In the afternoon, White met with his department heads and closest aides to tell them they had worked together through the “best of times.” After that, he spent more than an hour with his successor, Mayor-elect Raymond L. Flynn, walking around Castle Island in South Boston and then praying together at the altar at the Gate of Heaven Church, also in South Boston.
Neither man wanted to discuss the details of their meeting. White called it “personal and easy.” Flynn said that for the first time he felt a closeness to White, with whom he has shared neither political nor philosophical brotherhood. “It was a tremendously moving kind of experience to be part of history being made,” said Flynn.
After his meeting with Flynn, in an office stripped of personal possessions and with workmen pulling paintings on loan from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts off the outer office walls, White said he wanted to be remembered for one thing: “I left the city a little better than I found it.”
How much better, he said, “I’ll let the people decide and argue over.”
White said that not once since he surprised Boston residents and his own loyalists with his decision on May 26 not to run again has he regretted that choice. It is time to leave, he said.
But as he leaves office, White still left open the possibility of a return to politics. Government and politics, he said, “have been my life for so long . . . this isn’t the time to rule anything in or out.”
White said he knows his career plans for the future, but is not willing to reveal them yet. He and his wife will take a two-week sailing vacation around the Virgin Islands, he said. Afterward, he will return to discuss his plans with contacts in Washington, D.C., and New York. Then, he said, “I am coming home.”
He will not work in a “major law firm or go into business,” he said, but indicated he would do some teaching.
