Whitey Bulger’s book of betrayal, revenge, greed and jealousy

Whitey Bulger was just engaging in an ancient literary tradition among rogues angry about their portrayals in the public prints – penning their own memoirs to, uh, set the record straight.

So now we have a first, short draft of Bulger’s book – “Whitey Agonistes,” let’s call it, with agonistes meaning “a person enduring an inner struggle.”

This previously unknown first draft of history was put into the public record Monday in a public filing in a Florida state court in Miami. It’s part of a motion seeking to overturn ex-FBI agent John “Zip” Connolly’s murder conviction in a 1982 gangland hit.

Zip’s argument is that he had nothing to do with setting up the murder of Boston businessman John Callahan, and that Whitey’s own narrative proves it.

On the other hand, before he was himself murdered by wiseguys in 2018, Whitey adamantly refused to testify on Zip’s behalf that he was not guilty, thus the argument of the prosecutor in Miami-Dade that Whitey’s prose is “remarkably deficient with respect to any corroborating factual basis.”

In other words, it might as well be a column in the Boston Globe.

Still, it’s amazing to have a new trove of Whitey material after all these years, not just “Whitey Agonistes” but also a couple of FBI 302 reports written about his comments immediately after his arrest in Santa Monica after 16 years on the lam.

Whitey writes about his lack of formal education – he dropped out of the ninth grade – but being an avid reader made him a decent writer. It always does.

Consider Whitey’s description of John “Vino” Morris, the FBI supervisor he says was his go-to guy, not Zip Connolly. It’s on the record that Vino took seven grand in payoffs from the gang, but Whitey says “add a couple more zeros.”

Morris was a nervous Nellie, Whitey recalls, particularly worried about having to undergo a lie detector test, which Bulger calls “the box:”

“I tried to calm him down. He worried that the slightest hint would result in him being put in the box. He read everything he could get on how to beat the box – books on how to lie. God he was one nervous devious guy – always scheming and most secretive.”

Whitey began writing this after Johnny Martorano got out of prison and went on 60 Minutes – “20 minutes of lies pushed me to write this TRUE account…. Seeing his insane interview on 60 Minutes was the last straw. Also, the books full of lies must be answered.”

Okay, let’s go down the list of Whitey’s Hit Parade, starting with the aforementioned Johnny Martorano: “Betrayed two of his closest friends who for 14 years sent him thousands of $ a week enabling him to live well as a fugitive from justice, a beautiful home, boat, house trailer, BMW’s etc.”

Jimmy Martorano: “(He was) jealous of John’s notoriety… Jimmy has serious identity problems. He’s an angry guy… He constantly comes up with grandiose schemes and swindles.”

Whitey on Kevin Weeks: “I always considered him one (of) my closest friends. Now his ego proves to be his worst enemy.”

On Pat Nee: “(He) killed people with me, was free and out of guilt, greed and jealousy wrote a book lying and defaming me… I question his sanity and total lack of intelligence.”

Oddly, he didn’t address Nee’s charge in his own book “A Criminal and an Irishman” that Whitey was a notorious homosexual, and that his boy toys included Hollywood heart throb Sal Mineo, later beaten to death in LA by gay hustlers.

Writing a book isn’t easy. Just ask Whitey.

“I don’t have the benefit of a ghost writer and at present (am) occupied to trying to stay ahead of the long arm of the law.”

Why he turned out the way he did: “In retrospect I’ve been a criminal my whole life. It came easier than honest labor.”

His critique of the Boston Globe: “A pro-busing, anti-Catholic, anti-Irish rag. I had the pleasure of blasting their huge window out with a 12-gauge pump shotgun.”

You know the old saying. The good a man does is oft interred with his bones, while the evil lives on. That evening on Morrissey Boulevard was one of Whitey’s more selfless acts.

When I was writing “Hitman,” I used to ask Johnny Martorano how Whitey could get away with telling so many lies for so many years. Martorano pointed out that to really put a lie across, you need to throw in a few true statements that your listener knows are factual, so he’ll just assume the rest of it is true.

Reading “Whitey Agonistes,” I recognized stories I’d already heard, and written about, from Martorano. Like about how he got a sickly fat guy named Chubby Oddo to take his draft physical for him, and flunk it.

Whitey, who was charged with raping a young girl while in the Air Force, was shocked by Johnny’s actions.

“(He) had a guy with a heart murmur take his physical. J.M. gets ineligible physical deferment! I couldn’t believe it – he was the first guy I ever know who did this or would do it!”

Whitey Bulger, what a patriot.

Another odd story I first heard from Johnny M was about the murder of Richie Castucci. Whitey told the exact same story about disposing of his body:

“Sent someone out to buy a sleeping bag – this guy came back with the sleeping bag and a receipt and he wants to be paid for the bag!”

That would be Joe McDonald’s older brother, Leo. It cost him six bucks. It was a Mickey Mouse sleeping bag.

“It was a real cold spell and R. (Castucci) was found frozen like a solid block of ice.”

Check out the photo for yourself. The corpse is in the trunk of Castucci’s Cadillac in Revere. Whitey described it precisely.

Castucci owned a piece of a tough ginmill in Revere. After his passing the boys visited his club.

“(We) told them we would pick up (Castucci’s) end every week and if they didn’t do as we say we will kill the owner.”

Which reminds me of what Martorano was once asked on the witness stand, about Whitey’s duties in the gang:

“Intimidation, mostly,” Johnny replied.

One of the most Boston parts of the story isn’t in Whitey’s memoirs, but in the also previously-unseen FBI report after Whitey was lugged in California. FBI agents Morris and Connolly apparently didn’t get along, for a very basic reason.

“According to BULGER, both MORRIS and CONNOLLY applied to participate in a Master’s program at Harvard University offered to FBI employees. CONNOLLY was selected to attend while MORRIS was not. This was the source or MORRIS’s hatred for CONNOLLY.”

Well, now I can understand the enmity.

Whitey really hated Morris. After going on the lam, Whitey called him. Morris had been promoted director of the FBI academy in Quantico VA because…. well, who better to instruct young G-men into how to be utterly corrupt.

We’d always heard that when he telephoned, Whitey identified himself as “Mr. White.” In his unpublished memoirs, Whitey says he claimed to be “Kevin White,” which is even funnier, him taking the name of the former mayor.

Back in 1975, Mayor White thought Kevin was trying to murder him, during the busing election – “he was crazy enough, even then,” White said on videotape a few years later.

Whitey blamed him for being publicly identified as a rat for the FBI. He says Morris hated him because he’d asked Whitey to kill his wife for him to protect his full FBI pension – doesn’t get much more Southie than that, does it?

“He never spelt it out but would tell me I could solve his problem. I knew he was like awounded tiger who didn’t like me but liked $.”

So Whitey says Morris, not Connolly, told him in December 1994 to do a Dixie before he was indicted and arrested. Whitey believed Morris wanted him to be a fugitive so he could be shot by the cops – “a proxy hit,” as Whitey calls it.

It all came out in that call from “Kevin White” to Morris at the FBI academy in 1995.

“I told him I should blow your brains out but better yet I threatened him with, ‘If I go down your (sic) coming too.”

It was a good read. I give it three and a half out of five stars.

Zip Connolly’s lawyer, Peter Mullane, told me yesterday that more Whitey filings are coming soon in the Florida case.

Just in time for Father’s Day, I hope!