The Mad Bomber of New York

by Michael M. Greenburg

  He was a product of the Roaring Twenties—collegiate culture, raccoon coats, the Charleston, fraternity pranks, and jazz. His brash and uninhibited talent for self-expression gave him an air of supreme confidence—and some would say downright arrogance. On one of many working vacations abroad with his family, a tour guide aboard a sightseeing bus pointed out a cement plant along a highway outside of Rome, and from the back of the bus came the sarcastic quip in a distinctive Damon Runyon–styled New York accent: “Is that where they make the bread?” His uninhibited mind could coin a phrase, in rapid-fire fashion, tailor made for any moment. “There is a kind of poetic justice in the fact that James A. Brussel, M.D. . . . really exists,” observed a friend. “He should be found only in fiction.”

  A native-born New Yorker, James Brussel graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and performed his psychiatric residency in the early 1930s at Pilgrim State Hospital in Brentwood, New York. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for the army and, for a time, provided psychiatric services aboard the Queen Mary, which had been used during the war to transport troops and prisoners from the front. Later, he served as head of the army’s neuropsychiatric service at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and as a psychiatrist at the military prison in Greenhaven, New York. During the Korean conflict, Brussel was once again called into military service as chief of the Neuropsychiatric Center in El Paso, Texas. As a civilian in the mid to late 1940s, he worked as assistant director of Willard State Hospital in New York’s Seneca Lake region and as a criminological consultant, focusing his curiosities on the mind of the criminal offender as he had done in the military. Returning home to New York following Korea, Brussel was appointed director of the Division of New York City Services, and in June 1952 was named assistant commissioner of mental hygiene for the state of New York—a position he would hold, in addition to maintaining a flourishing private psychiatric practice, for the next twenty years.

  Throughout his career, Brussel’s extensive range of professional writing would distinguish the broad intellect and creative composition of the man. Though he focused some of his early authorship on military psychiatry, he developed an intriguing interest in the personality traits of the masters and published psychiatric studies of Dickens, Van Gogh, and Tchaikovsky (who he argued suffered from an unresolved Oedipus complex). In 1948, while working at Willard State Hospital, Brussel was awarded first and second prizes in a national contest of the American Physicians Literary Guild for his satirical operatic rendition of Dr. Faust of Flatbush and a short story titled “Café Au Lait.” Through his career, he would weigh in on subjects ranging from the practical aspects of geriatrics to the dangers and concerns of hypnosis, and would even later posit that cognac should be recognized as an acceptable treatment for a number of heart ailments. He would be called upon as a psychiatric adviser to the National Broadcasting Company and as an expert witness in a variety of criminal trials where competency or sanity was at issue.

  Though his high-energy constitution demanded a blossoming creative outlet that would find written expression throughout his life, Brussel’s professional interests would focus, through the 1950s and beyond, on the plight of the mentally ill and the work of the Department of Mental Hygiene.

  Established in 1926, the stated function of the Department of Mental Hygiene was to afford protection for the mental health of the people of New York. The changing face of psychiatric treatment and institutionalization in the mid-twentieth century, and the social and political challenges that constantly faced the department from its inception, resulted in an ever shifting organizational history. The department’s own view of its professional mission remained steeped in realism yet optimistic promise. “The history of mental disease,” began the department’s 1948 annual report, “is a story of ignorance and cruelty, of suffering and bitter despair, but the white light of science and the gentle hand of kindness and understanding have shown the way to the promise of a happy ending.” As extensive as Brussel’s intellectual interests were, he would spend little time pondering the existential philosophies of his profession. Rather, his mind would focus on the practical applications of psychiatry and the known and yet to be discovered scientific methods that accompanied them.

