Throwback Episode: The Guns of Zangara

of the President Elect. He has rushed to a hospital. They've cut him. The secret Service man road 'em on the rail of the car and hustle him away to jail.

years ago. It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. So I'm taking probably next week or so to basically go through those two chapters and rewrite and add some stuff to them, because they just don't match the quality of the rest

of the book. So that being said, today what we're going to do is we are going to take a little break from the assassination, but not really, not really, because the assassination's story, as I've said before, begins in the late eighteen hundreds and this falls well within that timeframe. This we're today, we're going to talk about the assassination of Mayor Anton sermac the mayor of Chicago, who made

some unholy alliances that ended up getting him killed. The I don't know what is he called, is the protagonist, the antagonist? Whoever? The bad guy is right, the bad guy in the story is Giuseppe is Agara, a funny guy. And so you know, let me just not even try to give you my interpretation. What we're gonna do is we're gonna go over this series of articles by John Toohe called the Guns of Zangara really fascinating stuff. I consider this to be like the first of a series

of parallel assassinations started with Mayor Anton Sermac. Then it moved on to Huey Long, and then Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and the rest.

did the Chicago mob order the killing? The recent discovery of lost government records can now answer those questions and forever seal the case of the Guns of Zangara. Like most mob murders, it started over money, greed, and the lust for power. In nineteen thirty one, the labor rackets business in Chicago was worth one hundred and forty five million dollars or about a half a billion dollars in

today's value. In fact, unions were such easy prey for gangsters that before prohibition, the mob saw control of labor unions, not bootleg beer, as the quickest route to riches. Now, in nineteen thirty one, with repeal closing in in the national depression curbing the outfit's gambling business, al Campone pulled out all the stops in his drive to control the

labor unions in Chicago. Capone's goons invaded so many unions union locals that Frank Lesh, president of the Chicago Crime Commission, estimated that two out of every three unions in Chicago was run by Capone. As Capone terrorized his way into more teamster locals, the union bosses fled out of suburban to planes to live under mobster Roger Tuwohe's protection. The Twohe brothers, Roger, Tommy, and Eddie were the last serious

threat to Capone's might. The brothers, safely tucked away in the still mostly undeveloped portion of northern Cook County, had grown rich from prohibition in gambling and the ability to avoid big political payoffs and long drawn out beer wars. By nineteen thirty two, they had the money, the manpower, and the fire power to take over the entire Chicago Teamsters organization without having to split any of the proceeds

with Capone. Paddy Burrell, the Teamster's vice president, called a meeting of all the locals threatened by Capone and gave them a choice. They could stand alone against Capone and lose their unions in probably their lives, or they could move their operations under the Tuohe's protection. They would still lose a large portion of their treasury to the Tuohe's, but at least they'd be alive. Most of the union

bosses knew Roger Toohe from their childhood. He had a solid reputation as a union organizer in his youth, and compared to Capone, at least he was still evil, but at least he was the lesser of two evils. The bosses would go with Towohe. After the meeting, Burrell sent union boss Jerry Horn to Roger's house with seventy five thousand in cash for a defense fund. Tooe used that money, plus an additional seventy five thousand from his own pocket, to hire an army of thugs, killers, and goons to

fend off Capone's pending assault. To Wohe's defiance didn't come without a price. The Capones killed one of the brothers and attempted to kidnap his children, And then on October twenty fifth, nineteen thirty one, the unbelievable happened. Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to ten years in prison. That same day, Matt Kolb, Toohe's business partner and financier as well as the source of Towohe's enormous political clout, was gunned down by Capone gunmen inside

the speakeasy the Club Morton. With Kolb dead, the price for political protection went through the roof to wohe would have to find a cob replacement soon, and Anton Cermak was just off on the horizon. Tony Cermak was not a very nice man, wrote Judge Lyle of Chicago's mayor. He appeared to take his lack of polish. He was uncouth, gruff, insolent, and inarticulate. He could engage in no more intelligent discussion of the larger political issues of the day than he

could have the Einstein theory of relativity. In personal confrontation, Sirmac was known as the bully and an intimidator. With a violent temper who'd never walk away from a dispute. He liked very few people, and he trusted virtually no one. As his power grew, so did his paranoia. He wasn't a backslapper. He was elected because of a political survivor who simply outlasted his opponents. Those he couldn't outlast he

blackballed in the Illinois State House. As president of Cook County and later as mayor, Sirmak used wiretaps, stole mail, used secret surveillance and informants to get intelligence on the weakness of his enemies, and he took great care to know who his enemies were. He admitted to authorizing beatings of anyone that got in his way. Anthony ten percent Tony Sirmak was born May seventh, eighteen seventy three, in

