In mob folklore, Vito Genovese called a commission meeting and planned on being crowned capo de tutti capi at Apalachin:

Why would charter members on the commission (Bonanno, Maggadino, Profaci) recognize a boss of bosses, when the title didn't exist?

What authority would a boss of bosses have, as every commission member had one vote?

Also...

Did Meyer Lansky (along with Costello and Lucky) tip off the local authorities, or did Officer Croswell discover the meeting on his own?

1. I don't think Vito was going to proclaim himself "boss of bosses". Where did you read this? By getting rid of Costello, he had already made himself the most powerful don anyway.

2. Nobody really knows for sure but I chalk it up to just intuitive thinking and action on the part of Croswell. I'm sure it was probable that Lansky and Costello were involved but at that point, neither one of them (or Lucky for that matter) were too concerned with LCN dealings. Lucky was deported and being closely watched by FBN and the Italian police, Costello had escaped an assassin's bullet and Lansky wasn't as concerned with the goings-on in LCN as many books and publications would make it seem.

the dead friend of vito Genovese buster ardito was caught on a bug 2004 talking to his lawyer friend pete peluso something about joe bonanno being or trying to be boss of bosses. joe held all the power circa 1960. vito went to jail, Gambino just getting started, profici had the smallest family, luchese we just don't know much about and joe planting flags everywhere.

Out of interest did any of this come from "The Prime Minister of the Underworld" book? I've not actually read it myself but i know someone who has, and Toodoped posted this thread about the book - http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=713596 . As you know i suspect since i've read your posts and you seem very knowledgeable on LCN, Maranzano was the last in NY.

I think the other titles were pure media stuff, the families didnt use those kind of titles anyway.

Someone posted FBI files from maryferrell, and from them it seemed like from at least the early 60's Maggadino was against Bonanno. I've got nothing to base this on other than Maggadinos clear hatred for Joe in these docs that, Buffalo were teamed with the Gambinos and Luchesses, also possibly the Genovese i'm not clear on their situation at the time.

Camarel, yes, I read the George Wolf biography and recommend it, despite the glamorizing of Costello. I'm currently rereading Tim Newark's biography of Luciano and it's mentioned in there. Newark's biography also listed Lansky as the whistle blower, quoting Doc Stacher as the source. I also read Mafia Summit, by Gil Reavill.

On a related note, did anyone read that attendees brought envelopes for tribute to Vito?

Again, I found the concept of Genovese being recognized as the boss of bosses to be ridiculous, leading to my thread here....

What do you think about this part of the book - http://books.google.mk/books?id=JugCAAAA...own&f=false ? It just makes me think of it as mob fantasy similar to "The last testament of lucky Luciano" book.

Edit: Where did you read this - attendees brought envelopes for tribute to Vito?

Camarel, I found the Genovese/Costello prison sit down to be the largest piece of fiction in Wolf's book.

However, nothing can match the silliness (in The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano) of Judge McCook in Luciano's cell; in tears and on his knees begging Lucky to remove the Sicilian curse from his family...

in 1956 Carmine Galente was caught speeding coming from or going tot he 56 commission meeting.
there was a bid push by local political people to get the charges dropped, this led to an association with Joe Barberra, and as a result the police started keeping an eye on him.

The police overheard Joe jr renting rooms at a local hotel in 57 and figured something was up....

Here are some examples. I'm not saying that these are all reputable, but it's been reported enough for me to ask about it.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/family_epics/genovese1/6.html
"Vito Genovese had pushed for the Apalachin Conference, as it later became known, and its generally believed that this was where he planned to have himself crowned boss of all bosses."

http://crime.about.com/od/gangsters/a/genovese.htm
His next goal was to take over the Luciano family and become "The Boss of Bosses" in the Mafia.....On November 14, 1957, Genovese reportedly coordinated what became known as the Appalachian Meeting, where he expected to be named Boss of Bosses.

http://www.carpenoctem.tv/mobsters/vito-genovese/
Genovese probably even expected to be anointed boss of bosses at the meeting, but it ended in a total fiasco when authorities raided the affair and scooped up dozens of Mafia figures.

Lucky Luciano, by Tim Newark
Genovese wanted a coronation to celebrate the beginning of his reign as boss of bosses and he chose a stone hilltop mansion at Apalachin......he wanted them to recognize him as their leader and accept a period of peace under his rule

I'll include some sources, which led to my question. However, I'm not declaring these sources to be accurate:

Lucky Luciano, by Tim Newark
None of Lanky's closest friends went to the meetings. What he did was tip off the local sheriff about the meetings.
"Nobody to this day knows that it was Meyer who arranged for Genovese's humiliation"- Doc Stacher

http://thenewyorkmafiabosses.blogspot.com/2013/01/boss-of-bosses.html
It fact, some have asserted that the Apalachin
Conference of 1957 was called to crown Genovese as
the new boss of bosses....
A police raid broke up the
meeting, and strong evidence later showed the con-
ference was sabotaged by an alliance of Lansky,
Luciano (from exile in Italy) and Frank Costello — all
three not present at the meeting — and Carlo Gam-
bino...

