<P> Before his death in June 1982, Giovanni Gambera, a member of the four - person team of anarchist leaders who met shortly after the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti to plan their defense, told his son that "everyone (in the anarchist inner circle) knew that Sacco was guilty and that Vanzetti was innocent as far as the actual participation in killing ." </P> <P> Russell had originally written about the case, arguing that Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent, but further research led him to write a 1962 book, asserting that Sacco was guilty . Russell used the Gambera revelation as the basis of a new book in 1986, in which he claims that the case is "solved ." He presented his view that Sacco was one of the shooters, while Vanzetti was an accessory after the fact . While Russell's 1962 book was praised, even by those who disagreed with his conclusion, for being balanced and well - reasoned, his 1986 book was much more negatively received . In the latter, the "accessory after the fact" legal theory is incorrect: Massachusetts law, now and at the time of the crime, allowed both men to be charged as joint principals in a robbery - homicide, for which they were convicted . From a legal standpoint, it does not matter how many shots, or even if, Vanzetti fired, to establish his legal culpability for the robbery and murders . </P> <P> Months before he died, the distinguished jurist Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr., who had presided for 45 years on the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, wrote to Russell stating, "I myself am persuaded by your writings that Sacco was guilty ." The judge's assessment was significant, because he was one of Felix Frankfurter's "Hot Dogs," and Justice Frankfurter had advocated his appointment to the federal bench . </P> <P> The Los Angeles Times published an article on December 24, 2005, "Sinclair Letter Turns Out to Be Another Expose", which references a newly discovered letter from Upton Sinclair to attorney John Beardsley in which Sinclair, a socialist writer famous for his muckraking novels, revealed a conversation with Fred Moore, attorney for Sacco and Vanzetti . In that conversation, in response to Sinclair's request for the truth, Moore stated that both Sacco and Vanzetti were in fact guilty, and that Moore had fabricated their alibis in an attempt to avoid a guilty verdict . The LA Times interprets subsequent letters as indicating that, in order to avoid loss of sales to his radical readership, particularly abroad, and due to fears for his own safety, Sinclair didn't change the premise of his novel in that respect . However, Sinclair also expressed in the letters in question doubts as to whether Moore deserved to be trusted in the first place, and he did not actually assert the innocence of the two in the novel, focusing instead on the argument that the trial they got was not fair . Attorney William Thompson, who represented Sacco and Vanzetti from 1924 until their execution, never doubted their innocence . </P>

In the 1920s police arrested thousands of suspected radicals in what became known as the