The Mad Bomber of New York (21 page)

As 1956 came to a close, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover grimly announced that Americans had committed more major crimes during the year than any previous year in the country's history. Offenses ranging from auto theft to capital murder had shown a stark national increase, and local trends in New York City weren't expected to be dramatically better. Back in Waterbury, Connecticut, George Metesky, undaunted by the feckless statistics of law enforcement, reveled in the spotlight of notoriety that he had at long last achieved, anonymous as it was. Daily, he drove out of town to purchase the New York newspapers that chronicled the trail of havoc he had so skillfully ignited, and he gleefully tracked what he saw as the impotent efforts of a hapless police force. Carefully appraising and assessing every word of the articles, Metesky pondered whether even greater bombs in higher-profile locations would be required to bring Con Ed to justice.

On December 26, 1956, as George Metesky sat in his Daimler automobile with the
New York Journal-American
sprawled across his lap and contemplating his next move, his eye was enticingly drawn to “An Open Letter to the Mad Bomber.”

XIV
“THE FOUR FISHERMEN”

S
EYMOUR
B
ERKSON WOULD BE ACCUSED BY RIVAL NEWSPAPERS OF STAGING
nothing more than a cheap publicity stunt in the publishing of his open letter, but he would staunchly defend his decision as not only a service to the community, but the blazing of an “uncharted course” in journalistic history. “We've heard of people being pulled off ledges by word of mouth,” he would later say, “but we didn't know if the printed word would stop acts against society.”

In his Christmas morning conversation with Paul Schoenstein, Berkson had casually—almost offhandedly—noted that the Bomber seemed to harbor a deep-seated grievance. Why, he posited, couldn't the paper publish a communiqué to the Bomber urging him to reveal his complaints and accusations and at the same time assure him that he would receive, in Berskson's words, “a fair deal under American justice.” Might not such a letter “pique his interest and tempt him to bring his grievance into the open?”

Though the proposition appeared to be reasonably formulated, the risks were enormous. While Berkson maintained a good faith belief that his open letter would be seen and responded to by the Bomber, he also knew that there was a possibility of a boomerang effect against the paper if, in fact, the Bomber reacted to it in a violent or vengeful manner. The angry backlash of the readership could severely harm the paper or even put it out of business. As publisher, Berkson weighed such risks against the obvious and opposite benefits if the Bomber actually took the overture seriously and responded in kind. In the end
,
Berkson maintained that he never would have exposed the
Journal-American
to the colossal hazards if he hadn't absolutely believed in the soundness of the idea.

The deliberations on the subject were brief indeed. The typically contemplative Schoenstein enthusiastically jumped at the proposal and instantly suggested that it be put into swift action. A flurry of telephone calls ensued to the managing editor of the paper, Sam Day, known for his stalwart crusades on behalf of journalistic freedom, and the burly and flamboyant city editor, Edward Mahar, and within minutes there was a consensus among the four to forge ahead with Berkson's intrepid plan.

From the beginning Berkson insisted that the strategy for the open letter be executed with the full knowledge and cooperation of the New York City Police Department. Commissioner Kennedy had already adopted Dr. Brussel's suggestion that an open provocation of the Bomber might challenge him and force him into a reaction. Here, thought Kennedy, was the perfect opportunity to put Brussel's theory to the test, and, without hesitation, the commissioner endorsed the plan.

Later that Christmas day, Schoenstein drove to the faded sandstone building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that was home to the
Journal-American
and, with the guidance and assistance of Berkson, Day, and Mahar, began work on the paper's open letter. Together, the
Journal-American
's “Four Fishermen,” as they would come to be known, trawled their lines into uncertain waters, hoping for the ultimate catch.

Public appeals for information by the
Journal-American
continued unabated. With promises to shield the identity of anyone providing the paper or the police with information relevant to the Mad Bomber case, staff writers and editors beseeched jewelers, plumbers, hardware stores, hunting shops, and the public at large for cooperation. As a steady flow of hoaxes and pranks poured into the paper's city room, most of New York doubted that the real Bomber would ever respond to an open letter. “More than one rival paper, more than one reader of the
Journal-American,
considered the appeal to be a new high in wishful thinking,” wrote one Hearst reporter.

Notwithstanding the prevailing skepticism, competing newspapers made similar overtures to the Bomber so as not to be excluded from the frenzy of increased circulation. The news-radio arm of the
New York Daily News,
WNEW, had been transmitting cryptic late-night messages at the end of their hourly news breaks, sympathetically consoling the Bomber and coaxing him to contact
News
reporter Jess Stearn, in an effort to address his concerns and perhaps negotiate a surrender. Stearn had, in fact, received several letters from the Bomber in response to the effort, but as the
Journal-American
seized a more dominant role in the attempted communications, the WNEW campaign turned derogatory toward the Bomber and eventually faltered. A similar plea was made by Walter Winchell in his
Of New York
column in the
Daily Mirror
, wherein he wrote, “To the sick person who has placed bombs in different places for the past 16 years . . . Please inform me of your losses and suffering . . . I want to help you. Tell me how.”

