General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[PolackTony]

FWIW, Vincent Inserra in his book C-1 and The Mob also says that Alderisio headed the Outfit. I'll go thru Cerone's file and see what comes up.

Could also just be that the Chicago office interpreted it that way, even if they didn’t have any solid intel that he was.

[Snakes]

Cerone's file describes him as "the top leader of organized crime, Chicago" before his conviction in 1970, although what I have only goes back so far.

[PolackTony]

Cerone's file describes him as "the top leader of organized crime, Chicago" before his conviction in 1970, although what I have only goes back so far.

But this is a claim by the FBI? By a CI? Based on what? Even if a CI said it, Bob Cooley claimed that Pat Marcy was the top guy in the Outfit.

To be clear, this isn’t a challenge at all to you, Snakes, just interrogating the evidence.

[Snakes]

Cerone's file describes him as "the top leader of organized crime, Chicago" before his conviction in 1970, although what I have only goes back so far.

But this is a claim by the FBI? By a CI? Based on what? Even if a CI said it, Bob Cooley claimed that Pat Marcy was the top guy in the Outfit.

To be clear, this isn’t a challenge at all to you, Snakes, just interrogating the evidence.

FBI, presumably based on previous intel. However, my files (generally) only go back to 1973 as my scope of interest mostly post-dates that.

[PolackTony]

Cerone's file describes him as "the top leader of organized crime, Chicago" before his conviction in 1970, although what I have only goes back so far.

But this is a claim by the FBI? By a CI? Based on what? Even if a CI said it, Bob Cooley claimed that Pat Marcy was the top guy in the Outfit.

To be clear, this isn’t a challenge at all to you, Snakes, just interrogating the evidence.

FBI, presumably based on previous intel. However, my files (generally) only go back to 1973 as my scope of interest mostly post-dates that.

Would be interesting to see if there are specific CI claims prior to that and exactly how they’re phrased.

[Snakes]

Inserra also describes Cerone as "acting boss of the Chicago mob" in his book, although he implies that Cerone succeeded Alderisio.

[Snakes]

From 1970:

[Antiliar]

Jack Cerone's file skips from 1963 to 1973, but I found this in Paul Ricca's file from Feb 1969:

Cerone, Jack is boss - Paul De Lucia 3 FBI file p108.jpg

Cerone, Jack is boss - Paul De Lucia 3 FBI file p109.jpg

[PolackTony]

The two files seem (upon my reading) to be in direct contradiction with each other.

The second file certainly makes it seem that Cerone was the official boss, without directly stating his position as such, and that his relationship to Ricca/Accardo was the same as Giancana's.

[PolackTony]

From a 1967 report:

[Antiliar]

The files do contradict each other, but they agree that Alderisio is not mentioned as a boss.

[PolackTony]

The files do contradict each other, but they agree that Alderisio is not mentioned as a boss.

Good point, and as Snakes notes, the timeline doesn't really support Alderisio as boss (and I personally doubt they would actually put him in the position knowing he might be sent back to prison shortly).

I guess that the question remaining now is, were Battaglia and Cerone ever officially bosses?

[Snakes]

The files do contradict each other, but they agree that Alderisio is not mentioned as a boss.

Good point, and as Snakes notes, the timeline doesn't really support Alderisio as boss (and I personally doubt they would actually put him in the position knowing he might be sent back to prison shortly).

I guess that the question remaining now is, were Battaglia and Cerone ever officially bosses?

I consider them acting bosses. With Battaglia, I think it was moreso the uncertainty regarding Giancana that prevented him from being official and with Cerone it was more of a general uncertainty concerning the boss position. Once it was clear that Sam was pretty much gone for good and Accardo had time to reorganize, they were finally able to name a permanent boss in Aiuppa.

[Coloboy]

Something that crossed my mind last week when I was going through a lot of Chicago info...

- They weren't as Italian-centric as other groups on an operational level and were primarily concerned with money in their daily lives, but maybe too the reason we don't get many non-member informants and bugs with insight into the formal organization is because they were actually disciplined about it.

- Ross Prio and a senior member tactfully whispered to each other when simply talking about how a fellow member was an "avugad" (whatever that is in Chicago) in the exact same spot where they discussed criminal activity at full volume. In NYC or NJ, that same conversation might have gone "Hey, they made Joe an avugad. When did he get made? I think it was about 5 years ago. Did you know his father was an amico nostra too, back when Lenny was the rappresentante?" In Chicago's violent atmosphere, maybe some members actually feared the oath rather than disregarded it like people have assumed.

- It's funny that we're so used to guys in other cities gossiping about the org that we think lack of talk = lack of respect for the formalities, when it's an organization that's supposed to enforce its secrecy through violence. Could just as well take the opposite interpretation, that many of the made members in Chicago didn't talk much about it because they took that side of it seriously and feared doing so during the organization's peak.

