Scarface and the Untouchable

by Max Allan Collins

  JAMIE AND HOOVER: A. G. Jamie, memo to “Mr. Darling,” July 20, 1925; Darling, telegram to Director, September 16, 1925; Hoover, telegram to R. A. Darling, September 16, 1925; Darling, telegram to Director, September 16, 1925; J. Edgar Hoover to R. A. Darling, September 17, 1925; Alexander G. Jamie to Director, September 19, 1925; Roy A. Darling to Director, September 19, 1925; Arthur M. Millard to Roy O. West, September 21, 1925; Roy A. Darling to J. Edgar Hoover, September 22, 1925; Roy O. West to John Sargent, September 22, 1925; A. G. Jamie, telegram to Director (“certain influential friends”), September 24, 1925; Director to A. G. Jamie, September 24, 1925 (“a special assignment,” “two months or”); Director, memo to “Mr. Marshall,” September 24, 1925 (“efficiency and obedience”); Hoover, telegram to Darling, September 29, 1925; Darling, telegram to Director, September 29, 1925; Hoover, telegram to Darling, September 29, 1925; J. Edgar Hoover, memo to “Mr. Marshall,” October 5, 1925 (“that there is”), all in FBI-AJ. Potter, War on Crime, pp. 32–33.

  Ness apparently knew nothing of Jamie’s conflict with Hoover. In his first draft manuscript for The Untouchables, Ness claims Jamie came into the Prohibition Bureau when it was transferred to the Department of Justice, which actually happened in 1930. Ness MS., p. 1, in ENPS, Roll 1, Folder 2.

  PROHIBITION BUREAU: “Application for Position of Federal Prohibition Agent,” November 28, 1925; Edward J. Brennan to E. C. Yellowley, November 28, 1925 (“absolutely honest, capable”); Oath of Office, December 23, 1926; E. C. Yellowley to J. T. Brereton, December 24, 1926; E. C. Yellowley to James E. Jones, December 15, 1928; D. H. Blair to Alexander Jamie, January 7, 1928; Oath of Office, January 18, 1926, all in Alexander Jamie OPF. Schmeckebier, Bureau of Prohibition, pp. 49–51, 53. Law Observance, ed. Durant, p. 34. J. A. Buchanan, “A National League to Educate,” in Law Observance, ed. Durant, p. 99. G. L. Cleaver, “No More Joking,” in Law Observance, ed. Durant, p. 139. A. T. Cole, “Mr. and Mrs. Prominent Citizen,” in Law Observance, ed. Durant, p. 155. Frederick C. Dezendorf, “Stop Supplies for Home Brew Forfeit ‘Pre-Volstead’ Cellars,” in Law Observance, ed. Durant, p. 196. Sinclair, Prohibition, p. 184. Allsop, Bootleggers, pp. 36 (“twenty-three innocent”), 304–305. Kobler, Ardent Spirits, pp. 272–273. Calder, Origins and Development, pp. 55, 233n17. Behr, Prohibition, pp. 239 (“a corps of”), 241. Potter, War on Crime, pp. 13–20, 26. Nishi, Prohibition, p. 20. Helmer and Bilek, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, p. 57 (“Don’t shoot”). Ackerman, Young J. Edgar, p. 65. Folsom, Money Trail, p. 29. Okrent, Last Call, pp. 221–222, 245. McGirr, War on Alcohol, pp. xviii, 59–102, 123, 144–153, 165–166, 172, 201–210.

  NESS JOINS PROHIBITION BUREAU: Oath of Office, August 26, 1926, in Eliot Ness OPF. Fraley, “The Real Eliot Ness,” p. 29 (“So many of,” “Not me”). Porter, Cleveland, p. 106 (“I looked around”). Jedick, “Eliot Ness,” p. 50 (“Someone has to”).

  NESS’S FIRST RAID: Jedick, “Eliot Ness,” pp. 50–51. Heimel, Eliot Ness, p. 51 (“He couldn’t wait,” “I’ll say this”).

  Chapter Five

  CAPONE AND THE PRESS: CHE, January 24, 1927 (“gaudy pink apron”); March 9, 1927 (Capone quotes). Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, p. 95 (“You’re a public”). Bergreen, Capone, pp. 148–149. Bair, Al Capone, p. 103.

