What Family did Joe Valachi REALLY belong to?

[B.]

- Valachi claims that Vito Agueci wanted revenge on his boss Stefano Magaddino because he had killed Albert Agueci. When Valachi was serving time with Albert, Albert supposedly told him that if Magaddino didn't post his bail he and his brother (Vito) would put Magaddino on the carpet. By this he meant that he was going to go to the other bosses and tell tham that Magaddino was in the heroin business. He felt that because Magaddino was a partner with the Agueci brothers in the heroin business he should have posted their bail. Valachi warned him that he would be killed, which is what happened.

- Apparently it was in the papers that Vinnie Mauro visits the District Attorney's office every day and LE were trying to spin a story that he was cooperating. Valachi pointed out to Vito Genovese that Vinnie Mauro and Frank (?) were not running around implicating their boss in the heroin business like the Agueci brothers had done. This rumor continued to persist however and after Valachi flipped the agents he spoke to believed that Mauro was cooperating with the DA. Valachi however continued to defend Mauro.

- Johnny Dio frequently talked about Hoffa in prison and talked about how if Kennedy won the presidential election "we would be ruined". Joe Beck, Frank Costello, and Vito Genovese also rooted against Kennedy. Valachi says he never would have made a move like he did if it weren't for Kennedy.

- Valachi was asked to give his opinion on a book LE had compiled with 237 names called "Mafia" but refused to comment until later. This is probably the "Mafia" FBN book that was finally published a few years back that many of us own.

- LE told Valachi that they had three other witnesses aside from Valachi and one of them apparently had information on the Anastasia murder. This guy was out on bail and survived an attempted murder where he was shot in the foot. The witness had his own gun and returned fire. Apparently this witness was the guy who supplied the guns used in the Anastasia murder. The agents tried to arrange for Valachi to meet him so they could play cards together but Valachi refused. The DA apparently didn't buy the guy's story about Anastasia.

And that's all I got. You can read more here... I sifted through what I thought was pertinent:
http://mafiahistory.us/a023/therealthing.htm

[Sol]

Awesome B., best way to read. .......Soliai

[Antiliar]

It was an inside joke. That little nugget of info was from Balsamo's Under the Clock book.


Pogo

You paid more attention to that book than I did LOL

[Pogo The Clown]

It was an inside joke. That little nugget of info was from Balsamo's Under the Clock book.

You paid more attention to that book than I did LOL

It was one of the first books I read when I first started getting into the mob. Although we know it is almost total fiction it is really entertaining fiction. Especially the first half dealing with Frankie Yale, the Black Handers and the war with the Irish White Hand gang.

I don't know.
In 1920 Clemente said NY had 3000 members, same era Gentile quoted 2000.
One 1940's informant said the Bonannos had 40 members.
One 70's informant said Gambino had 75 captains.

The members themselves disagree almost as much as the experts do.

Masseria has 700 Soldiers. Maranzano has 600. Either one finds out you exist they'll crush you like an ant.


Pogo

[Angelo Santino]

It was an inside joke. That little nugget of info was from Balsamo's Under the Clock book.

You paid more attention to that book than I did LOL

It was one of the first books I read when I first started getting into the mob. Although we know it is almost total fiction it is really entertaining fiction. Especially the first half dealing with Frankie Yale, the Black Handers and the war with the Irish White Hand gang.

I don't know.
In 1920 Clemente said NY had 3000 members, same era Gentile quoted 2000.
One 1940's informant said the Bonannos had 40 members.
One 70's informant said Gambino had 75 captains.

The members themselves disagree almost as much as the experts do.

Masseria has 700 Soldiers. Maranzano has 600. Either one finds out you exist they'll crush you like an ant.


Pogo

Masseria and Maranzano must have used bullhorns to give orders since the structure wasn't formed until after the war.

[dixiemafia]

Masseria and Maranzano must have used bullhorns to give orders since the structure wasn't formed until after the war.

I can't hear you! Speak up boss!

I love threads like this though. I never thought Valachi was this involved with so many different players from different players and never cared about his story much until this thread started. Great great info!

[OlBlueEyesClub]

Thanks for the info and links B. Man, that was fun as hell to read, and I'm honored a thread I made has sparked such discussion. Not sure if I posted this before as I've been meaning to say this while reading through this thread.

[Pogo The Clown]

Agreed. Great thread.

He talks about the well-known dispute he had with business partner in his restaurant Frank Luciano (Gambino family) but adds some details that I don't think are in the book. Valachi asked Willie Moretti not to mention this problem to Vito because Vito had just gotten back from Italy. The sitdown about the dispute was supposed to be held between Tony Bender, Frank Luciano, and Charlie Brush (acting captain for hospitalized Joe Riccobono), but Brush couldn't make it so Albert Anastasia stepped in. The dispute ended up with Valachi getting the restaurant as we know.

Is Charlie Brush the future Capo Charles Dongarro? The name fits but Dongarro became Capo of a separate Crew later on so I'm not sure if it is the same guy. Thanks.


Pogo

[Angelo Santino]

Yeah, B. really took this thread to a whole other level. Very interesting.

Now, according to Bonanno, he claims Mangano was a secret Maranzano ally. Given that Mangano was most likely a very powerful South Brooklyn group leader under D'Aquila that would make sense. According to Gentile, Traina wasn't too thrilled with Masseria and admitted that "Maranzano was right" when he used D'Aquila's murder as an example of Masseria's "dictatorship."

