Confirmation of Chicago Consiglio 1969

[PolackTony]

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.

My take is that "amafa" was almost certainly 'a mafia; the word "mafia" with the elided Sicilian definite article for a feminine noun; i.e., "the mafia".

You're probably already aware, but the Feds also transcribed Maggadino as referring to Mauro as a "capitano" on one tape, which they glossed as "captain" there.

[B.]

I think the Office was used on the street in New England to casually refer to the leadership or Family like Teresa said but from the way the public has carried it you'd think everyone across the country was going around saying "I'm going to New England to visit the Office." It's taken on a life of its own.

Gambling operations are/were also commonly called "the office" so that could have influenced its use on the street in New England, not sure.

The Detroit Partnership is another one... if CC or Scott sees this they could weigh in, but that seems to be another one that makes for a nice Wikipedia heading but I'm skeptical Zerilli and co. were going around calling themselves the Partnership. It seems like an operational term for racket partnerships, not something the mafia would use for itself.

The Combination is another one we see from time to time. That's another gambling term and I've seen it used by a non-member CI or two to refer to the mafia but I don't know that members used it much if at all to refer to the org.

The Arm with Buffalo sounds like a reference to strongarming or muscling in. It reminds me too of Philly's admin+captains being referred to as "the elbow" when they kicked up street tax profits to them. If an informant had reported that in the 1960s we'd probably be referring to their Family as the Philadelphia Elbow.

The Chicago Outfit gives the Family a catchy name and it was 100% in common use in Chicago but overlooks the fact that many/most of the Families around the country were using that. It wasn't a unique brand name for Chicago.

[B.]

Here's a weird one...

More than one modern era NYC member has said made members were referred to on the street as "Strombergs" and getting made is called "Strommed". That's an f'n weird one that I wouldn't believe if it didn't come from members. Maybe Angelo should list soldiers on his charts as "Strombergs".

Nig Rosen's real name was Stromberg but I don't know why/how they would have borrowed it from him.

[PolackTony]

Here's a weird one...

More than one modern era NYC member has said made members were referred to on the street as "Strombergs" and getting made is called "Strommed". That's an f'n weird one that I wouldn't believe if it didn't come from members. Maybe Angelo should list soldiers on his charts as "Strombergs".

Nig Rosen's real name was Stromberg but I don't know why/how they would have borrowed it from him.

Yeah, that makes no sense to me. No idea how that would've caught on or what it was meant to signify originally.

If it was adopted from Harry Stromberg somehow, at least they didn't go by Harry and Danny Stromberg's nickname (which was akin to the impolite version of Chicago's Joe Amato's nickname).

[PolackTony]

The Chicago Outfit gives the Family a catchy name and it was 100% in common use in Chicago but overlooks the fact that many/most of the Families around the country were using that. It wasn't a unique brand name for Chicago.

This is a major point and why I never just use "the outfit" as such unless the context is already known to be Chicago. They're all "outfits". When asked once before his death about other families interacting with Chicago (mainly in Vegas), Frank Culotta said "I knew that those other cities had their outfits, but they were under our outfit".

[Antiliar]

I can't answer why Maniaci said what he did, I only put out an explanatory theory that could be correct or not. Do I thinks it's possible that they used the word "mafia" as a name for their organization, yes, on occasion. I don't believe it was the norm. Why? Because it was a name created by outsiders who wrote a play about a prison Camorra group operating in a Palermo prison. We know from multiple attestations that the normal insider words were fratellanza and fratuzzi. Salvatore Clemente and Alfonso Attardi both gave the name fratellanza, as did Bill Bonanno many decades later when detailed the ceremony. Besides that, I'm more skeptical about the information found in FBI files. If you believe that insiders called their organization "Mafia" to each other except on rare occasions, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Cosa Nostra never caught on with the public, but "Mafia" has been in the public vocabulary since around 1891.

[B.]

Having trouble understanding the debate.

Here was what I said earlier:

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.

There's evidence from members and top echelon FBI sources that mafia was used to some degree in cities around the US. It was how some of these sources chose to explain it to the FBI and some of them specifically said they were told that was an earlier name for it or even the name used when they were made. A 1970s Chicago member used it in his FBI interviews. I doubt they were screaming mafia from the rooftops but it was a term familiar to them that they used on occasion.

What we know is Cosa Nostra used a lot of different terms spanning generations to refer to the org/ranks and often used multiple terms during the same era because they all understood the context. We can see this was true even in old Sicily where different villages had their own names for it. They were able to communicate this by using vague and casual language as well as traditional terms.

We have members in Chicago using street language like clique, crew boss, and outfit, but also mafia, sottocapo, capodecina, and a Sicilian dialect version of consiglio. Clique is even used in the same conversation as capodecina and avugad. It's apparent that no matter what kind of reliable evidence is found about Chicago there will be different interpretations and nobody needs to be convinced, but I think our overall understanding is in a great place.

[B.]

Not looking to pile on to the previous discussion but it's worth looking at the specifics of what the early 1970s member informant(s) said with some of the new info in mind. Thanks again to Antiliar for sharing Ricca's FBI file a couple years back.

Says in early Chicago they referred to "their own organization" as the "mafia".




