Lindbergh

by A. Scott Berg

  After several days of relentless “grilling and criticism,” Betty Gow had also been cleared as a suspect. Because of her unusual opportunity to commit the crime, many considered her at least an accomplice if not the prime suspect. But Betty lacked motive altogether. She loved the baby as if it were her own and had been as desolated by his disappearance as the baby’s mother. Ironically, she could not help blaming herself for the crime, repeating to herself for years statements that began, “If only …” Charles felt that she and all the Lindbergh servants were completely above suspicion.

  On March 5, 1932, another ransom note arrived, this one genuine, validated by the identifying symbol of interlocking circles and punched holes. “We have warned you note to make anyding Public also notify the Police,” said the note in the same wobbly hand, full of uncrossed T’s and many other idiosyncrasies in spelling, handwriting, and diction. “Now you have to take the consequences.” Because of the publicity, the note explained, their transaction would have to be postponed. “Dont by [sic] afraid about the baby,” the note added, assuring the Lindberghs that they were feeding him according to the diet and wished “to send him back in gut health.” This delay, however, meant they had to include another person in what they suggested was a conspiracy, thus necessitating an increase in their demands—to $70,000. A postscript added that this kidnapping had been prepared for years “so we are prepared for everyding.”

  A virtual copy of the letter to Lindbergh arrived in care of Henry Breckinridge in New York City. While the syntax of this letter was as tentative as it had been in the first letter, the handwriting was noticeably steadier. The basic peculiarities of the cursive remained the same, but it was less crude in appearance, as if the writer was no longer trying to disguise his penmanship. This letter reiterated that the boy was being cared for; but it made clear that “We will not accept any go-between from your seid.” The Lindberghs would have to await further notification as to how the money would be delivered, but that would not occur “before the Polise is out of this cace and the Pappers are quite.”

  These letters, kept from the public, thrilled Lindbergh, for they continued the dialogue that might lead to his son’s rescue. He issued another public statement announcing that if the kidnappers were not willing to deal with him and his wife directly, “we fully authorize ‘Salvy’ Spitale and Irving Bitz to act as our go-betweens. We will also follow any other method suggested by the kidnappers that we can be sure will bring the return of our child.” The newspapers explained that Bitz and Spitale were former associates of Jack “Legs” Diamond, the recently murdered gangster. The press themselves, however, were not told that Mickey Rosner had brought them into the case, so that they could act as independent agents.

  In Chicago, Al Capone issued a statement while waiting to be transferred from the Cook County jail to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta to serve an eleven-year sentence. “I know how Mrs. Capone and I would feel if our son were kidnapped, and I sympathize with the Lindberghs.” To show the depth of his feelings, Capone offered $10,000 for information that would lead to the recovery of the child and the capture of the kidnappers. Amazingly, some of the nation’s most reputable attorneys urged Henry Breckinridge to allow Capone to rescue the Lindbergh baby.

  Debate over the ethics of dealing with criminals raged across the country; but after meeting the “underworld kings,” Anne felt closer to them because of the sincerity of their sympathy than that which was offered by a lot of politicians, many of whom simply appeared on the Hopewell property for their own publicity, posing by the ladder, which had been releaned against the house to help the police reconstruct the crime. Charles continued to warn Anne, “never count on anything until you actually have it”; but having even miscreants on their side, she wrote her mother-in-law that the news was looking decidedly “good.”

  Charles was visibly “buoyant and alive,” at last able to engage in what he considered a contest of wills, one which he believed he could win by making the right moves and by playing fairly. Feeding off his moods, Anne felt “much happier” herself, assured that their baby was safe. She wrote Charles’s mother almost daily.

  Anne appreciated the fact that she was surrounded by people who were not only hopeful but also disciplined. “The tradition of self-control and self-discipline was strong in my own family and also in that of my husband,” she later wrote. “The people around me were courageous and I was upheld by their courage. It was also necessary to be disciplined, not only for the safety of the child I was carrying but in order to work toward the safe return of the stolen child.” Despite the hundreds of “dedicated people” assisting in this great effort, the Lindberghs were still stuck in the painful position of waiting, having to avail themselves to even the most improbable accomplices.

