The count confirmed three men missing. The institution was locked down. Warden Olin G. Blackwell, who was away from the island on vacation at Lake Berryessa in Napa County, was notified and returned. Responding to questions from reporters, Blackwell said, “I just don’t know” when asked whether the men might still be somewhere on the island. That uncertainty was genuine: until a full search of the island was completed, there was no certainty about whether the escape had succeeded or whether the three men were still on Alcatraz somewhere.
By the morning of June 12, the FBI had been notified. The Coast Guard had been contacted. The California Highway Patrol, sheriff’s deputies, and San Francisco city police were brought in. A joint air, sea, and land search was organized around the island and the surrounding bay.
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## Allen West Talks
Allen West’s value to the investigation was substantial. He knew the plan in detail. Under questioning by FBI investigators, he described the preparation: the drilling, the workshop on the top tier, the construction of the raft and life preservers, the acquisition of the raincoats, the design of the dummy heads.
He claimed to be the mastermind of the entire operation. Investigators were skeptical of this specific claim — the consensus attribution of the planning to Morris has persisted in the literature, though it was based partly on West’s reputation (investigators doubted his competence for such an undertaking) rather than on direct documentary evidence.
West described the intended route. From Alcatraz, the raft would head northwest toward Angel Island. The men would rest on Angel Island, then re-enter the bay on the island’s far side and cross the Raccoon Straits to the Marin County shoreline. Once on land, they planned to steal a car. They planned to break into a clothing store to replace the prison-issue clothing that would identify them. They had discussed separating. They had no explicit plan beyond the first hours.