[B.]

Yeah, B. really took this thread to a whole other level. Very interesting.

Now, according to Bonanno, he claims Mangano was a secret Maranzano ally. Given that Mangano was most likely a very powerful South Brooklyn group leader under D'Aquila that would make sense. According to Gentile, Traina wasn't too thrilled with Masseria and admitted that "Maranzano was right" when he used D'Aquila's murder as an example of Masseria's "dictatorship."

Yeah, when Gentile talks about Traina it seems clear that Traina was opposed to Masseria because of his closeness to D'Aquila, but it doesn't seem he was an active conspirator against Masseria like Scalise. As for Mangano, I didn't think he was allied with Maranzano until the very end but Bonanno must know more.

Pogo -- yep, Charlie Brush would be Dongarro. I'm not sure how to reconcile the crew succession, but since this was the 1950s and Riccobono was hospitalized for unspecified reasons and we don't know how long, the crew may have been assigned to Dongarro on a very short-term basis.

What does everyone think of this "council" that Valachi brings up repeatedly in the Real Thing? At first I thought he meant the Commission, but it becomes clear that this is actually a council within the Genovese family set up to approve/disprove murders, possibly other issues as well. He says there are six members on the council and then a seventh who is put in place to break ties. Even Vito Genovese apparently had to justify murders to the council, so this council seems to have had significant power.

Valachi is also the reason we were led to believe the Genovese family had only six captains from ~1930s-1960s which seems unlikely. Just a theory, but what if these six captains formed the "council" he talks about? The consigliere would be the obvious choice for the seventh man.

[DPG]

Your last thought involving the 6 captains is what came to mind for me. This council was set up as Vito took over? This would seem to be out of line with the popular thoughts from the time IMO. I've always been of the impression that Frank more or less let the family run itself, so this would seem to point towards this council being formed during his reign and not during Vito's.
Love the info B, never seen anything this in depth on Valachi.

[HairyKnuckles]

Pogo -- yep, Charlie Brush would be Dongarro. I'm not sure how to reconcile the crew succession, but since this was the 1950s and Riccobono was hospitalized for unspecified reasons and we don't know how long, the crew may have been assigned to Dongarro on a very short-term basis.

That´s exactly what it was. Me too thought that the crew was split at one time but was corrected by JD I think over on Real Deal, The crew was pretty large and had members based mainly in Lower East Side but also in Brooklyn and in Connecticut. Steve Armone succeeded Riccobono in the late 1950s and then Dongarra succeeded Armone when he died in 1960. Dongarra was sidelined for a while when he suffered a heart attack in 1961 and a couple of years later, while convalescing from an eye operation, Joe N. Gallo stepped up. (So Gallo went from acting captain to acting consigliere and then to official consigliere.) After Dongarra died in 1973, Frank Gagliardi was made captain and in the late 1970s, Joe "Piney" Armone acted for him until he took over full time in 1982.

What does everyone think of this "council" that Valachi brings up repeatedly in the Real Thing?

I think it´s the administration of the Family. Valachi just named it differently. Back in the day, the administration was the boss, the consigliere and a number of captains. That´s according to Bill Bonanno. I don´t know if this was a strictly Bonanno Family thing. Perhaps the Genovese also used this administration set up but added the underboss as a member to the administration, which makes sense considering Vito Genovese (the underboss) whealing and dealing on this "counsil" Valachi talks about.

Thanks B for tyoing out some of the stuff from the Real Thing. It´s an interesting read. Not an easy read, but interesting nevertheless.

[OlBlueEyesClub]

I too think the "council" is simply the administration wing of the Luciano/Genovese family. I think this "council" may have been more in use during Luciano & Costello's time, but slowly become inept with Genovese and his "plotting" about within the "council". Reading the "Real Thing" now, and it's cool how Valachi speaks on many of the names mentioned in Mike Dash's later book "The First Family". Mainly the lady whom initially ran the murder stables, Pasquarella Spinelli, I believe, and how and why she was killed and Valachi's feelings about her and spitting on her corpse.

[B.]

Last time we talked about the six ID'd Genovese captains from that era we talked about the possibility of there being more captains than that, with those six ID'd by Valachi actually being more like a secondary administration. Most of us seem to agree that a 300 member family having six captains even in the days of larger crews seems unlikely (this would average out to 50 members per crew, and if they weren't evenly divided this could mean some crews were larger).

I'm really starting to think that these six captains were the council which is why they were more well-known to Valachi.

Side note, but I wanted to go back to what Valachi said about Maranzano's hit list and how he basically wanted to kill all of the up-and-coming leaders of the Luciano/Genovese family except Mike Coppola. Valachi says this is because Coppola was a "heel", which doesn't really offer any kind of explanation. Makes me wonder if Maranzano was working on an alliance with Coppola.

[Angelo Santino]

How could Valachi have been misinformed about how many captains were in his own Family? When the Mafia Charts in 1963 were presented, the Genovese Family was the only group to have the crews broken down with soldiers and capo successors. Now granted he misidentified several people, Caponigro of Philly and Persico of the Colombos come to mind, but he was pretty adamant about there being 6 crews. And several law enforcement officials were surprised by some of the members being "only soldiers" such as Phil Lombardo and testified that they thought he was much higher due to his level of insulation.