  In Washington, D.C., a porcine middle-aged man named Gaston Means sat in the living room of Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean, one of the richest women in the world. Although he came from a distinguished North Carolina family, Means spent much of his life straddling the law. After being fired as an investigator for the Department of Justice, he took up bootlegging and eventually served time in Atlanta. Mrs. McLean was the daughter of a Colorado mining magnate, the estranged wife of the publisher of The Washington Post, and the owner of the Hope Diamond. Deeply moved by the plight of the Lindberghs, she consented to meet with Gaston Means when he called her with extraordinary news about the Lindbergh case. No fool, Mrs. McLean asked her friend “Jerry” Land—Evangeline Lindbergh’s cousin—to sit in.

  During his criminal period, Means explained, he had met the leader of the ring that had kidnapped the Lindbergh baby. He said he could guarantee its safe return if he could deliver $100,000. His explanation was full of compelling detail, including the kidnappers’ insisting that a Catholic priest be the go-between. Mrs. McLean selected a local pastor and agreed to come across with the money. Jerry Land left for Hopewell, where he vouched to Lindbergh for the apparent veracity of Gaston Means. As Means’s suggestions of the underworld’s part in the crime seemed to match those of Rosner, Bitz, and Spitale, Lindbergh ordered the plan to proceed—with the understanding that he would reimburse Mrs. McLean if the transaction proved successful. The heiress withdrew the money from her bank—in old bills—plus $4,000 to cover Means’s expenses.

  Meantime, in Norfolk, Virginia, John Hughes Curtis, president of the struggling Curtis Boat Building Corporation, went to the dean of Christ Episcopal Church, the Very Reverend Harold Dobson-Peacock, with an amazing story of his own. During the hard financial times, Curtis said, he had repaired the boat of a rum-runner who now claimed the kidnappers of the Lindbergh baby asked him to approach Curtis with the request that he serve as go-between. Curtis was a respected member of his community, but he did not have the credentials to reach the Lindberghs themselves. He knew, however, that Dobson-Peacock had become acquainted with the Morrows when he had been rector in Mexico City. Curtis’s story convinced the Reverend to place a call to the Lindberghs. He proved unable to get past a personal secretary who identified himself as Morris Rosner. The inmates had taken over the asylum.

  Undeterred, Curtis followed another path to the Lindberghs’ door. Living in Norfolk was retired Admiral Guy Hamilton Burrage, the former commander of the Memphis, the cruiser that had carried Lindbergh home from Paris in 1927. Curtis convinced Burrage to reach Lindbergh. After proving his identity to him, Burrage put Curtis on the phone. But Lindbergh remained strangely noncommittal, leaving the puzzled Burrage to suggest to Curtis and Dobson-Peacock that they compose a letter requesting a meeting in New Jersey.

  The reason for Lindbergh’s hesitancy was the sudden entrance of an even more clownish character into what had become a three-ring circus—John F. Condon. A former school principal, Mathematics teacher, and a Doctor of Pedagogy, the seventy-one-year-old Condon was a walrus of a man, with a bristly white mustache and large torso. He usually dressed in dark, three-piece suits and a black bowler, which he replaced with a straw boater in the summer. He wa
s a flag-waving patriot and an habitué of the YMCA, where he refereed local athletic events; he still coached students at Fordham University in swimming, boxing, and body-building. Condon was so incensed that his hero Charles Lindbergh had to consort with common criminals in order to get his son back that he decided to do something about it.

  Unsolicited, this lifelong resident of the Bronx offered his services as a go-between by sending a letter to his local newspaper, the Bronx Home News. Bumptious, verging on the foolish, Condon wrote in purple ink in a handwriting as flowery as his language, “I offer all that I can scrape together so a loving mother may again have her child and that Colonel Lindbergh may know that the American people are grateful for the honor bestowed upon them by his pluck and daring.” He offered $1,000 of his own to garnish the suggested $50,000 ransom money demanded of the Lindberghs. “I stand ready at my own expense,” he added, “to go anywhere, alone, to give the kidnapper the extra money and promise never to utter his name to any person.”