a Bohemian village about fifty miles outside of Prague. The family immigrated to American eighteen eighty four, settling in a Chicago slum on the fifteenth and on fifteenth in Canal, the infamous valley that had also produced the Tuohi brothers, and later in nineteen hundred moved to Braidwood in southern Illinois, where the elder Sermac worked as a coal miner. In eighteen eighty nine, Tony Sermak returned to Chicago at age sixteen. Sirmak was a hustler who saw his opportunity in the

rough and tumble world of Chicago's ethnic politics. He organized the huge Bohemian community into a powerful voting machine, and before he was old enough to vote himself, Tony Cermak was a political power. Sormak was also a greedy man who wanted to be rich in the roads. He used to riches was to form an organization called the United Societies, a high sounding name for nothing more than a shakedown operation.

Every brewer and boose seller, dance hall operator, and saloon keeper was a member, as were most of the area's gunmen, pimps, prostitutes, and gamblers that worked along twenty second Street later renamed, oddly enough, Sirmak Road. They paid, They paid to belong to Cermak's organization because Sirmak had the police and the politicians in his pocket. In nineteen twenty eight, Sirmak, who was still the spokesman for organized liquor interests, decided to

become mayor of Chicago. On election day, April seventh, nineteen thirty one, word went out from higher ups in the copone organization down to the goons and speakeasy owners to support Sirmak. If Sirmak won, the bosses said the reformers would loosen up. Sirmak did win. He trounced Thompson's six sixty seven five twenty nine to four seventy five six thirteen, the largest margin ever recorded in the Chicago mayoral election

to date, but he double crossed the people too. On his first day in office, Sirmak promised the people of Chicago that he would rid their city of gangsters before the Century of Progress Exhibition opened in the summer of nineteen thirty three. But Tony didn't want to get rid of organized crime in Chicago. He wanted to corral it, to dominate it, to run it, to own it, to grow rich from it. And he figured all he had

to do was give it another face. So tourney Tony Surmak threw hist around the city's multimillion dollar gambling rackets. The first thing he did to corner the gambling market was to close down the competition seemingly overnight. Sirmak's police force, which he dominated with his handpicked loyalists, raided hundreds of syndicate gambling dens and casinos and shut them down. Independent gamblers there were still a few in those days who refused to throw in with Sirmak were run out of business.

Once Sirmak had smashed the gamblers into submission, he would need someone dependable to act as as collector and street boss. The mayor's personal bagman enter Teddy Newberry, a lifelong gangster who had been with Bugs Moran and then the iOS, and finally with Capone until his career ended. After several months of acting as Sirmak's street supervisor, Teddy Newberry sat down with Anton Sirmak in the summer of nineteen thirty one and worked out a deal, as Newberry and Sirmak

saw it. With Capone and most of his top men behind bars or on the run from the law, what was left of the syndicate would easily fall apart. The fact that Roger tuohe was winning his shooting war against the mob, was another plus for them. All that was left. According to Newbery, the top of the Chicago Syndicate was to kill the head and then watch the body die. The head of the Syndicate in nineteen thirty three was Frank Nitty. Once Nitty was dead, all other hoods would

fall into line, or so they thought. Francisco Nitty, or Frank Nitty, as he preferred it, was a small built, pensive little man with ulcers and a nervous twitch. He was born outside of Palermo in Italy, but he avoided discussing his Sicilian background, always calling himself an Italian instead. Nitty had gotten a full formal education in Italy before coming to the United States, which gave him a working knowledge of advanced chemistry, and he was also said to

be a talented watchmaker. Although the newspaper referred to Nitty as the Enforcer, those who knew the real story, the nickname was almost comical. In fact, as far as anyone knows, Nitty never killed anyone. He made his way up through the ranks of the syndicate because he was smart, cunning, and obnoxious. At Midmoreing on December twentieth, nineteen thirty three, Tony Cermak summoned two members of his special squad to his office, Harry Miller and Henry Lang. Miller and Lang

were crooks, gangsters, and badges always had been. Harry Miller, who had once been dismissed from the force for trafficking and narcotics, was one of the notorious Miller brothers who headed up the Valley Gang. Henry Lang was a bagman for former Mayor Bill Big Bill Thompson and TODP. Miller that a little bitty needed to know about being a crook when he came on the force by quote special

political appointment back in nineteen twenty seven. Now through political poll they were both detective sergeants on his Sirmak's Special Squad, a group of tough cops of questionable background tossed together to carry out Cermak's every whim. As Lang would later testify under oath, Sermak called them to his office and handed them a slip of paper with Frank Nitty's name and office address on it. Teddy Newberry was there, sitting on the mariaral desk, smoking one of his small cigars.

