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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An important work on a crucial, yet forgotten event., December 24, 2003
I had a dual interest in reading this book. One of them is the fact that I am a historian in training, working on my Masters in History at the moment. The attempted assassination of then President-elect Franklin Roosevelt is a moment in American history that has passed into obscurity, yet the consequences could have been enormous. What if FDR had died that day in Bayfront Park in Miami? No New Deal? No Atlantic Charter?Possibly no United Nations? Who would have led American through World War II? This subject deserves a lot more attention from scholars, and I am glad Mr. Picchi has chosen to examine the topic. The other main reason I was interested in this subject was because of a more personal connection to the events. My great-grandfather was one of the three Miami police officers who tackled Zangara that day, and was credited with saving Roosevelt's life. He died before I was born, but I grew up learning about him from my family members and by looking at his scrapbook of memories from his time on the Miami Police force. My great-grandfather is mentioned several times in the book, but is misnamed as Officer LESTER G. Crews. His name was actually LEASTON G. Crews. This error might not be the fault of Mr. Picchi or the editors. He was misnamed in some of the newspaper articles from the time as well, and this could have been reflected in Mr. Picchi's research. The book itself is a well researched account of the events hampered by two very important obstacles to Mr. Picchi's efforts. One is the fact that so much of the historical evidence has been lost over time. Examples of lost documentation include the file the Secret Service had on the case and the original autopsy reports from the post mortem performed on Zangara after his execution. These and other documents could have been very beneficial to Picchi or any scholar doing research on the topic. That being said, the author did have evidence not available to scholars before, such as the manuscript of Leonard F. Chapman, Superintendent of the Florida State Prison at Raiford (where Zangara was held before his execution). The most important piece of previously unavailable evidence was an autobiography of sorts written by Zangara himself while awaiting execution. The other important stumbling block that Picchi had to contend with was the perplexity of the crime itself. Why did Zangara attempt to kill Roosevelt? Was it really because of a stomach ailment that he blamed on capitalists and kings? Was Zangara really aiming for Roosevelt, or was his intended victim the unfortunate Chicago Mayor Anton Cermack, who died from his wounds received on that day? Picchi's thesis seems to support the idea that Zangara was aiming for Roosevelt, and did so because of a slightly deranged personality caused by a hard life and chronic pain. This assassin seemingly had his own ideas about politics and capitalism that would perplex anyone who studies him. Ultimately, the questions of Zangara's motives and intentions are not conclusively answered by Mr. Picchi in his book. However, there is some doubt that they could be due to the lack of evidence and the mysteries behind Zangara's actions and motives. Picchi seems confident in his thesis, but his presentation is slightly hampered by perspective. The book seems to be an attempt by Picchi to act almost as Zangara's lawyer, trying to present the best case possible that Zangara was a disturbed individual that should not have been executed for his crime. He presents incompetence on the part of Zangara's lawyers and Cermack's doctors as mitigating factors, along with the possibility that Zangara was a psychologically disturbed individual who wanted to die. Ultimately, the book is written from a lawyer's perspective, which is excellent for understanding the legal complexities of the case and for highlighting mistakes made by the attorneys who defended Zangara. But the caveot is that a lawyer is often tempted to act either as prosecutor or defense attorney in a case such as this, and Picchi seemed to choose the role of defense counsel. This puts all of the accompanying biases on his work. For example, Picchi placed entirely too much weight on Zangara's statements about himself in his memoir. He certainly gave it more weight that any evidence presented that may have contradicted what Zangara said about himself in his writings. Picchi probably believed that since Zangara was going to be executed, and wanted to make his case to the world, he would write honestly about himself because he had no reason to bend the truth. But trained historians will tell you that any document, letter, or memoir, written by someone about themself can be a valuable source of historical evidence, but one that should be taken with a grain of salt. No matter the circumstances of the document's composition, it must be assumed that anyone will attempt to present themselves as positively as possible. He or she will consciously or unconsciously omit and alter details of their experiences, thoughts, and actions. Ultimately, Picchi's book will not close the case on Zangara's motives and actions on that day in Bayfront Park. However, despite its flaws, the book is an extremely valuable work on the case because it presents more detail on these events than any other book before. Hopefully, this work will be the inspiration for historians and other scholars to take another look at this case, and produce further works that, when added to Mr. Picchi's, can provide a more complete picture of this important event in twentieth century American history.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Zangara Episode Rescued from Near-Oblivion, July 20, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Five Weeks of Giuseppe Zangara: The Man Who Would Assassinate FDR (Hardcover)
Not until this new study has anyone examined tthe Roosevelt near-assassination as a criminal case that holds up American jurisprudence and American medicine to embarrassing scrutiny. Not until this new book has any writer delved deeply into the background, motivations and psyche of the assassin. Because of the importance of Zangara's intended victim, who ranks as one of the great men of history, this obscure episode clearly deserves the "sober analysis" that Blaise Picchi has given it. Future FDR biographers: Take note.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Near definitive, for now, September 8, 2005
This review is from: The Five Weeks of Giuseppe Zangara: The Man Who Would Assassinate FDR (Hardcover)
"Captain Hornblower" provides a review of this book with which I largely agree, so I'll not repeat his comments here -- save to say that the Captain is a bit too hard on the author's legalistic approach.
