[quote=JC]The Mary Farrell transcripts show that Eboli was never the acting for Vito, Catena was. Eboli was the acting under boss for Catena and Catena left him alone to pretty much run the NY side of the family because he did not want to be bothered with the day to day machinations involving Gambino, Luchesese, etc. that Eboli complained to him about. Catena was possibly the richest gangster ever and wanted to stay boss in part so that he did not have to share his money with anyone other than Genovese. At the end of the day Eboli himself said in the transcripts that Catena told him that when he (Catena) said that something needed to be done it had to be done and Eboli didn't challenge him on that.

As for Lombardo being boss in 1965, in the Mary Farrell transcripts in which Eboli is puffing Lombardo up and telling him that he should be boss, Lombardo said that things had already been decided, which I have always took to mean that leadership was put in place the way that Vito wanted it,and he was not interested in challenging it. As for Catena, he did not retire full time to Florida until after he got out of jail in 1972, as he was in NJ enough of the time in 1969-1970 to get nailed with the subpoena to testify before the NJ commission on crime. He was not one of the many guys who had fled to Florida who the commission in NJ could never get. His refusal to testify is what got him thrown in jail. Maybe it's just me, but his still being in NJ at that time seems to indicate that he was still boss. I don't know why he would have stayed in NJ and not gone to Florida in the late 60's, where he spent the remainder of his life after he got out of jail in 72, if he was not still acting boss. We will never know but that is my thought.

The third guy in the triumvirate was Mike Miranda. It is hard to tell where he ranked in relation to Eboli, but if I remember correctly he was the one sitting at the head of the table, not Eboli, not Gambino, and not Colombo when the police crashed the meeting, which gives you an idea of the power and respect that he had.

As for the 70's, I think that the longest that Catena would have stayed boss was until 72 when he got out and moved to Florida, but I think that his being boss even that long is questionable. I think that after Eboli was killed and Catena retired that Lombardo and Tieri were the two most powerful guys in the family. As for who was boss, who knows. Some Mary Farrell transcripts indicated that the guys in Chicago recognized Tieri as boss, which is backed up by Jimmy Fratriano in his book. Other sources, including Carfaro, seem to indicate that Lombardo was actually #1, but I am not sure that it matters anymore than the question of who was the actual boss, Ricca, Accardo or Giancana, when Giancana seemed to be running things in Chicago. They were both very powerful and respected. They were also both very wealthy and at times very unhealthy, and they may have taken turns running things when one or the other felt up to it, with help from Fat Tony, Little Eli until he got hit, and others.

Just as an aside, I am not sure why so many posters seem to think that Vito Genovese was some mindless idiot. He was chosen by Luciano over all the others, including Costello, Adonis, etc. to be his underboss, and he was the acting boss for Luciano until he himself had to flee to Italy. Even when he was a captain and then underboss to Costello when he came back, he was always more powerful than his title would indicate, much like Carmine Galante was for the Bonannos. Genovese was an original, like Luciano and Bonanno, and he was respected by guys like Ricca and Patriarca. He was cunning and ruthless, which makes me think that it is bs that there was some kind of set up involving other mob guys like Gambino and Lansky to blow up Appalachian and then get him thrown in jail. Based on his history, I would think that if he even got a whiff of a set up by those guys he would have started hitting people left and right, which he was perfectly capable of doing as evidenced by hits that he called in while he was in jail such as Tony Bender. Also, by that point Lansky was not an independent power who worked with the Genovese, he was an associate who worked for the Genovese, and I don't think that he would have taken the risk to set up Genovese, but that is another story. Most likely, I think that if he was set up he was set up by the government alone. Anyway, those are my thoughts, feel free to poke holes.