The FBI announced last night that after a sixteen year manhunt, they had finally captured notorious Boston mob boss, James "Whitey" Bulger. Bulger, who turned out to be an FBI informant, fled the city in 1995 prior to being indicted on Federal racketeering charges. Part of the irony of Bulger is while he ended up becoming the leader of Irish mob in Boston, his younger brother, William ("Billy"), became President of the Massachusetts State Senate and later of the University of Massachusetts system.
Whitey Bulger is a complex character who helps to expose a side of Boston that few people realize exist -- even many people who have lived in the city or near the city their whole lives are only vaguely aware of it. If people know it exists, it's because of movies such as The Departed or more recently The Town. (For my money though, the best film about crime in Boston is The Friends of Eddie Coyle staring Robert Mitchum.) The city of Boston is a very tribal -- for lack of a better word -- place. The Irish of Southie are different from the Irish of Dorchester or Roxbury. The Brahmins are a tribe unto themselves, nestled in their enclave of Beacon Hill and the Back Bay. The Italians huddle in the North End. Even within these tribes, there are distinctions. Lace curtain Irish are different from shanty Irish. (A favorite joke of mine: What's the difference between lace curtain Irish and shanty Irish? Lace curtain Irish take the dishes out of the sink before they piss in it.) Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. was one of the first to break into the closed world of Brahmin banking and finance in Boston, but he was never accepted by the social elite of Boston.
Boston was a closed society for much of its history controlled by a small Protestant elite. If you weren't part of the club, didn't have the right lineage, or attend the right schools, then tough luck to you. There is a famous piece of doggerel that sums up the elite quite nicely:
"And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to the Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God."
This idea died hard in Boston. A close friend's father was hired by a venerable old Boston law firm fresh out of Boston University Law in the 1970s. When he was offered the position, the partner told him that the only reason he had been hired is that the firm needed lawyers. Otherwise he would not have been offered the position, because he hadn't gone to Harvard.
This is the world that the Bulger brothers grew up in and in many ways it explains the choices they made. If you grew up poor and Irish you had four ways out: 1) the priesthood; 2) politics; 3) the police; and 4) crime. Billy obviously chose politics and Whitey, well he chose #4. After the fact, a lot of people went after Billy Bulger, alleging that he knew the whereabouts of his brother or that he helped protect him (he later admitted to receiving a phone call from his brother in 1995). The Bulgers became synonymous with attacking Boston's Irish political elite (Tip O'Neill, Bulger, the Kennedys, etc.) and the supposed corruption that went along with them (Howie Carr wouldn't have a career otherwise). The trouble is people prefer a conspiracy, they don't want to accept the easy answer: that two brothers who grew up poor in Southie, made two different choices in order to escape poverty. Billy Bulger was elected by the people of Southie on his merits, not because of his brother. He represented their interests and helped them. Whitey Bulger was protected, not by his politically powerful brother, but by the FBI.
However, at the end of the day it is the deadly, terrifying side to Bulger that should be focused on: he was wanted for 19 murders and he helped to facilitate the drug trade that tore inner city Boston apart in the 1980s. Many -- including his FBI handler (currently in prison) -- tried to down play Whitey's role in drugs, by saying he only demanded protection money from the drug dealers, he never dealt himself. No matter what the nature of Boston or the area that he grew up in, he broke the law. He deserves to spend the rest of his natural life in prison. He should have been put away a long time ago. This is what people need to focus on, not the choices that Billy Bulger made or what this says about politics in Massachusetts.
*As a general h/t to my home city, I would recommend that if you're interested in learning more about Whitey Bulger and his case, the Boston Globe published an excellent 5-part series in 1998. They have generously put it back up. You will learn about Whitey, Southie, and the FBI. But, perhaps most importantly, you'll discover that the Globe used to be a terrific newspaper. Trust me it's why the New York Times bought it for $1 billion in 1990.
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