Saturday, January 29, 2011

Interview: William Helmer

January 2011 Contents
Interview
By Ellen Poulsen

Gangster-Era Historian
William J. Helmer

By Ellen Poulsen

"...The original account [of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre] has been virtually carved in stone and perpetuated by every writer and filmmaker since... The idea of the trap being laid by a shipment of Old Log Cabin was an elaboration on one talkative Prohibition official’s goofy hijack theory...The idiot Prohibition official got a bunch of these ideas into headlines that day and the next before he was transferred out of Chicago for implicating even the police, and then lost his job. But his speculations have gone down as history."

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