It’s not easy when one’s brain is infected with one big idea to scrub it out and start all over. That’s because the idea spreads like dust in a long closed up room inserting itself into hidden crevices and shaded corners so it seems some of it always remains. It’s a pesky disease resistant to antibiotics.
That’s what I’m trying to do in considering anything related to this case of Whitey Bulger. Being from this area and interested in local events it was hard not to read the books put out by the self labeled experts or biographers employed by local newspapers of James Bulger, more familiarly known as Whitey, and his family. Assuming the books were not fiction, although in retrospect most were as shown by conversations put in quotes of Whitey, Connolly and others as if they were taken down verbatim by a stenographer or somehow the authors got a copy of a mysterious tape recorder that was surreptitiously placed to pick up conversations.
We’ve seen them in the first meetings between Whitey and John Connolly. We know those words were not spoken. They were invented by the authors. I accepted them as truthful renditions of past events even though warning signs blinked back at me.
I knew Whitey never talked to them. If they had any information it came from the voluble John Connolly, once a media darling, but quickly thrown overboard in favor of a better story. But in those earlier love fest days as relations were building John was a good source of information from the FBI. He’d meet with some of them and spin out his blarney.
John was good at that. He was a good story teller in the Irish tradition. He was one who you could count on to tell an entertaining story, and if it involved him he managed to turn it so he came out the hero. His listeners absorbed his tales, wrote them down, and spun them out as if they were the gospel truth. Now we know that John Connolly had an irresistible impulse bred through centuries of story tellers to exaggerate and leave the realm of truth as we’ve seen from his forebears stories of leprechauns and fairies lurking in the lanes.
There’s a Latin saying floating around in the recesses of my mind that I recalled when I was doing the scrubbing to the effect “wrong in one thing, wrong in many things.” So the question I ask is how much of these books are right when they are so wrong in the basic understanding of Whitey. None having any idea of what he was like in his youth. They never spoke with him or those close to him gleaning what facts they gathered from distant sources and not understanding the neighborhood where he lived. More basically, how do we depend on anything they say when they build their book on a false stories of how it came about that Whitey was an informant.
In one book there’s a meeting by the beach where Whitey appears into Connolly’s car as if a vampire coming in with the ocean fog and materializing in the seat aside Connolly. Connolly then proposes a deal. He can make Whitey a king if Whitey will join him in giving him information against the Mafia. The problem with that scenario is Whitey had no information to give against the Mafia; and, more importantly John Connolly already had an informant who was giving him that information, Steven Flemmi.
Later we would hear from other authors, who are associates with the authors of the just mentioned book, a new story. There was a brewing gang war between Winter Hill and the Boston Mafia over vending machines that were in bar rooms. Connolly approached Whitey and told him the Mafia has lots of connections in law enforcement so it would be good if he had one who could protect him. Connolly is speaking to Whitey as if Whitey lived in a bubble and is hearing this for the first time.
Whitey likes the idea and signs on. The Mafia might have the judges, the pols, the staties and the locals but he’d have Connolly. The FBI would protect him.
Breaking down the story into reality as I did in response to a recent comment I showed it made no sense. But the fundamental reason it was wrong was that one of the authors of the book knew in 1998 that Howie Winter laughed at the idea there was a gang war brewing between Winter Hill and the Mafia. He said, as I’ve often mentioned, they had good relations with Gerry Angiulo. No gang war, no story.
Getting the idea that was originally planted in one’s mind out is hard. Starting all over and figuring out what it means if Whitey wasn’t an informant, is extremely difficult. There must be many other things hidden in my mind that aren’t true. These books, so replete with error, have formed the belief of all those interested in these matters. Try as I may I keep coming back to things they told me which are deeply hidden in my mind.
Anyone who read my blog from the earliest days or who goes back and reads my posts will see I was nothing more than a scribe for these authors, repeating their facts on the assumption they were true. I didn’t come to the blog to tell a different story about Whitey but perhaps to reinforce theirs and to show other things that I knew that they might have missed. As I went on, and right up to this moment, I slowly learned there was much that is wrong and these stories were written based on wild assumptions planted in their minds by people with a specific animosities who found in the authors willing carriers to spread the disease.
Oh, I should mention that other Latin phrase: Caveat Emptor!