Newberry told the pair that he and the mayor had decided that it was time for Frank Nitty to die and they had to do the killing. The slip of paper, he explained, was where Nitty would find where they would find Nitty the most of the morning. Newberry said that once Nitty was dead, he would pay Miller and Lang fifteen thousand dollars each, good money for a pair of cops who were supposed to be making less than one

hundred dollars a week. The detective left City Hall and drove to Nitty's office at the Lasal Whacker building at two twenty one North Lasal. Took the elevator to the fifth floor and walked to room five five four, where Nitty kept a cramped three room office. Inside the office was Nitty in several underlings. Lang and Miller lined the hoods up against the wall, and very quickly Lang fired five shots in to Nity's leg, growing back, and neck. Then Lang walked into the ante room and fired a

single shot through his own hand. The story would be that Nitty resisted arrest and lunged for Lang's service revolver and had to be shot. The mistake in shooting Nitty was that they didn't kill him. While it was true the shooting had spooked what was left of the mob's leadership, Sirmc and Newberry knew that once Nitty had recuperated, the the outfit would strike back. What they needed now was a street fighter to fend off those pending attacks. Ender

Roger Toohe. Anton Sermak, who had known Toohe for Roger Toohe for decades, wanted Tuohe to join forces with him and Teddy Newberry to help them jointly run the underworld in Chicago in the Midwest. In nineteen fifty nine, Toohe so told the Illinois Parole Board that in early nineteen thirty three, Newberry and Sirmak called him down to city

Hall for discussion. In a meeting in the Mayor's office, Sirmak and Newberry urged Toohe to wage a larger war with the mob, but Towohe laughed it off, saying he didn't have the strength to fight the Nity organization, which could muster at least five hundred governmen within a week's time. Sirmak said, you could have the entire police department. Tooe eventually agreed, and Sirmak lived up to his end of

the bargain. He sent word down to his police commanders that Roger to Wohe was to be cooperated with in his war against the syndicate for control of the Chicago Teamsters. The number of the Pumpan men killed after Cermak took office tripled. In two years, some one hundred gangsters were killed in ambushes and street fights. For a while, the hoods fell at a rate of one ganglan murder a day,

with most of the dead coming from syndicate's ranks. James Doherty, a crime reporter for the Shago Tribune, recalled it was a war chiefly between the Irish and the Italians. I'm Irish and I'd come into my office in the morning after another shootout and I would say to my coworker, who was Italian, well that's one to my side. And the next day would come to my saying, well it's leveled, Jim. We chuck one up on our side last night. For a while, it was going well for the upstarts, almost

too well. The tuoehe's gunned down the syndicates lead laborer plunderer Red Barker, the government jailed the equally deadly Murray Humphries, and Sirmac's boys shot down Frank Nitti. They were so close. They had chased the syndicate out of the teamsters and had ready access to the pension funds they owned City Hall and the cops. Then the tide started to turn. First, Teddy Newberry's dead body showed up up on the bitter

cold evening of January seventh, nineteen thirty three. He was found lying face down in a ditch in Porter County, Indiana. After Newberry was killed, Tony Cermak lost his nerve. Tony was absolutely certain that the outfit had pegged Louis short Pants Capanya al Capone's former bodyguard was going to kill him. He may have been right, according to newsman Jack Late in nineteen thirty three, the syndicate's hitman tried to blow up Sirmak's car early one morning in the middle of

Chicago's Loop. After that, Sirmak beefed up the security forces and moved from the Congress Hotel to the Morrison Hotel, where he paid for a private elevator that went NonStop to his penthouse suite. He increased his city police guard from two to five officers and had detective sent to protect his daughters, and hired on own private bodyguards to augment his city police detail, and then took a midnight train to Miami, where he owned a home. The job

to end the union war with twohe's in takeout. Anton Surmak fell to Paul Rica, acting boss. Since Nidi had been shot, Rica determined that the only way to deal with Sermak was to kill him. But knocking off the mayor of the nation's second largest city would bring down more heat on the mob than Sirmak could ever have gathered, unless, of course, the murder could be thumbed off on a nutcase.

