In the late 80's Vincent Cafaro gave a subcommittee the history of the Genovese family leadership.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/125163NCJRS.pdfPage 230:
The boss of the Genovese family is Vincent Gigante, also known as "Chin." Bobby Manna-Louis Manna-is the consigliere. Until his death in Apri1 1987, Sammy Santora was the underboss of our brugad. Beginning in the early 1980's, Fat Tony Salerno was generally recognized on the streets as the boss of the Genovese family. In fact for years Fat Tony reported back to Phillip Lombardo, also known as Ben or Benny Squint. In the 1960's, when Vito Genovese went to jail, he had turned over control of our brugad to Lombardo. Lombardo wanted to stay in the background and keep the heat off himself. So over the years, Tommy Ryan, then Eli Zaccardi, then Funzi Tieri, and finally Fat Tony, fronted as the bosses of the family while Lombardo con-trolled things from the background. In 1981, Fat Tony had a stroke and was "pulled down" by Lom-bardo, Vincent "Chin~' Gigante, Manna, and Santora. Lombardo was also in poor health and retired.
Thanks. Yeah, I'm aware of that info. I think Vito made Lombardo acting Boss around 1965, there are some FBI docs that seem to support that. I believe Lombardo made Tommy Ryan his underboss and Catena pretty much retired to Florida by then. When Genovese died in prison in '69, I think the captains elected Lombardo official boss. Benny Squint seems to have been a reluctant boss, so let his underbosses take the limelight.
I think some of the confusion is around titles. Lombardo was Boss in fact, if not name from 1965, Ryan, maybe Zeccardi, Tieri and Salerno were his underbosses. He just gave them more leeway than was usual, so they all caried out many of the usual bosses functions. Call then front bosses if you will, they were the number 2 guy under Benny Squint.