Matt:
Thank you for your incredible work on this site. I sincerely hope more people get to read your thoughtful, on-point analyses. Your voice stands out in the crowd.
Julia:
Thanks for your kind words. Right now my voice is no more than a whisper but others out there who comment here and sense the same things that I do that things are not as they should be in our country will also be whispering and who knows someday it may amount to a shout and something will be done to right the ship of state.
mtc
don’t let up.
but do not forget that a lot of others will never let the truth get in their way.
some of the g-men need to spend the 4th reviewing the essence of truth justice and the American way. Truth, even into its innermost parts.
hopalong
Yes, the 4th is a good time to reflect on what is this we have been handed and what should we do to keep it strong and right.
Matt, Before enlightenment…chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment…chop wood, carry water. Keep on uncovering the truth, and following your instincts.
More and more, the entire collection of books seem to be as accurate as the fantasy novels about Billy the Kid, Jesse James and other romanticized outlaws of yesteryear.
John:
I think those books were more accurate than ones on Bulger. I think the one’s on Bulger belog in Marvel Comic Books next to the story of Batman’s rival Poison Ivy which is one step below the Joker.
Good that you keep paying attention to the questions that pester from deep within. Consider it akin to the pesky alarm that goes off every 10 minutes or so to start a new day. If the little alarm bells are going off, just consider it that you are “waking up” – and Don’t roll over, hit snooze again like so many do, and go back to sleep simply because it was so “comfortable” to sleep under the “poofy” covers of it all.
Alex:
It’s thanks to the ones who comment here that the questions keep perculating up. The story is too good to take a snooze on if one is trying to get to the bottom of it. There’s a lot at stake keeping Whitey as an informant – I’m thinking Wyshak snoozed coming into the trial.
I once had seen an interview with pat nee and he ” claims ” that whitey once admitted to him that he was an informant. I thought to my self that one, I didn’t believe that statement and second, why would pat say that whitey had admitted that to him when it could have easily gotten him killed. It never made sense to me that whitey would have said that to him considering the fact that he was very smart in just about every move he made and every word he spoke. It just kills me trying to figure out why pat said that Whitey said that to him. It just doesn’t make any sense that he would admit that to anyone let alone some one like pat nee if in fact he even was an informant which after reading your last few posts I am questioning it even more because I myself don’t believe he was. He also seemed to not care about the case by sitting there and showing little interest in all the side bars going on but as soon as Morris said he was an informant he swore at him and strongly disagreed.
Pat nee is a liar…I’m sure that interview was before Bulger was captured.
Doubting:
It had to be to please the federals to keep whatever deal he had with the and, of course, before Whitey came home again.
Craig,
Some things to consider about Pat:
1. He served on 18 months in jail for smuggling 7 tons of arms to Ireland.
2. Pat served only six years if a 37 year sentence for attempting to rob a bank with a machine gun.
3. Pat cooperated against Whitey with the US Attorney and Tulsa police. Pat told them to to look for an old man with bad breath hanging out in a gay nudist colony.
4. Pat operated the Death House his family owned in Southie. He brought McIntyre (the Valhalla cooperating witness) to his Death House but claims he stepped out to get. spukie when McIntyre was killed, so Pat just helped bury the body in his cellar. Pat tells the exact same story about Bucky Barrett.
5. With his current immunity deal from the USA, Pat now runs the rackets in South Boston and coordinates with the North End. He taxes the bookies, Oxy dealers, and shy locks to real estate developers who get underwater on a project.
6. He collects openly on L Street, supremely confident in his immunity deal, and he should be….
7. On the day before the Bulger trial started, Wyshak shouted in court “Pat Nee has nothing to do with this case! Nothing at all! It’s a non sequitur!” For Wyshak to lie to the court for Pat Nee means Wyshak is really going to protect Pat, unless it means losing Whitey’s case.
Life is very good for Pat. If Whitey dies however, law enforcement is going to have to get back to work again at some point. And we know they aren’t good at keeping their promises.
Patty- I agree with everything you suggested, #5 is where I am hoping you could clarify. Is that a legit claim he still is operating?
Doubting:
Why would he stop if he has protection? Look at Rossetti? At Flemmi? At Whitey?
Matt- On Greater Boston tonight Dick Lehr said he believes Morris is sorry and is doing something no one has done and that is attempting to apologize. What a crock!
