rodriguez. simply go to booktv.org and click on book club to enter the chat room. once you are the you can log in as a guest or through your facebook or twitter account to post your thoughts. >> next from the tucson festival of books a discussion about whitey bulger, america's most wanted gangster in the manhunt that brought him to justice. this is about one hour. >> good afternoon and welcome to the sixth annual tucson special books. my name is pam sutherland. we would like to thank the city of tucson for sponsoring this venue. we also thank rob and judy welcomes for sponsoring the session. the presentation will last one hour so please hold your questions to him. at the conclusion of the session the office will go to signing area to meet you an autograph their books. out of respect for your fellow

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 didn't 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. that's why he was protected. it wasn't 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 didn't 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, don't 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 would've 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, you've 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 it's 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 whitey's again was just as powerful if not more so it didn't make much sense to use the head of that gain to target the italians. and so i'm not getting garfield card from off your bosses from president saying what happened? >> in the process of reporting on and discovering this story must've 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, he's a fascinating character. is a very rich history. some of you may know him as one of the fbi's 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

maximum-security 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 you're in federal prison at least at the time you're 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 brother's 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. i'm 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 isn't alcatraz, the family is very worried about it because he's 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 he's 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? it's 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, i'll 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 don't 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 wasn't so much -- with criminals it was important to be feared with the non-criminals 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 don't 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 bulger's 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 you're printing lies about my brother. he would never get involved in drugs. we all know it was not true, but there's 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 it's 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 it's about the abuse of power and the idea that institutional corruption, it's not peculiar to the bureau, not a cure to the archdiocese of boston. it's 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 there's 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 who's 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 couldn't believe his. one of the things we found most amazing is, so the mafia, they never, they couldn't believe he would be and former. they couldn't 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. there's 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 eight-week 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 don't

live in the word closure. i don't live in the victim has any closure. i don't 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 isn't 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 african-american 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 it's 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. i'm 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 four-year 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 wasn't fbi agent asked steve flemmi was when they're 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 there's 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 soup kitchen. i'm sure everybody feels better about that. >> the fbi and the justice department, this was always about minimizing the extent of corruption. right now the fbi and the justice department want people 50 or so much as a those are bad kids but only one agent went to prison. one of the things we shown the book, judge mark wolf was one of the real heroes i in this case images and come up of to get public, he identified a dozen fbi agents and supervisors who he believed could be charged with crimes. at the fbi, the justice department let everything to statute of limitations on. there was an agent called me and said i would be murdered if we reported the whitey was and a

former. nothing ever happened to him to do with an agent to one of those shocking things that is in the book and doesn't take up a lot of room, steve fleming in one of his reports that we went over to the fbi, uncertain tol to the se police and the drug enforcement administration that john newton, fbi agent who got in trouble for stealing the antlers of the unabomber's cabin up in montana, i think john's excuse was they were out in the trash. whatever thrive -- i know whenever i throw away hours i put them in the trash. anyway, john newton, steve flemmi said, give him an whitey bulger 40 pounds of c-4 explosives which then they ship to the ira and presumably the irish republican army used attacks on military and police people throughout the united kingdom. when shelley called john dugan and said, john, we want your side of this.

this is what the allegation is but he said i didn't do that, that's not true. in shelley's follow-up was, what did you tell your supervisors or anybody else in the justice department who questioned you about this? >> i was there a question about this. >> although later -- spent someone else put those antlers on spank you are the first people i've ever heard refer to steve flemmi as steve flemmi instead of the rifleman. could you talk about steve the rifleman? >> he earned an again because he was a character with the airborne in korea. after he got the name, but i'm sure to boston people assume that name came from somewhere else because he was a known killer. one is shifting things to me was when you talk about something being close to home, my father was a paratrooper in the same combat unit and it served in korea. he did not know steve flemmi when they were in service but my