  HAWTHORNE SMOKE SHOP RAID: IRS-2, pp. 10–16 (quotes, our italics). Ross, Trial of Al Capone, pp. 43–46, 50–52. Kobler, Capone, pp. 154, 157–159. Bair, Al Capone, pp. 69–70.

  WEISS AND O’DONNELL: Keefe, Man Who Got Away, pp. 175–176, 183.

  GENNAS: Sullivan, Rattling the Cup, pp. 59–61 (59, “though they were,” 61 “overdressed, boastful, reeking”). Burns, One-Way Ride, pp. 113 (“bloody Angelo”), 131. Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, pp. 346–347. Allsop, Bootleggers, pp. 76–79 (76, “the Terrible Gennas”). Kobler, Capone, pp. 33–34, 88–92, 162–163.

  WEISS: Sullivan, Rattling the Cup, p. 35 (“the most energetic”). Keefe, Man Who Got Away, p. 163.

  MCGURN: Shmelter, Chicago Assassin, pp. 20–40. Sifakis, Mafia Encyclopedia, p. 283.

  ANGELO GENNA MURDER: CT, May 27, 1925. Burns, One-Way Ride, pp. 113–119. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 129–131. Eghigian, After Capone, pp. 108–109.

  SCALISE AND ANSELMI: Burns, One-Way Ride, p. 94 (“They were abnormal”). Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, p. 346. Kobler, Capone, pp. 89–90. Binder, Al Capone’s Beer Wars, p. 103 (“Murder Twins”).

  MIKE GENNA MURDER: CT, June 14, 1925. Sullivan, Rattling the Cup, pp. 61–64. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 131–132 (132, “resisted arrest”). Keefe, Man Who Got Away, pp. 177–179. Eghigian, After Capone, pp. 109–111.

  ANTHONY GENNA AND THE UNIONE SICILIANA: Kobler, Capone, pp. 163–164. Shmelter, Chicago Assassin, pp. 65–67.

  SONNY’S SURGERY AND ADONIS CLUB MASSACRE: NYT, December 27, 1925. CHE, March 9, 1927 (Capone quotes). Meyer Berger, “Mom, Murder Ain’t Polite,” in Ellen, Murphy, and Weld, A Treasury of Brooklyn, pp. 339–340. Kobler, Capone, pp. 167–169 (167, “Merry Christmas and”). Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 141–144. Balsamo and Balsamo, Young Al Capone, pp. 245–259.

  CAPONE CALLING HOME: Bair, Al Capone, pp. 69–70.

  SYPHILIS: Bergreen, Capone, pp. 44–46. Kathleen Brewer-Smyth, “Neurological Correlates of High-Risk Behavior: A Case Study of Alphonse Capone,” Journal of Neuroscience Nursing, vol. 38, no. 6 (December 2006), pp. 442–445. Eig, Get Capone, pp. 17, 375. Bair, Al Capone, pp. 71–72, 290–291. Dardoff, Jankovic, Mazziotta, and Pomeroy, Bradley’s Neurology in Clinical Practice, p. 102.

  THOMPSON SUBMACHINE GUN: Sullivan, Rattling the Cup, p. 37 (“That’s the gun”). Harry T. Brundidge and Frank L. Thompson, “The Truth About Chicago,” Real Detective, December 1930, pp. 17, 19. “Munitions: Chopper,” Time, June 26, 1939, p. 67 (“the deadliest weapon”). Helmer, Gun That Made the Twenties Roar, pp. 26–27, 32, 74–79, 82. Kobler, Capone, p. 109. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 140–141. Helmer and Mattix, Public Enemies, p. 96. Helmer and Bilek, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, pp. 21–23, 37. Kyle and Doyle, American Gun, pp. 175–176.

  Binder (Al Capone’s Beer Wars, pp. 293, 382n32) credits Frank McErlane with the first use of a Thompson in a gangster murder, but in that killing the weapon was fired semiautomatic (one bullet for each pull of the trigger) instead of full auto.

  MCGURN’S VENGENACE: Shmelter, Chicago Assassin, pp. 75–77, 79–81.