  Early on, his professional interests leaned toward the study of criminal behavior, and much of his work at the Department of Mental Hygiene focused on the analysis of deviant conduct and criminology. Throughout his military and civilian career, Brussel struggled to weave together that often incongruent marriage of crime and psychiatry, studying the mentally ill and drawing conclusions as to rational cause and effect. Though he was often prone to draw snap—and often erroneous—conclusions, he would think about “the great mystery of human behavior” and, “with an attitude of cool scientific inquiry—neither judging nor condemning; simply ask . . . why the criminal has behaved this way and how he can be helped to behave in a less self-destructive way in the future.” Through years of studying hundreds of psychiatric criminal cases, however, Brussel developed a hunch—a gut feeling—that if he could apply these “common psychiatric principles in reverse,” using a “private blend of science, intuition, and hope,” perhaps he could predict by a study of prior acts, not what a known man might do in the future, but what kind of person an unknown offender might be. Might not the body of evidence surrounding a crime allow one to deduce something of the character and personality of the perpetrator?

  In his position with the Department of Mental Hygiene, Brussel had established many contacts and friendships at the New York City Police Department. He would, on occasion, share speaking engagements with department chiefs and often seek information from officers and detectives about offenders to whom he was rendering treatment. As a criminologist-psychiatrist, his work necessarily brought him into constant contact with police personnel, and they knew of his interest in and reputation for the study of criminal behavior. Though Brussel had never formally provided professional assistance on any ongoing police investigation, it seemed to be only a matter of time before police brass would recognize that nebulous link between crime and psychiatry, and enlist his opinions.

  “That the human mind works at all—that anything so fantastically complex could even begin to operate as a unit—is itself rather remarkable,” wrote Dr. Brussel in his 1968 memoir, Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist. “That most of us manage to keep this intricate and enormously variable mechanism under some sort of control most of the time, living with one another in tolerable harmony, is more remarkable still.” In December 1956, as the nervous citizens of New York waited in dread for the Mad Bomber to strike again and while a reeling police department grappled with the pressure of a growing public anger, Brussel—a man who would soon earn such mythical titles as “Sherlock Holmes of the Couch,” “Psychiatric Seer,” and the “Twelfth Street Prophet”—a man who understood the fragility of the human mind and its tenuous grip on sanity—was about to receive a call that would change his life, and the face of law enforcement forever.

  VIII

  “THE GREATEST MANHUNT IN THE

  HISTORY OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT”

  IN SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’S CLASSIC THE SIGN OF FOUR, SHERLOCK Holmes, with characteristic mastery of logic, if not frustration, scolds Dr. Watson: “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” As 1956 drew to a close, it seemed that the New York City Police Department had fully processed the impossible and the improbable in the search for the Mad Bomber. Truth, it seemed, had proven an elusive abstraction.

  In the aftermath of the Brooklyn Paramount bombing, police commissioner Stephen Patrick Kennedy had clearly had enough. In the days before, he had mobilized every asset his department could muster in the search for the Bomber, and his inspectors had scrutinized lead after sparse lead in the case. The crime laboratory, under the educated guidance of Captain Howard Finney, had studied bomb fragments, handwriting samples, and fingerp
rints, and detectives had assessed hundreds of possible suspects, and yet the Bomber was still on the loose. In his announcement of the “greatest manhunt in the history of the [New York City] Police Department,” Kennedy promised a refocused department-wide effort and condemned the actions of the Mad Bomber as the ravings of a deluded and dangerous mind.

  Labeled by J. Edgar Hoover as “New York’s ‘finest career officer,’” Stephen Kennedy had risen, in a period of twenty-six years, through the ranks of the department from probationary patrolman to police commissioner, a position often referred to as the city’s “number one headache.” “Deceptively gentle in appearance, with thin graying hair combed straight back and rimless bifocal glasses, he looks—and usually talks—more like a college professor than the stern commanding officer of the largest police force in the country,” wrote the New York Times in an exposé about the city’s “No. 1 Cop.”

