Chicago Outfit Lineage Chart 1928-2017

[Frank]

@Snakes that's some really great example

I would also like to add that there was/were other and older made member/members and high level associate/associates who was/were secretly informing for the government during the 1960's and 70's, meaning theres a great possibility that Calabrese wasnt the only made member who informed for the feds

Yes wasn't Ralph Pierce an informant? Also I believe Alex was on the boss panel and had a little more authority than Aiuppa. After those years I believe he held a lot of power. Remember these guys are criminals they don't follow most rules in life anyways. I believe if Alex wanted someone whacked even a made member he could get it done one way or another.

[Snakes]

No way he had more authority than Aiuppa. At least after Aiuppa got a bump up.

Ralph Pierce was the informant on a couple of those links that Villain posted.

[Frank]

Not more authority than Aiuppa once Joey became boss. I was referring to the years of the ruling panel. That just my opinion. Since he was reportedly grooming Aiuppa to be boss. They could just use Aiuppa to relay orders to made men

[Snakes]

Alex was out of town a lot on the panel, especially during the winter months. Aiuppa was the day to day boss. Accardo, not Alex, was grooming him.

[Frank]

Oh ok I had always read they were grooming Aiuppa. Speaking of this time period, I believe it's been mentioned that Cerone could have kept his position of boss, but didn't want to be boss when he was released.

[Snakes]

He just ran Elmwood Park for a few years after his release. In the late seventies, he increased his profile.

[Pete]

@Snakes that's some really great example

I would also like to add that there was/were other and older made member/members and high level associate/associates who was/were secretly informing for the government during the 1960's and 70's, meaning theres a great possibility that Calabrese wasnt the only made member who informed for the feds

Certainly there were others just he is the only one who testified so we have the records

[Villain]

@Snakes that's some really great example

I would also like to add that there was/were other and older made member/members and high level associate/associates who was/were secretly informing for the government during the 1960's and 70's, meaning theres a great possibility that Calabrese wasnt the only made member who informed for the feds

Certainly there were others just he is the only one who testified so we have the records

I absolutely agree Pete.

Also here few other interesting facts regarding Alex's activities during the 1970s (i copied these infos from several files)

1. In November, 1972, Gus Alex, Dave Yaras, Lenny Patrick, Les Kruse and Gus Zapas appeared in front of a special federal grand jury regarding the racketeer’s involvement with politicians and the police

2. According to one FBI report, in May, 1974, Aiuppa suffered from a serious affliction that involved arthritis in his knees, and has been unable to function due to his lack of capacity to move around. At the same time period, Accardo also spent some time in Palm Springs, so during this brief period Gus Alex was the only boss of the ruling panel that took care of day to day operations. The report also says that in fact Alex’s brother Sam was the one who delivered the messages between his brother and Aiuppa. Sam resided approximately one mile from Aiuppa’s residence in Oak Brook, Illinois. By now, except for Accardo and Aiuppa, there was almost no one else in the Outfit who rated more respect than Alex

3. By the late 1970’s, Tony Accardo, Joey Aiuppa and Gus Alex continued to meet and made important decisions around Chicago’s joints. For example, Accardo and Alex were once seen at the La Festival Restaurant at 28 West Elm Street in the company of Chicago attorneys Carl Walsh and Arthur Masser. When old man Accardo was brought to the St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago for a series of tests related to a possible stomach aliment, Alex was the one who accompanied his boss all the time. As for Aiuppa, they usually met at the Rodity’s Restaurant at 222 South Halsted

This also reminds me of one old chart from the 60s and another one which was made by Snakes few years ago, and he also had the non-Italian faction as a seperate faction. The 60s chart was made of high level associates from various territories which corespondents with some of the previous infos. Also guys like Guzik, Humphreys, Alex, Yaras and Patrick were not part of Cosa Nostra but they were certainly part of the Outfit, in one of its highest levels

[Confederate]

In the book "Captive City" by Ovid Demaris, He never mentioned Frank Ferraro as being the Underboss of the entire Outfit. He made it sound like there were 3 big underbosses under Ricca, Accardo & Giancana. He said Prio in the North, Battaglia in the West & LaPorte in the South with Battaglia being first among equals and next in line under Giancana. Then under those 3 he said there were all kinds of Gambling Bosses and Juice Bankers. Then, under them were all the street bookies and collectors. Don't know if this info correlates with FBI files during that time but I did like his book and thought it was very informative, especially for a guy in 1969 or thereabouts when he wrote it.

[Villain]

In addition regarding the non-Italians...

By the late 1950’s the Jewish population in Chicago migrated from the West Side to the North Side of the city and the boss of the North Side was Ross Prio, who oversaw the Outfits rackets, and so with the backing of the Outfit’s boss Giancana, Lenny Patrick won the approval of Prio to move to Rogers Park and operate his own bookmaking schemes. Patrick made a deal with Prio and Les Kruse to share his profits with the two bosses in exchange for protection. By 1959, Patrick had interests in many North Side restaurants in Chicago, one of which was the Black Angus Restaurant and he used this restaurant as a place to meet with his lieutenants and to divide their weekly swag, and besides his new operations in the Summerdale and Rogers Park districts, Patrick’s prime headquarters and the place for his largest handbook operations was still the New Lawndale Restaurant, in the Lawndale area on the West Side, which in fact was his old territory previously "given" by the late Jake Guzik. Also by now, the FBI listed Patrick among the principal hoodlums in Chicago.

