Faithful1, I agree with everything you said about the timeline. Very good.
It's only a small technicality that I was pointing out that you have basically restated for me.
Yes, Accardo was on the Commission before Giancana.
However, here is the key thing to remember that I will not back down on at any time:
As long as Ricca was ALIVE, Accardo was NEVER the top Boss. Even when Ricca was in jail temporarily. Ricca & Accardo were the two Bosses, but if push came to shove, Ricca made the final call.
The same can be said during Giancana's reign. Giancana was the Day to Day Boss, but as long as Ricca was alive, Ricca made the final call on certain issues.
Accardo was more of an equal with Giancana. Giancana never took orders from Accardo. I repeat. Never.
The fact that Giancana REFUSED to have Cerone be Underboss of the entire Outfit shows Giancana's power. Accardo could not over rule him. ACCARDO HAD TO ACCEPT IT. That is proof alone.
You'll never read this in a book.
Does this make sense to you?
I agree that Ricca was first among equals. That's why nothing happened to Taylor Street while he was alive. That says something about his power.
Regarding Giancana never taking orders from Accardo I would disagree in this sense: BEFORE Giancana became the boss in 1956/57 he would have taken orders from Accardo. After Accardo stepped down, I agree. Most sources have Giancana as Accardo's underboss before he promoted.
On Cerone, agreed. The evidence that we have has Frank Ferraro as the underboss until 1965 when he died, succeeded by Battaglia. I don't know if Accardo tried to push Cerone, but it seems that Accardo would have accepted that it was Giancana's right to pick who he wanted as underboss.
The way I see the transcripts where it looks like Accardo was telling Giancana what to do, he was in the sense of Bill Clinton advising Barack Obama. Accardo was used to barking out orders, but Giancana could accept or reject his advice. What else that's interesting in these transcripts are that Murray Humphreys barks out a lot of orders -- except to the very top guys. Because the top guys understood that Humphreys was intelligent and experienced he had their backing and could do this. Since he wasn't made it shows how respected he was.
