Audience members please turn off your cell phones now. Everybody take a second to make sure your cell phone is off. So we have two wonderful boston globe columnist here, kevin cole in in your penitentiary, and we asked him if he would like to attend but when the phone didnt ring we knew it was him. [laughter] shelley and i have covered, first of all, shelley grew up in dorchester very close to the south boston line. She went to south boston high. My entire maternal side is in south boston so we would have grown up knowing, learning about Whitey Bulger by osmosis. Everybody where we grew up where we were from knew he was a hoodlum, a and a very dangerous guy. Approximate the same time the different newspapers, we were paying attention to him and writing about him. And, obviously, what really made whitey just a remarkable story is while he was the most powerful gangster in boston his brother that was the most powerful politician in massachusetts. He was the long serving, longest serving president of the state senate. He had an incredible Patronage Network in which he got people jobs, and with it came an awful lot of support for him, both politically but also so nobody said anything about whitey. I was part of the team in 88 that did sort of a series on the brothers, called the brothers bulger mystique explaining why he became the most powerful gangster in boston while his brother was the most powerful politician. At the heart of the story was are exposing him in 1988, as an informer for the fbi. Thats why he was protected. It wasnt just because of his brother but it played, his brothers were all as a politician but a giant roll of that. There have been other books written about Whitey Bulger in some respects may be too many. Many of them were written by criminal colleagues of his who basically lied. What we call a genre of literature lies guys. As we sat down to map it out, we said we didnt want it has been called true crime but we really sat down to make this a social history and to explain that a creature like Whitey Bulger, could only exist in a certain time and place. And so, and a very peculiar to boston, dont really believe Whitey Bulger could have existed in new york or philadelphia or chicago or tucson or l. A. Because of the way that the ethnic dynamic of boston where the irish were both in control of politics, Law Enforcement, business, the irish really ran the town. The influence of the Italian Mafia was such that the fbi could create a National Policy to go after the mafia and use whitey and other criminals from an irish background and say that you were being used to help with the mafia. That could only happen in boston. As we tried to establish, this is a story with great suite. It begins with Whitey Bulger only came from south boston because fdr created Public Housing as part of the new deal. One of the young congressmen who is running around the country selling the new deal was a guy named John Mccormack who was a congressman from south boston and part of that deal was for the Housing Project went to south boston and white in assuming the been. We chart the whole thing, the ethnic mix, the way it played out. And then also the story has different layers but one of them is the sort of overwrought sense of loyalty. In south boston there was an enormous importance placed on loyalty. Family come to your friends, neighbors and to your neighborhood. When an fbi, when a guy the became an fbi agent named john conley was able to get into position to protect Whitey Bulger but he did it for two reasons. He did it because the fbi agent, all your raises, your prestige and her status within the bureau is based on creating informant. Whitey bulger was seen as a very high level organized crime, a top echelon informant. There was an ulterior motive. You want to protect the bulger family. He was very close to build bulger wouldve been one of his mentors, helping him become an fbi agent. A lot of it, you know, i think you are probably no that Martin Luther sase get a film that departed which is loosely based on a very, very loosely based on the whitey character because whitey would never get the whole story is about sort of how this could only happen in a place like boston. Shelley, youve been covering organizeorganized crime but on p and working providence with the various famous mayor there who not only was elected as a criminal but then spent jail time and got reelected. You are familiar with these kinds of guys. [inaudible] i actually going back to the mid 80s, we had the distinction in boston. It was the First Time Ever that the fbi tape recorder him off the induction ceremony where mobs mobsters gathered in a home outside south boston and they burned holy cards and pricked fingers and bounty to anybody for the family. The interesting thing is as this case, they played those tapes in court. We got to hear them a this is like one of the big major coups of the fbi in boston and one of the agents would some of these informative allow them, told them where the ceremony would be was john conley. So as the story unfolds we find out that he is using Whitey Bulger and his partner, steve, and other gangster from boston as informants against the mafia. So we get to see sort of how these cases the mentors of the fbi in the late 80s to early 90s and really decimate the mafia in new england, it comes full sweep and now the relationship with whitey has sort of overshadowed all of those successes that they had in bringing down the mafia. So its been an interesting turn of events but as kevin said, the thing about boston is the fbi had a National Policy to target la cosa nostra, the mafia and it may have made sense in some parts of the country but in boston where whiteys again was just as powerful if not more so it didnt make much sense to use the head of that gain to target the italians. And so im not getting garfield card from off your bosses from president saying what happened . In the process of reporting on and discovering this story mustve had many, many oh, my