Hello all, I'm new to this site and have been spending the last few hours with the search button and getting a ton of new perspectives and information on the Godfather novel and movies. A lot of great material here.

An area of particular intrigue for me is the subject of Tessio and his treachery against Michael. It troubles me in a way. It's too simple, the possible outcomes not in any way good for him. I put my thinking hat on for it and came up with this analysis and possible scenario whereby Tessio plans to come out on top. (If I've inadvertently copied another's idea on this, my apologies. My searches yielded no results like this.)

Toward the end of the movie and the novel, Vito intimates to Michael that the one who approaches you with the deal is the traitor. Shortly thereafter, Vito passes away; Tom and Michael debate on the identity of the traitor. They narrow it down to three: Clemenza, Tessio and Carlo. Tom pegs Carlo as the traitor, and we find out that he indeed was earlier on with Sonny.

After the funeral, Tessio approaches Michael with a proposal to meet with Barzini to negotiate a peace deal between them. A deal to be hosted on his own turf, with his own people, to ensure security. As a capo, it would not have been Tessio's place to attempt to deal himself into a play between the Dons of two families; as a long time veteran of the Family ranks, he would know that.

He would also know, being a veteran of organized crime, particularly Italian crime families and omerta, that the act he intended to commit against Michael is nothing short of treachery. He would know that no Don would harbor a traitor in his ranks for any reason. Not Michael, not Vito...and not Barzini. Greed often blinds men to analytical and tactical thought; they often don't think ahead to the long term consequences of their actions. As a Sicilian, however, Tessio likely would've thought about the ramifications of the deal with Barzini and what it would entail for his immediate future.

The surface narrative of the novel and movie leads us to believe that Tessio went to Barzini to make a deal to save his own interests. He offers to bring Michael down, and in return, he saves his own interests and keeps himself from going down with the Corleones when Michael inevitably drives them into the ground. In the aftermath, Tessio takes control of the Corleone family, or what's left of it, and forms an alliance with Barzini.

A huge problem exists in that scenario for Tessio, and I can't help but think that he would've realized it. If he succeeds in having Michael whacked, he is now officially a traitor to his Don. As stated, no Don would willingly harbor a traitor in his ranks. What can be done with you can be done to you, as the saying goes. Tessio's days as the leader of the Corleones would be numbered, as has been stated on the board. If Clemenza didn't put the pieces together and whack Tessio for treachery, Barzini would have out of caution and to consolidate his power. How does Tessio come out on the other side intact?

The answer is to make a few assumptions and go below the surface narrative. We assume that Tessio is the one to approach Barzini initially with the peace initiative. He offers to serve Michael up on a silver platter. Tessio is worried that Michael is going to want to go to war now that his father is dead, and he'll drag everyone down with him. He'll leave the Corleone family barren and decimated.

He won't do the job himself, he says. It has to appear that Barzini orchestrated the hit on Michael, that he approached Tessio with the peace offering as a way to get Michael out in the open. Tessio did the best he could, but couldn't save Michael. The tradeoff is that Tessio gets to keep his territory in Brooklyn, and Barzini can then move in on the remaining Corleone holdings. They form an informal alliance to be the two top Dons in New York. Barzini would've easily seen the opportunity to take the entire Corleone portfolio into his own. Why should he let Tessio keep what he has when Barzini clearly has the superior force? Blinded by greed, he eagerly agrees to the peace meeting as a result.

Now, Tessio plays the other end and approaches Michael with the peace offering; he doesn't state as much, but the implication is that Barzini came to Tessio with the meeting request. Barzini made the initial contact, he says. Tessio says he was able to get concessions on Michael's behalf, such as holding the meeting in Brooklyn, on his own turf. In that way, Tessio says, he can ensure Michael's complete security in the matter.

“It screws up all my arrangements.” Tessio's slip of the tongue when he's found out. What were these so called arrangements? A trip to the machine gun toll booth perhaps? The scenario: Michael and Tessio ride out to the meet and come upon a toll booth. Machine gunners pop out and pump the car full of lead. Tessio is the lone survivor, perhaps wounded and “mistaken for dead in the ambush”...but Michael and the men in the car are actually dead. Shades of Sonny...and a Barzini calling card.

