My fantasies of an aircrew of my own, of course, were motivated by more than just a desire for companionship. An aircrew-and I thought of an aircrew only in terms of stewardesses-would lend concrete validity to my role of airline pilot. I had learned that a solitary pilot was always subject to scrutiny. Conversely, a pilot trailing a squad of lovely stewardesses would almost certainly be above- suspicion. If I had a beautiful bevy of flight attendants with me in my travels, I could scatter my valueless checks like confetti and they’d be accepted like rice at a wedding, I thought. Not that I was having any trouble passing them at present, but I was passing them one at a time. With a crew behind me, I could cash the sham checks in multiple numbers.
I left Istanbul after a week and flew to Athens. “Don’t you have a crew with you, sir?” asked the hotel desk clerk. I gave him my usual reply, feeling harassed.
The next day I flew to Paris to visit the Lavaliers. “I wish you flew for Air France. I could be a member of your crew,” Monique said at one point during the visit. The remark convinced me that an aircrew was a necessity.
But how did a pilot without portfolio, who didn’t know how to fly, go about assembling an aircrew? I could hardly gather a few girls at random and propose, “Hey, kids, wanna go to Europe? I’ve got this great scheme for passing worthless checks…” And since I had absolutely no connections in the underworld, American or European, I couldn’t look for help there.
I was in West Berlin when a solution presented itself. It was long-range and fraught with risks, but it was also challenging. Pan Am’s hives had always provided the bulk of my honey. If the carrier wasn’t my parent company, I was in a sense its bastard child, and this was an issue demanding filial loyalty.
I’d let Pan Am furnish me a flight crew.
I flew to New York and on arrival called Pan Am’s personnel office, representing myself as the placement director of a small western college, Prescott Presbyterian Normal. “I’m aware that you people send employment recruiting teams to various colleges and universities, and I wondered if you might possibly have our school on your schedule this year?” I said.
“I’m sorry, we don’t,” said the Pan Am personnel officer who took my call. “However, we will have a team on the University of Arizona campus during the last two weeks in October, interviewing students for various positions, and I’m sure they’d be glad to talk to any of your students who might be interested in a career with Pan Am. If you like, we can mail you some brochures.”
“That would be nice,” I said, and gave him a fictitious address for my nonexistent college.
Mine was a plan that demanded the boldness of a mountain climber. I donned my uniform and went to Pan Am’s Hangar 14 at Kennedy. With my phony ID card dangling from my breast pocket, I had no trouble at all gaining entrance, and I spent a leisurely half hour roaming through the stores department until I had accumulated the supplies I needed: envelopes, large manila holders and stationery, all boasting Pan Am’s letterhead, a pad of employment application forms and a stack of colorful brochures.
Back in my motel room, I sat down and composed a letter to the director of the University of Arizona placement office. Pan Am, I said, was initiating a new recruiting technique this year. In addition to the regular personnel recruiters who would visit the campus in October, the letter stated, Pan Am was also fielding pilots and stewardesses to interview prospective pilots and flight attendants, since actual flight personnel could offer a better perspective of what a flying position with Pan Am would entail and could also better evaluate the applicants.
“A pilot will be visiting your campus on Monday, September 9, and will be available for three days to interview stewardess applicants,” the spurious letter stated. “Under separate cover, we are sending you some brochures and employment application forms which you might wish to distribute to interested students.”
I signed the name of Pan Am’s director of personnel to the letter and placed it in a Pan Am envelope. I packaged the brochures and application forms in one of the large manila holders. Then I went to Pan Am’s office building, sought out the airline’s mail room and dropped the missives off with a young clerk, brusquely ordering they be sent air mail.
I thought Pan Am’s own postage meter, with its little Pan Am blurb, “World’s Most Experienced Airline,” would add a little class to the counterfeit mailings.
I dispatched the letter and the other material on August 18. On August 28 I called the University of Arizona and was connected with John Henderson, director of student placement.
“Mr. Henderson, this is Frank Williams, a co-pilot for Pan American World Airways,” I said. “I am scheduled to visit your campus in a couple of weeks, and I’m calling to see if you received our material and if the dates are suitable.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Williams,” enthused Henderson. “We’re looking forward to your visit and we did receive your material. In fact, we’ve posted it about campus, and you should have a goodly number of applicants.”
“Well, I don’t know what was in the letter you received,” I lied. “But I have been instructed by the flight supervisor to interview only juniors and seniors.”
“We understand that, Mr. Williams,” Henderson said. “In fact, all the inquiries I have received so far have been from juniors or seniors.” He volunteered quarters on the campus for me, but I declined, saying I’d already made reservations with a hotel favored by the company.
I appeared on the University of Arizona campus at 8 a.m., Monday, September 9, and Henderson greeted me cordially. I was, of course, in uniform. Henderson had set aside a small room for my use during my stay. “We have thirty applicants to date, and I have scheduled them to appear in lots of ten each day,” he said. “I know, of course, you’ll be talking to them individually, and you can set your own daily schedule, if you wish. But the first ten will be here at 9 a.m.”