  He grew up in the tough Greenpoint section of Brooklyn and initially was not able to complete his high school education because of financial concerns. Before joining the New York police as a patrolman in 1929, he worked as a seaman aboard a British freighter, a longshoreman along the East and North rivers, and a clerk-stenographer for a steel corporation, and even became a respected amateur boxer. Hardnosed roots notwithstanding, Kennedy would soon develop a bookish and polished manner that would follow him throughout his professional career. In 1943, already a lieutenant on the police force at the age of thirty-six, Kennedy went back to school during off-hours and earned his high school diploma. Soon after, he attended St. John’s University, where he earned an undergraduate degree, and then New York University, where he graduated in 1950 with a law degree. In 1951 he was promoted to inspector of the department, and a year later he was admitted to the New York bar, though he would never practice as an attorney.

  Kennedy’s appointment as police commissioner by Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. in August 1955 was not met with universal acceptance, and he would soon be viewed by the rank and file of the department as somewhat odd and arrogant. His leisure time was spent reading books and talking about theater and the arts, and though he had a reputation as “all cop,” he was never considered “one of the boys.”

  “Mr. Kennedy is a man of suavity and polished speech,” wrote the Times. “There is in his tone none of the over-meticulousness of the self-consciously cultured man, though there is a hint of the ‘Harvard A.’”

  One of the attributes that Kennedy brought to the New York City Police Department was a philosophy of strict discipline and fierce adherence to the rule of law. Though this authoritative deportment would ultimately cost him the admiration of his men, his reformist and forward thinking would also pay dividends.

  Prior to his appointment as commissioner, Kennedy had undergone specialized training at the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy in Washington, D.C., where he received detailed and advanced federal instruction on scientific crime-fighting methods and crime lab techniques. He acquired a deep admiration for what he saw as the incorruptible image of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, and was determined to bring that professionalism and innovative technology to the New York City Police Department. By 1958, the department would boast the largest most encompassing crime laboratory in the world, second only to that of the FBI.

  Kennedy was confident that it would be through the painstaking scientific analysis of evidence that a break in the Mad Bomber case would come. He could never have imagined where that bumpy road of science would lead.

  On the day following the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre bombing, Commissioner Kennedy called a meeting of 350 borough and division chiefs in the lineup room at police headquarters. He briefed the gathering on the most up-to-date information regarding the Mad Bomber investigation and he directed the commanders to instruct each of the 23,000-plus uniformed officers and detectives of the force, regardless of their current assignments, “to make every effort to ascertain the identity of the perpetrator.” In a sea-change of department priorities, and noting the increasing potency of the Bomber’s devices, he exhorted his department to take swift action to avoid an inevitable fatality. “The man is not in his right mind,” roared Kennedy. His activities constitute “an outrage that cannot be tolerated.” He concluded the conference by offering an “immediate good promotion” to any member of the force who was able to make an arrest of the Bomber.

  Following the closed-door meeting, the commissioner called together the throng of reporters that had gathered in and around police headquarters. In a rare departure from the stated police policy of secrecy, Kennedy had determined that circumstances now required a measured but definite public involvement in the Mad Bomber investigation. Wary of instigating a rash of copycat bomb scares or perhaps even feeding the ego of the Mad Bomber himself, but finding himself with little alternative, Kennedy delivered a statement to the gathering. “I appeal to members of the public to come forward and give to the police whatever information they may have concerning this man. The identity of informants will be kept a closely-guarded secret.” Informing the reporters that he, indeed, considered the effort to be the “greatest in department history,” he acknowledged that the Mad Bomber is “our No. 1 most wanted criminal . . .”

  In the coming days, the department released small excerpts of the Bomber’s handwritten letters with photostatic samples of his distinctive block printing. In newspapers around the city, words such as “GHOULS,” “JUSTICE,” “YELLOW PRESS,” and “CON. EDISON CO,” appeared in obtrusive stories beneath headlines such as “DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS WRITING?” and bewildered New York citizens were encouraged to take notice and report any information to the police.