- I've read about a lot of Families and very little phases me, but the Chicago group comes across more ominous and genuinely terrifying than any other. It's like they had a bunch of Greg Scarpas who never ratted. The way Nick Calabrese described his induction, you get the feeling those same guys in the room wouldn't hesitate to kill him right then and there for wincing when they pinched his finger. Just look at the Spilotro brothers murder -- they lured them there on formal grounds and the new generation of leaders wanted to fucking be there to participate in the horrific and primal "unmaking" of Spilotro. Then they killed the guy who disposed of the bodies when they got found. Frank Calabrese told his brother he was sad he wasn't included in the murders. It's like the Spilotro murder was a sacred ritual unto itself that tells us more about the organization's psychology than an actual making ceremony.

Spilotro trying to say a prayer too -- it's like he knew he was dealing with Satan in the flesh. This group didn't become that way overnight.

This aspect of the outfit is one of the most fascinating to me as well. I have read discussions on this board about this very topic from years past.

Essentially, one could say that the Chicago outfit was an extremely large criminal enterprise, that at its core was run by a smaller, tight knit traditional LCN group. It seems it was very difficult to crack into that inner “mafia” circle. They were slow to make members, and kept things very secretive.

Wasn’t there an FBI report of Gus Alex attending a meeting with Aiuppa and Cerone in the 70s, where they discussed Outfit Business, and then Alex was required to leave the room when they started to discuss “mafia “business?

[PolackTony]

Something that crossed my mind last week when I was going through a lot of Chicago info...

- They weren't as Italian-centric as other groups on an operational level and were primarily concerned with money in their daily lives, but maybe too the reason we don't get many non-member informants and bugs with insight into the formal organization is because they were actually disciplined about it.

- Ross Prio and a senior member tactfully whispered to each other when simply talking about how a fellow member was an "avugad" (whatever that is in Chicago) in the exact same spot where they discussed criminal activity at full volume. In NYC or NJ, that same conversation might have gone "Hey, they made Joe an avugad. When did he get made? I think it was about 5 years ago. Did you know his father was an amico nostra too, back when Lenny was the rappresentante?" In Chicago's violent atmosphere, maybe some members actually feared the oath rather than disregarded it like people have assumed.

- It's funny that we're so used to guys in other cities gossiping about the org that we think lack of talk = lack of respect for the formalities, when it's an organization that's supposed to enforce its secrecy through violence. Could just as well take the opposite interpretation, that many of the made members in Chicago didn't talk much about it because they took that side of it seriously and feared doing so during the organization's peak.

- I've read about a lot of Families and very little phases me, but the Chicago group comes across more ominous and genuinely terrifying than any other. It's like they had a bunch of Greg Scarpas who never ratted. The way Nick Calabrese described his induction, you get the feeling those same guys in the room wouldn't hesitate to kill him right then and there for wincing when they pinched his finger. Just look at the Spilotro brothers murder -- they lured them there on formal grounds and the new generation of leaders wanted to fucking be there to participate in the horrific and primal "unmaking" of Spilotro. Then they killed the guy who disposed of the bodies when they got found. Frank Calabrese told his brother he was sad he wasn't included in the murders. It's like the Spilotro murder was a sacred ritual unto itself that tells us more about the organization's psychology than an actual making ceremony.

Spilotro trying to say a prayer too -- it's like he knew he was dealing with Satan in the flesh. This group didn't become that way overnight.

This aspect of the outfit is one of the most fascinating to me as well. I have read discussions on this board about this very topic from years past.

Essentially, one could say that the Chicago outfit was an extremely large criminal enterprise, that at its core was run by a smaller, tight knit traditional LCN group. It seems it was very difficult to crack into that inner “mafia” circle. They were slow to make members, and kept things very secretive.

Wasn’t there an FBI report of Gus Alex attending a meeting with Aiuppa and Cerone in the 70s, where they discussed Outfit Business, and then Alex was required to leave the room when they started to discuss “mafia “business?

Not sure about a report stating specifically that Alex was told to leave a meeting, though I assume there were indeed instances when that occurred. There was a story about Aiuppa holding a meeting with Cleveland and telling Maishe Rockman to leave the room. And then after Aiuppa found out that they were just talking about the Teamsters, invited Rockman back in.

There was a CI from the 1970s who specifically stated that as Alex was not a member, he couldn't be part of the ruling "board". Presumably, there were certainly going to be meetings and activities that concerned internal mafia affairs that Alex would not be able to attend. Another CI (Teddy DeRose) from the 60s also specifically stated that the important non-Italians were not permitted to attend making ceremonies (not exactly shocking news), but waited until afterward to meet the new members.