  MCSWIGGIN MURDER AND AFTERMATH: CT, April 28, 1926 (“We are going”); April 30, 1926; May 2, 1926 (“Scarface Al Brown,” “was in a”); May 31, 1926 (“said no attempts”). James O’Donnell Bennett, “Chicago Gangland: Golden Flood Makes Czars, Befouls City,” CT, April 7, 1929. CDN, April 28–30, 1926. CHE, April 28–30, 1926. Edgar Wolfe, “The Real Truth About Al Capone,” Master Detective, September 1930, pp. 36–40. Pasley, Al Capone, pp. 128–131 (“Capone in person”), 214 (“Who killed McSwiggin?”). Stephen Hull, “Cicero Ambush,” True Detective, July 1948, pp. 36–49, 58–59. Kobler, Capone, pp. 175–183. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 148–152 (149, “Little Mac,” “the Hanging Prosecutor”). Record for William Harold McSwiggin, Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916–1947 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2011).

  CAPONE IN HIDING: CT, April 13, 1986. Lansing State Journal, June 9, 1987 (“He’d be out”). Bergreen, Capone, pp. 15–16 (16, “If you do”), 94, 172–189 (172, “all business,” 178, “Capone was not”), 191–192, Bair, Al Capone, pp. 58–63, 85–89. Binder, Al Capone’s Beer Wars, p. 152.

  Bergreen quotes Capone’s errand boy under a pseudonym, but that individual is almost certainly the same man referred to in the Lansing State Journal article.

  Chapter Six

  CAPONE’S RETURN: CT, July 28–29, 1926 (July 28, “I think the,” “my friend McSwiggin”). CHE, July 28–29, 1926. Landesco, “Organized Crime,” pp. 827–841 (829, “I liked the”). Kobler, Capone, pp. 182, 185–187 (186, “I paid him”). Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 154–155.

  ANTHONY MCSWIGGIN: Pasley, Al Capone, pp. 133–134 (“If you think”). Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 155�
��156 (156, “was just too”).

  WEISS: Pasley, Al Capone, pp. 124–125 (“Weiss, the Pole”).

  CAPONE’S CHAUFFEUR MURDERED: Burns, One-Way Ride, pp. 185–186. Keefe, Man Who Got Away, p. 191.

  WEISS/DRUCCI GUNFIGHTS: Pasley, Al Capone, pp. 121–123. Burns, One-Way Ride, p. 186. Keefe, Man Who Got Away, pp. 191–192. Kobler, Capone, pp. 189–190.

  HAWTHORNE RESTAURANT SHOOTING: CT, September 21, 1926. James O’Donnell Bennett, “Chicago Gangland: Golden Flood Makes Czars, Befouls City,” CT, April 7, 1929 (“The Big Fellow”). Pasley, Al Capone, pp. 113–120 (114, “It’s a stall”). Burns, One-Way Ride, pp. 187–188. Kobler, Capone, pp. 190–192. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 159–160 (160, “A machine gun”). Binder, Al Capone’s Beer Wars, pp. 169–170.

  PEACE PARLEY: CT, October 12, 1926. CEA, October 13, 1926. Pasley, Al Capone, p. 91 (“I wouldn’t do”). Burns, One-Way Ride, pp. 188–189. Eghigian, After Capone, p. 123.

  WEISS MURDER: CT, October 12, 1926. CEA, October 13, 1926. CHE, March 9, 1927. Burns, One-Way Ride, pp. 189–195. Keefe, Man Who Got Away, pp. 195–198. Eghigian, After Capone, pp. 123–125.

  CAPONE PRESS CONFERENCE: CT, October 13, 1926 (“other notables,” “I’m sorry Weiss,” “He was supposed”). CEA, October 13, 1926 (“beer racket,” “I have to,” “I’ll tell them”). NYT, October 13, 1926 (“tried since the,” “I know that”). Pasley, Al Capone, pp. 126–127. Kobler, Capone, pp. 195–196.

  WEISS FUNERAL: Allsop, Bootleggers, pp. 87, 116. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, p. 165. Keefe, Man Who Got Away, pp. 62, 199.

  PEACE TREATY: CHE, October 23, 1926 (“I believe it’s,” “I’m going home”). Pasley, Al Capone, pp. 139–144 (142, “Here they sat”; 144, “the John D.”). Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, pp. 89, 133, 243. Kobler, Capone, pp. 197–200 (199, “feast of ghouls”). Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 166–168. Eghigian, After Capone, p. 125. Binder, Al Capone’s Beer Wars, pp. 171–172.

  VOLSTEAD ACT: Willebrandt, Inside of Prohibition, p. 17. Kobler, Ardent Spirits, pp. 213–214, 275. Behr, Prohibition, pp. 79–80, 83–84. Okrent, Last Call, pp. 108–114, 134–135.

