I am sure that almost every person in the Greater Boston area is convinced from all the publicity they have seen and read that Whitey was this master criminal who murdered lots and lots of people and ran a huge criminal gang that vied with the Mafia in the Greater Boston area for dominance among criminals and was widely feared throughout the area.
The publicity and suggestion of this is as absurd as saying Alfalfa in “Our Gang” held folk in great terror. Boston Globe reporters have placed him, Whitey not Aalfalfa, above criminals like John Gotti and Bonnie and Clyde to the point where they said he is first in line of all the criminals that existed in America. Truth be it – Alfalfa is to Whitey as Whitey is to the real American criminals as Gotti and his ilk.
Take Bonnie and Clyde: they murdered upwards of a dozen in their very early twenties before they were gunned down themselves. Whitey did not commit his first murder until he was in his fifties. It is hard to put him in their class.
As for John Gotti, he had folk who would take orders from him to murder other people including his predecessor, he controlled businesses, he had all the leaders of the New York’s Mafia families reporting to him; Whitey had no one to give orders to other than Kevin Weeks, he ordered no one to murder anyone else, he had control over a liquor store in South Boston, and no one of any consequences reported to him.
Steve Flemmi, his partner who turned on him, and Whitey did receive tribute from drug dealers and bookies to operate. They did not depend on them to run their businesses and their interaction consisted solely of paying not to be beat up. John Gotti’s gang which operated in New York City consisted of hundreds of Mafia guys; Whitey’s gang in Boston consisted of three including himself.
The hyperbole surrounding Whitey is beyond imagination. Are you aware the most of the people he is alleged to have murdered were murdered by someone else? Whitey was part of a joint enterprise as a member of the Winter Hill mob. Any murder committed by another member of that mob was attributed to Whitey. If Whitey was the accountant for the Winter Hill gang, he could likewise have been charged with murders committed by the others. That is how the Government tallied up Whitey’s murders by putting on his plate murders done by others while at the same time not charging the guy who was paid to do some of the murders and who ran the gang when it was a gang, Howie Winter
Using the government’s joint enterprise rationale it is accurate to say that Whitey was not even the guy with the most murders on his hand who was from South Boston. There was another guy in Southie when we apply that rationale to him who may have murdered more folk than Whitey. If you decide things on motive and opportunity rather than the words of other gangsters as to who was murdering whom he is right up there with Whitey in Southie.
We also know that there were other guys in Boston who actually murdered many more people than Whitey – therefore they were much worse than Whitey – who were given a pass or received ridiculously low sentences for their murders because they cooperated with the government,
I suggest a good examination of the cases surrounding Whitey and the motive of the folk who hyped up his villainy shows Whitey was a bad guy but he was not near as bad as others. Why then did the media and federal folk hype him up so? That too is obvious if you put on your thinking hat. What did Whitey have that no one else did?
An irony of it all is that Whitey started to believe what he read about himself in the media. He began to think he was a somebody. Didn’t the FBI elevate him to the top of it s Most Wanted list? That of course came about years after he was a threat to anyone. However, during his days of operating the FBI had him as a Top Echelon Informant. If he was so bad as to be pushed to the top of its Most Wanted List after he was a nobody, how was it he was not so bad as to be its informant when he was operating. .
As as time permits I’ll get back to Whitey. It is a fascinating story of how a city was duped by folk with an agenda to destroy another person other than Whitey but used him as a vehicle to bring this about.
John Gotti had no leaders of any of the other 4 families reporting to him. Chin Gigante put a hit on him. Luchesse family killed his underboss aswell as his bodyguard bobby boriello. John Gotti was only a inch from being shelved or whacked by giving up tapes.
John Gotti had little vic orena and a handful of bonanno guys.
This is great stuff. Thanks, Matt and others. You guys are hip.
“Boston Globe reporters have placed him, Whitey not Aalfalfa, above criminals like John Gotti and Bonnie and Clyde to the point where they said he is first in line of all the criminals that existed in America.”
Why? Because the Bulgers were a dramatic Irish-American family story (good brother/bad brother) and local, not from Federal Hill in Providence, Rhode Island like the Patriaca family and associates. This sold newspapers.
Ed:
Problem is the Globe viewed it as: bad brother/bad brother. Rest I agreement with.