“Well, I think I’ll talk to them as a group at first, and then interview them individually,” I said.
The first group of ten coeds was, collectively and individually, simply lovely. More than ever, looking at them, I saw the need for a crew of my own. The ten of them eyed me like I was Elvis Presley about to swing into action.
I affected a businesslike air. “First of all, ladies, I want you to know this is as new to me as it is to you. I’m more used to a cockpit than a classroom, but the company has assigned me this task and I hope I can carry it out successfully. With your help and understanding, I think I can.
“I say ‘understanding’ because I don’t have the final say as to who will be hired and who will not. My job is just to select girls who I think would be most suitable as flight attendants and to make a recommendation in their behalf The personnel director has the authority to reject any or all of the candidates I offer. However, I can also say that you might be hired on my recommendation without your having to be interviewed by anyone else.
“There is also this-it’s unlikely any of you will be hired by Pan Am before you graduate. But if you are selected as a future stewardess, it’s our policy to give you some sort of assistance during your last year in school just so you won’t be tempted to take some other job. Am I making myself clear?”
I was. The girls said so. I then dismissed them as a group and began interviewing them individually. I wasn’t really sure of the type of girl I wanted in my “crew,” but I was sure of the type I didn’t want. I didn’t want a girl who couldn’t handle it if she learned she’d been conned into an elaborate scam.
Totally naive and patently prudish candidates I crossed off immediately. Those who were personable and attractive, but superstraight (the kind of girl an airline would like as a stewardess), I marked as questionable. I put check marks after the names of girls who impressed me as easygoing, somewhat gullible, a little daring or devil-may-care, ultraliberal or not likely to panic in a crisis. I thought the girls who possessed such traits would be the best bets for my make-believe flight squad.
Henderson sat in during the m
orning sessions, but during the lunch break he led me to a file room behind his office and showed me an entrance near where I was interviewing the girls. He handed me a key to the door. “There’s very rarely anyone on duty here, since our student records system is completely computerized,” he said. “So you’ll need this key. Now, I’ve pulled the files of all the applicants and put them aside on this desk here, in case you want to study the record of a particular girl. This way, you can operate pretty much on your own, although we’ll be available to help you if you feel you need help, of course.”
I was intrigued with the record-keeping system and Henderson obligingly showed me how the system worked before taking me to lunch as his guest.
I finished with the first ten applicants early in the afternoon and the following morning met the second batch of candidates. I gave them the same spiel, and like the first ten, they were equally amenable to my terms. The last girls, too, were exposed to the same con, and by the afternoon of the third day I had narrowed the field to twelve candidates.
I spent a couple of hours studying the files of the twelve on an individual basis, recalling my own interviews with them and my impressions of them, before settling on eight. I was leaving the records room when I was seized with an amusing whim, one that took me less than thirty minutes to satisfy. When I left the room, Frank Abagnale, Jr., a native of Bronxville, had transcripts in the files showing him to have earned both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in social work.
The next morning I delivered my “thesis” to my eight finalists, since they were the lambs who had made possible my whimsical sheepskins.
The girls were excited when I assembled them, in the perfect mood for the con I put down. “Calm down, please, calm down,” I implored them. “You haven’t been hired as stewardesses. I think you ought to know that now.”
The words achieved the desired multiple shock. And momentary total silence. Then I grinned and laid it on them. “That’s because you’re all juniors and we want you to finish your education before joining Pan Am,” I said.
“I think I mentioned before that the company likes to assist approved stewardess candidates during their last year in school, and I’ve been authorized to make you eight girls an offer I think you’ll find interesting.
“I have been informed that the company intends to hire a number of girls as summer interns for the coming year, and these girls will be sent to Europe in different groups to act as advertising representatives and public relations people. That is, they’ll be used as models for photographs for Pan Am ads in various world publications-I’m sure you’ve all seen the kind I’m talking about-and some will be used as speakers at schools, civic group meetings, business seminars and that sort of thing. It’s a show-the-com-pany-flag type of tour and usually we use real stewardesses or professional models dressed up in flight-attendant uniforms.
“But this coming summer, we’re going to use girls who’ve applied for stewardess positions and it will serve as sort of a pretraining period for them. I personally think it’s a good idea for several reasons. One, it will allow our ad people to use pictures of our own personnel, depicted in cities we serve, and secondly, we won’t have to pull actual stewardesses off the flight line when a photo situation calls for an actual stewardess. That’s always made it tougher on the other stewardesses in the past, because summer months are our peak passenger months, and when we have to pull attendants off flight duty, other girls have to do their work.
