Dick Lehr was an investigative journalist at The Boston Globe in the 1980s, and Gerard O’Neill was his editor. The Globe decided to have an investigative team do a story on the Bulger brothers of South Boston. Whitey, the older brother, was the most notorious gangster in Boston’s Irish mob, while Billy, the younger brother, had ascended to become president of the Massachusetts State Senate. But when the team started investigating the Bulgers’ story, they stumbled on an even bigger story: something was rotten at the FBI, and Bulger seemed to be involved.
Lehr and O’Neill tell this story in their book, Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil’s Deal (PublicAffairs, reissued August 2015). The book was turned into a movie that premieres today, starring Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger. Lehr joins us on today’s Modern Notion Daily show to talk about this incredibly intriguing story.
Eventually, in the course of their reporting, the investigative team at the Globe confirmed that Whitey Bulger was an FBI informant. This was a red flag; usually FBI informants are not the crime bosses, but people lower down in the ranks who can help to put those bosses away. It also seemed strange because of Bulger’s reputation in South Boston. He was known as a stand-up guy in a community that had no tolerance for rats or snitches. Lehr recounts the tangled web formed among various FBI agents and Bulger, and the deeper implications for how the FBI conducts its investigative work.
Later in the hour, contributing editor Erin Blakemore tells the story of a husband so disgruntled he started a fake art movement.
Music this hour:
- “Forgiven Not Forgotten” by Jahzzar, from the album Kuddelmuddel
- “Railroad’s Whiskey Co” by Jahzzar, from the album Home (Excerpt)
- “Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within
