Not So Quietly Flows the Don

The Mafia memoirs of Joe Bonanno are seized by the law

Omerta. The Sicilian code of silence. Nothing is more central to the Mafia mentality. Nothing, that is, except perhaps the tragic flaw of most men of power: pride.

Joe Bonanno may indeed be the proudest of America's Mafiosi: Sicilian-born, son of a don, bootlegger at 21, gunrunner for Al Capone at 24, a New York don himself at 26 and a ruthless aspirant to the title of capo di tutti capi, boss of all bosses. So at age 74, supposedly sunning out his years in Tucson, "Joe Bananas" began writing the story of his life. His tentative title: "The Prince of the Honored Mafia."

One bright morning last March, a force of FBI agents and state officials swarmed into his Tucson home with search warrants as the don, still in pajamas, looked on helplessly. They went directly to the secret paneled buco, or hiding place, in his bedroom and fished out 250 pages of his memoirs. State agents quickly photocopied them. Bonanno became so agitated he threw up.

For more than a month, the FBI has been analyzing the notes. The early reviews are favorable: "It was a trove of Mafia intelligence," says one Arizona official. TIME has learned that the manuscript reflects Bonanno's scorn for the Mafia's current commissioners, scalawags who were mere car thieves and moonshiners when Bonanno and four others established the Mafia ruling commission in 1931. They are unworthy of association with a royal Bonanno, writes Cosa Nostra's foremost snob, who claims to have had an audience with a Pope and a handshake with President Roosevelt.

In the '60s, Bonanno's scorn for his colleagues on the commission got him in trouble. He invaded their territories and ignored their calls for conciliatory meetings. And finally, the other dons believed, he schemed to kill three of his rivals, Stefano Magaddino, Carlo Gambino and Thomas Lucchese. In his memoirs, however, Bonanno is all innocence. He was merely trying to talk to them. "Carl [Gambino] and Tom [Lucchese] ... [were] told that I was going to kill three --a dirty and desperate conspiracy."

Believing, probably correctly, that Bonanno's motives were more sinister, the commission decided to move against him. Bonanno writes that Sam Giancana of Chicago, Angelo Bruno of Philadelphia and Santo Trafficante of Tampa were appointed to do the job. Bonanno was kidnaped by two gunmen near his lawyer's Park Avenue apartment. Referring to himself by his initials, Bonanno confirms the theory that he was held captive near New York City while the commission debated his fate: "J.B. was kidnaped, kept in [illegible] house on parkway, 18 months."

Ironically, Bonanno used a legalistic ploy. He writes: "They [the commissioners] didn't have any official authorization because J.B. was official member of commission. J.B. was head of the committee who elected the commission every five years. The five years was already passed and they were all out as J.B. was the only official to call [for a new election]."

Sages of the brotherhood were summoned from retirement to refute Bonanno's version of how the commission was set up. Reluctant to cross J.B., the tottering dons were no help. In the end, Bonanno was offered a deal: retire to Tucson in return for his life. He accepted, but in a few months was back in business with his narcotics and other rackets.

Many of the details of these recent activities were already in the hands of the law. Twice a week, beginning in 1975, a van would pull up to the Bonanno home and switch the plastic bags of garbage with similar-looking refuse. The authorities would then piece together Bonanno's torn-up notes from phone conversations, which recorded everything from the supplying of pizzeria equipment to concealing records from a grand jury (for which he is awaiting trial in San Francisco).

The dons were aghast when they learned that the authorities had seized Bonanno's book. An emergency meeting was called near Fort Lauderdale, but no decision was reached. The Mafia commission-established to "make law, to settle trouble, and to guarantee justice for all" --once again did not know what to do with the proud old man who liked to write his own rules, and his own history.

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