He said he was too weak to make a break. I told him I’d carry him up the ladder and get him to the other side, but that he shouldn’t talk about suicide. I had to rush to check in for the MKUltra project, and couldn’t stay another minute. I told him I’d be out in 24 hours and that we’d figure something out. I told him “Just hang on.” He smiled and said “I’ll see you later.”
I rushed over to the hospital and was checked into the experiment room. I was injected with a syringe full of a chemical, which put me into a seven hour schizophrenic state, which was very frightening. I saw blood dripping from ceiling and the bars on windows turned into slithering snakes. I saw that the guy next to me had all of the flesh falling off his face. He turned into a skeleton.
The next thing that came into the hospital was a stretcher with blood soaking through the sheet and dripping onto the floor. I learned that Jack was under the sheet. Dr. Pfeiffer said to the other doctor, “I’d like to examine a piece of his brain to check for substances.” I grabbed Dr. Pfeiffer by the throat, screaming at the top of my lungs, and I started to choke him.
It took me a long while to get over that. You don’t meet many guys like old Jack in a lifetime. I wish he had made it to freedom.
Charlie Catalano (AZ-1381) was a close associate of Bulger’s, both inside and outside of prison. He had suffered a litany of personal misfortune and later killed his son—who was suffering from extreme drug abuse—and then turned the gun on himself. Bulger remembered: “Poor Charlie Catalano, he had such a hard life, full of disappoints. Charlie Catalano in prison made the best of it on the surface, but beneath, he was a volcano of anger and bitterness - he did a lot of time in his life. His mother was Irish, his father was Italian, and a singing waiter in an upscale Italian restaurant. Charlie and I were in a federal holding prison in West State New York. It was like a huge warehouse full of cells and a recreation area up on the roof. Charlie and I were cuffed together for a long ride to Atlanta, with a stopover in Petersburg Prison in Virginia. We became such good friends. I attended his wake, along with our mutual friend Tommy Devaney. Afterwards, we went across the street for a drink (a custom) and killer “Mad Dog” Sullivan stepped in and shot Tommy to death on an order from “Fat Tony” Salerno.
Louis Arquilla (AZ-1386) also continued a life of crime following his release from prison. Bulger recalled connecting with Arquilla on the outside while he was still doing bank heists and robbing armored cars. He met a violent end when he was first assassinated by the blast of a shotgun and then, finished off by a .38 pistol. He had suffered a turbulent childhood when his father murdered his mother and then turned the gun on himself in front of him and his brother. Bulger added: “Louie had a suicidal wish - success or death.”
John Paul Scott, AZ-1403 (left) a trusted friend of Bulger, is seen here with Darl Parker (right) as they are led to court for trial resulting from a failed escape attempt from Alcatraz in 1962. Scott had a long history of attempted escapes, which continued even after his release from Alcatraz.
While he was an inmate at Atlanta, Bulger—along with John Paul Scott (AZ-1403, who made one of the most successful, but short-lived escape attempts from the Rock), close associates Charlie Catalano (AZ-1381), Louis Arquilla (AZ-1386) and other convicts, plotted to escape from the prison hospital. Bulger refused to give up the name of the people who helped him acquire the hacksaw blades that were used to cut through the barred windows. This defiant Atlanta escape attempt earned Bulger his ticket to Alcatraz. Later, Bulger remembered:
Charlie, Louie, Scotty, and Jeep were able to cut the bars of the ward hospital window. Using a ladder made from pipe, they attempted to scale a 45-foot wall. At the weakest spot the ladder collapsed, and they had nowhere else to go. Warden Wilkerson was out there with a shotgun. There were other guards out there, and all of them were demanding that the convicts surrender or they would be shot. The inmates told the guards “After we have this last cigarette we will come down. We know that this will be our last cigarette for a long time.” We were so close. Fortunately, I was the only person who knew who brought the blades in.
