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First page of the Director's memorandum of 21 August 1934 on Capone's transfer to Alcatraz, from the FBI Vault, Part 31
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Director's memorandum on Capone's transfer to Alcatraz (21 August 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.

Date
1934-08-21
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 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).

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.itemPress clippings on the August 1934 transfer from Atlanta to Alcatraz, filed in the FBI Capone filePart 06 of the Vault file is a run of wire-service and newspaper clippings, mostly of 20–24 August 1934, on the guarded rail transfer of Capone and other Atlanta prisoners to Alcatraz. They are listed here as a pointer and are not reproduced.itemLetter to Hoover on a rumored Capone escape from Alcatraz, and Hoover's reply (September–October 1935)A Knoxville correspondent, prompted by a 'Dick Tracy' newspaper cartoon, wrote that some people in his town thought Capone might be staging a prison break from Alcatraz; Hoover thanked him for his interest.itemFBI report on the 23 June 1936 assault on Capone at Alcatraz (serial 62-39128-45)A San Francisco FBI report states that inmate James C. Lucas stabbed Capone in the back with a blade of barber shears at Alcatraz on 23 June 1936, that the wound was superficial, and that the U.S. Attorney declined prosecution as a prison administrative matter.itemSan Francisco letter: reports that Capone is paralyzed are false; transfer to Terminal Island (17 January 1939)The FBI's San Francisco office reports from a confidential source that newspaper stories of Capone being paralyzed were false, and that on his transfer from Alcatraz to Terminal Island he was in very good spirits.itemNational Archives list of former Alcatraz inmates: Capone, register 85The National Archives at San Francisco lists Alphonse Capone, called Scarface on the list, among former inmates of the U.S. Penitentiary, Alcatraz, register number 85.