Valachi was definitely coached and didn't know much more than what he personally experienced and knew by rumor, except for his personal relationship with Genovese, Tony Bender, Gagliano and Reina he was rather low on the totum pole. I tend to think that had he not been around during the warfare of the 1920s when the families needed willing and ready shooters, he'd never have been inducted in the first place. He wasn't a big earner, constantly in trouble and not a very successful criminal in things beyond low-level theft.

Though I think his testimony is important in that what he didn't know, it tells us a lot about how compartmentalized things were in his era.