter regarding Mike Sololiski, box 5, Hoover file, Harold Hoffman Collection.

  11. Hudson quoted in Fisher, The Lindbergh Case, 398.

  12. Letter from Zoe Hobbs to Hoffman, January 17, 1936, box 5, file 3, Harold Hoffman Collection.

  13. Box 21, legal file, ibid.

  14. Letter from Harold Keyes to Hoffman, January 20, 1936, box 12, ibid.

  15. Telegrams from Hobbs to Hoffman, box 5, file 3, ibid.

  16. Tobin, New York Herald Tribune, January 20, 1936, 3; New York American, January 22, 1936, 3.

  17. Henry W. Jeffers quoted in the New York American, February 2, 1936, 3.

  18. New York Times, February 7, 1936, 1; New York Herald Tribune, February 7, 1936. Another powerful foe that Harold Hoffman seemed never to acknowledge as a threat or favor with political patronage was a GOP faction called the Clean Government Group. Headed by Arthur T. Vanderbilt, an Essex County lawyer, the CGG was fundamentally conservative but, realizing that change was in the political air, gave lip service to liberal and reform ideals. It particularly didn’t like Boss Hague and had been outraged when newly elected Governor Hoffman conspired with him to get the tax bill passed, an issue it used to gain strength within the New Jersey GOP during the September 1935 state primary. The CGG, as much as any force, was responsible for Hoffman’s being stripped of his party’s leadership earlier in the week. Whether the Clean Government Group could stop him from becoming a delegate to the GOP national convention remained to be seen. But its members were keeping up the pressure, and a war with Hoffman was fine with them.

  19. Editorial, Trenton Evening Times, February 7, 1936, 6.

  20. Letter from Bruno Richard Hauptmann to Mark O. Kimberling quoted in Fisher, The Lindbergh Case, 404.

  21. Hoffman, “What Went Wrong with the Lindbergh Case,” Liberty, March 5, 1938, 49.

  22. Samuel Leibowitz quoted in the New York American, February 20, 1936, 1.

  23. Hoffman, “What Went Wrong with the Lindbergh Case,” Liberty, March 5, 1938, 49.

  24. Waller, Kidnap, 564.

  25. Murray Bleefeld’s account of Paul Wendel’s son’s remark quoted in Scaduto, Scapegoat, 250.

  26. Letter from Hobbs to Hoffman, box 5, file 3, Harold Hoffman Collection.

  27. Letter from Hobbs to Hoffman, March 27, 1936, and telegram from Hoffman to Hobbs, March 29, 1936, ibid.

  28. Trenton Evening News, February 29, 1936, 1.

  29. Letter from William Lewis of the Mead Detective Agency, box 21, Harold Hoffman Collection.

  30. Tobin, New York Herald Tribune, March 15, 1936, 29. Fisher’s appeal was based on the claim of six points: (1) Millard Whited had perjured himself at the trial; (2) Hochmuth was partly blind at the time he saw Hauptmann near the Lindbergh estate; (3) Condon’s stories in print and at the trial were contradictory; (4) a new witness could testify that Isador Fisch had driven to the Lindberghs’ estate prior to the crime; (5) a German resident of Cuba received a letter from Fisch, asking him to get rid of some hot money; (6) Hauptmann had received an unfair trial and should have a new hearing. Fisher claimed the Fisch data were new.

  31. New York Herald Tribune, April 4, 1936, 1.

  Chapter 27 An International Spy

  1. New York Times, December 16, 1927, 1.

  2. Senate Special Committee to Investigate U.S. Propaganda or Money Alleged to Have Been Used by Foreign Governments to Influence U.S. Senators, 70th Cong., 1st sess., December 15, 16, 17, 20, and 27, 1927; January 4 and 7, 1928.

  3. Ibid., 290–91.

  4. The Socialist Revolutionary party, subsequent to the revolution, would split with the Bolsheviks. It would be an SRP woman who shot and wounded Lenin.

  5. On February 18, 1916, at the U.S. District Cou
rt in Detroit, Michigan, Jacob Nosovitsky filed a declaration of intention to become a citizen, in which he stated that he had emigrated from Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and gave his last place of foreign residence as Montreal and his current address as 73 Elizabeth Street West, Detroit.

  6. FBI, Freedom of Information Act, report on Jacob Nosovitsky, May 1992.

  7. This is the last date on which the Justice Department Freedom of Information Act file shows communication between Nosovitsky and Hoover.

  8. FBI, Freedom of Information Act, report on Jacob Nosovitsky, May 1922.

  9. Max Schlansky’s name was changed to Sherwood on May 14, 1917, according to information in the Lindbergh Archives.

  10. New York World, July 3, 1926.

  11. Bureau of Investigation, annotation at the bottom of a memorandum for the director, July 30, 1925.

  12. FBI, Freedom of Information Act, letter from J. Edgar Hoover, September 24, 1925.

  13. FBI, Freedom of Information Act, memorandums from J. Edgar Hoover to Colonel Donovan, January 30, 1926, and February 15, 1926.

  14. Senate Special Committee to Investigate U.S. Propaganda, testimony reported in the New York Times, December 16, 1927, 1.

  15. Letter from Anne B. Sloane to the New Jersey State Police, June 1932, Lindbergh Archives.

  16. Stroh’s sworn statement to Captain J. J. Appel and Detective Ralph Lewis of the New York Police Department and Detective William F. Horn of the New Jersey State Police, June 28, 1936, Lindbergh Archives.

  Chapter 28 Family Affairs

  1. Harry Green, meeting with author, June 1986, Los Angeles, California.

  2. Nicolson, Dwight Morrow, 311.

  3. Captain Harry F. Guggenheim, the millionaire philanthropist who controlled the fund, had already met Lindbergh and would become a close friend and something of a mentor.

  4. Nicolson, Dwight Morrow, 25.

  5. Chernow, The House of Morgan, 289; Daniel Guggenheim quoted in Nicolson, Dwight Morrow, 140. Davison was Henry Pomeroy Davison, a senior partner at Morgan and Company and an Englewood, New Jersey, neighbor of Morrow’s. Davison and Thomas W. Lamont, another partner and Englewood neighbor, were responsible for bringing Morrow into the Morgan organization.