LOL-- HairyKnuckles, you're the one who marches onto these boards, and proclaims with 100%-factual-certainty that: "The other major issue was the banning of drugs, across the board".

What you never reveal is that you're just regurgitating, almost word for word, whatever Joe/Bill Bonanno say for popular consumption. Why? You're a fanboy of the Joe/Bill Bonanno "My Tradition" mythology.

Then, you start "bitching" (a good self-characterization of your comments HK), whenever people call you out on it. Grow up HK-- if you're going to spew things as 100% fact, you can take a little scrutiny, too.

Since you're dishonestly misrepresenting me (no surprise there), let's start with what I've actually written:

"For other attendees, Apalachin was another opportunity to discuss more traditional issues of territory and cooperation. Former Teamsters president testified of a conversation he had with Nick Civella after the mobster was caught at Apalachin. 'Civella told me that, among other things, territory and cooperation was discussed,' Williams recounted. 'Civella said he had Kansas City as his territory. He had working relations with other areas. He had friends in Chicago, he had friends in Cleveland, and he had friends in New Orleans.'

Others claim narcotics was on the agenda. After fibbing about his presence, Joe Bonanno tried to spin its purpose: "Another item on the Apalachin agenda was supposed to be the narcotics issue,' said Bonanno. 'If the 1957 meeting had gone according to plan there no doubt would have been a reaffirmation of our Tradition's opposition to narcotics.' Journalist Selwyn Raab asserts an 'emergency item on the agenda was setting policy on copying with the stricter new federal law--the Boggs-Daniel Act--and dealing with the Sicilian heroin importers.' The author Gil Reavill goes further, writing that New York bosses (without Commission member Tommy Lucchese even present) did reach an agreement that morning in Apalachin. Supposedly, they agreed that 'the American Mafia gets out of the wholesale heroin smuggling business' by spinning off importing and smuggling to 'the Corsicans,' while 'retail street distribution, that's another matter.'

The notion that the Apalachin summit's focus was to be on drugs is dubious. The Mafia had been heavily involved in narcotics trafficking since the 1930s. Three attendees--John Ormento, Frank Cucchiara, and Joseph Civello--were already convicted narcotics offenders. Moreover, the Boggs-Daniel Act was enacted to great fanfare in July 1956, three months before the October 1956 meeting of the Commission. It is difficult to understand why mafiosi would travel from all over the country, again, for an 'emergency item' that had been in the news prior to the 1956 meeting. Meanwhile, Reavill's questionable account fails to appreciate long-term historical trends: as we saw earlier, the American Mafia had relied on Corsican drug smugglers since the 1930s, and it had been moving away from 'risky street distribution' and toward wholesaling for decades."

The Mob and the City, pp. 272-73.

I can break it down for HK some more in bold:

(1) Unlike HK, I never said with 100% certainty whether Apalachin 1957 was about drugs. I said it was "dubious," and then detailed my reasons for doubting the story.

(2) If it didn't happen, it's hard to disprove a negative! Since you're the idiot who runs around on these boards proclaiming it as 100% fact, I think you've got the burden.

(3) Joe/Bill Bonanno are your ONLY source, and they have major credibility problems (to say the least) on the narcotics question:

First, Joe Bonanno claimed there was a longstanding "Tradition" against narcotics-- even though they weren't made illegal until 1914 (and 1923 in Italy). The Families were huge into heroin by the 1930s, if not sooner.

Second, Joe Bonanno's high-level caporegime Carmine "Lilo" Galante was perhaps the biggest smuggler of heroin from Montreal during the 1950s. Yet, when Galante is arrested in 1959 for heroin trafficking, boss Joe Bonanno of "My Tradition" does nothing to him.

Third, Joe Bonanno's "boy of the first day" (how Bonanno describes him in Man of Honor, p. 142) Natale "Diamond Joe" Natale was CONVICTED of narcotics trafficking in 1959. Again, Bonanno does and says nothing, except to lionize Evola.

(4) Joe Bonanno lied about being at Apalachin with his ridiculous hunting-trip story (we can go into the evidence from the New York State Archives or you can read my book). So, the man's already lying about Apalachin!

(5) Three CONVICTED narcotics traffickers John Ormento, consigliere Frank Cucchiara, and boss Joseph Civello, went as delegates. Not to mention Vito Genovese, Natale Evola, Carmine "Lilo" Galante and other known drug traffickers. If anything, they'd be discussing better drug operations--not banning it!

(6) If the July 1956 Narcotics Act was such a major development, I still don't understand why the Commission wouldn't have "banned" drugs at the October 1956 meetings? Your (factually unsupported) theory is they needed a "face-to-face" meeting of everyone-- a requirement I've never heard of the Commission. (By the way, the 1956 meeting DID have a lot of wiseguys present, including Carmine "Lilo" Galante).

(7) These high-level meetings of Cosa Nostra were not easy to arrange-- if you look at the ticket receipts and travel plans from the New York State Archives, it was a major endeavor. But your other theory is that the 1956 Narcotics Act somehow slipped their minds in October, so they said: "Hey guys, let's come back again next year, we forgot to read up on the law!" I find that dubious.

(8) Drugs never came up (either discussions to ban them or expand them) as an issue in the FBI wiretaps that went up shortly after Apalachin. Remember, the Chicago office had Giancana and Magaddino on wiretap talking about Apalachin.

(9) There were other sources and informants talking about OTHER real purposes of Apalachin, including Roy Williams/Nick Civella.

(10) The Families had been steeped in narcotics trafficking since the mid-1930s-- more than 20 years before Apalachin. The idea that they'd have one grand meeting in November 1957 to settle it all is a ridiculous fantasy scene drawn from The Godfather. That's just not how the narcotics trade worked--- it was a lot of wiseguys, moving a lot of heroin, in often-sporadic deals and connections.

(11) The story is just all-too-convenient, familiar storytelling by Joe/Bill Bonanno. The ONE national meeting supposedly to ban drugs was broken up by the State Police-- "If the 1957 meeting had gone to plan there no doubt would have been a reaffirmation of our Tradition's opposition to narcotics." (Man of Honor, p. 272). Do you see how convenient this sounds? Blame the damn Staties for us not stopping ourselves!

(12) If it was so important to the bosses, why didn't the Mafia issue a national ban on drugs in 1958? 1959? 1960? etc.? They could ONLY do it at this one meeting?


So, those are my various reasons for being "dubious" of Joe/Bill Bonnano's Apalachin-was-to-ban-drugs story. But hell, make up your own mind. (And HK can go back to enjoying his Joe/Bill Bonanno novels).