The Consigliere Position (long read)

[B.]

Here is an article with the actual quotes:
https://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/03/nyre ... Position=1

Gotti says that he is totally within his rights as boss to break captains. Gallo agrees with him and says the only position he can't break is consigliere. Gotti tells Gallo not to flatter himself and that he could "break them 23 captains" and then "put 10 captains there that I promote tomorrow". Then, ''You ain't no consiglieri.''

While this does seem like a radical thing to do, keep in mind Gotti just killed his boss and got away with it. Gotti is reminding Gallo that whatever the rules are, he has enough power in the family at the moment to replace him.

Awesome, thank you.

Great addition to the thread. It shows Gallo's understanding of the rules match earlier sources like Magaddino, but also that as boss Gotti knows he could manipulate the process.

[Antiliar]

Great job, B.

We can't forget about Frank Costello. Thanks to Joe Valachi we knew that he was Lucky Luciano's acting boss while he was in prison and for his exile until he stepped down. Years later Bill Bonanno tells us he was Luciano's consigliere. So it makes sense that if the consigliere was the sostituto that Luciano would pick Costello over Genovese to run the Family.

[PolackTony]

- For whatever reason, Fratianno believed Accardo was in a consigliere role at that time. He may have misremembered what Roselli told him, as we only have his memory, but I don't see incentive for Fratianno or Roselli to deliberately lie about Accardo "acting as consigliere" after coming back into power. If one of them got it wrong, it's worth asking what led them to believe Accardo was in that role as I don't think it's purposely dishonest even if it's not accurate.

- Fratianno doesn't clarify what "acts as consigliere" meant to him or if he understood or even cared exactly what Roselli meant, but as a long-time member Fratianno knows consigliere refers to a specific rank. The glossary of his book labels Accardo the consigliere as well, but we don't know if Fratianno directly approved the ranks used in the glossary or if the author put it together on his own from the contents of the book or other sources.

- As for the FBI report, I've got no idea what led them to label Accardo and Ricca co-consiglieri. They make other mistakes on those hierarchy charts, like naming a Buffalo consigliere even though Magaddino is on tape saying he never had one. Most of the info on those charts is accurate based on what they were told by CIs but then you have examples like Chicago and Buffalo where it's not clear what sources they were using. Obviously the FBI wanted to compile accurate charts.

- The FBI Dead List has errors, though it would be good to know why they include Accardo as consigliere. Is it from the 1969 hierarchy chart? From Fratianno? Another source?

All I know, is FBI charts and member sources have to be part of the conversation even if they deserve to be challenged.

Agreed that accounts like Frattiano's and FBI documents from the era deserve to be taken seriously, though certainly not at face value (and B. of course is not at all arguing the latter). For Frattiano's statement, however, we're dealing with "attributed speech" -- rather than a direct quote from Roselli, we have Frattiano's account of Roselli's statement. Without being intentially misleading, even if Fratianno changed or left out just one word in his rendering it could decisively change our reading of it. Plus, as Villain noted, by the time Roselli and Frattiano had this conversation the former was already on the outs with the Chicago admin. Either way, as B has acknowledged, "acting as a Consigliere" is vague and could mean several different things. If (big if!) Roselli actually still had a good inside line as to the structure and function of the admin post-Ricca, he may have just meant "acting like", to convey that Accardo was not involved directly in the day-to-day responsibilities of running criminal rackets. Like a Consigliere, he was likely primarily called upon to step in for matters related to mediating disputes between crews/factions, handling diplomacy with other families etc. In this he was likely continuous with Ricca's role before him. In both cases, they may have taken on some of the responsibilities that a Consigliere typically might take on in other families, but at the end of the day they were the ultimate executive authority and so to me seem to have been something quite distinct than what we might guess even a "Consigliere of power" might be like. I think it's key that Frattiano/Roselli didn't state that JB was a Consigliere, just that he "acted as" one. Still, hard to read this and I'm not arguing for a decisive reading of a vague, second hand statement, just my own take on it.

