A woman, innocently watching”: “Bomber’s Erratic Timing Baffling,” 2.
The “sweeping arches” and “choral staircases”: See www.radiocity.com/about/history.html, accessed September 16, 2009.
“Everything about Radio City Music Hall”: Richard Alleman, New York: The Movie Lover’s Guide: The Ultimate Insider Tour of Movie New York (Harper and Row Publishers, 2005), 54.
“American People’s Palace”: See www.radiocity.com/about/history.html, accessed September 16, 2009.
The hall initially opened in 1932: Richard Alleman, New York: The Movie Lover’s Guide, 54.
hundreds of film classics: Ibid.
“virtually [guaranteeing] a successful run”: See www.radiocity.com/about/history.html, accessed September 16, 2009.
a “funny” sound: Transcript of Interrogation of George Metesky, January 22, 1957.
“[It] sounded like a rocket”: James, “The Mad Bomber vs. Con Ed,” 47.
“We’re sorry about this”: Brussel, Casebook, 19.
He smiled and whispered: James, “The Mad Bomber vs. Con Ed,” 48.
The morning newspapers played down: “Psychopath’s Bomb Pops in Music Hall, Burns Coat,” New York Herald Tribune, March 11, 1953, 19.
The Herald Tribune attributed the bomb: Ibid.
a “publicity-seeking jerk” and a “mental case.”: “A Homemade Bomb Rips Station Locker,” New York Times, May 7, 1953, 28.
“EDITOR + STAFF OF N.Y. HERALD TRIBUNE”: See New York Herald Tribune, December 28, 1956, 4.
“careful and wary as a cat”: “The Mad Bomber’s Story Reveals Odd Personality,” New York Journal-American, March 20, 1957, 7.
Nervously, Metesky had settled the bomb: Brussel, Casebook, 24.
“I thought my number was up”: “The Mad Bomber’s Story Reveals Odd Personality,” 7.
A blast in the lower-level men’s washroom: “Bomb Injures 3 in Grand Central,” New York Times, March 17, 1954, 33.
“fervor of excitement”: “Bomb Lets Go at Terminal,” Charleston Gazette (West Virginia), March 17, 1954, 1.
“My ears are still deaf”: “Bomb Explodes in Grand Central Station, Hurts 2,” Lebanon Daily News (Pennsylvania), March 17, 1954, 1.
“crude, home-made time bomb”: “Bomb in Music Hall Injures 4 in Crowd,” New York Times, November 8, 1954, 1.
“as if a big electric bulb”: “Bomb in the Music Hall Hurts Four in Audience,” New York Herald Tribune, November 8, 1954, 1.
“All seats were taken”: Ibid.
Within moments of the blast: Ibid.
A Port Authority attendant: “Bomb Explodes in 8th Ave. Bus Terminal, Scares Many Commuters, Hurts No One,” New York Times, November 29, 1954, 11.
They began calling him the “Mad Bomber”: The name “Mad Bomber” appears to have been originated by Justin Gilbert in an article found in the May 4, 1955, issue of the New York Daily Mirror. He wrote, “A mad bomber, so diabolically clever that he has consistently thwarted the best detectives, has planted hundreds of bombs all over mid-Manhattan for 15 years—and still is on the loose . . .” “City Hunts Mad Bomb Planter,” New York Daily Mirror, May 4, 1955, 1.
CHAPTER VI: CHASING SHADOWS
Clearly torn between their responsibility: “Penn Station Blast Is Ignored by Commuters,” New York Times, January 12, 1955, 11.
The effusive New York Daily News: “Bomb Goes Off, Panics LI Rush-Hour Throng,” New York Daily News, January 12, 1955, 3.
And, in a clear attempt to compromise: “Penn Station Bomb Startles Commuters,” New York Herald Tribune, January 12, 1955, 1.
“to get even with the Consolidated Edison Co.”: “Radio City Bomb Found to Be Deadly,” New York Journal-American, May 3, 1955, 4.
An option that earlier had been considered: Telephone interview with William F. Schmitt, December 10, 2009.
With the device open: “Here’s How Terrorist Makes His Explosives,” New York Journal-American, December 28, 1956, 2.
“lethal weapon”: “City Hunts Mad Bomb Planter,” 30.
The New York Journal-American chillingly proclaimed: “Radio City Bomb Found to Be Deadly,” 4.
the front page banner headline: “City Hunts Mad Bomb Planter,” 1.
And across America: “Mad Bomber Being Hunted In New York,” Alton Evening Telegraph, May 4, 1955, 15 (AP).
From a detailed study of the bombings: “City Hunts Mad Bomb Planter,” 3.
