Regarding "Martyrdom Without End," Robert K. Landers' review of "Sacco & Vanzetti," by Brice Watson (WSJ, Aug. 18-19, 2007): Was Nicola Sacco, one of the two Italian anarchists who were executed 80 years ago, actually guilty of the murder of a security guard in a 1920 payroll robbery in Massachusetts? Bruce Watson, whose new book is the latest look at this famous case, argues that he wasn't. Watson may be "no Sherlock Holmes," writes Robert Landers, who disagrees.
Perhaps. But William Young and David Kaiser did a prodigious job of sleuthing for their 1985 book, "Postmortem: New Evidence in the Case of Sacco and Vanzetti," which revealed the astounding level of deception and fabrication practiced by state prosecutors in their effort to send two political dissidents to the gallows. This included tampering with ballistic evidence to supply "proof" that Sacco's gun was used to shoot the security guard.
Perhaps Landers didn't know about Young and Kaiser's findings. He does mention the oft-cited statement of Sacco and Vanzetti's first attorney to novelist Upton Sinclair, that he thought Sacco might have been guilty - but fails to note that Sinclair, who researched the case thoroughly, didn't find this claim credible. He also fails to mention perhaps the crucial fact in the case: that a member of the gang that most likely committed the payroll robbery testified that Sacco was not involved. The leader of the gang, as it happened, bore a close physical resemblance to
Sacco, which explains why some witnesses initially identified the accused man.
This testimony was thrown out by Judge Webster Thayer, the same judge who had presided over a spectacularly biased first trial in which he instructed the jury, "This man [Vanzetti], although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless culpable, because he is the enemy of our existing institutions." Thayer also bragged to members of his club that he was going to "get them [the defendants] good and proper!"
Sacco and Vanzetti were only the most famous victims of the Red Scares, the period of savage political paranoia during and after World War I. Eighty years later, in the era of the PATRIOT Act, we need to ask ourselves why the American judicial system was so determined to use any means necessary to kill two immigrants with whose political views they disagreed.
Sincerely,
Eric Laursen 229 Edgecombe Avenue, #1 New York NY 10030 (212) 694-5796 Member, NYC Sacco-Vanzetti Commemoration Committee