Target Manhattan

Azzard

Your name, please?

Joel Azzard. New York District Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Do you have a prepared statement, Mr. Azzard?

I do. May I read it into the record now?

Please do.

“At twelve oh five P.M., twenty-second May, the New York office FBI was notified by office of NYPD Commissioner (Toombes) that a crime of bank robbery by extortion was in progress at Merchants Trust Bank Company, Incorporated, Sixty-two Beaver Street, New York City.

“Special Agents Roger V. Barstow and Alan A. Cobb were dispatched immediately and arrived at the scene at twelve sixteen P.M.

“At twelve twenty-two P.M. District Director Azzard (Joel, NMI) received a call direct from Special Agent Barstow. Apprised of the unique circumstances and dangers of the crime in progress, District Director Azzard went personally and with dispatch to the scene, arriving at the Merchants Trust offices at twelve thirty-five P.M.

“Present were the bank president, his chief of security, several NYPD officers and the two aforementioned special agents. They held in custody the suspect, who had given his name as Willard Roberts.

“According to the report of SA Barstow, the suspect had admitted that he was engaged in a conspiracy, together with the unnamed pilot of a Boeing B-17 aircraft, to extort five million dollars by threat of excessive physical harm to the city and populace of New York.”

Excuse me, Mr. Azzard, but all this is merely going over ground we’ve established by prior witnesses. Do you mind just giving me a copy of your statement? It will be entered into the record, but I’d prefer to use this time with direct questions pertaining to your own participation in the events.

If that’s the way you’d prefer to do it.

Thank you. Now your two agents reached the bank somewhat before twelve thirty, and you yourself got there about twenty minutes later.

That’s correct.

During that interval, what did your two agents accomplish?

Quite a good deal, I can assure you.

Can you be specific?

Mr. Skinner, you asked me just now to confine this to my own participation. Now, which is it to be?

What I’m looking for is your own evaluation of the performance of your men and of the police as well.

Performance evaluations are classified within the bureau, Mr. Skinner. I’m not at liberty to divulge the contents of our personnel-efficiency reports. At your own suggestion, I’d like to confine this interview to the contents of my written report and any relevant questions you might like to ask which would have to do with my own actions.

In that case perhaps you’d allow Special Agents Cobb and Barstow to appear here and give their own testimony?

I’m afraid that’s impossible.

Why?

Both men have been transferred out of this district.

Are those punitive transfers?

No. Standard rotation policy.

I wasn’t aware the FBI had such a policy.

We don’t broadcast our internal operating procedures, Mr. Skinner.

This isn’t an accusatory investigation, Mr. Azzard. We’re not trying to pin anything on anybody. All we’re trying to do is to lay the groundwork for efficient procedures in the future in case something like this should happen again. In the light of that I must say your attitude seems rather uncooperative, not to say obstructionist.

I’m sorry. I have my own instructions, you know. We have strict regulations about revealing information to outside agencies or individuals. I had to obtain special permission from Washington to appear at this inquiry at all. I wouldn’t like it to appear in the record that the FBI was in any way obstructionist. We’re as disturbed by what happened as anyone is.

Then mightn’t it be possible to bring the two agents back to New York to be interviewed? It wouldn’t take long.

You’d have to inquire of Washington about that. They’re not under my command anymore.

I can see we’re not getting far with that tack. Let’s go back to your own part in this, then. When you arrived at the bank, how much had been ascertained about the suspect’s identity and the identity of his partner in the airplane?

Quite a lot. We had the suspect’s fingerprints by then. We Weren’t the fingerprints obtained by the New York police officers before your men arrived?

I don’t really know who actually pressed his fingers to the ink pad, Mr. Skinner. All I can tell you is that the code had been teletyped to Washington and we’d received a make on the subject back from the FBI lab. That was before I left my office-probably around twelve twenty. Suspect was identified as Charles David Ryterband, sixty-two.

Did the fact that his fingerprints were on file indicate that Ryterband had a criminal record?

No. He’d tried to volunteer for the draft in 1942. They have fingerprint records of everybody who’s applied to serve in the armed forces.

So he in fact had no criminal record? No convictions, no arrests?

None.

Had Craycroft been identified by then?

No. Not yet.

What other information did you get on Ryterband, besides his name?

A summary of his service record accompanied the teletype report. He’d applied for the Air Corps during the war, with a specialty in aircraft maintenance. He’d been rejected on Four-F grounds-health.