Even while Giancana was boss and Ricca had the top spot, I still don't see Accardo as having a truly comparable role to a Consigliere as you've defined it in your excellent review here B. As "semi-retired senior advisor", or whatever we want to call it, we have no indication that Accardo was primarily involved with representing the interests of the rank-and-file membership. I think that in other families this was clearly the raison d'etre of the Consigliere, and I see no indication that any of the "semi-retired senior advisors" in Chicago played that specific role of advocating for the membership. Assuming that Alex's later role was of this "advisor" type, it seems clearly like the Hayden/Hesh paradigm of pop culture fame -- a trusted councilor to the boss/es. Alex for one certainly wouldn't have been able to advocate for the membership, as he wasn't even a member.

As a final point, we know that the prototypical Consigliere of LCN protocol was an elected position. We certainly have no indication that Accardo was elevated to his post-Ricca position by any election. I think we'd all agree that scenario sounds downright preposterous. Of course there are huge lacunae in our understanding of Chicago structure and practice. But I have never seen anything to indicate that Chicago ever had elections for anything. Yes, they had a "board of advisors" of the top capos of the main territorial factions, but it isn't at all clear to me if this panel had any role in voting or approving admin policy or if it was just there to discuss matters and relay decisions from the top leadership. And I have certainly never come across any evidence to suggest that Chicago actively solicited the input of the membership on any matters, even in the form of a staged or rigged election for Consigliere, etc. My impression has always been that Chicago was far more dictatorial in this way than other families.

[Antiliar]

The thing about Accardo is that he was still involved. In one ELSUR, for example, in 1962 he met at Jimmy Celano's with Hy Godfrey, Jack Cerone, and Phil Alderisio. In another from 1960 he met with Gus Alex, Mike Brodkin, and Irv Wiener. In 1959 he was explaining the Commission to Sam Giancana. In one from 11/30/1962, Ricca and Accardo are telling Giancana how to run the Family. From the dialogue Ricca and Accardo are both giving him orders and he's agreeing to follow them. So PolackTony is correct. Accardo wasn't representing the rank and file, he was representing the interests of the top leaders. If Chicago ever had a traditional consigliere position it had to be before the FBI got involved, and once that person died he probably wasn't replaced.

[Snakes]

Not take this down a Chicago rabbit-hole but the FBI always had the Outfit's "consigliere" as a senior retired boss. This may have been because they needed to send certain intel to D.C. and didn't want to be asked questions about why there wasn't a consigliere or to use different terms that may not have been familiar to the honchos at the FBI HQ. It was just simpler to say that these guys most closely matched the consigliere position as defined by "typical" LCN lingo. Accardo was described as consigliere throughout the 80s and Aiuppa was described as being the consigliere when he died. They never prosecuted anyone as consigliere in Chicago (and didn't have to) so I think it was just a way for them to keep consistency and fit round pegs in round holes, which is sometimes the easier route when dealing with superiors, whether you're a janitor or a field office supervisor for the FBI.

[B.]

Great job, B.

We can't forget about Frank Costello. Thanks to Joe Valachi we knew that he was Lucky Luciano's acting boss while he was in prison and for his exile until he stepped down. Years later Bill Bonanno tells us he was Luciano's consigliere. So it makes sense that if the consigliere was the sostituto that Luciano would pick Costello over Genovese to run the Family.

Thanks, my friend. I forgot Bill confirmed Costello's rank.

Piscopo's comments about consigliere's importance depending on the personalities comes to mind. The Genovese family had both Pandolfo and Costello in the same position, but look at the difference in authority and influence between them.

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- More evidence that consigliere played a factional role is not only Joe Buffa as consigliere under Profaci, but Sam Badalamenti as acting consigliere and Benny D'Alessandro as the next official consigliere. All three men were relatives from the Carini faction. Low probability that the Profaci family would randomly select these three guys for consigliere.