The nutcase they found was Joseeppe Zangara, a hapless Italian immigrant with a gambling problem who was into the outfit for his eye teeth. Zegar was born September seventh, nineteen hundred in Furuzano, a small and very poor village in Calabria, Italy. His mother died while he was still a small boy. His father remarried to a woman with six daughters, and Zangara, small, fragile, seldom smiling, and deathly quiet, was lost in the horde that was his new family. By all accounts, Zingara's father

was an odd man, angry at the world. He had constant problems with authority, and he beat his children. It was no surprise to anyone when, at the age of six, after Zangara's stepmother entered him into public school that his father withdrew him. Two months later, when my father come he say me like this. He say me, you don't need school, you need work. Zangar Of the Child went to work beside his father building roads. Later he learned the work of bricklayer, which was in Italy of that

time still most in art form and required years of apprenticeship. Apparently, Zangara had an aptitude for the trade, and at the age of seventeen was already a mason. No small feet. Zangar Of the somber and unhappy child drew into Zangara, the somber and unhappy man, enraged at the world because he was poor and because he was taken from school as a child. He talked about his unhappiness openly and often during his trial, perhaps if for no other reason,

he finally had someone to listen to him. In nineteen seventeen, Zangar, then seventeen, was drafted into the Italian infantry and stayed in the army for five years. While in the service, he was arrested on October twenty fourth, nineteen twenty one for carrying a knife. He was tried and convicted, but

the sentence was suspended. Discharged from the military in nineteen twenty three, Zangara sailed to the United States from Naples, arriving in Filmiladelphia aboard of the liner Martha Washington on August eighteenth, nineteen twenty three, five days before his twenty

third birthday. He went to Paterson, New Jersey, moved in with an uncle, Vincent Cafaro, a bricklayer, who landed Zangar a job with the construction company that he had worked for as a skilled laborer and a member of the Brick Layers Union Number two and Patterson, Zengar earned as much as twelve dollars an hour, an extremely high hourly rate when the national income was less than fifty six

hundred dollars a year. He filed a declaration to become a citizen of the United States, doing so only because it was required by his union that all members of be United States citizens, or at least have filed to become citizens. The names of the witnesses on the declaration two men, disappeared with most of the official information that surrounded Zengara's background, but on September eleventh, nineteen twenty nine, Zanngar became a United States citizen and registered as a

Republican later that month. On September twenty eighth, someone named Jim Zeppe Zengar of Paterson, New Jersey, was arrested for running a mass of one thousand gallons still in rural New Jersey. When arrested, Zangara used the name Sam Lavari, but later changed that to Luigi di Bernardo. Arrested with him was Tony Agostino, a known racketeer in northern New Jersey. On May twenty sixth, nineteen thirty, Zangara and de Bernardo pleaded guilty to owning the still and was sentenced to

one year and day at the Atlanta Federal Prison. During sentencing, United States Attorney Philip Foreman later a federal judge asked, your real name is Zengara, isn't it? And Zangara answered that it was the fact that the prosecutor knew Zengar by sight implies that Zeenara wasn't a stranger around the federal courthouse. Di Bernardo Zengara entered Atlanta Federal Prison on May twenty sixth, nineteen thirty, and was paroled seven months later.

On December twentieth nineteen thirty. Later, in the Secret Service investigated the Cermak shooting. They accepted Zangara's explanation for the missing seven months, as has been in Central America. Even more remarkably, when Philip Foreman the US at Turne and he informed the Secret Service about Zangara's time in prison, the agents pulled Zegara's prison photo and compared it to a picture taken in Florida when he was arrested and determined that quote they seemed to match. However, our Zangara

has a lower forehead, but otherwise they match. However, the investigating agent never followed up on the lead. When nineteen thirty one rolled around, Zangara started to change. He lost interest in his job and avoided people even more than he did in the past, and then, without any apparent reason, he left New Jersey for Florida. When he departed from New Jersey, he left hurriedly, leaving all of his possessions in the boarding house in Florida, Zengara became a gambler,

a degenerate gambler, betting most on the horses. When he gave up on the horses, Zengora turned to the dogs, and in one incident, lost two hundred dollars in one night, a huge amount of money for anyone in the depression racked America of nineteen thirty three, but a small fortune

to an out of work bricklayer. On February twelfth, nineteen thirty three, Chicago City Hall announced that His Honor Anton J. Cermak of Chicago would make an appearance in the Miami Park at night to greet the arrival of President elect Roosevelt. Thousands were expected to turn out for the event. It was a godsend for the mob. Rika sent down word to Dave Yaris, a transplanted Chicago hood, that they were going to wax Cermac and Yoris had to line somebody

up to take the fall for the murder. A patsy Yaris reported back that they had just the man they needed, dead Broke Zangara took a slot in Dave Yaris's highly secretive heroin smuggling operation in or about early nineteen thirty two,

when he was spotted regularly around the municipal docks. According to Reverend Elmer Williams, a Chicago minister who exposed political corruption in the Windy City during the component nitty reigns, Zangora worked in Rika's narcotics processing plant in extreme South Florida as a mule, transporting narcotics up to New York, a city he knew well. In New York, Zangara turned the dope over to distribution specialists like Bugsy Siegel in Brooklyn,