I think Bulger owes much of his notoriety to the decline of the Mafia. The FBI was largely successful in breaking up the biggest criminal gangs, and their success created a void. The media and Hollywood needed a fresh crime villain, and Bulger filled the bill. His supposed domaine was South Boston. Little Italy was swiftly replaced by Little Ireland. Viola. Two major motion pictures and an endless stream of newspaper and magazine articles were devoted to a thug whose empire was a seedy liquor store. Maybe it’s time to move on with a clear-eyed look at Bulger’s successor as national crime villain, Jeffrey Epstein. Are Epstein and his consort, Ghislaine Maxwell, evil incarnate? Or is there less than meets the eye? Just asking ….
Dan:
I like the comment “Little Italy was swiftly replaced by Little Ireland.” Why I do is because as I discovered the Irish Gang Wars that we have heard about were really wars carried on by the Italian Gangs. It was a long time before Whitey was seized upon, not so much because of filling a void, but in an attempt to go after his brother that made them puff him up.
I don’t think we’ll ever know the truth about Jeffrey Epstein and his cohorts. We have too many influential people wanting to bury his story including D. Trump, B. Clinton, Gates, Harvard. MIT, etc but not to be forgotten the Grand Old Duke of York, Prince Andrew who was introduced to Epstein by Ghislaine. (https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a28339290/royal-family-prince-andrew-jeffrey-epstein-relationship/)
I have a suspicion that Ghislaine will be whisked away to some place where no one knows her name. The quicker she disappears the easier it will be for the Epstein crowd to pretend he didn’t exist.
True. One fact: in about 1995 Wyshak and/or his co-horts, co-whores in the Justice Department indicted Whitey and others for the first time.
Correct me if I am wrong, but in that first indictment against Whitey there were no allegations that Whitey had committed or abetted in murders.
The FEDs first indictment was limited to gambling, extortion, drugs, et cetera.
Now, Remember, in 1995 John Connolly had been retired for five years from the FBI and working in the private sector. A clean record. Honorably. HIghly Decorated, et cetera . .
Well, then, what changed?
The theory I have heard from people who worked a lifetime in criminal law is this: First, Muellar and Comey and Sterns and Wyshak and his co-whores, Wyshak directly or indirectly involved was a true Jihadi Javert . . . see the Musical, Les Misables, . . .and that miserable, power abusing, power corrupt, power obsessive prosecutor, the malignant Wyshak, Fred Wyshak, Senior, who laughably, risibly, was appointed as the Head of Professional Ethics at the Justice Department, and in my opinion of what I have read about prosecutors in history and in law, especially in American History, there has never been a prosecutor as obsessed, corrupt and power abusing Fred the Fed, the Jihadi Javert, persecuted, prosecuted, entered obscenely lenient deals with serial killers, to extract from them novel testimony, to pursue John Connolly down to MIami, and who hired Colonel State Cop, who retired sitting on millions of benefits, around fifty years of age, and that Colonel State Cop recruited five other Henchmen, and that Colonel Fool Foley said at a Somerville Public Hearing that he was hired to track down Whitey and track down the Criminality at the State House, and there is little room to doubt that he was referring to the Honorable Senate President, U.Mass President, William Bulger, J.D., BECAUSE, i believe from all the evidence I have seen and discussed with criminal law experts, that the Wickedly Corrupt Power Abuser, Jihadi JAVERT, fred the fed wise acre, wise guy, puffed up pseudo self delusional tough guy, pansy, whose real target was Senate President Bill Bulger . . .and Remember, after the MIami Trial, Wyshak admitted that he believed John Connolly went wrong because he got too close to the Bulgers, plural, in Wyshak’s own words viewable on T.V. . . .
Now, why? Because Wyshak lusted for power.
But also why, Because Professor Dershowitz urges hid pals in the FEDs to forget about JOhn Connolly, who Alan wrote was “just a cop” as Alan urged the FEDs to culminate his vendetta against Bill Bulger for prosecuting him , , ,
But Why? Because the Globe and other leftists in the Media and Academia, hated Bill Bulger because he was a pro-life, erudite, scholar, Irish-Catholic who marched proudly in the ST. Patrick’s Day Parades , , ,and my cousins, my first cousins, the Concannons in the Volunteer Band performed proudly at every morning St. Patrick’s packed celebration where even nobility atttended, governors and senators and priests and clerics and women and men of every stripe, attended and laughed and celebrated 432, St Patrick’s conversion of the CELTS.
But why? Because mainly, the BIG FEDs at top, invented with input from Wyshak’s cohorts, co-whores, that to avoid liability for civil suits mismanaging of Top Echelon INformants, they invented the Rogue Agent theory, that the corrupt Globe, ONeil et al, gobbled up and sell . . .and they singled out two honest FBI agents Connolly and Rico, and they selled them down the drain to protect the corrupt Justice Department itslef. . .itself, and to protect its own power, and to protect the image of Harvard Law, et cetera, et cetera . . .