- What's strange is the Gambino's ongoing use of a "sostituto" over a certain faction regardless of rank. Traina served as sostituto for the boss, which was essentially an acting boss, but you also had a soldier (Gentile) serving as a sostituto over multiple crews (the Agrigento faction). Later Magaddino described someone (probably Tommy Rava) as having been a capodecina who was in charge of a group of other captains (the Anastasia faction), then Angelo Bruno was recorded describing Dellacroce as a "capodecina dei capodecina" in the early 1960s, which sounds similar to Rava. Dellacroce continued to serve as the defacto boss of the former Anastasia faction after becoming underboss. These guys were captains and not soldiers, but their role sounds like Gentile's sostituto position.

- The term sostituto was out of use in later decades, but the Gambino family has a long history of semi-formally promoting someone to serve as a representative over a faction. What's strange is it wasn't based on rank, as you had a soldier and captains serving as sostituto over (or between, depending on how you see it) groups of captains.

- Allegra and Gentile, who were contemporaries, both used the word sostituto. I'm not 100% comfortable saying it perfectly translates to acting boss, but it can include the duties of an acting boss for sure. It's just that it is also used by Gentile to indicate a sort of defacto rappresentante of a faction. Sostituto seems to mean that someone has been designated as a representative of the boss and acts on his authority. As the word translates, someone is to be seen as a substitute for the boss.

- Seems part of this sostituto system had to do with the Gambino family's size -- it would be a practical as well as political decision to gives factions a degree of autonomy with their own representation. It would be difficult to micromanage a ~300 member family and like Jethro told Moses, you've got to delegate authority or you'll lose your mind. It appears the Gambino family understood Jethro's advice. The Genovese family was the same size and heavily factional so they may have had a similar arrangement, regardless of the word used. The old Genovese crews / factions were highly autonomous.

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- I welcome the Accardo discussion, but I've got no dog in the race except to take in the different accounts. I find it interesting Fratianno had an impression of Accardo that included the word consigliere but also a great deal of power. Interesting doesn't always mean accurate, though in Fratianno's case I believe he's giving his honest impression of the situation, whatever that is based on.

[PolackTony]

Not take this down a Chicago rabbit-hole but the FBI always had the Outfit's "consigliere" as a senior retired boss. This may have been because they needed to send certain intel to D.C. and didn't want to be asked questions about why there wasn't a consigliere or to use different terms that may not have been familiar to the honchos at the FBI HQ. It was just simpler to say that these guys most closely matched the consigliere position as defined by "typical" LCN lingo. Accardo was described as consigliere throughout the 80s and Aiuppa was described as being the consigliere when he died. They never prosecuted anyone as consigliere in Chicago (and didn't have to) so I think it was just a way for them to keep consistency and fit round pegs in round holes, which is sometimes the easier route when dealing with superiors, whether you're a janitor or a field office supervisor for the FBI.

Apologies to B, as I don't intend to divert this really important discussion into something overly centered on the Chicago question. But I do think this is an important angle as there was at least one important LCN family that we have no evidence ever had either a named Consigliere position or a functionally equivalent position (specifically in being an advocate representing the interests of the rank and file on the admin) under some other name. Certainly if you had to pick up someone who most closely approximated some of the responsibilities that Consiglieri played in other families, Accardo in his semi-retired mode would be it. But to be clear the roles approximated are advising the active leadership, dealing with other families, mediating tensions within the family, etc, which seem to be secondary to the Consigliere office as B has defined it here. This is a poorly thought out, off the cuff analogy, but it seems like the "ideal type" role of the Consigliere is almost like a "Supreme Court" in one man, in that this office (when it was exercised in its most definitive examplars) acted as a check on the policy of the family vis-a-vis Mafia protocol and the ability of the executive to run amok and impose their power on the membership. Following this perhaps ill-fitting analogy, someone like Accardo is just not the same thing, as he was himself the ultimate executive authority.