Following the second Radio City incident: Ibid., 30.
“You are dealing with a man”: Joseph Carter, “Wanted: The Man without a Face,” 56.
“I personally have taken”: Ibid.
“once spent a solid day”: Ibid.
“The whole inside of the booth”: “Porter Is Injured,” New York Journal-American, February 22, 1956, 5.
dismayed to find threads: Transcript of Interrogation of George Metesky, January 22, 1957.
The next day, newspapers reported: “Penn Station Blast: FBI, Cops Hunt ‘Mad Bomber,’” New York Journal-American, February 22, 1956, 3.
he felt “sick”: Transcript of Interrogation of George Metesky, January 22, 1957.
“I took an oath to keep on placing them”: Ibid.
including one in the Empire State Building: Ibid.
As the two men talked: “Pipe Bomb from R.C.A. Building Blasts Guard’s Home in Jersey,” New York Times, August 5, 1956, 64.
“You never know when a piece of pipe”: “Rockefeller Center Escapes a Bombing,” New York Herald Tribune, August 5, 1956, 1.
“like two cars coming together”: Ibid., 6.
“a mess . . .”: “PipeBomb from R.C.A. Building Blasts Guard’s Home in Jersey,” 64.
“I haven’t been as religious”: “Rockefeller Center Escapes a Bombing,” 1.
“His face remains a blank”: Joseph Carter, “Wanted: The Man without a Face,” 56.
“. . . WHILE VICTIMS GET BLASTED”: “Psychiatrist Depicts the Bomber,” New York Herald Tribune, December 27, 1956, 1. Also see Brussel, Casebook, 21–22.
CHAPTER VII: THE “TWELFTH STREET PROPHET”
Parakeets flying freely: Telephone interview with John Israel, James A. Brussel’s stepson, May 29, 2009.
“It is a comfortable enough face”: Brussel, Casebook, 3.
“Bow-tied, Mustachioed and Natty”: “My New York,” Titusville Herald, August 8, 1959, 6.
From his office: Telephone interview with John Israel, May 29, 2009.
His submissions were so frequent: Ibid.
A prolific and incessant writer: Telephone interview with Judith Gutmann, James A. Brussel’s stepdaughter, June 5, 2009.
“[A] man has to be paranoid”: “My New York,” 6.
On one of many working vacations: Telephone interview with John Israel, May 29, 2009.
“There is a kind of poetic justice”: Brussel, Casebook, ix.
A native-born New Yorker: Biographical information is derived from Brussel, Casebook, 4; The New York Red Book, Volume 71 (Williams Press, 1963), 645; and a telephone interview with John Israel, May 29, 2009.
Though he focused some of his: See James A. Brussel, “Military Psychiatry,” Military Surgeon 88 (1941).
he developed an intriguing interest: See James A. Brussel, “Charles Dickens: Child Psychologist and Sociologist,” Psychiatric Quarterly 12, no. 1 (1938); James A. Brussel, “Van Gogh: Masochist Genius of the Canvas, A Psychiatric Study,” Psychiatric Quarterly 14, Supplement 1 (1940): 7–16; and Judith A. Peraino, Listening to the Sirens: Musical Technologies of Queer Identity from Homer to Hedwig (University of California Press, 2006), 83.
Established in 1926, the stated function: “Preliminary Guide to Mental Health Documentary Sources in New York State,” www.archives.nysed.gov/a/research/res_topics_health_mh_recguide_dmh.shtml, accessed October 9, 2009.
“The history of mental disease”: New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, Annual Report, 1948, 46.
“the great mystery of human behavior”: Brussel, C
asebook, 4.
“with an attitude of cool scientific inquiry”: Ibid., 5.
“common psychiatric principles in reverse”: Ibid., 3.
“That the human mind works at all”: Brussel, Casebook, xii.
“Sherlock Holmes of the Couch”: Ibid., 3.
CHAPTER VIII: “THE GREATEST MANHUNT IN THE HISTORY
OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT”
In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic: A. Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (Spencer Blackett, 1890), 93.
“greatest manhunt in the history”: “Kennedy Orders Wide Manhunt,” 1.
“New York’s ‘finest career officer’”: “Portrait of Our No. 1 Cop,” New York Times, November 15, 1959, SM16.
“number one headache”: Marjorie Dent Candee, ed., Current Biography Yearbook 1956 (H.W. Wilson, 1956), 334.
“Deceptively gentle in appearance”: “Portrait of Our No. 1 Cop,” SM16.
He grew up in the tough Greenpoint section: “Strong Arm of the Law,” Time, July 7, 1958.
Soon after, he attended: Candee, ed., Current Biography Yearbook 1956, 334.