I was threatened with lots of hole time. I was stared down and they made me offers to reduce my sentence if I told who brought the blades. After they gave up and figured out that their efforts were useless, they shipped me to the Rock. Wilkerson was really angry and demanded me to name the guard who gave me the blades (they were top quality blades and came from the outside). I told him that I didn’t know anything about it and never changed my story. He threatened me: “I want that motherfucker’s name. Next he’ll be bringing in guns!”
I must admit, I expected physical torture or at least a severe working over, but all I got was long, hot, filthy sessions in the hole. Wilkerson’s parting shot was “I should have sent you to Alcatraz years ago.” I answered, “I wish you had!”
You know the rest.
Bulger’s transfer order to Alcatraz.
* * *
October 16, 1959,
Director James V. Bennett
Warden F.T. Wilkinson, Atlanta
James J. Bulger
Registration Number 77607-A
Recommendation for Transfer to Alcatraz
The case of the above-named inmate is again being submitted to you with the recommendation that he should be transferred to Alcatraz. On January 28, 1959, I wrote to you about Bulger about his involvement with three other inmates to whom he furnished a hacksaw blade to assist them with their plans to saw their way out of B-cellhouse. Two of these men were sent to Alcatraz, but it was decided to permit Bulger to remain here in hopes that he would settle down and become more favorably responsive to efforts by the staff here to help them.
On the basis of this decision, which had our heartiest endorsement, Bulger was released from administrative segregation and given an incentive assignment to the prison industries. He appeared to make a fairly good response to his program, at least superficially. He soon became actively affiliated with his former, undesirable associates here, and on August 24, 1959, he was returned to administrative segregation. This was after we received what we considered good information to the effect that he,
Thomas John Devaney, 79217-A, and one or two others who identity we weren’t able to establish, were again plotting an escape from this institution.
Notwithstanding our patient efforts to counsel Bulger towards constructive program participation, he is becoming more sullen, resistive, and defiant by the day. We do not believe we can return him to the population here without inviting further serious trouble. Accordingly, there appears to be no alternative to sending him to Alcatraz, where he can remain in the population under a closely supervised program.
Associate Warden York’s memorandum, summarizing his contacts with Bulger, is attached.
* * *
January 6, 1959
TO: Mr. F.T. Wilkinson, Warden
Bulger is serving a sentence of twenty years for bank robbery. Investigation discloses that this man furnished a hacksaw blade to three men in “B” Cellhouse who were attempting to escape from this institution.
Almost every time information is received about some escape plot, Bulger’s name heads the list. When he was received, the state of Indiana had a pending murder charge against him. However, no detainer has been filed. It is my recommendation that Bulger be considered for transfer to Alcatraz as a serious escape risk.
W.H. York
Associate Warden
* * *
MEMORIES OF ALCATRAZ
Bulger was transferred from USP Atlanta to USP Alcatraz in November 1959. Bulger offers memories of his transfer and life on the Rock as inmate 1428-AZ:
I was flown on a TWA jet with around four or five Marshalls from Baltimore, Maryland to San Francisco. I enjoyed the smell of the salt air and choppy water. I came over to Alcatraz on the Warden Johnston boat and was bolted in for security purposes. I remember it all so well. When I arrived, all of my old friends who had served time with at Atlanta gave me a big we
lcome. They were hollering from their cells as I walked down Broadway.
Looking back, Alcatraz was pretty good. You may be surprised to find out that I look back at Alcatraz with a sense of nostalgia. My life today would break most men. After 16 years on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and after living a quiet life on the California coast, I’m back in a cold isolation cell.
I often reflect back to those years on the Rock. Even though the city of San Francisco was close, we inmates always felt so far removed from everything. It was like we were on the dark side of the moon. We saw the same faces all of the time, we had the same routine all of the time; everyone pretty much felt the same. I wouldn’t say that again if I were there under the same conditions today. I’d be in the yard, sitting high up on the bleachers, getting the warm sun on me, looking out across the bay, and watching the ships and the Golden Gate Bridge. It was the best view from any prison in the world.
