I don´t know, perhaps it´s hairsplitting, but there are holes in George Wolfe´s story. If you read the story carefully, he claims this incident happened in 1958 but Vito Genovese was not in Atlanta Penitentiary at that time. He wasn´t sent there until after his conviction in 1960. A typo? I really don´t think so. It´s more likely that Wolf enlarged his involvement in order to sell more books.
However, there was some kind of a reconsiliation between Genovese and Costello. The two of them compared notes (according to an informant) and discovered that they had been used by Tony Bender, Vito Genovese´s right hand man. Bender had apparently attempted to pit Genovese and Costello against eachother by creating discord and distrust for the purpose of gaining power within the Genovese Family. According to the same informant, this was the reason why Tony Bender was killed.
I found this article also a lil bit suspicious cuz the whole article sounds like Wolf is protecting the image of Frank Costello...maybe as you said Wolf is tryin to sell more books or this is just another example of how Frank used to bring the image as more of a robin hood gangster than a cold blooded killer...I dont belive the story that Frank saved Vitos life in prison,but on the other end Vito fucked it all up with the Apalachin meeting and the conflict with Costello,he even failed to kill him and thouse are just some of the reasons why some of the mobsters hated Genovese...who knows...
