Posted By: Turnbull
More Fredo treachery - 08/11/08 10:10 PM
“My sixth sense tells me your brother Fredo brought a bag full of money,” Roth tells Michael at their last meeting. We know that’s just a figure of speech. We assume Fredo arrived by commercial flight because the tells Michael, “Jesus Christ, what a trip -- the whole time I'm thinkin' what if somebody knows what I got in here. Can you imagine that, huh? Two million dollars in the seat next to me in the plane?“ We figure that Roth had his pals in the Cuban government tell him when Fredo arrived—and the contents of Fredo’s suitcase. We also assume that Michael needed to signal Roth that the money was in Cuba so he could buy more time to find out who the traitor was in his family.
Uh, not so fast…
US law then (and now) prohibits Americans from taking more than $10k in cash out of the country. While US Customs didn’t scrutinize every departing citizen and his./her baggage, it’s a safe bet that Fredo would be checked out: as we saw at the Senate hearing a few months later, the FBI identified Fredo as a Corleone Family Underboss; and a Corleone traveling from Nevada to Havana would be a likely suspect to be carrying more than the legal amount of cash. Ditto Cuban customs: if they inspected Fredo’s suitcase, it and he would have been history. Michael would never have subjected his $2 million to such risks. So, I’m guessing, Michael would have arranged for Fredo to come in by charter, or some other less-conspicuous or even secret route.
So: Roth’s “six sense” was Fredo. Fredo must have told him that he’d arrived with the $2 million. And, if Michael had been alert, the moment Roth said that he knew the money was in Havana, Michael should have realized that only Fredo could have tipped him--and that Fredo was the traitor. Yet Michael didn’t acknowledge Fredo’s treachery until Fredo practically smacked him in the face with it later at the Superman show.
I guess Vito wasn’t the only Corleone who was slippin’.
Uh, not so fast…
US law then (and now) prohibits Americans from taking more than $10k in cash out of the country. While US Customs didn’t scrutinize every departing citizen and his./her baggage, it’s a safe bet that Fredo would be checked out: as we saw at the Senate hearing a few months later, the FBI identified Fredo as a Corleone Family Underboss; and a Corleone traveling from Nevada to Havana would be a likely suspect to be carrying more than the legal amount of cash. Ditto Cuban customs: if they inspected Fredo’s suitcase, it and he would have been history. Michael would never have subjected his $2 million to such risks. So, I’m guessing, Michael would have arranged for Fredo to come in by charter, or some other less-conspicuous or even secret route.
So: Roth’s “six sense” was Fredo. Fredo must have told him that he’d arrived with the $2 million. And, if Michael had been alert, the moment Roth said that he knew the money was in Havana, Michael should have realized that only Fredo could have tipped him--and that Fredo was the traitor. Yet Michael didn’t acknowledge Fredo’s treachery until Fredo practically smacked him in the face with it later at the Superman show.
I guess Vito wasn’t the only Corleone who was slippin’.