Blaise Picchi is an attorney, after all, and the degree of justice that Giuseppe Zangara received in that Miami courtroom in February and March of 1933 is a major part of his story. If one accepts that our adversarial system of criminal justice demands that a lawyer fight tooth and nail for his/her client, it's understandable that Picchi would be appalled by the poor representation that Zangara received, when a more vigorous and imaginative defense might have won him a life sentence rather than the electric chair.
Of course, the case against Zangara was difficult to refute -- he shot six people (with five bullets!) in front of a crowd of at least several dozen witnesses, if not hundreds -- and certainly many who read this book will not wonder that he was convicted and executed so quickly for the murder of Chicago mayor Anton Cermak. The three court-appointed attorneys who represented Zangara, according to Picchi's account, seem to have been more concerned with guarding the integrity of the Dade County judicial system -- ensuring that the swift arraignments of and pleas by Zangara were not perceived by the public or the media as egregious miscarriages of justice -- than with saving their client's life. If one believes in the righteousness of capital punishment, of course, then Zangara was doomed, and rightfully so, from the moment that Cermak drew his last breath.
Aside from the question of whether Zangara really received justice, the other major question in this bizarre tale is simply, Why? Why would Zangara have wanted to kill Franklin D. Roosevelt? Why did he show no real remorse over the other people he did shoot, including Cermak? And, was Cermak -- an enemy of Chicago's Capone mob -- the real target after all?
Picchi makes a good case for Zangara's rather simplistic motivation for murder. Simply kill all the capitalists, presidents and kings, Zangara apparently advocated, until no one will want to hold those jobs, and then a just, equitable society will emerge. Picchi shows that Zangara was neither crazy nor guileful, but simply a man quite willing to commit murder in furtherance of his twisted moral vision. Picchi also sees in Zangara a death wish, a willingness to die for his beliefs brought on, perhaps, by a chronic bellyache that made his life increasingly hellish. If one accepts Picchi's portrait of a guileless Zangara, it's not difficult to accept the entries of Zangara's fascinating journal at face value.
Growing up near Miami, I first heard about the Zangara shooting as a child; but what really fired my interest in this incident was an episode on the old "The Untouchables" TV series, c.1960, in which Robert Stack foils the Capone mob's plans to kill Cermak in Miami, only to have the Mayor gunned down by the little Italian guy in the crowd. Picchi examines the often-cited hypothesis that Zangara actually was a mob hitman. He finds little evidence to support it and much to oppose it.
As the Captain so ably states, what lifts the Zangara shooting to a level of more than minor historical interest is the presence of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the implications for the United States, and the planet, had he been murdered that warm Florida night in February, 1933. The consequences boggle the mind. Picchi has done a good job of examining the crime itself, and its consequences for Zangara. If the book is lacking, it's in failing to place the crime forcefully into that "what if" context. Of course, history still is about what happened, not what might have happened (leave that to Harry Turtledove and Newt Gingrich); and unless the missing official records emerge and yield something startling (not very likely, I'd wager), Picchi has given us the best account of this episode we're likely to see anytime soon.
(Nag, nag, nag: Chicago Academic Press needs to obtain a copy of the "Chicago Manual of Style" and a fresh copy editor. There are several amateurish typos here, plus some glaring factual errors -- e.g., Huey Long was nicknamed "The Kingfish," NOT "Kingfisher." Any Randy Newman fan knows that! The book contains some excellent photos but also would have benefited from a diagram of the crime scene.)
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