Thanks for the swell reception, guys! Here’s another entry:

DOES THE COMMISSION CONTROL ORGANIZED CRIME?

No. Contrary to what many people believe, the Commission does not adjudicate inter- or intra-family disputes, divvy up territories, sanction murders, or maintain a common treasury or army to punish renegades or law enforcement foes (like Joe Pistone). But Mafia families do cooperate when it serves their purposes:

The only thing Mob families have in common are greed, and distrust of their fellow Mobsters. But they try to avoid wars, which are wasteful and destructive, and they do agree on broad arrangements that suit them. Most often the arrangements are made between families, not at Commission meetings. And they are made only by mutual agreement. Dons are highly individualistic, and the Commission cannot force any family to do its bidding. Or, as Mario Puzo noted in the GF novel: Dons shared two characteristics--they were good listeners, and no one could bend their will unless they were persuaded by utmost reasonableness. Here's a little history:

Charlie Luciano formed the Commission after the Castellemmarese War of 1930-31. His vision of the Commission was not as a “governing body” for organized crime that would manage Mob affairs or even allocate territories. Rather, he saw the Commission as a kind of corporate Board of Directors that would meet occasionally to allow the rugged individuals to discuss broad matters of interest to all.

Luciano had his own agenda: Though born in Sicily, he was a thoroughly American businessman, and was dedicated to destroying the “Moustache Pete” mentality that led to the war and to Salvatore Maranzano declaring himself capo di tutti capi. He also saw that, with Prohibition’s days numbered, new opportunities would emerge that families could share in if they learned to cooperate. Luciano also recognized that help should be welcomed from any useful sources, including non-Sicilians and even non-Italians. That’s why he nominated Al Capone as chairman of the Commission, and included Jews like Meyer Lansky, Lepke Bucholter, Dutch Shultz and Bugsy Siegel in Commission meetings.

His forceful personality drove the Commission, but neither he nor the Commission as a whole ever micromanaged families’ affairs. They stuck with broad strokes. A representative accomplishment was to get agreement that Dutch Shultz’s plan to whack New York special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey was a threat to all Commission members, and to whack Shultz. After his imprisonment and exile to Italy, Luciano convened an important Commission meeting in Havana in 1946, at which Siegel’s fate was sealed and a general direction set for the future of Nevada gaming. This, too, was a broad stroke: the Commission didn’t divvy up territory, it simply ruled that no single family owned Vegas. What’s more, Jewish gangsters, not Mafiosi, dominated Vegas in the immediate postwar era.

The Commission declined after Luciano was run out of Cuba. Meetings were held every 18-24 months, and were usually dominated by an individual Don’s personal agenda. For example, the famously aborted Apalachin NY meeting of 1957 was called by Vito Genovese to bless drug trafficking, endorse his protégé Carlo Gambino as Albert Anastasia’s successor, and to anoint Don Vitone as de facto capo di tutti capi. But it was doomed to fail even before police busted it up because Joe Bonanno had recently cut a huge drug deal with Luciano in Sicily, and boycotted the meeting; and because Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky were already plotting against Genovese.

The Commission made a grandstand play in the early Sixties when a plot by Bonanno and his ally Joe Magliocco to whack Tommy Luchese and Gambino was uncovered. The Commission forced Magliocco to resign his Donship in favor of Joe Columbo (who betrayed the plot). Magliocco was seriously ill with heart disease and was ready to quit. But when Bonanno refused to appear before them, the Commission ordered him to step down and appointed Gaspar DiGregorio as his successor. A war ensued that not only wrecked the Bonannos, but also weakened the Commission, which failed to impose its will on a member family.

The “Banana War” was in effect the Commission’s last gasp. They met only sporadically after that. Paul Castellano called a meeting after Carlo Gambino appointed him his successor. Castellano recognized that he was not the man Gambino was; and with the Gambinos as the largest and most geographically powerful family in New York, he was looking for agreement to maintain the territorial status quo. He also wanted to placate his powerful underboss, Neil Dellacroce, and those Dons who favored “Mr. Neil” over Big Paul. John Gotti didn’t ask Commission approval to whack Castellano—and got away with it.

Mafia families did cooperate with each other during this period, and still do. Some rackets, like garbage hauling, concrete contracting and the former Fulton Fish Market, were and are big enough that all families share in them. Since their neighborhood operations abut each other, they often meet to delimit territories. But none of this involves the Commission.