Anatomist of Crime

The man who made more money out of the great Brink's robbery than any of the men who robbed Brink's is still at large--and still making money out of it. For the Boston Globe's Joseph F. Dinneen, 57, dean of New England crime reporters, the big heist got him a Globe column called "Brink's Notebook," a handful of magazine articles, a book (Anatomy of a Crime) and a movie sale (Six Bridges to Cross). Dinneen's estimated haul, before taxes: $150,000. Last week Dinneen was looking for more pay dirt. He was working to prove his theory that there was an inside man on the Brink's job.

Ahead of the Police. Five years ago Joe Dinneen knew most of the story of who had pulled the job and how. So did the police, who lacked the evidence to make arrests until Specs O'Keefe "sang" about his ten accomplices (TIME, Jan. 23). But Dinneen, who had been beating his competitors regularly on the story, also beat the police. He told the story vividly --and hedged against libel--by disguising it thinly as fiction, first in a Collier's piece, then in his book.

Reporter Dinneen spotted Tony Pino, the gang's mastermind, when he was first brought in for questioning by police. He got to know him well and through him the rest of the gang, won their confidence.

Once when Pino called Dinneen to a rendezvous in a hotel room, the reporter went to the phone and told his city desk where he was--just in case. Pino looked hurt. "Joe," he admonished, "you should know you didn't have to do that." When writing his book, Dinneen wanted to use Pino's history as the background of the main character, Tony Turchino, but feared libel. Pino obligingly gave him a written release.

Crooks & the Cardinal. Dinneen started on the Globe in 1922, not with crooks but with a cardinal. The paper hired him as a shorthand specialist and put him to covering the late William Cardinal O'Connell. Dinneen and the cardinal got along well enough, after their fashion. Once, on a ship during a pilgrimage to Rome, Cardinal O'Connell noticed a young lady applying lipstick, upbraided her severely. That evening, while the cardinal relaxed over a glass of port and a cigar, Dinneen asked him why he had been so rough on the girl. "The Holy Virgin Mary didn't use lipstick," said the cardinal. Retorted Dinneen: "And Jesus Christ didn't smoke cigars."

Dinneen soon turned to crime. The story that made his name broke in 1934 when he and another newsman split a $5,000 reward for helping to solve a murder case for which two men were wrongly jailed. After the two suspects were freed and paid $2,500 each by the state for false imprisonment, one of them met Dinneen on the street. He remarked on the reporter's reward money and asked: "What did it cost you to get it?" "Nothing," said Dinneen. "Why?" The ex-suspect then told how he and his companion had been forced to pay $1,000 each to the Boston politician who had pushed the resolution to pay the suspects for their false arrest. Dinneen's story helped put the politician in jail.

Keeping It in the Family. Dinneen no longer works out of the Globe city room. His headquarters are in a dingy private office half a block away from the Globe, where callers who require privacy can get it. But a Dinneen is still a fixture in the Globe city room: his son, Joe Jr., 32, also is a crime specialist. Last week, while his father was back on the Brink's beat, young Dinneen drew the other top current crime assignment, a murder trial in Plymouth. Another son, Robert, 30, is a newsreel cameraman--who covered the same trial for TV. Says Dinneen: "We are keeping it in the family."

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