Doubting:
Lehr owes his career to Morris. It was Morris’s lies and hatred of the Bulgers that got him going with his books and articles. Morris’s apology was as phony as Black Mass. Morris saying a day does not go by when he does not think of the murders of Halloran and Donohue was so much staged that it was sort of comical. I thought that was the only trap that Brennan walked into in his cross-examination. Morris admitting complicity in the murder of Halloran/Donohue by inference means his buddy Connolly gave the information to Whitey and that it was Whitey who did the murder. I don’t see this as a positive for the defense unless of course they are going to admit Whitey did the murder and just go totally with the jury nullification theme. Time will tell.
I am absolutely Bible-positive; I’m not guessing or speculating. There’s probably nothing I could disclose to even the US Supreme Court that could get Nee in trouble. He’s got the best immunity deal ever. He has not served a day of jail for at least five murders and now he can get rich off the rackets and drugs. However, I wouldn’t want to ever get someone in a jam so I can’t clarify or elaborate here.
Patty:
That reminds me of a joke. I hope Bob Cerra or my other Italian friends don’t get upset at me but it’s about this guy from the North End who wanted to be a US citizen named Patsy. He went into federal court in post office square for his test and was followed by all his family and friends who were proud of him. He stood before the examining magistrate and was told he was going to be asked three questions and if he got them right he could become a citizen. The first question was “who was the first president of the United States?” Patsy answered “George Washington” The group with Patsy held its breath until the magistrate said correct and they they all cheered saying “atta boy, Patsy, atta boy.” The next question was who was the 16th president of the United State and Patsy said Abraham Lincoln. Again a big cheer went up when the magistrate sad “correct”with the crowd saying, “atta boy Patsy, atta boy.”
The magistrate said one more question,”Who killed Abraham Lincoln?” Pats quickly answered, “I don’t know.” Without waiting for the magistrate the crowd erupted into cheers saying, “atta boy, Patsy, atta boy, don’t you squeal.”
Patty-I completely understand.. I am a partial moron for me to expect you to start naming names and so on my apologies wish we could unseal that golden parachute of a deal.
Patty:
It’s a strange society where some people can murder other people and our government officials can say that’s fine.
Craig:
Your instincts are right on the money — who goes around telling other people thing that denegrates themselves in another person’s eyes never mind puts a target on thier back.
Pat Nee is a gangster. Gangsters lie. Pat Nee is desperately trying to be important and buy into the government’s story. It’s obvious he has some type of deal with the prosecution so he wants to please it. If he’s looking for informants all he has to do is look in the mirror.
As for Whitey and all we’ve learned through this trial, I’d like to see some real proof outside the informant file that he was an informant. I’ve yet to see it.
MTC,
Thank you for the response. I have been amazed at your writings and given insight to this whole whitey fiasco as its one of the most tangled and twisted stories I have ever heard. I am local and LOVE the city of Boston so being from the area makes me that much more intrigued by that mans life and the things he did while living it right in our home town. As I said, I never believed that comment by Nee when he said it but was curious as to why since I told my girlfriend I didn’t think whitey was an informant and she asked then why would Pat say that ? As you can imagine I only knew of one person and one person only that I had to ask. Again thanks for your response. I will be sure to show your comment to my better half. And Patty thank you also for your input as its much appreciated. Maybe the BH should look this way for insight and information when it comes to whitey and this mess of a trial. ~~
Craig
No problem ~ it is an amazing story and gets more amazing each day — Billy Shea testifying everyone knew you didn’t do anything in Southie without Whitey’s approval was pretty telling.
Matt,
Your blog has facilitated a collaborative process that is probably better at the truth-seeking function than the trial in federal court. The Boston media and the Globe in particular have been exposed in this trial and this blog as suffering severe moral and ethical breakdowns, even criminal liability. Their problems continue because they stick to untenable stories sold to them by the likes of Morris, Wyshak and Kelly. Now the Globe, Herald and many of its reporters are locked into these urban legends because they resold them as fact in books, newspapers, magazines and films. Cullen’s Tweets during Morris’s cross and redirect today speak volumes about the best interests of Cullen and the Prosecution Team. They are not helpful to understanding the trial. In fact, Cullen’s reporting obstructs the public’s view of the truth. Cullen is stuck with Wyshak and Morris’s version of events as the primary sources in his book. He Tweets and reports feverishly to prop up their story as Brennan systematically dismantles it each day. Any reporter who has written a book before this trial is ethically compromised and should not be able to “cover” the trial. This blog has endured and grown because you and your readers keep an open mind and a healthy skepticism of the government and the press. The mainstream media is too vested to look at things from a different viewpoint. They truly abdicated their important functions such as exposing government wrongdoing.
