50 years have passed since Joe Valachi revealed to the world the existence of La Cosa Nostra. Only I would ask those who are more experienced than me, if the guilt at the end don't was of Genovese.
He wanted the Apalachin meeting, and was always giving him the kiss of death to Joe Valachi believing that he had betrayled him, without having the evidence.
Valachi even if he was a low level soldier of the family, would certainly not spoken, until after he had killed a thief mistaking him for a gunman, he had faced to choose to the risk of be whacked in prison by the Genovese men or to finish on the electric chair.

what is your opinion?

I think if the Genoese hadn't been so eager to become capo dei capi, Apalachin and the betrayal of Valachi wouldn't have happened.

why was genovese around so long? from what I understand...none of the other top guys at the time really liked him at all.

anybody able to expand on this as well?

Genovese was as heavy as you could get. Simply put, guys were afraid of him. The bosses who weren't big on him (Costello, Anastasia) were muscled out and the remainder (Lucchese, Bonanno, Profaci) didn't necessarily care what Vito did as long as he stayed out of their respective families. Lansky, despite what some say to the contrary, was finished as a shot-caller now that Lucky and friends were out of the picture. Gambino owed his spot to Vito (if you follow that line of thinking) so he backed him for the initial period of his reign.

Yes,but do you think that if Genovese don't want to whacked Valachi without proof, Valachi will became a rat or take his mouth shout ?

I don't think Valachi would have ratted without the murder rap hanging over his head. I think his motivation was to avoid death-row, getting revenge on Genovese was just the cherry on the top.

Vito Genovese was around so long cause he was a ruthless killer and at the time of him being boss, he had about eight crews that had reputations of being stoned cold killers. Bonanno and Profaci did not mind Genovese as long as he did not interfere with their families. Gambino and Lucchese backed Vito up. Genovese and Lucchese relationship can be traced all the way back to the Castellammarese war. Genovese ordered the meeting, but it was Magaddino who tapped Barbara to have it at his place against the protest of some of his underlings as well as Barbara himself and a few other bosses such as John Alito of Milwaukee, the California bay area bosses, so you have to lay most of the blame at Magaddino for damaging LCN.

Near the end of Genovese time as boss, many of his top men in the crime family and capo's were disfranchised by Vito's orders from inside the prison, and were secretly recorded by the FBI planning on have Genovese killed once he was out of prison. The Apalachin meeting and his handling of Valachi had made Vito lose a lot of face to the other LCN bosses.