I'm of course actually one of those who views Chicago through a very LCN centered lens, so if Chicago lacked a real Consigliere role I'm not satisfied with explanations like "they were Americanized" or "the Capone gang didn't have a Consigliere". I'd like to look back to the deeper origins of the Chicago Mafia, but I don't think the documentary evidence is there to conclude whether or not they had a Consigliere or equivalent "members' advocate" position. As Antiliar has already stated, maybe Chicago had a Consigliere before the Giancana era and there was just never a Valachi to lay the whole thing out for us to know.

What does the available evidence say about other Borgate having Consiglieri before the Maranzano reign? And I mean as "elected advocate for the rank and file" not as members of the "Consigli" bodies advising the bosses. I would note in ending that the quote B included in the OP from Sicilian pentito Melchiorre Allegra fits a Chicago style "senior advisor" to the leadership better than a Consigliere as "members' advocate":

"The 'chiefs' were generally elected by the members of the group over which they were to preside and they were aided in their decisions by an 'adviser' who substituted for him in his absence because the 'adviser' was also very important if one considers that his opinion was necessary whenever a 'chief' was to make a decision."

[Antiliar]

Not take this down a Chicago rabbit-hole but the FBI always had the Outfit's "consigliere" as a senior retired boss. This may have been because they needed to send certain intel to D.C. and didn't want to be asked questions about why there wasn't a consigliere or to use different terms that may not have been familiar to the honchos at the FBI HQ. It was just simpler to say that these guys most closely matched the consigliere position as defined by "typical" LCN lingo. Accardo was described as consigliere throughout the 80s and Aiuppa was described as being the consigliere when he died. They never prosecuted anyone as consigliere in Chicago (and didn't have to) so I think it was just a way for them to keep consistency and fit round pegs in round holes, which is sometimes the easier route when dealing with superiors, whether you're a janitor or a field office supervisor for the FBI.

I think you described it perfectly.

What does the available evidence say about other Borgate having Consiglieri before the Maranzano reign? And I mean as "elected advocate for the rank and file" not as members of the "Consigli" bodies advising the bosses. I would note in ending that the quote B included in the OP from Sicilian pentito Melchiorre Allegra fits a Chicago style "senior advisor" to the leadership better than a Consigliere as "members' advocate":

We have a few examples before 1931:
Masseria: Saverio Pollaccia
D'Aquila: Giuseppe Traina
Cleveland; Nick Gentile

[B.]

One of my takes from the member sources is that consigliere is a varied position, though it has some obvious threads running through it. It doesn't seem to be exclusively a member advocate, but that's a common function. Its general function is to make sure the organization runs smoothly, both internally and in its interactions with other families. That it was so commonly seen as a suitable stand-in for the boss and/or a faction leader early on in mafia history tells us something.

We have info about consiglieri before Maranzano:

- Melchiorre Allegra describes the Pagliarelli family having a consigliere in Sicily circa WWI
- Saverio Pollaccia was Masseria family consigliere
- Giuseppe Traina is suspected of being D'Aquila's consigliere in the 1920s or earlier
- Anthony Lima said his uncle Sam Lima was the consigliere of San Francisco by the late 1920s
- Gentile became Cleveland consigliere in 1930

EDIT: Saw Antliar covered some of these above.

Via Gentile's book:

Then the mediators, Consiglieri, and the peacemakers take part. They are a group of men whose decisions are an independent force, derived from the charge of the Consiglieri of the apex Capo or one from his own organization. But also the ambassadors, the peacemakers, and Consiglieri, in the Mafia, count for the force of which they decide. All the relationships between the men of the Mafia are in force ratios.

[Villain]

Nicely explained by Anti, Snakes and Polack regarding Chicagos case, thanks.

[PolackTony]

One of my takes from the member sources is that consigliere is a varied position, though it has some obvious threads running through it. It doesn't seem to be exclusively a member advocate, but that's a common function. Its general function is to make sure the organization runs smoothly, both internally and in its interactions with other families. That it was so commonly seen as a suitable stand-in for the boss and/or a faction leader early on in mafia history tells us something.

