...Upton Sinclair, not only knew that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were guilty but withheld his information for the good of the “movement,” for his personal safety and his professional success. Sacco and Vanzetti, if you recall, were Italian anarchists sentenced to death for the 1920 murders of a paymaster and his guard in Braintree, Mass.

Sinclair, the Pulitzer Prize-winning crusader who penned the famous novel The Jungle, prompting Teddy Roosevelt to coin the term "muckraker," had, quite simply, lied. But before he lied, he was a true believer. He'd gone to Massachusetts to research his book Boston, which was set against the backdrop of the trial — the trial, that is, of two supposedly innocent men. Unfortunately for Sinclair, Sacco and Vanzetti's lawyer told him the unvarnished truth: The pair were just plain guilty, and their alibis were a pack of lies...