The Smoking Gun That Wasn't

By KEVIN MATTSON

Upton Sinclair has been in the news lately. And it's not just the 100th anniversary of The Jungle. Seems the man was a liar.

On December 24, 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported that an Orange County lawyer, Paul Hegness, had bought a box of papers at an auction warehouse for $100. Inside there was a letter postmarked September 12, 1929, in which Upton Sinclair confessed knowing that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were guilty. He'd been told so by the onetime defense lawyer for