Confirmation of Chicago Consiglio 1969

[B.]

We've put 1000x more thought into these terms than they did. Like Buscetta says, mafiosi try to say as little as possible and all they cared about is if the meaning was known.

Over time of course some of these informal euphemisms get treated like a formal name. Al Capone didn't make an announcement that the mafia in Chicago was now officially called "the Outfit" in 1931, but common use of that term and media coverage eventually made it the standard name and I'm sure some members have thought of it that way.

It's like Joe B putting "cosa nostra" in lowercase and saying it was a casual euphemism used by guys like Mangano but not Bonanno himself. Obviously "this thing of ours" was originally informal but members came to think of Cosa Nostra as the official name. It's still the same org and the term means the same thing as any other term so long as it's understood what's being referred to.

We see it with the Family consiglio. Different Families had different phrases for it but it's the same thing.

[Antiliar]

I think it's important to know the vocabulary each Family themselves used, especially when discussing them or writing about them. Each borgata has its own unique culture. The terms might not be unique, but it is fascinating to observe how one Family favored certain terms and not others. Buffalo was known as "The Arm" and the Patriarca Family as "The Office," for example. The words aren't unique, but those were the favored terms by insiders in those territories. In Chicago's case, during the Giancana era it seems to be the Clique, and the Clique seemed to be the inner core of the larger Outfit (although it's entirely possible that Clique and Outfit were used synonymously). Each crew was also an outfit. I find this inside baseball culture stuff very interesting.

[B.]

You and me both. I'm glad there's people like you guys willing to get into it.

What's interesting is I've gone through all of the FBI transcripts from Magaddino's office and never once saw them use "the Arm" that I can remember. Magaddino used all of the traditional terms.

I'm also not sure I've seen the Office used on the Patriarca tapes. I figure because he conducted all of his business and meetings out of his office people may have casually referred to it that way and it stuck.

One thing that's also clear from looking at numerous reports and transcripts is each Family used a number of terms to refer to the same thing. We see in Chicago they used a whole array too.

I've been trying to separate which terms were just a media invention (which they do for member nicknames too) vs. terms they actually used. Syndicate for example was extremely big in the media / public but used very rarely by members themselves. It was used but nowhere near as often as coverage made it out.

[PolackTony]

You and me both. I'm glad there's people like you guys willing to get into it.

What's interesting is I've gone through all of the FBI transcripts from Magaddino's office and never once saw them use "the Arm" that I can remember. Magaddino used all of the traditional terms.

I'm also not sure I've seen the Office used on the Patriarca tapes. I figure because he conducted all of his business and meetings out of his office people may have casually referred to it that way and it stuck.

One thing that's also clear from looking at numerous reports and transcripts is each Family used a number of terms to refer to the same thing. We see in Chicago they used a whole array too.

I've been trying to separate which terms were just a media invention (which they do for member nicknames too) vs. terms they actually used. Syndicate for example was extremely big in the media / public but used very rarely by members themselves. It was used but nowhere near as often as coverage made it out.

Funny thing with that "the Office" thing is that we do have accounts that the NE family used "outfit". I'd suspect that the media was responsible for blowing up that "Office" thing, same as "the Arm" for Buffalo. If it just came from Patriarca conducting his business from his office, that would be like Chicago under Giancana getting called "the Lounge" because Giancana conducted business out of the Armory Lounge in Oak Park.

Antiliar, are there any recorded uses of "the clique" for Chicago apart from the recorded meeting between Giancana and Joe Costello ("Joe's in the clique")? In my reading, it doesn't seem to have been in common use. Of the terms noted by CIs for the Chicago organization, "mafia" and "outfit" seem to have been the most prevalent, with "outfit" clearly overtaking "mafia" as the preferred term over time. The 1970s member CI who may have been Lenny Gianola referred to the organization as "the mafia" and then-current members as "mafia members". Presumably, by the rise of the generation after him, "outfit" had basically won out -- Nick C, for example, only uses "outfit". "Syndicate" was, of course, the common LE and media usage until, like, the 70s or 80s, from what I can tell.