In 1951 he was promoted: “Strong Arm of the Law.”
though he had a reputation: “‘All Cop’ Commissioner, Stephen P. Kennedy,” New York Times, February 14, 1956, 21.
“Mr. Kennedy is a man”: Ibid.
Though this authoritative deportment: Gerald Astor, The New York Cops: An Informal History (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 209.
By 1958, the department would boast: “Strong Arm of the Law.”
“to make every effort”: “‘Get Bomb Maniac,’ All Police Told,” New York Daily News, December 4, 1956, 2.
“The man is not”: “Kennedy Orders Wide Manhunt,” 47.
“an outrage that cannot”: Ibid., 1.
He concluded the conference: Ibid.
“I appeal to members”: “‘Get Bomb Maniac,’” 2.
“DO YOU RECOGNIZE”: “Do You Recognize This Writing?” New York Daily News, December 11, 1956, 10.
“A ‘faceless man’”: “‘Mad Bomber’ Believed to Be Man About 45,” New York Journal-American, December 4, 1956, 11.
“He is searching desperately”: “His Secret Notes Paint the Portrait of Mad Bomber,” New York Daily News, December 11, 1956, 10.
The New York Journal-American: “Bomber Mystery,” New York Journal-American, December 26, 1956, 19.
the World-Telegram and Sun: “The Mad Bomber,” Time, Janaury 7, 1957, 17.
BIU detectives canvassed: “16-Year Search for Madman,” New York Times, December 25, 1956, 1.
“reached the end”: “Publicity Heat Turned Toward Mad Bomber,” New York Journal-American, December 5, 1956, 6.
CHAPTER IX: A CITY IN TURMOIL
“I didn’t see any reason”: Deborah Kops, Racial Profiling Open for Debate (Marshall Cavendish, 2006), 27.
“A whole generation”: James, “The Mad Bomber vs. Con Ed,” 46.
“He had the whole city”: “Injured Victims Express Relief,” Waterbury Republican-American, January 23, 1957, 1.
“It is one thing”: “Terror in the Age of Eisenhower,” New York Times, September 10, 2004, B1.
“He has been described”: “New Man Heads Troubled Police Force,” Bee (Danville, Virginia), June 28, 1962, 2-B. (AP).
“Book of Rules”: Jeane Toomey, Assignment Homicide: Behind the Headlines (Sunstone Press, 2006), 94.
His 1956 contribution: Morris Ploscowe, Manual for Prosecuting Attorneys (Practising Law Institute, 1956), 432.
Through 1956: James A. Brussel, M.D., “History of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene,” N.Y. State Journal of Medicine 57, no. 3 (1957): 559.
Though the arcane methodology: Ibid.
“I had real people”: Brussel, Casebook, 28.
“I don’t know what”: Ibid., 12.
CHAPTER X: PROFILE OF A BOMBER
Homer’s eighth century BC: Richard N. Kocsis and George B. Palermo, Criminal Profiling: Principles and Practice (Humana Press, 2006), 4.
Published in 1486: Brent E. Turvey, Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis, (Elsevier, 2008), 6–10.
“born criminals”: Ibid., 17.
“I seemed to see”: Colin Wilson and Damon Wilson, Written in Blood: A History of Forensic Detection (Carroll and Graff, 2003), 591.
Pursuant to his anthropological theory: Turvey, Criminal Profiling, 17–18.
“mark of Cain”: Ibid., 18.
Though most of these: Kocsis and Palermo, Criminal Profiling, 4.
“Conan Doyle continually referenced”: Turvey, Criminal Profiling, 21.
By a careful examination: Tim Newburn, Handbook of Criminal Investigation (Willan Publishing, 2007), 493–494.
“. . . A man subject to periodical attacks”: Kocsis and Palermo, Criminal Profiling, 5.
The Whitechapel murders: Ibid.
Of strategic significance: Newburn, Handbook of Criminal Investigation, 494.
Though Langer’s assessment: Kocsis and Palermo, Criminal Profiling, 6.
“I knew I wasn’t going to fool him”: Brussel, Casebook, 13.
“I’d seen that look before”: Ibid.
“I felt that my profession”: Ibid., 13–14.
“I stood up from my desk”: Ibid., 11–12.
“He seemed like a ghost”: Ibid., 28.
“At large somewhere”: Ibid., 14.
“A psychiatrist’s dominant characteristic”: Ibid., 5.
Each such item: Email from Howard Teten to author dated July 9, 2009, in which a detailed analysis of Dr. Brussel’s approach to criminal profiling was provided. Dr. Teten was an instructor at the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico, Virginia, and developed the Bureau’s original approach to profiling which was adapted, in 1970, as a lecture course titled “Applied Criminology.”
