Alcatraz

by David Ward

  28. Director’s note on memorandum from F. H. Schmidt to Mr. Rosen, subject: Chaplain Joseph M. Clark, October 31, 1949, file 62–29777–7119.

  29. An article from an AP release on July 17, 1954, noted that the Kellys, Bates, Bailey, and Shannons were the first convictions under the Lindbergh kidnapping law, and that Kelly earned his nickname “because he could write his name with tommy gun bullets.” It also mentioned that when Kelly was apprehended, he had, according to an FBI spokesman, “reached up his hands toward the ceiling, trembled, and said, ‘Don’t shoot, G-Men. Don’t shoot.’” (The article’s title and newspaper’s name had been removed.) Kathryn Kelly and her mother, Ora Shannon, were released from prison in 1958, returned to Texas, and changed their names to Brooks.

  30. Albert Bates Alcatraz file. All quotes and references to letters and reports on Bates are taken from this source.

  31. Romney M. Ritchey, Surgeon/Psychiatrist, neuro-psychiatric examination of no. 137, December 9, 1938.

  32. E. Swope, warden’s bi-weekly report, July 16, 1948. “Urschel Kidnapper Takes Ransom Secret to Grave,” International News Service, name of newspaper and date not attached to articles.

  33. Admission summary, Leavenworth, Kansas, August 5, 1936. Sanford Bates to Warden, Leavenworth, July 30, 1936. Alvin Karpis Alcatraz file. All quotes and references to letters and reports on Karpis are taken from this source.

  34. Richard Gid Powers, G-Men: Hoover’s FBI in America’s Popular Culture (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), 178.

  35. Karpis, On the Rock, 53.

  36. Lester Davis, sheriff of Howell County, Missouri, informed Alcatraz officials that the widow of his predecessor, knowing that a trial would be unlikely given the passage of time and the death of witnesses, filed the murder charge to prevent Karpis from receiving a federal parole. According to Davis, “both Barker and Karpis were in the car which drove into a local garage and when the sheriff appeared on the scene looking for them four shots were fired into his body and he died instantly.” Lester Davis to E. B. Swope, Warden, Alcatraz, May 23, 1951.

  37. Lawrence Delmore, Jr., Associate Warden, to Warden, May 19, 1953.

  38. Lt. Alden Severson, interview with the author, July 20, 1977.

  39. Karpis, On the Rock, 235–36.

  40. Morton Sobell, interview with the author, January 11, 1980. Sobell was convicted of conspiracy in the cases in which Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death. He arrived at Alcatraz in 1952.

  41. Johan O. Pacillas, [D block] Treatment Unit Evening Watch, to Captain Bergen re “Proposed Hunger Strike in Treatment Unit,” March 3, 1954. Conversations as inmates called out from one cell to another were routinely recorded by segregation-unit officers, who censored inmates’ language as they saw fit. Karpavicz, special progress report, March 5, 1954.

  42. Teletype, September 19, 1958, to Frank Loveland, Assistant Director, BOP. C. H. Looney, Warden [Leavenworth], to James V. Bennett, September 15, 1952. Two days later Karpis was on his way back to Alcatraz.

  43. P. J. Madigan to Director, BOP, October 21, 1958.

  44. U.S. Board of Parole, transcript of minutes, by Richard A. Chappell, Chairman, June 24, 1961.

  45. “Ex-Mob King Seeks Parole,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 26, 1962. “Widow to Fight Karpis’ Release From Alcatraz,” Springfield (MO) Leader-Press, February 6, 1962. “‘Hood’ Karpis Eyes Parole,” Chicago Sunday American, February 11, 1962.

  46. Comment on copy of Chicago Sunday American article, March 14, 1962, FBI file 7–576–15474. Director, FBI, to Attorney General, February 14, 1962.

  47. “No Reason for Leniency,” Washington Star, April 1, 1962.

  48. “He and Ma Barker’s Boy: Ex-Public Enemy No. 1 Now a Model Prisoner,” Tacoma News Tribune, July 5, 1966. U.S. Board of Parole, transcript of minutes, case of Alvin Karpavicz, McNeil Camp, WA, September 29, 1966.

  49. James M. Carty, Attorney, Woodland, WA, to Alvin Karpavicz, December 20, 1967.

  50. Paul Madigan to Joseph N. Shore, Executive Parole Secretary, January 5, 1968.

  51. Raymond W. May to Joseph Shore, December 30, 1966. This was written on the date of May’s retirement after thirty years with the BOP.

