Very lazy and avoids work
Ability as worker:...
Poor
Attitude:...
Resistant / Obstructive
Disposition:...
Defiant / Agitator
In May of 1946, the bloodiest and most significant escape attempt ever to occur on Alcatraz left five men dead and several others severely injured. In the course of this explosive event, Stroud would further etch his name in the history of the island prison, as he negotiated with Lieutenant Philip Bergen (who was barricaded in the West Gun Gallery) to help bring an end to the cellhouse barrage of grenades and gunfire. Stroud also would donate several hundred dollars to the defense of the inmates who stood trial for the murder of a correctional officer during the escape attempt. Many believed that this was yet another way in which Stroud communicated his rebellious attitude toward the administration.
In August of 1948, Stroud helped to instigate a hunger strike with fellow D-Block inmates which didn’t sit well with prison officials. As a result, Warden Swope, who had the reputation of being a tough disciplinarian, ordered Stroud to be moved into a permanent deep lockdown status inside the prison hospital. Once again, without receiving any notice or explanation, Stroud was walked through the cellblock and up the stairs leading from the mess hall to a new cell.
Stroud’s wardroom cell in the Alcatraz Hospital Wing. Initially Stroud was forced to use a bedpan to relieve himself, until his attorneys successfully lobbied the Bureau of Prisons to install a toilet. Stroud spent eleven years locked down in this cell with only one visit to the recreation yard per week, usually by himself.
Stroud’s cell as it appears today. Little has changed from the days when he occupied this cell.
His new cell was spacious, as it had originally been designed as a hospital wardroom to accommodate up to four patients. The room was painted a hospital style green, typical of the 30’s and 40’s. It contained little more than a sink, two beds, a steel utility cabinet for storage and a hard metal-framed chair. For the first eight years there was no toilet, and Stroud was forced to use a bedpan designed for non-ambulatory patients, except on the occasions when he was permitted to leave his cell under escort to use neighboring facilities. The only benefit in these new accommodations was that the room had a window facing the Golden Gate Bridge and it was also the only single-inmate cell with running hot water.
Stroud would spend his years there in strict isolation, with only an occasional opportunity to speak with an inmate when his outer door was left open during sick call. His primary link to the outside world was from a sometimes-yielding officer who would consent to a game of chess or checkers and would endure his longwinded stories and perverse opinions. Former correctional officer George DeVincenzi, who served at Alcatraz from 1950 until 1959, was assigned to the hospital ward for several years. George recalled that playing board games and interacting with inmates on a recreational level was firmly prohibited by the administration.
“I could only play a game of checkers with Stroud if the West Gun Gallery Officer was a friend of mine. The gallery officer frequently peered through the port window located at the end of the hallway in the Hospital Ward to ensure I was okay. If the officer was a friend, I could sit at the front of Stroud’s cell and play through the bars. It helped pass the time for both of us...”
Stroud spent his time in isolation absorbed in his manuscript, and in later years he began exhibiting signs of unusual behavior. During his weekly bathing periods, Stroud would shave all of his body hair, including his face, hands and fingers. He was still considered dangerous by the correctional staff and no one let down their guard with him. Lieutenant Bergen would later comment during an interview, “I can’t say I wasn’t afraid of Stroud... We all used caution; knowing his capabilities.” Fellow prisoner Jim Quillen stated that he frequently conversed with Stroud when passing by his cell during the course of his duties as an X-Ray technician, a prestigious job assignment for an inmate. “His outer door was usually open and he would be standing there like an excited dog, anxious to talk with anyone who walked by.” A memo addressed to correctional officers on December 20, 1948 sought to end Stroud’s freedom to communicate with other inmates. It also implied that on various occasions he was found outside his cell wandering the corridor and talking with other inmates:
From time to time it has been noticed that Stroud is permitted to be out of his assigned quarters when other inmates are in the hospital for outpatient treatment. It has also been noticed that he has been able to carry on a conversation with other inmates. It is of course necessary to administer to him as prescribed by the Medical Department, out treatments, baths, taking care of toilet needs or for any other reason it may be necessary to take him from his quarters is to be done when there is no traffic in the Hospital. Under no circumstances is he to be taken from his quarters when an inmate from “D” Block is in the Hospital for outpatient treatment. He is not to be permitted to carry on conversations with other inmates, and when he is out of his quarters he is to be under constant surveillance by a custodial officer.
Signed,
R.H. Tahash
Captain
Stroud was also allowed fewer yard privileges than were allotted to the general population at Alcatraz and his walks to the recreation yard were usually carried out when no other inmates were in the area.
Officer reports typically portrayed Stroud as a difficult inmate to manage, even while in segregation. One example was a disciplinary report written on June 19, 1951. The report submitted by Officer Robert Griffiths to Warden Swope and Associate Warden Madigan reads as follows:
Violation: INSOLENCE-DISBURBANCE, Under instructions from the Eve. Watch Lieutenant E.F. Stucker, I told the above inmate that I was putting out his light after his treatment was completed. I put out his bright light and he leaped out of bed and switched it on again. I told him not to do it again and switched off the light. He again turned it on, saying, “He didn’t give a fuck what Stucker said, the light stays on until midnight.”
In 1955, when Robert Stroud had been in prison for over forty years, and had been all but forgotten by the outside world, Thomas E. Gaddis created one of the most intriguing human tales of the 20 thCentury – the grim story of the Birdman of Alcatraz.
Working from an improvised office inside his small garage, Thomas E. Gaddis penned a book that would become an American Classic – Birdman of Alcatraz. Stroud was never permitted to read his own biography or to see the motion picture, for which lead actor Burt Lancaster was nominated for an Academy Award.
Gaddis had left his job as a teacher and probation officer in Los Angeles to chronicle Stroud’s amazing life. He had become intrigued by Stroud’s story and located Marcus in 1950. Marcus ultimately agreed to the idea of a book about his brother’s life story. Gaddis acquired hundreds of letters from Stroud’s correspondence, and conducted hours-upon-hours of interviews with Marcus, extracting every possible detail. While the book relied heavily on second and third-hand information to reconstruct Stroud’s side of the story, it appeared to be tangled with a plethora of fact based material, or at least from Stroud’s perspective.
In 1951, still early on in his research for the book, Gaddis wrote an article about Stroud for Cosmopolitan Magazine. The article helped to finance his project and once again, public interest started to drift toward Stroud. Working from a manual typewriter in an improvised office in his garage, Gaddis knitted together a classic American tale that would capture the attention of a nation. Gaddis’s book, Birdman of Alcatraz, was published in 1955 and became an instant success. It also launched a national crusade for the prisoner’s release. The public wrote thousands of letters to the President of the United States and the Attorney General, denouncing what they termed “the government’s cruel punishment” of Stroud and demanded his release. But despite this exhaustive crusade, the Bureau of Prisons was unyielding and Stroud remained in isolation.