Teddy Roosevelt's gun returns
--------------------

BY BILL BLEYER
Newsday Staff Writer

June 15, 2006

Robert Wittman, senior investigator with the FBI's Art Crime Team in
Philadelphia, arrived at Sagamore Hill yesterday, removed an antique pistol
from a
small nylon case and gently laid it on a table.

Philip Schreier, senior curator at the National Firearms Museum in
Virginia, donned white cotton gloves and began comparing the weapon to
photographs
of the Model 1892 Colt revolver used by Theodore Roosevelt during the
Spanish-American War.

He checked engraved markings for several minutes. Everything matched.
"There's no question in my mind," he announced to a conference room full of
officials: He was holding the gun Roosevelt used during the Battle of San Juan
Hill.

"For a piece of American history, it's just unsurpassed," Schreier said.
"It's a national treasure."

An hour later, on the front porch of Roosevelt's Cove Neck home, the FBI
formally returned the gun that had been stolen 16 years earlier from a display
case that had no alarm. Agents recovered the gun in Florida last September
after a person who asked for anonymity called Sagamore Hill National Historic
Site and said he had been shown the artifact by his girlfriend, whose husband
was the thief.

"This is a very special day," Sagamore Hill Superintendent Greg Marshall
said.

As for possible arrests, Mark Mershon, assistant director-in-charge of the
FBI's New York office, said, "We have a number of people identified and a
fairly good understanding of what took place." He said the decision to file
charges would be up to the U.S. attorney's office.

Robert Goldman, a former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia who worked with the
FBI on the case, said, "The problem in cases like this when the theft was so
long ago is, if you find somebody with the gun, that by itself is not
sufficient to bring charges. We have to establish that the person is the thief
who
stole it in 1990, or when he received the weapon he knew it was stolen."

Amy Verone, Sagamore Hill's chief of cultural resources, said the pistol
would again be displayed at the site. It was pointed out that the museum was
recently rebuilt and now has a state-of-the-art security system.

Copyright (c) 2006, Newsday, Inc.
After 16 years, Teddy Roosevelt icon found
--------------------

BY BILL BLEYER
Newsday Staff Writer

June 3, 2006

It's been 16 years since the pistol Theodore Roosevelt used during the
Spanish-American War was stolen from Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. And
now, because of a tipster with a sense of history, the revolver is coming home.

After the caller told the site's chief curator that the gun belonged at TR's
Cove Neck estate, the FBI was able to recover it in the South last fall. And
while continuing to investigate the April 1990 theft from a display case at
the Old Orchard Museum, the agency will return the .38-caliber Colt to the
National Park Service June 14.

"The theft of the weapon remains a pending investigation and we're pursuing
all leads," FBI spokeswoman Christine Monaco said Friday. "But we certainly
want to see it returned to its rightful owner."

After the park service turned the lead over to the FBI, investigators said,
agents met with the caller and retrieved the gun. The caller is not believed
to have been the thief.

The pistol, valued at $1 million by police in 1990 but considered priceless
by historians, was salvaged from the battleship Maine after it exploded and
sank in Havana Harbor in 1898. It was given to Roosevelt by his
brother-in-law, Navy Capt. William Sheffield Cowles. When the war broke out
later that
year, Roosevelt helped formed a volunteer regiment, the Rough Riders, which
he ultimately led. He used the pistol in the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba,
which propelled him to the governor's office and ultimately the White House.
Historians consider TR's Rough Rider uniform and weapons the most iconic
objects at Sagamore Hill.

"It was a very special gun to him and therefore to the family and we're
delighted to have it back," said Tweed Roosevelt of Boston, a great-grandson of
Roosevelt. "I always thought it would come back. These things eventually do."

Sagamore Hill personnel have not seen the gun. But Amy Verone, the chief of
cultural resources, said that based on FBI photographs "it looks very much
like our gun, but we are going to have two experts look at it. It seems to be
in good shape." The recovered gun has the same inscription above the grips:
"From the sunken battle ship Maine" and "July 1st, 1898. San Juan. Carried and
used by Col. Theodore Roosevelt."

Sagamore Hill Superintendent Greg Marshall said "the National Park Service
would like to celebrate the fact that this cherished artifact is going to be
returned because it helps tell the story that we're trying to tell."

