The best of the 5 last Don

Who is the best for you?

Most people think The Chin was the best of the most recent dons because he stayed out of jail and they didn't. But he wins by default. In dollars and cents, The Snake presided over a far more effective borgata before he went away. Gotti pissed away the Gambino empire. Massino and Amuso were basically transition figures.

Vincent Gigante was the best Boss from the Bosses you have named, as Turnbull said, by default. He was not extremely intelligent, but he (very cunningly) stayed out of prison while most of the of other Bosses you have named were either incarcarated or murdered/died of natural causes.

Turnbull, Im surprised you relegate Massino's importance to merely a "trasition figure."

I got the impression that Massino actually took control of a fairly unstable and violent organization and slowly but surely turned it into a quiet, powerful, money-making empire.

It seemed as though the only thing that brought his reign to an end was the fact that his brother in law flipped on him, which then in turn put pressure on him, and he then flipped.

Massino took control of a family in total chaos--not through force of personality but because John Gotti made him a protege. He was in prison at the time, serving a 10-year sentence for RICO and other violations. When he got out, in 1992, law enforcement was on him day and night, watching his every move, listening to his every conversation, leaning on his every associate (especially his brother in law). The Bonannos improved somewhat with him at the helm, but they were just treading water.
You can liken the Bonanno family to a comatose patient before Massino. Under him, the patient opened his eyes. But he never got out of bed.

I see what youre talking about now. Thanks for the explanation.

But if you say Chin was the best boss just because he was out of jail while the rest didn`t then you should say Joe Massino is the best because he was "The Last Don", that means he was the last one to be arrested after Chin, CHin was arrested in 1997 and Massino in 2004.

John Gotti...

My pick would be the Chin too,and the worst would be Gotti.

Not to insult anyone, but the fact that John Gotti really has almost a majority really shows the general lack of public knowledge about Gotti.

Just because he was a flashy figure and beat a few court cases, people automatically assume he was a great Don, where in fact some say the only thing he succesfully did was kill Castellano, and then quickly ran the family into the ground from there. Him, his son, and his brother Pete.

Gigante could be considered a better Don based solely on the fact that most people dont know who he is, which shows that he is a low-key and quiet type of mafioso.

So, if you say Chin is a better boss because he was not a very known mafioso, then you could say Vittorio Amuso from the Lucchese Family is the best boss because nobody knows very much about him.

I think the issue isn't that the Don is "not well known." The important thing is that the Don maintains a low public profile. Everyone knew that Carlo Gambino was the biggest Mafia boss in the country, starting with the fact that his family was named after him. But he maintained a very low public profile--he lived in a modest home in Brooklyn, never went "out on the town," never talked on phones or in places that could be bugged, never threw money around lavishly. One of the results was that he was never convicted of any crime while he was Don, and died peacefully in his bed.
Contrast Gambino's modest behavior to that of Joe Columbo (appeared on national TV, hosted rallies in New York's Columbus Circle); and John Gotti (the biggest loudmouth and celebrity gangster since Capone). Then consider how Columbo and Gotti spent their last years.

Massino do was a powerful and effective don, he took over a family weakened by the Donnie Brasco-case. But he made the Bonnano's a force again. He also respected a lot of the old school rules. he closed a bunch of social clubs and tried to stay out of the spotlight (an example is that he didnt show up for his friend's funeral (John Gotti that is) because he didnt want the attention.

he stayed out of jail for quite a long time, the feds actually hunted him for 7 years with wiretapes and undercover agents. But the problem was that at the end they started to make a case against him a some other family captains. And one by one those captains started to flip.

But still it came as quite a shock that 'the last don' himself became a rat and framed his acting boss 'Vinny gorgeous' Basciano by recording their conversations in prison.
Now the Bonnano's have lost a lot of its power and Massino is to blame for that. But at the height of his reign he was probably the most effective boss.

The most powerful boss is without a doubt the Chin, assisted by his brother Mario and some other old-timers like 'Matty the Horse' Ianniello, 'quiet Dom' Cirillo, Lary Dentico and some others like Johnny Sausages' Barbato, 'Punchy' Iliano or Albert 'kid blast' Gallo.

a lot of those guys got framed in the last months butMario Gigante still survises and in the next couple of years some important guys will be released like Venero' Benny Eggs' Mangano and Gigante's heir Liborio 'Barney Bellomo.

And in 2010 the chin himself will be back.