Wait, don't scoff... look at the evidence.

Hagen enters the Family working for Vito, a mild-mannered and even-handed Capo Crimini who does not engage in unnecessary bloodshed. Then Mike takes over, and after the initial honeymoon period, develops a penchant for killing people at whim. If Mike can kill blood relatives, he would not bat an eyelid and killing adopted siblings.

Add into this the fact that Hagen screwed up while Michael was in Cuba - Kay got her abortion on his watch. Ruthless Michael presumably was not impressed.

This could explain why he tentatively ventures the questions "do you feel you have to kill everyone?" to Michael. Plus we know he was contemplating other job offers (see other thread).

Or maybe Micheal did have Hagen whacked between II and III. They never did see eye to eye, and after the Cuba/abortion thing ... who knows ...

Actually, you are not that far off in your theory. Several years ago my neighbor's boyfriend at the time, showed me an early draft that he aquired of the proposed script for GFII.
At the part where Roth is taken out, there was another scene listed explaining that Tom hagen lie dead from a gunshot wound in the corner of this room.

Obviously this early proposed draft of the GFII script never was used. But it was a thought before the movie was filmed.

He promised to make a copy of it for me, but unfortunately, FOR ME , they broke up before he could give me a copy.


Don Cardi

Dr., your question is well taken. I believe that Hagen was too intelligent not to have believed that Michael would have whacked him for cause, for the reasons you said. If Michael ordered his own blood relative brother killed, what would exempt Hagen? And, given Michael's ruthlessness, Fredo's killing might very well have served as a warning to Hagen and everyone else close to him (including Rocco, Neri and Connie): No one's safe, no one's exempt.
In fact, at the end of the novel, Michael sends Hagen to visit Kay in New Hampshire, where she's fled with the kids after the Great Massacre of 1955. Hagen confides some things to her and says something to the effect (I don't have the novel in front of me): If Michael knew I told you this, I'd be a dead man.

I wouldn't put anything past Michael. He continually isolated himself and became more and more calculating all throughout GFII. I believe he was a combination of being paranoid, power hungry, manipulative, and completely untrusting of everyone. I don't think any person, except for Anthony and Mary, were absolutely safe by the end of II.

This leads me to a question...Do you think Michael might have even contemplated the idea of having Kay killed?
I mean, after the abortion thing I often wondered how Kay managed to stay alive. Considering Michael's ruthelessness (sp?) at that stage of his life, I was really surprised by the fact Kay too didn't get the chop.

I agree with Goombah and Flora. Michael was totally ruthless, and no consideration would have stopped him from whacking someone, no matter how close, if he felt threatened or needed revenge. I bet he contemplated whacking Kay, but pulled back when he realized that his beloved Anthony and Mary would find out eventually and never forgive him. And, as we learned at the beginning of III, he entrusted their education to their mother. No doubt a practical consideration on Michael's part (left him free to do Mafia business without having to worry about shielding the kids).

Yes, I think Michael didn't whack Kay just because of their children.
Yet, I can't help but finding rather implausible that Michael would entrust his children's education to Kay in GF III. Not certainly after what Kay had done.
Michael was Sicilian to the core - no matter how hard he tried to achieve the yankee façade. No way a sicilian man would ever forgive his wife after an abortion - let alone entrusting her of his children's education.
So I still think that was one of the sloppy plot's twists in GF III. What do you think about it?

I think that there is more to that part of the story than what we see.....maybe the kids wanted to be with their mom. You know how kids are..... I mean, Michael was doing some God awful things, maybe he saw this as a way to break free for a while, get done what he needed, and get the kids back later. But little did he know that it would take soo long to do that, he must have been away from them or not close to them for a long time... I mean look at GF3.....his kids are not very close to him, Mary even says that she hopes this job brings her closer to him. I also think you guys are right......I those two kids were infants or toddlers......Kay would be swimming with Luca Brasi......