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Today in The Daily: July 4th, 2011

LIGHTING UP THE NIGHT

VIDEO BY JUSTIN ROCKET SILVERMAN AND SHALINI SHARMA

Before you head out to see the fireworks tonight, take a look at what goes on behind the scenes to pull off a dazzling display.

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THE INSIDE STORY: HOW WHITEY VANISHED

Even after hiding everything, he was 'still Jimmy," a pal recalls

BY KEVIN WEEKS WITH PHYLLIS KARAS

Brutal: The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob

Kevin Weeks with Phyllis Karas

After more than 16 years on the run, The FBI’s most wanted fugitive, James “Whitey” Bulger, was captured June 22 in a quiet Santa Monica, Calif., apartment complex. Kevin Weeks, a longtime associate of the notorious Boston mobster, tells the remarkable story of how Bulger got away in the first place in his book “Brutal: The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger’s Irish Mob.”

On January 9th, 1995, the indictment came down for Jimmy Bulger and he was officially wanted and in the wind.

The next time I saw Jimmy, aka Whitey, was in the middle of February. He’d made arrangements to drop off Theresa Stanley at her daughter Karen’s house in Hingham, and pick up Catherine Greig. Theresa wasn’t well suited for life on the run, and, after less than two months, she was ready to come home and see her four kids. Cathy was much better equipped for that kind of life. She had no kids and had been devoted to Jimmy since the early ’80s. Cathy was very intelligent, and always upbeat and pleasant. She was a good person who treated everybody in the same nice manner. She had two toy black poodles, Nicki and Gigi, that she and Jimmy loved and were always walking. Cathy was a dental hygienist, but thanks to caring for Nicki and Gigi, she’d become expert at grooming dogs, as well.

When he wasn’t living with Theresa, Jimmy lived with Cathy in a house in Squantum. In mid-February, Jimmy made arrangements for me to meet Cathy at the bottom of the Golden Gate stairs which run down from Thomas Park in South Boston. Cathy gave me her usual big smile, hopped in my black Bonneville and we took off. As always, Cathy looked attractive and well put together. That night, she was wearing warm clothes and carried an over-the-shoulder type of weekend bag as her only piece of luggage.

We met Jimmy at Malibu Beach in Dorchester, where he tried to surprise us by calmly walking out of the darkness. But Cathy saw him right away and picked up her pace. At first, Jimmy didn’t show any outward emotion, but as he got closer, he gave us a wide smile.

“How you doing?” he asked simply, and Cathy went right to him and gave him a big hug. The two of them embraced a long minute, making a dramatic scene, sort of like out of “Casablanca.”

Even though Jimmy had been gone less than two months, it was obvious that he was preparing to stay out as long as he had to. I knew it would work for him. He’d prepared for this for years, having established a whole other person, “Thomas Baxter,” with a complete ID and credit cards in his name. And he had no bad habits, no vices. He didn’t drink or gamble or use drugs. Plus, most importantly, he was extremely self-disciplined and would never let his guard down. It takes a lot of money to stay out there but I imagined he had taken care of that.

After I saw Jimmy off, lots of people were coming up to me and saying, “Tell him I said hi.” I couldn’t say OK because if one of these people were working for the law, it would show that I had knowledge of Jimmy’s whereabouts or had contact with him. Then the law enforcement would indict me for aiding and abetting.

If I saw his brother Billy [who served as president of the Massachusetts Senate from 1978 to 1996], I’d say, “Everybody is doing good,” and he could draw his own conclusions. I would never want to jeopardize Billy or put him in a compromising position. I considered it plausible deniability. I was saying something without saying the words.

Between the spring of 1995 and the spring of 1996, Jimmy and I met twice in person in New York City, between the lion statues on the steps of the 42nd Street New York Public Library, where we would simply touch base and discuss the details of his case. In between, we talked regularly on the phone.