father just passed away a few years ago, years ago he is raising money for the korean war memorial in washington and he meets steve flemmi and tells them, we have to get together with their wives around the country. they came to scottsdale, arizona, when we can and would travel, our wives and girlfriends all get together and steve joined the group. i'm writing about him, and then suspected and druggie and all the stuff and meanwhile, is kind of airborne retreats around the country. dad, this guy is like really bad. there's a lot of murphy's in boston but i'm hoping he doesn't know who your daughter is. that was kind of scary. so eventually he figured out who i was and i was concerned they were getting a little close but it was funny because my father knew who he was. i kind of had this inside information and i found out on

the 50th anniversary there was a huge celebration in washington and the new england to a group of new england led the parade and general wes moreland was there for dinner, and steve flemmi showed up for dinner with all these high ranking officials in washington. with jamie bolger, whitey. they were there. whitey wasn't this medal of honor winner and whitey was in this white suit. when whitey went on the run the fbi got what a shock, didn't have very many photos of him. so they were looking for photos to put out to people when he was wanted and one of the photos they tracked down was this photo from the celebration. they cut the medal of honor winner out. i'm sure he was happy about that. >> the ira gunrunning fiasco, kevin, did you come across that because you did a lot of work on northern ireland so i'm

wondering -- >> yeah, i did that i got a lot of stuff but it was interesting because we knew that mission went to the ira and it was the biggest gunrunning out of yet states during the whole trouble the we knew that bolger was involved in that he was not charged because the guy that ran it was a confederate. he was a career criminal. spink you said you've known them for years to you mean from writing. [laughter] >> right. after that, in 97 i was over there, living in ireland covering the peace process full-time but those to a lot of trouble going on. i remember there was a guy killed and he was married to the niece of gerry adams, ahead of

the political wing of the ira. i went to cover the funeral in west belfast which is a very -- >> what was the year of the ira gun fiasco with whitey? >> he would have been 84. >> now we're going 13 years forward speed and whitey is on the run by this time and different of mind who i knew came up to me and said, will you talk to so-and-so? and as soon as he set a new who it was. the making of this guy, he was the ira command in the area and has been the ira commander during hunger strikes in 1981. he said he wants to talk to you. okay. this is while the funeral, tens of thousands of people lined up i go up and do what i put my hand out and he said is whitey bulger a tout? and i said what? yeah, that was in the paper like -- that's not what i asked you. is he a tout? that's with a call and a former. yes, he is. that's all he wanted to talk

about at that point. i always wondered, whitey portrayed himself to be a big supporter of the ira but if the ira, you can't beat them is like being a little pregnant. he can be a little in former. the ira would have put him in a chair and he would've gotten information out of them one way or another. i always thought that was can he select the -- that's when he took off, a lot of people said he was in ireland to the fbi went to ireland many, many times to look for him. and i knew that's the last place you'd go because he knew, for salty would have found out. they would've been on him like that but if

one of the former president of the company had been skimming money and the company had been sold. roger wicker bought it. legitimate businessmen, put a lot of people in the tulsa area. he suspected the company, somebody was embezzling. so they killed him as a plot of a plot to take over the company and to avoid indictment. and then there were subsequent murders to cover up the first murder. so the fbi in tulsa and the tulsa police were aggressively trying to follow the murder. they are sending, you know, we see these all came out, they are sending memos to the fbi in boston saying hey, we are hearing that the family and other people of the company believe this murder may have something to do with the winter hill gang, the name of whitey's again back in boston.

