It would be almost stranger to think that the guys he mentioned could attain all that power without cooperation of some kind in order to sustain it. Guys like Luciano and Gambino have gained an almost mythical aura in the eyes of crime aficionados. Their truths are probably less glamorous.
It was a different time in terms of law enforcement. Anybody who knows anything about organized crime knows that it was incredibly hard to convict mob bosses until RICO, provided they weren't directly, hands-on involved in crimes like Vito Genovese was.
