I believe you are misunderstanding me.

First, you kind of made my point. You state that Carl Sifakis’ book is full of factual errors. True! But so is every other one. Each and every so-called eye witness, from Joe Bonanno to Valachi had an agenda - to put themselves, their actions and their organization in the best possible light.

Saying a book is full of factual errors has to gone beyond the statement. What is required is some form of documentation which asserts unequivocally what did happen. Due to the fact that the underworld wants to remain secretive makes this a difficult feat.

Allow me to use a problem in logic that is often use to prove a point, but in the final analysis does not achieve its goal.
One man insists the grass is purple and another that it is pink. The first man brings in mounds of “scientific evidence” which proves the grass is NOT pink. Does this, therefore, prove the grass is purple; of course not.

Sifakis may have gotten things wrong, I agree. However, I have found contradictory research in the writing of Jay Robert Nash, Selwyn Raab and George Anastasia just to name a few. Who is right and who is wrong is up for debate.

Second, did the five families exist before the end (or the beginning for that matter) of the Castellammarese war? Of course they did. But Maranzano set the boundaries and government up for the families and his model still exist today. In fact, he is the one who first used the phrase Cosa Nostra (our thing).

A side note, I found it interesting that Joe Bonanno in “A Man of Honor” right from the start stated unequivocally that “Mafia” wasn’t a thing, but a process. That is a hell of a statement. If true, then it may overturn all modern-day concepts of Cosa Nostra.

Jay Robert Nash explains just after the death of Masseria, Maranzano called a meeting renting a large hall in on Washington Avenue in the Bronx in which “new families were set up.” I may disagree with Mr. Nash’s choice of words, but I believe he was speaking of the construct of the families and not implying the families did not exist at one moment and then came into existence after Maranzano’s decree.

There were other criminal enterprises prior to the War and yet, these where the five families as set by Maranzano who would have controlling interest in New York within the ranks of the Mafia.
The five families and their heads as constructed by Maranzano were Scalise, Gagliano, Profaci, Bonanno and Luciano [Joseph Bonanno, “A Man of Honor” (Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 141], Scalise later being replaced after the death of Maranzano.
Third and this were things get a little dicey, Torrio, Luciano and Lansky wanted a structure to go beyond just New York. They didn’t only want peace in the Mafia, but cooperation with all cities whoever was in control; be it Italians, Jews and Irish.

Robert Lacey, in his biography of Meyer Lansky wrote, “The idea of a National Crime Syndicate is often confused with the Mafia. Yet they are not the same thing” [Robert Lacey, Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life, (Little Brown & Co., 1991), pp. 200-207.]

If you will, Maranzano setup the New York Commission of the Mafia Families. However, within a generation at least two of the families were now headed up by non-Sicilians namely Albert Anastasia and Vito Genovese. How could this have happened?
Was it due to the National Crime Syndicate (a.k.a. the National Commission)?

Again, quoting Jay Robert Nash, “The Mafia or Cosa Nostra, as it is called in the East by members of the New York Mafia families, did not at first exercise control of this organization. It remained a fraternal criminal brotherhood separate and apart from the syndicate (this is the National Commission headed up by Luciano), albeit several syndicate members were also Mafia…In the early 1930’s the Jewish and Irish gang-leaders still possessed considerable power throughout the U.S., thus preventing the establishment of a syndicate as being an all Italian or Mafia (Sicilian) controlled organization.” [Ibid, p. 38]

I submit, with the death of Dutch Schultz that began to change. Today, it is dominated by men of Italian descent and less Sicilian. This goes both for the Five Families and the National Commission.

At any rate, good comments. I can see you are well read. But now, I must get to work! What a bummer…