Locked up for life after 16 years on the run, murderous Boston gang boss James "Whitey" Bulger couldn't stand how much the world around him had changed.
Prison was nothing like his days at Alcatraz, with its "great view" and clear-cut rules, Bulger said. And the former Irish Catholic stronghold of South Boston he once terrorized was now filled with "rich college kids living in expensive condos."
"World has changed ... everything different, even the neighborhood," Bulger wrote to a friend he met in the lockup in newly public letters.
The letters, which are being auctioned Sunday, provide a glimpse into the once powerful and feared gangster's mundane life behind bars before he was beaten to death by fellow inmates last year. Bulger wrote about the little excitements of prison life — "tonight we had an ice cream cone!" — and his treatment by other inmates.
"Almost every time I'm going anywhere, guys ask "hey old timer, want a push" ... or just grab handles and start pushing," Bulger wrote in a letter postmarked in February 2015. "One advantage is we can go in the front of chow line if in wheelchair."
Authorities have said two Massachusetts mobsters are under investigation for 89-year-old Bulger's killing, but no one has been charged. His death hours after he was transferred to a troubled West Virginia prison has raised questions about why the known "snitch" was placed in the general population instead of more protective housing.
Bulger ratted on the New England mob to the FBI, authorities said, though he insisted throughout his trial that he wasn't an informant but was actually paying the FBI for the scoop on his enemies.
The auction house got the letters from a man who says he became friends with Bulger when the geriatric gangster was briefly held at a federal lockup in Brooklyn after being convicted in 2013 of participating in 11 murders, among other crimes.
That man, Timothy Glass, said he took Bulger under his wing, and they bonded over their criminal pasts. Glass recalled how Bulger would sign autographs for inmates who asked but had a tendency to give a "death stare" to guys he didn't like.
"I was like, 'this guy is a stone-cold killer at like 80 years old.' It was wild," Glass, 55, told The Associated Press.
Glass was locked up on robbery and other charges when he met Bulger after spending more than a decade in New York state prison for separate crimes, he said. Inmates weren't allowed to write to one another, so after Bulger was transferred to a different prison, Bulger would send the letters to a friend on the outside, who would get them to Glass, he said.
In the letters, Bulger complained about the cost of books ("$32 for the book!"), the cold weather ("All the liberals like VP Gore made a fortune with his scaring people with talk of 'planet warming''') and the media, which he called "part of and parcel of the corruption instead of society 'watchdogs.'"
He grumbled about his trial, slammed prosecutors for deals they made with his former friends and promised his appeal would "create quite a stir." He also bemoaned what he saw as the unfair treatment of his longtime girlfriend Catherine Grieg, who was sentenced to eight years for helping Bulger avoid capture.
"I played a rough game and accepted the rough treatment. But feel Catherine was treated too harshly," Bulger wrote.
He talked longingly about his time at "The Rock" — Alcatraz — where the rules were "plain and understood" and inmates were allowed at Christmastime to buy chocolate, which they would share with prisoners who weren't supposed to have candy.
"Here, 'they,' the 'inmates,' would sell you chocolate! Back then no one ever looked to make a profit on another convict," he wrote. "I look back at those years and place with nostalgia. It's all gone."
Tucked into some of the letters were pictures of Bulger as a young man or Alcatraz. On the back of one of the photo — a mugshot taken in 1965, the year Bulger was released from prison and returned to South Boston — he scribbled: "the good old days."
With another letter, Bulger included a holiday card that he apparently made in 2015 with the message in gold script: "Wishing you peace & cheer in the New Year." Next to the cheery greeting is Bulger's Alcatraz mugshot, his eyes piercing blue eyes narrowed and brows furrowed.
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia on Wednesday vetoed a U.N. resolution sponsored by the United States and Japan calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space, calling it “a dirty spectacle” that cherry picks weapons of mass destruction from all other weapons that should also be banned.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13 in favor, Russia opposed and China abstaining.
The resolution would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under a 1967 international treaty that included the U.S. and Russia, and to agree to the need to verify compliance.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the vote that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space.
“Today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them? What could you possibly be hiding,” she asked. “It’s baffling. And it’s a shame.”
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the resolution as “absolutely absurd and politicized,” and said it didn’t go far enough in banning all types of weapons in space.
Russia and China proposed an amendment to the U.S.-Japan draft that would call on all countries, especially those with major space capabilities, “to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space, and the threat of use of force in outer spaces.”
The vote was 7 countries in favor, 7 against, and one abstention and the amendment was defeated because it failed to get the minimum 9 “yes” votes required for adoption.
The U.S. opposed the amendment, and after the vote Nebenzia addressed the U.S. ambassador saying: “We want a ban on the placement of weapons of any kind in outer space, not just WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). But you don’t want that. And let me ask you that very same question. Why?”
He said much of the U.S. and Japan’s actions become clear “if we recall that the U.S. and their allies announced some time ago plans to place weapons … in outer space.”
Nebenzia accused the U.S. of blocking a Russian-Chinese proposal since 2008 for a treaty against putting weapons in outer space.
Thomas-Greenfield accused Russia of undermining global treaties to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, irresponsibly invoking “dangerous nuclear rhetoric,” walking away from several of its arms control obligations, and refusing to engage “in substantive discussions around arms control or risk reduction.”
She called Wednesday’s vote “a real missed opportunity to rebuild much-needed trust in existing arms control obligations.”
Thomas-Greenfield’s announcement of the resolution on March 18 followed White House confirmation in February that Russia has obtained a “troubling” anti-satellite weapon capability, although such a weapon is not operational yet.
Putin declared later that Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space, claiming that the country has only developed space capabilities similar to those of the U.S.
Thomas-Greenfield said before the vote that the world is just beginning to understand “the catastrophic ramifications of a nuclear explosion in space.”
It could destroy “thousands of satellites operated by countries and companies around the world — and wipe out the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, and national security services we all depend on,” she said.
The defeated draft resolution said “the prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security.” It would have urged all countries carrying out activities in exploring and using outer space to comply with international law and the U.N. Charter.
The draft would have affirmed that countries that ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty must comply with their obligations not to put in orbit around the Earth “any objects” with weapons of mass destruction, or install them “on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space.”
The treaty, ratified by some 114 countries, including the U.S. and Russia, prohibits the deployment of “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in orbit or the stationing of “weapons in outer space in any other manner.”
The draft resolution emphasized “the necessity of further measures, including political commitments and legally binding instruments, with appropriate and effective provisions for verification, to prevent an arms race in outer space in all its aspects.”
It reiterated that the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, based in Geneva, has the primary responsibility to negotiate agreements on preventing an arms race in outer space.
The 65-nation body has achieved few results and has largely devolved into a venue for countries to voice criticism of others’ weapons programs or defend their own. The draft resolution would have urged the conference “to adopt and implement a balanced and comprehensive program of work.”
At the March council meeting where the U.S.-Japan initiative was launched, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “geopolitical tensions and mistrust have escalated the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades.”
He said the movie “Oppenheimer” about Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the U.S. project during World War II that developed the atomic bomb, “brought the harsh reality of nuclear doomsday to vivid life for millions around the world.”
“Humanity cannot survive a sequel to Oppenheimer,” the U.N. chief said.
United States Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield addresses members of the U.N. Security Council before voting during a meeting on Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
FILE - U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks on Thursday, April 18, 2024, in Tokyo. The U.N. Security Council is set to vote Wednesday, April 24, 2024, on a resolution announced by Thomas-Greenfield, calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space. It is likely to be vetoed by Russia. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool, File)