Anything else?

We had his wife’s name. Ellen Craycroft Ryterband. They were married in nineteen forty-four.

So he was Craycroft’s brother-in-law, then.

Yes, but of course we didn’t know that then.

Well, I’ve dwelled long enough on the identification issue, haven’t I? I imagine it wasn’t the issue of primary concern to you at the time, was it?

No. Of course not. Our primary problem was what to do about the demands. How to respond.

Had any decisions been made prior to your arrival at the bank?

What sort of decisions do you mean?

Decisions to acquiesce or not to acquiesce.

No final decision had been made, no. They were preparing for various contingencies. The bank had started to make efforts to raise the cash, in case it was decided to go ahead and pay the ransom.

Who made that decision? To raise the money, I mean.

I’m not sure. It may have been one of my agents.

Mr. Maitland says it was Police Sergeant O’Brien who suggested he’d better start getting the money up as fast as he could.

Well, I wouldn’t want to contradict him on that.

In any case it wasn’t your suggestion, then?

No. I would have suggested the same thing, but it had already been done before I got there, as I told you.

Sergeant O’Brien seems to have displayed rather keen initiative throughout this affair, wouldn’t you say?

I didn’t pay too much attention to him, I’m afraid.

Wasn’t he there?

Yes, he was there. He’d conducted the interrogation of Ryterband until my men arrived and took over.

Isn’t it possible that your men added nothing, by way of new knowledge or decisions, to what had already been achieved by Mr. Rabinowitz and Sergeant O’Brien?

I wasn’t aware we were putting the FBI on trial here.

We’re not. I’m trying to form a clear picture of what took place, that’s all. What immediate action did you take upon arrival at the bank?

My first action was to interview Special Agents Barstow and Cobb, to put myself in the picture so to speak.

How long did that take?

Only a few minutes. I was able to tell them we’d come up with an ID make on Ryterband. I then confronted Ryterband with the fact that we knew who he was.

How did he react to that?

He didn’t seem bothered by it. I informed him that he was engaged in a grave crime. That the punishment could be severe. I asked him if he had any means of getting in touch with his partner in the airplane. He said he had.

Can you recall his exact words at that time?

He said, “We’re not idiots. You’re not dealing with idiots. Of course I can get in touch with him.”

Did he say how?

By radio.

Where was his radio?

As it turned out, he’d left it in his car, which was parked in a pay lot about three blocks away from the bank. Two of the police officers immediately went to the lot and collected the radio and brought it back to the bank. Ordinarily we’d have taken the suspect into custody and transferred him elsewhere for questioning, but we didn’t want to waste the time that would be involved in transferring him from one place to another.

So you had the radio brought to the office. What sort of radio was it?

An ordinary air- and marine-band transceiver. A battery portable. Perhaps twenty pounds in weight, easily transportable.

Did you attempt to make contact with the pilot of the aircraft at that time?

Yes. But Ryterband warned us that his partner wouldn’t respond to calls from anyone except himself.

But you tried to talk to Craycroft anyway, is that right?

I talked. It was a one-way transmission. The pilot didn’t respond.

How did you know you had the right transmission frequency?

Ryterband gave us the frequency. He seemed amused at that point.

Was that his general attitude at the time? Amusement?

Only for a little while. Most of the time he was in a state of rather childish agitation. He kept throwing tantrums.

What sort of tantrums?

Heaving himself around the room, demanding to know whether we realized how serious it all was. Demanding to know whether we realized how short the time was getting.

And did you realize those things?

Naturally.

Did he restate his deadline and demands?

Yes.

What did he say?

He said he had to have the money, delivered to him in his parked car, by three o’clock. He was then to be given two hours and ten minutes, without surveillance of any kind, to get away with the money. At five ten, if we cooperated with the demands, the airplane would leave its station. By its station I mean the fact that it was circling over Manhattan Island.

Hadn’t he demanded that the money be delivered by five ten originally?

I’m told that was his initial demand; but afterward he said he’d been rattled at the beginning and had got it wrong. He said obviously he had to have time to get away with the money before the airplane could leave its station.

In any case, three o’clock became the deadline. It was now-what, about a quarter to one?

Yes. The exact time is in my report, of course. We told him it was physically impossible to raise that much cash in that short a time. But he was adamant.