Word: cosa
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...quarrels of husband and wife, random slaughter in delicatessen holdups and bar brawls, and the other killings that constitute the vast majority of murders in the U.S. Instead, the Mafia practices a drama of implacable tribal will: just as Clausewitz defined war as foreign policy by other means, La Cosa Nostra regards murder as an instrument of business-often conducted with a vengeance. The peculiar vogue that the Mafia is now enjoying in films and books may spring from a kind of stylish atavism that Americans recognize in a brute feudal system that allows swift retribution with no red tape...
...ironic that the bloodletting should erupt now. Until last summer, many Americans were half-persuaded that the Mafia was chimerical. In New York, Mobster Joseph Colombo organized the Italian-American Civil Rights League, using many law-abiding Italian-Americans as a shield for the Syndicate. The Mafia and La Cosa Nostra, the league argued, were anti-Italian figments of the FBI'S imagination. Colombo even succeeded in embarrassing the producer of The Godfather into deleting the two names from the script. Then, at a "Unity Day" celebration in Manhattan's Columbus Circle last June, a black gunman named...
...Mafia" and "Cosa Nostra" from the script-a shrewd piece of bargaining, since "Mafia" had never appeared in the script anyway and "Cosa Nostra" had been used only once. Also, he hired some people associated with the league, including a Las Vegas nightclub M.C., Gianni Russo, who got the role of the Godfather's treacherous son-in-law Carlo. Russo, a friend of Colombo's son Anthony, provided the cast with tips on how Mafiosi would act. He cheerfully observes that the Mob is "like the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. Everyone should have an organization...
...retitled American version of a film by the respected French director Jean-Pierre Mel ville) called The Godson. Paramount is planning the official Puzo-scripted sequel to The Godfather - The Death of Michael Corleone. Also in the works is a movie version of The Valachi Papers, the memoirs of Cosa Nostra veteran Joe Valachi. There is even a Godfather game, in which players compete for control of the rackets...
...word Mafia isn't used much any more. And I never heard the term Cosa Nostra until Joe Valachi* used it. But there is one big gang that runs organized crime in this country. It has many different names-the Organization, the Syndicate. We generally call it the Mob. New young people who become members call it the Outfit...