who do they a sign to start looking but john connolly from the fbi agent who is whitey sandler. the other thing they did is they never disclosed to the tulsa with whitey was an informant. and they didn't share all the information you're eventually there were a number of murders connected to this, and one down in florida, samore in boston, and they finally bring bulger and his sidekick, steve flemmi is also involved in the murder, in to interview them at the fbi. they refuse to be interviewed unless it was together. they refused to did in the fbi office so they were really big dating terms. the sad thing though is during the trial the wheeler family would come in and take the stand and they are very angry at the government because when it was finally revealed, all behind the scenes that went on, and they

said, they filed a wrongful death suit against the government like many of these families did. what the government did is, if you want to sue the federal government and a wrongful death case, federal court claim, you have to file your claim within two years of being wronged of within two years of whatever is the person would've known they had a case. what they did is they had, the government argued you're right, the fbi was liable but you should have known sooner and you should have filed sooner. and they one in a lot of these cases was dismissed on those grounds. there's a lot of bitterness by the families that not only were they victims but then they were screwed by the government. >> what's your favorite part of the whitey bulger story? >> the end. [laughter] [applause] i am so sick of this guy. [laughter] >> so the jailbreak is an

eminent? >> i don't think so. >> he is what, 82? >> eighty-four right now. i think what i found fascinating was, i agree with kevin, my favorite part was seeing him walk away in handcuffs. to me the saddest thing would've been, though a lot of people who thought he never would've been caught and they were afraid he would ride off into the sunset and that would be the end of the. so i think to have him caught was so important. while he was on the run and one of the fbi's 10 most wanted he did come to arizona and nevada to buy guns. he bought 30 guns while he was the fbi's 10 most wanted when they arrested him, he also used the identity of a number of walls ids jihad, but santa monica is he would look for homeless people and people the kind of looked like in and they would buy their identities from them. he paid one man from arizona i think $200 for his id and the

guy gave him his costco membership. >> after the trial one of whitey's lawyers was giving a speech to a bunch of defense attorneys in boston. at one point which is kind of bizarre, the lawyer talked about how whitey fantasized about choking me and deleted scene alight -- until the lifeline out of my eyes. that's not original. like my wife would say, if you want to strangle me, get in line. >> all, my. [laughter] my favorites are was when whitey bulger one the massachusetts lottery. here we have his brother as the president of the senate and then went on to be the head of the umass system and we have is criminal that is on the length and anyone the boston lottery. it was in saint. >> there's some question when he was on the run and they see is

what was of his lottery winnings, there were different versions of what really happened. it was actually the brother of one of his associates who won, but then they claimed that oh, the deal was if he won we would split the ticket so me ways to it was to have legitimate income to make it look like it legitimate income, a way of laundering money. the government did sees that when he fled to the also found $822,000 in cash stuffed in the wall of his santa monica apartment after you've been on the run for 16 years. they found all these guns in the walls but it's amazing because he was such a master of manipulation and people said if he wanted you to like him, you would like them. he would be charming and engaging, and ye he had so chard his neighbors in santa monica that some of them continue to write to him. even though they found all these guns in the wall, they are like

but, you know, he would never use them. it's hard to believe. they say the guy we knew was charlie. we don't know that whitey bulger guy. >> in china to capture him what we try to say is whitey is a man of contradictions. one of the most chilling contradictions about him is that several murders in which he was charged with shooting somebody in the head and then going up and taking a nap while his lessers buried of those bodies and hidden grace. and yet shall be found when she went down to louisiana and found this cajun, he had befriended while he was on the run, they had to put a dog down and whitey said, well, he thought i should it would be more humane. when the guy went to shoot the dog, whitey turned away, he could watch it. after the report of the gun shy, whitey began to weep. so he could weep over a dog and

sleep over a human being. so that's weird. >> so we have about 20 minutes left so if you have questions, there's a microphone right here. this is being taped and broadcast on c-span, so make sure that you clearly enunciate your question. >> i have a question. while you are doing all this investigative writing, did you ever personally feel threatened? how do they try to stop you from disclosing all the? >> the only system threat i got was from the fbi when they called me and said we wrote whitey was an informant he would think nothing of killing. i was living with my wife in south boston at the time to i was very full of the. eventually we came to the conclusion the fbi a four process they would have to notify me or anybody who will be threatened with murder like that and they didn't do that. we came to the conclusion that