You have to look to a newspaper like the Tulsa World to see the country’s disgust at Martorano’s deal: http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Devils_bargain/20130630_222_G6_CUTLIN410297
Or look at a magazine to see our government regularly jumped in bed with murderous OC figures and they continue to do it today.
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/30/its_not_just_whitey_bulger_meet_another_mafia_killer_aided_for_decades_by_the_fbi/singleton/
Hopefully the national media will step in and straighten out our local compromised media.
Patty:
I absolutely agree when you suggest this has been a collaborative process among many different minds keenly interested in the matter seeking to arrive as close to the truth as we can. I am amazed at how much I have learned from the comment and the interaction between people. Too many people have bought into the Black Mass/Bulger Brothers stories and refused to get beyond them failing to understand the writers of those books had specific agendas they sought to promote. Here we are trying to find out what makes the most sense starting from a blank slate and putting down those facts based on our common experience that fit and omitting those we have to twist out of shape to understand. The book writers are stuck with what they’ve written.
Don’t forget I also wrote a book and there are things in there I said which I have changed my mind about. I freely admit I did it because I too used as a base the books that have turned out to be lies. I’m willing to confess error as I learn, the others have to twist, turn and ingnore facts to support their false suppositions. It is because they are trying to justify the unjustifiable that their reporting is not straight. I’ve seen their tweets and some are giving out only half the story not interested in telling it as it is but in trying to prove they were right, when they weren’t.
Cullen is stuck in the Globe version. He can’t get beyond it. They have the big megaphone and can shout down others but it is important for others to put out their voices so that those who want to come back to the history of these times and analyze how the media operated will be shocked at how much the media hid from the people in order to pursue their own agenda and how it propped up reporters not trying to tell the truth but to tell a story that is far from that.
The DOJ, the US attorney’s office, and the FBI will all come out of here with a much more soiled reputation than when they went in. If there weren’t so many people in the tank to them we might get some reforms. All we can do is let our little voices be heard.
Patty and Matt,
Yes this blog is a rarity. No one here is making any money or trying to get 15 minutes on CNN. It seems just a bunch of anonymous and inquiring minds intensely interested in this trial and willing to do the hard thinking to figure out what exactly happened in this whole sordid saga. I am very happy I found it and grateful to Matt and everyone who contributes.
Jon:
Good comment. Money will often get in the way of the search for truth. Is that an American capitalistic system thing which came from the gangster idea that everyone has his price?
Dear Matt,
That would be “falsus in unum, falsus in omnia.” It is exactly for that reason that I’ve resisting reading the books relating to these events. Given that the antibiotics are ineffective, perhaps you need a full vaccination. It appears that you are well on your way to finding that cure.
Sincerely,
Jason
Jay:
Thanks – after six years of Latin you’d think I would have known that. One of the few Latin sayings that remains with me is one of the earliest I learned “Semper Ubi Sub Ubi” The fellow at the Patriot Ledger who set me up with a blog there wrote me a long email explaining all that. He sounds like a Latin teacher since he explained how it it really not a true statement in life. I’ll stick with the pills, not too fond of needles. Then, of course, “Omnes Gaulia est”
Dear Matt,
And let us not forget that timeless phrase which was and remains an anthem for certain people in Boston, such as at The Globe: Carthago Delenda Est…
Sincerely,
Jay
Jay:
I never got that far down into Plutarch so I never knew how Cato ended his speeches. I first read what you wrote as “defenda” and though that Brian McGrory had usurped your name.
Can you elaborate further on Mr. Tower testimony today? Heard whitey had a hearty laugh in court when he was talking about a story where Tower was kidnapped in Lynn?
Also a side thought: I hope you are able to get a book out regarding this trial, it would be much better to see the transcript through your words than Howard who will absolutely try to make a buck off of this after tarnishing him for decades.