Doesn't seem to me that "outfit" was used any differently in Chicago than in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh. In all three families, we have accounts that state that the organization was called "mafia" originally and then came to be called "outfit" over time. "Outfit" was obviously recorded as used in many more families than those three, but those are the ones where I'm aware CIs specified the "mafia ---> outfit" shift in nomenclature.

[B.]

The Office thing is like Kansas City calling their elder council "the Bakery". We wouldn't put that on a chart as a formal rank called "the Bakery" but it was the common euphemism they used. Like Antiliar I find it interesting which euphemisms they do end up using even if it's just based on something arbitrary like a bakery they meet at, but ultimately it doesn't change the organization or make the set-up unique.

Outfit was used everywhere around the country. Haven't seen it much in NYC but it was how Sam DeCavalcante often referred to Families.

[PolackTony]

The Office thing is like Kansas City calling their elder council "the Bakery". We wouldn't put that on a chart as a formal rank called "the Bakery" but it was the common euphemism they used. Like Antiliar I find it interesting which euphemisms they do end up using even if it's just based on something arbitrary like a bakery they meet at, but ultimately it doesn't change the organization or make the set-up unique.

Outfit was used everywhere around the country. Haven't seen it much in NYC but it was how Sam DeCavalcante often referred to Families.

Genovese member George Barone used "outfit" several times to refer to his family. Presumably, there were others, but maybe it was specific to certain crews or territories.

What Chicago, Milwaukee, and Pitt provide is the specific insight by insiders that what was originally called "mafia" later came to be called "outfit". This is an obvious assumption regarding its use in other families, but its useful to note where we have insider accounts on how they perceived or recollected evolution of or shifts in nomenclature.

[B.]

The way the FBI recorded the info from members CIs made it sound like the "mafia" in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh became "the outfit" but it was just a change in language. Maniaci makes it clear it was one continuous org going back to the early 1900s and there were cultural/philosophical changes but the "mafia" was synonymous with "the outfit".

It's like Fratto telling the FBI in Chicago it went "Unione Siciliana" to "mafia" to "outfit", in that order (which is a weird way to order it in my opinion). Obviously the Unione didn't become a different org called the mafia, just as the mafia didn't become a different org called the outfit. They just used different phrases at different times and even used them during the same time period. When the informant who might be Gianola called Chicago the "mafia" in the 1970s it's not like someone in the Family was going to be like "What's that? I thought we were the Outfit."

[PolackTony]

Under Giancana, the Chicago family was called “The Lounge”. Under Battaglia, “The Farm”. Under Aiuppa, who held court at the Luxor Baths on North Ave, it was renamed “The Baths”. Under DiFronzo is was renamed “The Deli” or “The Dealership”. Under Tornabene it was called “The Pizzeria”. Today, under Solly, it’s called “The Golf Course”.

[Antiliar]

I found a second doc where "clique" was used in Chicago. Vinnie Teresa referred to the Patriarca organization as "The Office," but I don't know if he's the original source.

With informants like Fratto and Gianola referring to the "mafia," I wouldn't be so sure that they didn't say it out of deference to the agents who interviewed them. I don't think insiders ever called it the Mafia, except to refer to what the media and LE used. In the general public, the word "mafia" fell out of favor with the 1911 Camorra trial. Even the Good Killers, who were clearly Mafia, were called Camorra by the press. "Black Hand" became dominant in the press from 1903 to the early 1930s, then Syndicate replaced it. "Mafia" was revived in the 1950-51 Kefauver committee hearings and has been in public memory ever since. Informants used the term to relate it to the agents, "you know it as the Mafia."

[B.]

I agree the term mafia wasn't a popular insider term and it's another example of an outsider term getting appropriated. It's significant to me though that they wanted to communicate that the organization they belonged to was one and the same with the mafia. They at least understood that's what it was, like Maniaci who said mafia and outfit are synonymous terms and that the wider organization is called the mafia. It's especially important with the Chicago sources who used it since there is still a popular opinion that the Chicago Family was not the mafia and/or that the organization was somehow fundamentally different.

