Why was Tom so persistent in having the Don meet with Sollozzo?
If (Don Vito) is a boss, doesn't he decide when he will/ever would meet with anyone?

Maybe Genco would have smelled a rat as soon as a proposition like that came to him?

Thoughts?

Because as he said if the Corleones didn't get in on things at the ground floor they risked losing their power-not now but ten years from now.

I think Genco might have looked a little more closely behind Sollozzo. But the other side wasn't chopped liver. Even the Don didn't know until it was too late that it was Barzini all along.

Given that the Corleones eventually ended up accepting the Sollozzo deal anyway (without Sollozzo, Bruno Tattaglia, Sonny and numerous others) one could make the argument that Tom was right.

In the book Puzo writes that Tom was convinced that this was one of the few times that the Don was missing the big picture.

Other than the fact that Barzini was a hidden backer of Sollozzo, I'm not sure there was a "rat" in the deal.

Had Vito accepted, I imagine that things would have proceeded much as Sollozzo had predicted. As all of the other Dons recognized, it was a legitimate business proposition, not a smokescreen or a ruse.

In fact, the only smokescreen was Vito's claim that he would be unable to get the pezzenovante to go along with the drug trade; he later agrees to do just that.

While Tom did not see Barzini's hand behind all of it, I don't really blame him. It was a clever plan to "hide" the involvement of the Tattaglia Family. Who would have thought that there would be a second secret Family? Vito eventually figured it out, but not until much damage had been done.

Vito always intended to meet with Sollozzo, but put it off until after the wedding because he expected some trouble.

Tom was insistent because he was gung-ho for the deal for all the reasons he said in his meeting after he came back from CA. And, I'm not sure Genco would have picked up on Barzini being behind the deal. In the novel, Vito says of the Sol meeting, "What he will propose is an infamia." So, it was credible for Vito (and probably Genco) to associate such an "infamia" with Tattaglia, whose business, prostitution, was another "infamia."

I don't know that Tom was insistent that Vito talk to Sol. Most likely Sol asked for the meeting, Tom checked around, found out that he was being bankrolled by the Tatt family, and figured that Sol was going to be a player in New York. It would have been an unnecessary insult not to meet him. As Vito tells Sol, he agreed to meet him because "You are a serious man." Vito needed to tell Sol "no" to his face as a matter of honor. He makes it clear to Sol that he doesn't care what "a man does for a living" and he wishes Sol good luck in his enterprise....as long as your interests don't conflict with mine. This was a veiled threat, because it necessarily restricted the drug trade in territories controlled by the Corleones.

Actually, Tom tells Vito that Sollozzo can't be put off any longer and that he'll have to see him this week. Is that insistence? In the film, Tom is also pretty definitive about it.