The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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merciless ruthlessness, the lack of which had been Don Corleone’s only fault as a 
conqueror. 
From 1935 to 1937 Sonny Corleond made a reputation as the most cunning and 
relentless executioner the underworld had yet known. Yet for sheer terror even he was 
eclipsed by the awesome man named Luca Brasi. 
It was Brasi who went after the rest of the Irish gunmen and single-handedly wiped them 
out. It was Brasi, operating alone when one of the six powerful families tried to interfere 
and become the protector of the independents, who assassinated the head of the family 
as a warning. Shortly after, the Don recovered from his wound and made peace with 
that particular family. 
By 1937 peace and harmony reigned in New York City except for minor incidents, minor 
misunderstandings which were, of course, sometimes fatal. 
As the rulers of ancient cities always kept an anxious eye on the barbarian tribes roving 
around their walls, so Don Corleone kept an eye on the affairs of the world outside his 
world. He noted the coming of Hitler, the fall of Spain, Germany’s strong-arming of 
Britain at Munich. Unblinkered by that outside world, he saw clearly the coming global 
war and he understood the implications. His own world would be more impregnable than 
before. Not only that, fortunes could be made in time of war by alert, foresighted folk. 
But to do so peace must reign in his domain while war raged in the world outside. 
Don Corleone carried his message through the United States. He conferred with 
compatriots in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, 
and Boston. He was the underworld apostle of peace and, by,1939, more successful 
than any Pope, he had achieved a working agreement amongst the most powerful 
underworld organizations in the country. Like the Constitution of the United States this 
agreement respected fully the internal authority of each member in his state or city. The 
agreement veered only spheres of influence and an agreement to enforce peace in the 
underworld. 
And so when World War II broke out in 1939, when the United States, joined the conflict 
in 1941, the world of Don Vito Corleone was at peace, in order, fully prepared to reap 
the golden harvest on equal terms with all the other industries of a booming America. 
The Corleone Family had a hand in supplying black-market OPA food stamps, gasoline 
stamps, even travel priorities. It could help get war contracts and then help get 
black-market materials for those garment center clothing firms who were not given 

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