Alcatraz (98 page)

After operations ceased at Alcatraz in March 1963, two books were published that provided descriptions of notable prisoners and events during the prison’s three decades as a federal penitentiary. The authors, both journalists, were at a severe disadvantage in that they did not have access to inmates, staff, or records from Alcatraz or the Bureau of Prisons. As a result these books contain numerous inaccuracies. The dust jacket of John Godwin’s
Alcatraz: 1868–1963
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963) claimed, for example, that “the average con spent a great deal of his time hunting for homosexual companionship.” Interviews with any of the men who worked, or served time, on the island, particularly from 1934–1948, would have corrected that contention. J. Campbell Bruce wrote
Escape from Alcatraz: A Farewell to the Rock
(London: Hammond, Hammond, 1963) without the assistance of the Bureau of Prisons. In a meeting with James V. Bennett, he said the director told him, “I can’t let you talk with guards and take up their time and waste taxpayers’ money.” Bruce was also unsuccessful in obtaining any information from the warden or from the U.S. attorney in San Francisco; he concluded that “the veil of secrecy [around Alcatraz] hid nothing mysterious, only incompetence” (see 243–45).

In more recent years, dozens of books have been written about Alcatraz, and a number of them have particular strengths that make them worthwhile reading. Many are based on the records salvaged and assembled for this study after they were returned to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which then deposited them in the Western Regional Office of the National Archives, in San Bruno, California.

Surviving prisoners, employees, and their relatives, having become aware that each year more than a million visitors pass through the bookstores and souvenir shops on the island, have written personal accounts about their experiences on Alcatraz. These books do not attempt to cover the thirty-year history of the prison nor do they include information about
the larger population of prisoners, but many of these authors claim to have had personal relationships with Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Robert Stroud, and other high-profile prisoners, and to have special knowledge of incidents and escape attempts. That their experiences at Alcatraz induced so many of its former prisoners and employees to publish memoirs is one more indicator of the exceptional nature of this prison.

Several books provide valuable and reliable information related to the gangster era and should be of interest to historians, criminologists, legal scholars, and readers of this book. In
Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–1934
(New York: Penguin Press, 2004), Bryan Burrough provides detailed, well-documented descriptions of not only the criminal careers of gangsters such as John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie Parker, and Clyde Barrow, who were killed in altercations with federal agents, but also the criminal activities of those who survived these shootouts and lived to be confined on Alcatraz. Of particular relevance are the bank robberies and ransom kidnappings engineered by George Kelly, Albert Bates, Harvey Bailey, Alvin Karpis, Arthur Barker, and John Paul Chase. The stories and the publicity surrounding the lives of these men continue in Richard Gid Powers,
G-Men: Hoover’s FBI in American Popular Culture
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983). Powers places Alcatraz and the campaign by the FBI to subdue public enemies in the context of popular culture and the style of the mainstream media during the 1920s and 1930s. Also recommended is David E. Ruth,
Inventing the Public Enemy: The Gangster in American Culture, 1918–1934
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Ruth explains how gangsters became important cultural figures during the first part of the twentieth century.

The authoritative source for detailed information on the history of Alcatraz as a fort, as a military prison, and after its conversion to a federal penitentiary is Erwin N. Thompson,
The Rock: A History of Alcatraz Island, 1847–1972
, Historic Resource Study, National Park Service, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Denver, May 1979. Alcatraz Island historian John A. Martini has also written two valuable books about its years as a fort:
Fortress Alcatraz: Guardian of the Golden Gate
(Kailua, HI: Pacific Monograph, 1990) and
Alcatraz at War
(San Francisco: Golden Gate National Parks Association, 2002).

Several books by prisoners who were on the island during the gangster era offer excellent first-person accounts. James Quillen’s thoughtful description of his ten years,
Alcatraz from Inside: The Hard Years, 1942–1952
, ed. Lynn Cullivan (San Francisco: Golden Gate National Parks Association,
1991), is one of the best. During two lengthy interviews, Jim also gave important information for this book.
On the Rock: Twenty-Five Years in Alcatraz
by Alvin Karpis, as told to Robert Livesey (New York: Beaufort Books, 1980) covers most of the prison’s history. A book that combines descriptions of both criminal and prison life is Floyd Hamilton,
Public Enemy #1
, Acclaimed Books (Dallas, TX: International Prison Ministry, 1978). William Radkay’s recollections of his years as lawbreaker and prisoner on the Rock from 1944 to 1952 are the basis for a book by his niece Patty Terry,
A Devil Incarnate: From Altar Boy to Alcatraz
(Leawood, KS: Leathers Publishing, 2005). Willie provided valuable information to me not only about living conditions in other state and federal prisons where he did time and his life at Alcatraz, but also his relationships with his celebrity convict friends, particularly George Kelly, Harvey Bailey, and John Chase. His ability to recall past events with clarity and detail during our five interviews was remarkable.

