Not to defend Oak here, but does anyone honestly believe someone like Frank Costello could attain all that power, rub shoulders with the political denizens of New York, become "Prime Minister of the Underworld", without selling a few of his chums down the river? Honestly now?
There were a lot less rats back then because the mafia were basically given carte blanche because the FBI were too busy chasing their tails over communists.
Look at how quickly Costello moved out of the way when Genovese tried to take him out.
A lot of these guys wouldn't have been able to do the hard time if the FBI dangled all the benefits guys like Massino, Leonetti, D'Arco and Gravano got.
I mean all of those guys got to keep the lions share of their illicitly gained wealth; the Feds even agreed to back off Massino's wife even though she was complicit in a lot of his rackets, he practically gave her more power than his own brother in law.
Massino was a rat, Costello never was. He had the authorities after him up until he stepped down, they were always leaking things to the newspapers to put pressure on him, and he wen to jail and was put through a vigorous public spectacle when he testified. The FBI thing is a myth, they went after the Mafia hard after Appalachia, and other agencies like the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics were all over the Mafia on a consistent basis.
The problem is some people have a knee-jerk reaction to any evidence or talk of a Mafia member being strong, and feel the need to jump right in and say they are all informers, cowards, weaklings, or stupid. SO they jump right in with such nonsense as 'He had to give people up"
