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Office memorandum of 25 January 1947 from Edward A. Tamm to the Director on Drew Pearson's inquiry about Capone, from the FBI Vault, Part 31
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Tamm 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.

Date
1947-01-25
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 66. A United States Government “Office Memorandum” (Standard Form No. 64) to the Director from “Mr. Edw. A. Tamm”, dated January 25, 1947, with the initials EAT:IMG. It is stamped 69-180-160 and marked “Attachment”.

The full text reads: “Drew Pearson telephoned and inquired for ‘color’ that he might use in connection with the anticipated death of Al Capone. I furnished Mr. Pearson with the general information as contained in the attached interesting case write-up emphasizing the fact that the Bureau was the first agency to secure Capone’s conviction in the Federal Court. I furnished him the date and background of the contempt proceedings against him.” The text was read from the page image stored here.

The “interesting case write-up” is the Bureau’s narrative on Capone’s contempt of court, dated January 7, 1933, of which several copies are filed in the same part (scans 9 to 14, 20 to 26 and 67 to 71). The memorandum is dated the same day as the death that the Bureau’s 1964 reply (Part 21) gives as January 25, 1947, at Palm Island, Miami. The memorandum itself speaks of the death only as “anticipated” and is not a death 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.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.itemChicago 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.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.itemClyde Tolson's reply to James A. Farley about Capone's car and President Roosevelt (25 July 1968)FBI Associate Director Clyde Tolson tells James A. Farley that the FBI has no information on whether President Franklin D. Roosevelt used Al Capone's car, since Capone's tax conviction was outside its jurisdiction, and suggests the Secret Service.itemChicago letter: Capone sentenced to six months for contempt (27 February 1931)The Bureau's Chicago office reports to the Director that Judge James H. Wilkerson sentenced Capone to six months in the Cook County jail for contempt of court on 27 February 1931, and that Chicago police had arrested him on a vagrancy charge two days earlier.