One thing that's interesting to me is how the substory would have changed if Puzo had been writing at different times. I think Puzo himself sort of addressed this in GF2 by making Geary the large secondary character, which I think is at least partially a reflection of politics merging into popular culture. If you pushed it into the 80s, then you might have had a Wall Street guy.
Someone on youtube should do a Michael Corleone, Gordon Gekko mash up.
"...the successful annihilation of organized crime's subculture in America would rock the 'legitimate' world's foundation, which would ultimately force fundamental social changes and redistributions of wealth and power in this country. Meyer Lansky's dream was to bond the two worlds together so that one could not survive without the other." - Dan E. Moldea
