@Cabrini, I'll definitely be reading 6th Family. How could I resist?
I get the idea that Galante may have been merely tolerated, because somehow he kept his business networks exclusive. Tolerated until his business networks could be stolen out from underneath him. But I still am not quite buying the idea he was profiting from his H pipeline all by himself. That's as bad as declaring yourself Capo Dei Capi. Is there any record that Lilo Galante demanded all bosses pay him tribute? I'm not buying it. His narcotics ambitions are directly at odds with the purported suicide mission he was supposed on to buck the entire Commission.
I know this is an unscientific thing to say: but I am going to suspect treachery and duplicity on Funzi Tieri's part until he is proven innocent.
Funzi definitely was not scared of him, he killed some guys that were working with Galante and afterwards had Tommy Casina tell Little Moe to let Galante know that if he thought that Funzi owed him anything, that he should could come see him. As expected, Galante never followed up with Funzi. Galante was never going to hit another boss, he just wanted to keep what was a good thing going. At most he had kind of a cold war thing going with the Gambinos with regard to the drugs and the pizza shops. There is a good article on gangsters inc. that was done some years ago that sets it out pretty clearly.
As for who set up the hit, I tend to think that the Gambinos were the family most directly involved with the Rastelli loyalists given the fact that after the hit went down Bruno Indelicato and some other guys including Stevie Beefs were observed meeting with Neil Dellacroce at his club.
