While watching the GFII on AMC after the saga on Bravo this weekend I wondered if it was Rocco who shot Roth and then was killed. I scanned the site and apologize if this is a repeat thread.

Yes, it was Rocco...achieving the 'difficult, not impossible' task of eliminating Roth.

It's just hard to believe in FFC's version of the mafia that such long term and loyal employees were so expendable.

Rocco's loyalty is a subject of debate. Arguments on both sides here:

http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1402&page=3&fpart=5

I don't think it was so much a matter of Rocco being 'expendable' as him being the best man to accomplish the job. Logic would dictate that had this been a less difficult and/or less important hit, it could've easily been handed down to reasonably experienced buttonman. However Rocco had to assure Michael that this would be done.

As for being 'expendable', ... this was the business they had chosen. Long term loyalty aside, you literally put your life on the line whenever you did a job for your Don.

Apple

Not hard to believe if you recognize Michael for the cold-hearted, manipulative person that he was. Rocco, who was brought into prominence in the Family by Clemenza, was little more than a bodyguard by the end of GFII. Neri, who was Michael's man from the beginning, had pushed past him. Rocco was expendable, Neri wasn't.
Though we might have expected Michael to value Rocco's "loyalty," we heard from him on that subject right after the Tahoe shooting. After telling Tom that he was the only one he could trust, Tom asked if he suspected Rocco and Neri. "They're businessmen," Michael replied. "Their loyalty is based on that." Uh-oh!

Difficult task to shoot Roth? I don't see it. What was so hard about going up to a person in an airport in the 50's and shooting him? Actually I think it was quite stupid. Wasn't there a better way of whacking Roth and getting away with it. Was shooting him in the middle of a group of armed FBI men, the way to go?

Well, just going by Tom's incorrect assessment that it would be virtually impossible to get close enough to Roth to kill him.

It may have appeared quite simple for Rocco to be posing as a reporter, but the unseen logistics/timing of getting to that point while armed may have been a bit more complicated. Or shall I say...'difficult'.

Apple

I think it was Tom's unspoken qualification that the assault was impossible if one intended that the assailant would get away.

...I think it was Tom's unspoken qualification that the assault was impossible if one intended that the assailant would get away.

Possibly, but the dialogue between Tom & Michael would indicate that he feels the impossibility lies in getting near Roth:

TOM: That plane goes to Miami.

MICHAEL: That's where I want it met.

TOM: Mike that's impossible - they'll turn him over to the Internal Revenue, customs, and half the FBI.

MICHAEL: It's not impossible. Nothing's impossible.

TOM: I'd be like trying to kill the president - there's no way we can get to him.

MICHAEL: Tom, you know you surprise me. If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it's that you can kill anybody...

I'm with Olivant, it was certainly not impossible to walk up to Roth and shoot him (feigning that he was a reporter no less), rather it was an absolute certainty the assailant would never escape.

This I can agree with. Its similar to the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald. You would have thought getting to the alleged assassin of the president would have been impossible to get to, but as we all know it was fairly easy.