Verone said the tipster called the park on a Sunday and she returned the
call. Verone said he told her that after being shown the pistol by an
acquaintance, he had said, "Gee, that's Teddy Roosevelt's pistol. That should
be at his
home."

The park service then contacted the FBI.

The gun was taken from a display case that was slated to get an alarm, but
it had not yet been installed.

Immediately after the theft, alarms were installed in all display cases that
did not have them.

This is the second time the Rough Rider pistol has been recovered after
being stolen. In 1963, a thief grabbed it from the mansion, panicked and threw
it
into the woods.

Edward Renehan, chief executive of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, said,
"Luckily nothing like this could ever happen again."

Copyright (c) 2006, Newsday, Inc.

--------------------
Roosevelt's revolver returning to LI
--------------------

BY BILL BLEYER
Newsday Staff Writer

June 14, 2006

Last summer, the girlfriend of a man living in the South told him about an
old stolen pistol with an engraved inscription that was hidden in her
husband's closet.

"I said 'I'd like to see that,' " said the man, whose name is Andy. "She
said 'OK.' "

That conversation set in motion a series of events that will culminate today
when the revolver -- believed to be the one used by Theodore Roosevelt
during the Battle of San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War -- is returned
to
Sagamore Hill National Historic Site 16 years after it was stolen from a
display case.

The FBI, which is bringing the gun from Philadelphia today, continues to
investigate.

Andy, who agreed to be interviewed if his full name and home state were not
revealed, said that after the initial discussion, "one day she brought it
over. She put it on the kitchen table and I said 'Whoa!' I recognized right
away
that it was important. My dad was career military. So I've been around guns
all my life. My first thought was that 'This has to go home.' "

Andy said, "We talked about it a little bit, then she wrapped it up and took
it back home."

Meanwhile, Andy had already called Sagamore Hill and talked to Amy Verone,
the chief of cultural resources. She said the park service wanted to recover
the Model 1895 Colt revolver with an inscription saying it was salvaged from
the sunken battleship Maine and used by Roosevelt, no questions asked. While
Andy was trying to figure out how to get the gun to Cove Neck, Verone called
the FBI in September.

By then, Andy said, his girlfriend, who is still married to the alleged
thief, had given him the weapon. "It was just in a closet and she took it," he
said.

Andy was contacted by the FBI art theft unit in Philadelphia and asked to
describe the gun. The next day, two agents knocked on the door. "They asked me
about the revolver and I brought it out and showed it to them," he said.
"They asked me questions about how I got it. They gave me a receipt for it and
took it."

Andy said his girlfriend's husband, who has a record of arrests for theft,
including one on Long Island, just came home with the gun 16 years ago and
kept it hidden in their house. The alleged thief knows the gun had been turned
over to the FBI and the agency is investigating him, Andy said. "He knows
something might happen but he doesn't seem to worry too much about it."

Andy said the FBI gave him a $1,000 reward several months later. He said he
had not sought any reward, but the money was welcome because he had been out
of work for a year and just started a new mechanical design job last week.

The National Park Service and Theodore Roosevelt Association are looking
into whether Andy is eligible for an $8,100 reward offered in 1990.

"I'm just happy it got back home," Andy said. "It's where it belongs."

Copyright (c) 2006, Newsday, Inc.
RETURN CEREMONY TO BE HELD AT SAGAMORE HILL HISTORIC SITE
On Wednesday, June 14, 2006, at 1 pm, Assistant Director-in-Charge Mark J.
Mershon of the FBI New York Office, will be participating in a Return
Ceremony at the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site in Oyster Bay, New York,
to
celebrate the return of President Theodore Roosevelt’s Model 1895 Colt
Revolver
to its home.
The revolver, believed to have been carried by Theodore Roosevelt when he
charged up San Juan Hill as the leader of the Rough Riders during the
Spanish-American War, was stolen from Sagamore Hill over fifteen years ago and
has
been recovered.
Members of the press are invited to attend the event.
The following website provides directions to the Sagamore Hill Historic Site:
_http://www.nps.gov/sahi/pphtml/facilities.html_
(http://www.nps.gov/sahi/pphtml/facilities.html) .
If you have an inquiry regarding this event, please contact the FBI New York
Press Office.



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