Here's a what if, TB.
What if Joe Magliocco didn't do everyone involved a favor by dropping dead of a heart attack?
Were Magliocco and Bonanno wily enough to do battle against Lucchese, Gambino and Magaddino?
That's a big what-if, PB:
Bonnano and Profaci were closest allies. The tie continued with Magliocco (who I believe was godfather to one of Bonanno's children). But Magliocco was weak.
The big-picture struggle ca. 1960 was between the "traditionalists" (Bonanno and Profaci), and the (for want of a better word) "new wave" led by Gambino. Bonanno says the latter were into alliances with non-Italians and the drug trade (as if he wasn't). Gambino, through the Commission, had asked Profaci to step down. He refused, supported by Bonanno. After he died, it is reasonably sure that Gambino was stirring dissent within his family, which is how Columbo came to be the informer and how he was rewarded.
What sticks in my craw is: I doubt that Bonanno was powerful enough or influential enough in the Commission to have gotten away with whacking Lucchese and Gambino. And if he did, who would he have put in their place? Gambino, at least, had a plan: he wanted Columbo and knew that once Columbo was in place, he'd have a protege in the Commission. But I can't envision Bonanno, with his pomp and emphasis on "tradition," allying himself with anyone in the other families. I think he pursued the plot against Lucchese and Gambino as a way of stiffening Magliocco's spine. But I never read anywhere that he and Mag actually made plans for the assassinations--and the aftermath.
