Bright Boy

From dean's office to dormitory, people who knew Freshman John Robert Wagner at Cambridge's famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology began to wonder what had got into him. John, a good-looking, 18-year-old son of a hardworking Chicago court bailiff, came to M.I.T. with just about all the honors that Chicago's Lane Technical High School could heap on him: a place on the super-honor roll, divisional presidency of the student council, a cadet colonel's rank in R.O.T.C., and--finally--the American Legion's coveted high-school award for the class of '56. But for some reason John was falling far behind his M.I.T. classmates.

More puzzling than the bad grades was the fact that John, in Chicago a steadfast member of the Presbyterian Church choir, was getting a reputation for being a big and wild spender. He shoveled money around like snow, ostentatiously picked up the tab at parties and restaurants, jazzed around town in a new $3,500 Oldsmobile convertible. When his friends asked him where he was getting all his cash, John always brightly shot back that old gag, "I robbed a bank." It was great for laughs.

Going Up. When John's parents received his report card showing three failures and two barely passing grades in the standard course, they began to worry. Said his father: "That wasn't like him at all." Then, early in December, M.I.T.'s dean of freshmen telephoned the Wagners in Chicago. John, he told them, had disappeared in his new car. "That mystified us," said his $4,500-a-year father. "We thought that maybe he had gotten married to one of those rich girls from those exclusive Eastern schools, and she had given him the $3,500 for the car, or that maybe he had been framed by dope peddlers. I told the dean to bring in the police." The trail was easy. In less than a week John was traced to a hotel room in Oklahoma City. What did the bright, good-looking boy have to say for himself? Said John: "I robbed a bank."

It all started, he confessed, last summer. After his triumphant graduation from Lane Tech, he turned down two fine scholarship offers (U.C.L.A., Hamilton College) because he thought M.I.T. better fitted his talents. Well aware that his parents could not afford to pay the bill (tuition: $1,100 a year), he found a $60-a-week job with Western Electric and began saving his money. Soon he concluded that this job didn't fit his talents either, quit it and tried to land a better-paying one--and failed. Then he had a much brighter idea. "Maybe I wasn't thinking straight," he told the cops, "but I made up my mind that I would rob a bank. I thought I'd manage to get about $2,500. That much would get me through one year of school."

Going Wild. John then put his highly touted intelligence to work, scouted around for a likely target. "I deliberately selected a small bank that wouldn't be crowded, and where there wouldn't be an electric-alarm system," he said. He chose the small, upstate Richmond (111.) State Bank, borrowed his father's -45-cal. and a neighbor's car, drove to Richmond. In the middle of the day he walked calmly into the bank ("I wanted to be fair, so I didn't wear a mask"), vaulted the counter, flourished the -45-cal. and told the astonished teller to put the money into an empty shopping bag.

He left town at 75 m.p.h., abandoned the car after wiping off his fingerprints (and later sent the neighbor an anonymous note telling him where the car could be found and warning him to keep his garage locked after this). Back home he counted his haul: $19,960. Said he: "I could hardly believe my eyes. I think I could have handled $2,500 wisely."

Going Technical. When the police caught up with him, John still had $4,500. The rest was gone--spent on tuition, books, his car, good times and girls. In Oklahoma City alone he lavished $1,800 on call girls (at as much as $500 apiece), ordered a garage to zip up the engine of his car. For the cops he offered a highfalutin analysis of himself and his deeds: "I'm a mixed-up character--one of those teen-agers who know how so many of our age feel. There's the Army, war clouds, decisions about schools and future occupation, and we think we're taking them in stride; then one does something like I did, and we realize we're really mixed up."

Why was he spending $900 to soup up his car, the cops wanted to know. Replied John precisely: "I don't like that word 'souped.' Why not say I want the motor modified?" Said the cop: "You're getting pretty technical." "That," explained the boy who was too bright, "is why I went to M.I.T."

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