  52. [Parole board chairman] Walter Dunbar, interview with Karpis, April 16, 1968.

  53. “Kidnapper, 60, Seeks New Life,” Washington Star, January 1, 1969.

  54. Alvin Karpis, as told to Bill Trent, “A New Life for Public Enemy #1,” St Paul Pioneer Press, March 1, 1970.

  55. Alvin Karpis, with Bill Trent, The Alvin Karpis Story (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1971), 230–33, 255–56.

  56. T. E. Bishop to Mr. Mohr, Subject: Alvin Karpis Appearance on NBC Television Network Show Entitled “Comment,” February 28, 1971, February 25, 1971; FBI file 7–576–15563; M. A. Jones to Mr. Bishop, Subject: Karpis Appearance on NBC, March 1, 1971, FBI file 7–576–15563, p. 4; Jones to Bishop, Subject: Alvin Karpis Apprehension, March 1, 1971, FBI file 7–576–15561; Jones to Bishop, Subject: Review of Book, The Alvin Karpis Story; March 5, 1971, FBI file 7–576–15562.

  57. Richard Hack in a recent biography reviewed the different versions of this famous incident as expressed by Karpis and by Hoover in newspaper interviews, in Hoover’s ghostwritten book, Persons in Hiding, and in another book, The FBI Story, by Don Whitehead written “with Hoover’s endorsement.” Hack also did extensive analysis of FBI files. He concluded, “Whichever is the authentic story . . . there is no denying that Hoover altered his version with each retelling, seemingly determined to sacrifice veracity for drama. His lies, or at least exaggerations, were more of proportion than substance.” Richard Hack, Puppet-master: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (Beverly Hills: New Millennium Press, 2004), 176–77. Other books give a variety of different verdicts. One book, by ex-FBI employees, accepts Hoover’s version of the story. Neil J. Welch and David W. Marston, Inside Hoover’s FBI: The Top Field Chief Reports (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 134. Another book, written by the number three man in the FBI hierarchy, disputed Hoover’s claims, noting that pistols said to have been taken from Karpis were on display in a glass case in the director’s outer office and that “these pistols were the closest Hoover ever came to a real gun since he didn’t know how to use one. He was with the FBI for forty-eight years, but he never made an arrest or conducted an investigation.” William C. Sullivan with Bill Brown, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), 101. Another biography of Hoover offers accounts of the arrest by both Hoover and Karpis: “Although those special agents who participated in the capture of Alvin Karpis were well aware that the director’s version wasn’t exactly the way it happened, none ever publicly disputed the official account.” Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 194; original emphasis.

  58. Gentry, The Man, 195.

  59. Karpis left a detailed account of his experiences at Alcatraz that was published after his death—Alvin Karpis, as told to Robert Livesey, On the Rock: Twenty-Five Years in Alcatraz (New York: Beaufort Books, 1980). Harmon Waley provided the author with a detailed written commentary on the pages of On the Rock. Among Waley’s observations, “There is too much foul language in this book. I am positive Karpis did not use so much of it. He was not foul mouthed, neither were most of the inmates, guards—federal prisoners, in the main, have higher IQs than state prisoners and are better educated. Livesey got carried away in his idea of how men in Alcatraz, the guards et. al. speak—‘Go to Hell,’ ‘Screw You,’ ‘Kiss my butt,’ etc. is about as strong as he should have gone. The officials seldom, if ever, used foul language. ‘I’ll see you rot in the hole, we’ll keep you here til you rot’ etc. was official talk. I think this book is fairly accurate save as noted but . . . I didn’t know some that he named were homos beyond Jimmy Groves.” Note: several of the men interviewed for this project were of the opinion that Karpis was too free, and often wrong, in identifying inmates he claimed were i
nvolved in homosexual conduct.

  CHAPTER 13

  1. Over the twenty-five years of Alcatraz history during which he served as director, James Bennett made many visits to the island and met with prisoners in his “office,” a cell in A block. He established cordial relationships with a number of men—relationships that continued after their release from prison. Bennett tried to find employment for Roy Gardner after his release; assisted Jack Hensley to obtain a release from his state prison sentence; and corresponded with Charlie Berta and other releasees.