“Now, if any or all of you would like to take part in the program this summer, I’m authorized to hire you. You’ll have an expense-paid tour of Europe. You’ll be paid the same salary as a starting stewardess, and you’ll dress as stewardesses, but you won’t be stewardesses. We’ll supply your uniforms. Also, you’ll be given a letter of employment, which is very important in this instance. It means that those of you who do decide to become stewardesses after graduation will be applying as former Pan Am employees, and you’ll be given priority over all other applicants.
“Do I have any takers among you?”
They all volunteered. “Okay,” I said, smiling. “Now, you’ll all need passports. That’s your responsibility. I’ll also need your addresses so the company can keep in touch with you. I’m sure you’ll have your letters of employment within a month. That’s it, ladies. I’ve certainly enjoyed meeting you all, and I hope that if and when you become stewardesses, some of you will be assigned to my crew.”
I informed Henderson of the offer I’d made the girls, and he was as delighted as they had been. In fact, Henderson, his wife and the eight girls all hosted me that night at a delightful dinner party around the pool in the Hendersons ’ back yard.
I flew back to New York and rented a box with mail-answering service that had offices in the Pan Am Building. It was the perfect cover, since it allowed me to use Pan Am’s own address in subsequent correspondence I had with the girls, but all their replies would be directed to my box with the mail-service firm.
After a week or so, I sent a “letter of employment” to each of them, along with a covering letter signed by myself (as Frank Williams) informing each of them that-surprise! surprise!-I had been assigned by the company to head up the European operation involving them, so they were to be my “crew” after all. I also enclosed a phony little form I’d made up, requesting all their measurements for purposes of having their uniforms made up. I directed each of them to address any future questions or information directly to me, in care of my box number.
Then I turned to getting ready for the tour myself. The passport I had was only a temporary one, and in my real name. I decided I needed a regular passport that I could use as Frank Williams and decided to take a chance that the passport office in New York was too busy for its employees to play cop.
I walked into the office one morning, turned in my temporary passport and ten days later was issued a regular passport. I was pleased to have the document, but it was, after all, issued to Frank W. Abagnale, Jr. It was not a passport that would serve “Pan Am First Officer Frank W. Williams,” should the need ever arise. I started looking around and found what I needed in the hall of records of a large East Coast city. It was the death notice of Francis W. Williams, age twenty months, who had died at that young age on November 22,1939. The archives disclosed the infant had been born on March 12, 1938, in a local hospital. I obtained a certified copy of the birth certificate for $3.00 by presenting myself to one of the clerks as the same Francis W. Williams. It seemed logical to me, and I’m sure it would make sense to anyone else, that anyone named “Francis” would prefer to be called “Frank.”
I took the copy of the birth certificate to the passport office in Philadelphia, together with the necessary photos, and two weeks later had a second passport, one that matched my Pan Am uniform. I was now ready to “command” my crew, if nothing occurred in the next several months to upset my Arizona apple cart.
I spent those months knocking around the country, keeping a low profile in the main, but occasionally dropping a few phony Pan Am checks or counterfeit cashier’s checks.
At one point I ended up in Miami, staying in the penthouse suite of a Miami Beach hotel, the Fontainebleau, under the guise of a California stock broker, complete with a briefcase full of $20s, $50s and $100s, and a rented Rolls-Royce, which I had leased in Los Angeles and driven to Florida.
It was all part of a grand scam I had in mind, which was to drop some really big counterfeit cashier’s checks on some of the Miami banks and some of its more elite hotels after establishing a reputable front. I earned the reputable front in large part sheerly by accident. I had made it a point to acquaint myself with some of the hotel’s top management people, and one of them stopped me in the lobby one afternoon and introduced me to a Florida broker, one whose financial genius was known even to me.
A staunch Floridian, he had the true Floridian’s thinly disguised contempt for California, and I gathered from most of his remarks during our casual encounter tha
t he didn’t hold California stockbrokers in any esteem, either. He was so blatantly rude and arrogant at times that the hotel executive was patently embarrassed. After a few minutes I excused myself, he was so hostile. He grasped my arm as I was leaving.
“What’s your opinion on the Saturn Electronics offering?” he asked with a supercilious smirk. I’d never heard of the company and in fact didn’t know any such firm existed. But I regarded him blandly, then dropped one eyelid. “Buy all of it you can get your hands on,” I said and walked off.
A few days later I encountered the man again as we were both waiting for our cars to be brought to the front entrance. He greeted me with grudging respect, which surprised me. “I should have listened to you on that Saturn stock,” he said. “How the hell did you know Galaxy Communications was going to take over the company?”
I just grinned and gave him another wink. Later I learned that Saturn Electronics, after its acquisition by Galaxy, had closed from five to eight points up on each of the previous four days.
That evening I was accosted at the elevator by a well-groomed man in his thirties who introduced himself as a prominent city official.
“Rick [one of the hotel executives] told me about you, Mr. Williams,” he said. “He said you might be setting up an office here and perhaps make your home in Miami during part of the year.”
I nodded. “Well, I’m thinking about it seriously,” I said, smiling. “I’ll probably make up my mind within a few weeks.”
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