Longea's Willman in Jersey, and others. He would collect the money for delivery and then return to Florida to to run the entire cycle all over again. According to both Williams and Jack Late, while Zangara was on one of his runs to New York, he got spotted in a mob casino in Manhattan by a group of the New Jersey Hoods that he had cheated back in nineteen thirty. Now the boys from New Jersey had a make on him,

and they brought their complaint to Rika. Since technically Zangara was under Chicago's protection, the New Jersey hoods wanted him so they could kill him even if New Jersey didn't want him. Zangara had now been uncovered as an unreliable worker, a detriment in a racket as violatile as narcotics, so Yaris would have to deal with him. The boy sat Zangara down and explained his two choices. The mob could kill him right then and there, or Zangara could take

his chances and shoot Cermak for them. Shooting Sermak, they explained, had its upside. Maybe the cops would kill him, maybe the crowd would rip him to pieces. Or maybe he'd get lucky. Maybe he'd get caught. After he killed Sermak. He could pretend he was insane, and at the most he might get ten, maybe fifteen years on a farm for the mentally insane, and then he could walk all

debts forgiven. Someone had checked. Florida, second only to Texas, as Jack Ruby later pointed out, had the most lenient laws on the books in dealing with the mentally unstable criminals. Zangara may have actually believed that he was going to get away with it. When the Secret Service went into Zangara's room after the shooting, they found only a few personal items in his travel bag, which was left on

his bed neatly packed. It included clothes and three books, The Wayman Brothers Easy Method for Learning Spanish Quickly, Italian Self Taught and English Italian Grammar Book, and several newspaper clippings about Roosevelt's trip to Florida and one about the Lincoln assassination conspiracy. But of course, the Mob had no intention of letting Zangara walk away. According to Roger Tuohi, the second after Zangara fired into Sermak, a Mob assassin

would plug Zangara and disappear into the crowd. The Miami Police secret Service or Cermak's private guards would get the recognition. Whoever it was, the American public would hail them as a hero. Jack Late, a top Chicago reporter, noted that had Sirmak escaped Angara's bullets, another triggerman would have gotten them. Late was right, of course, except there weren't going to be any mistakes because Paul Rica, the mob's acting boss,

wouldn't leave room for one to happen. Rica was sending his best killers down to Florida to make sure the hit went off correctly. Three Fingers Jake White and Frankie Rio. Two days before Anton Cermak was shot at Chicago, beat cop spotted White sitting inside the main terminal the Chicago Railroad. Within minutes, several car loads of detectives were inside the station and had White and his companion Frankie Rio and Ward politician Harry Stockstein up against the wall for a

body search. The officers found nothing on the three smirking Hoods except a bag of donuts, and were forced to release them. White and Rio explained that they were on their way to Miami, Florida for a short vacation. On February fourteenth, nineteen thirty three, a day before the shooting, Zangara went to Davis pawnshop in downtown Miami and spent eight dollars on a thirty two revolver and ten bullets.

Gordon Davis, the Miami pawnbroker who sold zangar has Gone along with ten bullets, admitted that he had a criminal record in Chicago and that he had known about Zangara for a long time. Gordon said he didn't ask Zangor why he felt the need to purchase the revolver. I ain't no wet nurse pal, he told Secret Service investigator while still in the story. He placed five bullets in the chamber and kept five in his pocket. Then Zangara

started talking Sermak. On the day of the shooting, about eleven thirty in the morning, Zangara went to Bostik Hotel at two seventeen South Miami Avenue near the Park and rented a room. He paid a dollar for the night and was assigned to room four. Before he entered the room, Zangara asked to see all of the existent entrances to the hotel. Then he went to his room, left the door open, sat on the edge of the bed, and stared down the hallway towards the front door of the hotel.

By six point thirty that evening, Zangora was gone. What Zangara knew, although it has never been established how he knew, was that the hotel was owned by Horace and May Bostik, close friends to Anton Sermak, and that they expected the mayor to drop by that evening before going to greet the President. Zangara's object in coming here, may Bostik later

told Secret Service was to kill Cermak. From the hotel, Zegara walked several blocks to cigar manufacturing plant owned by Andrea Valenti, an immigrant from Sicily who had once lived in Chicago. Zangara and Valenti left the plant about seven thirty pm, walking to Bayfront Park. With them were Steve Valenti and Lorenzo Grandi, all Sicilian immigrants. The Valentes and Grandi were arrested after the Cermaki shooting, questioned and released with forty acres of palm trees and open lawns edged

