I have written about this in another section, and alluded to it in a post made earlier today, but now I raise the possibility that maybe Tom was not as loyal to Michael as one might think.

First of all there is no question that Tom, Sonny, and Vito were a tightly knit team. Tom enjoyed the affection of Vito and Sonny, but not so much Michael. After Vito's shooting, and Michael's departure to Sicily, we see cracks in the relationship with Sonny, but their arguements are brotherly, and there is no hint that Tom wants the Corleones to prevail in the war. After Sonny's death and Vito's surrender, Michael re-emeges, and basically the first thing he does is dismiss Tom because he is not a wartime consigliere, and from there on out seems to go out of his way to embarass him whenever he can.

Once Vito dies, Tom is further moved out of Michael's inner circle, and is only brought back in after the attempt on Michael's life in Tahoe. While Tom is temporarily back in charge of things, he manages to keep the family business profitable, ad he manages to compromise Senator Geary. His reward? Further humiliation by Michael.

Still, maybe it is Tom who is playing Michael and not the other way around. Maybe Tom wanted Michael out of the way.
Certainly he knew how to legitimize the family business, and he could have persuaded Connie and Fredo to go along with him.
Rocco and Neri would be more problematic, but if it is true that Rocco was on the outs with Michael, Tom could have persuaded him to align with him and get rid of Neri.

Maybe Tom was not outsmarted by Roth as he leads eeryone to believe, and maybe the Senate hearings were the ultimate set up. Its a good explanation for his withholding the truth from Michael about Roth's possible rescue of Fredo in Cuba, and more importantly "forgetting" to check New York sources about Pentangeli being alive, thus setting Michael up for a perjury rap. The plan to bring Pentangeli's brother into the mix was Michael's idea, and Tom had to go along to keep his cover, and ultimately his plan to undo Michael, under this scenario, fell apart. Still and all if he was really messing around with Sonny's widow, and fielding job offers from hotel chains, maybe he was looking at a post Michael time where he could gain leadership in the legitimized Corleone family.

After all at the beinning of GF III we leard that Tom had died. Of what? A fishing accident?

Now about those drapes......