  Condon was a minor celebrity in the Bronx. A subsequent FBI investigation found that his neighbors considered him “an altruistic and honorable educator…. On the other hand he also has the reputation of being somewhat of an eccentric, some persons even going so far as to state that he is a ‘nut.’” The Bronx Home News, with its circulation of 150,000 readers, had been running his letters, poems, and essays for years, often under his pseudonyms P. A. Triot and J. U. Stice. Many accused him of being a self-important windbag; others respected him for putting his money where his mouth was. Neither Lindbergh nor the New Jersey State troopers knew of his offer.

  On the night of March ninth, Condon returned to his modest two-story house in the tree-lined Bedford Park section of the Bronx and found a personal letter addressed to him, printed in a neat but childlike scrawl. “dear Sir,” it read:

  If you are willing to act as go-between

  in Lindbergh cace pleace follow stricly

  instruction. Handel incloced letter personaly

  to Mr. Lindbergh. It will explan everyding. don’t

  tell anyone about it as son we find out the Press

  or Police is notifyd everyding are cansell and it

  will be a further delay. Affter you gett the money

  from Mr. Lindbergh put these 3 words in the New-York American

  Mony is redy Affter notise we will give you

  further instruction don’t be affrait we are not

  out fore your 1000$ keep it. Only act stricly. Be at

  home every night between 6–12 by this time you will

  hear from us.

  Enclosed was another sealed envelope, addressed to Lindbergh. Because of the poor handwriting, Dr. Condon considered the note to him a “crank” letter. But he thought he should get a second opinion from a few friends.

  Condon took a trolley to a restaurant he frequented on the Grand Concourse near Fordham Road. He showed his letter to Max Rosenhain, the proprietor, who suggested they confide in another friend, who had a car, a clothing salesman named Milton Gaglio. They persuaded Condon to call the Lindbergh estate in New Jersey. Robert Thayer, a young attorney, came on the line. He asked Condon to read the note addressed to Lindbergh; and upon his describing the strange hole-punched symbol at the bottom of the page, Thayer asked him to come immediately to Hopewell.

  Around midnight, the three men left in Gaglio’s car, stopping at the Baltimore Lunch Room in Princeton for a cup of coffee. They phoned the Lindbergh house to announce their imminent arrival and got directions to Hopewell from a policeman. Barely into the town, they were met by Colonel Breckinridge, who guided them to the house.

  A little before three A.M., Breckinridge escorted Condon, Rosenhain, and Gaglio through the kitchen door of the Lindbergh house. Breckinridge took Condon to the nursery upstairs, which Lindbergh entered. Condon presented the two letters, the authenticity of which was obvious on sight. They agreed that Condon should serve as the official go-between.

  Condon’s rendition of the next few hours involved his insisting on meeting Mrs. Lindbergh and admonishing her against crying—“If one of those tears drops, I shall go off the case immediately.” They did, in fact, meet, after Lindbergh suggested he spend the night there. There was not enough room to accommodate Gaglio and Rosenhain as well, so they departed. As it was, Condon spent the night on the floor in the baby’s nursery, on a mattress covered in Army blankets.

  The next morning, Condon removed the two safety pins which still held down the blankets in the baby’s crib and a few of his toy animals—a lion, camel, and elephant. He told Lindbergh and Breckinridge that he wanted to use them as means of identifying both the kidnappers and the child, by asking the kidnappers where they last saw the pins and to watch the child’s reaction to the toys. He asked if the baby could identify the animals; and Lindbergh said his reaction to the first two animals would reveal nothing, but that his son called the third animal an “elepunt.”

  After breakfast, Lindbergh entrusted the man from the Bronx with a one-sentence letter authorizing him to serve as go-between. Breckinridge drove Dr. Condon home—during which time he found his passenger fatuous but trustworthy. Condon placed the advertisement in the New York American as instructed, but because he was a well-known local figure, they agreed he should use an alias in the advertisement. John F. Condon suggested an acronym from his initials—Jafsie. With the appearance of the first “Jafsie” ad, hope returned to the Hopewell house.

