Los Angeles letter of 26 October 1939 on an agent's interview of Capone at Terminal Island

Part 18 of the FBI Vault’s Capone file, scans 59 to 61, with the instruction to interview on scan 54. The letter, on Federal Bureau of Investigation letterhead, Los Angeles, California, dated October 26, 1939 and marked “Personal & Confidential”, is from R. B. Hood, Special Agent in Charge at Los Angeles, to the Director, captioned “Re: Al Capone”, and is stamped 62-39128-101. Scan 54 is E. A. Tamm’s memorandum for the file of October 25, 1939 (serial 62-39128-97), recording the Director’s office’s request that Los Angeles have an agent interview Capone to test a rumor about his family.

Hood reports that Special Agent D. W. Magee interviewed Capone alone at Terminal Island for about an hour late in the afternoon of October 25. The agent approached him on two subjects: the history of the Chicago motion picture operators’ union, and the escape from Alcatraz of Ralph Roe and Theodore Cole. Capone “seemed in high spirits during the course of the interview.” He said he doubted that both men had got away and described the Alcatraz mat shop where they had worked. He spoke of his family, of the inmate who stabbed him at Alcatraz, and of going to his Florida home to join his family; as far as the OCR can be read, he expressed doubt that he would be released on November 19, the date the Bureau had been given. The letter records that he spoke freely about former associates and his own past, and in large figures about money. Those statements are his and are not repeated here as fact.

The letter states: “During the course of the conversation CAPONE would stop and ask, ‘What were we talking about?’ and he would have to be brought back to the subject matter, which indicated to Agent that his mind does not function normally.” Capone told the agent he was in charge of recreation at Terminal Island. The agent’s remark is an observation, not a medical finding. The summary follows the OCR text and the research index, which checked scans 59 to 61 against the page images; scan 59 is stored here. Names of some third parties are redacted in the file.