  PROHIBITION UNIT: Schmeckebier, Bureau of Prohibition, pp. 35, 43–53. Willebrandt, Inside of Prohibition, pp. 17, 94, 111–114 (113–114, “that hundreds of”), 132–149. Pasley, Al Capone, p. 40 (“When the cops”). Allen, Only Yesterday, pp. 249–250. Sullivan, Chicago Surrenders, p. 137 (“Gold badges look”). Irey and Slocum, Tax Dodgers, pp. ix–xv, 4–24 (4–5, “As I think”). Kobler, Ardent Spirits, pp. 271, 273–275, 277. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 57–58. Behr, Prohibition, pp. 79–80, 83–84, 152–153. Potter, War on Crime, pp. 16–17, 26. Trespacz, Trial of Gangster Al Capone, p. 39. Fiorello H. La Guardia, “Prohibition Is Unenforceable,” in Nishi, Prohibition, p. 96. Okrent, Last Call, pp. 108–118, 134–135, 137, 141–144, 232, 331. Folsom, Money Trail, pp. 15–30.

  Although initially called the Special Intelligence Unit and sometimes referred to as the SIU in accounts of the period, the unit had dropped Special from its name by the time of the Capone case. (See IRS-1; IRS-2; IRS-3; IRS-4; Messick, Secret File, p. 36.) We refer to it as the Intelligence Unit throughout to avoid confusion.

  YELLOWLEY: Towne, Rise and Fall of Prohibition, p. 13 (“I drink as”). CT, November 7, 1926; September 5, 1927 (“rip snortin’ ”). Schmeckebier, Bureau of Prohibition, pp. 62, 65, 68. Pasley, Al Capone, pp. 40, 47–48, 92, 94–95, 163. Robert Isham Randolph, “How to Wreck Capone’s Gang,” Collier’s, March 7, 1931, pp. 8–9. Allsop, Bootleggers, pp. 34–35, 66. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, p. 77. Vern Whaley, interviewed in Al Capone: the Untouchable Legend, written and directed by Rike Fochler (Langbein and Skalnik TV, 1998), DVD. Eghigian, After Capone, pp. 45–46. Helmer and Bilek, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, p. 107. Okrent, Last Call, p. 141. Folsom, Money Trail, p. 62. McGirr, War on Alcohol, pp. 55–56.

  ROCHE INVESTIGATION: A. P. Madden to Chief, Intelligence Unit, June 7, 1927 (“You appear to”); G. J. Simons, Agent’s Memorandum of Violation, June 8, 1927; G. J. Simons to E. C. Yellowley, June 11, 1927; Clarence Converse and Patrick Roche to Chief, Intelligence Unit, July 31, 1928 (“the ‘Al Caponi’,” “the brewery was,” “of putting out”), all in Alexander Jamie OPF. CT, August 6, 1927.

  BUREAU OF PROHIBITION: CT, March 1, 1927; January 17, 1928; July 28, 1929. Schmeckebier, Bureau of Prohibition, pp. 1, 19–21, 54–60, 62. Willebrandt, Inside of Prohibition, pp. 111, 114–115, 135–138. Kobler, Ardent Spirits, pp. 278–279. Behr, Prohibition, pp. 153–154. Potter, War on Crime, p. 26. McGirr, War on Alcohol, p. 208.

  NESS AGE: Personal History, August 26, 1926, in Eliot Ness OPF. Announcement, “United States Civil Service Examination No. 122,” c. May 1927, in Robert D. Sterling OPF/ATF. Oath of Office, December 23, 1926; E. C. Yellowley to J. T. Brereton, December 24, 1926; Charles S. Deneen to L. C. Andrews, June 13, 1927; H. H. White to Ismar Baruch, June 20, 1927; I. Baruch to H. H. White, June 22, 1927; Alexander G. Jamie to the United States Civil Service Commission, July 5, 1927; E. C. Yellowley to J. M. Doran, July 6, 1927; J. M. Doran to E. C. Yellowley, July 11, 1927; I. Baruch to H. H. White, August 5, 1927; Alf Oftedal to E. C. Yellowley, August 6, 1927, all in Alexander Jamie OPF. Murphy, Report on Ness, p. 10; P. T. Sowell, interview with William J. Froelich, November 21, 1933, both in FBI-ENA.