Tessio phones it in and orders up a platoon of men to come for him. They ride out to where the meet was meant to take place and find Barzini. The accusation is leveled. Barzini plays innocent (which he is, this time), but the pleas fall on deaf ears. A firefight erupts between Barzini and Corleone troops, and Barzini is taken down. In one fell swoop, Tessio has taken down the heads of the two most powerful families in New York. All of it without any heat being brought down on himself, and the chance to display his own leadership abilities. A major power vacuum has been created, one which Tessio can easily see himself filling up. As a high ranking Corleone leader, he is positioned to ascend to Don. He takes the throne, and the Barzini holdings are ripe for the pickings. He's in a perfect position to take them too: on the heels of Barzini's “treachery”, it's a perfect opportunity to go to war and seize power.

If Tessio succeeds in this endeavor, which is ultimately to absorb Barzini's holdings and assets, he is now the de facto head of the two largest crime families in New York. In effect, the Barzini family has been absorbed and taken over by the Corleone family. This would put him in the ultimate position of power: the chance to accede to the title of capo de tutti capi.

Under the assumption that he was able to secure the loyalties of the Corleone upper echelon (Hagen, Clemenza, Neri, et al) early on after Michael's demise, then Tessio truly has made it to the top. He appoints Clemenza as consigliere, Neri and Rocco as capos (Neri to take over Tessio's regime, Rocco to take over Clemenza's), and Tom as the family lawyer. Tessio was always smarter...perhaps this was meant to be his smartest move of all.

Of course, the fatal flaw in the plan is that Tessio severely underestimates Michael's cunning and instinct. He ultimately pays for his mistake with his life. It's a recurring mistake that numerous people make with regard to Michael.

Excellent post, and welcome to the boards.

Some of what you say has been covered in other posts. For example there has been much chatter about how badly Tessio would have fared in the Barzini organization had his plan worked (dead within six months).

I think Tessio was driven by hubris, an enormous underestimation of Michael, and greed. The hubris was in believing as a senior capo in the Corleone family that he could arrange a meeting between Michael and Barzini without first consulting Michael. I believe this showed he believed himself better than Michael simply because of his seniority and past association with Vito. The correct thing would have been for him to come to Michael and tell him he had been approached...wha did oit mean, and if there was a meeting a "negotiator" would be held to insure Michael's safety. He did none of that.

This ties in to his underestimating Michael. When he tells Hagen he always liked Michael, and that his betrayal was "business," what he is really saying is he didnt believe Michael would succeed in running the family, and he was jumping ship.

The greed is obvious. Barzini had to have promised him not only his old territories, but a ton of money and a high position in the family if he could deliver Michael.

As for what may have happened to Barzini, I think he was way too smart to have been anywhere near the scene of Michael's assassination. Barzini's "arrangements" were to put Michael in a car with "his people" and take him to some remote prearranged location where he would die. My guess is as soon as Michael drove away, Barzini would do something similar to what he had Solozzo do when he thought Vito had been killed. for instance, kidnap Hagen, or Clemenza, deliver the news, and tell them the Corleones were finished, and their only option was surrender.

Welcome from here, as well, jrp! Just a couple of obsevations:



I think it should be kept in mind that Vito guided this whole idea, though Michael eventually executed it.

I think that Clemenza's death would almost have to have been part of Barzini/Tessio's plan. Too much history with Vito, too much of an equal to Tessio to be trusted to let things stand.

Finally, as I've mentioned elsewhere, you can speculate that Tessio may have been in league with Barzini all along. This thing where he knows the restaurant and even the configuration of the toilet tanks is very fishy.

dontomasso and mustachepete, you make some excellent points. Tessio would have been adjudged to have jumped the chain of command if he went to Barzini on his own and revealed as such. Even without Vito's advice, Michael likely would've judged the act of going to Barzini to be traitorous in and of itself, especially with the tensions between the families. My theory on it goes into uncharted areas and makes a few assumptions. It makes Tessio out to be a rather cunning individual. I find it hard to believe that an old hand like him would've made such a classic blunder, greed or no greed.

My take is that Tessio was trying to play both ends toward the middle, as it were, for his own gain. On his side, he has a Don who's green to the job (Michael) and seemingly incompetent. On the opposite side, there's another Don (Barzini) looking to muscle in and take over.