it was really an attempt to intimidate the globe for not publishing that. but just to be sure that before published that my wife and i moved from south boston -- this is so boston. we moved nine stops down the transit. we went from a softly to harvard square. i said they whenever find this in harvard square. [laughter] so we lived there for a couple of weeks until jack o'malley, a very good massachusetts take up can have a very good informant within the bulger group or on the fringes of any reported that whitey wasn't mad about whole disclosure of him being an informant because he said nobody would believe. in fact, we found a report in which he said the. the fbi said we need to take you off the streets? he said nobody will believe it or it's just the globe going after my brother. that's how he portrayed a. my wife and i moved back. to be honest will lead to a couple more years but my wife never felt comfortable in there, but that have to do with much which people let their dogs poop all over the sidewalks.

spent one thing i would say in writing this book one of the most fascinating things, whitey refused to talk to us but he refused to back we wrote to him a number of times and he wouldn't write back to us. but he did right with a friend who had served time with him in alcatraz who shared letters with us, and when we read his letters it was amazing to see, whitey may have a lot of problems but one of them is not self-esteem. very high opinion of himself. the things he said about us, he told his friend, don't talk to shelley and kevin, that i was a traitor, he said he wanted to turn the clock back and pay cabinet is a. when i read the letters i was like, maybe i was a little naïve, i wasn't afraid but now i'm happy he is in risen down the street. >> why do you think it took the fbi so long to start with the advertising program speak with

one of the things we sure the book is the first two years they weren't looking for him. they didn't want to find him. it wasn't until the fbi created -- it was a blatant conflict of interest, that when whitey took off, the fbi assigned the search for him with a very organized crime squad he had corrupted. so they were the last people that had a vested interest in finding them. one of the things we showed in the book is that it was not until you have a multiagency task force going to do when they brought the u.s. marshals, that's what they do. they find bad guys. it wasn't until that happened but it was interesting because more than a dozen agents were, when i they violate the kitchent was an fbi agent who was not from boston, he was from cleveland. and then a guy named neil sullivan was a deputy u.s. marshal for a kind of found him

on their own but that's my view. as a columnist i can be a little more opinionated, but i don't believe the fbi wanted to find him. and by the time they did want to find them, the trail had gone cold and whitey was living in a rent controlled apartment in santa monica. >> one of the most interesting parts about the book to me was how exposed, how interconnected and integrated the political system, the business establishment and the criminal organization in america are. you know, sort of branches. and i wondered how learning about that sort of studying that, how that affects the way you view contemporary things in america. >> well, i'm a reporter and he's a columnist so i will let him give his opinion. it goes back, i will be repeating myself. i think that this is a story at is a story of the other day

about institutional institutional corruption. all institutions are capable of corruption. i just think the problem with the fbi is that nobody's head rolls. i think the fbi was founded in the image of one of the most corrupt public officials in the history of this republic, and that's a j. edgar hoover. so you begin with that. but to this day the fbi insist on anything -- if they want to interview me, they interview me, is it okay to show up at the appointed time and also i want to bring a tape recorder, no, no tape recorders. it's got to be two agents can one asking questions and writing it down. so it's your word against theirs. that to me is corrupt. the reality is everybody in washington is afraid of those guys so nothing ever changes. and i to this day i think the fbi needs a huge institutional enema, and they're not going to get it because everybody in washington is very deferential to. >> there were some heroes in the book. in this whole saiga and there

were fbi agents who really want him and really worked hard to find him. so i mean i wouldn't paint everybody with a broad brush. >> i'm not painting a but with a broad brush but they are not reform to the stuff they need to be. >> i just think i don't want to leave it that we didn't think the people who did good work. >> my mom's cousin worked for whitey -- >> what is her name? >> his name was david ryan. he held up an armored truck and he got caught and then he went into witness protection, and the was sent to tennessee -- >> he was an informant on that spirit he was the informant. >> they try to check in by saying he got jammed up. >> we have to talk. [laughter] >> i covered his case. >> i'm the genealogy in the fellow southern trying to get more -- >> i have a lot of material i can send you.

