Frank Bellotti still won’t divulge the harrowing secret missions the Scouts & Raiders went on during World War II.
They became the Navy SEALs and Bellotti, who turns 100 Wednesday, was a leader.
“We did guerrilla stuff,” he said. “I can’t talk about it. It’s still Top Secret. I have to keep it secret, I’m the only one left.”
That loyalty personifies Francis X. Bellotti. He remains a mentor to so many in Massachusetts, but his roots go deep in the Bay State.
The former three-term attorney general — and onetime lieutenant governor — was raised in Dorchester and became an icon from Quincy.
Bellotti transformed the attorney general’s office from a backwater political Democratic Party hangout to a non-partisan first-class law office. That’s what he will be remembered for.
But back to his loyalty.
Bellotti comes from the age of handshakes and looking everyone in the eye.
“I’ve always felt I had a responsibility to the people here in Massachusetts,” Bellotti said Tuesday. “I never wanted to be away from my base.”
He turned down a bid to run for U.S. Senate in 1966, he said, saying the pull of this state was just too strong. He would have been a great governor, too, but lost in his three bids.
Presidential candidates came calling — “all of them,” he said — and he thought John F. Kennedy was a giant among that crowd. “I campaigned for him,” Bellotti said. “I’ve never seen anything like him again. He was almost above the office.”
He said just that a week before President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
He worked with former Boston Mayor Kevin White and has remained friends with just about every politician who has sat in the Corner Office or back benches.
Through it all Bellotti has remained quintessential Boston to the core.
“This is a great state,” he said. “We have more educational and medical institutions than any place in the United States.”
He admitted he never thought he’d reach the century mark, but Quincy will be the place to be for his 100th birthday bash Wednesday with a celebration at the annual Quincy Law Day at Quincy District Court, named after Bellotti.
Bellotti, who helped found the Arbella Insurance Group in Quincy, is now in Hingham, but that’s out of necessity. His beloved wife, Maggie, died in December. They raised 12 children together.
Bellotti told this reporter he reads the Herald “every day.” He’s also someone you can still turn to for advice and an opinion.
Plus, you never have to doubt his trustworthiness. He’s old school in all that’s good from a member of the Greatest Generation.
Happy Birthday, Frank, from your friends at the Herald.