goodness moments we completely freaked out. Can you talk about that . One of the sitting things about whitey, i mean, hes a fascinating character. Is a very rich history. Some of you may know him as one of the fbis 10 most wanted for years. He was on a 10 most wanted list right next to Osama Bin Laden until he was captured. In california a couple years ago. Living just a couple blocks from white a life he was living as this retired guy telling people he was from new york. But what it thinks it interesting about him is he was a bank robber. He committed a string of Bank Robberies and his convicted in 1956 and sent off to federal prison. And because he was involved in some escape attempt to ended up at alcatraz which was the first maximumsecurity federal prison and it was for the worst of the worst. Much to our delight as reporters anybody who has ever done time at alcatraz, their entire prison file is open for the public to see. You can go to the archives ends and read all of these files can letter she wrote to his brother while he was imprisoned, what his work record was like while he was imprisoned. It was amazing to get this glimpse of him as a young man. One of the things we have sort of known him in recent years as this vicious, scary criminal killer, and to see these letters, if youre in federal prison at least at the time youre allowed to ride to 10 people. Whitey had a big family. For six of the people were immediate family members and the other for are all priests. Who else would they kill a right to, right . One of the fascinating things is that talk about political connections. While whitey is at alcatraz his brother is a Boston College law school. We can see from the records that the building has managed to have priest who became a congressman to come his brothers mentor in prison. We saw these letters back and forth that they are writing and the priest was very big in present form and he believed whitey when whitey said i am so tired of being the black sheep of the family. Im going to go straight, and he actually mentor jim. He also used his connection to have at this time mccormick who kevin reference became the speaker of the house, the u. S. House. Because of the south boston connection, the speaker of the house while whitey isnt alcatraz, the family is very worried about it because hes as far as you can get, prison in the middle of San Francisco bay. House speaker mccormack calls the director of the bureau of prisons and says can you go check on whitey and see how hes doing . The director of the bureau of prison flights to San Francisco, gets on a fair and goes out to the prison, jimmy, how are they treating you . Its a very interesting story. Wow. The part of what was i saying about reading the book was the debunking of the myth of Whitey Bulger because i lived in boston for an a lot of this time and Whitey Bulger was the gentleman the criminal who was always nice to women and or murdering them. So could you talk a bit about the joy you got in debunking the myth . The one thing we tried to show us how the myth became so widespread, particularly in the south boston but it goes down, we found when whitey was a young criminal in the late 40s, early 50s, he actually had a car in this neighborhood. Hardly anybody had a corporate he had a car because he was a criminal. What h they would do is to drive revenue was up with his chain mansfield look like a girlfrie girlfriend, he would be going probably around looking for criminal opportunities, looking for old ladies but if you saw an old lady trudging down the street with his groceries he would pull over in his oldsmobile convertible, jump out, opened the door and said, come on, get into the car, ill take you home. She happened to be the mother of who we become a congressman from south boston. Are really talking in the 80s when i talk a lot of the ways in the projects they described how people, they used to call stupid talk, sit out during hot summer night and just talk to everyone to know some would say jimmy is a scumbag and all the old ladies dont say that about jimmy, jimmy is a nicer name. He overstocks and brings me home from the grocery store. So whitey was very he knew to be a criminal. You had to have your neighborhood not turn on you. Had to have them not cooperate with the cops but it wasnt so much with criminals it was important to be feared with the noncriminals it was important to be liked. Whitey worked that. And we saw that we tried to show that. He spent his entire criminal career cultivating this image of him as a good bad guy, the gangster with scruples. But gangsters with scruples dont murder young women and buried them in hidden graves, but whitey did. So he used that. I remember mid 80s i wrote a story in the globe based on dea agents, Massachusetts State Police and boston people think Whitey Bulger controlled all the drug, anything, any drug movement. Billy bulgers politician profiles got along with the wayi always voted for where live in south boston came up to me and hit me in the chest with the finger saying youre printing lies about my brother. He would never get involved in drugs. We all know it was not true, but theres also no conclusive evidence. One of the most satisfying things in his recent trial is his own lawyers got up there and admitted that he made millions and millions of dollars in the drug trade. His lawyer went to Great Lengths to say that was only talking and marijuana. He drew the line at heroin and angel dust. What a guy. [laughter] uniyou made the comment this could only have happened in boston, and in the Legal Profession there were people known triple eagles were gone to Boston College, prep and then law scope and all hung together. It seems as though that was also part of the police system, part of the political system and also part of the reporting system. Was the story stifled in any way with the i think it was an incredible depth. I would compare to the depth like i said, i was on the team that spent months, more than a year working on the insurance