Right after the visit in spring of 1996, I got some important news I needed to share with Jimmy. Theresa was dating that piece of s*** Alan Thistle, who everybody knew was an informant for the FBI.

As soon as I heard, I just showed up at Theresa’s house on Silver Street in South Boston. Theresa seemed a little surprised to see me, but let me in. Right away, I said, “So, what are you doing going out with Alan Thistle?”

“He’s with Cathy,” she answered me. “I have my life to live.”

“There’s plenty of guys out there to go out with, but why him?” I said. “He’s an informant for law enforcement. He’s just pumping you for information.”

But Theresa kept defending him. I was there close to three hours, trying to explain to her that she shouldn’t go out with this guy, that he was bad business.

Finally, when I got ready to leave, she said, “Well, it’s too late.”

“What do you mean it’s too late?” I asked.

She told me to come downstairs and follow her into the kitchen, where she lit up a cigarette. Jimmy hated her smoking and she never smoked in front of him or me. I could see she was nervous and her hands were shaking as she pulled out a card and handed it to me. The card said, “FBI Special Agent John Gamel.” As I looked at it, she said, “I already talked to him. He came by the house and I told him everything. Where Jimmy and I were in New York. The name, Thomas Baxter, that he was using. Everything.”

Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned. It certainly hadn’t made Theresa happy when Jimmy dumped her off and took off with Cathy 10 minutes later. I never talked to Theresa again after that. There was no reason to.

Unfortunately, Jimmy did not phone me for five weeks, so there was nothing I could do but wait for his call, knowing he was now using a known alias.

Finally, on July Fourth weekend he called and I told him Theresa had given him up.

“Thank God, at least I know,” he said calmly, not sounding the least bit rattled. “I’ll call you back.”

When he called back a few days later, he told me to take some photos of his younger brother Jackie which he could use for a new ID. He also told me he’d grown a mustache, which was a big change from his usual clean shaven look, so I should make sure Jackie had a mustache in the photo. I talked to him for a few minutes about taking out Alan Thistle, since he was dating Theresa and working for the FBI and everything. But he said no. Going out with Thistle would be Theresa’s punishment.

In August, Jimmy called and told me to meet him in Chicago and to bring the pictures of Jackie.

When I got out there, Jimmy told me how he had been in Louisiana, and had rented a place down there. He’d ended up befriending this family where the husband was kind of lazy. The guy was a carpenter by trade, so Jimmy bought him all kinds of carpentry tools. They were such nice people that he also bought appliances to help them out. He even went crawfishing with the guy, throwing out the nets and stuff. He ended up spending around 40 grand on that family. I just laughed as he told me this story. There he is, on the run, and he’s taking care of other people. That’s Jimmy.

He also told me how he and Cathy were walking down the street in that Louisiana town one afternoon and the sheriff who was directing traffic stopped the cars to let the two of them get by.

“Hi, Tom,” the sheriff greeted him, as friendly as could be. Jimmy smiled back, answering to his alias, and he and Cathy just kept on walking.

The IDs turned out to be all wrong. Jimmy’s mustache looked nothing like the one I’d put on Jackie. That one was much bigger than the pencil-thin one Jimmy now wore. So we went shopping and bought a Polaroid-type camera and some blue sheets and headed to his hotel to take new photos.

Around nine, we walked over to a nearby Japanese restaurant. Cathy walked on ahead with my girlfriend. Three black kids in their early 20s walked by and started to stare at the girls. They were saying something to the girls, but they were mumbling so Jimmy and I couldn’t really hear them.

Jimmy burst out, “What are you looking at, you mother****er?” Out came his knife and out came my knife, and we ran right towards them. The guys took off running down the street. That’s Jimmy. On the run and still aggressive.

When we walked into the restaurant, Jimmy said, “Every day out there is another day I beat them. Every good meal is a meal they can’t take away from me.”