Jim:
Tower is the type of guy that’s so typical of gangs, not a tough guy, but one who seems to be able to talk a mile a minute which he does. He’s been told to slow down several times. He has been immunized and seems to be quite candid in his testimony that full of colloquealisms. I think the great insight into who he is was when he was asked to id Whitey in court and he looked around and then looked at Whitey – pointed – and said “How you doing Jim” as if he had bumped into him on the street corner. He’s not a guy who you could get mad at. He went to Whitey for help because he had a substantial cocaine dealership that Tom Nee was moving in on – he knew Whitey a little from the Triple O’s but set it up to meet him through Kevin O’Neil – he tells how Whitey pulled up outside his house in his Blue Malibu with the wire wheels says every one knew it was Whitey’s.
Told how Shea liked to do business the hard way and he brought in “Moorezo” who was Paulie Moore and then Butch Shea and Patty Linsky: goes on talking as if on the corner, has a tendency to move his shoulders to express himself and look around a bit with his head. HIs story about his brother being kidnapped was interesting. A guy up in Wakefield wouldn’t pay up what he owed and his uncle was going to protect him – He calls the guy and tells him “that ain’t gonna happen.” The guys wife calls back and tells him who her uncle is – he’s not impressed and he says you gotta pay up or there’ll be trouble. He’s lying low because he’s been pinched so they finally say they’ll pay him if he comes to the Roadside in Lynn. He sends his brother to pick it up. He then gets a call back from the guys who say you’re not only not going to get your money but we got your brother too. They put his brother on the phone and he tells them the guys are serious and one of them is a hit man with a gun. He tells them they better release his money and his brother or they’ll be sorry. They go back and forth a bit and he hangs up on them. He goes to get Shea for help. Then he gets a call back. The guys with his brother say we thought you were a dope dealer, who you with. He says to the guys holding the money and his brother you guys got some real problems – we’re going to send an army over there to get you – he tells them he’s with Boots and the riflemand apparently scaring the hell out of them. Asked who Boots is he says Mr. Bulger. Why do you call him Boots. He says you don’t use Mr. Bulger’s name over the phone – if you do he’s going to find out about that and you don’t want that to happen – He ended the day saying he did a 10 year Concord bit which was 2 months behind the wall, 2 months somewere else and a month or two in a half way house. He was getting $1000 a week when in jail – when he got out Pat Linsky told him he was out of business and he left the cocaine business because if he stayed in it the “other guy” Whitey would know.
Witnesses like him make the trial enjoyable. We start out on cross tomorrow with Joe Tower back on the stand. Don’t know what Carney will do with him – best not do too much since he’s a wild card.
I don’t know about a book. I wouldn’t be willing to hustle around like people have to do going to book signings and that stuff and giving up my life to hustle around for a few extra bucks. There’a about a dozen people there who plan to write books. They’ll all give their own sping to it. They’ll all be mostly wrong about the whole deal since they’ve also been brainwashed.
I’m pretty happy with what’s going on now and the people who are contributing here who are helping me refine my thoughts.
Thanks for filling us in on Tower’s testimony. The news reports are so unreliable. The BH website’s front page headline indicates that Brennan asked Morris if WB “offered” to kill his wife. That really piqued my curiosity, as I can’t imagine a defense atty suggesting his client had done that. I think that what Brennan asked was if Morris had initiated that discussion. Maybe you can confirm how that questioning went.
Tower sounds like a character. And a more reliable witness than Morris.
Pam:
Brennan was asking Morris about his divorce and money problems. Morris agreed he had them. He then asked him if he asked Whitey if he would kill his wife for him. Whitey told him he didn’t do those things. Morris denied wanting to put a hit on his wife. The Boston media is not giving a true view of the case – it is picking out things it likes and omitting other important things.
If you wanted to go out for a drink, if you went with Morris you’d feel like you were sucking on lemons; if you went with Tower you’d be having a frappe. I don’t know if it is just me but I find the guys like Capizzi, DiMasi and Tower the only ones I’d like to go up to and talk to after they testify. It must be they bring back memories of the guys I hung around with who had the edge to them that made them lots of fun. The federals are all too dry. The guys from the edge of the gangster world, not the killers, but the ordinary wise guys have what I’d call personality. Maybe that tells more about me than I’d like to acknowledge to myself.