According to statements attributed to Luciano, Gam-
bino had gone there in case the meeting somehow
proceeded, planning to denounce Genovese's ambi-
tions and to refuse to hand him any envelope of
money as a symbol of his authority.

This did not stop the press from calling Genovese
the boss of bosses, but if he was, his reign was to
prove even less enduring than that of the unfortunate
Maranzano.

http://thenewyorkmafiabosses.blogspot.com/2013/01/apalachin-conference.html
The fact that Vito Genovese became the emperor caught
without his clothes and was destroyed at the meeting
suggests a setup. Through hindsight — and the revela-
tions made by such figures as Lucky Luciano and
Doc Stacher that the police were tipped off and the
meeting sabotaged — it became almost impossible to
reject insider foul play.

Newspaper speculation suggested that the
Apalachin meeting was intended as a forum for
presenting Genovese with his "boss of bosses"
crown. Much was also made of the fact that a total
of $300,000 was found on the arrested crime
bosses; "envelope money" perhaps to be given to
Genovese? More likely the money was a total of
typical fat wads carried by dons. And Carlo Gam-
bino did make it known that he brought no money
for Genovese.

Last Testament of Lucky Luciano
"I told Carlo to go to the meet, but not to bring no envelope. He took my advice....he told me later, that if things had come to a showdown, he was gonna stand up up and tell Vito to go to hell, that he didn't have the chance of a snowball in hell that the council would name him top capo"- Luciano

Nice stories all, but the problem here is common to all readings about the Mob: most are either pure BS or are rumors repeated from book to book. No one took notes at the '57 Apalachin meeting so we'll never know for sure. What is interesting is that there was a commission meeting the year before, so the '57 meeting must have been something special. What might be credible? In '57, Genovese arranged for Anastasia to be assassinated, and for Costello to retire after his skull was grazed by a bullet fired by The Chin. So, it's credible that the meeting was held, in part, to anoint Genovese as boss of the family formerly headed by Costello, and to bless Gambino as Anastasia's successor. Another possibility: to approve drug-trafficking. That might explain why Bonanno wasn't at the meeting (his close associate, Gaspar DeGregorio, was). Bonanno earlier that year had set up his own drug trafficking apparatus with Luciano in Sicily, so he and Genovese might have been rivals in the drugs business.

Did Lansky blow the whistle on the meeting? That piece of BS was touted by Rich Cohen, in his BS-laden book, "Tough Jews." I doubt that Lansky would have bit the hands of 80 or so dangerous men who fed him.

Good point. Although Lanksy didn't like Genovese, he supposedly supported Anastasia being clipped because Albert was trying to muscle in on his Havana rackets. And I believe that Lansky had a better working relationship with Carlo.

Why would Doc Stacher have lied about Lansky sabotaging the Apalachin meeting. Did his quotes originally come from Tough Jews?



This is interesting, because it would provide a motive on why Luciano/Lansky would want to kill the Apalachin conference.

I find Bonanno's meeting in Sicily interesting. While I have no doubt his intentions were to set up an international drug distribution ring, there have been conflicting accounts of Lucky's involvement. Some reports have Lucky as a major player in narcotics, after being deported to Italy.

On the other hand, according to Tim Newark, Luciano was a fake gangster at this point, and was shut out of Bonanno's meetings in Sicily. Supposedly, Lucky's powerful ally in Sicily, Don Calo, had passed away and the young gangsters weren't interested in paying homage to the old timers. How ironic, lol.

Another version of Bonanno's meeting in Sicily was from Tomasso Buschetta- a Sicilian gangster, who later became a turncoat. He claimed that Luciano set up a dinner with both Bonanno and Buschetta. And this is supposedly where they hashed out the details. This version seems to be the least credible.

The most plausible reason IMO.



The Mafia was involved in drug trafficking since the 1920s so why would they needed to approve it in 1957?



Indeed. If Lansky ratted them out he would have been killed for it.

I think Croswell did have some kind of a personal beef with LaBarbera. Reading through some of the articles published on the raid and the interviews on him, he does come across as a braggart. Like he finally got his long sought 15 minutes in fame, giving him a great personal satisfaction and at the same time getting the chance to nail LaBarbera. That´s the feeling I get. He was aware of the mobster meeting that had taken place the year before but that had slipped through his hands. From time to time, he was conducting surveillance on the LaBarbera estate. So I doubt that there was a tip off.

