We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the need for the FBI to protect its informants. The FBI originally had an integrity problem under J. Edgar Hoover, who was a closeted gay man that favored blackmail as a pressure tactic. I used to think that the agency’s internal controls improved after Hoover died in 1972, but only a few years later the FBI recruited the Boston Irish gangster Whitey Bulger as an informant against the Italian mob.
Even after Bulger was on the run in 1995, the FBI continued to hide the fact he had been an informant, until the truth finally came out. Over a period of 15 years the FBI seemed incapable of capturing Bulger, and eventually the U.S. Marshals Service was brought into the manhunt. Bulger was caught nine months later.