[laughter] >> i think his widow is still alive but i know he is gone. he got really obvious in tennessee. anyway, the question i have, one of the stories i heard from his brother, and i always wondered if this is urban legend or if this is the truth, it was this horrific story about how whitey and his men would attack little girls on the way to school and they would be raped. >> no. spent it sounds kind of urban legend. >> if you read, i mean, whitey, no. there's a book that was written that was largely exaggerated by someone who attended be closer to whitey than he really was, and that story, that was when whitey was on the run. but it's a fact, when you watch the movie departed and the have that creepy scene with jack nicholson leering at the young girl making crude remarks, whitey liked young girls. whitey liked young women to whitey was a real womanizer.

even though there were two primary women in his life, one day to live with for like 30 years while he was carrying on an affair with another one for like 20, he was a womanizer, but we never found anything to support -- unless bashing statutory rape, i think you girls as young as 15, 16. what he would do though, whitey wasn't the guy who does match somewhat off the streets. whitey was a guy who would buy the family with money. there's one case where you bought -- because he was sleeping with her daughter. so he was not a nice guy. >> how was he finally captured? >> it was a great story and it's something, talk about truth being stranger than fiction. there was a woman, miss iceland 1974, and gym i removed the old docks in the commercials, take it off, take it all off, she was one of the blondes in the commercial. she lived across the street.

in iceland when it's dark much of the day, they will come and stay in california or other places for months at a time. so she for months at a time would lived across the street from them in santa monica. it was a stray cat that got whitey captured because whitey's girlfriend was living with him, loved animals, love them and she used to see these stray cats and neighborhood, and miss iceland noticed this and thought what a lovely woman and became friendly with them. but she didn't much like a whitey. he was very opinionated and all the nasty sometimes. they would talk politics and he was very opinionated about what he believed. and so they made an impression. so she's sitting home in her house in reykjavík and see the fbi launched a campaign to find them where they were targeting the girlfriend thanking whitey looked very much like half my relatives. gray hair and the irish face. and so they're having trouble

finding him by the really focused on her and a launched a campaign where they had these public service announcements, have you seen these people? they rented in daytime television. cnn wrote about, to decide on the new campaign, and she was sitting in reykjavík and saw them and recognize them as her neighbors in santa monica. so she called the fbi in this and a couple of agents out to interview the marriage of the apartment also let in the pub next to them and showed him the photos and he was like, oh oh, y god, those are my neighbors. they said are you sure? he suggests. they said go knock on the door and lower and out. he said no, i might talk to charlie. [laughter] i'm not knocking on whitey's door. he actually lai later complainen one of the letters that he wrote, a cat can't be captured. can't make that up, right? that's amazing. >> this story can't be made up. it goes on and on which is one

of the things your book beautifully captures. >> we lived in the boston area for around 20 years, and i was always interested in the fact that billy just seemed to skate. he was never tainted with anything that you ever heard or read about his brother. how did that happen? >> there is the difference that was shown it in south boston, almost everyone would have what you call blacksheep and i think there was this feeling that you don't, those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones but the other thing is to remember is there was a much in the public domain about whitey. it was all whispered. people didn't talk about that. as a kid, if i would mention that name, people would look at you. you're not supposed to talk about the. the other thing is billy company, i did more stuff after the talk, talking, we knew billed as an enabler.

billy invested so much time and political influence and genuine love. he cared about his brother. to this day he does. and guided out of prison early. he got a 20 or prison for bank robbery. he got out after night i believe billy believed he was going to go straight. when whitey didn't i think billy was in a lot of denial about how bad his brother was. the other thing is you have to understand, in all those 20, 30 years billy is a powerful politician, he's getting so and so hired, getting that got hired. our transit authority and the boston area is called in pta, and not for nothing. it's called mr. bulger's transit authority because he got people jobs. if billy bulger wisher patron and the gotcha job, you're not going to go down to the brought and say his brother is a scumbag. that's not how it works, particularly in south boston. people don't do that. they don't point fingers, your cousin is a bank robber. because his cousin might be a bank robber. in those families everybody has