I believe there were two major issues that were being discussed at Apalachin. These two issues needed the attention of all the bosses around the country:

- The murder attempt on Costello and the murder of Anastasia. All of the bosses needed to know why violence had been used. Especially those bosses who had had business dealings with Costello and Anastasia and who had been close to them. This was important because letting them know eased their minds.

- The other major issue was the banning of drugs, across the board. In reality though, this ban never worked because many soldiers and captains on the street level were looking to quickly enrich themselves, especially the ones who had recently been made.

No one was crowned the boss of bosses at the meeting. Neither was anybody supposed to be crowned the boss of bosses at the meeting. No one had the slightest ambition of becoming the boss of bosses, after the creation of the Commission back in 1931. Can you guys imagine the wrath of other bosses these kind of ambitions would lead to?

I find it hard to believe that Gambino would have challenged Genovese openly like that. Especially in public. Not that he was afraid or anything but he was a quiet, deceiving and calculating man. It seems he would have smiled and said nothing and then plotted behind his back to extract his revenge or set the record straight.

I don't think Genovese wanted to make himself boss of bosses, the previous two gentlemen who tried that wound up dead. While Vito's a ruthless prick, he's not exactly stupid. I think '57 was vito trying to throw his weight around; because while there never was a boss of bosses after '31, there was a consistant unofficial pecking order on the commission depend who had the power and who had the right allies. I think Vito was trying to call a commission meeting to show that he was the man in the drivers seat on the commission now which then gets wrongly interpreted as trying to make himself capo di tutti capi. Bonnano talks in his autobiography about the changing tides of alliances on the commission during this time peroid. Maggadino and Bonnano did have a falling out (this is covered also in joe's book, he clearly does not like his cousin) which I think played a big part in the meddling by other families that lead to the banana's war (although I don't think anyone every believed for one second that joe's "disapearance" was a kidnapping by maggadino)

I think Vito made himself boss of luciano/masseria family and they officially named gambino head of the mangano family at the '57 meeting to put the costello/genovese and mangano/anastasia beefs to bed.

The sicily thing is interesting, there's always talk of that being where Bonnano set up a major heroin deal, he may have, but I think there are arrest records of made guys that indicate that these guys were smuggling and selling heroin long before 1956. Bonnano may have expanded it at that point, he didn't necessarily need lucky because bonnano probably had more contacts in sicily than lucky did because of his lineage.

I agree in part of what you are saying in the post above, but want to emphasize the last part. Members of the Mafia dealt in dope long before 1957. Pipelines had been established already in the 1930s. Numerous of made guys had been caught by the authorities in the 1930s and 1940s dealing in drugs and some of them were deported to Italy. Some bosses allowed drug dealing in their Families, some bosses didn´t. At the Apalachin meeting (which was not a Commission meeting but a national meeting with more than 60 participants) a national ban against dope dealing was declared. The Commission had two weeks prior to Apalachin, held a meeting in New Jersey where they had settled the Costello/Genovese beef and named Gambino as provisional boss of Anastasia´s Family. This, with the decision to impose a national drug ban, needed to be addressed to all the bosses around the country. And that is why the Appalachin meeting was held.

Yes, good point about the commission meeting, held before the national meeting at Apalachin. It was here that they discussed Costello's retirement.

As far as drugs....you posted an interesting theory. However, I can't figure out why Vito would call a national meeting to ban drug trafficking, since he was heavily involved with it, along with Bonanno. It's one thing to ban your underlings from dealing drugs. It's another thing to ban other dons from making money through drugs.

Supposedly, years later, Carmine Galante angered other dons because he didn't share his wealth from his lucrative narcotics racket. Money rules with the mob, therefore, I believe planning how to work together on drug distribution is more believable than banning the racket altogether. But that's just a guess.

Either way, I don't believe the drug related portion of the agenda was discussed at Apalachin, as the cops busted up the meeting right after most of the attendees arrived.

There are conflicting reports about a follow up meeting to Apalachin. Did the dons decide to skip the national agenda altogether... or did they tempt fate by holding another national meeting in a more secure location, which was kept secret from the press/LE?

I don't believe they ever imposed a ban on drugs. Wouldn't it be highly ironic for Genovese to organize a national meeting with the main purpose to impose a ban on drugs, only to be busted for dealing dope two years later? Not to mention that this meeting turned out to be disastrous for the mob. How could he have managed to run his family from jail for another ten years if he had lost so much face? The Genoveses would have been the laughing stock of the entire Mafia.

Oh but wait... Genovese was framed by Luciano... right. It's time Discovery's MythBusters devote one of their episodes to the American Mob. Stop living in a fantasy world, they were all involved in dope up their necks, Bonanno, his son, his wife, his mistress, his dog, anyone.

