Hopeless Cases The Hunt for the Red Scare Terrorist Bombers

by McCormick, Charles H.

• ISBN13: 9780761831327
• ISBN10: 0761831320
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-03-25
• Publisher: UPA

Summary

"Hopeless Cases describes the futile search for those responsible for a series of apparently related terrorist attacks and plots in the World War I-Red Scare era during the final surge of early twentieth-century anarchist violence in the United States. The most brazen attacks occurred in 1919 when bombs mailed to thirty-six public figures nationwide in May were followed in June by coordinated nearly simultaneous bombings aimed at public figures and institutions in eight cities. The end of the campaign was the Wall Street explosion (September 16, 1920) that killed forty and injured hundreds. Scores were arrested (thirty for the Wall Street explosion alone), but lawmen never caught the culprits." "The book profiles the suspects but focuses on the investigators, especially the Bureau of Investigation and its spies and informants. Based largely upon FBI files, it explores the Bureau's relationship with British Intelligence in New York City, and to the Sacco-Vanzetti case, as well as a privately funded search for the bombers. Throughout, the manhunt was handicapped by disputes with other law enforcement agencies and by intra-Bureau jealousies and rivalries, agent job insecurity and high turnover, inadequate training and resources, and morale problems, particularly in the New York and Boston field offices."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Charles H. McCormick is Professor of History Emeritus at Fairmont State University and an independent historian.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	vii
Preface	ix
Chapter 1: Prelude	1	(8)
Chapter 2: The Bureau and the Italian Anarchists, 1917-1919	9	(18)
Chapter 3: "The Gigantic Reign of Terrorism," 1918-1919"	27	(16)
Chapter 4: Trailing the "Terrorists," May 1919-September 1920	43	(22)
Chapter 5: The Wall Street Explosion	65	(10)
Chapter 6: The Investigation-Hot Leads to Cold Case	75	(20)
Chapter 7: Blind Spot in Boston: The Anarchist Link	95	(12)
Chapter 8: Flynn's Debacle	107	(18)
Chapter 9: Burns's Fiasco, Case Unsolved	125	(22)
Notes	147	(24)
Index	171