We have info about consiglieri before Maranzano:

- Melchiorre Allegra describes the Pagliarelli family having a consigliere in Sicily circa WWI
- Saverio Pollaccia was Masseria family consigliere
- Giuseppe Traina is suspected of being D'Aquila's consigliere in the 1920s or earlier
- Anthony Lima said his uncle Sam Lima was the consigliere of San Francisco by the late 1920s
- Gentile became Cleveland consigliere in 1930

EDIT: Saw Antliar covered some of these above.

Via Gentile's book:

Then the mediators, Consiglieri, and the peacemakers take part. They are a group of men whose decisions are an independent force, derived from the charge of the Consiglieri of the apex Capo or one from his own organization. But also the ambassadors, the peacemakers, and Consiglieri, in the Mafia, count for the force of which they decide. All the relationships between the men of the Mafia are in force ratios.

Thanks to you and Antiliar for the examples. What I do wonder was whether the older iterations of the Consigliere in US Borgate were closer to Allegra's description of the Consigliere as something like "senior advisor" to the boss, as opposed to something closer to what we came to know for this role in later LCN history. Maybe at some point it took on new attributes with a greater focus on membership advocacy. If this were the case then perhaps the Chicago "senior advisor" role was closer to the original model -- advisor, deliberator, diplomat, etc.

What about the Consiglieri in later Sicilian cosche? How common was it to have a single Consigliere as we've come to know it in the later US, as opposed to Consigli composed of multiple Consiglieri? To what degree have Consiglieri in Sicily acted as members' advocates as opposed to top advisors or arbitrators?

[B.]

Calogero Sinatra was the consigliere in Vallelunga before becoming boss in the early 1960s. They were a small family, no idea what he actually did.

[Antiliar]

Thanks to you and Antiliar for the examples. What I do wonder was whether the older iterations of the Consigliere in US Borgate were closer to Allegra's description of the Consigliere as something like "senior advisor" to the boss, as opposed to something closer to what we came to know for this role in later LCN history. Maybe at some point it took on new attributes with a greater focus on membership advocacy. If this were the case then perhaps the Chicago "senior advisor" role was closer to the original model -- advisor, deliberator, diplomat, etc.

That's a good question. Lucky Luciano is generally credited with giving the consiglieri the mission of representing the rank and file. If that's true, then the older generation of consiglieri were advisers to the boss.

[Hired_Goonz]

This thread kicks ass. Great work! One guy who is interesting to me is Christie Tick Furnari. He definitely would fit into Cafaro's definition of a family "powerhouse" and was a leader of a faction as well - the faction that ended up running the family (into the ground) after the bosses went to prison and apparently still runs the administration to this day. Was Furnari elected I wonder? He definitely had guys under him and his own rackets going on, not sure if he was a point of contact with the other families. But he does seem to be a throwback "consigliere of power" type of guy and I'm always interested to learn more about him.

[PolackTony]

This thread kicks ass. Great work! One guy who is interesting to me is Christie Tick Furnari. He definitely would fit into Cafaro's definition of a family "powerhouse" and was a leader of a faction as well - the faction that ended up running the family (into the ground) after the bosses went to prison and apparently still runs the administration to this day. Was Furnari elected I wonder? He definitely had guys under him and his own rackets going on, not sure if he was a point of contact with the other families. But he does seem to be a throwback "consigliere of power" type of guy and I'm always interested to learn more about him.

You're right that Furnari is an interesting example of the "Consigliere of power" -- I'd add Casso to this, during his tenure as Consigliere.

While I do think it was very particular to the idiosyncratic relationship that Amuso and Casso had to with each other, it's interesting to consider the division of responsibilities between the two of them. I've always seen it put that Casso (as both Consigliere and underboss) was in charge of policy, mediating disputes within the family, and diplomacy with other families, while Amuso was in charge of day-to-day operations.