Word: bosse
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There are, in addition, internal disputes, like the messy slaying of New York Boss Albert Anastasia in 1957. Even though he has never been east of Flatbush, a Cosa Nostra man still looks upon himself as a Sicilian or a Neapolitan, distrusting the other. Nor is the Commission itself what it once was. Two places, vacated by death, have not been filled. Two of the commissioners, Philadelphia's Angelo Bruno and New York's Joe Colombo, command little respect; Detroit's Joe Zerilli rarely attends meetings. A former commissioner, New York's Joe Bonanno, was kicked...
...ideas from Julius Caesar's military command, Maranzano laid down the patterns that still, with minor modifications, hold today. To stop the killing, said Maranzano, the gangs that then existed would henceforth be recognized as families, each with its own territorial limits. Heading each family would be a boss, or Capo. Under him would be an underboss, or Sottocapo, and beneath the underboss would be any number of lieutenants, or Caporegimes, leading squads of soldiers, or "button men." One advantage of the scheme was the insulation it provided the men at the top. In the ordinary course of events...
...combination of such qualities as manliness, honor and willingness to keep secrets. Its requirements have never changed. The penalty for breaching the code: death. Except for the Chicago branch, which has always disdained the ornate, members are bound by an elaborate ceremony of medieval hocuspocus. Flanked by the boss and his lieutenants, the initiate and his sponsor may stand in front of a table on which are placed a gun and, on occasion, a knife. The boss picks up the gun and intones in the Sicilian dialect: "Niatri representam La Cosa Nostra. Sta famigghiaè La Cosa Nostra [We represent...
Brilliant as Maranzano's plan was, it had one major flaw: Maranzano himself. Like his hero Caesar, Maranzano suffered from overweening ambition. Above the family bosses, there was, under his scheme, to be a Boss of All Bosses, a Capo di Tutti Capi, by the name of Salvatore Maranzano. When several of the family bosses found out that he was plotting to kill them, they worked up an assassination scheme. Five months after he took power, Il Capo di Tutti Capi was murdered. The same day, Sept. 10, 1931, 40 leaders allied with him were slain across the country...
...Maranzano's death, a kind of peace did settle over Cosa Nostra. There have been skirmishes and murders aplenty since then, but never anything like the Castellammarese War. In place of the Capo di Tutti Capi, the mobsters formed a Commission made up of nine to twelve family bosses to guide the organization and settle disputes. While its powers have never been precisely spelled out, the Commission seems to be roughly analogous to the governing body of a loose confederation. It must approve each family's choice of boss, and it can, if it wants to, remove...