Here he refers to current members as "mafia" members:






Reference to "mafia" members being inducted or "made" into "the Family":




Breakdown of the "statesmen", which can now be interpreted as the consiglio:



Refers to Ricca / Accardo as the "elder statesmen":




Spilotro told an informant that a short redacted word consists of five senior members, including Ricca/ Accardo, Nicoletti, a redacted name, and a fifth guy not yet named. The length of the redacted word could potentially fit consiglio / council:



Description of Ricca / Accardo's role as mediators:



Might be a different informant, refers to the Family as "the People":



------------

Should note that the two terms the Gianola informant uses to refer to the Chicago Family the most are "mafia" and the "outfit". He primarily uses "mafia", always in quotes indicating it was his language. While some other sources use "mafia" only as an intro to the organization, this member consistently uses it in every report.

The main thing this informant says that doesn't jive with our idea of a traditional Family is it sounds like members were inducted without much if any ceremony, simply being verbally "made". We've discussed that a lot, compared it to other Families who skipped the ceremony, etc. but this informant indicates these informal inductions took place very early on even among older Sicilians.

[Antiliar]

Having trouble understanding the debate.

Here was what I said earlier:

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.

There's evidence from members and top echelon FBI sources that mafia was used to some degree in cities around the US. It was how some of these sources chose to explain it to the FBI and some of them specifically said they were told that was an earlier name for it or even the name used when they were made. A 1970s Chicago member used it in his FBI interviews. I doubt they were screaming mafia from the rooftops but it was a term familiar to them that they used on occasion.

What we know is Cosa Nostra used a lot of different terms spanning generations to refer to the org/ranks and often used multiple terms during the same era because they all understood the context. We can see this was true even in old Sicily where different villages had their own names for it. They were able to communicate this by using vague and casual language as well as traditional terms.

We have members in Chicago using street language like clique, crew boss, and outfit, but also mafia, sottocapo, capodecina, and a Sicilian dialect version of consiglio. Clique is even used in the same conversation as capodecina and avugad. It's apparent that no matter what kind of reliable evidence is found about Chicago there will be different interpretations and nobody needs to be convinced, but I think our overall understanding is in a great place.

I agree with what you wrote. I think a lot of the terms used were not just passed down during the history of the Fratellanza, but were also absorbed from the surrounding culture. When Vito DiGiorgio was extorting a wealthy Sicilian immigrant in New Orleans in 1908, he wrote on a letter that he was the "king of the Black Hand." I doubt that among each other the members called their group "the Black Hand," but more likely IMO he used a popular term that sounded menacing.

Likewise when made members picked up words like "syndicate" and "Mafia" it was because they read them in the newspapers and heard people talking about them. Sometimes words were used as euphemisms, and the euphemisms ended up replacing the original names, such as Cosa Nostra. I think "Fratellanza" and "Fratuzzi" probably took on a sacred role and they kept them hidden unless it was required to use them, so they just said "this thing of ours" and "our thing." "Syndicate," "Mafia," and even "Black Hand" could have been an earlier generation of euphemism.

[B.]

100%. We can even see it with "La" Cosa Nostra and the NYC names i.e. Bonanno Family where they eventually took on outsider names.

[Antiliar]

Here's another use of clique in Chicago:

FBI File - clique Humphreys Ferraro.jpg

[B.]

From the 1950 book Chicago Confidential:



- Obviously this old book is not a definitive source for organizational info but the idea of Ricca being a "Grand Councillor" of the "Unione Siciliano" does fit with him being chairman of the consiglio and/or representing Chicago on the Commission in the 1930s-40s and then again in the 1960s-70s. The book also refers to the Chicago Family as the "Camorra", drawing back to what Antiliar said about the term being misappropriated to refer to the mafia at times.

- Nicola Gentile told Italian Treasury agents that Ricca sat on the "Grand Council" (Gran Consiglio), which was obviously a reference to the Commission by that time. If the authors had access to those documents that could have influenced their perception that he was "Grand Councillor" but Gentile's cooperation was very recent and I don't know if they would have had access to those documents like we do today. (Antiliar, I'd be interested in your perspective on that)

Either way various references are accumulating. Whether it was a lucky coincidence or not (like the 1928 newspaper report that called the Cleveland arrestees part of the "Grand Council" of the mafia) I'd say Grand Councillor is a fitting description of Ricca's role as chairman on the Family consiglio as this thread's original purpose indicates along with his role on the Commission.

[Antiliar]

- Nicola Gentile told Italian Treasury agents that Ricca sat on the "Grand Council" (Gran Consiglio), which was obviously a reference to the Commission by that time. If the authors had access to those documents that could have influenced their perception that he was "Grand Councillor" but Gentile's cooperation was very recent and I don't know if they would have had access to those documents like we do today. (Antiliar, I'd be interested in your perspective on that)

Just like FBI agents shared or leaked confidential information to reporters like Sandy Smith, the Bureau of Narcotics did the same thing, but earlier. Ed Reid, who wrote for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, put his book Mafia in 1952 that reads like he just photocopied FBN documents and pasted them. It includes the "Grand Council" that Gentile told the legat in Italy in 1940, complete with all the member's names. I think he tried to name off the Commission members but forgot some names. He probably included Phil Mangano and Traina because Vincenzo may have brought them with him for Commission meetings. Since this was Gentile's borgata he would have learned of this, while his knowledge of members who accompanied bosses in other Families was cloudy at best.

[B.]

Good take. I suspect the authors may have gotten access to those documents.

[SonnyC]

Interesting this shows Catuara as a capo but not Pilotto.