James Bulger cast powerful aura over William Bulger
June 23, 2011 10:32 AM
Evan Richman/Globe Staff
Willlam M. Bulger, long the president of the Massachusetts Senate and, at the time, the new president of the University of Massachusetts system, helped lead the 1996 St. Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston.
By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff
William M. Bulger reached the top of the Massachusetts Senate and the University of Massachusetts system because of his own smarts, connections, and innate understanding of politics.
Nonetheless, there has always been an aura around him rooted in his close relationship with his older, gangster brother, James “Whitey” Bulger.
Whether real or perceived, anyone encountering William Bulger had to wonder if crossing him would prompt retribution by Whitey Bulger.
William Bulger has never overtly promoted that feeling, but in never distancing himself from his outlaw family member, he has never dispelled it, either, even as James Bulger was arrested last night in Santa Monica, Calif.
The arrest took James Bulger, 81, off the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, where he had been listed until recently for nearly a decade with Al Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden.
“No comment,” William Bulger, clad overnight in a T-shirt, told a Globe reporter who knocked on the door of his South Boston home.
Informed that his brother had been arrested, the now-77-year-old Bulger simply said, “Thank you.”
William Bulger is a proud “triple Eagle,” having graduated from Boston College High School, Boston College, and Boston College Law School.
Some friends believe his connection to his brother was deepened after their father lost an arm in a railyard accident, prompting James Bulger - the eldest child - to seek ways to provide for the family. At the time, they lived in poverty in the Old Harbor housing project.
While James Bulger chose a life of crime that ultimately included an alleged 19 murders, one friend said, William Bulger intimated that James Bulger saved their family as a youth.
William Bulger first entered the political arena in 1961, when he was elected to a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In 1970, he was elected to the Massachusetts Senate, where he would rise through the ranks. In 1978, his peers voted him president of the chamber, a post he held until 1996, when then-Governor William F. Weld appointed him president of he University of Massachusetts system.
His tenure has stood up as the longest-ever for a Senate president.
His movement into academia was unsurprising to those who spent time with him, given his proclivity for quoting Latin phrases or admonishing journalists to follow the teachings of English author Samuel Johnson.
Yet it was William Bulger’s relationship with his brother James Bulger - at least a perceived contributor to his political power - that also proved to be the undoing of his career in government service.
In June 2003, William Bulger was called before the US House of Representatives to testify about the disappearance of his brother. James Bulger had fled just before his federal racketeering indictment in January 1995.
It was later revealed in federal court in Boston that he was a longtime FBI informant who had been warned by his corrupt handler, former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr., that he was about to be arrested.
Within the State House, there were constant questions about whether William Bulger played any role in his brother’s departure from a life of crime later depicted in the Martin Scorcese movie, “The Departed.”
During his congressional testimony, William Bulger acknowledged that he took a call from his brother in 1995 at a location arranged to avoid electronic eavesdropping.
He argued that speaking with a fugitive was “in no way inconsistent” with his responsibilities as a public official. Despite allegations his brother was a murderer, William Bulger would only say he believed James Bulger was involved in gaming.
Nonetheless, then-Governor Mitt Romney pressured William Bulger to resign his post. He announced he would do so on Aug. 3, 2003, effective Sept. 1, 2003.
Ever since, his annual state pension of nearly $200,000 has been the source of political controversy and court action.
Romney said in a statement today: “I hope the capture of Whitey Bulger brings some measure of relief to the families of his numerous victims. It brings to a close a sad and sordid chapter in recent Massachusetts history.”
Bulger’s family was recently back in the news when one of his nine children, son Christopher, was fired as the top lawyer for the state Probation Department for allegedly leaking information to the department’s disgraced former head about investigations into its hiring practices.
Christopher Bulger’s lawyer later called the dismissal “absolutely outrageous.”
William Bulger has not publicly commented on the firing, instead remaining focused on his family and civic endeavors.
The man of letters long served on the board of the Boston Public Library.
Shelley Murphy of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Glen Johnson can be reached at . Follow him on Twitter @globeglen.