  “There really is definite progress. I feel much happier today. It does seem to be going ahead,” Anne wrote Mrs. Lindbergh after a lachrymose week. Even though she had tried to stifle her sobs with her pillow, Charles had heard them more than once and upbraided her in “sharp” tones, suggesting that sorrow implied hopelessness.

  Confident though he was about the Jafsie connection to the kidnappers, Lindbergh still desperately welcomed anyone claiming the vaguest connection to his child. In the middle of one night, he met with a manacled convict from a nearby prison, who claimed to have information about the baby. Under the third degree from Lindbergh and the police, he broke down, proving to be yet another fake who, in the words of Betty Morrow, “wanted a joyride & the fun of seeing Lindbergh.” When the renowned psychic Edgar Cayce, of Virginia Beach, suddenly had a vision of the baby’s whereabouts, the FBI sent two special agents to an address he had conjured in East Haven, Connecticut. This trail came to a dead end, as neither the street nor anybody by the name he mentioned even existed.

  The New Jersey police continued investigating even more vaporous leads. And they aggressively interrogated all the members of the Lindbergh and Morrow staffs. One of the waitresses at Next Day Hill, Violet Sharpe, seemed pivotal because she had known that Mrs. Lindbergh had asked Betty Gow to come to Hopewell on March first. In her police interview she came across as unusually high-strung. When the police tried to pin her down on the details of her date on the night of the kidnapping, she turned forgetful and even a little truculent. A search of her room revealed nothing unusual other than a bank book that showed a balance that was more money than she earned in a year.

  In the early afternoon of Friday, March eleventh—just hours after Jafsie’s first ad appeared—Dr. Condon’s telephone rang. He was out, lecturing at Fordham. Mrs. Condon told the caller—whom she said had “a thick, deep, guttural accent”—that her husband would be home at six o’clock. Sometime around seven the phone rang again, and a man with a German accent asked, “Did you gotted my letter with the sing-nature,” unwittingly revealing himself as the author of the original ransom note, which spelled the word as he mispronounced it. They conversed for a few minutes, with the German caller instructing Condon to be at home between six o’clock and midnight every night that week, at which time he would receive his next set of instructions. Condon heard voices in the background, including one shouting in Italian, “State zitto,” which meant “Shut up.” Breckinridge spent the night at the Condons’. Between bouts in Madison Square Garden that night, the announcer asked
the crowd of fifteen thousand to stand in silence for three minutes and “pray for the safe return” of the Lindbergh baby. “I think it is thrilling to have so many people moved by one thought,” Anne wrote of the communal prayer, happily recalling that similar invocations had helped deliver her husband to Paris in 1927.

  The next evening at six, Breckinridge and Al Reich returned to 2974 Decatur Avenue. At 8:30, a cab driver named Joseph Perrone rang the doorbell and handed a letter to Dr. Condon, whose name and address were written in what had become familiar scrawl. “We trust you but we will note come in your Haus it is to danger,” it said. “even you can note know if Police or secret servise is watching you.” The cabbie waited at the door while Condon and Breckinridge read the instructions that followed: Condon was told to drive to the last subway station along Jerome Avenue; one hundred feet beyond, on the left side, he would find a vacant hot-dog stand with an open porch surrounding it; in the center of the porch, he would find a stone; and under the stone, a notice would tell him where to go next. The note also told Condon to bring the money with him—in “¾; of a houer.” It was validated with the strange symbol.

  Breckinridge was taken aback. It was a Saturday, and he said it would be days before he could have the money in hand. Regardless, Condon said he must keep that appointment. As he got into Al Reich’s Ford coupé, Breckinridge urged him to be careful, reminding him that he was dealing with criminals. Breckinridge questioned the driver and learned that he had been hailed on Gun Hill Road at Knox Place by a man in a brown topcoat and a brown felt hat. After asking in a pronounced German accent whether Perrone could find 2974 Decatur Avenue, he had handed him the letter and a dollar bill.