Required high school reading at my kids school. Whitey is in trouble, and I don't mean legally, I mean lethally
On Jun 27, 8:22 am, MJ <[email protected]> wrote: > How Whitey Bulger Bought BostonThe Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and > Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century, Howie Carr, Warner Books, 342 pagesby > William Norman Grigg > June 23, 2011 > Peggy Westcoat was a woman of small skills and modest ambitions. Just before > Christmas in 1980, two men broke into the single-family home Peggy shared > with a live-in boyfriend in southwest Dade County. The intruders threw a rope > around the boyfriend’s neck and hanged him near the front door. They then > grabbed Peggy, shoved her against the kitchen sink, draped a noose around her > neck, and began feeding the other end of the rope into a garbage disposal. > With the rope tight enough to terrify the victim without rendering her > unconscious, the assailants turned off the grinder and began asking the > terrified woman about her work as a cashier at the Miami “fronton” (or arena) > of World Jai Alai, an exotic Iberian sport that had been controlled by > Bostonians since the 1920s. A few months earlier, World Jai Alai had been > sold to a new owner, and Boston’s Winter Hill mobled by James “Whitey” > Bulgerwanted to know if the new owners had discovered the mob’s skimming > operation. Satisfied by Peggy’s panicked answers, the invaders flipped the > switch on the disposal. > “When the cops found the two bodies the next day,” notesBoston > Heraldcolumnist Howie Carr inThe Brothers Bulger, “they chalked it up as > another Miami drug deal gone bad.” In fact, it was just one of scores of > murders committed by a Boston crime combine that wedded the Irish mob to the > FBI. That marriage eventually broke up in 1996, when Bulgertipped off by his > FBI handler, John Connollyfled the United States one step ahead of several > murder indictments. He is presently number two on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, > below another one-time asset of the federal government named Osama bin Laden. > Connolly, convicted of various racketeering charges, is in prison until at > least 2010. He also faces first-degree murder charges in Florida for > allegedly providing information that led to the murder of Peggy Westcoat’s > one-time boss, World Jai Alai president John Callahan. > At the time of Peggy Westcoat’s murder, the head of security for World Jai > Alai was retired FBI Special Agent H. Paul Rico. Rico had taken note of > Whitey Bulger in the early 1950s, when the future head of the Irish mob was a > small-caliber hoodlum working as a homosexual prostitute. Rico, writes Carr, > “could justify his sojourns to the Bay Village gay clubs as reaching out to > new ‘sources.’” > From the very beginning of his career as a South Boston thug, Bulger was an > informant. Gangsters planning to hijack a truck “might mention something > about a future score to Whitey, just in passing, and sure enough, when they > showed up to grab the truck, the FBI or the local cops would be there > waiting,” Carr recounts. “H. Paul Rico’s personnel file soon included > commendations from the director, J. Edgar Hoover. At the same time, no one > suspected Whiteyit was inconceivable that one of Southie’s own would become a > rat.” > Sent to prison in Atlanta for bank robbery in 1956, Whitey volunteered to > serve as a test subject in LSD experiments in exchange for time off his > 20-year sentence. “We were recruited by deception,” Bulger later complained, > recalling that he was supposedly helping find “a cure for schizophrenia.” Dr. > Jules Pfeiffer, who supervised the experiments, was working off a grant > provided by the CIA, which probably wasn’t interested in humanitarian > applications of the drug. > Whitey returned to Southie in 1965, just in time to benefit from three > critical developments. First, the FBIin keeping with Robert Kennedy’s > prioritieshad decided to tear into La Cosa Nostra (better known as the > Mafia). Special Agent Rico thus began to cultivate informants and allies > within the Winter Hill mob, the Mafia’s deadly rival. > Second, just days before Whitey’s return, one of Rico’s informants, Jimmy > “The Bear” Flemmi, murdered an undistinguished thug named Edward Deegan. In > order to protect their informant, the Boston FBI office conducted a cover-up, > sending four admittedly unsavory men to prison for Deegan’s murder, which > they didn’t commit. By collaborating in that murder and cover-up, the Boston > FBI office effectively “made its bones” as a full-fledged ally of the Irish > mob. > But for Whitey Bulger the most propitious development was the emergence of > his younger brother Billy as a rising political star in Bay State politics, > which Carr describes as seamlessly integrated with the underworld. > In 1961, when the Kennedy family entered the White House and Billy Bulger > made his debut as a state legislator, the informal rules of conduct on Beacon > Hill “boiled down to three points: Nothing on the level; everything is a > deal; no deal [is] too small,” writes Carr. Massachusetts novelist Edwin > O’Connor describes state politics as “a special kind of tainted, small-time > fellowship” through which “even the sleaziest poolroom bookie managed, in > some way, however obscure, to be in touch with the mayor’s office or the > governor’s chair.” > Billy Bulger would eventually become president of the state Senate, a post > that allowed him to dispense patronage as he saw fit. Boston-born FBI agents > like