go after him. It was best to do it as fast as possible.
Doesn’t this contradict your earlier statement that you’d decided to wait until the last possible minute in order to feel out Craycroft’s intentions before taking action?
Maybe it does. All of us were rattled. I imagine a lot of people said and did contradictory things that day.
What changed your mind?
The passage of time. Don’t forget, we started talking about neutralizing him quite early that afternoon. At that point it would have been premature to try and shoot him down. I don’t know, maybe we should have tried to get to him before three o’clock. We never had that choice, though. We didn’t have enough time. But the five ten deadline gave us time to set things up, or at least time to try. It was a very simple proposition, actually. Craycroftwas going to do one of two things. He was going to fly away harmlessly at five ten, or he was going to bomb New York City.
And you’d been trying, as we said before, to feel out his intentions?
Absolutely. We’d been on the horn with him constantly, trying to get a rise out of him, trying to prod him into giving us a clue to his decision.
But he gave you no clues.
He gave us nothing at all. He never answered us. Once Ryterband left the bank and drove away with the money, we never heard another word out of Craycroft. I’m sure he could hear us if he wanted to, but it was quite possible he’d simply switched his receiver off. There was another transmitter aboard Ryterband’s boat, of course, and probably around four thirty or four forty-five Craycroft would be listening to pick up Ryterband’s signal that he’d made his getaway clean with the money. But between three thirty and four thirty, he had no reason to be listening to the radio. We probably were talking into a dead phone. But we did try.
Very well. Now, as to the attempt to neutralize the threat, as it was carried out in the air, you’ve indicated that the idea for the scheme came from Sergeant O’Brien and Mr. Harris and that you concurred in the plan, and you then approached Mr. Toombes with it. What was his first reaction?
I had to do a little talking. Finally he saw it was the only chance we had. He agreed we had to try it.
By this time you’d already made arrangements to put some of the plan in motion on your own initiative?
I’d issued orders to obtain the items Harris and O’Brien needed, yes. I hadn’t authorized the actual execution of the plan. But we were fighting against time. We could always decide not to use the stuff. But if we didn’t have it at hand, there’d have been no point trying to get authorization to go ahead. I sent for the chopper, the radio transmitters, the crop duster, and the paint. Then I talked to Toombes.
And Mr. Toombes agreed it was worth a try. What happened next?
Well, we didn’t have the authority to put the thing into operation. We had to go to the higher-ups.
By that you mean, mainly, the military.
Yes. What we were faced with wasn’t a police operation. I don’t suppose there’s an official designation for that kind of thing, but you could call it a counterinsurgency. It required a political decision and a military decision. Several departments were involved.
Did you seek authorization from the FBI?
No.
Why?
Two reasons. First, there wasn’t time to argue with Azzard. Second, the FBI was out of it by that point. Their job was to track Ryterband. They had no jurisdiction in the air. We had to go to the military for that.
To whom in the military? To General Adler?
No. He didn’t have command authority. What happened was we had an open line to General Hawley of the Air National Guard. He had his Starfighters in the air, of course, keeping tabs on Craycroft from a distance. He had been in communication with the Pentagon. I got on the phone with him…
At what time?
About ten minutes to four, I think. I got on the phone with General Hawley and asked him who had the authority to commit his planes to action. He said that order had to come from the Air Force Chief of Staff at the very least, and he was at that moment trying to get through to that office on another line. I explained very briefly what Harris and O’Brien had in mind.
How did General Hawley react to the idea?
He didn’t at first. He’s a cautious type. Evidently he needed to think it over. He said he’d get back to me after he’d talked to the Air Force Chief of Staff in Washington.
But time was getting very short, wasn’t it?
It was nearly four o’clock, yes. We had a bit more than an hour to the deadline. At this time Ryterband was on the highway in Queens, being tailed by Mr. Azzard’s radio triangulation vans. Our own people were assembling the materials Harris and O’Brien had requested. The crop-duster aircraft was on its way from Teterboro to Newark Airport, where we planned to fill its tanks. Several police officers were obtaining the radio transmitters and the electromagnet. The Port Authority helicopter was at the Wall Street heliport pad, warming up. A few minutes after four-just after I’d talked to General Hawley-I sent O’Brien and Harris down to the heliport. I believe they arrived there at about four twenty. In the meantime the paint we’d requisitioned-eighty gallons-had been delivered to Newark Airport by a second helicopter from the Wall Street pad.
This sounds extraordinarily intricate. I’m amazed you were able to coordinate it.
Well, I think it sounds more complicated than it was. The materials were fairly simple. We didn’t require any specially made equipment. That was what was so brilliant about the idea-it made use of fairly common ingredients and put them to extraordinary use.
Now, you’d commandeered most of these materials on your own initiative and authority…
Some of it was on Mr. Toombes’ authority, and the fact that he knew the people he was dealing with at the Port Authority. It was the Port Authority people who arranged for the crop duster, through the New Jersey Mosquito Control Commission.
But as you’ve said, neither you nor Mr. Toombes-nor, in fact, anybody at all inside the bank office that you were using for your headquarters-was authorized to give orders to the military.
Well, we just had to hope for voluntary cooperation.
At what time was contact resumed between you and General Hawley of the Air National Guard?
He called me back at about four ten, four fifteen.
What did he say?
He’d managed to reach the Air Force Chief of Staff in the Pentagon. He’d received a conditional go-ahead to take action on his own initiative if it seemed appropriate. Those are more or less his words to me.
What did he mean by “conditional”?
Under no circumstances were his planes to use air-to-air missiles.
Because that could endanger the city?
Yes. They’re heat-seeking missiles…
We’ve had that explained to us. In other words, the Starfighters could employ cannon or machine guns but not missiles.
That’s right.
What about the risk of striking Craycroft’s armed bombs with cannon or machine-gun fire?
Well, in theory that was covered by Harris and O’Brien’s plan.
In theory.
We didn’t have any precedents, did we?
Now, at this point in time-you must have concluded your conversation with General Hawley at about four twenty Yes. I immediately went to the police-band radio and made contact with Harris and O’Brien. They were at the heliport, they’d just arrived there.
And you told them?
I told them I was issuing the go order. They were to execute the plan.
O’Brien (Cont’d)
