February 14, 2010

FROM: John J. O’Brien, Commissioner

TO: James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger, Jr.

ADDRESS: Somewhere in Santa Monica, CA (for internal use only)

RE: Your application for employment

 

Dear Whitey:

How wonderful to receive your application for future employment in our agency, in the event you ever return to your home state. Here at the Patronage Department we receive numerous applications, but rarely from someone so highly qualified to deal with criminals, killers and thugs. 

However, as Commissioner of the Mass Patronage Department it often falls upon me to perform the most difficult and unpleasant tasks. Thus, with a heavy heart and my hands raised high in the air, I regret to inform you I must reject your application for employment at the MPD.

Please don’t take this as a personal rejection. Far from it! With two of your nephews already on the department’s payroll, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to bring another Bulger aboard. Your brother William has written to me with expressions bordering on outright bragging of your numerous talents and accomplishments—your entrepreneurial spirit, your gang leadership skills, your hair-trigger response to challenges, your managerial finesse in parceling out punishment. All skills we could easily put to good use at the MPD.

In fact, because of the many obstacles you face in returning to Massachusetts for a personal interview, I took the liberty of having a surrogate sit through your civil service exam. And I’m pleased to inform you your score was so exceptional you already outrank almost all other applicants.

But alas, I cannot offer you a job should you eventually return to Massachusetts. Ordinarily, someone like you with glowing recommendations from the F.B.I. and the Massachusetts Senate, not to mention multiple good conduct reports from the Mass Correctional System, would be a shoo-in for almost any position in the MPD. But I cannot step aside and allow you to take the Commissioner’s job, as you requested. Not even if you hold a gun to my head as you—no doubt jokingly—suggested.

And so, Whitey, I hope you won’t hold it against me that I cannot fulfill your request for suitable employment at the MPD. As for your idea of serving our department in some security capacity, I can only reply that MPD employees are not allowed to carry loaded firearms, especially in the Commonwealth’s courthouses. Another reason why I hold our prissy, pettifogging judges in such contempt.

Next thing you know they’ll be turning patronage into a crime!

And so, Whitey, I wish you great success in finding a new career path for when you ultimately return to your home state. A career path that would support any claims of personal redemption and improved moral character you might make to offset all those murder, robbery and extortion charges.

Your nephews send their love and wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Sincerely,

John

John J. O’Brien

Commissioner and CDJ (Chief Dispenser of Jobs)

Massachusetts Patronage Department