I’m sure that if men like Capone, Mickey Cohen, Joe [Clarence] Carnes, or Jack Twining were alive today, we would reminisce over coffee, since we’d have a lot of the same memories of our years there. Going through the old roster, it’s like a trip through the cemetery. I had flashbacks of seeing the names of many good friends. I’m pretty sure Boston and its suburbs were well represented in Alcatraz. Many people I knew for years, and knew how they lived and how they died.
When I first arrived on Alcatraz I was assigned a cell on Broadway on the flats, where new men were kept until they were assigned a job and a regular cell. The guard who walked me to my cell was a big guy named Hart. He had a pleasant voice and as I came into the cell block, a couple of guys (one was Catalano) started hollering my name, and other guys from Atlanta picked up that I had arrived on Alcatraz. I remember Hart turning to me and saying something like “You’re real popular.”
I met Joe Carnes after he introduced himself while he was making his rounds working as a library orderly. Joe lived on the third tier of C-Block, down the tier from me. He’d say hello and deliver the library books from cell to cell and when he did, he’d mention episodes of Alcatraz past, such as attempted breaks. Joe was a good guy who would risk much for friends. I knew he had spent years in the hole and D-Block for his part in the past escape that went bad. He mentioned several friends of mine who were also serving time on Alcatraz, and Joe passed along their messages to say hello.
Joe also asked if I’d been up to the hospital and if I had met a man who was known by fellow convicts as the “Jap.” The “Jap” was Tomoya Kawakita. I mentioned that I had been up to the hospital and met him, but knowing nothing about him or his crimes, I said “Yes,” and that he seemed friendly. Joe passed me a book titled South Western Court Reporter and remarked, “This will tell you all about that bastard.”
It was the story of Tomoya Kawakita, AKA the “Meatball.” Kawakita was American-born but of Japanese ancestry. He was a student in Japan when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He joined the Japanese army as an interpreter and eventually wound up in a prisoner of war camp for Americans in Japan, where our men were made slaves working in a tin mine. Kawakita was a cruel bastard. Our men were starving and most of them weighed in at only 100 pounds. They were sickly, dying, and forced to hold heavy rocks and logs until they collapsed. As an example of the cruelty, our men were lined-up facing each other and then Kawakita ordered them to fight or be killed.
In another merciless act, he kicked two men into an open cesspool and then pushed their heads under with his boot. He would also select American soldiers to follow him into the woods, where they were never to come back or be seen again. Fellow prisoners had suspected that he had cut their heads off with a samurai sword. The “Meatball” carried a torturous reputation among the American soldiers. He was known to strut around wearing putters pants and knee-high, perfectly shined boots, a short sleeve shirt with a thick belt, and a holstered samurai sword. He would always tell our men: “You bastards will never leave here alive; will never see the United States again, and we will kill all of you.”
When the war was over Kawakita was listed and hunted as a war criminal. Following his capture and conviction of treason for committing horrific acts against American soldiers, he was directly committed to Alcatraz in 1953.
Clarence “Joe” Carnes, a full-blooded Choctaw Indian convicted of murder when he was only 15 years old, died at 61 years of age at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. He had been in and out of state and federal prisons since he was sixteen years old, and at eighteen years old became the youngest convict to serve time on the Rock.
Tomoya Kawakita
The “Meatball” worked in the hospital and had good food and drinks like fruit juice and coffee. It was the best job on the Rock. He was even able to shower and sleep in the hospital, not in a 5 by 9 foot cell like the rest of us. The Alcatraz authorities made life too easy for him, considering what he did to our men.
When I read the story of Kawakita, I was angry. The next time I was up in the hospital, Kawakita saw me and gave me a friendly greeting. I told him, “You rotten bastard. I’ll do anything I can to make your life miserable, you cowardly bastard.” The guard and the medic tried to shut me up and Kawakita jumped back. I later thanked Joe for pulling my coat to the “Jap.” Joe Carnes act of exposing Kawakita was something that I considered patriotic and a good gesture on his part. That was my way of seeing it and I appreciated it.
