internal organization of the Mafia, or "l'onorata società" (the Honoured Society) as Gentile called it, more than 20 years before Tommaso Buscetta emerged as the important first pentito who broke with omertà and told Cosa Nostra's inside story. Gentile was already more explicit than Buscetta in his first confessions. Gentile undiffidently talked about his links with politicians for whom he acted as a canvasser. According to crime reporter Hank Messick, a resentful Gentile confessed to the FBI. In fact, his memoirs were for sale in every bookshop in Italy. The FBI used Gentile's information to corroborate the testimony of former mobster turned government informant Joe Valachi in 1963. The memoirs were shown to American Mafia turncoat Joe Valachi who vouched for its accuracy and said Gentile 'wrote just the way it is'. Gentile's fellow mafiosi did not appreciate his candor and sentenced him to death, but the Catania Mafia clan who had to kill him declined to do so, according to pentito Antonio Calderone. At the end of his days, Gentile was a pitiful figure who only survived through the pasta which his neighbors gave him. Gentile died on November 6, 1966, at the age of 81. References Notes Sources Arlacchi, Pino (1992). Gli uomini del disonore. La mafia siciliana nella vita del grande pentito Antonio Calderone, Milan: Mondadori Caruso, Alfio (2000). Da cosa nasce cosa. Storia della mafia del 1943 a oggi, Milan: Longanesi Critchley, David (2009). The Origin of Organized Crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891-1931, New York: Routledge, Dash, Mike (2009). The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia, New York: Random House, Davis, John H. (1993). Mafia Dynasty. The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family, New York: HarperCollins Dickie, John (2004). Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia, London: Coronet, Gentile, Nick & Felice Chilanti (1963), Vita di capomafia, Rome: Editori Riuniti. Lewis, Norman (1964/2003). The Honoured Society: The Sicilian Mafia Observed, London: Eland, Messick, Hank (1973). Lansky. London: Robert Hale & Company, Scott, Peter Dale (1993). Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Berkeley: University of California Press, External links Il memoriale dimenticato , Antimafia Duemila, January 2004 (Free registration) The American "Mafia": Who Was Who ? Nicola Gentile Nicola Gentile - Meet the Mafia's Most Elusive Yet Revealing Historical Figure, article by Christian Cipollini 1885 births 1966 deaths People from Siculiana Sicilian