# Director's memorandum on Capone's transfer to Alcatraz (21 August 1934)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/fbi-vault-capone-p31-alcatraz-transfer-memo-1934/

Hoover records calls with a Justice Department official and Inspector Clegg in San Francisco after the Attorney General was quoted as saying Capone was not being sent to Alcatraz; the memorandum states that Capone was on the prison train due the next morning.

Part 31 of the FBI Vault's Capone file, scan 40. A typed memorandum dated August 21, 1934, with the dictation initials "JEH:HCB" (J. Edgar Hoover), stamped 69-180-151 and recorded on 23 August 1934. The heading and parts of the first lines are obscured by the scan's mottling; the text below was read from the page image stored here.

It records that "Mr. Holtsoff, of the Department" (Holtzoff or Holtsoff; the spelling is unclear on the scan) telephoned to send a confidential message to Mr. Carusi, because "the Attorney General is being quoted to the effect that Capone is not being transferred to Alcatraz" and he wanted to "head him off" from making such a statement. Hoover called Inspector Clegg in San Francisco on the Bureau's direct wire. He told Clegg the Attorney General was being quoted "to the effect that 'the big boy of Chicago' is not being taken to Alcatraz." Clegg answered that the Attorney General had made no such statement. The Associated Press had told him it was going to broadcast that information as given to a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Attorney General had told the press that he had not made and would not make any statement.

The memorandum states: "I explained that Capone is included among those due to arrive tomorrow, and that we didn't want the Attorney General to be taken by surprise. I stated that the train was due to arrive tomorrow evening, but it is running ahead of schedule, and will arrive at 10:30 tomorrow morning. I remarked that Mr. Gus Jones is with the train." The memorandum does not give Capone's Alcatraz register number or cell. The National Archives lists him as Alcatraz inmate 85 (see the related record).

## Sources

- FBI Records: The Vault: https://vault.fbi.gov/Al%20Capone/Al%20Capone%20Part%2031/view
- FBI Vault: Al Capone (file index): https://vault.fbi.gov/Al%20Capone