Inaccuracies are the rule, not the exception, in OC books. Part of it is because OC people aren't the types to leave their collected papers and letters to college and university libraries for people like us to peruse. Very few have ever sat for interviews, and those who did (like Joe Colombo and Joey Gallo) paid the price. So, OC writers tend to be tabloid journalism types, who just run with what they think they have, and play for sensationalism.
In Philip Carlo's books (and some others too), many soldiers are automatically upped to the rank of "capo" to increase their importance.
That's standard procedure for the (mostly) hack writers who write about OC. Case in point: Hank Messick wrote a book on Meyer Lansky, claiming he was the boss of OC in America and was "worth $300 million." Robert Lacey, one of the
very few competent writers in this genre, and the author of the outstanding"Little Man - Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life," questioned Messick about that figure. Messick told Lacey that he'd heard that figure second- or third-hand and ran with it because it was "an impressive number." Lacey did solid research and found that Lansky, at his peak, was worth no more than $5 -6 million--not chickenfeed, but hardly the stuff of $300 million. But that big figure stuck with Lansky, and it was responsible for the Justice Department hounding him for years.