one or two cousins that, oh, my gosh, there he goes. that's part of it. >> where is billy bulger now? where is he? >> he still visits pashtun will, when whitey was in jail awaiting trial he continued to visit him. he did not attend the trial at all but we think it was really he did not want to do with the immediate outlook. it was very highly, you know, highly publicized. his children to would attend the trial like his daughter and sons. >> is he still ahead of the umass system? >> no. he was forced to resign that job but i don't know if you remember, but before mitt romney was a presidential candidate he was governor of massachusetts, and he actually pressured billy to resign, and it was after we had written a story, i had written a story that billy was called before a federal grand jury and questionable whether it ever had any contact with whitey who is on the run.

someone leaked a testament that yes, in fact, while billy was president of the massachusetts senate and whitey was a fugitive, there was a prearranged phone call where he called his brother to say what should i do? should i surrender? what do you think? and billy said that he did not think it would be in his best interest to do so. that didn't go over really well in massachusetts. people felt that he had -- some people would say hey, you know, that's his brother and it wasn't his job to continue. let them find you. but i feel people felt like billy was questioned in front of a congressional committee in 2003 about this and what he knew and when you would. billy was very articulate and bright, came across as very evasive. so those a lot of pressure for him to resign his job. >> are there more whitey bulger's out there today?

how has organized crime industry to change over the last five, 10 years? >> i'll take the second part first. the moth is a shell of what used to be. basically all they have is sports book. in new york some extortion, but in boston it's almost pathetic what they are. the organized crime i would say we don't recognize. it would be different ethnic groups that don't have long histories in the country. generally targeting their own people. the authorities don't have the language skill to get into. so were you couldn't infiltrate that in the early '20s are anything like that. i'm stuck in the first part was -- >> on the more whitey bulger's? >> yes. we wrote about, there was a guy that was very, he was a mafia guy, but he was protected by the fbi. the way i know, the

massachusetts state police who attended some of the best work going after whitey, they were trying to target this guy. his name was mark. in fact, before the launch the investigation and put the book up on him, they called an fbi supervisor and said listen, curtis, we're going after him and we believe he is your guy, meaning he's your informative no, no. he's not our guy, not at all. okay, just wanted to give you a heads up. first conversation when they turn on the blog is mark talking to his fbi handler. and so -- i think the state police are coming after me, you've got to help me. and so they finally do make the case on him and they lock you announce he's doing 12 years for all sorts of crimes. so the fbi supervisor who had been given the heads up called the stake up on no ssa, that was a great pinch you guys me.

you want to roll them together? roll from? were going to put him in prison. we're not going to use them as an informant or just because you guys -- were not going to use them. and he says, the stakeout goes, you do know he is killed six people. and the fbi guy says we know of only one. [laughter] so i don't think it could ever be on a scale of bulger, and they don't want to just blame the fbi. we are not the only law enforcement agency that makes deals with devils but you've got to do it, but the problem is who supervises this? after the whitey bulger case came up we said this will never happen again. there will always be an assistant u.s. attorney taking on these informants. i call the u.s. attorney and i said, who was checking on market? who was the assistant u.s. attorney? we can't tell you. congressmen like steve lynch, chuck grassley from iowa, they have been trying to get answers to this. the fbi just won't tell them. they don't have to. >> we look for to reading your

next book on the next major criminal figure, but following this session the authors will be autographing books. buy this book, highly recommended. oaks orville for purchase in the signing area. last but not least if you're enjoying the festival, lee's become a friend of the festival. your tax-deductible donation allows us to offer festival programming free of charge to the public and to support libére programs in the committee. you may learn more online at the website. thank you very much for attending the session. >> thank you. [applause] >> nicely done. >> thank you. >> good audience. spent they know what they are doing. [inaudible conversations]

>> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, televisions for serious readers. .. >> you can now take c-span with you whereve