onto Biscayne Boulevard. Bayfront Park was a perfect place for a political rally and an assassination. At its south end, the park held an amphitheater with some eight thousand seats. At the very end of the amphitheater was a flat backstand bandstand and in the back of that stage where were dignitaries, including Cermak, where they waited for the President elect's arrival by the time. By the time Tangara arrived, the park was jammed to standing room only crowd of

about fifteen thousand people. They had miscalculated badly. No one figured, not even the police on such a large turnout. Desperate Zangara, the Valentes and Grandi began to push, shove, and kicked their way through the crowd so they could reach the bandstand. Anton Cermak wasn't feeling well that night. While in Chicago. Some bad water from a nearby canal had seeped into his hotel's water reserves, and Sermak had drunk it, giving

him a stomach infection. A lesser man would have canceled the Knight's engagement, but Tony Sermac had always been an extraordinary man. Yet, when a bodyguard handed him as bulky, black bulletproof vest, Cermak said he didn't want it. It was too humian outside and he was too weak to carry its weight. At nine to twenty five that evening, Roosevelt's car entered the park and stopped next to the bandstand area where Sermak and the other dignitaries were seated.

It was warm that night, the humidity that hung in the air was almost stifling. The coconut trees and royal palms that covered the park were bathed in red, white, and blue lights, giving the entire scene an eerie feel to it. At that same moment, Zangara and his party had pushed their way up to the second aisle from the bandstand and were less than thirty five feet away from Roosevelt's car, where Zangara had a clear view of FDR,

whose back was to Zangara. Roosevelt was lifted out of his seat and slid on the top of the trunk. Dressed in a white suit with a soul floodlight beaming down on him, he was the perfect target. He spoke to the crowd for about eight minutes, and when the speech ended, looked up onto the reviewing stand and saw Sermak sitting in the front row and wave for him, Tony, come on down here, smiling broadly. Sirmak stood up from

his chair and walked down to FDR. As he did, his bodyguards rose up with him and stepped up to join him, but Sirmak told him to stay on the stage. It was, he said later, unseemly for the mayor of Chicago to have more bodyguards than the president of the United States. Sirmak walked up to Roosevelt's side of the car, the side facing Zangara, and the two politicians shook hands and chatted for about three minutes. They shook hands and agreed to talk later. It was now about nine to

thirty five. Sirmac stepped away from the car and turned to his right and briefly embraced Secret Service agent Clark with his left arm. Sirmak and Clark had known each other when Clark was assigned to the Chicago office of the Secret Service. There was a brief exchange, a quick joke between them, and then for some unknown reason, Sirmak

walked towards the crowd to his left, away from the stage. Perhaps, as Judge Lyle suggested, Sirmak spotted Harry Hochstein, the politician who was questioned in the Chicago train station with Nitty Shooter the night before. Harry Hockstein had grown rich off of city policies to ford a mini mansion in the

upscale neighborhood of Riverdale next to Frank Nitty's place. In fact, it was Hochstein's home that the outfit meet in nineteen thirty four and decided to go through with the Brown and buy off Hollywood extortion scandal, and a year later in December, met there again and decided to kill union boss Tommy molloy. Hochstein, it was widely known, was run

by Frankie Rio. Whatever the reason, Sirmac took clearly over a dozen steps away from the stage where he was sitting and walked toward the position where Angara was standing. The very second Sermak stepped away from the car. A group of local bisiness and carrying with them. An immense imitation telegram welcoming FDR to Florida surrounded the car, unknownly, forming a human shield around the President elect. At that moment, a tall, blonde woman who had been sitting in the

first aisle got up and left her seat. Zangara leaped up onto the empty seat, drew his revolver from his pant pocket, and fired rapidly, letting off five rounds, pointing the gun to his left at Sirmak and not to his right at Roosevelt. The first bullet hit Sermak in the right armpit, causing Sermak to grab his chest with both arms and slowly sink to his knees. Several other bystanzers were struck by bullets as well. Zangari said over and over, and the Miami police agreed that he never

got off more than three rounds from the pistol. Furthermore, Zangari's pistol was manufactured to fire five rounds, yet police recovered seven bullets from the scene of the shooting. The direction of Zangara's gun when fired was almost the only

point that eyewitnesses agreed on. Zangara was shooting at Sermak, not Roosevelt as United States Representative elect from Florida, Mark Wilcox and Chicago and Robert Gore, who were both standing only a few feet from Cenara, told a radio interview or minutes after the shooting he was shooting at Sermac. There is no doubt about that. The killer waited until

mister Roosevelt sat down and then fired. Reports went out of the wires at once that Sirmak had been shot by Chicago gangsters, but after the first day there were no other mentions of gangsters being involved in the shooting. Later, while Roosevelt waited in the halls of the Jackson Memorial where Sirmak was being treated, he pointed out to his Secret Service detail that not one of the six persons shot were near him when they were in fact hit.

