Mafia
Q & A

This question seems to be a simple one. However, a lack of source material and some conflicting viewpoints complicate things and make a long answer necessary.

Q.

Who were the members of the very first Mafia "Commission" in 1931?

A.

While many have written about the first Commission, created in 1931 under the guidance of Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, only two sources can be considered authoritative. Nick Gentile recorded his memories of a lifetime in the Mafia in the autobiographical "Vita di Capomafia." Joseph Bonanno did the same years later in "A Man of Honor."

Each man was in a position to know the membership of the Commission. Gentile was an elder statesmen of the Mafia. By 1931, he had served as boss, caporegime and consigliere for several families in the United States. He was on very friendly terms with Luciano, with whom he had discussed the Commission concept before it was adopted, and he had strong relationships with Luciano's allies. Gentile also served as mentor for many underworld leaders in the Midwest. Though Bonanno's 1931 résumé was less impressive, he could have boasted of better first-hand knowledge, as he was one of the first Commission members.

The accounts of the two men are largely in agreement. They both include the leaders of the five New York families - Luciano, Bonanno, Tom Gagliano, Joe Profaci and Vincent Mangano - and Chicago's Alphonse Capone on the 1931 Commission. But both indicate that the Commission was comprised of seven members.

Bonanno says the seventh member was his relative Stefano Magaddino, boss of the Buffalo-Niagara Falls region. Gentile says the seventh member was Frank "Ciccio" Milano of Cleveland. We are left with those two choices. (Despite what you might have read elsewhere, no one from Detroit or Philadelphia or New England served on the first Commission.)

The different viewpoints of Bonanno and Gentile were surely not the result of favoritism. At the time they wrote their autobiographies, each Mafioso had good reason for strong dislike of the person they named the seventh Commission member. Bonanno experienced a prolonged rivalry with Magaddino and claimed that Magaddino once kidnapped him and threatened to kill him. Gentile repeatedly called Milano a blockhead and blamed him for the unwise choices that cost Gentile friend John Bazzano his life.

Siding with Bonanno is easy in this case, as he actually sat with that first Commission. But, still, I lean more toward Gentile. Bonanno noted that Commission meetings were irregularly scheduled. The first meeting of the Commission - in 1931 - took place at a General Assembly of the nation's mob bigshots in Chicago. It must have been a confusing moment, particularly for a young Mafioso who had just been elevated to the position of boss (and couldn't be sure that new "friends" like Luciano weren't plotting against him). Further, Bonanno's entire book comes across as an argument for the greatness of the Castellammarese. He neglects to mention many of the major underworld figures of the day, including Sicily's Vito Cascio Ferro and Brooklyn-based boss of bosses Salvatore D'Aquila, though he must have known of them. It seems possible that he discounted Milano's membership in the very first Commission simply because Milano was not Castellammarese and Magaddino - certainly a Commission member at a later time - was Castellammarese.

Supporting Milano's presence on the Commission is the fact that he was pro-Luciano. Almost everyone else on the panel - except Capone - had sided openly or secretly with the Maranzano forces during the Castellammarese War of 1929-1931. Luciano was a Maranzano opponent until the final year of the conflict and also reportedly arranged for Maranzano's assassination in September 1931, just before the Commission was formed.

But Milano could not have served on the Commission for very long. In 1932, he was in hot water with his fellow Mafia bosses for having approved of Pittsburgh boss Bazzano's murder of his rivals, the Volpe Brothers. Gentile was aware that Milano had coached Bazzano. Certainly, Gentile's friends in New York quickly became aware of the fact as well. Bazzano was executed for his crime. It seems Milano was exiled.

In the mid-1930s, a disgraced Milano quietly went off into Mexico. (Capone, of course, was the first to drop from the Commission. He was sent off to prison on a tax evasion conviction shortly after the Commission was formed.)

So, finally, my best answer to the question is:

Charlie Luciano - New York
Joseph Bonanno - New York
Tom Gagliano - New York
Joseph Profaci - New York
Vincent Mangano - New York
Alphonse Capone - Chicago
Frank Milano - Cleveland