In a previous thread we talked about this, meaning in the old days a high level associate of the Outfit can be considered almost as the same level as made soldiers in other families. You have many examples where non-Italian representatives for the Outfit attended meetings with high level made guys from the NY families for example. I remember one convo between Murray Humphreys and Frank Ferraro, where Humphreys is talking about the calling of an urgent commission meeting regarding some problem. Obviously he wasnt going to attend that meeting but still he had the right to push for one so his or the Outfits problems can be quickly solved.