I believe it was a joint effort by multiple bosses who wanted to keep the peace. Anastasia wanted to revenge the Costello shooting but the bosses sided with Genovese who had more pull with the Commission. He was extremely close with Lucchese, a boss who does not nearly enough recieve the credit he should for much of the conniving that was going on around that time.
The planning and execiution fell on the Riccobono/Biondo/Armone crew although some Genovese people also were involved.

Gotcha. Thank you for the clarification.

Hairy that therory is the most likely , that's the one I believe , wots your take in the whole gallo / persico therory ??

It was Sidney Slater (a Gallo associate who gave testimony against Gallo) who said that the Gallo gang was involved with the hit. While sitting in a bar, drinking and talking about the hit, the story goes, Joey Gallo had said "you can call the five of us the barbershop quintet". Either Slater was a liar, or it was Gallo who had lied to him. Take your pick.

I personally don't believe the gallo theory at all , I'm more swayed to believe the capeci therory , why would the gambinos who had more hitters back then than most would farm out the most important hit of that time to a unhinged group like the gallos , it makes no sense to me at all

yeah but why was SCALISE murdered ? c'mon dont believe the membership excuse . scalise was well respected in the mob . many family member's and close personal friends on the commission . and bonnano was conveinintly gone to sicily . and another weird scenario , BONNANO say's he appointed GAMBINO around 1960 , Then gambino snakes him two year's later with LUCCHESE. ?????

Valachi was the one who said that Scalise was killed due to him (and Anastasia) selling memberships. That´s a theory I don´t hold much stock into. Sounds wierd that bosses would do something despicable like that. It goes against all the rules of what a man of honor should abide to. However, it may have been used as a false excuse to kill him. Another theory is that Scalise grew too powerful and that Anastasia therefore feared him. But this holds no water either because Anastasia could easily have gotten rid of the problem simply by demoting him. In fact, killing him would have increased the problem if Scalise had a large faction behind him. A third theory is Scalises´s alleged involvment with drugs. It is said that Scalise was behind a big heroin deal that went sour and that investors lost a lot of money. It could also be that Anastasia was unaware of Scalise´s involvment and decided to whack him when he found out. And of course, there is also the Costello connection. Who knows...perhaps Scalise had knowledge of the assassination attempt on Costello (who was very tight with Anastasia) but never informed Anastasia about it?

I have always thought that Genovese was behind setting Scalise up by having Anastasia have him murdered. HairyKnuckles, the story is that Scalise was involved with drugs and on one of these deals was a big deal that went south with Scalise losing money that was given to him by both Strollo and Galante. When Bender found out what had happened, he informed both Genovese and Galante as Carmine fronted part of the money. When Strollo demanded that Scalise repay the lost money, Frank pulled rank. Vito told Tony to sit tight for now, and checked around. Some time later Vito found out that Scalise did not inform Anastasia of his dealings in drugs and was keeping the profits for himself. Genovese used Galante who was made in the Bonanno crime family for a sitdown with Anastasia as Albert at the time did not trust members of the Genovese and Lucchese crime families that were close to their family bosses. Carmine informed Anastasia of Scalise, and a setup was made. Tony was instructed to make another deal with Scalise, and if Frank did not report to Albert or kick up, then he was to be killed.

That is the story. Weather this is true or not we may never know. Valachi was the one that said Scalise was killed for selling membership, but Valachi was only a soldier and only knew what his capo Tony Bender or members of his and other families told him.

^^^ Good detailed post. And I agree that we will probably never know the truth, which is frustrating...

So Galante loaned Scalise money for a drug deal ? so Vito and Galante were obviously close . explains why Gambino had to include him in the frame up .

So basically LUCCHESE and GAMBINO double crossed everybody . wonder if that BONNANO plot was real ? But if you think about it ,DON PEPPINO must have seen the writing on the wall .after Genovese got locked up and galante ,profaci being challenged .

Ehh. Lanksy was a boss though. He was the single most dominant player in Cuba. If he didn't want someone there that person wasn't going to be there. Like most of the other big moves, Anastasia's murder must have been silently assented to by most of the power players at the time. And that included Lansky. I doubt he solely set up or ordered Anastasia's murder but I believe he would have given his ok. Having Lansky on board also would have been politically useful to anyone worried about reaction from old timers like Luciano/Costello.

In Havana Nocturne the author writes of Lansky's cold unfriendliness towards Anastasia while Anastasia was in Cuba but more to the point he writes of Lansky's change towards calm and peacefulness shortly before Anastasia's murder. The author also argues that Lansky friend Joe Stassi might have been in on the organization of the hit or communication surrounding it, as he had flown to NY and checked into the Park Sheraton under an assumed name 2 days before the hit.

If you´re talking about the Genovese drug conviction, I don´t think there was a frame up. Of course, I can´t say for sure but Mafia bosses turning on other Mafia bosses (giving them up to police) in order to get rid of them sounds unbelievable to me. However, Nelson Cantellops´ testimony against Genovese may have been all lies, spurred by the prosecution side.

http://books.google.se/books?id=aK1fo5Lh...ops&f=false

yeah but why was galante included .the rumor mill said that if BONNANO had lilo by his side .he has a better chance at keeping his family together DURING THE WAR

I doubt very much that Galante was framed. He was caught fair and square. If you take a look at all the major narcotic cases from late 1950s til mid 1960s, the offenders belonged to all but one NY Family (the Profacis). So there were offenders belonging to Families allied with Gambino (Genovese and Lucchese) and more importantly, offenders who were close to both Gambino and Lucchese (Armone, Ormento and others). I have made a summary of these cases and will present them in a thread on here.

Galante was not framed. Genovese was framed. LE did not know much how LCN worked and tooked Cantellops at face value.

Reading the eyewitness statements on the shooters, the descriptions match perfectly with those of Stephen Grammauta, and Joe N. Gallo as being two of the three shooters. These blackout lines really get to me and have no way of knowing what they have in them. If Joe N. Gallo was indeed one of the shooters, then it stands to reason why so many miscredited Joe Gallo and his brothers from the Profaci family as the shooters as Joe N. Gallo was said to be low key, while Joe Gallo loved the spot light.

talking about the prelude to SCALISE being being blasted .GALANTE seem's to be so much of a enormous part of the 1950's NYC mob scene . he had top link's to all five families.
He probably was seething in LEWISBURG , pre 1957 was he more powerful than gambino ?

Stevie Coogan