Neither was Don for very long, and both were tripped up by stupid mistakes. But, I agree with Jimmy: Luciano had vision. He got rid of the two "Mustache Petes" whose ideas and actions belonged in Sicily, not America. He formed the Commission, and valued cooperation over competition. And he accepted help and advice from people whose brains were more important to him than their nationality.

Costello made an equally important contribution to modern Mafia in America: he used politics, not machine guns, to achieve power and grow business. Before Costello, NY Mob families had to buy political influence from the Irish Tammany Hall machine--no love lost among Irish and Italians. Costello took advantage of "Reform" Mayor LaGuardia's war on Tammany to step into the political vacuum with money and influence. He was smart enough not to replace all the Irish pols with Italian pols, but all of them were beholden to Uncle Frank. He was a major backer of William O'Dwyer, who got famous prosecuting Murder Inc., and who, as Mayor (with Costello's help) went easy on gambling--Costello's main racket.