Hyman Roth is based on Meyer Lansky. But did Meyer Lansky, in real life, have the power to go to war (or struggle for power) with a mafiaboss?
I think not, i think he was a very good moneymaker and because of that he was respected and everybody liked him. But he doesn't have a 'family' or a 'group' behind him, so how could he go to war with a powerfull mafiaboss like Hyman Roth?

Meyer Lansky was a money maker for the mob, as you pointed out. But don't forget that Meyer Lansky was the right hand man to Charlie "Lucky Luciano" and therefore he surely did have the backing of a powerful mafia boss/family which would go to war if need be.

Who doesn't have a family behind him? How can who go to war with Roth? Roth was NOT a powerful Mafia boss.

Don Cardi

One of the reasons that the real-life Lansky lived to be 81 and died peacefully was because he didn't have a Family and didn't go to war with anyone. But he had plenty of power that derived from his close association with Charlie Luciano and other Mafia bigshots. For example, Frank Costello was one of Lansky's closest allies. After Vito Genovese forced Costello's retirement in 1957 following a botched assassination attempt, Lansky conspired with Costello to set up a drug deal with Genovese that was so good that Genovese "couldn't refuse it." Then they paid Nelson Cantellops, a Puerto Rican drug dealer, to rat out Genovese. As a result, Genovese went away to prison for a long term and died there.

Sorry i meand to say: Go to war with a powerfull mafiaboss (Micheal Corleone) like Hyman Roth did.


Lansky was powerfull because of his associates (Lucky, Costello). But who were Roth's associates than? Not the Rosato's. Roth was bigger than the Rosato's (The Rosato's were 'backed-up by that Jew in Miami').

Lets say another powerfull mob-boss (Boss A) was Roth's muscle, his backup. If Roth went to 'war' with Micheal, the 'war' has to be between Micheal and Boss A..

A strange example:
A 5-year old kid is arguing with a 40 year old strong man. The 5-year old kid's father is another 40 year old strong man. The fight goes between the 2 strong 40 year old guys. The kid plays no role in the fight.

Comparing Roth with a 5-year old kid .....man what have my parents done wrong?

You know, the war is between Roth and Micheal and Roth isn't backed-up...

Anyway, I hope you guys know what i mean

Roth had Giuseppe Ola and his men as bodyguards. And he had a lot of money and political influence. What's the need for a family of soldiers.

And in those days (58-59), wars weren't fight anymore like in the Vito-days... The world became modernized, and the first ones too follow were maffia-bosses and men like Lansky/Roth.

Juventus, the goal of Roth's plot was to avoid a war by making it look like Frank Pentangeli ordered the assassination attempt on Michael at Tahoe. There was no need for Roth to have any muscle to back him up. If the assassination had succeeded, Michael would have been dead, and Frankie would have taken the blame.

That's amazing, I had no idea anything like that ever happened.

It's amazing that a mob boss paid someone to rat, and they did.

And its equally amazing to find out that Genovese was set up by Costello and Lansky.

You learn something new every day.

Where did you find this information Turnbull, if you can recall?

It's one of the few Mafia stories that's universally accepted. You can find it in any bio of Vito Genovese.

And to think at one point I wrote a small biography on Genovese. Must've been looking at the wrong sources.

I always assumed that Michael still had some enemies (unnamed in the film) left over from the "old days", and that Roth's hit attempt was not without some form of assistance, or at least the tacit backing or approval of some or all of them.