Many years later, I learned that Joe re-offended and that he was back in the federal prison hospital located in Springfield, Missouri. I sent him $500 for his commissary account and told him to write or call me anytime. When he called I was really glad to hear from him. He told me that he was getting out in a couple months and I offered to meet up with him and help him get back on his feet. I had planned to greet him in a limousine at the front gate, and then buy him a brand new Cadillac of his choosing. He asked me if I was serious and I said “Yes.”
He told me that he was doing well and that he heard that I was doing good as “Alcatraz’s most successful graduate.” We joked back and forth and then later on exchanged letters for a good period after that. He was optimistic and looking forward to it. Later on, he lost one month good time for taking a piece of butter off a food cart and then a couple of weeks later I saw on TV that the “Choctaw Kid Dies in Prison.” Goddamn, I felt bad about it. I couldn’t get it out of my mind ... how Joe Carnes never made much in life and then died in prison. I had to make it right.
When Bulger learned that prison officials had buried Carnes in a pauper’s grave, he contacted Joe’s family and offered to move Joe’s body to an Indian cemetery where he could be properly laid to rest with his own family. He purchased Carnes “the most beautiful and expensive copper and bronze top casket,” and then had his body exhumed and transferred to the Isaac Billy Cemetery, a traditional Indian burial ground located in Atoka County, Oklahoma.
Bulger stopped at no expense and personally made the arrangements for the burial ceremonies. The ceremony included a Choctaw Preacher, and three Indian women who sang consoling hymns in their traditional language. Next to the casket was a large cross made of white and red roses, and a small plant adorning a snapshot of Joe when he was about 8 or 9 years old. By all accounts, it was a sad but beautiful service... It was likely the kindest gesture anyone had ever paid to Joe Carnes; to make right a wrong, and give Joe his final wish. Bulger later commented:
On the day of the funeral, it was sunny and crisp, and there were rolling hills around. A cow grazed in the distance with the sounds of the bell around his neck echoing through the pastures. Joe was laid to rest between his sister and brother. It was such a peaceful place. Joe was free at last.
Prison officials—believing that Carnes had no surviving relatives—buried him in a pauper’s grave at the Catholic Cemetery of Springfield. Once Bulger read about Joe’s death in the newspapers, he intervened to have his body exhumed and transferred to Joe’s family plot for a proper service and burial. This is the gravestone purchased and place
d by Bulger for Carnes.
Alver Bloomquist was a guard who started his Alcatraz career in the early 1940s. Of all the officers who worked on the Rock, Bloomie had a just reason to be bitter towards the inmate population. During the 1946 escape attempt known as the Battle of Alcatraz, he was struck by a bullet during an episode where a fellow officer was shot and killed. But Bloomie didn’t hold any grudges whatsoever. He looked upon the inmates as men who were paying the wages of their criminal past, and treated every man with a high level of respect and consideration. The guards didn’t live in the same environment that we did. Being a spectator is so different from being a recipient, and there are different types of torture, such as sleep deprivation, isolation, absence of hope, and the loss of freedom.
Every once in a while the fog would come in fast; the towers were high and the fog would be heavy. At those moments I was concerned for Bloomie. Guys were desperate and there were a lot of risk takers out there. But the respect for Bloomie rose to such a level among the inmate population, that there was unspoken code among the men that in the event of any escape attempt, Bloomie would not be harmed.
On the inside, we had guys from all walks of life. Some men were full of hate and quick to insult a guard with a mix of humor and acid tongue. One time Bloomie really shocked us all and showed some trust back. Bloomie was the only guy I ever saw who brought his son into the prison. He brought his son Dean and they stood next to the door that leads from the rec yard into the cellblock.
Letters from Alcatraz Page 15