Iceman, you picked a very revealing bit of dialog when you cited the flashback at the end of II. A perfect indication of Tom's role in the family vs. Michael's controlling nature. That's the key to their relationship, IMO. Michael always wanted to be in charge. Tom was Vito's choice for consigliere, not Michael's. Tom was Sonny's choice for brother, not Michael's.
We have gone back and forth, many times, on this board about whether or not Tom could have done more to prevent Sonny's assassination. True, a charging bull elephant couldn't have stopped Sonny from getting in his car, and Tom did dispatch bodyguards after him. But Tom, IMO, should have foreseen that Carlo would want vengeance on Sonny for being publicly beaten and humiliated. In the novel, Tom blames himself for Sonny's death ("He knew now that he was no wartime consigliere...old Genco would have smelled a rat").
But I believe Tom was to blame for letting Michael fall into the Senate's perjury trap. After Michael realizes Pentangeli was alive, Tom says, "Our people with the NY detectives say he was scared, half-dead, talking out loud about how you betrayed him." Where were you, Tom, before you advised your only client to lie under oath? How come you only learned about Pentangeli's survival after Michael committed five acts of perjury?
But did Michael always want to be in charge? It would seem, given the flashback scene at the end of Part II and his introduction scene at the beginning of Part I, that Michael never had any intentions of "getting into the Family business," as Sonny would later say, and that he did so only under extreme circumstances to protect his father and the family.
As for Tom and Sonny, well brothers/siblings of the same age have, generally speaking, more in common with each other than they do with younger or older siblings, so that may have played a part in it.
Regarding the perjury before the senate investigation committee, Michael, by his own admission, had not taken the "5th," as was his right, and instead denied all the charges levied against him. Would he have done so had he known Pentangeli was still alive? Doubtful. But then again Michael and Tom were up against the arch-schemer Roth, so, in this case, I really don't believe Tom can be blamed for this mess.
As for preventing Sonny from leaving that day, could tom really have? After all, Sonny was the acting don, so if he wanted to go, he was going to go. I mean what could have tom done? Order the men to physically restrain Sonny from leaving?