It is a thick, corrupt, plot conceived by corrupt men in power in the Federal Government, and we have reaped the wind of their corruption as they whirled into the 2016 election with same tactics . . .defamations, abuse of power, false charges, guilt by association . . .
Why, because they were leftists ideaologues, and without ideologies, principles, or values, they lusted for more power and more praise from the leftists in Academia and the Media, led by the corrupt Boston Globe.
There were many, many good persons who worked at the Boston Globe, Larry Tye, Joe Parrish, Pat Cahalane . .I could mention scores . . .
But their editorial board and many of their writers were corrupt to the core
Boeri was an exception of someone courageous enough to write the facts truthfully . . .and his bosses in the upper echelons, PBS, you know them, sidelined, minimized his dissents , , ,et cetera, as they said in the Flower Drum Song and especially by Yule Brennar in Siam’s, Thailand’s, THE KING AND I . . .
SEE THOSE mUSICALS and be happy, as the Truth will set us free.
William:
I ask for comments to be limited to 500 words. You again ignore my request. You alone refuse to limit your comments. Right now this comment exceeds 800 words. Why do you do this? Not only don’t you limit them you have not discipline in your writing jumping from one thought to another few of which relate to the blog post and all of which you have noted many times before. I do have a mechanism that will bar you from posting any comments on this blog. This is the last one I will let pass.
Fair enough. We do agree to try to limit the length of comments. Remember Elmer’s 1,300 words were allowed and set a bad example.
I do jump seamlessly from what seem like unrelated thoughts but James Joycean Stream of Consciousness and e.e. cummings fractured poets which in fact connect disparate notions in an ocean . . .a riotous flow / /riotous means a profusion of words
So, I’ll try to comply, but it has taken years of discipline to refine an art, even expressionistic
Touche O’Shea? Nay, shay shags
Hi Matt and thanks for this interesting article on your blog.
1. Was Wimpy Bennett the mentor to the Flemmi brothers, Salemme and possibly Billy Kelly and was Walter’s lounge the place the Bennett brothers would meet with their gang?
2. What is your understanding of the murder of George Hamilton?
3. Are Earl Smith and Steve the Greek Brucias connected to the members of the Roxbury Gang? As I think both of them are mentioned in the very unreliable book Hitman.
4. Why did Whitey refuse to give Dennis Condon any information?
David:
1. The Flemmi brothers were brought into the rackets by Wimpy. I’m not sure Salemme was as close to Bennett as the Flemmi brothers since he seemed to be more closely connected with Rhode Island and Patriarca. Billy Kelly I don’t connect with Bennett. Walters Lounge was in Uphams Corner and was frequented by the wise guys with the extra hours spots across the street. The real hang out was at a joint owned by Wimpy the Dudley Lounge.
2. The allegation was that Billy Kelly was the one who went to the house of George Hamilton and shot him through the front door. We were never able to get sufficient evidence to move forward on a criminal process against him. We suspected Boston police officer Billy Stewart knew about it and brought him before a grand jury but he was not any help. The motive was that Hamilton who was the front for Hamilton Furniture had a large insurance policy on him. The business was not doing well and by eliminating him others could benefit from the insurance proceeds.
3. Earl Smith I know little about. I believe was mentioned as being the person who set up Punchy McLaughlin to be shot at the Beth Israel by the guys disguised as rabbis. That story is a lot of nonsense since Punchy was shot a couple of miles away. It is another Martorano/Carr lie. As for Brucias, here too I don’t know much about him and I’m not sure much of what Martorano says about him is true. They may have had some connection with the Roxbury Gang but since neither was Italian it would not have been close.
4. You have to take what Condon wrote about Whitey being an informant with a grain of salt. He had some type of conversation with Whitey probably telling him that he had info his life was in danger and he could help him if Whitey was willing to work with him. Whitey probably said he’d think of it not wanting to give him the brush off since he was still on parole and figured it best not to anger him. Condon then opened him as an informant even though Whitey knew nothing about it. But it looked good for FBI guys to list people as informants whether they were or not. Condon got caught up because somehow the info Whitey was an informant reached J. Edgar who wanted to get more from him. The pressure came down on Condon from DC to provide this. Condon approached Whitey who told him he was still undecided and gave him nothing. Condon was in a bind so he closed him out. The bottom line is Whitey had no interest in being an informant for Condon or perhaps for anyone he could not control.