I'm not so sure though that they would have done it out of deference to the FBI. Impossible for us to know what those interviews consisted of, but we can see all around the country member CIs used whatever terms were relevant to the local organization, be it outfit, Cosa Nostra, etc. The FBI also made it clear in reports when a member said they didn't use a certain term -- they asked virtually everyone about the term Cosa Nostra and members would say if that term wasn't in use in their city, or they'd say they knew of it but didn't hear it used. Others of course did use it. Offhand I can't think of any member CIs who made similar remarks about the term mafia, only that other terms eventually replaced it.

Scafidi in Philly said when he was made in 1950 he was told it was called the mafia and then a decade later when he got unshelved he learned they were now using Cosa Nostra. It seems like Fratto was saying something similar, that he understood the term mafia to have been in use before outfit became popular. I don't think we can necessarily assume how or why they decided to use that particular term in interviews without further info, we only know that they did tell the FBI that.

EDIT: Costanza of San Jose told the FBI he asked John Misuraca if their organization was the same as the mafia and Misuraca told him it was but they don't use that term "now" and instead say Cosa Nostra. Genovese CI Gene Farino said he never heard Cosa Nostra and had heard it called the mafia or the Black Hand.

[B.]

Ed's great article is obviously relevant here: http://mafiahistory.us/rattrap/mafialacosanostra.html

Excerpt:

The "Mafia" Rebrand?

Over the years, the FBI received persistent reports from informants who claimed the organization had stopped referring to itself as the "Mafia." [62] For example, an unknown informant told the Dallas Office in 1959 that the "Mafia" term was discontinued around 1920 because of bad publicity while others said it was dropped in the 1940s or 50s for the same reason. [63] (These informants never referred to "La Cosa Nostra" or that it had replaced the term "Mafia.")

It's hard to know how much weight to give these informants because many of them remain unidentified and for the most part appear to be non-members.

But two member-informants did tell the FBI that the organization had undergone a deliberate name change in the past. These informants had provided reliable and accurate information in the past.

As was noted earlier, California-based mobster Salvatore Costanza told federal agents in 1963 that Colombo Crime Family member John Misuraca told him that the "Mafia" term was allegedly dropped by the organization in favor of La Cosa Nostra sometime before 1956. [64]

Philadelphia Crime Family member-informant Rocco Scafidi seemed to back up Costanza's statement with even more details. Scafidi began to cooperate in 1964. His father and uncle who were both original members of the Philadelphia Crime Family in the 1920s.

In 1967, Scafidi told federal agents that the organization was first known in the United States as the "Black Hand" until it was renamed the Mafia in 1930. The name was changed again in the late 1950s when Angelo Bruno took control and the "organization [became] known as La Cosa Nostra (LCN), which [Scafidi] has translated to mean 'Our Thing.'" [65]

Scafidi explained how the name change directly affected the oaths at two induction ceremonies witnessed by him. [66]

According to Scafidi, he first became a member of the Philadelphia Crime Family in 1950, at a ceremony conducted by boss Joseph Ida. [67] At the time he was being inducted, Ida welcomed him into the crime family using the phrase, "This represents the Mafia and we are all the Mafia." [68] There was no mention of LCN during the induction ceremony.

Soon after Scafidi was inducted into the crime family, he was suspended for breaking the rules. Scafidi spent ten years excluded from mob business as punishment before he was able to get himself "reinstated" into the crime family. [69]

Scafidi formally rejoined the crime family at a second induction ceremony in 1960, alongside a batch of new recruits. He was present when new boss Angelo Bruno, who had succeeded Joseph Ida, administered the oath to the new members. According to Scafidi, Bruno welcomed them with the phrase, "We represent La Cosa Nostra. This family is La Cosa Nostra. ...This Family is called La Cosa Nostra." [70] Bruno made no mention of the term "Mafia" like Ida had ten years earlier.

The FBI accepted that a deliberate name change really happened. It concluded that "because of the derogatory image projected by the word 'Mafia,' the United States leadership dropped this usage and arbitrarily decided upon a more generic, and, to the uninitiated, a comparatively meaningless working title, La Cosa Nostra (Our Thing)." [71]

I don't believe mafia was ever a formal term for the organization and these sources don't necessarily have a perfect history of the organizaton and its language, but since we're talking about colloquial terms I think there's definite evidence the term mafia was used colloquially by the members themselves but it faded from use.

