alfa romeo, great post, very informative, especially about bosses being hit. youre right, how do we know the reasons. read the vizzini book a few years ago, its not mentioned much for some reason. its proof positive of lucianos heroin dealing I remember reading that he got high up in sicilys drug trade, also if I remember correctly the heroin came from france to be processed in sicily, he was working with a Sicilian one time and the man had lost an eye he told vizzini, "its ok I got another one" cant help from wondering why the book wasn't a best seller, its as if someone put the hex on it, ill bet hardly anyone in this room has heard of it. thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Vizzini's illustration of how Luciano navigated through Italian terrain gave some of us our first glance into the dealings of the Corsican Mafia, the Unione Corse. That is one of the things that just grip your attention in Vizzini's book. He might have also mentioned the Turks.
When you look at how huge Lucky Luciano was, and then you contemplate that only someone as massive as him could deal with multiple mafias across continents, it's mindblowing. Lucky was having simultaneous dealings with American Cosa Nostra, Sicilian Cosa Nostra, Unione Corse, maybe Turkish Mafia from where the Opium originated, and who knows who else.
You noticed the hex too didn't you. So did I. Today's writers on Lucky Luciano ignore Sal Vizzini, ignore his books, his undercover work. They treat him as if he is a blowhard who embellishes and inflates his accomplishments. But Sal Vizzini was a man of a thousand faces, from the old DEA before it was called DEA, someone who could sit down with Joe Pistone and possibly teach him a thing or two over a cup of coffee. Someone like that deserves serious consideration. Joachim Garcia (Jack Falcone) is another legend, but he was partly trained by Joe Pistone if we believe what Pistone says in his book. Vizzini and Pistone are the schoolmasters of undercover work. Garcia is like a master's master apprentice.
The black out against Sal Vizzini might extend beyond the sphere of professional writers. It might have something to do with his relationship with law enforcement itself. It's not only writers who don't utter his name. It's also law enforcement speaking to the media who simply seem to have amnesia when it comes to Sal Vizzini. To guess why, I will need to read his book again to get clues to that.