  2. Willie Radkay, a friend of Chase’s at Alcatraz and afterward, provided the author with a copy of this letter.

  3. Radkay interview in 1981.

  4. Quillen interview in 1981.

  5. Success rates for the latter cohorts may have been slightly suppressed relative to the first cohort because the parole system became more extensive and professionalized during the 1950s and 1960s and may have increased the chances of a parolee being returned to prison for violations of parole conditions. However, this effect may have been cancelled out by the extra attention given to men released during the 1930s and 1940s because of their reputations as gangsters and “public enemies.”

  6. At the beginning of this project, we anticipated that the question would be raised as to whether the postrelease success or failure rates of the Alcatraz inmates corresponded to rates for a standard maximum-security penitentiary population. The Bureau of Prisons made it possible for us to answer this question by instructing the records office staff at Leavenworth to randomly select a sample of their inmates from the same years that Alcatraz operated, 1934–1963. We received the files of 414 Leavenworth prisoners but were able to find postrelease arrest and conviction records for only 257 of these men. This latter sample is the basis of our comparisons to the Alcatraz population. This analysis showed that 63.4 percent of Leavenworth inmates succeeded in avoiding a return to prison.

  7. For examples see Daniel Glaser, The Effectiveness of a Prison and Parole System (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964); and Gene Kassebaum, David A. Ward, and Daniel M. Wilner, Prison Treatment and Parole Survival: An Empirical Assessment (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1971).

  8. E. E. Kirkpatrick to Warden C. H. Looney, Leavenworth, April 2, 1953.

  9. Conduct report, September 27, 1937, Harvey Bailey Alcatraz file.

  10. James V. Bennett to C. H. Looney, May 2, 1958, Bailey Leavenworth file.

  11. Affidavit of Harvey Bailey to U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, July 3, 1958.

  12. E. E. Kirkpatrick to U.S. Board of Parole, Washington, D.C., July 18, 1958.

  13. Bailey to U.S. Board of Parole, September 30, 1958.

  14. Special progress report, Leavenworth, September 1958.

  15. H. J. Bailey to John C. Taylor, Warden, Leavenworth, July 9, 1960, Bailey Seagoville file.

  16. [Seagoville] Warden L. P. Gollaher to Board of Parole, March 2, 1962, ibid.

  17. Lawrence E. Miggins, Chief U.S. Probation Officer, to L. J. Gengler, Chief, Classification and Parole, Seagoville, March 21, 1962, ibid.

  18. Warden L. P. Gollaher to Joseph Shore, Parole Executive, U.S. Board of Parole, June 13, 1962, ibid. J. Edgar Hoover had written to Scovel Richardson, Chairman, U.S. Board of Parole, on December 23, 1955, arguing “that the offense for which Bailey was found guilty was one of the most heinous against society and any effort on his part to obtain parole should be opposed.” In July 1958 Warden Looney notified Director Bennett that the FBI office in Kansas City “asked that I keep them informed of any effort which Bailey makes toward obtaining release.”

  19. Wilbur Leonard, Chair, Board of Probation and Parole, to Warden Gollaher, Seagoville, October 5, 1962, ibid.

  20. J. Evetts Haley, Robbing Banks Was My Business (Canyon, TX: Palo Duro Press, 1973), 182–83.

  21. Special progress report, February 19, 1954. John Paul Chase accumulated a dozen misconduct reports during his nineteen years at Alcatraz, all but one related to violations of minor rules for which the punishment was “warn and reprimand” or a brief loss of privileges.

  22. Thomas McDade to Fr. Joseph Clark, Alcatraz, October 23, 1952.

  23. Petition for executive clemency, Leavenworth, July 18, 1961.

  24. Special progress report, March 16, 1966.

  25. Thormod H. Hanson, U.S. Probation Officer, evaluation of parolee progress, April 24, 1968. Hanson reported that Chase’s status as a parolee was known to “only a very select few . . . he does not particularly wish to associate with other individuals,” some of whom were parolees from California state prisons.

  26. Chase from Douglas G. Dilfer, U.S. Probation Officer, October 12, 1971.

  27. Frank Sawyer to Robert Coffey, U.S. Probation Officer, October 16, 1973.

  28. Thormod H. Hanson, Supervisory U.S. Probation Officer, to Steve D. Johnston, Parole Executive, U.S. Board of Parole, November 5, 1973.

  29. Special progress report, May 11, 1956.

  30. F. Loveland to Mr. Bennett, May 24, 1956.

  31. Special progress report, McNeil Island, March, 1963.

  32. “Waley, Weyerhaeuser Kidnapper, Goes Free,” June 5, 1963, Waley prison file. The newspaper’s name was not identified.