Paul Rico, who confronted mandatory retirement at 50, were eager to > cultivate Billy Bulger’s favor. By racking up arrests of Italian mobsters, > the G-men could earn promotions and plaudits. By taking care of the Bulger > family, they could supplement their federal paychecks and maybe arrange cushy > post-retirement sinecures at Boston Edison or some other hack habitat. > Before leaving Boston for Miami in 1970, Rico recruited Steve Flemmi, a close > associate of Whitey Bulger who was also tied in with the Italian mob, as a > “top echelon informant.” Five years later, Whiteywho had by then established > himself as a secure but unremarkable racketeerwas also granted “top echelon” > status. Flemmi would scrape up intelligence on the Italians, and Whitey would > pass it along to the feds. As Flemmi later described it, this relationship > produced a perverse alchemy: “Me and Whitey gave [the Feds] sh-t, and they > gave us gold.” > Why was Whitey included in this package deal, when Flemmi was the one with > the mob contacts? As Carr points out, the Boston FBI office “didn’t need > Whitey nearly as much as they needed his brother Billy”and the favors that > Billy could dispense on those who took care of his interests, including > Whitey. > By 1980, Whitey, Stevie, and the FBI “were partners,” notes Carr. “And from > the beginning, it was a one-sided deal. Each side would do ‘favors’ for the > other, but the FBI’s were a lot more valuable than the cash and gifts that > Whitey and Stevie would pass on to their agents.” Whitey and his handler, > Special Agent Connolly, had grown up a few blocks apart from each other. They > both wanted to take down Boston’s Italian mobConnolly because doing so was > the key to promotion within the bureau and Bulger because he wanted to clear > the field of any rivals. > Connolly, who has tried unsuccessfully to sell a screenplay lionizing himself > as the man who took down the Boston branch of the Mafia, has described his > entente with Bulger as a brilliant “business” strategyprotecting one mob > chieftain to take down scores of others. But that business arrangement was > nothing less than a license for Bulger and his cronies to murder, extort, and > rape with impunity. They also seized control over the local narcotics trade > even as Bulger was heralded in theBoston Globeas a kind-hearted Robin Hood > who was “keeping drugs out of Southie.” > In his own memoir,Brutal,one-time Bulger henchman Kevin Weeks observed of > Whitey that while “nothing seemed to relax him or feel quite so good as a > murder,” he was “calculating” and disciplined in killing. Flemmi, on the > other hand, “would kill someone, anywhere, anytime.” Bulger and Flemmi were > also incorrigible pederasts, the latter indulging a taste for underage girls, > the former preying on children of both sexes. > Weeks also claims that Connolly and his corrupt fellow agents did more than > merely look the other way. He asserts that Bulger “had six [agents] he could > call on anytime and they would willingly hop in the car with him with the > machine gun.” Being on the take was quite profitable for Connolly. A former > secretary testifies that she once saw no fewer than ten uncashed federal > paychecks in Connolly’s deska potent illustration of the contempt he felt for > the substantial if unspectacular wages paid to an honest G-man. > While Connolly and his ilk were living large, honest Southies were living in > terror. Carr and Weeks both describe the plight of Steve “Stippo” Rakes, a > Southie who in 1983 scraped together enough money to buy a small piece of > commercial property that he turned into a liquor storethe only one on Old > Colony Avenue with convenient parking. As Rakes’s store began to prosper, > anonymous death threats came spilling from his telephone. He soon fell prey > to a Bulger protection racket and was forced to sell his business on > concessionary terms. Renamed the South Boston Liquor Mart, the pilfered > business soon became a favored hang-out of Bulger’s political allies. > During the 1987 Christmas season, relates Carr, “agents of the Boston FBI > office bought the booze for the annual holiday party at the South Boston > Liquor Mart. For the FBI the price was always right.” At John Connolly’s > retirement party three years later, after the corrupted agent had heaped > praise on Billy Bulger for getting him his job at the bureau and arranging > his post-retirement gig at Boston Edison, he was handed a bottle of wine he > was told came “courtesy of South Boston Liquors.” “No finer liquor store in > the commonwealth,” replied Connolly with a knowing smirk. > What of Steve Rakes, who had that liquor store stolen from him by the FBI’s > “top echelon informant”? Summoned to testify before two grand juries, > Rakeswho had a wife and two daughters to protectrefused to talk. He was > eventually convicted of perjury and sentenced to probation. Facing > destitution, Rakes sought out a hack job with the Massachusetts Bay > Transportation Authority. A friendly politician arranged one for himin > exchange for a $3,000 bribe. > “Absent justice,” wrote Augustine inThe City of God, “what are kingdoms but > vast robberies?” The unfathomably corrupt union of the criminal underworld > and political “overworld” described by Carr offers a compelling illustration > of what Augustine had in mind.William Norman Grigg is the author of four > books and Senior Editor ofThe New > Americanmagazine.http://www.amconmag.com/blog/how-whitey-bulger-bought-boston/ -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