The consensus on a declaration against drug dealing was worked out by the Commission members prior to the Appalachin meeting. I have no clue how Genovese voted on the matter.

Galante being killed because he refused to share his drug profits seems to be nothing else but a myth. The Bonanno zip faction was involved with the heroin both before and after the Galante hit. They never shared their drug profits with anyone but with themselves, not even after the Galante hit. So the claim that Galante was killed because refusing to share his drug profits is bullshit.

After the Apalachin raids, most of the arestees were indicted on conspiracy charges after they had refused to testify on what had been going on during the meeting. Following the raid and at least to around 1960 when the charges against them were dismissed, the bosses chose to lay extremely low and ceased close contact. So a follow up meeting seems unlikely to have happend, unless they sent lower ranking figures to meet with eachother.



Sonny, you seems to be exaggerating here a little bit.

re: Vito, if anyone wants to read some great Genovese shit, get "The Prosecutor" by James Mills, which features an amazing section on Ernie "The Hawk" Rupolo--

http://www.amazon.com/Prosecutor-James-Mills/dp/B0018ZHOHI/

Tho' I've read a good bit of Mills over the years, somehow I missed this until recently.

I think Carmine got killed because basically since the banana's war the bonnano's had been splintered, so they oked the hit on carmine to consolidate that family and probably because rusty was willing to cut the other families in on a bigger piece of the bonnano drug trade than carmine would have been.

Carmine wanted to keep whatever the bonnano's had going to himself, rusty sold some of it off for commission approval to be boss. He likely had massino make a deal with zips and carmine ends up on the floor of the restuarant patio. I don't know, just a theory that would seem consistant with operations in that world

Also interesting to see how the murder of the conzsalvo brothers that were in the gambino family, and the gambino's own zip portion (the cherry hill gambino's were basically zips, right?) played into the galante hit. Everyone agrees that Carmine was never boss, just a capo; but I don't know who was boss, who was answering to who and how each families drug rackets played into it; but when things happen in the volcano (as bonnano put it), the gambino's and genovese's usually had a hand in it.

I don´t understand your argument. Why would Galante, a member of the Bonanno Family, be obligated to share profits with other bosses? The ones involved with the importation and selling of heroin were caught by LE later in the 1980s. All of them were so called zips, either made members of/associates of the Bonanno Family or associates of the Gambino Family. Most of them had ties to Sicilian Mafia clans. To my knowledge, this group did not share the drug profits with other NY bosses. Not even after the Galante killing. Persico, Corallo, Castellano and Gigante did not receive drug profits from this group.



Yes, the Cherry Hill Gambinos were all zips and they played a huge part in the heroin ring later broken up by LE. And just for the record, I doubt there was a link between Galante and the murder of the Consalvo brothers.

No sir, I'm not saying he would share his profits with the bosses, i'm saying that whatever % of control over the market they had, they would give up to other families. For examples, if the bonnano's were controlling the drug trade in jersey, they gave that up to the cherry hill gambino's (or at least allowed them to operate in that territory) in exchange for sanctioning the carmine hit and backing rusty as boss.

I had never heard of the consavlo brothers before coming to this site to be honest, I was just wondering to what extent their murders may have played into the feeling of the commission that galante was a threat (if he indeed was considered a threat) that lead to his demise. I have no idea, I don't think any of us will, but I thought it'd be something to think about

Honestly I think Rusty just had more "power guys" under him than Galante. I think it was a power play from the start.

Yeah, I think it wasn't any more complicated than Rusty asking the Commission permission to off Galante and the Commission approving, ostensibly because Rastelli was someone the other families could better work with as boss.

I agree. The commission viewed Galante as a threat to themselves.

Galante was probably close to Joe Bananas, since he was the former underboss and likely heir to the throne.... and the commission didn't want the connection.
For self preservation reasons, the other bosses approved the hit on Galante. I'm sure that Rusty didn't need permission from the other bosses, but once he had it, Galante was done.

The other bosses didn't want any more precedents of a don getting whacked by an ambitious underling. And they knew that Galante was bragging that he was going to be boss of bosses. Plus, he was bragging in jail that he was going to make Carlo shit in Times Square. And he had Frank Costello's mausoleum blown up. This guy had brass balls.

The combination of Galante's ambition, with the fortune generated by his drug racket, made the other bosses nervous. And although this may be mob folklore, most sources list Galante's refusal to share drug profits with other families as a major reason for him getting clipped. Plus, Galante had plans to control the narcotics market. So, I understand LittleMango's posts that Rusty was willing to share the proceeds from the drug trade with other families, while Galante was not.

I admit the sharing of money between the 5 families is confusing. But there was a sharing of profits with the concrete club. And the windows scam. And the gasoline tax scam. So why not drugs?