  33. Harmon M. Waley to George H. Weyerhaeuser, March 2, 1960.

  34. Waley interview in 1980.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Palmer G. Lee, U.S. Probation Officer, District of Oregon to Reed Cozart, Pardon Attorney, U.S. Dept. of Justice, October 30, 1967.

  37. George H. Weyerhaeuser to Arthur R. Lehwalder, U.S. Parole Office, Seattle, May 14, 1975.

  38. In addition to a daylong interview in his home, Harmon Waley and I had numerous telephone conversations for several years thereafter, and he produced a large amount of correspondence on various topics from Alcatraz to penal policy; he also provided line by line, handwritten critiques of a transcript of the Henry Young trial prepared for BOP officials, On the Rock, the book written by Alvin Karpis, the only man who had put in more time on the island, and of Clark Howard’s account of the 1946 escape attempt by Cretzer, Coy, and assorted others, Six Against the Rock. The latter he described as “the largest crock of crap that I have ever encountered.”

  39. R. S. Yocum, Senior Surgeon and Chief Medical Officer, release progress report, August 9, 1949.

  40. Berta interview in 1987. When Berta left the island forty-three cartons of books and magazines on welding, blacksmithing, and forging were shipped to him in care of Father Clark’s residence in San Francisco.

  41. Charles Berta to James V. Bennett, February 26, 1953. Bennett replied to Berta, acknowledged his success in finding work, and noted that Berta’s mother “would be proud to know that you have been successful since you were released. I am always pleased to hear from men who are doing their best to live useful, law-abiding lives. I am particularly interested when I hear from men who had been in a lot of really serious trouble earlier in their lives, but who have overcome their past and have really turned over a new leaf. Let me hear from you again from time to time, and I’ll look you up if and when I get to Frisco again.” J. V. Bennett to Charles Berta, March 11, 1953.

  42. San Francisco Examiner article, May 14, 1954.

  43. Berta interview in 1988.

  44. [James Quillen] Misconduct report, January 9, 1945.

  45. James Quillen, Alcatraz from Inside (San Francisco: Golden Gate National Parks Association, 1991), 129; see 147–53 for details of Quillen’s ups and downs after his release from prison.

  46. Special progress report, March 21, 1952.

  47. James V. Bennett to Acting Warden, McNeil Island, re James Quillen, November 2, 1954. On this note Bennett added a handwritten comment suggesting that Quillen be transferred to California to make him eligible for parole.

  48. John F. Douville, Chief U.S. Probation Officer, to William A. Barrett, U.S. Probation Officer, U.S. District Court, Eastern District Court of California, November 17, 1976.

  49. Hamilton interview in 19
81.

  50. Hamilton’s file included a letter in which he denied the claim by another inmate that he was a homosexual. No reference to this activity was recorded in his federal prison record; Texas prison officials determined that the prisoner that made this accusation was wrong and Hamilton was released from the solitary confinement.

  51. Harry McCormick had been kidnapped by Floyd’s brother Raymond. In their book Public Enemies: America’s Criminal Past, 1919–1940 (New York: Checkmark Books, 1998), 228, authors William Helmer and Rich Mattix report that this “kidnapping” was a ruse to allow McCormick to get a story: “March 19, 1935. Raymond Hamilton allegedly kidnaps Houston newspaper man Harry McCormick, dictates his version of his criminal career for publication, then releases him. Years later, the newspaper man will write that he contacted Hamilton and arranged the interview, then concocted the kidnapping story to avoid a harboring charge.”

  52. When Hamilton was on his way from Leavenworth to the state prison in Texas, Hinton told Hamilton: “Back in the 1930s I was trying to either kill you or put you in prison, but now I am up here to help you get out.”

  53. The True Story of Floyd Hamilton, Public Enemy #1, as Told to Chaplain Ray (Dallas, TX: International Prison Ministry, n.d.), 29. Hamilton’s life story was also featured in another International Prison Ministry publication, “Last of the Bonnie and Clyde Gang: The True Story of Floyd Hamilton Public Enemy #1 as Told to Chaplain Ray.” Both booklets featured photos of Hamilton and Chaplain Ray standing in front of cell number 13 in D-block—the site of Hamilton’s conversion, as he put it, “from crime to Christ.” He also recounted his life story in Public Enemy #1, Acclaimed Books (Dallas, TX: International Prison Ministry, 1978).

  54. AP release, July 28, 1984.

  55. [Volney Davis] Misconduct report, January 20, 1936.

  56. Misconduct report, April 10, 1939.