stuff. I draw no difference between the fbi and the catholic hierarchy its not that you can look the other way. Way. They like to call it with vinegar. There were agency no clue a city that were trying to nail whitey for the murder of a let legitimate businessman. The agents lied and kept the cut back on the street so he could murder people again. To me its about the abuse of power and the idea that institutional corruption, its not peculiar to the bureau, not a cure to the archdiocese of boston. Its peculiar to power. Can you talk a little bit about some of the individuals impacted i whitey . Your book is one of the unique books that brings out the victims instead of emphasizing the glories of the gangster. I think the one thing that was important to us was not to sensationalize the story. This story is so amazing and theres so much was in turns and some allies lives impacted it was important to us that people understood for these families, this was their life and it was very why they went to trial last summer, with killing 19 people in the 70s and 80s. He was convicted to he was guilty of 11 of those murders. They could not reach an agreement on one, and the others they just felt that government has failed to prove. What was so difficult to these families is four years there was a lot of fear. So even people who suspected whitey of killing had really nowhere to go because what was happening is people go to the fbi to complain and whitey would find out about it. And some of the murders were instances where other people who went to inform against whitey not knowing that he was the biggest informant of all would be killed. And many of these people, as kevin said, some of these victims were buried in a secret graves. The stories did not begin to fully unfold until whitey went on the run. In 1995 whitey was indicted in boston on a racketeering charge, and just weeks before the indictment the fbi agent whos been retired warned him to run. So he took off. While he was on the run, basically what happened is, his codefendants who are arrested begin filing motions in court to find out if there are any informants involved in the case to the fbi was forced to publicly met that yes, with a poll reported in 1980, yes, it is true but whitey was an informant. Some of his friends couldnt believe his. One of the things we found most amazing is, so the mafia, they never, they couldnt believe he would be and former. They couldnt believe that the fbi would be in bed with such a vicious guy but the fbi used in as a freelance hitman. He would do jobs for them, for the mafia. They were astounded at what happened many of his Close Associates felt betrayed and they were also facing indictments themselves and they cut deals. Theres been a lot of criticism of the deals that were cut, but it was the deals that were cut that allowed some of these people to go for it early which is a tragedy but it also, they let investigators to secret graves. They started digging up bodies around boston of people who vanished in the 70s and in the 80s. And there were six victims who were recovered. So for the families, the eight eightweek trial last summer, it was so important to them to be able to look whitey in the eye and see them in topic they had to say, after being so terrified, so intimidated, i think it was a real, i dont live in the word closure. I dont live in the victim has any closure. I dont know why the media uses such a word but i think the family felt empowered to finally see them as this old man sitting there in trial and having his day in court. Finally, being brought to justice. I also think it was so amazing to see some of these victims families get up on the witness stand and looking in the eye, people who would have been too afraid to do that when he was walking the street spent my favorite part is when we document in the book the whitey isnt out and out racist and misogynist. He fought like hell to get the first judge removed from the case in the next judge again and was a black woman. [laughter] everyday here to look up at this remarkably educated arrow died very nice africanamerican judge, and she did a hell of a job. The last word in this case were spoken by the judge and she looked at him and she made remarkable talk about we have gone through a lost a lot in boston with the marathon bombing, with and the height of the red sox winning, and she said its been a dramatic year and a triumph a year for our city but you, sir, do not represent our city. Some people have tried to create you you do not represent our city. Im sitting there with shelley in the courtroom, you go, girl. Denise kasper, she was great. John connolly sort emerges at a very interesting figure. I heard an interview where he was arguing that the deals that the fbi cut with Whitey Bulger and kevin weekes was they could commit any crime other than murder, i guess is what kevin was saying or steve flemmi. Dan connolly was say no, that was what the deal was but connolly now is serving jail time in a harsher jail sentence and kevin weekes, right, actually killed people . In the end of the, John Connolly, he caused people to die and is serving a fouryear prison term down in miami. This is the fbi agent. But really it is a travesty because he has become a scapegoat for everything the fbi did wrong. There were other agents. If you read the book you will see that there was a period of time when whitey wasnt fbi agent asked steve flemmi was when theyre sitting down to this cozy dinners with fbi agent but they are swapping christmas gifts. They treated him like he was a partner, not a criminal. And so there was testimony that other agents to bride and got money. One agent who was a supervisor, we believe cause at least one or two murders, he had immunity from prosecution and never served a day. And theres something wrong when you see that agent did upon the stand with immunity. We think they were worse than the gangsters, certainly he was. He was crying and sobbing about how sorry he is and how he now works in a