cesare borgia wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 12:49 pm
Yes, but Cafaro's assertion that Salerno was a front boss for Gigante is taken as fact ,so why is his statement that Lombardo was boss taken as East Harlem bias but his view of Salerno is considered accurate ?
Front boss = acting boss. It's a term Cafaro made up for some reason. Salerno was the family's acting boss. In such a capacity, he attended commission meetings. Cafaro's claim that Salerno acted for Gigante is a fact because other Genovese informants confirmed his info, while nobody confirmed it for Lombardo's alleged role as the boss in the 1970s. Quite the opposite - major informants like Angelo Lonardo dismissed Cafaro's info completely. At the time, Lonardo attended high-level Cosa Nostra meetings as Cleveland's underboss. He dealt with the Genovese top brass directly.
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This is the kind of quality post that makes me like this forum already.
Front boss, acting boss, they seem to have the same roles and responsibilities(attending meetings, relaying orders ,taking LE pressure, ect)no? I mean what is the role acting boss if the real boss if the real boss is still on the streets? I guess acting boss implies more power and autonomy, while front boss implies he's just a stooge but it seems like semantics argument
Also Lonardo's info seems pretty iffy too. He refers to Gigante as a consigliere and Salerno as the boss and Lombardo as an advisor in the early 80s, and it seems like Salerno is the only high ranking member he met with frequently with so how reliable can he be on the inner workings?
cesare borgia wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 3:08 pm
Front boss, acting boss, they seem to have the same roles and responsibilities(attending meetings, relaying orders ,taking LE pressure, ect)no? I mean what is the role acting boss if the real boss if the real boss is still on the streets? I guess acting boss implies more power and autonomy, while front boss implies he's just a stooge but it seems like semantics argument
Also Lonardo's info seems pretty iffy too. He refers to Gigante as a consigliere and Salerno as the boss and Lombardo as an advisor in the early 80s, and it seems like Salerno is the only high ranking member he met with frequently with so how reliable can he be on the inner workings?
The FBI considered Lonardo very reliable. The Genovese represented Cleveland before the Commission, and the Cleveland family administration was in tune with the inner workings of the Genovese family's administration ever since Scalish took over. Genovese crime family soldier George Barone also confirmed that Fat Tony was acting boss in the late 1970s, and he was very close with him. Barone was Salerno's 'personal hitman' and knew him longer than Fish did.
Now, if you really want to go into the rabbit hole with the whole Tieri/Lombardo business, there were a few memos from the late 1970s based on information provided by NYPD and FBI sources, which advised that Lombardo deferred to Tieri and was his acting boss in 1979.
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Yeah, but the FBI didn't seem to have any problem with Cafaro's testimony either since it's pretty much formed the basis of the believed Genovese leadership timeline post Genovese, pre Gigante(whether the timeline is accurate is another matter.),and I don't think the FBI or journalists in modern times have called his claims into dispute either. My doubts about Cafaro are the claims he makes about the leadership in the 60s and before he was made, things he would of been too low ranked to be accurate about.
My main hang up on Lonardo's testimony is Salerno as boss and Gigante as consigliere, which could of been the case for a few months in '81 (though usually he's believed to have been underboss) but by '84 (when Lonardo flipped) Gigante would have been established as boss. If Lonardo was up to date on the inner workings he would have knew this right?.
To complicate things further, let's not forget Salerno was caught on tape saying "Benny" and "that guy" put him in place to do a job and if they didn't like it they could have it back. "Benny" was Lombardo and "that guy" was Gigante. This was after Chin had taken over as the official boss and Fat Tony was the acting boss. Even at that point, Benny Squint apparently still wielded a lot of influence.
Front is a lie. This is our boss. When they are not. They may have no capacity at all but are diversionary for LE. Poor example but Uncle Junior, Sopranos.
Acting is on behalf of ie If an official is incapacitated (health/imprisonment) the acting carries out his duties within certain parameters.
One may have capacity/authority whilst the other may not.
I guess we all agree on the Genovese administration after Funzie. One thing I find confusing about Cafaro is his statement that Lombardo had been acting way back in the Catena days.
Also being consistent to the Harry Knuckles school of thought that Funzie was the boss, the real boss. Its possible that Lombardo was a powerful capo that was viewed.by some as being at least as powerful as Tieri. Maybe Tieri asked for Lombardos advise alot and this was misconstrued. On Salerno was it ever confirmed that he was ever consiglieri?