It would, in effect: See Charles Patrick Ewing and Joseph T.
McCann, Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2006), 14.
“These mechanical affairs”: Brussel, Casebook, 28–29.
“alien to the feminine personality”: “Bomber a Woman? Idea Called ‘Silly,’” New York Herald Tribune, December 28, 1956, 11.
Consequently, Brussel indicated: Brussel, Casebook, 29.
The threats had continued: “Psychiatrist Depicts the Bomber,” 1.
“a chronic disorder”: Brussel, Casebook, 30.
“These are the people”: “Psychiatrist Depicts the Bomber,” 1.
“The paranoiac is the world’s”: Brussel, Casebook, 30–32.
“He’s symmetrically built”: Ibid., 32.
Brussel spoke in assured tones: Douglas and Olshaker, Unabomber, 10.
In a study: Ernest Kretschmer, Physique and Character (University of Michigan, 1925; reprinted by Read Books, 2008), 16–36.
Brussel told the officers: Brussel, Casebook, 32–33.
“He’s middle-aged”: Ibid., 33.
It was a logical assumption: Ibid. See also “Bomber a Woman? Idea Called ‘Silly,’” 11.
Since the Bomber’s overriding contempt: Ibid.
“He wants to be flawless”: Brussel, Casebook, 41.
Repeated use of odd phrasings: “Mad Bomber Believed ‘Ordinary Man’ in 40s,” New York Journal-American, December 26, 1956, 3. See also “Search for the Bomber,” New York Times, January 6, 1957, E2.
Another theory: Joseph Carter, “Wanted: The Man without a Face,” 56.
“It was like a slouching soldier”: Brussel, Casebook, 36.
“something inside him”: Ibid.
“Something about sex”: Ibid.
“Once again, I realized”: Ibid., 37.
“Could the seat symbolize”: Ibid.
Brussel was convinced: Ibid., 37–38.
“And now,” thought Brussel: Ibid., 39.
“inferential mosaic”: Ibid., 38–39.
“A loner”: Ibid., 39–40.
He has no friends: “Bomber a Woman? Id
ea Called ‘Silly,’” 11.
“He [is] unmarried”: Brussel, Casebook, 40–41.
Since men typically don’t reside alone: Ibid., 40.
“at least two years of high school”: Ibid., 41.
He flipped through the pages: Ibid., 34.
The letters almost read: Douglas and Olshaker, Unabomber, 11.
“Historically,” responded Brussel: Brussel, Casebook, 42 (emphasis added).
“To play the odds again”: Ibid.
Recognizing that thousands: Ibid., 42–43.
“Heart disease is my guess”: Ibid., 43.
a failure “to make every possible allowance”: Ibid., 42.
“The Bomber was God”: Ibid., 43.
“Tell me something,”: Ibid., 43–44
“By putting these theories”: Ibid., 45.
“I guess it has to be done”: Ibid., 46.
“When you catch him”: Ibid.
CHAPTER XI: CHRISTMAS IN MANHATTAN
With typical holiday fanfare: “Christmas Tree Rises in Midtown,” New York Times, November 27, 1956, 27.
The twenty-fourth annual: “A Tree Is Lighted in Rockefeller Center, and Suddenly It’s Christmas Time Again,” New York Times, December 7, 1956, 29.
“MAD BOMBER STRIKES AGAIN”: “Mad Bomber Strikes Again in Main Library,” New York Daily News, December 25, 1956, 1.
“BOMB IN 5TH AVE. LIBRARY”: “Bomb in 5th Ave. Library Spurs Hunt for Psychotic,” New York Times, December 25, 1956, 1.
“Yuletide gift”: “Mad Bomber Strikes Again in Main Library,” 1.
“a kind of portrait”: “Bomb in 5th Ave. Library Spurs Hunt for Psychotic,” 31.
“conceived this image”: Ibid.
“Single man, between 40 and 50”: Ibid.
“[The Times story] didn’t contain”: Brussel, Casebook, 47.
CHAPTER XII: “AN INNOCENT AND ALMOST ABSURDLY
SIMPLE THING”
“window on the world”: William Randolph Hearst Jr., The Hearsts: Father and Son (Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1991), 301.
Later, back in New York: Seymour Is Dead at 53; Publisher of Journal-American, New York Times, January 5, 1959, Page 29.
“Get it first, but first get it right”: William Safire, No Uncertain Terms: More Writing From the Popular “On Language” Column in The New York Times Magazine (Simon and Schuster, 2003), 725. See also, William Safire, Words of Wisdom: More Good Advice (Simon and Schuster, 1990), 205.
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