The Godfather: Chapter 20 Summary & Analysis

Sonny Corleone’s death hits the criminal underworld like a lightning bolt, as the Five Families scramble to prepare for the retaliation they believe is sure to come from the Corleones. Instead of bloody vengeance, however, Don Corleone sends emissaries to each of the families to propose a peace meeting. He invites the New York Families, as well as the heads of families from across the country. The heads of the other families are initially suspicious, sensing that Don Corleone is preparing a trap. The Don proves his good intensions, however, by enlisting the services of the Bocchicchio Family.

The Bocchicchio Family has roots in southern Sicily, where it was among the most fearsome of all Mafia branches. Members of the Family embrace a blood loyalty that is “severe even for a society where Family loyalty came before loyalty to a wife.” In Sicily, they earned their income through flourmills, which they guarded against competitors with unmatched ferocity.  When powerful landowners and government agents encroached on their land to erect new mills or build dams (which blocked the water that powered the mills), the Bocchicchios went to war. When Mussolini came to power in the 1930s, they lost half of their numbers fighting against him, and then fled to New York’s Hudson Valley.

In New York, the Bocchicchio Family established a successful garbage-hauling firm, but in order to amass the wealth that could buy “the finer things America had to offer,” they “became negotiators and hostages in the peace efforts of warring Mafia families.” They specialize in hostage swapping to ensure protection for mob representatives. When Michael Corleone, for example, met with Sollozzo and McCluskey, the Corleone Family held a Bocchicchio Family member in his place. This ensured Michael would be safe because any injury done to one of their own would bring on the Bocchicchio’s “primitive” lust for vengeance against those who caused that injury (i.e., anyone who had harmed Michael).

Now, having arranged for the Bocchicchios “to supply hostages for all the Families to come to the peace meeting,” Don Corleone meets with the heads of the Five Families and of the other Families across the country. The meeting takes place in the conference room of a commercial bank whose director is a Corleone Family ally.

The first to arrive after Don Corleone and Tom Hagen are Carlo Tremonti, boss of the American southern territory, Joseph Zaluci from Detroit, and the West Coast Dons, Frank Falcone and Anthony Molinari. Others follow, including Domenick Panza from Boston and Vincent Forlenza of Cleveland. The representatives from the New York Families are last to arrive. They include Anthony Stracci, who controls gambling and shipping in New Jersey, Ottilio Cuneo, who runs smuggling in upper New York State, Emilio Barzini, head of the second most powerful Family behind the Corleones, and Phillip Tattaglia, whose Family dominates prostitution in New York.

Don Corleone is the first to speak at the meeting of the Dons. He thanks the representatives for attending the meeting and compliments them as all “honorable men.” He outlines the backstory behind his refusal to do business with Sollozzo.” The affair involved drugs, in which I have no interest,” he states, “I had no objection to his earning his living in this fashion. He took it ill and brought misfortune down on all our heads.” The Don notes how he and Tattaglia have both lost sons, and that is he is willing to “make the peace.”

Don Barzini responds to Don Corleone’s “reasonable” opening statement. “Don Corleone is too modest,” he states, adding that Sollozzo and the Tattaglia Family could not run narcotics without protection from the judges and politicians on the Corleone Family payroll. Barzini says flatly that Don Corleone’s refusal to share his political allies with the other Families “is not the act of a friend,” and that he must “let us draw water from the well.” Barzini’s statement is a firm declaration that Don Corleone does not have the luxury of staying out of the drug trade without incurring severe penalties.

“When have I ever refused an accommodation?” Don Corleone responds, “but I had to refuse this time. Why? Because I think this drug business will destroy us in the years to come.” The Don believes that drugs are unlike whiskey, gambling, and women, vices that people want, but which the pezzonovantes in the church and in governments forbid. Dealing in drugs, will cost him his political and law enforcement allies, because they believe narcotics to be a dangerous, unseemly business. Nonetheless, Don Corleone is willing to make a deal on drugs “in order to adjust other matters.”

Some of the other Dons speak up. They express personal distaste for drug trafficking but admit that the business is too lucrative and therefore impossible to avoid. Don Zaluci of Detroit proposes that the Mafia keep drugs “respectable” by not peddling narcotics near schools and limiting the trafficking to “colored” people. The other Dons concur, and they agree to permit a regulated drug traffic—controlled mostly by the Barzinis and the Tattaglias—with Don Corleone supplying some political protection for it in the East.

Phillip Tattaglia, however, still has concerns that Don Corleone will seek “individual vengeance” for the murder of Sonny. In response, Don Corleone vows not to seek vengeance, claiming that to do so would not bring Sonny back to him. “We are all men who have refused to be fools, who have refused to be puppets dancing on a string pulled by the men on high,” he states. He notes how all of the Dons have sons who are members of legitimate society, and that this legitimacy is the future for which the Mafia rulers should strive.

“The time is past for guns and killings and massacres,” Don Corleone concludes, “we have to be cunning like the business people, there’s more money in it and it’s better for our children and our grandchildren.” However, he warns that if the other Families kill his son Michael, this transgression will force him to break the newly established peace. “If some unlucky accident should befall my youngest son,” he says, “I would blame the ill will felt by people here.” With this statement, Don Corleone ends the meeting. He lingers for a bit to thank the San Francisco Don for looking after Fredo, and then he departs.

When Don Corleone and Tom Hagen arrive home, Clemenza dismisses the Bocchicchio hostage that acted as surrogate for the Don. The men discuss the newly made peace and Don Corleone makes clear that bringing Michael home safely should be the Family’s top priority. He is more concerned about the police than the Five Families in regards to Michael’s situation. Despite the new peace, Don Corleone orders even more fortifications of the mall and asks that a Family representative go to Las Vegas to check on Fredo. Expressing his desire to semi-retire and tend to his garden, he dismisses the meeting.

Inside the house, Don Corleone reiterates to Hagen that he should explore every possible legal avenue and spend as much as needed to bring Michael home from Sicily safely. The Don suspects that Barzini knows Michael is there and will send assassins after him. This revelation leads Hagen to conclude what the Don already knows: Barzini was behind Sollozzo and is still allied with the Tattaglias. Understanding that the Godfather is concocting a plan to deal with Barzini, Tom expects “a day of reckoning” in the near future.