Target Manhattan

Eastlake

Your name, please?

David Eastlake.

Your title and position, Mr. Eastlake?

I’m the assistant director of the Federal Reserve Bank for the New York district.

Then you’re the chief operating executive officer of the New York Federal Reserve Bank?

That’s right, yes, sir.

Have you prepared a statement for this inquiry?

No, sir. I wasn’t aware one was required.

We have no requirements, Mr. Eastlake. Some of the witnesses have prepared statements and some haven’t. Now, with reference to the Craycroft case, I wonder, could you give us the time and circumstances of your first participation?

I had a call from the disposal office at approximately half past twelve On May twenty-second?

Yes. They’d had a call from the Merchants Trust. They wanted five million in cash, and the story was they had to have it by three o’clock or those madmen would blow up the city.

“The story was.” Didn’t you believe it?

I suppose I took a little convincing. It was a little farfetched.

This was at about twelve thirty?

I don’t keep time-clock records of incoming calls, but it was around that time, yes.

What did you do?

I tried to put through a call to the president of Merchants Trust.

Mr. Maitland.

That’s right. But he was unavailable. At first my secretary was told he was in conference. I told her to place the call again and tell them it was an emergency. She did so, and she was told By Mr. Maitland’s secretary?

I guess so. She was told he had an emergency himself. I had to tell her to place the call a third time and explain to the damn fools that their emergency was our emergency. They were the ones who had called us in the first place.

And did you finally get through to Paul Maitland?

Eventually.

What time was that?

I don’t know. It may have been a quarter to one, ten to one, by that time.

What was said between you and Mr. Maitland?

I couldn’t give you a verbatim account of that. I don’t have that kind of memory. And anyhow there was an incredible amount of noise. He sounded as if he had fifty people crowded into his office and all of them trying to talk at once. I had trouble hearing him. I could imagine the trouble he must have had hearing me.

What was the gist of the conversation?

I guess the first thing I asked him was whether this wild story was true. He confirmed it. I think he asked me whether Emmett Valkenburg had called me, and I said, no, it had been somebody in my own bank, and we must have wasted a few minutes asking each other to repeat everything so that we could hear each other. I was shouting into the phone and so was he. Finally he said he was between a rock and a hard place. He said he had a lunatic up there and another lunatic in an airplane. If he didn’t come up with the money, they were threatening to bomb New York. He didn’t have the money, and he wanted us to send it up.

What was your reply to that request?

I had no authority to release five million dollars to anyone. I told him that.

Was that all that was said?

Of course not. He pleaded with me. Then he called me names. It was understandable, under the circumstances. I didn’t get angry with him. He simply didn’t understand my position. My hands were tied.

There’s no provision for emergencies in your directives from Washington?

No emergency like this ever came up before. How could anyone have foreseen something like this?

Was anything else said during that conversation?

Maitland was fit to be tied. You couldn’t blame him. He kept pleading with me. I said I’d telephone Washington and do everything I could to get the money released.

And did you call Washington?

Of course. Immediately.

What was the result of that call?

Nothing. They were out to lunch.