2. The Mafia Were Drug Dealers From the Start
Don Corleone was created by Mario Puzo, The Godfather’s author, as a composite character based on several real life mob bosses. The fictional Don Corleone’s raspy and quiet voice is like that of the real life Frank Costello’s, the onetime boss of the Luciano – now the Genovese – crime family. Don Corleone had all the judges and politicians in his pocket. The real life Frank Costello, nicknamed the “Prime Minister of the Underworld” because of his political clout, effectively dominated Tammany Hall in the mid-twentieth century. Don Corleone used his olive importation business as cover for his criminal activities. That is based on the real life Joe Profaci, founder and longtime boss of the Colombo crime family, who also posed as an olive oil importer.
The “honorable” traits ascribed to Don Corleone are based on the real life Joseph Bonanno, a pretentious and quite dishonorable head of the Bonanno crime family. Bonanno, who wrote a self-serving memoir after his forced retirement, referred to mafia bosses of his generations as “Fathers” who headed “honorable societies”. He claimed that he and the mob avoided drugs for the reasons listed in The Godfather – moral revulsion, and avoidance of the heat drugs draw. As Bonanno put it: “My tradition outlaws narcotics. It has always been that ‘men of honor’ don’t deal in narcotics“. That is quite inaccurate. In reality, mobsters of all levels, including Bonanno, were involved in illegal drugs since the birth of the mob.