Meanwhile, a watchful
Journal-American
city room scrutinized every article of mail that it received in the days after Christmas, hunting for those distinctive-looking block letters and hoping for a response to their alluring open letter.

William Randolph Hearst Jr. would describe the
Journal-American
as a “family”:

Reporters, advertising salesmen, secretaries—we had worked there most of our lives. We cared for and helped one another . . . No one had more fun covering the heartache and happy times of the city. That was because most of us were native New Yorkers. We were a wild and often sentimental bunch who loved New York because it was our town. We wrote about it with affection, anger, and despair . . .

No one covered New York as well as we did in the 1950s . . . not the Times, not the Herald-Tribune, not the World-Telegram & Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily News, or the Post. In those days you competed hard for millions of subway readers . . . New York was then the most exciting city in the world . . .

We were good. At times, magnificent.

In what Hearst would later call the
Journal-American
's “finest hour,” at 8:10 p.m. on the night of Friday, December 28, a copy boy dropped a special delivery envelope on the desk of the
Journal-American
's assistant night city editor, Richard Piperno. The letter, postmarked the previous night at the Mt. Vernon, New York, post office, bore the neatly formed, pencil-written signature characters of the Mad Bomber—and Piperno, who had studied previous samples of the distinctive handwriting, knew it. Within minutes, deputy police commissioner Walter Arm was notified of the letter and, soon after, he and Commissioner Kennedy converged upon the
Journal-American
's sixth-floor offices on the South Street waterfront, where Berkson and Schoenstein had already gathered.

The city room, where the Bomber's letter would be scrutinized, was unquestionably the vital pulse of the newspaper, taking up one dominant area of the floor sectioned off into various departments and haphazardly furnished with chipped and cigarette-burned filing cabinets. A series of interconnected steel desks illuminated by wire-hung light fixtures were manned by reporters and rewrite staff busily verifying leads or tapping out stories on Remington typewriters. The building itself, constructed in 1926–27, was set among the soot and grime of abandoned East River docks and tenements, and had a deteriorated and arcane appearance. Originally one of Arthur Brisbane's real estate ventures, the building was purchased by the senior Hearst, who reportedly erupted, after seeing the moaning structure for the first time after completing the transaction, “Arthur, you've done it to me again!” The only section of the sixth floor with separator walls was the executive offices, which ran along a narrow corridor adjacent to the city room. Here, in Berkson's private suite, beneath the fixed leer of a mounted Acapulco sunfish proudly displayed by its conqueror, the team met for the next four hours to discuss the details of the Bomber's response and to create and adopt a joint strategy for moving forward
.

In actuality, the
Journal-American
city desk had received two letters, both contained in the same envelope
.
The first, directed to WNEW and to Jess Stearn of the
Daily News
, began with the terse rebuke, “YOU ARE FINISHED—” The missive, which spoke of betrayal and abuse, claimed that the two bombs found at the public library and the Times Square Paramount during Christmas week had actually been planted months earlier, and accused the paper and the radio station of being “NOTHING MORE THAN THE SLIMY CREATURES THAT YOU ARE
.
” It closed with the menacing warning, “I MAY PAY YOU A VISIT.
F.P.
”

The second letter, written on decorative Christmas paper and adorned with an ornamental snowman at the top, began:

TO JOURNAL-AMERICAN—I READ YOUR PAPER OF DEC. 26—WHERE WERE YOU PEOPLE WHEN I WAS ASKING FOR HELP? PLACING MYSELF INTO CUSTODY WOULD BE STUPID—DO NOT INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE—BRING THE CON. EDISON TO JUSTICE—START WORKING ON LEHMAN—POLETTI—ANDREWS . . . THESE GENTS KNOW ALL . . . ALL THE N.Y. PRESS WAS ALSO INFORMED—

I WILL KEEP MY WORD—NO BOMBS UNTIL AFTER MID-JANUARY—THE METHOD OF BOMBING WILL THEN BE—DIFFERENT—

In an attempt to indicate good faith the writer then pointed out the location of several undiscovered bombs at Radio City Music Hall and provided a list of all bombs that he had placed during 1956, should additional devices be located during the period of “truce,” as he called it—one of which, at the Empire State Building, has never been found. The letter concluded:

BEFORE I AM FINISHED—THE CON. EDISON CO. WILL WISH THAT THEY HAD BROUGHT TO ME IN THEIR TEETH—WHAT THEY CHEATED ME OUT OF.

MY DAYS ON EARTH ARE NUMBERED—MOST OF MY ADULT LIFE HAS BEEN SPENT IN BED—MY ONE CONSOLATION IS—THAT I CAN STRIKE BACK—EVEN FROM MY GRAVE—FOR THE DASTARDLY ACTS AGAINST ME. CALLING ME NAMES—IS JUST FRUSTRATED STUPIDITY IN ACTION— F.P.