"No Admittance"

The hoary, leather-faced council members and First Syndic (president) of the tiny 190-sq. mi. territory of Andorra, the world's oldest republic, which nestles atop the Pyrenees between Spain and France, gathered in solemn conclave last week to decide whether to admit to their country a tough-mugged gentleman who styled himself Alex Abraham Sikorski, alias "Kid Tiger," onetime trigger man for Gangster Al Capone.

Meantime, at the French border village of Bourg-Madame, Mr. Sikorski was putting on a good show:

He offered to build Andorra a modern sanatorium for the 5,000 inhabitants.

Informed by French rustics that he could not get to Andorra through the mountain roads, buried 20 feet under snow drifts, he snorted: "If I had my null der car which cost $32,000 I'd go through these roads like a tank."

By way of general manifesto, he announced: "I have lived in exile in 15 European countries in flight from the U. S. income-tax collectors. If Andorra refuses me, the only other European country I may visit is Liechtenstein. . . . I'm a real gangster, it's true, but I'm no criminal, and I want to remain what I have always been --honest. Europeans make a big mistake when they give honesty a meaning it never had. I've never kidnapped anybody."

Impressed by these displays Andorra sent back its reply, "No Admittance."

However, the Spanish Leftist Government, needing good trigger men, offered Mr. Sikorski haven in Barcelona, and French gendarmes escorted him to the international bridge to Puigcerda, set him on his way.

Chicago police and Washington income tax sleuths said they have never heard of Alex ("Kid Tiger") Sikorski. Yugoslav police believe it was he who turned up in Belgrade last year boasting he was a faithful henchman of the late John Dillinger on his way to "get" Anna Sage, the Rumanian-born "Woman in Red" who put the finger on Dillinger. In Europe it can be as much fun to pretend to be an American gangster as to pretend in the U. S. to be a prince.

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