I believe that Tessio wasn't looking to form an alliance with Barzini, because he knew he couldn't survive as a traitor even if he manages to carry out the hit. By allying with Barzini, as an experienced criminal mind, he would realize that he's taking all of the risk here with potentially no reward in the long term; as you say, he's dead inside of six months. As such, he would then be looking to usurp Barzini.

He wanted to set Michael up to be taken out, and for Barzini to be the fall guy for it. The arrangements that he moans over were his own. First, he approaches Barzini with a peace proposal from Michael; next, he approaches Michael saying that Barzini approached him with the same peace proposal. If the meeting goes on as planned, Tessio has his own men at the toll booth laying in wait, playing it up as Barzini troops. The car is ambushed, Michael and his men are taken out and Tessio "survives" the attack. The attack is classic Barzini. The Corleones retaliate and take out Barzini. Tessio then steps into the big seat and takes over.

On the bit about the restaurant, it was on Tessio's turf, wasn't it? If the restaurant's reputation was well known, Tessio probably dined there quite a bit; if the toilet tank configuration was unusual for the time, it would've been notable.

Provocative post, jrb. But, I think the answer is simpler: survival.

In the fish tank scene, Tess complains bitterly that Barzini is invading his territory, and "pretty soon I won't have a place to hang my hat." Vito and Michael tell him to be patient. Tess concluded that both were going soft, and that, when Vito died, Barzini would soon overrun the Corleone Family, in the process whacking Michael and probably himself and Clem.

Also recall in the same scene, Clemenza said, "Godfather, you said the time would come when me and Tessio could form our own family." Emphasis on the singular--"family." There never was, and never will be, a co-Donship. So, best case, Tess believed he'd have to either split up the family with Clem or fight him to the death. Either would have weakened him and made him more vulnerable to Barzini.

So, he decided to be proactive--sell out to Barzini. It'd buy him time to figure out what to do next. Standing still was, in Tess's mind, sure death.

I agree, Turnbull. Tessio came to a realization that Michael was an incompetent Don and that Barzini would run them over if left unchecked. A great deal of what I theorized would hinge on Tessio's timeline and his planning. Did he have a plan in place if/when Vito was out of commission permanently? How long would he have after Vito's passing to act to preserve himself?

I hang my hat, so to speak, on the premise that Tessio wasn't as short sighted as to believe that Barzini would honor such a deal and cease his offensive against Corleone (and by extension, Tessio's) interests. He knew what kind of man that Barzini was, and that he would have to deal with him with a quickness if he is to survive. Out of that, a plan forms to not only survive, but to thrive.

His underestimation of Michael, his impatience and ignorance of Michael's master plan are his undoing. No one except Michael himself, Vito and perhaps Tom knew what the master plan was. Like Tessio, Michael knew what kind of man that Barzini was, and he knew that there would be no type of deal between them. If he could've let it ride as Clemenza did (as he was advised to do), then he would've been sitting pretty at the end of it all.

if I can add my .02 cents.

In the book THE CORLEONE FAMILY, Barzini, a young Barzini who was not the boss yet, betrays his boss to the Corleone family, in order to avoid a prolonged war. Tessio is the one who kills the boss, Faranzano/Mariposa.

Now I know that this book was written years after all this took place, but it could have been that Barzini actually made his rise to power that way, and is allowing Tessio to do the same.

Tessio would always owe Barzii, like Joe Columbo owed Carlo Gambino. Tessio would need to either bring in Pete or kill him and the rest fall in line....Of course then Barzini would in effect control 3 families, his Tattaglia, and Corleone.

Good thought, Dooley36. That does add a 'shades of...' perspective to the situation. Tessio aided Barzini in the past, now Barzini returns the favor. Brothers bound by treason.

However, Barzini being the kind of Don that he seems to be, I can't see that he would honor the deal for long. He'd look to consolidate his power and assets fairly quickly I would imagine.

I maintain the thought that if Tessio had been successful, then Barzini would have found a way to off him relatively quickly, whether via "accident" or outright execution, to eliminate a potential problem down the road since if Tessio is willing to sell out the Corleones due to them being weaker (or, rather, giving that impression) then he would do it again to Barzini if the Barzini family's power waned.