  Eager reporters began independently consulting with psychologists, graphologists, munitions experts, scientists, and watchmakers, and wild and inconsistent theories as to the Bomber’s age, appearance, ethnic origin, and motives began appearing in the media. “A ‘faceless man’ driven by a desire to have the power of life and death over others . . . ,” wrote one newspaper. “He is searching desperately for sympathy . . . [W]hat this man really needs is love,” wrote another. The New York Journal-American provided a detailed schematic of a typical pipe bomb, including everything but an instruction manual, and the World-Telegram and Sun included an artist’s rendition of the Bomber’s face based on information solely provided by a handwriting analyst.

  After years of crime lab analysis, and the application of common sense, the police themselves had developed several working assumptions about the Bomber. Based upon the phrasing of his writings and the use of certain distinctive and characteristic lettering, they theorized that he was of German extraction and most likely middle-aged. They knew, by examination of bomb fragments and the unexploded devices, that he possessed some mechanical expertise, and the flood of threatening letters against Con Ed led them to the obvious conclusion that the Bomber had, in some way, been connected to the power conglomerate. Abstract generalities, however, did not equate with solid evidence. The task of generating reliable information that would lead to the identity of the Bomber still lay before the department.

  The revitalized police investigation mandated by Commissioner Kennedy was spearheaded by a newly formed Bomb Investigation Unit that worked exclusively on the Mad Bomber case and reported directly to the chief of detectives. The so-called BIU acted in a liaison capacity alongside both the bomb squad and the crime laboratory, coordinating and developing the entire body of evidence. Initially organized with a staff of nine investigators, the ranks of the BIU would swell to nineteen, then to thirty-four, and ultimately to seventy-six members in the days following the commissioner’s announcement.

  BIU detectives canvassed the streets of New York in a coordinated web, checking and verifying any possible clues in the case. They visited jewelry stores and watch shops on a regular basis to determine whether any “regular” customer had been purchasing an inordinate number of cheap watches. They went to Army surplus stores and plumbing supply houses in an effort to trace the
pipes and iron plugs regularly used by the Bomber. They checked sporting goods stores and hunting supply shops, hoping to jog the memory of an owner or a clerk as to any large purchase of bullets or other powder-based munitions. They checked and double-checked the personnel files of disgruntled or terminated Con Ed employees and sought court records for any lawsuits filed against the company. They painstakingly scoured the patient files of surrounding mental institutions where the Bomber might have sought treatment or suffered commitment, such as Bellevue, Brooklyn State, and Grasslands, and they reviewed thousands of records of discharged World War II servicemen.

  Yet, for whatever information detectives had been able to generate in the department’s most extensive manhunt, they had little in the way of solid, actionable evidence. In the days following the Paramount Theatre bombing, the department was forced to admit that its search for the Mad Bomber had drawn to an impasse. As one New York newspaper reported, the police had “reached the end of their investigative rope.”

  IX

  A CITY IN TURMOIL

  AS IT BECAME APPARENT THAT THE NEW YORK POLICE HAD NO REAL insight into the identity of the Mad Bomber, the public began to withdraw into a cocoon of fear. “I didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t put a [bomb] under my bed!” recalled one New Yorker decades later, summing up the fears of children throughout the city.

  In the winter of 1956, neighbors began casting a suspicious eye upon neighbors, and the bustling streets of New York City and beyond seemed to drone with an uncharacteristic air of apprehension. Train stations, bus terminals, and movie theaters, all favorite targets of the Bomber, reported dramatic reductions in patronage, and a palpable drop in local retail activity marked an overall sense that people had begun to avoid the city. “A whole generation of New Yorkers never felt entirely comfortable in public places,” wrote Jamie James for Rolling Stone in his 1979 retrospective on the Mad Bomber. “You thought twice before you used a phone booth or went to the movies. You heard lots of Mad Bomber jokes—you’d laugh, but they weren’t really funny,” a local resident recalled. “He had the whole city in panic,” stated another.