Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
First page of the Chicago office's letter of December 1939 on the effects of Capone's release, from the FBI Vault, Part 19
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Chicago letter on possible consequences of Capone's release (6 December 1939)

Asked to watch for any attempt on the lives of Al or Ralph Capone, the FBI's Chicago office relays a reporter's view that the syndicate had moved from gunmen to 'muscle' methods and that no concerted comeback was likely without Capone's own leadership.

Date
1939-12
Kind
case-file
Source
FBI Records: The Vault
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
A record of the Federal Bureau of Investigation released under FOIA. A work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105.

Part 19 of the FBI Vault’s Capone file, scans 52 to 56. A letter from the Special Agent in Charge at Chicago to the Director, stamped 62-39128-124. The research record dates it 6 December 1939; the day is not clear in the OCR of the date line. It answers the Director’s telephone request of December 2 that the Chicago office be alert for any information that an attempt was to be made on the life of Al Capone or his brother Ralph Capone.

The office’s source is a Chicago newspaper reporter, whose name is redacted, described as having a wide acquaintance in the underworld. As relayed, the reporter thought some trouble might follow Capone’s release among the members of the so-called syndicate, in view of the type of hoodlum Capone represented. The syndicate, he said, now worked mainly through so-called legitimate businesses and labor unions and through threats and beatings by “muscle” men, and he did not expect a concerted movement unless Capone himself took leadership of one. As far as the OCR can be read, he believed Frank Nitti would resist any effort to bring Capone back into a position of authority and any move by Capone’s former associates to reinstate the “killing method”. The letter also passes on the reporter’s account of a Chicago killing of 1930; that account is hearsay and is not repeated here.

The letter closes with a promise to advise the Bureau of anything further picked up about Capone. These are one reporter’s opinions as the Chicago office relayed them, not findings of the Bureau. The summary follows the OCR text and the research index, which checked scan 52 against the page image; scan 52 is stored here.

itemFBI Vault file on Alphonse CaponeThe FBI Vault's release of the Bureau file on Alphonse Gabriel Capone, in 36 parts, with the Bureau's own summary of the investigation.itemLos Angeles letter of 26 October 1939 on an agent's interview of Capone at Terminal IslandThe FBI's Los Angeles Special Agent in Charge reports an hour-long interview of Capone at Terminal Island on 25 October 1939. The agent wrote that Capone was in high spirits but kept losing the thread, which he took as a sign that Capone's mind did not function normally.itemFBI record of a call reporting Capone's release at Lewisburg (16 November 1939)A telephone-call record in the Director's office: a United Press reporter says the Justice Department has just announced that Capone was released that morning at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, to his relatives.itemTamm memorandum on Drew Pearson's inquiry about Capone's anticipated death (25 January 1947)Edward A. Tamm tells Hoover that columnist Drew Pearson telephoned for 'color' about the anticipated death of Al Capone, and that he gave Pearson the Bureau's write-up of the 1929–31 contempt case.itemHoover reply stating that Capone died on 25 January 1947 at Palm Island, Miami (15 January 1964)A Bureau form reply to a Memphis writer gives Capone's tax sentence of 24 October 1931, a release from Terminal Island dated 19 January 1939, and his death on 25 January 1947 at Palm Island, Miami. A file note gives the sources for the death.