Word: nostras
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Another legacy from the Sicilian Mafia is Cosa Nostra's almost mystical concept of respect. Something like the Oriental notion of "face," respect means more to a Cosa Nostra mobster than money. If he does not have the regard of his fellow members, he is nothing, even in his own eyes. An equally high value is placed on loyalty. It is not always honored, to be sure, but it nevertheless remains a powerful binding force within the organization. Indeed, the very human characteristics of respect and loyalty, together with the organization's dynastic structure, offer some clues to its remarkable...
...immediate group and one's own rules. Does the younger generation have any qualms about what it is doing? It would seem not. In The Godfather, the Dartmouth-educated son of a New York boss gives his bride what is probably the typical rationale. Members of Cosa Nostra, he reasons, are no worse than any other Americans. "In my history course at Dartmouth, we did some background on all the Presidents, and they had fathers and grandfathers who were lucky they didn't get hanged...
...likely to employ the sadistic methods that Cosa Nostra still finds useful. Despite the more businesslike image of the younger gang leaders, many mobsters are still animals in fedoras. If Sam Giancana moves, as he has, with Frank Sinatra on one level, his henchmen move on another. One of the most chilling conversations that the FBI has overheard involved two of Giancana's hoods telling a third, "Jackie," about the murder of one of their colleagues, a 350-pounder by the name of William Jackson...
Despite Cosa Nostra's obvious frightening strengths, new problems and challenges are coming at it from several sides. In the slums, for instance, its control of gambling and vice is being contested, sometimes successfully, by the blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexican-Americans who want a share of the action. In Buffalo, the blacks at first worked a bargain with Magaddino by which they would control the numbers racket, giving him only a 10% tribute. Later, when he ran into trouble with the authorities, they stopped the 10% entirely. That was nothing compared to the trouble that Ruggiero Boiardo...
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...