In fact, he pointed out that there were at least thirty feet away from him, but only two or three feet away from Surmac, and added Roosevelt Zangara had not fired off a single shot at him while he had a full eight minute windows. During his speech, Roosevelt concluded that Zangara was a Chicago gangster sent to kill Cermak, and said as much for the rest of his life.

In nineteen fifty seven, Roger turot He told the Illinois Parole Board that what really happened in Miami that night was that when Zingara started shooting, there was mass confusion. People were screaming and running, ducking and falling. Everything was just happening, just the way it was supposed to happen.

The two syndicate killers, three finger Jack White and Frankie Rio, both wearing badges from Cicero Police Department, waited until Sirmak fell wounded and stepped out from the crowd with their forty five's at the ready. In a few more seconds, uniform police, secret service, plane clothes detectives, and Cermak's hired private detectives would all have their weapons drawn so White

and Rio didn't stand out in the mob. They fired their forty five caliber guns towards Zangara in an attempt to silence him, but the shots missed and nicked several bystanders instead. They then slipped out of the crowd of ten thousand, confused and frightened onlookers, and disappeared. All eyes were on Zangara anyway, as the angry crowd leaped on him Before police could pull him to safety the rabble, they had torn off most of the little man's clothes

and beaten him badly on the face and chests. Yet Zangara never released his grip on the pistol despite the beating. When the police were finally able to reach him, they disarmed him, handcuffed him, and tossed them into the trunk of a nearby truck, while three enormous Miami policemen sat

on him all the way to jail. The Chicago Police Department was certain that the shooting was a mob hit, and requested the Miami police round up eighteen Chicagoans, all known to be in Miami, twelve of whom were known Syndicate associates and hold them for questioning. However, the arrests

were never made. When Chicago reporters followed the lead, it turned out that the request had been canceled by the Syndicate's favorite States Attorney, Thomas Courtney, who defended his actions with the confusing statement quote, My only interests were to learn if there were any Chicago gangsters involved. Apparently there

were not. From his jail cell, Zangara told a Miami police detective that he had to kill, but he wasn't specific on who he had to kill because if he didn't keep quiet, he said, my friends will kill me tomorrow. In sharp contrast to his lifelong behavior, after his arrest, Zangara was voluble and excitable, shooting defiant looks into press cameras.

At times, he was almost giddy with joy. The local jailer suspected he was having a mental breakdown, yet doctors who examined him that night declared that he was normal in every respect, even saying just hours into their investigation, the Secret Service was already convinced that Zangara was a communist and followed that lead extensively and solely, even though when he asked for his views on socialism, anarchism, fascism,

and communism, Zangara replied that they were all foolish. Yet, despite the lack of evidence for it, the government's investigators concluded that Zangara was motivated in the shooting by his political beliefs. From his hospital bed in Miami, Anton Sermak insisted that he was Zangara's target. When his secretary arrived from Chicago's Sirmak said, you're alive. I figured maybe they shot up the office in Chicago too. He rallied again when his family arrived, and arose long enough to sign

a four point two million teachers payroll. But on February twenty seventh, Sirmak caught pneumonia of the lungs, which caused the area around the right lung to almost double in size up until he lapsed into a coma. Sirmak believed that he would recuperate, but at six fifty seven am he died. In all Sirmak held out for nineteen days in a heroic struggle against colitis, pneumonia, and finally gangrene.

Sirmak didn't die from his bullet wounds, but it was close enough for Zangara to be placed on trial from murder, represented by three court appointed lawyers who, although experts in their field of civil law, not one of them had ever tried a criminal case before. The lawyers allowed their client to plead guilty to murder. When he did, the court sentenced him to death. Just sixty days after he

was tried. Zangara strutted to the electric chair, which when he sat in it kept his feet from touching the floor. The guards placed a hood over his head while Zangara gazed out of the room at reporters, but state officials asked, no pictures, Well, goodbye, audios to the world, go ahead and push the button Viva Italia. Just seconds before the switch was pulled, Zangara turned to the prison's ward and

Leo Chapman and smiled. Chapman had been one of Zangara's very few visitors in jail and had become convinced that the tiny man wasn't insane at all and that he was a member of some sort of secret criminal syndicate. As Chapman had walked from his cell to the death chamber of with Zangara, he and the Miami Police Commissioner asked Zangara if he was part of an organized group that plotted to kill cermac No. I have no friends,

he replied, it was my own idea. But now Zangara grinned slyly at Chapman and said, Viva Camora, one of many Italian words for the mafia. He then leaned back in the chair. In twenty three hundred volts snuffed out Zangara's strange life. When he told Zangara was dead, William Sinnott, the New York Policeman, who was injured in the shooting, said, I still believe he was a member of some secret society.