A few months later, in mid November, Jimmy asked me to come back down to New York. We talked about the case for a while and headed out to a restaurant.

Most of that day and evening in New York, Jim was upbeat, and seemed to treat his life like today was just another adventure, one he’d been planning ahead for since the early ’80s. But there was also a strange feel. Something just a little bit off. At the end of our dinner, he seemed more aware of everything around him. His tone was a little more serious, and there wasn’t as much joking as usual. I got the feeling then that he was resigning himself to the fact that he wasn’t coming back. It was over. He’d never return to South Boston.

After dinner, the two of them walked me to Penn Station. When they announced my train, I got up. Jimmy walked me over to the gate where the guy took my ticket and we shook hands. He said, “I’ll be in touch.” And that was that. I walked onto the train and figured he would call. But he never called again.

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LET'S BE FRANK!

BY ERNIE SMITH

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What we celebrate

The Supreme Court upholds free speech, bucking global trend

Independence Day is an occasion to celebrate American freedoms. It’s also an occasion to note how exceptional these freedoms are globally. Free speech, in particular, has declined over the last 10 years, both in democracies and non-democracies, according to the watchdog group Freedom House. This gives the Supreme Court’s most recent affirmation of free expression added importance.

Citing the First Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled in June that it was unconstitutional for California to prohibit the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

This case is important — and morally complex — because it deals with speech that may be considered offensive. The United States has generally held that free people may do as they wish, provided they are not encroaching on the rights of others. This principle underpins the First Amendment.

The Supreme Court ruled: “The most basic principle — that government lacks the power to restrict expression because of its message, ideas, subject matter, or content — is subject to a few limited exceptions for historically unprotected speech, such as obscenity, incitement, and fighting words. But a legislature cannot create new categories of unprotected speech simply by weighing the value of a particular category against its social costs and then punishing it if it fails the test.”

Many undemocratic countries ban freedom of speech outright. But democracies have also disagreed with the Supreme Court’s view, criminalizing some free expression that is controversial or politically incorrect as “hate speech.” This is no less a violation of liberty than the censorship of authoritarians.

In signing the Declaration of Independence 235 years ago, America’s founders committed to the cause of personal liberty, and in doing so, changed the world. That legacy remains today, as we continue to set an example of freedom.

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The History Page: Putting faith in freedom

Founding Fathers’ only Catholic risked it all to sign Declaration

BY TIMOTHY STANLEY

After surviving the death of her first husband from malaria, being stranded in China with a newborn, and nearly dying herself after several operations to cure her of a disease that doctors couldn’t diagnose, 23-year-old Aimee Semple McPherson began touring the United States in what she called the “Gospel Car,” a 1912 Packard marked with the words “Where Will You Spend Eternity?” She had received what she believed to be a message from God to preach to her countrymen, and would go on to expound the faith she knew from childhood, a tempered Pentecostalism.

McPherson was tall, dark-haired, beautiful and magnetic, capable of easy seduction but avowedly conservative and wholesome, the non-secular version of some current, comely Republican candidates. She was a preternaturally skilled public speaker, who sometimes spoke in tongues and healed the sick. Crutches piled up outside her revivals. As word spread of what seemed to be miracles, she worked her way from roadside revivals to massive public arenas. But in her early career, she never named her theology or articulated it precisely.

In 1918, still a mere 28 years old, she arrived in Los Angeles in her Gospel Car. The city was on the verge of an immense economic and population boom, thanks to oil, real estate, Hollywood and the sun. It was rife with religious fervor of all kinds — members of new cults and old traditions papered the city with fliers and hired migrants to walk the streets with signs.

McPherson didn’t originally intend to launch her own sect. In her early career, it seemed her only goal was to help her followers be born again into any Protestant faith — to save souls. But her theatrical methods, which included all-night tent revivals, suggested a craving for fame and widespread adulation. Whatever her motivations, in the City of Angels she became the founder of her own faith, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, which, even 90 years later, would have thousands of branches and millions of members.