[PolackTony]

If “mafia” was adopted by CIs in Chicago in deference to their FBI handlers/interlocutors, why did they then never adopt “la cosa nostra” following the widely publicized Valachi hearings in 1963?

[Antiliar]

I didn't write "adopted." I'm suggesting they used language that they thought their handlers would understand during their conversations, like an adult would use a word a child is familiar with before teaching the correct term. Mafia is also much better known to the public than Cosa Nostra. Not even the FBI was aware of "Cosa Nostra" until Valachi.

[B.]

The Chicago informant I'm most curious about is the one from 1965 who said he only heard the organization referred to as "Amafa" (ph) before 1958 and that in 1958 he began to hear it referred to as Cosa Nostra in other cities though he said Giancana didn't want people using that phrase. He seems to have been saying mafia with a dialect or odd pronunciation and says explicitly he heard that term used nationally.



This is the same guy who said the lieutenants under Giancana were called "capitanos" [ph]. Because it's a phonetic transcription we don't know if the word was capitano or capodecina, but either way he was referring to captains.

He also referenced a "round table" which was a governing board that I initially thought could be a council but it's clear from context he was referring to the Commission.

No idea why 1958 would have prompted a change in language unless post-Apalachin they wanted to distance themselves from the word mafia and went with the more secretive (at the time) Cosa Nostra.

^^^ Note too that Maniaci said when Valachi cooperated the Milwakee Family had a meeting of many of its members where they discussed Valachi and specifically asked each other if they heard the term Cosa Nostra. Only 2 members of the Family had heard it prior to Valachi's testimony, so we can be confident Cosa Nostra was not commonly used in Illinois / Wisconsin.

[PolackTony]

I didn't write "adopted." I'm suggesting they used language that they thought their handlers would understand during their conversations, like an adult would use a word a child is familiar with before teaching the correct term. Mafia is also much better known to the public than Cosa Nostra.

But what about the CIs who claimed that it indeed used to be called "mafia" and only went by other names later on? Were they just not saying that? Did Maniaci say that the Milwaukee organization was known as "mafia" before it was known as "outfit" just to make it easier for the FBI to understand? Why do multiple sources seem to mark a temporal shift from "mafia" to other terms if they were just hand-holding the Feds and "teaching the correct term"? None of the sources in question here seem to be saying anything like "See, what you guys are calling mafia? What we really call it is outfit".

While "mafia" certainly had wider currency for the general public, the Valachi hearings were huge and "la cosa nostra" was all over the papers and evening news. Further, in the 60s the FBI went all-in on referring to the mafia as "la cosa nostra"/LCN. If hand-holding to better communicate with their FBI interlocutors was all that was driving the "mafia" talk, I'd expect to see at least one person use "cosa nostra" in that way, but we don't. And clearly, the Feds were asking Chicago guys, as they were sources in other cities, about the use of "la cosa nostra" because there are files where CIs state that the term was not used in Chicago. I'd think if these CIs were that concerned with using a term familiar to their handlers, they'd have picked up pretty quickly that the FBI thought of the organization's "real name" as LCN.

I found a second doc where "clique" was used in Chicago. Vinnie Teresa referred to the Patriarca organization as "The Office," but I don't know if he's the original source.

You're correct about Teresa; in the McClellan hearings at least he stated that he had never heard the organization called cosa nostra, but rather "the office, the outfit". Not sure if there were any other sources that used "the office" like that, or if the press just picked it up from Teresa's testimony and ran with it.

I'd be interested to see the other use of "the clique" in Chicago, as the only one I can think of at the moment was Giancana using it as a casual way of marking that Joe Fusco was a member. Giancana could've just as easily said "Joe's one of us", but I wouldn't necessarily read that "One of Us" was generalized as a term used to refer to the mafia, rather than as a casual, euphemistic way to demarcate membership.