He was no more shooting at mister Roosevelt that night than I was, and should be investigated further ed. Kelly was Chicago's next mayor. When reports found to tell him he was Chicago's new mayor, Kelly was gambling at a mob owned racetrack in Havana. When asked if he thought that the Syndica had anything to do with Sir Max killing, Kelly put down his racing form and said, boys, let's

stop that from now on. There's no such thing as organized crime in the city of Chicago, and that, ladies and gentlemen was the guns of Zangara by John T. Twohe now, I found this to be a fascinating story. Let's let's hop over to Wikipedia. Wikipedia.

mister Zangara. All right, So, giuseeppe's Angara September seventh, nineteen March twenty, nineteen thirty three was an Italian immigrant and naturalized United States citizen who attempted to assassinate the President elect of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on February fifteenth, nineteen thirty three, seventeen days before Roosevelt's inauguration, During a night's speech by Roosevelt in Miami, Florida, Zangara fired five shots with a handgun he had purchased a couple of

days before. He missed his target and instead injured five bystanders and killed Anton Surmak, the mayor of Chicago. What a fucking crock of bullshit. What a crock of bullshit. This is fucking Wikipedia for you. Okay, let me see.

Here we go conspiracy theory. While accounts focus on Sermac and the other victims being random casualties of an attempt to assassinate Roosevelt, a conspiracy theory emerged sometime before nineteen ninety nine, originating in Chicago, asserting that Zangara was a hired killer working for Frank Nitti, who was the head of the Chicago Outfit crime syndicate John William tuohe author

of numerous books on organized crime in Chicago. After reviewing secret Service records described in detail in a two thousand and two article, his interpretation of how and why Cermac was the real target, and the relationship of the shooting to the rampant gang violence in Chicago. The theory is enhanced by numerous researchers citing their analysis of court testimony asserting Sirmac had directed an assassination attempt on Nitty less

than three months earlier. The conspiracy theory suggests that Zangara had been an expert marksman in the Italian Army sixteen years earlier, who would presumably hit his target, though sidestepping any issues about Zangara's progressive age and health issues since the time he was in the war, his short stature requiring him to stand on a jostle chair, his experience being with a rifle rather than with a pistol from a great distance, and his own statements regarding his target.

Raymond Moley, who investigated Zangar, believed he was not part of any larger conspiracy than he intended to kill Roosevelt. What a fucking crack of bullshit? Like do you see how they just twist everything? I love how they like go And despite the fact that there's all this evidence, it is still conspiracy theory, all right, in popular culture. In nineteen sixty a two part storyline entitled The Unhired

Assassin on the TV series The Untouchables. Actor Joe Mantel played the part of Guzeppe Joe Zangara this episode while depicting. This episode, while depicting Zangara's story throughout, focuses mostly on Nitty's plan to kill Cermak, with initial fictionalized attempt in Chicago that is foiled by Elliott Ness and his agents at the end of part one. In part two, another attempt is made using a contract hitman and ex army

rifleman in Florida, which again fails to thank Ness. Suddenly Zangara's failed, an unrelated obsession with killing Roosevelt unintentionally achieves Nitti's goal. The two part story was later edited together as a feature length movie retitled The Gun of Zangara in nineteen ninety three reboot of The Untouchables. Oh I see the Gun of Zangara singular as compared to the

Guns of Zangara plural conspiracy. Zangara plays a significant role in the background provided for Philip K. Dick's nineteen sixty two novel The Man in the High castle, this alternate history novel sets. I'm not going to read that. That's nonsense. God, I fucking hate official stories, and I fucking hate Wikipedia, and I fucking hate anybody who denies the truth, which is exactly what's going on here. But that, ladies and gentlemen, is going to wrap it up for today. I'm getting

back to the book. Like I said, I'm rewriting two chapters. I'm hoping you haven't done the next week or two, but I wanted to just hop in, drop a little bit of history for you and then get back to the writing. I'll have another show what days Today, Today's Friday. I'll have another show sometime early next week or middle of next week. But yes, I do hope to have the book completely finished and ready to go. God I

would say one week from today, but that's optimistic. Let's say two weeks from today, and that's probably give me a little bit of room. So thank you guys for tuning in. If you haven't pre ordered the book, I highly suggest that you do, so go to buy me at coffee dot com slash jfkbook. You can order it there and you'll get my notes a bunch of chapters in advance and access to my JFK research chat. So thank you for tuning in and I will talk to you very soon.