At least five books by former employees are notable as well. Of particular relevance for the gangster era are several books by men who worked on the island during the 1930s and 1940s. Milton Daniel Beacher, MD, a U.S. Public Health Service physician (not a BOP employee) assigned to Alcatraz for about one year beginning in April 1937, wrote
Alcatraz Island: Memoirs of a Rock Doc
, ed. Dianne Beacher Perfit (Lebanon, NJ: Pelican Island Publishing, 2001). This memoir (edited by his daughter) includes interesting observations about Al Capone, Harmon Waley, Thomas Robinson, and Rufe Persful, as well as descriptions of strikes, discipline, and daily life on the island. Another noteworthy book that focuses on the prison’s early years is Erville F. Chandler,
Alcatraz: The Hard Years
(Orwigsburg, PA: Bacon and Freeman, 1989). This book is based on former correctional officer Chandler’s conversations with his son, Roy F. Chandler, and includes reproductions of rare photographs and documents, such as charge out sheets from 1936 and 1937 that identify the location and job assignments of all inmates, and lists of the first thirty-six guards and the first four hundred convicts.

Many books sold on the island feature the May 1946 breakout attempt by six convicts and the battle that followed. Former captain Philip Bergen, a central participant in this epic prison drama, co-wrote with Don DeNevi (and provided many of the photographs for)
Alcatraz ’46: The Anatomy of a Classic Prison Tragedy
(San Rafael, CA: Lesswing Press, 1974). In a note to the author, Bergen commented, “
Alcatraz ’46
, although it is insufficiently definite in some respects, is the best available USP Alcatraz saga. I wish that I could rewrite it!” Since Mr. Bergen gave
two extended interviews for this volume, perhaps these flaws have now been corrected. A carefully researched and interesting account of the trial of the three inmates who did not die during the battle is Ernest B. Lageson,
Alcatraz Justice: The Rock’s Most Famous Murder Trial
(Berkeley: Creative Arts Book, 2002). Lageson, a trial attorney, had the advantage of utilizing the firsthand knowledge of his father, correctional officer Ernest Lageson, who was one of the prisoners’ hostages and appeared as a witness in the subsequent trial of the three inmate survivors.

Finally, any commentary on the books written about Alcatraz cannot fail to mention Warden James A. Johnston,
Alcatraz Island Prison, and the Men Who Live There
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949). Johnston was the central figure at Alcatraz from its beginning as a federal penitentiary to his departure in 1948. He had access to all records for prisoners, employees, and the prison; he himself produced many of them. He found little to fault in his administration of the prison. Former officer Chandler commented on Johnston’s effort in his book (
The Hard Years
, 99; original emphasis): “A weakness lies in that ‘the general knows mostly what he is told’ and ‘the troops tend to tell it one way while handling it another’ . . . guards saw most things more ‘closely’ than did their warden.” According to Chandler, “there is no complete book about Alcatraz. Many are inaccurate and fleshed out with fanciful tales. Others are boring or too incomplete. The
great
Alcatraz book is still to be written. . . . Those who really know are gone. Most of what is left is second or third hand . . . but those involved would prefer having the prison’s history more correctly recorded.” With the benefit of extensive interviews with one hundred former prisoners and employees and access to records for all of these prisoners and the prison,
Alcatraz: The Gangster Years
tries to achieve this goal.

David A. Ward is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Minnesota. He co-authored with Gene G. Kassebaum two books about California prisons:
Women’s Prison: Sex and Social Structure
(1965), and
Prison Treatment and Parole Survival
(also with Daniel M. Wilner; 1971), an evaluation of psychologically based treatment programs. He co-edited with Kenneth F. Schoen,
Confinement in Maximum Custody: New Last-Resort Prisons in the United States and Western Europe
(1981). He was a Fellow in Law and Sociology at Harvard Law School and as a Fulbright Scholar studied prisons and penal policy in Sweden and Denmark. He served as consultant to the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives for an investigation of the permanent lockdown regime at the Federal Penitentiary, Marion, Illinois, Alcatraz’s successor. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Gene G. Kassebaum is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Hawaii. In addition to co-authoring the books cited above, he co-edited
Narcotics
with Daniel M. Wilner (1965) and wrote
Delinquency and Social Policy
(1974). In Hawaii he served as a member of the Governor’s Commission for the Revision of the Hawaii Penal Code and conducted contract research for state justice, parole, probation, and corrections agencies. Earlier in his career he was on the faculty at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, and was awarded two Fulbright scholarships to India. He now divides his time between Bangalore, Honolulu, and San Francisco.

The index that appeared in the print version of this title was intentionally removed from the eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below

Abdul-Rahman, Omar

Abrams, Sol: post-trial comments of

as Young’s attorney

ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)

adaptation.
See also
coping mechanisms

daily routines

inmates

psychological issues

resistance

Aderhold, A. C.

Administrative Max (ADX, Florence, CO)

Administrative Office of U.S. Courts

Alabama: Franklin returned to

robbery and murder in

state prison in

Alcatraz: basic goal of

budget of

call for removal of

cave on

closure of

conundrum of

decision to establish

facility modifications of