During the early 1960's, Les Kruse tried to spread their gambling operations in the Dominican Republic by making frequent travels through Florida every two weeks. Over there Kruse established huge slot machine operation at the Hispaniola Hotel in Santo Domingo with the help of Hy Larner and two of his associates Carmine Bastone and Albert Meo. Their main connection over there was Porfirio Rubirosa, the former Dominican Ambassador in the U.S. and It was a perfectly legal operation, which draw the attention of mobsters from around the country including mob legends like New York’s Meyer Lansky, Tampa’s Santo Trafficante and Detroit’s Pete Licavoli. For example, Kruse together with one of Lansky’s close associates Walter Lenroot, held gambling interests in Jamaica also. But the problem was that in 1965, all of the Outfit's gambling operations in the Dominican Republic were closed down due to the revolution that occurred over there and so Kruse packed his bags and also took all of his gambling equipment and sent it to Las Vegas.

After the death of Rocco Fischetti and Battaglia’s imprisonment, Alderisio, Buccieri, Kruse and Pierce fought for control of territories on the Southwest Side and South Side. One of Buccieri’s confidants Joe Ferriola had a close cooperation with Pierce and Kruse on the South and Southwest Side and Alderisio, who also had his own operations in the same area, was left out of this one. So that was only one part of the problem and the other was that Alderisio considered Ferriola as low-ranked hoodlum and pushed him out of the South Side rackets. Alex immediately took his role as mediator, since there was no one else left to hold control over the Outfit’s “street” bosses. According to some sources Alex, Kruse and Pierce wanted to squeeze out Alderisio from the operation but by now Alderisio was one of the most powerful mobsters within the Outfit and he wasn’t going anywhere. But according to numerous FBI surveillance reports, Alex and Alderisio were very close and met on daily basis, so probably Alderisio was backed by Alex. This comes from another report where it says that Alderisio was a very loud and violent individual, but when Alex spoke, Alderisio kept quiet. I’m pointing this out because guys like Giancana, Alderisio, Buccieri or Battaglia were very tough to handle. They were “one way street” individuals. There are numerous wiretapped conversations between members of the First Ward such as Pat Marcy, where they discussed the violent nature of these guys and that the only guy that was good in reasoning, was Alex. When Alderisio sat on the same table with Alex, he listened because deep inside he knew that the gun pointing or pistol whipping days were over and now the less violent tactics were much more preferable, for which Alderisio had no clue on how to do it.

Im saying this stuff because during the late 1970's the Outfit's whole non-Italian faction completely vanished, since on July 2, 1976, Ralph Pierce died of a heart attack and just after a month, in August, he was followed in death by his old pal Lester Kruse, who also died from natural causes at the age of 69. Also back in 1974, Dave Yaras died of a heart attack while playing golf in Miami Beach and by 1977, Lenny Patrick was in jail and on top of that, Edward Vogel died of cancer on June 12, 1977. So the only to guys left on the "streets" were Alex and Larner, the first one being in Chicago and the second in Panama. So m,y point is that during the the early 1980's, Alex was the boss of Patrick and Aiuppa was Larner's boss ( which is well documented) and all of the previous history shows us that the boss of the so-called non-Italians was always somewhere at the top (we have Humphreys or Guzik on numerous meetings with the top Chicago's Italian leadership and we have Alex also having close Genovese family connections), meaning I still think that Alex was the last boss of the non-Italians and the old tradition ended up with him, thanks to Patrick's testimony

[Villain]

In the book "Captive City" by Ovid Demaris, He never mentioned Frank Ferraro as being the Underboss of the entire Outfit. He made it sound like there were 3 big underbosses under Ricca, Accardo & Giancana. He said Prio in the North, Battaglia in the West & LaPorte in the South with Battaglia being first among equals and next in line under Giancana. Then under those 3 he said there were all kinds of Gambling Bosses and Juice Bankers. Then, under them were all the street bookies and collectors. Don't know if this info correlates with FBI files during that time but I did like his book and thought it was very informative, especially for a guy in 1969 or thereabouts when he wrote it.

There are records which shows that Ferraro should've replaced Giancana but he died too early and there was a meeting on which Battaglia took Ferraro's place, while Cerone also fought for the position. So I think that Battaglia was somehow the "unofficial" underboss for the Outfit who later took the boss position and later Cerone inherited it.

[Snakes]

Demaris's book was contemporary in nature and lacked some of the sources we now use to construct the Outfit's makeup in that time period. With that said, he still wrote an excellent book.

As for the sixties charts, I made one with input from that fraud Chicago and then another without him which (not surprisingly) is much more accurate, although I'd need to make some revisions to it because I made it a couple of years ago.

[Villain]

Demaris's book was contemporary in nature and lacked some of the sources we now use to construct the Outfit's makeup in that time period. With that said, he still wrote an excellent book.

As for the sixties charts, I made one with input from that fraud Chicago and then another without him which (not surprisingly) is much more accurate, although I'd need to make some revisions to it because I made it a couple of years ago.

+1

But I think that at least you managed to hit the nail on the three top guys, the underboss, capos and the non-Italians

[Villain]

I also want to state another fact that many Italian guys who were made in later years, previously were brought into the rackets and the Outfit by non-Italian members, like for example the old Cicero crew that included Claude Maddox and Joe Gorngold, brought in guys like Aiuppa, Ansani and Torello. I mean, Torello was brought in by Corngold, while Aiuppa and Ansani were Maddox's guys. And later Torello transferred to the Buccieri group, and controlled the north part of the Cicero area and later became the crew boss of the whole territory, while Aiuppa became the boss of the Outfit.

[FriendofFamily]

I think something that was interesting to me was that Aiuppa wanted to take over Cleveland around 1982-1985 time period after Cleveland was pretty much decimated. He didn't obviously, but he was having some trouble of his own if I remember. There was some law enforcement testimony to a Congressional Committee about it in 1980's.