Ivy, most of these statements were made after John Gotii´s conviction. And they reflect only personal opinions. Please note the bolded words in some of the quotes. Same kind of statements can be found regarding John Gotti in and around the late 1980s when LE was hunting his ass. Back then, LE said that Gotti was the leader of the most powerful crime family in the US. I´m not disputing that the Genoveses are at this moment, and has been for the last 10-15 years, the most powerful Family.
Even if one doesn't agree that the Genovese family has always been the strongest, there has really been no argument about it for 20 years now.
But the Gambinos have historically always had a larger amount of soldiers and a larger amount of captains. This is an important criteria to use when measuring power.
Yes, size is certainly on important factor. But you talk like the Gambinos were significantly larger than the Genovese. They weren't. If you look at the estimates it was perhaps a 20% difference at most.
Another important criteria to use is stability within a Family. Bosses who were able to keep themselves away from being indicted and convicted had it easier bringing stability and prosperity to his Family. Many Genovese bosses, as I mentioned in my earlier post, spent many years behind bars. So from a historically point of view, I´m not so sure that the Genoveses always has been the most powerful Family, something you seem to claim in your post.
You call Vincent Mangano, Albert Anastasia, and Paul Castellano being killed stability?