Within a couple years of arriving in the growing metropolis, McPherson set about constructing Angelus Temple at the intersection of Glendale and Sunset boulevards. To help fund it, she solicited “chair-holders,” asking for $25 from donors for a seat in their name: “Do you know that some poor discouraged sinner may sit in your chair and be converted?” she asked her audiences.

In the fall of 1922, McPherson had the vision on which she would base her gospel. In it she saw the creature described in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel as having the faces of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle. “In my soul was born a harmony that was struck and sustained upon four, full, quivering strings,” McPherson said of the vision, “and from it were plucked words that sprang and leaped into being — the Foursquare Gospel.” She believed each face represented an aspect of Christ as, respectively, savior, baptizer, healer and future king.

The gospel, like much of McPherson’s career, seemed equal parts inspiration and calculation, aimed at reaching the most people and winning the most attention. Like other elements of her preaching, the Foursquare Gospel was by no means new; McPherson simply delivered it with the most punch. She stressed ties between Foursquare and other Protestant faiths against the looming threats of modernism, Darwinism and Swing-era vice.

Angelus Temple opened on New Year’s Day 1923, a grand neoclassical building shaped like a megaphone. McPherson invited to the stage preachers from the Methodist Episcopal, United Brethren, Baptist, Congregational and Southern Methodist denominations. They spoke to a capacity crowd of over 5,000, who were seated in mahogany chairs, below a domed ceiling painted like the sky, in front of a $22,000 organ.

Foursquare’s first church was a hit. Every seat was filled for three sermons daily, and McPherson decided to expand her work. She performed “visual sermons,” posing, for instance, as a damsel in distress opposite a tall, menacing image of the “gorilla of evolution.” She took over a radio station to broadcast the gospel. She launched a commissary that came to serve hundreds of thousands of poor during the Depression. She instituted a biblical college that ordained women, to no small controversy. Foursquare spread across the country and the world, calling its churches “lighthouses.”

But McPherson’s supporters and detractors both credited for her success a quality that had little to do with the potency of Foursquare: her sex appeal. She was an ideal vessel for religion at the dawn of the celebrity age. Her lips were full, her hair luxuriously curled. With the figure of a Hollywood star, she often struck poses for photographers, dramatically lit, one hip slinking sexily below the other. She wore virginal white as a rule, but often in the form of tight satin gowns. Reporters commenting on her opening-day sermon remarked on her “womanliness” — some genteelly said no more, while others couldn’t resist using the word “buxom.”

Though the church still has 60,000 “lighthouses” around the world, McPherson’s legacy is ineluctably bound to her sex appeal, not her gospel, and particularly to the scandals she seemed to court. The largest and unseemliest was her claim of being kidnapped, drugged, tortured and abandoned in the Sonora Desert in 1926. No evidence of any crimes — or any injury to her person — was found, and most suspected she ran off for the weekend with a lover, an episode that Pete Seeger memorialized in song: “The dents in the mattress fit Aimee’s caboose.” Her early death in 1944 (likely due to an accidental overdose of Seconal) and elaborate funeral (a 1,200-pound brass coffin, nearly dropped by its pallbearers) inspired much sorrow and conspiracy-theorizing. The outburst of mourning left many to wonder what was more powerful for Aimee’s followers, the woman or the church. Today, McPherson is best known, like many a mass-media evangelist after her, for her failings, not for her faith.

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Americana: Lawn Mower Racing

You never may be able to drive in NASCAR, but if you have a riding lawn mower you could still manage to rev your engine on a racetrack, albeit a grassy one. Lawn mower racing is serious business to a host of enthusiasts throughout the country. The Daily caught up with a handful of these mowers at a race held by the United States Lawn Mower Racing Association in Zion, Ill. —Video by Vivek Kemp

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Star search

Advances in electronic telescopes make sky-watching cosmically easy