  A letter in the official personnel folder of Prohibition agent Marion A. R. King—the only Untouchable younger, by a couple of months, than Ness—shows that he encountered the same problem. “Owing to the fact that at the time examinations were held for the position of Prohibition agent he was only twenty-four years of age,” wrote Prohibition Commissioner J. M. Doran, “[King] was not eligible to compete in the examination, the minimum age being twenty-five years.” King got around this problem by taking the Civil Service exam for the Bureau of Narcotics, which was open to anyone twenty-one years of age or older. The Civil Service Commission, however, stating “that the examinations for Anti-Narcotic agent and Prohibition agent are not of the same type,” denied King’s request for Civil Service status until he qualified under the new rules. (J. M. Doran to the Secretary of the Treasury, July 6, 1928; John T. Doyle to the Secretary of the Treasury, July 19, 1928, both in Marion A. R. King OPF/ATF.)

  Perry (Eliot Ness, p. 27), citing Ness’s personnel file, accepts 1902 as Ness’s birth year, but the preponderance of other evidence—especially from sources that could have only come from Ness or his family—strongly suggests 1903. The 1910 and 1920 U.S. Censuses give ages consistent with 1903 (in the latter, Ness is misidentified as a girl named “Ella”). So do the record of his marriage to Evaline McAndrew in 1939 (Tucker, Eliot Ness and the Untouchables, p. 31) and the vast majority of newspaper articles, particularly from his Cleveland years. Ness’s University of Chicago records give his birth year as 1903 (Murphy, Report on Ness, p. 3), as does his death certificate (Pennsylvania Death Certificates, 1906–1963, Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2014). After he left federal employment for good in 1942, Ness was particularly open about his age, giving it as forty-two in a Fortune magazine article published in January 1946 and giving his birth year as 1903 in the campaign literature from his 1947 run for mayor of Cleveland (“There Goes Eliot Ness,” Fortune, January 1946, p. 196; Story of Eliot Ness, pp. 3–4, NLEM). The Who’s Who in America c. 1951 also gives his birth year as 1903 (“Who Was Who in America,” c. 1951–1960, p. 635, RM), as does his job application to join the Fidelity Check Corporation in 1955 (Application for Employment, December 28, 1955, KDB). Ness consistently reported his birth year as 1902 in his official personnel folder, and the 1930 Census gives an age consistent with that same year, but taken together these sources are outliers.

  Less clear is how, when Ness joined the Prohibition Unit in 1926, he could have anticipated needing to add a year to his age. As stated above, the reform bill that Congress finally passed in 1927 had been proposed, in essentially the same form, more than once. Jamie or others in the unit could certainly have seen these reforms coming. It’s also
possible that Ness, thanks to Jamie’s influence, was able to alter his file after the fact. On the personal history statement in his OPF—the only pre-1927 source, as far as is known, giving his birth year as 1902—Ness’s birth year has been heavily written over and “(1902),” apparently in his handwriting, added just above it. It’s not at all clear, however, that the document once read 1903; it could have initially read “’02” or something similar. Without access to the original, it is impossible to say.

  Ness’s birth certificate, which gives his birth year as 1902, would not be filed until January 1932 (Eliot Ness Certificate of Birth, No. 33469, Bureau of Vital Records, Cook County Clerk, Chicago, IL; Murphy, Report on Ness, pp. 1–3, in FBI-ENA).

  NESS’S EARLY INVESTIGATIONS: CHE, April 22, 1927 (“You can’t arrest”). CT, April 22, 1927; April 28, 1927 (“Kentucky colonels who”). Rockford Republic, April 28, 1927. CDT, June 13, 1931. CHE, June 15, 1931 (“there certainly is”). Murphy, Report on Ness, p. 11, in FBI-ENA. I. L. Kenen, “Ness’ New Aide, Who Tried Out Raiding, Sees Chance to Realize Some Ideals,” CN, February 4, 1937, in ENPS, Roll 1, Scrapbook 3.

  The Daily Times article doesn’t give an exact date for Ness’s University of Illinois investigation, placing it only in 1926, but it must have been the fall, since Ness joined the Prohibition Unit in August and the school year probably began in September.

  PROHIBITION AGENTS AND ALCOHOLISM: Willebrandt, Inside of Prohibition, p. 114 (“seven hundred glasses”). Personal History Statement, May 21, 1932, in Bernard V. Cloonan OPF/ATF (“making buys”). Dwight E. Avis to Special Agent in Charge Jacksonville, August 25, 1932, in Paul W. Robsky OPF/ATF.